Meatloaf Monster

The Godmonster of Indian Flats (1973) is neither. He/she/its an 8-foot mutant sheep born of the poisonous mustard-colored gas seeping from Virginia City’s old mine outside of Reno, Nevada, The Biggest Little City In The World™. (The have loose craps there.)

The town’s historical/hysterical mayor wants to capture the misshapen creature and sell tickets to see this “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Hello — King Kong™ already owns that title, dumbass.

Professor Clemens and his plain-as-paint assistant Mariposa want to study the creature. Eddie, a down-on-his-luck shepherd, is standing by as he was the one who found the beast when it was just the size of a glistening meatloaf, claiming ownership. And Godmonster, kept in a glass incubator with mustard-colored gas being pumped in, grows about a foot a day. In height, not as in needing an extra shoe.

Unfortunately, most of the movie is spent on an African-American real estate broker who is looking to buy the old mine for his clients, but meets resistance from the town’s old school ways. Mayor Silverdale is a racist and sets up Barnstable (the real estate dude — awful name) for a crime he didn’t commit just so he and his cronies can hunt it down and throw an old fashioned Texas necktie party.

But Godmonster will not stand for such social prejudices. Breaking out of his confines, he shambles across the land, looking like the world’s most disgusting laundry basket with an oatmeal face. Mariposa, who raised him from the toaster oven, tracks the butt-ugly beast in hopes of convincing it to return to the lab. Of the numerous you-gotta-be-kidding-me scenes, it’s the one where Mariposa starts dancing with Godmonster as she tries to calm him down. Where’s mustard-colored gas when you need it?

Two more scenes of mess destruction occur when the creature crashes a little girl’s outdoor birthday party, resulting in the dropping of hot dog and the scattering of potato chip. The second one is slightly more graphic, and ends with a gas station being blown up. If you’re gonna roast hot dogs, now would be the time to do it. 

Eventually GM is surrounded by cowboys on horseback, hog-tied and put on display for profit. As Mayor Silverdale whips the crowd into a frenzy, they turn on him — and Godmonster, too. Guilt by association. Apparently, the slow-leaking gas affects humans just as much. Think of it as farting times a million.

Godmonster, caught in the middle of it all, ends up in the garbage dump. All he wanted to do was rock hard and ride free, but The Man wouldn’t let him. I think there is a lesson to be learned here. If only I knew what it was.