You know what’s really missing in today’s cinema? Good romance. Specifically, the greatest of romance—that between a woman, and a space cyborg gorilla wearing a diving helmet. Fortunately, visionary Phil Tucker saw fit to provide this most underappreciated of concepts in today’s brilliant work, with 1953’s Robot Monster. Join me as I explain why this film, maligned by some, is in fact a sublime work of kino that resonates excellence upon every frame.
Our story takes place in Bronson Canyon, a location that has hosted approximately eighty six million other works—which just goes to show what a trailblazer this was. We focus on a family having a wholesome picnic out here, hosted by a professor that the film seemingly couldn’t be bothered to name, but in fact, this is a subtle commentary on the depersonalization of fifties patriarchal archetypes.
Anyway, right after this pleasant scene, literally everyone else in the world suddenly dies. The film hardly spends any time on the ramifications, but that is also a brilliant move to let the audience ponder the nature of human mortality.
Who is the culprit of this sudden extinction? Well, the real star of the film, and the titular robotic entity—the Ro-Man, who emerges very soon and shows up prominently throughout. Now, you may look at this creature and start laughing. You may in fact assume that the director, working on a budget of approximately twelve cents and a packet of chewing gum, cobbled the costume together with whatever he had in his friend’s garage at 3 am.
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| Can you honestly say you'd come up with this by yourself? |
But that merely obscures the true genius at work here. You see, the Ro-Man in fact represents the ultimate absurdity of technological overreliance, as he putzes around in a cave fiddling with his advanced machinery that, most assuredly, is not in fact random stereo equipment the filmmaker borrowed from his uncle. So engrossed is he with this ‘calcinator rays’, that he has been reduced to but an ape with a metal bowl on his head—which is obviously a brilliant metaphor for how we may all be reduced to rambling idiotic things in our quest for bigger speaker systems and higher resolutions. Or something.
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| It is only the bravest soul who cannot be reduced to quivering horror at this sight. There is no greater evil than bubbles, after all. |
Anyhow, the Ro-Man is bossed around by an identical looking Great Guidance, who is so hellbent on total annihilation of humanity that he won’t accept a tiny pocket of survivors. Why is not really properly explained, but this is self-evidently also a metaphor for why upper management is a pain in the neck and never really has a clue about anything, something all of society can relate to.
Because for all his power the Ro-Man has never really heard of a good old fashioned firearm, all he can do now is plod up and down a grassy hill. So engrossed was I with these extended scenes that I wondered, on the edge of my seat, whether the Ro-Man would in fact maybe go sideways along the hill. But alas, wrong I was, for in a brilliant subversion of expectations, he merely goes up and down. At one point he encounters the boy of the family, who informs him in scintillating dialogue, that the cyborg ape looks like a ‘pooped-out pinwheel’. So taken aback is the robot monster that he has no comeback, only declaring ‘now I will kill you’. I challenge you to not have your heart turned by this artful screenwriting.
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| I'm quite sure someone here is having a stroke. |
Nearer the end, however, the Ro-Man seemingly begins to develop feelings for the woman of the family, after a fight scene that is assuredly not executed with all the competence of extremely drunk office workers having a scuffle at a car park on a very late Friday night. Carrying her off to his cave filled with his fearsome superweapon that, in stroke of brilliance, looks like a bubble machine (few other films have the vision to reveal the danger of bubbles, you know), he begins to ramble about how he must ‘feel like the hyoo-man’.
Why does this simian thing abruptly have physical attraction? Why is such a thing crossing not only the boundaries of species, but technology? The answer is ‘well just cause’—which is itself an incredible move, for is that not ultimately at the heart of any romance where alcohol and ape costumes are concerned?
This is all cut short when Great Guidance decides to just destroy the Earth himself, which somehow makes stock footage of dinosaurs appear. Well, to be exact, iguanas with fins glued on that are meant to be dinosaurs—what may seem like arbitrary laziness is in fact symbolism of the destruction of imagination and good taste. After this, comes an unprecedented plot twist—it was, in fact, all a dream. Or was it? Perhaps it wasn’t! And, after all that, the film asks you the bold and daring question of whether you even care!
And that is Robot Monster, a film that leaves you with many, many questions, and thus will challenge you very notions of film, culture, science fiction, and perhaps even your very feelings. You may feel confused, and baffled, and perhaps slightly bored, but that is what comes with a challenger of boundaries as this.
But seriously, I’d still take this one over most scifi films Netflix put out.
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