Review: Microwave Massacre
Blu-ray: Microwave Massacre (1983)
Microwave Massacre opens with a scene where Marla Simon (playing the role of ‘knothole girl’…you’ll find out why she’s called that in just a moment) walks scantily dressed down the streets of Los Angeles. All boobs and bum, director Wayne Berwick makes the most of Marla’s ample charms, which culminates in her sticking her bare boobs through a knothole in the fence of a construction site. To be fair, it IS a very big knothole.
Sat in the construction site are 3 workers, 2 of whom try (unsuccessfully) to latch onto the mammary meal on display. Left sat alone is Donald (Jackie Vernon, who plays his role with all the finesse of a pantomime dame. With constant looks and winks into the camera breaking the 4th wall, I almost felt like shouting ‘he’s behind you’ on more than one occasion) a downtrodden husband who is sick and tired of his wife’s cooking. Pushed to breaking point, he kills her and puts her in the HUGE microwave (so big it even gets its own credit at the end of the movie!) and chops her into pieces which he then wraps in tin foil. He then ‘accidently’ eats a piece of her and finds that he has a taste for human flesh.
With the main focus of the story now in motion, the majority of Microwave Massacre’s lean 76 minute running time is filled with outrageous ways in which Donald meets, mates and microwaves various ladies. With both his appetite and libido now in overdrive, prepare yourself for different ways in which Donald can dispatch his victims.
To play devils advocate with myself, I can see why a lot of people would think this movie was awful. I however thought it was brilliant. Playing like Herschell Gordon Lewis movies, crossed with The Kentucky Fried Movie, with a portion of David Decoteau thrown in for good measure, Microwave Massacre revels in its own stupidity and on quite a few occasions elicited loud guffaws from me.
With a plethora of T&A, genuinely funny moments, over the top ‘cheap as chips’ gore effects and a performance by Jackie Vernon that will be hard to forget, there is no excuse for not buying this great package from Arrow Films, which as always has a variety of fantastic special features.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- Brand new 2K restoration of the original camera negative
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
- Original Mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Brand new audio commentary with writer-producer Craig Muckler moderated by Mike Tristano
- Brand new making-of featurette including interviews with Muckler, director Wayne Berwick and actor Loren Schein
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork to be revealed
- First pressing only: fully-illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Nightmare USA author Stephen Thrower
Microwave Massacre will be available to buy from August 15th, 2016.
Review by Dave (host of 60 Minutes With) from a disc kindly supplied by Arrow Films.
