DESCRIPTION

The Beast of Yucca Flats is a B horror film released in 1961. The film starred Swedish former wrestler Tor Johnson and was both written and directed by Coleman Francis. This film was featured on the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000. Some critics have characterized this film as one of the worst sci-fi films of all time, even suggesting that it may be more poorly conceived and executed than Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space.The film opens with an unnamed woman being strangled after finishing a shower. The purpose of the scene is unclear, although the actor portraying the murderer was doubling for Johnson's character. This scene is followed by Joseph Javorsky (Tor Johnson), a noted Soviet scientist, arriving in Yucca Flat in the United States after defecting. Javorsky is carrying a briefcase with various military secrets; the film's narrator (Coleman Francis) alludes to information about a Soviet moon landing specifically.As Javorsky disembarks from his plane, he and his American contacts are attacked by a pair of KGB assassins (Anthony Cardoza and John Morrison). While the Americans stay to fight off the KGB agents, Javorsky flees into the desert, walking for (presumably) a great distance, and removing much of his clothing. Too late, it is revealed that he has wandered in range of an American nuclear test. The radiation transforms Javorsky into a mindless beast (the Beast). He proceeds to kill a couple in their car on a nearby road, prompting pursuit from two police officers named Jim Archer (Bing Stafford) and Joe Dobson (Larry Aten).Meanwhile, a vacationing family ventures along the same road. After stopping at a service station to feed soda to pigs in a pen, the family's two young sons (Ronald and Alan Francis) wander off into the wastelands where they eventually encounter and escape from the Beast. Their father (Douglas Mellor) searches for them, but is mistaken for the killer by one of the police officers, searching for the murderer from the air in a small plane. The officer opens fire on the innocent man, who escapes after being repeatedly shot.Eventually the family is reunited and the police shoot and kill the Beast. A wild rabbit appears and nuzzles the Beast's lifeless body.