In the canon of the Alien franchise, it’s always been assumed that if the aliens made their way to civilization, they would be an unstoppable force, toppling everything we’ve built. Such was the case among the small pocket of colonists in Aliens. But that film took place in the future, far away in time and place from contemporary earth. The first Alien vs. Predator film took place in modern times, but writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson went to some lengths to ensure there was no plausible chance the aliens could threaten civilization, placing the action in his film on a remote Antarctic island under 2,000 feet of ice. Why such reluctance to show aliens tearing up Times Square, say, or climbing the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge? Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Alien vs. Predator: Requiem”
Tag: Action Flick
October Horrorshow: Constantine, Rhymes with Tangerine
Back in 1993, DC Comics, under the direction of editor Karen Berger, took six of its mature readers titles and placed them under a new imprint — Vertigo. The Sandman, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol (after a legendary run by writer Grant Morrison), Animal Man, Shade the Changing Man, and Hellblazer (featuring John Constantine, rhymes with clementine) were titles that had grown beyond the core superhero titles of DC’s lineup. Berger had been responsible for much of this, bringing aboard creative talent which would have been wasted penning yet another year-long superhero crossover designed to simplify DC’s bloated continuity, or spending day after day drawing just the right amount of ripples in Superman’s abs. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Constantine, Rhymes with Tangerine”
October Horrorshow: Predators
It seems that, for this year’s Horrorshow, I can’t get enough of the Alien and Predator franchises. Maybe I should slow down. It’s not like these things grow on trees. Aliens and predators are a finite resource.
Predators, from 2010, is the first standalone Predator flick since Predator 2 in 1990. In between were the two Alien vs. Predator movies, but I have a hard time fathoming how the flagship title was dormant for so long. There weren’t even any straight to video entries or bad SyFy productions. The predators are excellent horror/sci-fi antagonists. In the right circumstances, they can even be the good guys.
The predators look mean, what with their large stature and menacing mask, and that’s before viewers see the horrible countenance hidden therein. The fact they are aliens who traveled here from the stars just to hunt us is unsettling. We’re supposed to be the top of the food chain. Check that. The predators aren’t here for food. They’re hunting us for sport. That’s an upsetting of the current order that is hard to contemplate outside the realm of fiction. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Predators”
October Horrorshow: Alien vs. Predator
Alien vs. Predator, the 2004 film that brought together the two franchises for the big screen, has its roots way back in the 1980s. In 1989, Dark Horse Presents ran a short Aliens vs. Predator story for three issues, written by Randy Stradley with art by Phill Norwood and Karl Story, which served as an introduction to a standalone miniseries Dark Horse subsequently published. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Alien vs. Predator”
October Horrorshow: Predator 2
Predator, the 1987 film from director John McTiernan, is among my favorite action and sci-fi films. It’s one of those dumb 1980s action flicks that it’s easy to turn one’s nose up to, but which is actually pretty damned good. I would like to try making an honest effort at not comparing the sequel unfavorably to the original, but that’s just going to be too hard. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Predator 2″
October Horrorshow: Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead
Here it is, the first zombie flick of this year’s Horrorshow, and it’s a good one.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is an Australian film from 2014, written by Kiah Roache-Turner and Tristan Roache-Turner, and directed by Kiah. Taking place mostly in the middle of nowhere, Roache-Turner used a tried and true method — isolation — to stay within the bounds of a very small budget. But one of the great things about film in the 21st century is that budgetary constraints mean a whole lot less than they used to. Wyrmwood had a budget, as reported on the internet, of only $160,000. That’s extraordinarily small for a feature film, akin to films such as Clerks and Paranormal Activity.
In rural Australia, something is amiss. After a spectacular late night meteor shower, people begin to turn into flesh-eating zombies. But not everyone, of course, otherwise there would be no movie.
The opening scene stakes this flick’s place in the zombie subgenre of horror. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead”
Shitty Movie Sundays: 1990: The Bronx Warriors, aka 1990: I guerrieri del Bronx
What a gloriously stupid movie. Looking back through the history of Shitty Movie Sundays, some real gems jump out at me. The Incredible Melting Man. The Keep. Anaconda. Kingdom of the Spiders. Reign of Fire. Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. These films are Shitty Movie Sundays royalty. Paparazzi follow them and take pictures when they leave nightclubs. One of them is dating a Lesser Kardashian. Another is appearing on Dancing with the Stars. And now a new member joins their ranks. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: 1990: The Bronx Warriors, aka 1990: I guerrieri del Bronx”
The Empty Balcony: Terminator Genisys
It’s incredible how little redundancy is built into Skynet. Not long after Terminator Genisys opens, we see the mythical John Connor leading an assault on Skynet’s time travel facilities. Connor, played by Jason Clarke, has ordered the bulk of his forces to attack Skynet itself, farther north, much to the consternation of Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), who hasn’t been let in on the Terminator series canon at this point. As the battle rages at the time machine, all of Skynet’s killer robots go inactive, signaling that Skynet has been destroyed, and only the war in the past remains undecided.
A viewer is required to engage in a large amount of suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy Terminator films. There’s the whole time travel/killer robots thing to get past, and a plot hole-to-consistency ratio that is weighted too far towards the wrong side. But the idea John Connor’s troops could attack a single location, presumably blow it to smithereens, and a worldwide computer network would collapse, is ludicrous.
This is it. We’re in the future. Thirty years ago, when the first Terminator was released, something like Skynet was as far beyond our comprehension as time travel, making it fine to just make stuff up. But today we live in a world of server farms and off-site backups. Sure, there are still times when an ISP goes offline and millions of people can’t get their email, but those times are rare, and never last all that long (unless it’s a Sony network). Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Terminator Genisys”
Shitty Movie Sundays: San Andreas, or, an October Horrorshow Interlude
I couldn’t wait for after the Horrorshow to post this review. This flick is just too special. And what a gloriously stupid movie it is. But, a big, bombastic disaster flick is good to see every now and again. They come in waves, too. Some studio will put out a big budget disaster flick that makes a pile of cash and then all the others can’t wait to put their own into production. Then after a year or two the quality takes a dip and audiences get tired and disaster flicks go into hibernation until audiences are ready again. Marvel and DC would do well to take note. They’re reaping the benefits of their respective formulae now, but eventually audiences will rebel and one of those two will lay a big fat turd at the box office — something kin to The Core — and ruin the party for everyone (an argument could be made that this happened with the Fantastic Four reboot this summer, but for now audiences are not blaming Marvel for franchisee Sony messing up Marvel’s intellectual properties). But, I digress. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: San Andreas, or, an October Horrorshow Interlude”
Shitty Movie Sundays: The Substitute
What a gloriously stupid movie. From director Robert Mandel, The Substitute tells the story of Jonathan Shale (Tom Berenger), a black ops soldier who leads a team sent abroad to fight the scourge of illegal drugs. But, we viewers never get to see one of these missions. As the film starts, we meet Berenger and his team at the back end of an incursion into Cuba that has left three team members dead. The government disavows any knowledge of the operation or its participants, and throws Shale and company out on their asses. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Substitute”