A 50s atomic-anxiety post-apocalyptic science-fiction 3D B-movie where a species of moon aliens (men in giant gorilla suits and diving helmets with antennas on them) have exterminated the human race using their “death ray.” That is with the exception of about 5-8 immune survivors who live on a dry patch of LA desert, and who spend most of their time playing “house”/frolicking around in the nearby canyon (the children trying not to be bored, the adult couple pawing each other in the tall grass, the grandparents monologuing about humanity and war) where the alien agent sent to Earth to finish the job named Ro-Man (like… robot… man) slowly waddles around in pursuit of them, hangs out in his cave with his bubble radio transmission/psychotronic vibration device, and has a crisis of conscious about having to physically kill the remaining hu-men. Well, mostly just the pretty girl Alice, the shirtless hunk and children are fair game for beatings and strangulations.

As with most of the best enjoyably and notoriously “bad” movies, this has just enough cheap weirdo creativity behind it courtesy of first-time filmmaker Phil Tucker who keeps these bizarro events as amusingly stilted and confusing as possible (some very Ed Woodian use of stock footage in here), and keeps contradicting the surface tone of bright and campy 50s goofiness and optimism with a genuinely strange amount of sexual and child murder content. Lost it when she volunteers herself to be sex slave to Ro-Man to save the others and the little boy goes "is Alice going on a date with Ro-Man?", and the bit later when Ro-Man kidnaps her where she is briefly impressed by his strength and is tying her up in his cave and he asks “suppose I was a man, would you treat me like a man?” Honestly can say I was even a little moved by the gorilla man ranting about how he wants to be hu-man: “To laugh... feel... want... why are these things not in the plan?” Also features a kinda good early Elmer Bernstein score for some reason.

Full discussion coming soon on the podcast.