User reviews

Is MM a good movie? No. Did I enjoy watching it? Yes.

This is one of those films that falls into the "B minus"-movie category. It's sincere in being what it is, but what it is is a lot of schlock.

Oddly, Jackie Vernon is probably one of the weakest parts of this film. His portrayal of a middle-aged blue-collar schlub is just not convincing. (Hmmm...as if any of the other actors are convincing.) I/m sure that this film probably wouldn't have been made at all if he hadn't been attached to the project, but he's just not very good/interesting/funny in his role.

On the bright side, the producers somehow managed to scrape together quite a few pretty good-looking women and get them to take their tops of. In fact, I'm rather surprised that Marla Simons didn't go on to do more films after this one, even if this would have been due to her assets rather than her acting. The nudity in this film is silly rather than titillating and I personally would have given it a PG-13 rating.

Everybody else in the film acts as if they're in a sketch on the Carol Burnett Show, mugging and over-reacting. Some of the jokes and one-liners are pretty funny, just don't expect any real acting. Oh, yeah...and it's not at all scary or even gross.

The only big question that I had after watching this was, "How did the huge, industrial microwave fit into that little shipping box that you see in the beginning of the movie?" Recommended for people who are tired of artsy-fartsy horror films.

Described by its original DVD distributor as "The Worst Horror Movie of All Time", this 1983 black comedy doesn't quite live up to that promise, but it's a close thing. The painted cover art is fantastic, and typically unrepresentative of the lousy content of the film.

Donald (Jackie Vernon) is a depressed, disillusioned construction worker who returns each evening to his frumpy, nagging wife, May (Claire Ginsberg). She feels she doesn't get the gratitude she deserves for "slaving away" at her new microwave all day.

One night Donald snaps and murders May. Naturally, the only way he can destroy the evidence is by cooking and eating her. He gets a taste for it (excuse the pun) and thus begins enticing ladies of the night back to his suburban home. He cooks them and feeds them to his insatiable, ignorant co-workers. Donald is free and he's impressing his new best buddies. What can possibly stop his campaign of cannibalism? Vernon was a stand-up with a distinctive deadpan style, which is entirely incongruous with the farcical events of this story. Combined with the film's weirdly languid pace and Leif Horvath's eerie electronic score, it's quite an unsettling experience – although this is mostly due to it being an outright tonal disaster, rather than any controlled sense of atmosphere.

With the humour and delivery of a 70s sketch show, it's a movie badly in need of canned laughter, if only to inform us of when we're supposed to laugh. Genuine humour comes in the briefest of snatches: Donald's encounter with Dr Van der Fool (Ed Thomas), who doesn't know which side the heart is on; or the scene where May's sister stops by and Donald has to prop May's disembodied head in the bed to pretend she's still alive ("She looks awful pale...").

It's a movie of a mercifully bygone era in which all the women are nags or sluts, although this is par for the course in trash horror of the time. What the flesh sandwich lacks is a juicy layer of satire. Given that the microwave was just becoming a household essential in the 80s, promising the death of the conventional cooker, this has to go down as an opportunity missed – we get none of the consumerist satire of The Stuff, nor the grotesque farce of the more enjoyably outrageous Street Trash.

Microwave Massacre just about claws its way into the midnight movie slot through a certain uniqueness and, frankly, its brevity (it comes in at around 75 minutes). But it's more of a freak-out than a fun time.

Okay, first off, this is quite possibly the worst movie that I've ever seen. It makes Ed Wood (R.I.P.) movies look like the best movies out there.

The movie follows a construction worker named Donald as he kills his wife when he is mad at her and accidentally eats some of her flesh while looking for a snack. He loves the taste, so he goes out and kills more girls and eats them, occasionally sharing the new meat with his friends. They don't know its human meat, but they like it so Donald keeps giving them the meat.

Okay, and as for the ending, I thought it made sense, but it was still funny. I won't reveal it, but trust me, you will never have guessed what happens.

The special effects are horrible, but I find myself laughing at these more than the jokes in the movie. I love bad SFX, and this one takes the cake in the bad special effects department. Bravo Microwave Massacre.

So see it if you can find it, and if you can't find it, get a bootleg. Its worth it if you like bad movies.

Far from being the worst horror film of all time, and really not much of a horror movie at all but more of a black comedy for lack of a better description. Jackie Vernon plays Donald whose wife refuses to give him solid, working-man food but rather inundates his lunch box with crab sandwiches and other gourmet meals. Donald gets so upset after a night of drinking his woes that he slays his wife and then packs her in the freezer, later goes for a bite to eat, and unwittingly eats her hand wrapped in tin foil. From there he realizes he loves the taste and begins to eat women all the time(yes, that pun and every possible one under the sun was used in the film!). Thereis an endless parade of one-liners, many just wretched, but after a bit I was finding some of them amusing as this film is trying to be nothing more than a sophomoric horror spoof. It has a seventies feel to it though it was made in 1983. The scary moments are non-existent. What do we get: roly-poly Jackie Vernon quipping wisecracks as he searches for dinner and a date all in one. Vernon is just, well, there. He quite honestly doesn't have much of a movie presence, but he can deliver his lines - if you can be more unlike me and get past the voice of Frosty the Snowman swearing and having his way with a prostitute and even stuffing a turkey. The gal that plays his wife is amusing if nothing else, and the rest of the cast could be extras on Lost for all we know/care. There are a few exceptions because the film has liberal doses of gratuitous nudity - no more eye-popping then the opening with the knothole girl. A real looker and possibly the high point of this film. More is the pity. that being said; however, Microwave Massacre is watchable - even again in the next decade possibly. seeing Vernon act is intriguing as we have little of him in film(I wonder why?). You could definitely do a lot worse than this. I have seen horror films that made my eyes glaze over from boredom and wished/willed my fingers to pass the fast forward. This strangely enough for me was not one of those times.

Construction worker Donald (Jackie Vernon) is having a hard time getting anything good to eat since his wife has decided to only cook gourmet foods. That and her constant harping cause him to snap, and he whacks her. Somewhere in the confusion he comes up with a new use for the microwave oven, and begins to eat much better. Soon he's experimenting with different recipes. And different meats.

AllMovie wrote, "Despite utterly failing as comedy, horror and pornography, Microwave Massacre is grotesque enough in design and attitude to be fascinating, much like a car accident." That summary is perfect. "Microwave Massacre" is bad in almost every way, especially Vernon's acting. But there are some funny scenes and jokes that make it worthwhile. The drive-through scene is especially humorous, and for those who know Vernon mostly as Frosty the Snowman's voice, this will twist what you think of Frosty.

Now, maybe not too much should be expected for a film with a budget under $100,000. But it does make for interesting shooting techniques -- saving money by using Mickey Dolenz's house as a set, and having Robert Burns (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) do art direction for only $1,000. Burns, who also appears as a homeless man, was referred to the film by no less a figure than Wes Craven. So that might make this film's background a bit more interesting...

The producers originally wanted Rodney Dangerfield, but ended up with Jackie Vernon. His acting is awful, and actually the worst thing about the film, but he does offer a few ad libs. Would Dangerfield have been better? Yes, no doubt. Luckily, the other actors -- especially the two construction workers -- are excellent actors. Except, of course, this only further points out how bad Vernon is.

How this has become a "cult classic" is beyond me. Is it the gratuitous addition of topless women? Is it Jackie Vernon? Or is it one of those so-bad-it's-good types of things? I love bad movies as much as anyone, but for me this really is not one of the great forgotten gems.

Regardless, Arrow Video has done what they do best and put their heart and soul into making this as good as it can be. There is a brand new 2K restoration from the original camera negative, which looks pretty good for such a low budget film. There is a brand new audio commentary with writer-producer Craig Muckler, moderated by Mike Tristano, with plenty of stories about Wes Craven, "Phantasm", Jill Schoelen, "Creature From the Black Lagoon" and more. This is really the best part of the disc. (Because Muckler has certain phrases he uses a lot, the commentary would make a great drinking game.) Lastly, we have "My Microwave Massacre Memoirs" a new making-of featurette including interviews with Muckler, director Wayne Berwick and actor Loren Schein. Although brief, it does expound on Muckler's commentary a bit and is worth a watch.

I was lucky enough to have a "mom and pop" video shop in my hometown growing up that had movies like this and "Jailbait Babysitter" among its horror selections. My brother and I have been using the phrase "Gourmet Cuisine", pronounced "goreMET Cuezine" ever since we first saw it. The acting is ridiculously bad, and read in a very deadpan way. I think John Waters shows this one when he wants to provide direction to actors. If you are renting a movie titled "Microwave Massacre" hopefully it means A)you have a campy appreciation for bad movies, or B) You are so stupid that title actually might mean a quality film to you. In either situation, you won't be disappointed. This is so bad it transcends! Check it out if you want to see something, er, unique and stupidly funny!

This movie simply sucks.

Everything about this movie is incredibly bad. Well, not all the camera work, I guess. But the rest. ALL the rest.

Nothing makes much sense or seems natural. The jokes range from stupid to extremely stupid, and none are funny at all. The acting (acting?) is bad, and not in a funny way. Every scene seems to be the first take. Some of the scenes are way too long, so that the dialogue comes off as even worse and more unnatural than it could have been, with just a few cuts. The dialogue is atrocious.

If this movie was filmed all in one take, with no professional actors, heck, no professionals what so ever, and no script, all improvised, then I would maybe forgive it.

The best thing about this stinker is the topless women. But even that comes with a bad aftertaste, as all the women are there just to be sexy. They are pretty hot, but come on. This is clearly from another time, when sexism wasn't much of a subject.

Had this movie been entertaining I would have given it a higher score. I don't do the 'so-bad-it's-good'-thing. If a movie is "bad", but still entertains me, I think it's good. But this crappy s**t is not entertaining. It's a total fail.

The short run time is the only reason I finished watching it, it's 1 hour 16 minutes. With about 2 minutes of credits. But I had to take some breaks. I think it's one of the worst movies I've seen.

Stand up comedian and sometime actor Jackie Vernon had his last movie role in this laugh riot camp horror film. Jackie plays Donald, a construction worker whose wife May (Claire Ginsberg) is trying to get him to eat her experimental dinners. She does this supposedly for his own good, and does it with the assistance of her microwave oven (a real gargantuan artifact). Finally, he can take no more of her nagging and, in a drunken rage, bludgeons her to death with a salt grinder. He comes to realize that he likes the taste of human flesh, so goes out and kills more people to feed his newfound appetites.

Written and produced by Craig Muckler and Thomas Singer, and directed by Wayne Berwick, "Microwave Massacre" is a pretty tasty morsel when it comes to horror comedy. It's full of utter ridiculousness, and absurd dialogue, not to mention some deliciously tacky gore effects and one utterly priceless severed head. The amusingly deadpan Vernon alternates between being sincere, and letting the audience in on the joke by breaking the fourth wall. His interactions with victims and other characters are a joy to behold. We have a hooker named Dee Dee Dee (Lou Ann Webber), a psychiatrist (John Harmon, who'd acted for director Berwicks' father Irvin in things like "The Monster of Piedras Blancas" and "Malibu High"), a doctor with the childish moniker of Von Der Fool (Ed Thomas), a hottie foreigner (Anna Marlowe) who makes a living dancing in a chicken costume, Donalds' fellow construction workers Roosevelt (Loren Schein) and Philip (Al Troupe), and Sam (Phil De Carlo), a grumpy bartender who doesn't want to hear his patrons' sob stories. Ginsberg is perfect as the kind of nagging wife that would drive any husband mad.

This movie keeps coming up with enough wacky and irreverent shtick to sustain it through a very reasonable one hour 17 minutes run time. Just don't expect to see the title appliance come into play all THAT often while it plays out.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm so hungry I could eat a whore.

Seven out of 10.

This movie is wrong on so many levels. "Microwave Massacre" is totally absurd and amateurish nonsense that doesn't feature anyone or anything that makes the slightest bit of sense. Some crazy friends presumably gathered together a couple of hundred bucks and decided to make their own movie. But instead of a spirited B-movie homage or creative gore flick – like, say, "The Evil Dead" or "The Dead Next Door" – this is just a load of embarrassing and irritating rubbish. I sincerely hope that everyone who was even distantly involved in the production of this film still thinks back about this little escapade with shame. The terribly annoying construction worker Donald, who loves old-fashioned baloney and cheese sandwiches, is depressed because his wife just bought a gigantic microwave and now just exclusively serves disgusting experimental TV-dishes. One drunken night, Donald just can't take it anymore. He kills the wife and microwaves her body parts into meat sandwiches. Donald quickly turns towards killing younger girls, as he craves for flesh that is less sturdy to consume. Can't blame him for that. "Microwave Massacre" is a slapstick comedy instead of a cheap horror tribute. Tiny little problem, however, is that the film isn't funny at all. The continuously bad jokes are only interfered to show random sleazy footage and overlong boring monologues. The acting is unbearable and the "gore" is pathetic. There are certain things in life which I'll never understand, like The Pythagorean Theorem and a handful of quantum physics formulas, but I've learned to accept that. Something I cannot and do not want to understand, though, is how this piece of crap can possibly have such a loyal fan base.

Ladies and gentlemen here it is...the worst horror movie ever made! The genius behind this movie is that it is literally so utterly terrible, that it's good! This film NEVER takes itself too seriously, just look at who is playing the lead character...Frosty the Snowman himself Mr. Jackie Vernon (or as he is more commonly known old "Mush Mouth") How can anyone be terrified by this man? This film has some of the tackiest, most outlandish scenes ever recorded on film. From the outrageous scene at the fast-food drive in to the woman being placed between 2 of the largest slices of bread I have ever seen! The acting is awful, the effects are hideous and the jokes are lame but all of this adds to the chaotic fun that is known as "Microwave Massacre". You have been warned, this is the most awesomely bad movie in cinema history...but also the most fun...watch it with some sort of chemical assistance, trust me it helps!

Microwave Massacre (1979) is a movie I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a simple construction worker who one day discovers he likes the taste of human meat and decides to share his discovery indiscreetly with everyone he knows. This movie is directed by Wayne Berwick (The Naked Monster) and stars Jackie Vernon (Frosty the Snowman), Anna Marlowe (Beyond Evil), Aaron Koslow (The Zodiac Killer) and John Harmon (King of the Underworld). The storyline for this doesn't take itself too seriously and is a fun watch for horror movie fans. The scenarios and dialogue throughout are creative and hilarious. I loved the opening scene with the hole in the wall and there's a good use of nudity in this, but the sex scenes not so much lol (purposely not good). Overall this is an entertaining horror parody that is unique for its time and fun for the viewers. I'd score this a 7/10 and recommend seeing it at least once.

Filmed several years ago and finally emerging as a homevideo release, "Microwave Massacre" is an amateurish comedy dwelling on cannibalism in its lampooning of gory horror films. Vaguely resembling the spoof-of-a-spoof "Please Don't Eat My Mother" (a takeoff on "Little Shop of Horrors" made a decade earlier), this film is suited for fanciers of grotesque black humor only.

Standup comic Jackie Vernon toplines as a mild construction worker Donald, engaged in Bickersons-style arguments with his stout wife May (Claire Ginsberg), especially over her penchant for inedible gourmet repasts prepared in her large microwave oven. In a rage, he kills her, and cuts the body into pieces (including a very cheap plaster head) and stores them neatly wrapped in aluminum foil with the frozen meat.

When Donald accidentally nibbles on one of his wife's hands for a midnight snack, he discovers he likes the taste and begins cooking the human flesh in the microwave, sharing the results at lunch with his friendly co-workers. Now, a bachelor again, he starts picking up pretty girls, but ends up killing them while having sex and eating the corpses.

Filmmaker Wayne Berwick, Thomas Singer and Craig Muckler overplay this material for cheap laughs, with mugging actors including the usual deadpan Vernon. Gore is very fake-looking, aiming at viewers laughing at the production rather than being outraged by realism. Emphasizing vulgar gags and slowing down dialog delivery results in an embarrassing, generally unfunny exercise, punctuated by the usual quota of female nude shots.

Budget is microscopic, with passable technical credits. In explaining Donald's final comeuppance (yes, even in amoral farragoes such as this there lurks some form of retribution), picture briefly intimates a supernatural element, but this is not enough to attract the interest of traditional horror film fans.

My review was written after watching the film on a Midnight videocassette.

For what it could have been, "Microwave Massacre" is a big disappointment. While digestible, it's just a bunch of empty calories. Jackie Vernon sleepwalks through his role spouting sub-par Henny Youngman one-liners as he kills women to feed himself and his co-workers. It's like he was pumped on Benadryl before the cameras rolled. As for the rest of the film, it goes by at a fair pace, although a good 15-20 minutes could have hit the editing room floor to no detrimental effect. Filmed for apparently whatever the cast could find in the couch cushions and in the ashtrays of their 1970's autos, this film isn't terribly bad, just doesn't offer enough to make it memorable after the ending credits, like chewing on a piece of celluloid gristle.

Poorly made black comedy is made watchable by lead actor Jackie Vernon. Overworked and under appreciated Vernon is sick of his wife's awful microwave cooking and decides to cook and eat her instead. He then gets his friends hooked on his new delicious meat and then has to find new sources of meat. There's enough gratuitous nudity and gore here to satisfy your Herschell Gordon Lewis itch, but stick with Paul Bartel's "Eating Raoul" if you want an actually funny and clever cannibal themed comedy. Still, I did get two-stars worth of entertainment out of this film due to the main character being played by the same actor who voiced the kind and magical Frosty the Snowman in the classic Rankin/Bass Christmas TV special. Frosty eating people is pretty funny.

I thought, when I bought this, 'hmm, this looks interesting.' The idea of a comedy with someone microwaving women and eating them sounds quite interesting, it's just to bad that it's really badly, written, acted, shot, directed, etc. it's just full of cheesy sleazy stuff but the whole thing is done to cheaply, if they had put some money into some nice gory effects this might have been quite entertaining to the gore conasour. But unfortunatly the only thing that you have to entertain you is the humour, which is very base but occationally funny. It certainly wasn't worth the £15 that I paid for it, except for the fact I don't think I'll ever see another copy of it again, and a re-release looks very unlikely, thank god! Very bad taste but it doesn't manage to make it work in a good way. 3/10

Grab a mate, something to drink and eat and enjoy the hilarity of this movie. From the moment I found this movie and added it to my watchlist, I never expected anything more than a trashy and bad forgotten movie. Well, I'm so glad I was wrong, because "Microwave Massacre" is for it's relatively low budget very competently made movie with unbelievably smart and funny remarks from our cynical and hilarious protagonist. There is also a decent amount of nudity in this movie and all of it is high quality nudity for such a relatively low budget movie! All in all, if you like over the top humour and are not offended by unsophisticated content (violence, nudity), you won't go wrong with this one! 6.5/10! I recommend it to all the fans of the genre or anyone with open mind looking for a laugh!

Poor Donald. Hates his wife's cooking...so he cooks her in the biggest microwave on the planet and accidentally eats her. Finding he likes her "good taste" he starts picking up hot chicks and baking and eating them. Jackie Vernon (voice of Frosty the Snowman) is the sexually perverted cannibal. Played strictly for laughs. The humor is hilariously stupid...and obviously done with a constant wink. Plenty of gratuitous nudity and cheesy effects. A 70's disco soundtrack just adds to the good time cheesiness. A few scenes still make me laugh out loud. A couple of beers (or whatever is your preference) can only add to the enjoyment. Just a whole lotta fun!

If benny hill made a horror film it would be this.

A man is sick of the bad food his wife keeps making him so he kills her and then he microwaves her ,cuts her wraps her up in tin foil and then sticks her in the freezer with the other food.

One day the food in the freezer gets mixed up and he ends up eating his dead wifes hand by accident.. he discovers that he actully enjoys it. He then goes on a killing spree to find younger human meat to microwave.

Funny film , Bad effects ,great acting mixed with chessy acting it all reminded me of benny hill jokes with a hint of laural and hardy Well worth a watch Great Comedy horror.

Yes, this movie is really horrible. Really really bad. The main man reminds me of Rodney Dangerfield who has taken too many sleeping pills. This guy is totally out of it the entire time, he can barely keep his eyes open. But he has that cute little New England accent and body build that ol' Rod has. Made me wanna jump around and hit stuff.

My favorite character is definitely the Black buddy of our main man. This guy is so weird. First of all, we are introduced to him trying to snap to a beat. He can't do it, he doesn't understand how you "feel the music". From then on, the guy's lines are delivered like he is reading them very slowly and articulately, straight from the page. He pronounces every word like he's trying to sound really smart. But the thing is, he is saying very dumb things. So it makes a great contrast that leaves you a little confused as to what this guy's deal is. He was the only possible thing in this movie that allowed me to enjoy myself.

The rest of the movie is so dumb - pure idiocy. Brainless idiocy. The giant microwave is pretty sweet, though. I have never seen such a huge microwave.

Honestly, I didn't think the wife deserved to die. She might have been a bad cook, but she was kind of funny and seemed at least a little nice. It's the husband that was the big jerk. The big idiot. Why would anyone care that they can't pick up their food with their hands? I thought that spinach dish looked pretty good, myself. haha

2/10 - worth seeing only if you're really bored.