Review by Steve D. Stones
If you're new to the cult of watching bad movies, Eegah may not be the film to get your feet wet with for the first time. As bad as it is, it does improve with repeated viewings and its flaws greatly add to the humor and charm of its badness. The father-son filmmakers of Arch Hall Sr. and Arch Hall Jr. team up to create this outrageous epic caveman movie.
Arch Hall Jr. plays teenage heartthrob Tom Nelson, who works as a gas station attendant, sings in a rock band and dates raven haired beauty Roxy Miller, played by Marilyn Manning. Roxy encounters a giant caveman, played by Richard Kiel, on the highway while rushing home one night. She reports this incident to Tom and her father Robert Miller, played by Arch Hall Sr. Both find her report of the caveman unbelievable.
The trio drive out to the desert highway the next morning and find giant footprints on the desert floor near a place called Shadow Mountain. Roxy's father decides to investigate further by flying a helicopter into Deep Canyon near Shadow Mountain to find the prehistoric man. Miller hopes to find the giant and take a photograph while encountering the caveman.
The pilot who took Miller to Deep Canyon informs Tom that he will not be able to pick up Miller at the scheduled time. Tom and Roxy drive out to the desert in Tom's dune buggy to find Miller.
After no luck in finding Miller, Tom and Roxy camp out on the desert floor near the dune buggy. Here Tom sings a terrible song about a girl named Valerie. In a previous scene, he sang a song about a girl named Vicky. He seems to like singing songs about every girl but Roxy. Roxy doesn't seem too concerned about it, although she does ask who Valerie is.
The next morning, Tom leaves the camp to look for Miller. He takes a shotgun with him, but leaves Roxy behind. The caveman kidnaps Roxy at the camp and takes her to his hillside cave. Here we discover Miller in the cave with a broken collar bone and arm. Miller has named the caveman – Eegah.
What unfolds next is one of the most absurd, terrible sequences in the film, if not the worst in the history of cinema itself. Roxy attempts to communicate with Eegah, but fails miserably, as he continually tries to touch her. She even shaves the prehistoric man with a razor and shave cream. The dialogue in this sequence is hilarious and downright awful.
Watch for young cult director Ray Dennis Steckler, a friend at the time to Hall Jr., in a scene near the end of the film making out with his wife Carolyn Brandt near a swimming pool just before Eegah throws him into the pool. Eegah too finds himself in the pool after the police arrive and shoot him dead as he makes a big splash.
In my opinion, Eegah might just be a better film if all the sequences of Arch Hall Jr. lip syncing songs about girls were cut out, and if the poorly acted and written sequence of actress Marilyn Manning trying to communicate in the cave with Eegah was also cut from the film. However, if these scenes were cut from the film, would Eegah still have its strange cult appeal? Not very likely.
Eegah has gained a strong following in recent years, thanks to the Mystery Science Theater 3000www and Elvira's Movie Macabre treatments of the film. The film was also discussed in Harry and Michael Medved's book – The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. Happy viewing.
