The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra: Retro Camp

I haven’t decided if The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is an homage or a parody. Perhaps it’s a bit of both. It’s an homage in that it gasconades its adoration for blowsy b-movies from the ’50s, but it’s a parody in that it doesn’t keep its campy headings in check. How do you faithfully recreate the tacky, risible complexion of a genre that wasn’t aware of the fact that it was tacky and risible? Well, you can’t. To writer/director/leading man Larry Blamire’s credit, he gives it his best shot. Cadavra looks and feels like a drive-in drollery. The camerawork is blunderingly basic, the acting is fittingly formal, the sets and costumes are impecunious, and of course, it was shot in black-and-white (or Skeletorama, if you prefer). But that only covers the surface area.

Cadavra is lacking in schlocky spirit. How many Harryhausen-era sci-fi/horror confitures tried to be funny? None, to be exact. This film does, which took me out of its Ed Wood mimesis. I thought that the intention was to trick the viewer into thinking that they were watching some lost cheese reel from the genre’s “golden” era. Every time the script would sling a waggish, farcical scenario my way, I was reminded that Cadavra was indeed progenerated just a few years ago. It’s somewhat of a clinker as a halcyon throwback, but it’s palmier as a straight comedy. The plot certainly lends itself to silly skylarking. We get an intergalactic couple (“My wife forgets that she’s not a space alien.”), a pet mutant, an animal woman (named…Animala!), the requisite edacious scientist (“I’m a scientist. I don’t believe in anything.”), milk-and-water protagonists (“The only person I want inside of your pretty little head is me.”), and a living skeleton. How all of these characters come together is of little importance.

Blamire does a scrupulous job of plying acting and directorial duties. As I alluded to earlier, the film’s physiognomy echoes that of z-grade criterion. In this case, amateurish filmmaking is a plus. I suppose that Blamire’s future projects will tell us if he was pretending or not. The visuals are surprisingly crisp for being shot on video, though that might not be the case if they were colorized. As a master thespian, Blamire gives the best/worst performance here. His delivery is dry and banausic with gelastic Ã?©lan. Fay Masterson is perfect as Betty, the maidenly, circumspect wife. She sparkles with beauty, as any b-movie heroine should, and has a couple of indelible lines (“My legs feel like heavy, slow things.”). Everyone else is bad/good. Cadavra gives its players license to be as appalling as they want to be.

The film’s comedic punch is dizzying at first, but it doesn’t know how to quit when it’s ahead. Many jokes are worn out and get old really fast (the over-the-top laughter, the repetitious dialogue). When the one-liners fail you, you’ll still have the bantam special effects to fall back on. The miniatures are cataclysmal, the creature suit brings Robot Monster to mind, and the “wirework” is hilarious. I appreciated the fact that The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra didn’t maculate its fabric by maneuvering to corral an R rating. Aside from Poltergeist, it’s the only PG flick made in the past 25 years that I’d ever recommend to a horror junkie. There was no need to sleaze things up. It’s a respectable bagatelle, but if you’re ever in the mood for something like Plan 9 From Outer Space, just watch the real thing.