| This intellectual guy yammers on for about five minutes until the viewer just can't take it anymore! |
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The ideal way to give legitimacy to a film with a race of fanatical subterranean super-honkeys, rubber-suited mole men and a flashlight for special effects is to have a legit smarty pants provide a brief history lesson. Actual college professor Dr. Frank C. Baxter speaks of the unexplored state of the earth’s crust, ancient underworld folklore and even some theories that have been espoused about a hollow planet.
“The More You Know™”...
| This guy reads an ancient tablet so easily, you'd think it was a Waffle House menu... |
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Now that the lecture’s over, the story begins in Asia, probably the Himalayas or whatever. Archaelogists conveniently find a stone tablet with Sumerian cuneiform scribbled on it. Our resident genius starts reading it aloud when an earthquake strikes. Later, some brat finds an crusty oil lamp shaped like the Ark, with inscriptions detailing the Sumerian version of the global flood, making mention of a mountain named Kuitaara, where survivors allegedly settled. The team packs up their beef jerky, banana chips and gatorade and starts hikin’ through the mountains, unhindered by the abominable snowman, who flat-out refused to show up in such a low budget film. They set up camp, endure a nearby avalanche, hike, get re-avalanched, find a cheap stage-prop arm in the snow, and keep on hiking...
| Ancient temple in da Himalayas |
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They finally happen upon a Sumerian temple, they don’t really celebrate, but boy do they ever get down — down a crack in the surface of the rock! Having climbed down, a party of three explorers traverse through a tunnel, but they’re not alone! They discover an ancient city deep underground, lay down for a snooze and get pulled underneath the sand (to a holding cell) by MOLE MEN! They’re escorted from their igneous walls by some silent guards to a crowded temple room where they meet the king and Elinu the high priest of Ishtar, who are uncertain whether they’re evil spirits or mortals.
| King Cracker sez, “You’s gotta die now!” |
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A sentence of death is pronounced upon them. Though outnumbered, they escape into the tunnels. When the oldster falls down, they shine their flashlight in the eyes of the guards, who lose their freakin’ minds and run off like a bunch of chicken babies. Having gained an upper hand thanks to the energizer bunny, they chase their oppressors back to the throne room and zap the authority figures with sweet, sweet incandescence until they flee.
| Adad, the servant girl. Noble and kind but clueless and silly |
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Now free to explore, the men witness a labor camp where exploited mole-men are getting beating by guards. Pursued by the guards AND the mole-men, the flashlight jams - and one of the men are killed by laser-sharp mole-man claws. The high priest soon approaches them on peaceful terms, since they’ve got that bad-ass flashlight and them crackers just can’t handle it! At a feast, the king asks a stupid question and the explorers play along, earning them the royal treatment — free mushrooms and a down-trodden servant girl (Adad) who Dr. Rogers takes a liking to. The rulers show disdain for her - because she’s too dark - but they REALLY throw hate on the mole-men!
| If your job is stealing flashlights... you need a new freakin' job! |
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The jerky priest is keepin’ an eye on them — he’s gettin’ all salty because the king views the men as messengers of Ishtar, and it’s HIS job to curry the favor of imaginary Babylonian goddesses, thank you very little. He wants to get his grimy paws on the magical flashlight so he can be the bossman! Too bad his lackey is too slow to snitch the light. The leaders finally ask for the flashlight directly, wanting to use it to squash a mole-man rebellion.
The scientists develop compassion for the starved and beaten mole-men. When the captain of the guards is moled to death, three innocent mole-men are being whipped to death before Roger and Jud step in with the flashlight, which finally dies after the guards run off crying. The bumpy-headed rascals show some appreciation and disappear in the dark.
| Opening the door to the “Fire of Ishtar” |
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With the kingdom’s mushroom supply in decline, the king decides to sacrifice some of his own people to the “fire of Ishtar”. Three gullible devotees are burned to the crisp. The guards also find the corpse of the missing scientist, buried in the tunnels, removing all doubt that these visitors are just mortals and not divine messengers — it’s on now!
| The scientists have been drugged with poison mushrooms |
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Being the wimps they are, they poison the men with bad mushrooms and get their mitts on that ‘all-powerful flashlight’. Adad runs to the mole-men for help — Roger and Jud are thrown into the fire of Ishtar as the mole-men rise up from the sand to battle the king and his guards in one final smackdown. The flashlight’s dead battery seals the fate of the leaders, whose guards can’t stand up against the mole-men’s strength and numbers. Adad gets mole-men’s help opening the death chamber’s door and we realize the “fire” is only regular sunlight, harmful to mole and albino alike.
| Resident genius Adad after intentionally pinning herself under a giant stone column. Grrl... how u b so stupid??? |
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The very moment the crew makes it to safety, the vast underground cavern collapses during an earthquake. That ditzy Adad had expressed her desire to escape with them, however, she uses her newly found freedom to thrust herself under a falling temple column. We suspect that, in the director’s cut, she performed this idiotic stunt shortly after shrieking, “YOLO!”.
