Bad Science – Missile Test

October Horrorshow: Proteus (1995)

Who doesn’t like a good Alien ripoff? Well, lots of people, I imagine. Alien ripoffs proliferate, with multiple films made every year using the tried and true methods perfected by Ridley Scott back in the late 1970s. It’s a formula that never seems to go out of style, but that doesn’t guarantee good results.

1995 saw the release of Proteus, from screenwriter John Brosnan, adapting his own novel, and director Bob Keen, who has spent most of his career in special effects. Proteus, by the way, is an old Greek god of rivers and seas. The name doesn’t offer much of a clue to the proceedings in the film, but it does fit. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Proteus (1995)”

October Horrorshow: The Creeping Flesh

When is a Hammer flick not a Hammer flick? Well, when it wasn’t made by Hammer. It’s not a trick question. But, the filmmakers behind The Creeping Flesh, from 1973, made every effort to craft a movie indistinguishable from a Hammer flick, going so far as to cast Hammer Film Productions’ two biggest icons in Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

Taking place in Victorian England, Cushing plays Emmanuel Hildern, a scientist recently returned from an expedition abroad. He has returned with a monstrous skeleton he excavated, which he hopes proves his theories about the origin of man. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Creeping Flesh”

October Horrorshow: Alien Hunter

When is a ripoff of The Thing not a ripoff? When it changes just enough for plausible deniability. Alien Hunter did not change enough. In fact, it even reused footage from John Carpenter’s version of The Thing.

Released direct-to-video in 2003, Alien Hunter was directed by Ron Krauss from a screenplay by executive producer J.S. Cardone, a prolific b-filmmaker in his own right.

Alien Hunter stars James Spader as cryptologist Julian Rome, who is sent to a remote Antarctic research base after a mysterious signal is detected. After finding the location of the signal’s source, out in the middle of the frozen wastes, an object is found buried in the ice, just like in The Thing. Also just like in The Thing, the researchers chip out the surrounding ice into a block, and haul the whole thing back to base. There, debate ensues about what to do with this object, as it’s clear to everyone but one dissenting researcher, Dr. Straub (veteran performer John Lynch), that this object is alien in origin. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Alien Hunter”

October Horrorshow: Shadowzone

Charles Band and Full Moon have been major contributors to the world of b-cinema for decades. Reliable, sometimes repugnant, sometimes transcendent — a viewer will know before the opening credits are over that there will be at least one outrageous moment in a Full Moon flick, even if there is a fair amount of crap to wade through. Shadowzone, from 1990, is about as prototypical as a Full Moon movie gets. It doesn’t come close to blowing a viewer away like the uncensored version of Castle Freak, but it has none of the mind numbing crassness of an Evil Bong flick. It’s a simple, cheap horror flick, and it rips off Alien. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Shadowzone”

Shitty Movie Sundays: War of the Satellites

Missile Test will always appreciate Roger Corman, no matter how much crap we give him for being one of the most miserly filmmakers to ever grace the business. If one absolutely, positively, had to get a movie made quickly and as cheaply as possible, Corman was the guy to call. Case in point is War of the Satellites, conceived, shot, and released in only a couple of months, in order to capitalize on the launch of Sputnik, which was dominating the news at the time, and which fed a lot of Cold War paranoia and consternation amongst the American people.

Corman directed and produced, from a story by co-producers and visual effects techs Irving Block and Jack Rabin, with TV writer Lawrence L. Goldman penning the screenplay. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: War of the Satellites”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Ice Twisters

Ice Twisters movie poster SyFy has been performing a valuable service for the shitty movie fan for decades, now. They have been willing to purchase and show the absolute worst dogs that the 21^st century has to offer, making them the inheritors of the legacy of drive-in movie theaters. Since SyFy is commercial television, these flicks are light on gore and devoid of gratuitous nudity — staples of the drive-in — but they make up for that by featuring movies with outrageous premises, and the type of shoddy production values that are near and dear to we many denizens of the darker realms of cinema. There are true believers at work at that network.

From screenwriter Andrew C. Erin and director Steven R. Monroe comes Ice Twisters, which is exactly what is sounds like. It’s a movie that rips off the blockbuster disaster flick Twister, upping the stakes by making tornadoes icy cold, freezing everything they pass over or fling into the sky.

There are even character analogues to the earlier film. Whereas Twister had Bill Paxton, Ice Twisters has Mark Moses as Charlie Price, a former scientist turned popular science fiction author. Twister had Helen Hunt, while Ice Twisters has veteran Canadian television actress Camille Sullivan as Joanne Dyson, who is heading an experiment where drones are flung into the sky, not to study tornadoes, but to create and control weather systems. She even has a passel of assistants and minor characters to assist her, just like in Twister. Unlike in Twister, there are no future Oscar-winners amongst them. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Ice Twisters”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Incredible Petrified World

The Incredible Petrified World movie poster This is a bad movie. A bad, bad, very bad, awful, barely coherent waste of 70 minutes. The good news is, for we gluttons of substandard cinema, this flick is in the public domain, so it won’t cost anything to rent. Just head over to archive.org, and there it is, ready to ruin one’s evening for free.

From screenwriter John W. Steiner, and directed by shitty movie auteur Jerry Warren, The Incredible Petrified World tells the story of four intrepid explorers walking around in a cave. That’s about it. Oh, important plot point: the cave is at the bottom of the ocean. And that is it. Oh, wait, there’s also a guy in the cave, wearing, perhaps, the most hilarious wig and fake beard ever seen in film. And that, really, is it.

John Carradine plays Millard Wyman, an inventor who has convinced four souls to descend to the ocean floor in his experimental diving bell. Wyman won’t be joining them, because by 1959, when this flick was released, Carradine was already finished with roles that took effort. The four suckers he tricks into risking their lives for his glory are Craig Randall (Robert Clarke), Dale Marshall (Phyllis Coates), Paul Whitmore (Allen Windsor), and Lauri Talbott (Sheila Noonan). Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Incredible Petrified World”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Alien Rising, aka Gemini Rising

What a bottom-feeding pile of garbage. This reviewer has seen many bad movies — enough bad movies that I’ve ruined any arthouse bona fides I may have had — yet, sometimes, I’m still surprised that something so amateurish manages to get made. This is one of those shitty movies where no one involved, even the professionals, seemed able to capitalize on their work.

Alien Rising, from 2013, is a direct-to-video shitfest brought to viewers by screenwriters Michael Todd and Kenny Yakkel, and director Dana Schroeder. This was Schroeder’s second directing effort, and, if his IMDb page is any indication, it will be his last. Thank goodness. We shitty movie fans may be into flagellation, but everyone has limits. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Alien Rising, aka Gemini Rising”

October Horrorshow: The Pyramid

Sometimes I curse The Blair Witch Project for loosing found footage horror flicks upon the movie-watching public. And I curse Rec, as well, for its creepy night-vision climax that has been used over and over again in just about every one of these ripoffs. There is now a whole pile of these films, and it’s hard to find one that doesn’t default to the techniques and gimmicks of these two films.

The Pyramid, from 2014, saves all of its originality for setting and place, while delivering a film identical in tone to any number of horror flicks where a group of people find themselves lost underground and are being stalked by…something. In fact, this is the fourth such film to be featured in this year’s Horrorshow, after Gonjiam, Derelict, and Creep. It’s a cheap way for filmmakers to use the same darkened hallway or tunnel set in many different shots and scenes, creating the illusion of a vast maze. The only problem with this is, these films very clearly use a small set, so it’s left up to the viewer to pretend that the filmmakers aren’t trying to fool us. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Pyramid”

It Came from the ’50s: The Tingler

Gimmicks present unique problems when it comes to film, or art, or anything. Gimmicks may be useful for an initial draw, but people tire of them. Gimmicks are also used to disguise, or make up for, a lack of funds or competence. That is why William Castle, despite throwing some interesting gimmicks into his films, is remembered for being a shitty movie director as much as an innovator.

The Tingler, from 1959, was Castle’s most ambitious foray into gimmickry. Besides producing, Castle directed, from a screenplay by Robb White. Continue reading “It Came from the ’50s: The Tingler”