Schlock Film Festival

Every year, during "reading week" (ostensibly a few days off before exams when you can get reading done and prepare for your finals), SWIL watches bad movies.

Really bad movies.

SWIL gets money for this.

Lots of money. (Well, about $300)

According to some of the older SWILfolk, SWIL originally actually watched good movies during reading week. It has evolved, however, into a time for SWILfolk to gather together, socialize, and make fun of really cheesy movies. Not just bad movies, but the kind of movies that you might swear were created in someone's backyard. Movies that were intended to be bad aren't allowed -- only serious ones are fair game.

This year, our movie suppliers, unfortunately, increased the price of the movies so we were only about to get two instead of three. To solve this problem, we decided to rent a videocasette from a video store.

Our "gems" were:

Gamera (yes, the one that MST3K showed)
The Saga of the Viking Women and the Sea Serpent
It Conquered the World

In this viewer's opinion, the Viking Women were the clear winners. "Gamara" has been done by MST3K already (that's the movie we got from the video store), and It Conquered the World, although it featured as its monster a creature that looked like a combination of a carrot and a really cross squash, wasn't quite Sclock-esque enough. The Viking Women, on the other hand, had bad acting, bad plot, and bad effects. I give it a cheery four thumbs down: I laughed, I cried, it was worse than "Plan 9 From Outer Space".

The previous four years, the following films (and some others, although a complete list is unavailable) were shown:

Plan 9 from Outer Space
Dark Star
Reptilicus
Mr. Sardonicus
Billy the Kid vs. Dracula
Brain Eaters
Frogs!
Earth vs. the Spider
Fire Maidens of Outer Space
The Day the Earth Ended

Melissa D. Binde [ ]