Mozzarella Movies

I'm speaking, of course, of that special breed of cheesy movie, the Italian Science Fiction flick. Stuffed full of wondrously crappy special effects, dialogue (usually dubbed, badly), and ambitious plot way beyond the skill and budget will allow, these movies are big fun.

Take War of the Robots for example. A good chunk of Earth is going to explode because of a runaway atomic reactor, and the only man who can stop it has been kidnapped by aliens, along with his beautiful assistant. You could tell they were aliens because they all wore metallic jumpsuits and had blond pageboy haircuts.

No, really.

Luckily, a dashing hero spaceship captain (prone to laughing at inappropriate times) and his intrepid crew give chase. Also luckily, Earth's rocketships are four times faster than the alien saucers. Even luckier, they find a planet to crashland on after their rocket is damaged. Still luckier, the aliens accidentally save the crew from the local inhabitants when they come to collect slaves. That's a helluva lot of luck, paisan.

But wait, there's more! Even still more luckier, it turns out that the aliens have made the professor's beautiful assistant their Empress, making the escape that much luckier easier.

Of course, being Italian, there is much passion in the acting and plot twists in abudanzza. None of it very good, but they try with all their might and fail in spectacular fashion.

C'mon, an alien named General Gonad? Somewhere, a translator was having a giggle over that one. Personally, I have to be in the right mood for these movies. When I am, I enjoy the hell out of them.

It's probably a good thing that the mood required is a rather rare thing.