Lower Decks

When I started the Sunday Movie Review I didn’t intend to only discuss bad movies. I thought it would be interesting to write about the odd movies that I’ve been able to watch thanks to the Internet and sites like Hulu, Crackle and the Internet Archive. Of the four movies I reviewed prior to today’s installment, only one was what I would consider good (Panic in Year Zero!). Another was decent (Last Woman on Earth) and the remaining two (The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues and Son of Godzilla) were awful.

Robot Holocaust

Robot Holocaust, released in 1986 and later MST3K’d, is also an awful movie. A terrible story, atrocious acting, horrible special effects and costumes, everything about the movie is awful. And yet, I’d still say it was more enjoyable than Son of Godzilla. But I suppose that’s not saying much. I honestly found myself close to nodding off by the second half of the movie and not because I was tired.

Robot Holocaust takes place on something called New Terra, years after the robot holocaust of ’33 (2033, perhaps?) when billions of robots rose up and destroyed much of the planet, leaving only one city standing. But the atmosphere of New Terra has been all but destroyed. The terrible Dark One rules over the “air slaves” who provide the fuel to his power station. He provides them with air to breath. There are those are able to survive in the atmosphere.

Neo, a telepath who can breathe outside the city, joins with Deeja (whose father was taken by the robot Torque to the Dark One), Klyton (a freebot) and two others (Bray and Haim, I think) and venture out into the wastelands. They meet a band of women who detest men, one of whom (Nyla) is bested in battle and joins them. They also take Kai, a man the women used for breeding after cutting out his tongue. He never speaks a word during the movie.

There’s a lot of walking as the group makes their way to the power station. They fight really cheap looking “sewage snakes” and some disgusting mutants before finally getting to the power station. The Dark One’s lovely underling, Valaria, torture’s Deeja’s father in search of answers (he apparently found a way to build a small device that allows anyone to breathe outside the city). She doesn’t do a particularly good job of it and spends much of her time saying “Yes, Dark One” and standing around. There’s a subplot about some of the air slaves trying to sabotage the power station but it’s even more pointless than the rest of the movie.

The bulk of the cast was killed off by the end of the movie. Bray and Haim are the first to bite the dust. One was wounded and later eaten by mutants. The other had some sort of snake eat through his stomach. Kai and Nyla die in the final assault on the power station. Neo destroys the Dark One, killing Jorn in the process. He also kills Torque. And Valaria is revealed to be a robot and later dies.

I was actually truly shocked to learn that Valaria was a robot. It certainly raises some interesting questions about her use of the pleasure machine. Just what was that all about? Aside from the obvious (it’s an Orgasmatron!), that is. She steps inside, topless, and then a man and a woman (also topless) walk up holding one of those round lightning machines. She holds it and the slowly spins around while the man and woman dance in the smoke. Later, when the Dark One chastises Valaria for using the pleasure machine, she is wearing a mesh dress, the man and woman (and the smoke) are gone, and she’s just standing there. Weird

Valaria (Angelika Jager) stands in the pleasure machine.

Anyway, what I found most interesting about Robot Holocaust was the fact that much of the cast never acted again. Angelika Jager (Valaria), Andrew Howarth (Kai) and Michael Downend (Jorn) never made another movie. Norris Culf (Neo) was in two other movies — Necropolis and Breeders — both written by Tim Kincaid. Nadine Hart (Deeja) was also in Necropolis, as was J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner (Klyton). Ornsteiner is better known as Dr. Buzz, a forensic psychologist who apparently appears on television quite a bit.

Jennifer Delora (Nyla) is almost entirely deaf according to her IMDb profile, although one never would have known it from watching Robot Holocaust. That profile also states that she was kicked out of the Miss America Pageant after winning a regional crown in New York and wasn’t allowed to participate in the Miss New York/Miss America pageants. Why was she kicked out, you ask? Apparently for briefly appearing nude in Bad Girls Dormitory, a movie written and directed by none other than Tim Kincaid.

Nyla (Jennifer Delora) really hates men.

Someone should really make a documentary about Robot Holocaust and track down everyone involved. I’d love to know how Angelika Jager, with her humdinger of an accent, was cast as Valaria. And what was it like wearing those rubber robot outfits? There are also so many unanswered questions: just what was the Dark One? Who voiced him? Why, after Jorn was absorbed by the Dark One and presumably all his secrets revealed, was Deeja so important? And why were so many of the male characters wearing shoulder pads?