THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA - REVIEW

There's no easier target for spoofs than old sci-fi B movies, especially if Ed Wood is somehow involved. With their cheesy effects, cheap costumes and sets, below par actors, ridiculous dialogs and storylines: they're great but of course they're riddled with comedy gold. It is surprising that there aren't more films like The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra out there...so lets just be happy this one exists!

Where to start?

From the offset, it's pretty clear that Larry Blamire's film will not take itself seriously for a second: you get the overuse of the word "science", a material called "atmospherium", aliens in silver jumpsuits, a plastic fish monster, a half-woman half-forest animals character named Animala, obvious, redundant dialogs, unmotivated dancing...and a talking, walking, sarcastic skeleton. What more could you possibly ask for?

Fans of Ed Wood and old B movies will be in heaven here as the silliness escalates to a titanic battle between big rubber fish and science-lab skeleton on strings. The jokes come mostly from either the cheap effects or the awkward dialogs. Unfortunately the film's pace and style are perhaps a bit too faithful to those old movies with the extremely simple story being told slowly, unhurriedly and in a way that's so accurate it will alienate those less familiar with the lampooned genre.

Overall though, this is great stuff: very funny throughout, cleverly set up and with plenty of idiotic characters to make fun of. That said, the target audience is admittedly very specific and that will probably put off some viewers.

I say by golly, what a swell picture this is.