Mesa of Lost Women (1953)

Opening w/ the music that blares throughout the film, MESA OF LOST WOMEN unfolds. Said music sounds as if a guitar-playing Sasquatch and a piano-pounding, hammer-handed baboon formed a band. The nonsensical narration is provided by Lyle Talbot (PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE). It seems that mad scientist, Dr. Aranya (Jackie "Uncle Fester" Coogan) is performing unnatural experiments in his hidden laboratory. He's discovered the need for human females to be... improved. Aranya is creating an army of super-women, by merging them w/ spiders! Witness Tarantella (Tandra Quinn), Aranya's mute assistant. Indeed, her arachnid ways aid in her performing the beguiling Tarantella dance! In fact, her writhing -accompanied by the Sasquatch / baboon combo, w/ added bongo drums!- is the best part of this glorious masterpiece! The rest is mostly about a group of people trying to find Aranya's hideout. Far too little spider-women action makes for one talky adventure. All while that impossible music plays on, having nothing to do w/ anything on the screen! Thank god, there's a giant, stuffed spider that bobbles along! In the Limburger-laden annals of hyper-schlock, THIS! IS! LEGEND!... EXTRA POINTS: For Dr. Fester's deadpan delivery!...

Mesa of Lost Women follows a scientist who creates spiders and dwarfs at his secret lab on Zarpa Mesa in Mexico. He also plans on injecting women with spider venom to potentially turn them into female super spiders to fulfill his plan of world domination.The pacing is dreadful. It's so bad that it makes a 68-minute film feel like 3 hours or an eternity for that matter.Not to mention this has quite possibly the worst soundtrack in film history. It repeats the same flamenco guitar music throughout most of the film and combined with the terrible pacing it's just horrible.Well at least it's not as bad as Manos but it's close... very close!

NO, this is not a good film, yes it's funny! This is one of those films that you'll laugh at some of the cheesy dialogue and dumb stuff the characters do. If you watch this alone as I did then you might find yourself wishing you watched it with someone, I know I did, because you just want to discuss some of the stupid things going on with someone! Ha ha ha! A dude gets it by the spider women, the group hears him scream and stands around discussing who's going and who's staying at the camp. Then they all decide to go together, the group leader tells them it's better if we all hold hands and of course that takes up more time. ---> Why didn't they all just take off immediately since they heard him scream and knew he was in trouble instead of all this jabber-jawing?! LMBO! Dorky as all get outs. It hits a couple of lulls but just wait a couple of minutes because it'll get funny again. lol!!4/10

*Spoiler/plot- 1953, The Mesa of Lost Women, Dr Aranya is a crazed scientist with his lab located on the top of a Mexican mesa. He has developed a serum which will transform humans using spider's hormones. The females human injected with the serum turn into beautiful women. And the male test subjects into hideous dwarfs. A group of travelers are taken to the secret doctor's lair by his hypnotized erotic lab assistant. The travelers end up discovering his terrible outlaw experiments. They escape the clutches of their evil host and his human spiders. *Special stars- Jackie Coogan.*Theme- Nature cannot be conquered even when a male scientist wishes to conquer the world. *Based on- Dr Jeckel and Mr Hyde *Trivia/location/goofs- Coogan, a huge and talented movie star on bad times. Maybe he did the movie just for the cash & keeping the union health insurance up that year. Very sad. He could do more than this. Ageism at work in Hollywood ? Watch out for the special 'tarantella' dance scene. *Emotion- A potty mad scientist movie that can leave you wanting to turn-it off. Child star of the silent days "The Champ" or TV's 'Addam's Family" Uncle Fester lends his many years acting to this terrible predictable monster film.