The Dead Talk Back

There's the germ of an interesting idea here, but it's buried under a mountain of gross incompetence including (but not limited to) flashlight lighting, awful sound design, and community theater acting. In better hands, this could have been an average episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Someone should tell Merle S. Gould that only Ed Wood can do movies this bad.

Staggeringly awful and truly hilarious. Indeed, most of it is so funny it doesn't even need MST accompaniment. The acting is so wooden it's Woodian, and two actors in particular are overachievers at underability. Farnese's introductory pitch is a hoot; he looks like a skinny Ringo (and even more like the guy who did that PBS astronomy show way back when). He's somehow outdone by the Bible-thumping hysteria of Stanton. The end even manages to spoof itself! (btw it was actually made in 1957).

So horrible it's kinda charming.

Mst3k: 7/10

They don't come much worse then this one. From the rambling pseudo science prologue that opens this to the hard boiled detective narration; it's the worst of both worlds. The scientist is of an especially high school caliber drama club variety that makes this all the worst. The ending is so foolish it makes you wonder how detectives with so much evidence could be so bumbling. [MST3k does some great riffing here but their skits aren't up to the same challenge.]