No movie ever should start with Eddie Deezen driving a pink jalopy, Tom Bosley wearing a cowboy hat, and/or three blondes with a burning need to urinate. (It’s in Cahiers du Cinéma. Look it up.) That’s Million Dollar Mystery in a nutshell — emphasis on the “nut,” waka waka waka! When people say, “You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to see that,” they mean this legendarily lethal Dino De Laurentiis/Glad Bag sinkhole, which offered viewers a chance to win just that with admission. It grossed $989,033. Oh, well!
At a roadside diner, Bosley keels over after eating chili, but not before telling fellow eaters that he’s hidden $4 million among four places, and it’s theirs if they can find it. Joining in this madcap rush for cash are Deezen, comedian Rick Overton, Playboy Playmate Penny Baker and no one else famous. At least they got Bill Murray to appear the mentally unstable Vietnam vet, Slaughter Buzzárd. Oh, my bad — they couldn’t afford him. That’s Rich Hall, he of “Sniglets” fame.
Like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; Scavenger Hunt; or Rat Race, it’s a cast-crowded, cross-country, comedic chase, wherein greed gets the best of everyone involved. Unlike It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; Scavenger Hunt; or Rat Race, it has not one genuine laugh. In fact — spoiler alert! — it’s fucking stupid. It gave my DVD player an extra chromosome.
Sadly, this was the last film of director Richard Fleischer (Fantastic Voyage) and stuntman Dar Robinson; the latter actually died for this junk. To add insult to injury, the filmmakers dedicate the work to him — but in quotes, as if insincere — while “comedy” duo Mack & Jamie, two of the least funny people on the planet, improv. The only thing more embarrassing is Kevin Pollak’s constant, cringe-worthy celebrity impressions. Scratch that: Worse is that this represents proof I watched the damn thing. —Rod Lott
What do you get when you combine the plot of a bad ’50s sci-fi alien invasion movie with the visual aesthetics of a backyard slasher film and add just a dash of early-’80s porno sensibility? A terrible mess, naturally, but a strangely compelling mess for those not overly offended by others’ incompetence.
Despite their noble attempts to harvest these platelets without killing their unwilling donors, many of the kids die as a result of the harsh methods employed by their chief kidnappers, two mentally deficient mechanics (Neville Brand and Aldo Ray). The fact that we don’t actually care if any of these kids survive does have a somewhat negative impact on the movie’s overall tension.
When 
Anyway, a tour group to Volcano Island is taken hostage by nondescript bad guys doing the bidding of the aptly named Alby the Cruel (Blackie Dammett), who’s confined to a wheelchair, wears fingerless gloves and strokes his pet monkey. His hostages — “such a pitiful group!” — include a Congressman, a girl on heart meds, and Kosugi’s two real-life sons, one of whom lights a would-be rapists’ ass on fire.