Like a French version of 1984’s Night of the Comet, Dead Shadows depicts one night in the City of Lights — specifically, the one with the passing of a comet. This rare event makes tech-support slacker Chris (newcomer Fabian Wolfrom) very nervous. After all, when a comet last passed a decade ago, dear old’ Dad went mad and killed Mom; Chris has been afraid of the dark ever since.

With Chris on edge more than usual, a relaxant of sorts arrives in the form of Claire (Blandine Marmigère), his hot, newly single neighbor. An artist by trade, she invites Chris to an “apocalypse party” that night. We know she’s good to go when she shares the name of her in-progress series of paintings: Orgasmic Explosions.

Chris agrees — wouldn’t you? — but has trouble finding Claire at the soirée. He does, however, see a man’s anaconda-like alien phallus slither up a slutty attendee’s behind … and out her mouth. Basically, the comet’s presence causes the citizenry to mutate — or is it all just in Chris’ head? — into a parade of Lovecraftian monsters that would give Guillermo del Toro a Pacific Rim-sized erection.

With a running time under the 75-minute mark, Dead Shadows should spark to life on the double; first-time director David Cholewa bides his time, however, so viewers likely will expect a payoff worthy of his slow build. It does not happen, although a face-melting partygoer and a topless spider-woman are effects well-realized. Cholewa’s direction is not at fault for the film’s eventual place one step above mediocrity — it’s newbie Vincent Julé’s script, stupide. In the end, with all accounted for, the movie is far more c’est la vie than c’est magnifique. —Rod Lott

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Mercilessly yet accurately parodied by the titular segments of 1987’s Amazon Women on the Moon, the sci-fi spectacle of 1958’s Queen of Outer Space stands today — shoulders back, girls! — as a camp curio. After all, it stars everyone’s second favorite Hungarian beauty, Zsa Zsa Gabor, now known more for playing herself (i.e. The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear) and/or a real-life bride (nine trips at press time) than actually acting.

In the year 1985, a group of square-jawed astronauts is sent on a mission to Venus, to determine whether Earth is in mortal danger from the cloud planet. Turns out, hardly! Thought to be uninhabitable, Venus houses a bevy of beautiful women — the shapely kind for which the term “wowza” was coined. Most of them are friendly; their wicked queen is decidedly not. Contrary to audiences’ expectations and beliefs, her highness Queen Yllana is not played by Gabor, but Laurie Mitchell (Attack of the Puppet People) — because I’m guessing Gabor wouldn’t dare appear with a face that looks that looks dipped in boiled goulash.

Queen of Outer Space comes form-fitted with many a sci-fi trope and prop — do look out for the giant rubber spider — but plays like a Miss America pageant in glorious CinemaScope … and not-so-glorious misogyny. In accentuating beauty above all else, it portrays women as trophies to periodically hold one’s sperm. As the horniest of the men, Patrick Waltz (The Silencers) fires off lines like:
• “How’d you like to drag that to the senior prom?”
• “You know how women drivers are!”
• “How could a bunch of women invent a gizmo like that?”
• “How can a doll as cute as that be such a pain the neck?”
• “She’s jealous! Twenty-six million miles from Earth, and the little dolls are just the same.”

How much of that was just the character is up for debate, but so many clues suggest director Edward Bernds (Return of the Fly) and screenwriter Charles Beaumont (TV’s The Twilight Zone) were charter members of the ol’ “barefoot and pregnant” brigade. If anything else within the colorful fun of Queen hits a sour note, it’s that an uncredited Joi Lansing (Marriage on the Rocks) appears only in the prologue. —Rod Lott

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