XoWizIama
Excellent adaptation.
MoPoshy
Absolutely brilliant
Sameeha Pugh
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
Scott LeBrun
Stand up comedian and sometime actor Jackie Vernon had his last movie role in this laugh riot camp horror film. Jackie plays Donald, a construction worker whose wife May (Claire Ginsberg) is trying to get him to eat her experimental dinners. She does this supposedly for his own good, and does it with the assistance of her microwave oven (a real gargantuan artifact). Finally, he can take no more of her nagging and, in a drunken rage, bludgeons her to death with a salt grinder. He comes to realize that he likes the taste of human flesh, so goes out and kills more people to feed his newfound appetites.Written and produced by Craig Muckler and Thomas Singer, and directed by Wayne Berwick, "Microwave Massacre" is a pretty tasty morsel when it comes to horror comedy. It's full of utter ridiculousness, and absurd dialogue, not to mention some deliciously tacky gore effects and one utterly priceless severed head. The amusingly deadpan Vernon alternates between being sincere, and letting the audience in on the joke by breaking the fourth wall. His interactions with victims and other characters are a joy to behold. We have a hooker named Dee Dee Dee (Lou Ann Webber), a psychiatrist (John Harmon, who'd acted for director Berwicks' father Irvin in things like "The Monster of Piedras Blancas" and "Malibu High"), a doctor with the childish moniker of Von Der Fool (Ed Thomas), a hottie foreigner (Anna Marlowe) who makes a living dancing in a chicken costume, Donalds' fellow construction workers Roosevelt (Loren Schein) and Philip (Al Troupe), and Sam (Phil De Carlo), a grumpy bartender who doesn't want to hear his patrons' sob stories. Ginsberg is perfect as the kind of nagging wife that would drive any husband mad.This movie keeps coming up with enough wacky and irreverent shtick to sustain it through a very reasonable one hour 17 minutes run time. Just don't expect to see the title appliance come into play all THAT often while it plays out.Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm so hungry I could eat a whore.Seven out of 10.
rooee
Described by its original DVD distributor as "The Worst Horror Movie of All Time", this 1983 black comedy doesn't quite live up to that promise, but it's a close thing. The painted cover art is fantastic, and typically unrepresentative of the lousy content of the film.Donald (Jackie Vernon) is a depressed, disillusioned construction worker who returns each evening to his frumpy, nagging wife, May (Claire Ginsberg). She feels she doesn't get the gratitude she deserves for "slaving away" at her new microwave all day.One night Donald snaps and murders May. Naturally, the only way he can destroy the evidence is by cooking and eating her. He gets a taste for it (excuse the pun) and thus begins enticing ladies of the night back to his suburban home. He cooks them and feeds them to his insatiable, ignorant co-workers. Donald is free and he's impressing his new best buddies. What can possibly stop his campaign of cannibalism? Vernon was a stand-up with a distinctive deadpan style, which is entirely incongruous with the farcical events of this story. Combined with the film's weirdly languid pace and Leif Horvath's eerie electronic score, it's quite an unsettling experience – although this is mostly due to it being an outright tonal disaster, rather than any controlled sense of atmosphere.With the humour and delivery of a 70s sketch show, it's a movie badly in need of canned laughter, if only to inform us of when we're supposed to laugh. Genuine humour comes in the briefest of snatches: Donald's encounter with Dr Van der Fool (Ed Thomas), who doesn't know which side the heart is on; or the scene where May's sister stops by and Donald has to prop May's disembodied head in the bed to pretend she's still alive ("She looks awful pale...").It's a movie of a mercifully bygone era in which all the women are nags or sluts, although this is par for the course in trash horror of the time. What the flesh sandwich lacks is a juicy layer of satire. Given that the microwave was just becoming a household essential in the 80s, promising the death of the conventional cooker, this has to go down as an opportunity missed – we get none of the consumerist satire of The Stuff, nor the grotesque farce of the more enjoyably outrageous Street Trash.Microwave Massacre just about claws its way into the midnight movie slot through a certain uniqueness and, frankly, its brevity (it comes in at around 75 minutes). But it's more of a freak-out than a fun time.
morbidcorpse
This movie has an under developed storyline, poor acting and a worse script. However, if you - like me - are the kind of person willing to go out of their way to see this film, you should know what you're in for and enjoy it.The premise of the movie itself is worth a laugh. A man gets drunk, murders his snob of a wife and microwaves her to death? And then in the morning, with no recollection of the previous night he calls out to her only to find her in the microwave, cut her up and chuck her in the fridge - and later on, eat her and enjoy it without realising who it is he's eating.Whatever's written on the back of the DVD cover should be enough to show you what the movie'll be like - if the name didn't tell you in the first place. A hilariously bad storyline is carried by hilariously bad jokes - most of which are told by a hilariously bad actor. If there are three kinds of bad movies: bad (Highway Musical); so bad its good; and so bad its still bad (They Saved Hitler's Brain) - then there is no doubt this movie fits in to the middle category.Though just an interested kid myself, I see many people have fond memories of watching this movie 20 years ago and its not hard to see why. This is definitely a great, funny, satisfying movie if you're into so-bad-its-good movies.I've no idea what to rate it - as a movie it deserves somewhere around 3 or 4. As a trashy 'so bad its good' movie (sorry to keep using that phrase, I promise that's the last time) it's worth somewhere around 7 or 8. If we rate it in terms of how it achieves the aims of its creators - probably around 9 or 10. Considering the fact that it definitely does NOT deserve something as low as its current rating and I think we can average it out to about 8.
Michael_Elliott
Microwave Massacre (1983) ** (out of 4)Donald (Jackie Vernon) is a hard-working construction worker who sadly is married to a not-so-great woman. Instead of cooking him "manly" meals she instead cooks up all sorts of weird meals popular in unknown countries. Donald finally snaps and kills her and this leads to a new life when he realizes that human flesh is quite good for the body.MICROWAVE MASSACRE is a film that I truly, truly hated the first time I watched it. The question would be why I bothered giving it a second chance but there's no question that it played out much better this time because it's smart to go into it not expecting too much and certainly not expecting some sort of graphic horror movie.If you go into this movie with a serious mind-frame then you'll certainly be disappointed because this movie was meant to be pure camp and that's exactly what it is. The story is quite strange to say the least but at the same time it makes for an offbeat comedy that has some funny moments as well as some very awkward moments. I say awkward simply because the entire tone of the picture is rather silly and especially the way Donald carries on with his co-workers.The plot basically has Donald finally living his life and gathering up hookers so that he can kill them and store their meat in his fridge. There are some really campy moments between Donald and the ladies but the director also offers up a ton of nudity yet very little gore. The performances are mostly over-the-top and I'm going to guess that's what the director went for.Vernon's performance is the one that's really off but I'm going to guess that the director wanted this. The character is a rather awkward man and I think having the performance so different than the rest helps make you feel that and on that level I think it works. I'm sure a lot of people are going to hate the humor style here but if you can get where they're trying to go then MICROWAVE MASSACRE is an interesting, if not completely successful, little film.
