The moon might not be made of cheese, but many moon movies are cheesy. Fortunately, I love cheese.
Movies like "Missile to the Moon" are difficult to review. From so many aspects, the film is undeniably sub-standard. However, when viewed as a bit of 1950's Drive-in low-budget sci-fi fare it is almost beyond critique. As an example of the latter, it's exactly what it's supposed to be.
An Earth man is utterly outflanked by nearly immobile 'rock people' in the Science Fiction classic 'Missile To The Moon.'
It's the kind of film that invites mockery and cheap shots and merciless skewering on shows like Mystery Science Theatre 3000. But really, what's the point? "Missile to the Moon" is utterly lacking in pretension, so why bother poking at it? Sure, the effects are bad, the sets are made of pegboard, the rocket ship taking off is a bad mix of models and stock footage, and once landed on the moon, is clearly a plywood painted flat, vegetation grows in great profusion on the moon, and on and on. So what? None of it matters. Lack of a budget is not a valid criticism of a movie. The film was meant to be entertainment, and it is.
This is a sore point for me, having to defend why I enjoy movies such as this when Hollywood releases mainstream fare all the time that is easily as bad or worse than this, and costs tens of millions of dollars more to make, and the mainstream audiences are never asked to justify their choices. Last year's "Van Helsing" had effects that were clearly better, but on the plausibility scale, the two films are exactly equal. And for entertainment value, given the choice, I'd rather watch "Missile" 100 times before I'd sit through another round with "Van Helsing" or self-serious tripe like "Daredevil."
For one thing, "Missile to the Moon" doesn't pound at you the way that "Daredevil" does.
"Missile to the Moon" is a virtual remake of the 1953 3D film "Cat-Women of the Moon," though I'm not sure that it is officially a remake. No story credit or other acknowledgment is given that I can find, but there are a great many direct correlation points between the two, beyond the standard cliche of Outer Space being filled with women just waiting for some men to show up.
"Missile to the Moon" opens with two scientists working on a rocket ship. The government wants the rocket ship, and one of the scientists is equally determined that they not have it. Fortunately for him, two convicts have escaped and he discovers them hiding in the rocket ship. Convincing them to act as his crew, he prepares to take off. Meanwhile, the other scientist and his girlfriend have climbed aboard the ship just in time for the launch.
On the way to the moon, the first scientist is killed in an accident, but not before revealing that there is more to his mission than he first let on.
The surviving crew reach the moon and wander the surface in standard-issue flight suits and oxygen helmets. Discovering a huge cave, they discover the civilization of women and learn that the dead scientist was originally from the moon. He had gone to earth to look for ways to help the moon colony survive due to its impending oxygen crisis.
The all-female society, comprising maybe a dozen females, is relatively orderly, but the presence of all the new males drives them into a series of bad life choices that ultimately seals their doom.
The highlight of the film, to me, was the walking, 12-foot tall rock monsters that are the first of the many moon dangers encountered by the travelers. Most people will think they are incredibly hokey, but I thought it was a surprisingly cool touch the first time we see one breaking away from the rock walls of the canyon to set out in ultra-slow pursuit of the invading earthlings. Any human could escape from them by simply walking away; still, the Rock Men do manage to herd one of the humans to a fiery death by sunlight. What they want to pursue humans for is anybody's guess. Perhaps they've just been hanging around for centuries for this chance to pursue humans, who knows?
What appealed to me about the Rock Men is that they are so very alien, even on the moon. What is the purpose of their existence? What are they there for? The idea of them — semi-sentient creatures patiently, or perhaps torturously, waiting out the long eons on the trillion-to-one chance that a human might wander by — was something that I found as a child, and find now, to be rather creepy. Mark my words: somewhere in the universe, rock men like this are waiting — just waiting! — for humans to wander out into space; I have no doubt. On some lonely planet, right this moment, they're shuffling and lurching, arching their stiff craggy necks back, face to the sky, eternally watching for rocket trails that never come. Yet, still, they wait.
And even though the effect is kind of hokey, I also think that the image of them in pursuit is an almost iconic moment for films of this type. It's quintessential. Perhaps it's because it's an image that was burned into my brain as a child when I used to get up very early and catch the end of "Movies Until Dawn" type programming on TV.
As in "Cat-Women," we also learn that the moon is home to a giant cave spider, which we must assume has found precious little to eat over the course of its lifetime. This particular spider found found lots and lots of work during the 1950s, in dozens of films like "Missile to the Moon." It's in "Cat-Women," too.
"Moon" is undoubtedly inept in so many areas, but its heart is in the right place and I find it kind of endearing. It's harmless fun, and there's nothing wrong with that.