MARS NEEDS WOMEN

With a title such as Mars Needs Women you'd think that some kind of post-modernist tongue-in-cheek fun might be at work here. Alas, this not the case at all.

Made for extremely cheap (you can see every cent not spent by the film-makers), Mars Needs Women is interspersed with lots (and I do mean lots!) of grainy stock footage - mostly of American Air Force jets intermittently flying around, refuelling, taking off, landing, etc. and a seemingly never-ending ball game, replete with drum majorettes and marching band. 

At a running time of less than an hour and a half, you wouldn't expect the film to be slow-moving. But it is. Incredibly so to the point of excruciating boredom. Add to this some of the worst acting, special effects (the Martian spaceship seems to be a cooking pot lid!) and dialogue imaginable then you have a serious contender for the title of the "worst movie ever made" despite the best efforts of one Ed Wood.

I don't know whether the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew ever dissed this movie. If they hadn't, then they missed a golden opportunity. The film is truly terrible, yet it isn't camp or energetic enough to really make fun of. If you watch this movie like me, alone on a late Sunday afternoon on the European/African Sci-Fi Channel, then you'd be closer to understanding what Douglas Adams meant with his term, "The Long Dark Tea-Time Of the Soul." 

Why the European Sci-Fi Channel would insist on endlessly re-broadcasting this movie remains a mystery. Why they would want to show such a bad film after the weekly episode of MST3K is also unclear. After watching Mike Nelson and his robot pals riffing on bad sci-fi movies they probably think that you'd be in the mood for some of your own DIY MST3K. Well, if you do feel like that, then make sure to have some rowdy like-minded friends and an endless supply of alcohol at hand . . .

Some movies are so bad they're good. Some movies, like Mars Needs Women, are so bad that they tear apart the very fabric of existence and threaten to send your doomed soul to a wretched dimension where time has no meaning! Bit like Maths class at school on a Friday afternoon . . .

(The movie's plot? It's really about Martians landing on Earth to kidnap some women to replenish their numbers back on their home planet. Earth Girls Are Easy it would seem . . . What have I learned while watching it? That Martians have stopped wearing neckties several decades ago . . . )