Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!duke!unc!tim
From: tim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Dark Star, Damnation Alley, Crater Lake Monster
Message-ID: <5932@unc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Sep-83 22:04:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.5932
Posted: Mon Sep 26 22:04:48 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Sep-83 01:58:51 EDT
References: wivax.18715
Lines: 32


    I thought the bad films discussion was for unintentional humor.
Dark Star was meant to be funny, and in my opinion succeeded quite
well.  It is sort of a Catch-22 in outer space, although not on the
same intellectual level.

    Damnation Alley (not "Ally", dimbulb) was based on the book of the
same name by Roger Zelazny.  I haven't seen the movie, but I have
heard that one of the reasons it was so terrible was that more than
half the budget went for the car.  The plot synopses I have heard
sound nothing at all like Zelazny's book, which was not bad (but not
one of his best by any means).  In the book, the hero has to run a
load of vaccine to Boston from California, a drive that has not
successfully been completed since the war destroyed most of the
central part of America.  (Not just nuclear war, either -- tons
nastier.)  In the movie, I understand there is a love interest -- in
the book, the drive is made alone.

    Finally, The Crater Lake Monster is indeed about the worst movie I
have ever seen.  Not only did it have the beatnik-eating blancmange in
tennis shoes, but it had the worst imaginable narration -- there was
about twice as much narration as dialogue, all of it preposterous.
Remember when the beatnik couple waves bye-bye to their friends at the
picnic and goes off into the woods, only to discover that the wages of
sin are death at the hands of a sheet draped across two people and
swaying dumbly?

___________
Tim Maroney
duke!unc!tim (USENET)
tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill