The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra - Part of Spooky Cinema

In this hilarious sendup of 1950’s horror films, a dedicated scientist, aided by his clueless wife, rolls up his shirt sleeves and tries to save the world from a radioactive monster, curious space aliens, an evil scientist, and a crabby skeleton.

A deft parody of 1950s Z-grade sci-fi and horror pics, “The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra” will delight psychotronic film fans — though that won’t likely get vid-shot B&W feature beyond limited fest slots, specialized ancillary sales and whatever’s left of the midnight movie circuit. Still, affectionate spoof merits appreciation as a not-so-dumb salute to another era’s ultra-dumb genre conventions.

“Lost Skeleton” really knows its material. It takes true trash cinema devotion to satirize the clunky visuals, banal dialogue, logic gaps and pseudoscientific silliness of a bygone era’s schlockiest obscurities quite so accurately, complete with one-beat-tardy editorial rhythms. Still, at times this homage replicates its predecessors’ amateur longeurs all too well — midsection pacing could be amped up a bit.

Yet there’s no denying the parodic bull’s-eye scored overall, with first-time feature helmer Blamire particularly inspired as the most pseudo-clueless among variably poker-faced thesp contribs, Masterson following close behind. Lensing and production design likewise astutely mimic now-campy drive-in norms; f/x are requisitely cheesy, melodramatic score duly pastiched from archaic music library sources.