{"id":1296,"date":"2024-07-25T01:28:53","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T01:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1296"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:55:56","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:55:56","slug":"microwave-massacre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/25\/microwave-massacre\/","title":{"rendered":"Microwave Massacre"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Microwave Massacre<\/strong> (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Muckler-Singer Productions\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 76 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (violence, cannibalism, language, nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Wayne Berwick\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Thomas Singer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Leif Horvath\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Karen Grossman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 31, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019d be completely justified in awarding the comedy-horror Microwave Massacre <\/strong>the dreaded \u201cNO STARS!!!\u201d rating for the sheer and utter ineptitude displayed in every single frame. It\u2019s one of those movies that go beyond bad. It fails miserably on every imaginable level and some unimaginable ones too. It\u2019s not funny, it\u2019s not scary and worst of all, it\u2019s 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<\/em>. It takes a lot of it to make, release and claim credit for something this monumentally awful.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Made in 1979 but not released until \u201983, I vividly recall seeing the box for Microwave Massacre<\/strong> collecting dust on the shelf at the Video Den. I never rented it despite the cool title. In retrospect, I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t. It\u2019s not worth the price of rental. It wouldn\u2019t 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<\/strong> there too. It\u2019s really that bad.<\/p>\n

The star of Microwave Massacre<\/strong> is Jackie Vernon. You know who he is even if you don\u2019t know it. He\u2019s 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\u2019t afford his asking price. With only $75K to work with, they couldn\u2019t afford much of anything. It shows.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Vernon 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 (\u201cIt\u2019s BOUQUET!\u201d) from Keeping Up Appearances. She\u2019s big on putting on airs with her tacky home d\u00e9cor and propensity for cooking fancy French food in her gigantic, brand new microwave oven. The thing is she\u2019s a terrible cook. Donald wants simple meals, but May won\u2019t hear of it. One night, he finally snaps and drunkenly beats her to death with a large salt shaker. Then it gets weird.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Donald comes up with a novel way to get rid of the body. He eats it! It goes down like this. He cuts May\u2019s 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\u2019s the best thing he\u2019s ever eaten. After sharing some with co-workers (they have no idea and he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like 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<\/strong> is a lame, cheap-looking affair that doesn\u2019t deliver on its promise. Sure, it has a microwave and there are some killings, but it\u2019s hardly what I would call a massacre. Furthermore, nobody is actually killed in the microwave. Donald only uses it to heat up leftovers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now that we\u2019ve talked about semantics, let\u2019s move on to a more important issue. Well, I think it\u2019s of vital importance and I know a lot of gorehounds that would agree. Microwave Massacre<\/strong> is seriously lacking in the gore department. There\u2019s 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\u2019s supposed to be a comedy, but that doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t have been that expensive in \u201979.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Should I even bother to mention the acting in Microwave Massacre<\/strong> is lousy? That\u2019s a given I should think. Vernon acts more like he\u2019s trying out new (or old) material than giving a performance. Some of it is mildly (and I stress mildly<\/em>) amusing. In an effort to make her husband jealous, May says \u201cSome men, you should know, still find me attractive.\u201d His reply: \u201cHow would I know them? I didn\u2019t attend the Braille institute.\u201d 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\u2019s 13YO Movie Guy talking.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now that I think about it, I kind of got a kick out of the running joke involving May\u2019s severed head. It seems to be watching Donald throughout every stage of decomp. But please don\u2019t take that as an endorsement of this product. Microwave Massacre<\/strong>, for all its goofy intentions, is horrible. I haven\u2019t seen anything this bad since The Executioner Part II which I watched a week earlier. At the same time, I\u2019m not sorry I watched it. At least now I can say I\u2019ve seen it and survived it with my intelligence intact. My sanity, that\u2019s a different story. That\u2019s been f***ed up for as long as I can remember.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microwave Massacre (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Muckler-Singer Productions\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 76 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (violence, cannibalism, language, nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Wayne Berwick\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Thomas Singer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Leif Horvath\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Karen Grossman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 31, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jackie Vernon, Loren Schein, Al Troupe, Claire Ginsberg, Marla Simon, Lou Ann Webber, Anna Marlowe, Cindy Gant, Sarah Alt, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Microwave-Massacre-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1296"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1909,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions\/1909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}