Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny ... seriously

By Steve D. Stones

I thought I had seen all the terrible Christmas movies to be watched, until I recently saw “Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny.” The folks at RiffTrax, formerly Mystery Science Theatre 3000, provided hilarious commentary about the film on the evening of Thursday December 3. Without their commentary, I may have walked out of the theatre. The movie is so bad that it is not listed in any film encyclopedia I own. No film critic seems to be anxious to write about “Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny.” It is on the Internet Movie Database.

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny at IMDB

Somehow Santa ends up stranded on the beaches of Florida soaking up the sun in his sleigh. His reindeer have abandoned him. He calls on some local children to help him get his sleigh back in operation. Each child is called by their name, except one little girl Santa calls "Kid." The children bring farm animals one by one to try and attach to Santa's sleigh. None of the farm animals, including a sheep and donkey, wants to be hitched to the sleigh.

The children suggest that Santa take a plane back to the North Pole, but he refuses to leave his sleigh abandoned. He complains about the Florida heat and sheds some of his clothing. Since Santa's sleigh is empty, the viewer is confused as to whether or not Christmas is over, or if Santa is just behind in delivering presents to children for Christmas.

With the failed attempt to get his sleigh in operation, Santa decides to take a rest and tell the children a story. Suddenly, the movie abruptly shifts to the story of Jack and The Beanstalk. This sequence was produced by Barry Mahon, a director who made soft-core sex features and films about fairy tales appealing to children. Other prints of “Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny” insert Mahon's Thumbelina (1970).

Jack purchases some seeds from Honest John — a cow salesman. Jack lives in a land where everyone is dressed like the Partridge Family. What follows is a series of bad musical performances by little Jack and the giant he steals a golden goose and harp from. Jack stands in front of out-of-focus, rear-projected images of the giant as he attempts to steal the poorly sculpted paper mache goose and harp on the table in front of the sleeping giant.

As the story of Jack and The Beanstalk finishes, Santa reappears on the Florida beach with the children. Suddenly, an antique fire truck driven by someone in a bad bunny costume appears to take Santa back to the North Pole.

This ice cream bunny makes the evil bunny in “Donnie Darko” (2001) look like the Trix rabbit or Bugs Bunny. He drives the fire truck like a drunken clown, nearly running over a dog and steering into pot holes. The most freaky part is when the bunny winks at a little girl who runs up to him after the fire truck arrives on the beach.

Before “Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny,” RiffTrax screened three Christmas shorts — “Santa Claus's Story,” “The Tales of Custard The Dragon” and “Santa's Enchanted Village.” The three shorts are also really bad holiday entertainment, but the RiffTrax commentary makes them more enjoyable to watch.

The one good aspect going for “Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny” is the beautiful black, white and red poster art created for the film of Santa in the fire truck with the ice cream bunny. This poster is likely a sought after collector's item for fans of bad movies.

For a much better holiday feature by Mahon, see the animated “Santa and The Three Bears” (1970).

This review was originally published in the Standard-Examiner newspaper. Art by Steve D. Stones.

Eegah! - A Prehistoric Caveman Cult Epic

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.

Red Zone Cuba, the worst film ever?

By Doug Gibson

I sat through Coleman’s Francis’s 1966 mess, “Red Zone Cuba,” AKA “Night Train to Mundo Fine.” It’s 89 minutes that even with Mystery Science Theater 3000’s gags thrown in, feels like a three-hour movie. I believe if I ever dared watch this film sans the comedy thrown in, it would feel like 890 hours and I would suffer some of horrible, reverse “Infinite Jest” coma-induced death with feces abounding.

There is one reason to see this film. With his sole bit of sense, Francis had John Carradine come in for a day and shoot an opening for the $30,000 film. His acting is ho hum, but then Carradine, I kid you not, sings the film’s theme song. The camp value of Carradine belting out the vocals to “Night Train to Mundo Fine” is a hoot. He sings well, with his hoarse voice. That’s not a surprise since he was a Shakespearian actor. And he compares almost as well as Lon Chaney Jr. did when the aging, alcoholism-ravaged thespian sang the title tune to the camp/horror classic “Spider Baby” earlier in the 1960s.

But the remaining 85 or so minutes, eh, it’s just awful. The film is boring, the characters colorless, the plot incredibly confusing and meandering. The editing is terrible; there are cutaways that leave the viewer bewildered as to what is happening and what has happened. The characters mumble, and that’s just when they are actually speaking. Much of the film was shot mute with no soundtrack synchronized. You hear mumbled words sans the speakers mouths being shown.

The plot involves three crooks on the lam from the cops. Their leader is played by Francis, and Crly of the Three Stooges lookalike without an ounce of charisma. He tries to affect a tough, Broderick Crawford type of toughness but fails. His cohorts are played listlessly by Anthony Cardoza and Harold Saunders. On the lam, the trio is recruited as mercenaries for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. This portion offers a tad bit of hilarity with Cardoza, one of the producers, putting on a beard and makeup and playing Fidel Castro. (I know this sounds camp/hilarious but in the hands of director/writer/producer Francis, it isn’t. ) The “training” and “battle” scenes are so low budget that it appears that no more than a dozen or so people actually participated in the Bay of Pigs.

Somehow the guys escape from Cuba after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. They return to the USA, commit a few crimes. In one scene Coleman throws an old storekeeper down a well. The scene is badly shot and fools no one. Eventually, Coleman and his cohorts are shot dead around a train station and the film ends. The last line, delivered in Francis’s overly solemn narration: “Griffin ran all the way to hell, with a penny and a broken cigarette.”

Hard to watch, boring and nonsensical, it’s still worth a MST3K watch for Carradine, Castro and a few jokes. But stay away from the director’s cut! Actually, if you have the courage, watch the MST3K-less "Red Zone Cuba" above!