"Director Coleman Francis uses edits like blunt instruments. He uses blunt instruments like blunt instruments. His major themes are death, hatefulness, death, pain, and death...He hurts us and I want him to know it, except if he's still alivenote Kevin has nothing to worry about since Coleman Francis went to that big movie studio in the sky in 1973, because there's the small chance that he's still strong enough to crush my windpipe with his bare hands."
"Any discussion of Red Zone Cuba would be remiss without a mention of its writer, director, and star, Coleman Francis, who's also singlehandedly responsible for two other cinematic abominations, The Beast of Yucca Flats and The Skydivers. (...) Probability dictates that every now and then, a totally clueless director like Hal Warren or TonyMalanowski might punch through and end up making one of the worst movies ever just by pure chance, but to make three of them clearly requires active hatred towards paying audiences."
Bookends - Almost certainly unintentional, but his first film, The Beast of Yucca Flats starts with Lanell Cado's character being killed by the mutated Dr. Javorsky, and his last film, Red Zone Cuba ends with another character played by Cado being wounded in a shoot-out.
Cameo - Anthony Cardoza, Coleman's financier and producer, appears in every one of his films. Additionally, quite a few of the extras in The Skydivers are all members of Coleman's and Cardoza's extended families.
Francis himself narrates Beast, appears as a gunman at the end of Skydivers, is the gas station attendant and newspaper buyer in Beast, and plays the lead in Cuba—a performance only enjoyable due to his physical resemblance to Curly Howard.
Dull Surprise - A disease endemic among Coleman Francis' casts.
Fanservice: Coleman Francis makes sure large breasts are thrust into the camera Once per Episode. Not that the male viewers object, mind you.
Fauxlosophic Narration - The narrator from Beast of Yucca Flats. Red Zone Cuba also experiences this at the very end when, out of nowhere, a voiceover suddenly says "Griffin. Ran all the way to hell with a penny, and a broken cigarette."
Reportedly, "Beast" ended up this way because all the audio was accidentally erased after filming. It is more likely that it was filmed without dialog, however.
Leave the Camera Running - Used far too many times to count - the scene where Griffin tries to put up the roof of the convertible in Red Zone Cuba comes to mind.
Servo: "Ok, I'm just a bush, you can pan away from me now."
Motifs - Coffee, death, cigarettes, terrible depressing tragedy, light aircraft, Tony Cardoza, people getting shot from light aircraft, the Yucca Mountain, women getting brutalized and vigilante justice.
Prop Recycling - Alleged actor Eric "I like coffee!" Tomlin's white Ford Ranchero appears in both Yucca Flats and Skydivers.
In Red Zone Cuba, the above-mentioned convertible shows up again later (this time with its top up) as a police car.
Women in Refrigerators - Only three female characters survive to the end of a Coleman Francis movie. One is raped and left blind and deaf, without any means of support; the second is widowed and lives the rest of her life as a depressed hermit. The last one is left with a husband who's been winged with a bullet by a gun-crazy policeman and two sons who were nearly killed by the Beast.
Malanowski
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