Reflections on ... The Wild World of Batwoman (1966)

 

Recently watched: The Wild World of Batwoman (1966). Tagline: “A Thrill-cade of Excitement! Roaring through the city streets into Wildville!” 

Look, I have a high (possibly masochistic) tolerance for terrible films. In fact, I have a twisted affection for them. Give me a The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962) or I Eat Your Skin (1971), and I’m transfixed. But The Wild World of Batwoman defeated even me. Its duration is a mere one hour and six minutes, and yet somehow it felt like three numbing hours long. IMDb gives up on even attempting a synopsis: “The pointlessly named Batwoman and her bevy of Batmaidens fight evil and dance.” (Rotten Tomatoes makes more of an effort: “A busty vampire needs a scientist's atomic bomb, made from a hearing aid, to save a comrade”).  Opportunistic hack director Jerry Warren clearly aimed to exploit the popularity of the campy Batman TV series. When they legally threatened him over copyright infringement, Warren simply re-titled it She Was a Hippy Vampire. 

Anyway, the titular Batwoman (ineptly played by Katherine Victor) is a tired looking middle-aged woman in an exploding punk fright wig, Halloween mask and dominatrix outfit. She’s also a crime-fighting vampire ruling over a bevy of groovy “Bat Chicks” who are forever breaking into frantic go-go dancing. (Are they doing the Frug? The Watusi? The Jerk? I couldn’t tell you).  The ensuing wacky hi-jinks are utterly incomprehensible. To add to the confusion, Warren also pads-out the action by splicing in footage from The Mole People (1956), an entirely different film.  

The naïve kitschy tone has its appeal. There’s some decent twang-y garage rock music. The Wild World of Batwoman would inevitably be more tolerable broken into chunks on something like Elvira’s Movie Macabre or Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Anyway, I stuck it out to the bitter end. I defy you to the do the same! The Wild World of Batwoman (viewable on YouTube) is routinely described as one of the worst films ever made – find out why!