Note: This is the start of a new feature here focusing specifically on the worst films that I have ever seen, films that despite their best efforts inspire nothing but absolute befuddlement at the idea that anybody thought making them was a good idea. These are all movies that under normal evaluation would receive somewhere between a 1 and 3 out of 10 rating. Enjoy.
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| Yes this drugged out hooker talking on the phone is the movie's hero. We're in trouble. |
Director: Jerry Warren
The Characters:
-Batwoman (Katherine Victor, pictured above):
Basically a lazy attempt at ripping off Batman that ends up looking more like a prostitute whose costume was designed by a designer that was half asleep or just did not care. Batwoman is the leader of some sort Charlie's Angel's type outfit made up of Batgirls who frankly don't really do anything.
-Rat Fink (Richard Banks):
Batwoman's arch nemesis whose costume looks like some sort of luchador/Zorro/businessman combo.
-Professor G. Octavious Neon (George Andre):
An incompetent mad scientist who is incidentally the film's most entertaining character. Dr. Neon is surrounded by various incompetent cronies that seem to push the film's feminist belief that all men are stupid or evil. Oddly, said feminist idealism is undermined by having female characters that dress like hookers and are just as stupid as the male characters.
The "Story":
A female superhero (suspiciously similar to Batman) and her army of airhead Batgirls face off against a mysterious masked villain who wishes to steal a super sonic hearing aid (yes, you heard that right). The rest of the plot as it were is nearly incomprehensible. Supporting character's include an idiotic mad scientist, his Igor wannabe henchman, a man villain that looks like a luchador and one of the more racist portrayals of an Oriental person this side of Audrey Hepburn's neighbor in "Breakfast at Tiffany's".
Why did God let a movie so terrible happen?
With the popularity of the campy 60's "Batman" TV series with Adam West reaching its peak in popularity, many studios were obviously interested in cashing in on its success. The obvious way to do this would be to buy the rights to another superhero or make your own original superhero. Not content with taking the path of least resistance (or the path of common sense) director Jerry Warren decided to simply create an obvious rip off. Warren then wrote a story that is full of padding even in a film that runs a stunningly short 70 minutes.
Saving grace:
Hard to say, after a while even seeing scantily clad women dancing becomes most annoying due to how often the story pauses for these scenes and that the so-called "dancing" causes laughter more than anything else. However, Professor Neon is frequently amusing and the character that's easiest to describe as being memorable, but even he becomes tiresome. So in other words, nothing.
Particularly Awful Scenes:
-The cold open which features two Batgirls swearing in a third and discussing some sort of backstory involving synthetic vampires. Cut to opening credits. The stuff about vampires whet your appetite? Too bad, it's never mentioned again, and we never see these particular Batgirls again..
-After the credits two entirely different Batgirls going about minding their own business witness a robbery that turns into a murder. The film in all its utter "brilliance" decides to leave the rest up to our imagination as this storyline is never mentioned again! This sort of "brilliant" and "unconventional" storytelling flows from the "Wild Wild World of Batwoman" as if it were a fountain of rich storytelling awesomeness.
-This is followed by the first of many, many, many long dance scenes. Rather than keeping these scenes short Warren is content to take his time with this scene and let you take in this wonderful word so you can truly understand these characters' "hopes and dreams". This all takes the place of more traditional character development techniques like dialogue and acting. Fuckin' brilliant.
-At one point Batwoman and several others hold a seance to summon the spirit of a dead Chinese man. Instead of having said character simply speak English or hiring an actual Chinese speaker Warren again forgoes traditional outdated movie making techniques and simply has the spirit speak in a random combination of "Chings" and "Chongs" and other stereotypically Asian sounding grunts. This is all NEVER mentioned again.
-Similarly, the film's hero Batwoman is never actually seen really doing anything heroic, we're simply supposed to just *believe* that she's awesome.
- At one point two characters stumble into some sort of bizarre villain lair/ lost city matte painting and are attacked by stock footage of mole men from another film. By this point in the film this all seems normal and expected. Oh and surprise this is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN!
-A huge explosion occurs in a small room killing no one and apparently healing the unfortunate chap that was left holding the bomb of his mentally challenged state.
Most mind numbingly stupid moment:
The climax wherein supervillain Rat Fink is revealed to be none other than.... the scientist who invented the supersonic hearing aid. Why did he decide he needed to steal his own invention? So he could listen to all the phone calls in the world.
No it doesn't make sense. Don't waste your time thinking about it.
Perhaps more shocking than the stupidity of this scene is that I haven't even covered half of the stupid, awful, pointless scenes in this awful mess of a movie.
In Short: "The Wild World of Batwoman" is a remarkably ill conceived B-movie that seems to be a never ending string of scenes with any semblance of story connecting them left on the cutting room floor. Whether or not this was the worst film ever watched by the Mystery Science Theater crew is definitely up to debate but its certainly in the top 5 worst and any MST3K real fan should definitely seek this episode out.
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