My advice is, watch about ten minutes of this for the sheer weirdness of it, the way people used to go to carnivals and pay to see the two-headed pig, but don't waste two and a half hours of your life on it.
Everything about this film looks and feels outrageously cheap and amateurish, as if the budget was a few thousand dollars -- painted sheetrock sets, costumes worthy of a college toga party, made from flimsy materials without detailing, blatantly obvious wigs (not just the bright blue-gray one), flat lighting, cheesy special effects, and Virginia Mayo's scary-bizarre makeup -- but it is all of a piece with the stilted dialogue and uncomfortable acting.
The bizarre "representational" sets might aspire to be avant garde and artsy, were it not for the utter cheapness of every aspect of the film. The story doesn't even matter; you will be too distracted by the high-school-play look of the piece. In summary, think of season #1 of Star Trek, the TV series, but without ski pajamas. Better yet, think of Plan 9 From Outer Space, but remove the campy fun and keep the schlock.
As an actor myself, I spent a lot of time watching the actors suffer through this piece of grief and wondering whether they had any idea what they were getting into, and just how desperate for work they were, not to have backed out after the first day on the set. If there was no other way out, it would have been worth shooting off a toe. Jack Palance acquits himself admirably amid this quagmire, but the others just slog through it.
You won't find any spoilers here; I got halfway through it and couldn't bear any more.
Everything about this film looks and feels outrageously cheap and amateurish, as if the budget was a few thousand dollars -- painted sheetrock sets, costumes worthy of a college toga party, made from flimsy materials without detailing, blatantly obvious wigs (not just the bright blue-gray one), flat lighting, cheesy special effects, and Virginia Mayo's scary-bizarre makeup -- but it is all of a piece with the stilted dialogue and uncomfortable acting.
The bizarre "representational" sets might aspire to be avant garde and artsy, were it not for the utter cheapness of every aspect of the film. The story doesn't even matter; you will be too distracted by the high-school-play look of the piece. In summary, think of season #1 of Star Trek, the TV series, but without ski pajamas. Better yet, think of Plan 9 From Outer Space, but remove the campy fun and keep the schlock.
As an actor myself, I spent a lot of time watching the actors suffer through this piece of grief and wondering whether they had any idea what they were getting into, and just how desperate for work they were, not to have backed out after the first day on the set. If there was no other way out, it would have been worth shooting off a toe. Jack Palance acquits himself admirably amid this quagmire, but the others just slog through it.
You won't find any spoilers here; I got halfway through it and couldn't bear any more.