Even though it's been given an unfortunate title which will not only help limit its audience but also attract the wrong type of person to it, The Naked Monster is writer/co-director Ted Newsom's loving tribute to monster movies of the 1950's and is a pleasing enough mash-up of stock footage, rapid fire hit-or-miss jokes, purposely chintzy special effects, and cameos from tons of familiar (to genre fans, anyway) faces. It's an off-beat satire that can best be compared to the cult classic "so bad, it's good" 1977 flick, Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, due to its irreverent tone and endless references to sci-fi/horror flicks of the past.

Things start off like an old William Castle movie as Newsom appears on-screen as the movie's producer and proceeds to tell us that not only has the film been in production for years, but it is also filmed in "Monsterama" and that the movie you're about to see is truly a historic event that sports state-of-the-art special effects. Of course, it's all a lie but it's an amusing way to kick-off proceedings as well as sets up the tongue-in-cheek tone that will (eventually) be the movie's downfall as it ends-up being unable to keep up such its manic delivery for its eighty-six-minute run time.

In comes the stock footage as various monster movies of the 50's and 60's play in the background as a narrator mourns the loss of multiple creatures over the years. I can't deny that I had a lot of fun with this sequence as I tried to name all the movies that are shown on screen - of which I named almost all of them making me almost hang my head in shame at being such an outright movie geek.

Cue the first of many cameo appearances as beloved "Scream Queen" Linnea Quigley shows-up in a small role as a deaf girl who's not above using sign language while lifting her top and making out in a convertible by the beach. She also happens to be the first victim of our big, green papier-mâché monster who's come to Earth on a comet and proceeds to attack people around the Santa Mira area of California.

As the attacks escalate, in comes local sheriff Lance Boiler (Ron G. Wilson) and FBI agent Jeff (John Goodwin) who are forced to recruit former monster hunter Colonel Patrick Henry (Kenneth Tobey), as well as Palaeontologist Nikki (Brinke Stevens) to help stop the creature, which turns out to be the ultra-rare "Monstersarus Erectus" and is quite possibly the dumbest monster ever witnessed.

So while our intrepid heroes try to figure out a way to stop our beast (even setting up a hotline for tips, which gives Newsom the chance to throw in tons of b-movie actor cameos including "Famous Monsters Of Filmland"'s Forrest J. Ackerman) the movie piles on even more stock footage, purposely poorly done green screen effects, and bad picture quality on the way to the finale at Yucca Flats in order to give it the feel of a low-budget 50's "Atomic Monster" movie. The only difference being that the dialogue is peppered with a few curses and there's a mild bit of nudity on hand.

On the acting front it seems like the entire cast is having a lot of fun here with Wilson's portly sheriff giving us a few good chuckles, Stevens showing a wry sense of humour and keeping her clothes on for almost the entire movie with the exception of a random shower scene (which, the makers point out, is very important to the plot), and Tobey getting a chance to poke fun at his roles as a Military Captain in The Thing From Another World, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and It Came From Beneath The Sea. There's also the aforementioned slew of cameos to give genre fans more chance to play a mini game of trivia with themselves while watching.

While The Naked Monster does eventually run out of steam, you can't deny Newsom's love of his subject and his pastiche of cheap looking sets, goofy dialogue (I love the line, "thousands of people who have never died will be killed..."), and Airplane! inspired humour, making it an agreeable time for fans of not only the older drive-in monster movies but also for fans of such similar movies as The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra and Lobster Man From Mars. Plus, any movie that jokes in the end credits that it's "not based on an idea by Charles Band" can't be all that bad. (Chris Hartley, 10/27/07)

Directed By: Ted Newsom, Wayne Berwick.
Written By: Ted Newsom.

Starring: Kenneth Tobey, Brinke Stevens, Ron G. Wilson, John Goodwin.

Picture Ratio: Full Frame.

Picture Quality: It is next to impossible to judge the picture quality on this disc as the entire movie was made to look purposely grainy and with washed-out colours. In fact, who knows what's intentional or not, but I'm going to say that Anthem has probably brought The Naked Monster to DVD the way that Newsom intended it to look.

Extras: There's a pretty decent batch of special features included here as we get a still gallery, some deleted scenes (including a spoof of Titanic that never made the final cut), a brief "making of" featurette, an interesting interview with co-star Tobey taken from a Cable access show, and a commentary track with co-directors Newsom and Berwick (most of us know him from making the deliriously bad Microwave Massacre).

Speaking of the commentary, what you're hearing is actually our host's second go-around as they accidently erased their first track. This means that it's a lot more casual and jokey than I'm assuming their first track was, which helps make it more entertaining as Newsom and Berwick obviously found the turn of events amusing. Overall, though, it's a good listen as we learn all about Newsom's journey to get his dream project done.

Visit Anthem Pictures for more info.