Microwave Massacre (1979) Muckler-Singer Productions/Comedy-Horror RT: 76 minutes No MPAA rating (violence, cannibalism, language, nudity, sexual content) Director: Wayne Berwick Screenplay: Thomas Singer Music: Leif Horvath Cinematography: Karen Grossman Release date: August 31, 1983 (US) Cast: Jackie Vernon, Loren Schein, Al Troupe, Claire Ginsberg, Marla Simon, Lou Ann Webber, Anna Marlowe, Cindy Gant, Sarah Alt, Karen Marshall, Phil De Carlo, Aaron Koslow, Ed Thomas, John Harmon, Norman Friedman, Debra Draper Berwick, Malvina Ackerman, Al Mannino, Brad Ford. Box Office: N/A
Rating: *
I’d be completely justified in awarding the comedy-horror Microwave Massacre the dreaded “NO STARS!!!” rating for the sheer and utter ineptitude displayed in every single frame. It’s one of those movies that go beyond bad. It fails miserably on every imaginable level and some unimaginable ones too. It’s not funny, it’s not scary and worst of all, it’s not nearly bloody enough. The 76 minutes I wasted on it felt like an eternity. So why am I giving it one whole star? The answer, in a word, is chutzpa. It takes a lot of it to make, release and claim credit for something this monumentally awful.
Made in 1979 but not released until ’83, I vividly recall seeing the box for Microwave Massacre collecting dust on the shelf at the Video Den. I never rented it despite the cool title. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t. It’s not worth the price of rental. It wouldn’t have even been worth a 99-cent rental. The owner had a special shelf reserved for those. It included titles like Weekend Pass, My Breakfast with Blassie and Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? He should have put Microwave Massacre there too. It’s really that bad.
The star of Microwave Massacre is Jackie Vernon. You know who he is even if you don’t know it. He’s the voice of Frosty the Snowman in the 1969 Christmas special of the same name as well as the 1976 sequel. He was also a stand-up comedian which would explain why his dialogue mainly consists of one-liners. The makers originally wanted Rodney Dangerfield, but they couldn’t afford his asking price. With only $75K to work with, they couldn’t afford much of anything. It shows.
Vernon plays Donald, a middle-aged construction worker who constantly bemoans the life he shares with his shrew of a wife May (Ginsberg). Think of her as a precursor to Hyacinth Bucket (“It’s BOUQUET!”) from Keeping Up Appearances. She’s big on putting on airs with her tacky home décor and propensity for cooking fancy French food in her gigantic, brand new microwave oven. The thing is she’s a terrible cook. Donald wants simple meals, but May won’t hear of it. One night, he finally snaps and drunkenly beats her to death with a large salt shaker. Then it gets weird.
Donald comes up with a novel way to get rid of the body. He eats it! It goes down like this. He cuts May’s body into pieces, wraps them in foil and stashes them in his refrigerator. Later, he goes for a midnight snack and ends up inadvertently chomping on one of her hands. Much to his surprise, he likes it. In fact, it’s the best thing he’s ever eaten. After sharing some with co-workers (they have no idea and he’s not telling), he goes on the hunt for more meat. He starts picking up hookers and killing them. Of course, this can only go on for so long. Sooner or later, karma is going to catch up with Donald and bite him right in the ass.
Like I Dismember Mama and House of Psychotic Women before it, the title is the best thing about the movie. Directed by Wayne Berwick, Microwave Massacre is a lame, cheap-looking affair that doesn’t deliver on its promise. Sure, it has a microwave and there are some killings, but it’s hardly what I would call a massacre. Furthermore, nobody is actually killed in the microwave. Donald only uses it to heat up leftovers.
Now that we’ve talked about semantics, let’s move on to a more important issue. Well, I think it’s of vital importance and I know a lot of gorehounds that would agree. Microwave Massacre is seriously lacking in the gore department. There’s not enough blood to fill a test tube. The body parts look like they come from plastic mannequins with a little bit of red paint on them. I get that it’s supposed to be a comedy, but that doesn’t mean to hold back on the gross stuff. Look at The Return of the Living Dead. Of course, that one had a bigger budget. Still, Berwick could have spent a little money on corn syrup and red dye. They couldn’t have been that expensive in ’79.
Should I even bother to mention the acting in Microwave Massacre is lousy? That’s a given I should think. Vernon acts more like he’s trying out new (or old) material than giving a performance. Some of it is mildly (and I stress mildly) amusing. In an effort to make her husband jealous, May says “Some men, you should know, still find me attractive.” His reply: “How would I know them? I didn’t attend the Braille institute.” As for the rest of the cast, all I can say is you get you pay for. These guys and girls make amateur actors look like Stanislavsky grads. On the upside, some of the ladies are foxes, especially the one that sticks her naked boobs through a hole in the fence at a construction site. Yep, that’s 13YO Movie Guy talking.
Now that I think about it, I kind of got a kick out of the running joke involving May’s severed head. It seems to be watching Donald throughout every stage of decomp. But please don’t take that as an endorsement of this product. Microwave Massacre, for all its goofy intentions, is horrible. I haven’t seen anything this bad since The Executioner Part II which I watched a week earlier. At the same time, I’m not sorry I watched it. At least now I can say I’ve seen it and survived it with my intelligence intact. My sanity, that’s a different story. That’s been f***ed up for as long as I can remember.
