Showing posts with label monster march. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monster march. Show all posts

Mar 16, 2020

MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961)


When you hear someone refer to movies as "magic," titles like Mysterious Island are what they mean. As children, our imaginations are enormous, and they exist without shame or fear of embarrassment. Whether it was a horde of plastic army men doing battle against Godzilla, Frankenstein, or a handful of troll dolls (you played with trolls and combed their hair, admit it), a conflict was always present. There was a threat that always needed eradication, or a problem that needed resolution. And our limitless childhood imagination always found a way to solve that problem, and that resolution usually came about in the most unexpected way. For most of us unlucky souls, that imagination shed as we aged, making room for social pressures, fear, and this terrible ailment called adulthood. But some of us grasped at this imagination with a vice-like grip, managing to drag it with us into the ether. Ray Harryhausen, a man who needs absolutely no Wiki look-up in the presence of cinephiles, is one of those lucky few. Probably the most celebrated special effects man in the history of film, his contributions to cinema have been the stuff of legacy. He proved how someone could make so much with so little. To watch 1961's Mysterious Island with 2016 cynicism is to undo everything that Harryhausen and director Cy Endfield wanted to accomplish, and with the most pure of intentions: to entertain, enthrall - to transport their audiences to a faraway land filled with adventure, danger, and camaraderie. 2016 eyes would laugh 1961 effects off the screen. They would howl as they watched someone do battle with a giant plastic crab.

And that's a damn shame.


Based on the celebrated novel "series" from author Jules Verne, this adaptation of Mysterious Island tends to wander away from its source material, most notably during its second act, but I don't think anyone would find offense at the notion that it's the creations by Ray Harryhausen which transcend Mysterious Island from movie to magic. Whether you were a kid during the 1960s, the 1990s, or the right-nows, with the right mindset Mysterious Island entertains with its creations, its illusions, and its sense of exotic and tropical danger. That the admittedly very archaic special effects are still celebrated today, having captivated the likes of John Carpenter, Sam Raimi, and Martin Scorsese, speaks volumes about the level of ingenuity on display.

Newbie parents are quick to stock their ottomans with DVDs for Disney films, adventures with the Muppets, and a few random titles from their own childhood, but it would behoove them all to include titles like Mysterious Island. Before their children's minds are eventually oversaturated with the most cutting edge, reality-defying CGI, their exposure to things of such wonder and magic won't just infatuate their imaginations, but enhance them. Mysterious Island is a fun film, and an example of allowing spectacle to overtake its story in order to thrill their audience and transport them to another world. 

Mar 15, 2020

SQUIRM (1976)

 

Here's something I never thought I'd say: this killer worm film needed more killer worms (finale notwithstanding). 

Still, it's a rarity when you can watch a film that's been skewered by the MST3K crew, but without MST3K, and still have a moderately enjoyable time. (Have you tried watching Manos: The Hands of Fate or Santa Claus Conquers the Martians without them? Terrible.)

The thing about Squirm is that it has killer worms. These worms can crawl out from nowhere--your egg cream, your shower head, your old neighbor's chest/stomach/entire body--and they will horrify you. All they want to do is get in your brain and make you act like a worm, aka, kind of a dick. 


Squirm was the first of only five films (so far) by celebrated cult director Jeff Lieberman (his best, Blue Sunshine, still remains his most underseen), but was a pretty telling sign of things to come in his filmography--first and foremost, a dedication to and passion for the horror genre, with an emphasis on thrills more visceral than psychological. Lieberman deserves a lot of credit for saying, aloud, "I want to make a film about killer worms," and managing to find a whole crew of people willing to go along with that. I think it goes without saying that Squirm isn't a "good" film, but it's certainly an entertaining one, containing a detectable amount of charm, strengthened by the filmmaker's pragmatic attempt at maintaining a certain air of sincerity amidst all the silliness. The added implication that one character becomes infested with and subsequently possessed by some pissed-off worms definitely adds an understandably surprising layer to an already silly film.

If I really wanted to stick my head all the way up my ass, I suppose I could begin philosophizing on the intention behind the character of Mick, scarlet-lettered with the label "city boy," bussing into the sticks to visit his Georgian girlfriend at the same time the worms get electrocuted and start going crazy. What, exactly, is Lieberman trying to say with that aspect? Will the merging of sensibilities between north and south threaten the destruction of the union? Hasn't that...already happened? Is Lieberman trying to say it could very well happen again?

I mean, it probably could, but no. Just focus on the killer worms. They get in your brain and make you act like a worm. I'm 95% certain that's all that was intended.























































Mar 14, 2020

ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES (1978)

 

Seeing Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is like a rite of passage. It's also one of the dumbest movies you will ever see, which obviously makes up most of its charm. Mostly a spoof of the radioactive scare films from the ‘50s that saw insects or animals growing many times its size and going after all the pretty blondes on the beach, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes hedges most of its bets on comedy (because, come on, not a single one of our celebrated horror directors could make mutant tomatoes scary). Depending on your sensibilities, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes offers an extremely polarizing experience, with viewers easily existing either in the love-it or hate-it camps. It doesn’t leave a whole lot of ground for the in-betweeners. Yet, somehow, that’s where I stand.

The comedy in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes vies for Naked Gun, and sometimes it’s successful, but other times it results in something akin to Epic Movie — awkward, unfunny gags that play out far longer than we could ever want. And, sometimes, it’s…a little racist, such as the Japanese doctor being purposely overdubbed by an “American” voice, who in one scene accidentally knocks a framed photo of the U.S.S. Arizona into a fish tank. And then, out of nowhere, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes will tread that line of pure absurdism; example: the only way to kill the marauding mutant tomatoes is by playing them the newest hit single, “Puberty Love,” which is as poorly performed as you can imagine. Because of this, the film makes for a hodgepodge of different comedic styles, some of which gels, and some of which doesn’t.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes boasts an innovative DIY aesthetic that’s to be absolutely commended, and it must've done something right, considering this goofball film is still being talked about to this day. It also boasts THREE sequels (one titled Killer Tomatoes Eat France! and one that stars a pre-fame George Clooney) and an animated television series. When a film’s a hit, it’s a hit, regardless if that success is mainstream or cult. To make something that stands the test of time is something most filmmakers could ever hope for, and — like it or not — Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is still with us.

Mar 12, 2020

TREMORS 6: A COLD DAY IN HELL (2018)


Ever since the screenwriters of the original Tremors, S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, left the series following the direct-to-video Tremors 4: The Legend Begins, the Tremors series hasn’t felt remotely like it used to. It’s still surprising to me that a modestly successful film from 1990 about a series of prehistoric, blind, and carnivorous worms living in the desert of Arizona was a concept ripe enough for exploration in FIVE more films, but, if a horror franchise has legs, it will never go away. 

And if you think Tremors 6: A Cold Day in Hell will be the last word on the subject — even if it’s the worst entry so far —  think again.


Despite the series going direct to video immediately with its first sequel, Tremors II: Aftershocks, it managed to maintain at least the spirit of the original along with its sense of fun, if not its magic. It goes without saying that every sequel to follow isn’t a patch on the original, but Tremors II: Aftershocks, Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, and Tremors 4: The Legend Begins at least felt like they belonged to each other, even with the fourth film being a prequel that had Michael Gross playing an old West descendant of Burt Gummer. Tremors 6, basically Tremors 5: Bloodlines – Part 2, continues the wrongheadedness of the series by maintaining Burt’s clearly Ash-inspired irascibility and pomposity and, regrettably, keeping Jamie Kennedy’s generic son character in tow. In fact, Gross has taken Burt’s sheer unlikability to new heights — no longer just a gun-toting but lovably conservative cartoon, he’s actually downright unpleasant, barking orders and hurling insults with such forcefulness that first-time viewers to this series would wrongly assume this is what made the character so popular: being an asshole. (Burt's journey to obtaining full Ash is now complete.)

To its credit, Tremors 6 stretches its budget as much as it possibly can, keeping the Graboids and Assblasters off screen for most of the running time, instead relying on air pistons firing cascading dirt into the air or feigning shaking sets as a John Williams JAWS theme-like sign of their unseen presence. And when the prehistorics do make their appearance, the CGI is very okay — somewhere between Weta and Sharknado. Storywise, it also tries out a couple new twists in an effort to keep things feeling fresh, even if it removes a major character from the finale, rendering it a little toothless. (And finding a way to shoehorn in a character who is supposed to be the daughter of Kevin Bacon’s Val from the original film not only reeks of fan service but it’s utterly unrealistic. The script also finds ways to make jokes about how Val is/was a terrible father, none of which land.)


Director Don Michael Paul has made a career of helming direct-to-video sequels to Kindergarten Cop, Jarhead, Death Race, and yes, he also made Tremors 5: Bloodlines. His style doesn’t entirely mesh with the aesthetic that the Tremors series has established up to this point, too often relying on handheld camera to up the “tension” — you know, tension in this movie that has monsters called Ass Blasters. Though the tricks used to skirt the budget often are laudable, sometimes, they also show through. (I’m fairly certain the opening sequence that’s set on an icy, snow-covered tundra was actually just filmed in a desert and color-timed to all hell, making the sand look white and the actors look blue.)

Whether you asked for it or not, there’s now a Tremors 6 — aka the prequel to Tremors 7: Shaky Ground, and probably Tremors 8 Everyone. It offers a modicum of mindless entertainment, depending on your patience for insufferable characterization, and I’m actually impressed that a PG-13 movie has this many heads and other body parts strewn all over the ground. Besides, we all know if you bothered to watch every Tremors entry up to this point, you’ll watch this one, too. 

You're part of the problem.

Mar 10, 2020

SLUGS (1988)


Never was a horror movie more deliciously cheesy than it was in the ’80s. To this day, I remain unfulfilled that I didn't come of age during this magical decade of high hair and synthpop, and that I couldn't make trips to the box office every weekend to plunk down my $2 (probably) on a movie ticket for delicious cheese like Slumber Party Massacre, Sleepaway Camp, and Pieces. The lucky film-goers of this era, flying blind on cocaine and Simon Le Bon mini-posters, wouldn’t know how good they had it until it was all over.

The ’80s were a time in which horror movies were allowed to be fun. They were filled with inconsequential characters whose first name you would be hard-pressed to remember as they ran from a killer with a drill, or from an animal/insect gone amok, or from what would turn out to be a twelve-year-old hermaphrodite with a freaky face and a tiny dingle thing. Plots were allowed to be wildly ludicrous and it was OK to ask the audience that they suspend their disbelief, if only for a couple hours. 

Sadly, this period of horror has come to an end, but it’s left in its wake numerous treasures, one of these being the greatest movie of all time to feature an army of slugs destroying the human race asshole by asshole. 

That movie? 

Slugs

Aka:


Yes, Slugs! Look at them! Watch them make merry in your body holes!

The slugs crawl iiinnn, the slugs crawl ooout♫, the slugs get in your body, shoot maggots out your eye, and make your face explode, and all of them are brought to you by Spanish director J.P. Simon, he of Pieces fame and all-around king of "whoops, it sucked!" '80s horror. The fact that a movie exists about killer slugs would be enough, and the fact that it's simply called Slugs is even better, but that its release title in Spain during its run was Muerte Viscosa, which translates to “Viscous Death” (haha), shows that this movie is magical regardless of what part of the universe you're from. The genesis of this production certainly informs the final product — not environmentally so much as aesthetically. The “United Nations” of killer animal movies, Slugs features a very diverse cast of different nationalities, most of whom who were dubbed into English, including one very not-British actor suddenly becoming very British.

The plot is quite simple: a small town becomes overrun with slugs. Not the sticky, slow, undeadly kind, but the sticky, slow, DEADLY kind  — and they eat meat!

These slugs first make their presence known by invading the filth-douched basement of Old Man Trash, which is filled with empty pizza boxes and other rubbish he couldn’t be bothered to, ya know, put in a garbage can. It’s this event which puts these slugs on the radar of the film’s main character and hero, hilariously named Mike Brady. Yes, the city health inspector and 1/9th of a Bunch of Brady’s will be the one in the Roy Scheider role as he tears across town trying to get officials to believe that they have a major shark slug problem on their hands.


There’s so much to love and appreciate about Slugs, and some of it’s not even ironic. Sure, it’s easy to laugh at Don for being married to someone who looks much older than him (that'd be Maria, his motherwife), and it’s especially easy to guffaw when seeing an old man put his hand into a slug-infested glove, shriek, and decide the only way to remove it is to chop off the goddamn with a hatchet. But in the midst of all this madness, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Slugs is actually kind of well made. With this being a product of the late ’80s, practical effects were the name of the game and handily brought the slugs to life, and their victims to death. The gore gags throughout Slugs are hilarious but undeniably effective. Eyeballs hang out of sockets, faces explode, limbs are hacked off — sounds fun, doesn’t it? IT IS.

Adding to Slugs’ enjoyment is the baffling musical score, the themes of which beg comparison to the music often found in instructional videos on how to use the card catalogue, or rejected cues from The A-Team. Some even end in a triumphant crescendo that would normally complement Indiana Jones jumping off a rocky cliff for the just-out-of-reach vine (or something equally exciting), but instead is used to complement a person running hurriedly into a municipal building. Another theme actually utilizes the sad trombone/wahh-wahhhh-waahhhhhh stinger a la bad jokes from ’50s sitcoms and I love it so, so much more than I love you.


Like other films not just in Simon’s career, but general Italian/Spanish/American joint productions from the ’80s and ’90s, there’s a certain hamfistedness to their plots and a definite, tangible awkwardness to their productions. Like many other Spanish and Italian productions from this era, Slugs' cast looped their dialogue during post-production (for the uninitiated reader, it was considered economical to not worry about capturing clean audio while filming; actors rerecorded all their scripted lines during post-production in a sound booth), which offers every movie that employs this tactic a subtle offkilterness that can add either to its dreamy atmosphere (see: Suspiria) or its already cheesy execution (see: everything Lucio Fulci). And this isn’t a case of Spanish actors’ dialogue being replaced by English-speaking voice-over artists. No, English-speaking actors spoke English during their scenes, but then came back to loop their dialogue again anyway — still in English. But really, the why doesn’t matter: it’s the effect that does. And the effect is total joy.

There are different schools of thought as to what makes a bad horror film “so bad it’s good.” Some people claim to watch Uwe Boll films over and over and laugh with glee, which makes zero sense to me, considering his stuff is bottled pain. And that Sharknado nonsense, forget it. That’s not fun. Slugs is fun. Do you know why Slugs is fun? Because Slugs is trying. It’s the ones that try, but fail spectacularly, that bring about the most joy. That’s really the takeaway: you can’t manufacture bad horror without purposely descending into parody, in the same way you can’t set out to produce a film you know will achieve cult status. You — that's the royal you, attentive filmmakers — don’t decide how audiences will react to your film, ironically or otherwise, and you don’t get to decide if audiences — even a small portion of them (read: cult following) — will love and remember your film for decades after you’ve made it. That's up to us, and believe me, we'll let you know.


This is why tripe like Sharknado isn’t just unfun, but poisonous to the genre. Because Sharknado isn’t trying. Sharknado mugs for the camera and demands Twitter ask, “How crazy will this get?” It's the Sci-Fi-Channel-Original-Movie equivalent of reality TV pretending not to make fun of a cast of washed up celebrities (plus John Heard). Sharknado adds Scott Baio, throws a shark up in the air, and calls it clever. But it’s not, because Sharknado isn’t trying. Sharknado is phoning it in.

Slugs is trying. Slugs just wants to be loved. And it will crawl right down your goddamn mouth to prove it.

Real Facts about Slugs:

  • Slugs can stretch to 20 times their normal length and launch themselves into your soup.
  • Slugs can follow their own slime trails from the night before, just like James Franco.
  • Slugs can follow other slug slime trails in order to find a slug sock hop, your butthole, or another social event.
  • Slugs are hermaphrodites and we won't make a joke about that just in case I ever become famous.
  • Slug eggs are in the soil just about everywhere, and also in that brownie you’re crunching.
  • Banana slugs are bright yellow, can grow from 8 to 18 inches, and are absolutely fabulous.
  • There are at least 40 species of slugs in the U.S. and they are all right behind you. 

Mar 9, 2020

KILLER CROCODILE (1989)


Killer Crocodile is an inept Italian curiosity that, were it not inept, no one would talk about at all. For a while now, distributor Severin Films have excelled at releasing befuddling Italian horror cinema from the ‘70s and ‘80s, including the high watermarks of Italian stupidity, Zombie 3, Zombie 4: After Death, and Shocking Dark. Some horror fans, especially gore hounds, tout Italian horror above all others, citing it’s willing to go to places others aren’t willing to go. I agree with this, but with one caveat: no one does “oops, it’s stupid!” horror better than the Italians. Between the before mentioned Zombie sequels, or titles like Demons, Burial Ground: The Nights Of Terror, and Stagefright, Italian misfires are magically, stupidly delicious, and, to borrow the current Internet catchphrase, I’m “here” for it.

I, badly, wanted Killer Crocodile to follow along in this same vein. The makings of it were there, waiting to be plucked: first, it’s Italian; second, the villain of the piece is a gigantic crocodile that’s barely articulated, never blinks, and for the most part, just kinda floats along in the water; and third, it’s still Italian. (It’s worth repeating.) And like all killer animal movies Italian and non-Italian, it’s clearly been made in the shadow of JAWS, right down to the character dynamics and archetypes. You’ve got your Quint, your Brody, and your Hooper. You’ve got your giant-teethed villain. And to borrow from JAWS 2, you’ve got your young people in peril (natch). What you don’t have is a memorable experience, whether or not you’re here for the irony.


To critique Killer Crocodile in any meaningful way is silly. It’s not trying to be a real film, nor should we treat it as such. Whenever the titular beast isn’t on screen chomping victims with its gigantic plastic dummy jaws, Killer Crocodile is a slog, consisting mainly of people standing around, sweating, and sharing completely unrealistic dialogue with each other. This happens a lot in Italian horror of the stupid kind—moments of glory are often ruined by too-long scenes of people sharing in tepid dialogue and pretending that they’re making a real movie, and not one, say, where Hugo Stiglitz throws a TV at a zombie head and said TV explodes like a fucking bomb. (Nightmare City for the win!)

To circle back to the killer crocodile creation, it’s actually pretty impressive, considering the amount of money that was afforded to the flick’s production. Does it look “real?” In sustained shots, no, it doesn’t, but to be fair, neither did the shark in JAWS. The level of detail in the crocodile is meticulous, from its scaly skin to its conical teeth. (But still, it never blinks, and the longer you stare at that unblinking eye, the funnier it becomes.) 

That’s how Italians do it, baby.

Killer Crocodile ultimately proves to be a frustrating viewing experience: not consistently stupid enough to be entertaining, and nowhere close to being a legitimately good film, it’s just kinda there, bobbing up and down in the water like a kinda top. (If you’re feeling adventurous, you can purchase the 2-disc limited edition directly from Severin's website that also includes Killer Crocodile 2.)

(I’m not feeling particularly adventurous.)


Mar 8, 2020

TROLL (1986) & TROLL 2 (1990)


Why is a film about a troll terrorizing an annoyingly happy white American family so dull? How does that even happen? Well, you'd have to ask director John Carl Buechler (director of the entertaining Friday the 13th: Part VII -- The New Blood), who dedicates the first 40 minutes of his film to the little sister character, who I guess becomes semi-possessed by the troll that already lives in the basement of their new apartment building and turns into kind of an asshole. Mushrooms come to life, trolls partake in a sporadic rock-opera, and Phil Fondacaro charms the pants off the Potter family. Eventually the titular mythical being shows up. Or maybe not, who knows? Legend says no one has ever finished Troll and lived to tell the tale. Honestly, what would have been so wrong with having the troll itself running around that apartment complex terrorizing everyone on his own? Why have it terrorize vicariously through a Carol Anne doppelgänger? Because it was cheaper?

Troll could have been wonderful B-movie cheese, but instead it's just pain.

The only laudable aspect of Troll is its eclectic stunt casting, which features no less than June Lockhart (Lassie), Michael Moriarty, and Sonny Bono, whose second most embarrassing moment was skiing directly into a tree and dying. The first is Troll.

The first Troll actually serves as a pretty interesting counter point to its in-name-only sequel, Troll 2, in that films of immense disastrous proportions can provide such disparate reactions. Troll is a piece of shit, just like Troll 2, but where Troll causes nothing but misery, Troll 2 is wondrous.

Say, speaking of...


What more can be said about Troll 2? Commonly accepted as the king of bad movies, Troll 2 is infamous for its ineptness, terrible performances, ludicrous plot, and "OHMYGAWWWWWWD!" A film originally called Goblins before it was re-appropriated and shoehorned into the Troll "franchise" (a trick the Weinsteins have pulled many times with their Hellraiser and Children of the Corn sequels), it has, as you might imagine, absolutely nothing to do with the Troll that came before it. An even dumber version of Larry Cohen's The Stuff, a vacationing family and some tag-along teens fall victim to an evil-queen-worshiping town who force-feeds goblin slime to the unsuspecting to turn them into trees. 

I...don't know why. But it also doesn't matter. 

Troll 2 will be discussed long after the last surviving print of Dr. Zhivago melts into nothingness. Where Citizen Kane will have bit the dust when it comes to even the most casual of film conversation, people will still be laughing uproariously at Troll 2's strange and impromptu dance number in front of an RV mirror. I'm not saying that's the way things should be; I'm just calling it as I see it. Troll 2 will never stop being laughed at, discussed, dissected, and reenacted. Generation after generation will be laughing at clips on Youtube (or whatever the future version of Youtube will look like), hosting screening parties at their homes with troll-themed foods and drinks, and ordering the digital download from Shout! Factory's future imprint, Brain! Factory, which beams digital files directly into the official Brain! Factory chip in your cerebrum.

I will say this: I recognize that Citizen Kane is one of the best films of all time. But I also recognize Troll 2 has done way, way more to improve my life. And yours. How's that for taste?

(As an aside, if you haven't yet had the pleasure, seek out Best Worst Movie, a phenomenal documentary that examines Troll 2's very unlikely popularity while also looking at the appeal of cult cinema appeal and the nature of cult appreciation in general. It also presents an interesting character piece, in that it focuses mostly on lead actor/hero George Hardy, who goes from being folksy, charming, and enthusiastic to kiiiind of a dick toward the end, all before turning it back around and ending things on a more positive note.)

Well then. We've come to the end of our Troll journey. We learned a lot about the world, and each other. For instance, I learned that, though Troll 2 is as delightful as I remember, I never ever want to watch Troll ever again in my life. Ever. 

Mar 7, 2020

SOCIETY (1992)


If Brian Yuzna's name sounds familiar at all to you, it's likely because of his affiliation with the Re-Animator series, having produced the first film and directed the next two, or perhaps his having directed Return of the Living Dead 3, obviously the second sequel to his friend Dan O'Bannon's punk-classic original. But make no mistake: Society is his best film as a director, along with his most daring, his most dangerous, and even his most potent.

With economic disproportion never having been more at the forefront of everyday conversation than it is now, it seems like the perfect time for Society to hitch the wind and infiltrate unsuspecting horror audiences once again. Shot in 1989 but not released until 1992, Society is...icky. To put it aptly, Society is John Hughes and Joe Dante meets David Cronenberg after being donkey-punched by Jim Wynorski. It is a wild satirical look at economic statuses, high school popularity, sexual coming of age, identity, and so many more things. But it just so happens to include men with their heads literally up their own asses...or...in their asses. Coming...out of their asses? The ratio of head-to-ass isn't important, but what is important is that the face makes raspberry noises with its mouth, mimicking a fart, before breaking into wild laughter, and it's one of the greatest things you'll ever see in cinema.


Society's only weakness is in just how god damn unapproachable it is. A cult title in every sense of the word, it exists in a class and a genre all its own, and for a fraction of a fraction of a movie-going audience. Between the twisted naked bodies and the cannibal-like parasitic humanoids, and the--gulp--shunting, Society isn't just entertaining, but it's dangerous. To watch Society is to feel your jaw hit the floor as the credits roll before you, but only after you've likely gone just the least bit insane.

Society--an extravaganza of practical effects, gonzo sight gags, taboo-breaking sexual perversion, fully earned yucks, and honest-to-gosh frightful imagery--has to be seen at least a single time. Some will love it, most will hate it, all will feel like they just experienced a nightmare. There's very little that can be or should be said about this title other than letting every frame of its running time pass through your eyes is a rite of passage. It's not for everyone. It's probably not for anyone. But there's only one way to find out.



Mar 6, 2020

DARK AGE (1987)


Following the release of JAWS, which is credited with the creation of the summer blockbuster (though that was unintended), a wave of killer animal flicks followed in its wake. To no one’s surprise, most of these were bad, and to no one’s additional surprise, a lot of these imitators were about sharks. (Just ask Universal — they were firing off C&Ds like it was their job, blocking the stateside releases of Italian produced shark flicks Great White and Cruel Jaws. (The latter flick was made by Italian trashmeister Bruno Mattei under one of his many pseudonyms and incorporated a lot of stolen footage from the JAWS series.)

Every once in awhile, an imitator slipped through and managed to actually be worth a damn, even if it was going more for satire than outright horror. (Joe Dante’s Roger Corman production of Piranha and John Sayles’ Alligator are some of these exceptions.) And, as stated, countries all over the world were getting in on the action.


One of these notable flicks is 1987’s Dark Age, produced and filmed in Australia, which told the tale about a monstrous crocodile munching on a handful of people and making the life of wildlife conservationist Steve Harris whose job is to convince the government to conserve and protect crocs really really difficult. What makes Dark Age especially notable are two specific components: an infusion of Australian culture (more specifically the local Aboriginal tribe, who become significant to the conflict) and its overall message of conservation. Especially when looking at the latter, Dark Age comes off ballsier than even JAWS, in that despite the crocodile killing whomever crosses its path, the intent on behalf of its main characters are not to kill it, but to trap it and release it in its usual place of inhabitation. Oh, there are a cadre of characters who want the croc dead — from bureaucrats to local poachers — but even after the croc chows down on a young aboriginal boy, the exciting and adventurous Free Willy-ish rescue attempt at the end will leave viewers surprised as they realize they’re rooting for the croc.

The stock JAWS characters are in place, with John Jarratt taking on a combination of Matt Hooper and Chief Brody, and Max Phipps embodying a much more bloodthirsty version of Quint. There’s even a local politician who is afraid of what the croc will do for tourism. Whether or not Dark Age would exist were it not for JAWS becomes moot in the face of how well made and unique Dark Age manages to be. (Not to mention that coastal Australians dealing with a murderous croc is a lot more realistic than New Englanders dealing with a great white.) Dark Age may lack the satire of Alligator, the adventure of JAWS, and the sly sense of humor of Piranha, but it’s still a worthy endeavor in its own right, bringing a slice of its native culture along with it. At this point, the killer animal subgenre can be broken down further just because of how many of those happen to feature a crocodile or alligator as the antagonist. Dark Age ranks as one of the best.

Mar 5, 2020

THE SHALLOWS (2016)


During 1999, there was one title in particular at the Sundance Film Festival that had people abuzz: The Blair Witch Project. The cheap and independently produced film made by a bunch of kids with very little experience managed to scare the hell out of attending critics and set off a bidding war by several major studios before mini-distributor Artisan Entertainment (now defunct and owned by Lionsgate Films) became the victor. The rest, as they say, is history. Not only did The Blair Witch Project change the way filmmakers approached the medium, it also added a new kind of film for which potential distributors should look — the cheaply produced thriller that, with clever marketing, had the power to be immensely profitable with little risk. Every year following, people were on the lookout for the next Blair Witch

In 2003, the same thing occurred at Sundance, only this film was Open Water, another cheaply and independently produced film made by inexperienced filmmakers with no-name actors. Based on a true story (unlike The Blair Witch Project, which only pretended to be), Open Water depicted a couple left behind in the middle of the ocean during a vacation scuba-diving trip, only to be slowly surrounded by sharks. While it didn’t capture the attention of the masses in the same way its witchy predecessor did, it still managed to make a splash with critics, who praised the film’s ingenuity and creativity in the face of budgetary restrictions. (Real sharks too, by the way — in the same water as the actors.)


And then along came The Reef several years later. The Australian production was a slicker product with a slightly higher budget, but also basically the same thing: shipwrecked people surrounded by sharks, each dying off one by one. It was an effective little number, even if the concept was a little less novel. (If we want to credit a sole inspiration for all of these sharks vs. people conflicts in modern cinema, maybe we can point to Quint’s stirring and still-famous U.S.S. Indianapolis monologue from JAWS.)

And this has led to The Shallows, which, again, explores the concept of one person being trapped in the middle of the ocean by a monstrous shark that WILL eat her, even IF there’s a giant whale just a few feet away that it could eat instead. (Sharks like whale meat so much that mass feedings have turned into orgies—just sayin'.) But instead of the independently produced version of this concept with a realistic and downbeat finale, The Shallows is very Hollywood, sticking the beautiful Blake Lively in a tight wetsuit, tighter bikini, and pitting her against an unrealistically behaving CGI shark. Along the way she becomes friends with a bird, talks to herself a lot, and manages to pull off the impossible, which I can’t expound upon without getting into spoiler territory.


As dumb as that all sounds (and it is dumb), The Shallows is easy entertainment and exactly the kind of film it set out to be. The film’s marketing was quick to liken it to this generation’s JAWS and that’s kind of accurate, except it’s essentially a feature length version of JAWS' final five minutes made for the instagram generation. When theaters were flooded with multi Saws and Hostels, the term “torture porn” was coined (but used incorrectly as often as “hipster” is today); spinning off from that, The Shallows is basically shark porn: camera close-ups of Blake Lively’s flawlessly toned and tanned body, intercut with ominous underwater shots or dark silhouettes housed in waves signifying the presence of a shark. “Did you see that?” audience members likely asked and pointed to the shadow in the wave. But no, the glimpse is gone; now it’s back to a close-up of Lively’s bikinied bottom, or side-breast, or tropical ocean water dripping off her blonde hair. It’s absurd and not exactly subtle; again, it’s easy entertainment, at which director Jaume Collett-Sera excels. Vaulted into the game following his better-than-expected horror film Orphan, this is the kind of playground where he’s best utilized. 

Amidst all the unnecessary and already dated speed-ramping, there are moments of genuine effectiveness, generally when Blake Lively’s Nancy is getting beaten up by the ocean. And this sounds like mockery, but it’s not; as she’s taken by the tide and rolled over sharp coral on the ocean floor, or during the first shark attack sequence, you imagine you’re feeling her pain. You cringe at the sight and your body tenses as if you’re about to feel shark teeth in your leg. Collett-Serra knows what he’s doing, even if he chooses to do it for concepts that are about 90% close to being real, actual films. And sequences like these are strikingly realized — especially the before mentioned initial shark attack.


Despite the modern age's well established dependence on CGI, the shark looks terrible. The dummy version is obviously a dummy, and the CGI version is more obviously CGI. They must know this, as the shark only features on screen for maybe less than a minute, with the usual fin and shadow shots doing much of the heavy lifting. Every appearance of the CGI shark is distracting. Because the audience (hopefully) knows the filmmakers didn’t use a real great white shark (they don’t take well to animal training, in case you never knew that), they immediately look to deduce “the trick”—to determine the “how did they do that?” of it all. Well, the answer is easy: computers. And from the looks of it, quickly, and on the cheap.

The Sci-Fi/Syfy Channel, especially their grating and brainless Sharknado films, have done enough damage to the killer shark sub-genre that The Shallows actually manages to leave a not-so-sour taste in your mouth as the credits roll. It’s popcorn entertainment at its truest definition, but sometimes a little popcorn is okay. Lively actually puts a lot of effort into what must have been a physically strenuous role, and the crew deserves accolades for filming almost exclusively on the ocean, which is extremely difficult just from a logistical standpoint. The Shallows won’t make you forget JAWS or Open Water, but it’s certainly better than Deep Blue Sea and Shark Night, and in the age of Sharknado and Mega-Shark versus Roger Corman, I’ll take it.


Mar 4, 2020

DAGON (2001)


I’ve never been a huge fan of director Stuart Gordon outside of the original Re-Animator, but I respect any director who willfully works in the horror genre. Along with Re-Animator, Gordon has steadily directed several adaptions of horror author H.P. Lovecraft’s icky tales, including From Beyond, Castlefreak, Dreams in the Witch House, and finally, Dagon. Though his efforts vary in both loyalty and quality (again, I love Re-Animator, but it shares very little in common with the original story), his dedication to doing Lovecraft right is admirable.

Back during its initial 2001 release, about which I only knew because of its coverage in Fangoria Magazine, I gave Dagon a fair shot but determined it was another in a long line of overhyped under-the-radar horror releases that fanboys wold heap praise upon simply because it wasn’t “mainstream.” All these years later, I’m not prepared to say that the hype was worth it, and oh what a fool I’ve been, but I will say it plays a lot better for me now than it did back then.


For much of its running time, Dagon sidesteps gore and violence in favor of otherworldliness and a definite creep factor. Gordon has never tried to be “scary” like he does in Dagon; the director’s most well-known works are celebrated more for their shock value and violent gore gags. But as our lead hero, Paul Marsh, stumbles through the rain-drenched Spanish town of Imboca looking for his missing wife, and as the mysterious, mutated town citizens stumble in the background toward him in the midst of undergoing their strange transformation, the realization that this is actually pretty creepy begins to sink in. Don’t get me wrong, by film’s end, faces will be carved entirely off their skulls and worn, Leatherface-style, by the fishy members of the town, but until that point, Gordon chooses to walk a classy path of strange eeriness.

This being a low-budget, early 2000s production, whichever visual effects Dagon attempts look very poor. Thankfully there are only a handful of moments that call for these kinds of set-pieces that would be physically bigger than the production could afford, and even more thankfully, the film’s reliance mostly on practical effects all look great and very imaginative.

In general, Dagon isn’t a slam dunk as a horror experience, but it’s certainly one of the strongest titles in Gordon’s filmography and also one of the more solid Lovecraft adaptations out there.

Mar 2, 2020

THE 'SPECIES' SERIES (1995-2005)


Of all the films to have ever been financially successful, Species is not the first title that comes to mind. Essentially a film akin to cheeseball directors Fred Olen Ray (Bad Girls from Mars) or Jim Wynorski (Not of This Earth), but with an A-list cast and released by a major studio, Species was that film back in 1995 that made the female demographic roll their eyes and say, "That's that movie where that girl walks around topless the whole time," leaving their male counterparts to chuckle their best Beavis & Butthead chuckle and say, "That's why I want to see it!" Whether you like it or not, Species made bank while also inexplicably starring Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, and Forrest Whitaker. Normally I'd also throw in Michael Madsen to bolster my point, but then you'd think of the current Michael Madsen and go "So?" instead of the Michael Madsen of 1994, who was pretty respectable.

Species was a box office doozy in 1995, and it's actually kind of surprising it would take three years for Species II to rear its alien head. What isn't surprising is how bad it is, and by now I believe that's achieved common-knowledge status. Amusingly, there is exactly one critic's pull-quote on the current home video release:

"Great special effects!" – Boxoffice

And even that's a lie.

Maybe they were great special effects in 1998, but in 2016, sorry—today's soda commercials, literally, have better effects. It's tempting to believe that it's H.R. Giger's alien designs being celebrated, not the jokey MS Dos visual effects, but being that his creations receive roughly four minutes of screen time in the finale, what's likely being celebrated are the shameless close-ups of blown-off heads being digitally reformed by alien magic.


Species II was somehow directed by Peter Medak, a cult director perhaps best known for The Changeling and Zorro: The Gay Blade (and The Ruling Class, a personal favorite). His sly sense of humor is evident throughout, which is pretty much the only thing that makes it watchable. (The film opens with our astronauts floating around space in their vessel covered in sponsor logos [Miller Lite! Pepsi-Cola!], as if suggesting NASA had to sell out and go elsewhere for funding.) Medak might not have been the only person involved in the production who knew how stupid the film was, but he makes his near-disdain for it the most obvious. (Spoiler alert: in the film's finale, the bad alien literally mouth-fucks the good alien to death. You know, for kids!)

Film Fact! In Species II, James Cromwell plays Senator Judson Ross and father to a man who will soon became an alien. He tells him, "You're a Ross. Act like it." In Oliver Stone's W., James Cromwell plays Congressman George H.W. Bush and father to a man who was probably an alien to begin with. He tells him, "You're a Bush. Act like one." Ergo, we are forced to conclude that W. is a big budget remake of Species II—and like most other remakes, ain't as good.


For the first entry in the Species saga to go direct-to-video, gone are the established directors, reasonable budgets, the alien designs by H.R. Giger, and except for the opening five minutes, Natasha Henstridge. Instead what we receive is a silly plot recycled from—of all things—Re-Animator, a handful of tepid performances, and a plot that, somewhere—perhaps on paper—makes sense, but doesn't within the course of the film. Also sadly gone is former director Peter Medak's wry sense of humor, while newcomer Brad Turner instead makes the error of trying to take all this sexy alien nonsense way too seriously. He shouldn't have, as I can assure him, no one else is.

Our lead alien-dealer-wither, Dean, is played by Robin Dunne, who seems to have built himself a tidy career in the direct-to-video sequel world, having also starred in Cruel Intentions 2, The Skulls 2, and American Psycho 2. They are all bad, just like Species III is bad. And he is bad in them.


Considering the Species franchise is built on one very silly and shaky premise—hot alien babes trying to get knocked up—it was inevitable that an installment finally go full gonzo to create a majestic train wreck. Species IV: The Awakening is that installment. At first appearing to be the most serious of all the Species films, that soon devolves into alien babe nuns, mutant taxi drivers and hotel concierges, and apparently the most dangerous and alien-slimed town in all of Mexico. The acting talent pool sees a series-low, and for a film that looks to have had the lowest budget yet, the constant insistence on utilizing visual effects it can't afford soon becomes a thing of amusement. There are exactly two reasons to ever sit through Species IV: The Awakening—the astoundingly gorgeous Helena Mattson as the new alien babe, and the ludicrous and awkwardly choreographed fight scene between the two alien costumes during the finale. Picture the early Toho Godzilla films, which saw two mid-sized dummies flailing their lifeless plastic limbs at each other, and you're nearly there. The performers ensnared in these suits can barely move, let alone have a convincing fight, and it will give you a serious joy-joy feeling to see it unfold.

This might be a point I've made before, but I'll make it again because it's still relevant: We live in a world where all of the Species films are now on Blu-ray, but not all of William Friedkin's films are on DVD. Think about that as you watch sexy alien girls tearing off men's flesh and walking around in slime, or nothing, or slime/nothing, and wonder if it's really worthy of the newest home entertainment medium.