MovieChat Forums > Them! (1954) Discussion > The most ridiculous B-Movie solution?

The most ridiculous B-Movie solution?


In almost every B-Movie about monster- or alien-attacks, near the end, when everything seems lost, someone, usually a scientist, will come up with a clever solution to the problim, exposing the weak points of the creatures, and constructing the one and only device which has the power to destroy them.
Which B-Movie do you think has the most hilarious or far-fetched solution of them all?

reply

[deleted]

Day of the Triffids with the sea water. Especially as it doesn't happen that way in the book.

reply

Not technically a B-Movie... but "Signs" with the friggin water? give me a effin break.


I'm trying to imagine what technicality prevents "Signs" from being a B-Movie.

reply

Ha! The reason "Sings" isn't a B-movie is because the movie uses suspense to enthraul the audiance not the B-movie antics.

reply

No contest. What about in "Monster A Go-Go" where the monster just disappeared. "There never was a monster." Pssh. C'mon.

Oh, wait -- you said "movie."

reply

the giant claw.

reply

I'm sure this has been mentioned many times on the Signs board, but there's the whole bit where the alien, from a civilization capable of interstellar travel, can't get out of a locked kitchen closet and can't contact his/her/its comrades in any way.

Signs may have an A-movie budget, cast, and director, but it has a B-movie plot.

reply

Where in heaven's name did they ever come up with the demented cukoo bird that was supposed to pass as a monster? I guess that is one movie that qualifies as being so ridiculous, it's funny.

reply

I think the difference with Them! is that a military solution was used and not a scientific one. The scientists merely told them what characteristics ants had that they were fighting. It wasn't like science went and developed a giant can of Raid to blast them with.

reply

The aliens from Signs were supposed to be intelligent, yet they attack a planet that is 72% the substance that will kill them. Why don't we go attack the lava planet with the cyanide atmosphere while we're at it?

The Invisible Invaders is pretty bad, with sound turning out to stop the zombies. And the BEGINNING OF THE END, where sound lured the locusts into Lake Michigan. Why they couldn't just use flamethrowers and rifles, as in THEM! is beyond me.

Reptilicus: Shoot it in the throat with a sedative so we can go to enormous trouble to dismember and burn it? Why not just use a lethal poison? And the flamethrowers were working okay, why not get more than one going? Or can we not do that because that would make sense?

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

reply

The monster in The Tingler (1959), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053363/, was incapacitated when people screamed. Yes, you read that right.

As I just said in another thread on this board, The Tingler makes you appreciate what an accomplished actor Vincent Price was, because he can almost make you believe in the absolutely preposterous story.

reply

Sawyertom's post about the military solution is absolutely right. They could bring the ants down with the guns, which is what most logical people would try first. The scientists were just there for support and information into the ant's behavior.

reply

"Killers From Space" with Peter Graves (Jim Arness's brother) isn't really a B-movie either. It's not nearly good enough to be considered "B". In case you haven't seen it, Graves, a scientist in the movie, calculates that if the aliens' power supply is interrupted for about thirty seconds (they're tapping into the local power plant) their secret base will blow up! He's written off as a kook, but sneaks into the power plant, has the technician shut down at gunpoint, then, about thirty seconds later - KABOOM!

A must see for connoisseurs of bad, bad, really, really bad movies.


Stop calling them films. Kodak makes films, Hollywood makes MOVIES!

reply

[deleted]

I've seen some corny and bad solutions in SF movies but an example of a good last minute solution would be 'Earth vs. the Flying Saucers'. The magnetic field interrupter they made tied in well with the theories of how the alien's saucers functioned.

reply

War of the Worlds (both of them) - the bacteria.
The Blob - ...coldness lol.

www.myspace.com/bendyspoons

Last film seen:
Them! - 8.5/10
The Wizard of Gore (2007) - 7.5/10

reply

Mars ATTACKS! Slim Whitman singing OMG how bad can you get?

Oh GOOD!,my dog found the chainsaw

reply