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Steve-Calvert.co.uk
A Passion For Horror
DVDs
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Mesa of Lost Women (1953)Directed by Ron Ormond/Herbert Tevos
If you are looking for a good horror or sci-fi film, then you had probably better keep on looking, Mesa of Lost Women isn't it. It's okay, if you have nothing better to do, I suppose, and if you can stand the terrible backing music that sound like something produced by a five-year-old pop star wannabe on Christmas morning when let loose with his new toy that just happens to be a guitar. To be honest the whole Mesa of Lost Women experience would probably be infinitely more bearable with the benefit of a decent soundtrack. The basic story is about a rather mad scientist called Aranya who is conducting strange experiments in his lab on top of Zarpa Mesa, Mexico. In true mad scientist fashion Aranya is trying to play god. He has isolated the human growth hormone and has been busy transplanting it into tarantula spiders. The spiders have then grown as big as a person and Aranya has found that he can communicate with them telepathically. Nice for him I'm sure, but the man in the white coat has not stopped there, he has reversed the process and transplanted the hormone back into a hoard of beautiful women (maybe he was lonely). These women, he claims, have the indestructibility of the insect and if an arm or leg was damaged they could grow a new one. Virtually indestructible and with a huge lifespan he believes that his creatures may one day control the world-subject to his will of course (he is a mad scientist remember). Okay. Wow. Such high hopes from the man, but if he were really a scientist would he not know that spiders are actually arachnids and not insects at all. Obviously the producers of this film put as little thought into their research as they did into finding someone to play the backing music. Who know maybe a giant spider was put in charge of the legwork for both departments. Other characters are drawn, one way or another, into the mess, or should I say onto the mesa, and one and all are given a chance to display their god-given talents for poorly acting their way through an unbelievably bad script. The highlight of the film for me, I would have to say, was watching spider-woman, Tarantula's unusual spider-like dance in the tavern. If someone had sacked that kid with the guitar and let Tarantula do her thing to some real music it might have been quite and exotic dance, as is though, I found it highly amusing to watch. As
for the giant spider, it has to be said that it isn't very believable.
More hairy than scary, I would say, but the film was shot in the day
when the wizards of technical trickery were still only learning their
craft and so that is only to be expected. The main problem with this
film isn't the special effects, it's that kid with the guitar and that
terrible playing is the thing about this film that left me with
nightmares.
CAST Jackie
Coogan ... Dr. Aranya
Mesa of Lost Women Run time: 70 minutes Filmed in black and white Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
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