Sony Pictures released The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra on 12 March 2004. It had been making the film festival rounds for the previous two and a half years.
This was the first of Larry Blamire’s feature film parodies. It shows a keen understanding of low-budget 1950s science fiction films. In particular, it lampoons the thoughtlessly rigid gender stereotypes of that period. And it makes great fun of the scientific illiteracy of such films. The main character doesn’t do physics or geology. No, he does “science!” (The exclamation mark is critical!)
You can see why the film took a while to find an audience. It isn’t heavy-handed. Much of the humor is pretty subtle. He is similar to Christopher R Mihm in generally staying inside the constraints of genre rather than going for a joke all the time. And that makes this film, in particular, a treat for psychotronic fans. It really is a film by psychotronic fans for psychotronic fans.
Blamire made a few other films like The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. The most important is the sequel, The Lost Skeleton Returns Again. If anything, it is better. It uses a bunch of forced perspective, which really makes the film look like it has a notably bigger budget. But the main thing is, the script is simply better with way better pacing.
He also made Trail of the Screaming Forehead. I don’t like it as much but it is well made. And then there is Dark and Stormy Night. It is my favorite of Blamire’s work. But it isn’t science fiction. It is a parody of an Old Dark House film. And it features some amazing dialogue along with some great miniature work and a man in a gorilla suit!
But let’s watch the film that started it all, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra!
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
_poster.jpg){kind=link}
I like how you go for the best print available; I’ve done the same with Movie Nights at the baseball site. What I’ll put there is that “this copy has Spanish subtitles you can’t turn off, but they won’t hurt you.”
Incidentally, my favorite Old Dark House movie is probably… The Old Dark House. Many of the Universal classics were funny, but this one’s the funniest. The relatives in the house start out weird and keep getting weirder! And Thesiger’s a total hoot! https://librarydvdlove.substack.com/p/the-old-dark-house
I wrote a long response and accidentally deleted it. But on the issue of prints, yes. I used to not care. But it really does matter. And this is why people like us matter. Good prints are released only because freaks like us will pay (directly or indirectly) to watch them. I’m still waiting for a good print of The Werewolf of Washington.
I commented on the article over at your site. But this is one of the few reviews where I agree with your rating. I think B is about right. It’s great fun. But it’s also a mess!
If you’re watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail with people who’ve seen it 10 times, then no, the print quality doesn’t matter. And with some old iconic movies, the imagery is so vivid that the print quality doesn’t matter. I think I saw Bride of Frankenstein on TV when I was 12 or so, and the bizarreness of the imagery got to me despite the crummy tiny TV and what was probably a mangled print.
But when you’re trying to encourage people to enjoy a movie the first time, or to see it again and re-evaluate it after some years, you owe it to them to present the best quality print you can find. The same way a good projectionist in the old analog film days (and I was trained by one) would clean & care for the projector after every showing, to avoid scratches on the film. (Those fast-whirring sprocket wheels generate a lot of static electricity and attract a lot of dust; dust damages prints.)
Granted, you or I are not giving ok.ru or Archive or YouTube a ton of traffic when we pick the best prints over the crappy ones (and there are a lotta crappy ones on ok.ru). But we are getting them a few more views. It can’t hurt!
I really appreciate how you’ll skip the crappy ones to find the best one, subtitles or not. Usually the top find on a search engine is a crappy one, you have to try a few further down to find the good ones. And I use DuckDuckGo! If you use Google to try and find the good ones, you will be screwed!
Oh! I will check that out. I’ve been using Google. The main thing on OK is that the prints are often in different languages. The hardest thing is when the films aren’t in English. So I have to find ones with English subtitles. OK mostly distributes DVD/Blu-ray rips. So, for example, The Werewolf of Washington is crap on OK because the film has never been properly released.
It’s interesting you mention bad prints and things you’ve seen a lot. I will occasionally put on something I know well and watch it without my glasses on. You are right: it doesn’t much matter!