ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN - Big is Beautiful!

Much like Plan 9 From Outer Space, the original Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is best remembered for being the pinnacle of bad movies, and sports quite possibly the most iconic movie poster of all time. While I'll dispute Plan 9's claim to that title, I have a hard time defending it here. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman was brought to you by the director that gave us The Brain from Planet Arous and the writer that was behind Roger Corman's Not of This Earth - so there's some B-movie pedigree here.

The story, as if you couldn&#146t tell from the title, goes something like this: Nancy Archer (played by the reasonably hawt looking Allison Hayes) is the wealthy alcoholic wife who suffers greatly at the hands of her abusive, cheating husband. One night, away from the house to escape her crushing life, she encounters a gigantic UFO. When she returns home, she turns into a fifty foot giantess (not a giantess with fifty feet, but one that's fifty feet tall). Suddenly the tables have turned, and now it's time for Nancy to put her (gigantic) foot down on her husband's antics by going on a rampage.

And that's pretty much about it.

While Plan 9 is a perfect storm of bad movie making, the complete opposite is true here. Nothing works in 50 Foot Woman. Giantess Nancy never really looks convincing, outside of a couple of moments when she smashes a couple of models. Her ginormous hand that occasionally makes an appearance looks about as convincing as the Mona Lisa done in crayon and the matte shots wouldn&#146t convince Stevie Wonder. In short, this is a incompetent example of film making.

That said, 50 Foot Woman is great fun to watch (and I don't mean that in the "Mmmmm, giant boobies" sort of way - that&#146s what I have the Darrel Hanna remake for). While the script is not as memorable as Plan 9, there are plenty of bizarre lines to laugh at, like line from Harry to his wife: &#147Now you pulled a boner tonight and you know it!&#148 - which I know is about as mature as laughing at when someone says "Uranus", but I cant help myself.

THE DVD -
50 Foot Woman looks and sounds about as good as you would expect it to. The print shows some dirt and grain, but is perfectly acceptable for a film of this vintage.

THE EXTRAS -
Released as part of Warner's Cult Camp Classics Volume 1: Sci-Fi Thrillers, the movie includes such cinematic classics as Queen of Outer Space and The Giant Behemoth, the movie fairs better than the two discs it's bundled with. We get a commentary with Yvette Vickers and horror historian Tom Weaver, and the original theatrical trailer. Not much, but pretty good considering the extremely low budget nature of the series.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is silly, cheesy and very much recommended.