Search - Elvira's Movie Macabre: Doomsday Machine on DVD

Wonderful Space Junk

Robert I. Hedges | 12/06/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

""The Doomsday Machine" is a dreadful sci-fi thriller set in the future year of 1975. Essentially, the Chinese develop a nuclear weapon that can rupture all the faults of the earth. In a bit of forward thinking, the US government alters a seven man space mission to Venus to add three women to the crew, enabling continuation of the human species after nuclear Armageddon. The film is hilariously cheap: numerous completely different models represent the spacecraft; diverse stock footage portrays much of the space launch and almost all of the nuclear devastation; and most amusingly of all, Casey Casem co-stars as the Air Force officer who does the countdown (!) for the space launch. There are various subplots, including my favorite about two crewmembers who get stranded in space after a repair gone awry, who then happen to notice an abandoned Apollo capsule within floating distance. Contrary to what Douglas Adams wrote, I guess space isn't really that big after all.



The special effects are dreadful (especially the airlock induced eyeball bleeding scene), while the acting is mortifying: the reactions to the earth being destroyed are especially priceless. The conclusion is obviously tacked on...essentially the main ship just goes away, while the Apollo capsule gets a voice warning from Venus not to land and a promise that the last two humans are embarking on a new adventure, followed by more stock footage of a real rocket.



This movie has possibly the worst continuity I have ever seen (and I have seen every film made by Ed Wood) and is utterly laughable in every regard which is why it was an ideal candidate for Elvira's "Movie Macabre" series. The host segments are modestly amusing, but the real attraction is the bottom of the barrel grade-Z film itself. I highly recommend this film to connoisseurs of laughably bad movies: everyone else needs to stay far, far away."