Ruptured Review: Microwave Massacre

Country of origin- USA 

Year of release- 1983  

Directors- Wayne Berwick
Stars- Jackie Vernon, Loren Schein, Al Troupe
 

You know a film is of stunning quality when the very first shot is bouncing tits, shortly followed by a view of the same woman’s ass as she walks down the street. This cleverly crafted series of shots really helps add tension and momentum to the overall story, it also gives me a chance to shamelessly add a picture of breasts to get traffic, in the same way the film added them to get ass’s on seats. 

The Microwave Massacre follows a hen pecked construction worker called Donald, played by the half pickled Jackie Vernon, who is fed up with the foul and bizarre culinary concoctions his wife May makes him eat. His wife makes every meal in a giant microwave that is probably the most expensive prop in the entire film. One night Donald returns home after drinking his sorrows away at the local bar to find that once again May has prepared something truly rancid, only this time Donald just can’t take it anymore. He snaps and batters his wife to death with an oddly penis shaped salt grinder. Later that night, realising what he has done Donald comes up with a plan to get rid of May’s corpse, he decides to cook it in the microwave that she loved so much and eat her piece by piece. However Donald’s cannibalistic desires soon develop into a lust for new, and younger victims, thus begins the microwave massacre.

Considering just how fucking terrible this film could have been, it comes as a pleasant surprise that this is oddly enjoyable. Right from the get go it is clear that this is by no means trying to be serious, instead it plays out rather like an extremely cheap shot-on-video comedic Troma knock off. The jokes are stunningly corny and judging by his background in stand-up comedy were in some part probably written by Jackie Vernon himself. Although the majority of the jokes are face palm worthy, some are in fact pretty damn funny, including a scene in which we see Donald spreading butter on one of his victims with a giant butter knife before encasing her in a giant piece of bread. This scene along with some others in the film seem to be at least a little inspired by a very Monty Python style of humour, and yet these scenes didn’t feel out of place, even alongside the trash acting and general grime.

Overall, if you’re wanting to be intellectually challenged by a thought provoking piece of neo-realistic cinema, don’t watch Microwave Massacre. However, if you want to see a man who looks like a toad chop up hookers while cracking one liners and eating microwaved human flesh this is the film for you. I am going to give it a 7/10, it does what it says on the tin, and it doesn’t linger.   

Get the film here