A picture that comes complete with a ten-foot tall monster to give you the wim-wams!!
- tagline for 'Monster a Go-Go'

I'm not sure what a "wim-wam" is but I'm sure that if I had it I would probably take an antacid to get rid of it. I've looked it up and I can't find a textbook definition. For all I know it's a new girl scout cookie.

I almost didn't review this movie. Counting for the fact that this is site devoted to bad movies I figured that it might be a stretch to really call Monster a Go-Go a movie. Actually it's just 15 minutes worth of story tacked onto 55 minutes of endless stock footage. I figured that the boys at MST3K had more or less said everything that needed to be said about this film stock. But having seen it again recently and having received some e-mails requesting that I discuss it, here goes:

I was actually surprised that most folks thought that Manos: Hands of Fate was a worse movie then MaG-G. Well, in defense of M:HoF, I have to say that at least that film was presented in a finished format. I'm no expert on filmmaking but I just get the feeling that Monster a Go-Go was not only never finished but barely even started. The film stock is bleached and the microphones seem to have been wrapped in gauze bandages. The only monster is a very tall man that looks like John Carridine with a skin condition and (based on his movements) seems to be suffering from a hard case of intestinal discomfort. He also seems to be having no luck finding a men's room. Hence the title.

Monster A Go-Go makes Ed Woods pictures look sensible. For a movie like this, in which so little appears on screen, you are positive that a lot must have gone on BTS to make it that way. I do know that in this case director Bill Rebane was in the process of making this movie, then called "Terror at Halfday" when he ran out of what little money he had and simply gave up.

Meanwhile a filmmaker named Hershel Lewis was in the process of making his opus, a dubious masterpiece called Moonshine Mountain, when he found that he was without a B picture to go along with it. Digging for something, ANYTHING to feature as a double bill he took what little Rebane had shot and very quickly cut together some dialogue and some new scenes. Lewis was so strapped for cash and so short on time that he didn't even have room for real sound effects and just had the actors provide them offscreen. For this, consider a scene in which the telephone rings and the "brrrrrrrring" is provided by the actor who then comes onscreen to answer it.

The "story" finds itself beyond common sense, but here goes. It concerns an astronaut named Douglas who returns to earth having crash-landed in a field and lumbering around apparently wreaking havoc. I think that it is left up to us to decide exactly what type of havoc he wreaks because all he seems to do is run around looking for that men's room (maybe he's got the wim-wams). The Army puts it's heads together and discovers that if they just follow his smokey footprints (he's radioactive) then eventually they'll catch him - BRILLIANT!! Anyway, our boys in kakhi want to take the creature out, which they seem to have trouble getting around to because of all the lingering stock shots showing how they, the fire department and the national guard gear up to do battle. In fact, mobilizing makes up most of the movie. The last half of the film is simply reel after reel of stock footage of these organizations gearing up to take out a guy that you could simply trip, net and have captured in no time. Heck, the Ewoks could have captured this guy!

Then, just when we think that this story has nowhere to go . . . we're right. Monster a Go-Go doesn't simply end, it stops. I'm not sure the logic behind the closing of the film but based on the information given by the narrator, I seem to recall that it went something like this:

"Suddenly there was no trail. There was no giant, no monster, no thing called Douglas to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness. Frank Douglas was rescued alive, well, and of normal size some 800 miles away".

Okay, so we get 15 minutes of a hair-strands worth of story. Then we get a creature lumbering around. Then we spend the next hour watching stock footage. Then suddenly there's no creature. The army exahausted all that time and money chasing the smokey footprints of a creature that didn't actually exist. Now I understand a little better how we got the national debt.

*rubbing temples*