What a gloriously stupid movie. Reign of Fire, from 2002, is about a post-apocalyptic near future in which dragons have been mistakenly awakened from a cave deep underneath London, and have turned the earth into a blackened ball of ash. A group of survivors, led by Quinn (Christian Bale), are eking out a meager existence in a ruined castle in Northumberland in the north of England, keeping their heads low and trying not to starve to death. They’ve reached a kind of perilous equilibrium, sure that as the dragons have burnt the surface of the planet to a crisp, it will only be a matter of time before the beasts all starve to death as well, and then rebuilding human civilization can begin. It’s a dangerous waiting game, between this meager group and the beasts, caught in a race to see which side can outlast the other. No side can hold out much longer, both heir to a land blackened and barren. The humans have pluck, and left alone, they may be the ones to survive, while the dragons, after all, are only animals. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Reign of Fire”
Tag: Monster Flick
The Empty Balcony: Gojira & Godzilla, King of the Monsters!
Gojira is a very serious film. To watch it is to glimpse how grievously Japan was traumatized by World War II. Released only nine years after the end of the war, the film is heavy on imagery meant to invoke memories of the destruction that swept Japan’s cities. The origins of the monster Gojira are a pricking of the wounds left over from the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the firebomings that destroyed almost all large Japanese cities. What we see in this film is a generation of people still trying to cope with events from a decade past. At times, in scenes that take place in overflowing hospital wards or on streets where characters are surveying the devastation, I was struck by the realization that these people on screen were drawing from their own memories in their portrayals. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Gojira & Godzilla, King of the Monsters!”
October Horrorshow: The Blob (1988)
Things have calmed down a bit here at Missile Test. Today is the second straight day without a zombie sighting in the October Horrorshow. No walking dead, no rambling hordes, no barricaded windows or locked down shopping malls. Instead, we return to the realm of the creature feature with the 1988 remake of the classic b-horror flick The Blob. Directed by Chuck Russell, who shared the screenwriting credits with Frank Darabont, this remake is a fine movie in its own right. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Blob (1988)”
October Horrorshow: Slither
October. If it weren’t for Halloween, October would be an intolerable month. Last week, New York City was sunny and the temperature was in the 80s. When in the apartment, I’d have all the windows open, breathing fresh air, wearing nothing heavier than a t-shirt. Today, as I write this, it is 54 and raining. It’s a cold rain, too, matched in ugliness during the day only by the grey skies that spawned it. And at night, it’s a barrier, something to keep a person locked away indoors. No windows open today. They’re shut tight, and a cotton fleece has replaced the t-shirt. In a matter of days the life has been sucked out of this city. Everything feels like it’s dying. But, that’s autumn. Thank goodness for horror films. Because it’s time once again for the October Horrorshow, when Missile Test chases away the doldrums of the changing seasons by watching and reviewing horror films. The good, the bad, and the putrid. It doesn’t matter. As long as it has blood, it’s better than dealing with fall. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Slither”
October Horrorshow, Spring Edition: Class of Nuke ‘Em High
What a shitty movie. From Troma Entertainment, a production company well-versed in churning out b-movie fare (most famously the Toxic Avenger series of films and its spinoffs), Class of Nuke ‘Em High is self-aware schlock. From the opening scene to the end, the filmmakers never miss a chance to remind the viewer that what they are watching is not meant to be taken seriously. But the way they choose to draw attention to this fact, with overwrought characters and performances, only serves to make the film feel forced. It revels in cheapness, and this would be a good thing, if only they weren’t trying so hard. At every step of the film, Troma seeks to establish its brand, reveling in its ineptness at putting together something that is watchable.
The film has a strong beginning. After an opening shot purposefully evocative of Troma’s production logo, the scene shifts to the fictional town of Tromaville, New Jersey, where an accident at a nuclear power plant has leaked radioactive goo into the high school next door. A hapless student is exposed to the contaminant when he drinks from a water fountain before class, and his transformation from stereotypical 80s film nerd to smoking corpse is hilarious. But in that scene is a first glimpse of the film’s downfall. Most of the ensemble cast is present, and all exist, like the poor victim, as caricatures of the diverse collection of jocks, losers, horndogs, and punks that populate the banal visions of high school typical of so many films from the 50s to today. The problem is, there isn’t a straight man among the bunch to balance things out. Continue reading “October Horrorshow, Spring Edition: Class of Nuke ‘Em High”
October Horrorshow, Retroactive: Deep Rising
Yikes. Sometimes a shitty movie crosses my path and I don’t know whether to lose myself in the fun of it all, or to hate it. Deep Rising, written and directed by Stephen Sommers, whipsawed me back and forth between deep belly laughs and outright revulsion so quickly that by the end I was praying for something, anything, to appear just for a moment, a fleeting second, and justify the mystifying amount of time I spent with this dog. Didn’t happen, so now, instead of letting the experience fade away into the deep recesses of my memory, I’m going to write about it. Continue reading “October Horrorshow, Retroactive: Deep Rising”
October Horrorshow, Retroactive: Horror Express
Horror Express is one of those good bad movies. The budget is low, the plot has twists and turns which serve little purpose than stretching out the running time, and a middling celebrity makes a token appearance to swipe a quick paycheck in exchange for lending some prestige to the film. Ah, Telly Savalas. During the 1970s, cheap European horror films must have been how he expensed vacations. His name is in the credits, to be sure, but the title of the film could easily be changed to Where’s Telly Savalas? Kojak takes his sweet time making his entrance, but such bliss, for Savalas plays a Cossack captain in command of soldiers in Siberia. He’s gruff and flamboyant all at once, smoking cigarillos and drinking vodka, never quite sure if he should talk with a Russian accent. It looked like his scenes were filmed in a day. Anyway, Savalas isn’t in a starring role.
Those honors go to Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Lee plays a British scientist who discovers a two million year old frozen ape man in 1906 China. Peter Cushing is a British doctor on his way back to the home islands. Lee and Cushing make an engaging duo, in a kind of reprise of their successes in the Hammer horror films. The Horror Express of the title is a train traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Continue reading “October Horrorshow, Retroactive: Horror Express”
October Horrorshow, Retroactive: The Thing
Last week saw a unique event in film. Four John Carpenter films landed in Brooklyn as part of a mini-retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The featured films were Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, They Live, and Escape from New York. All unique films from a unique filmmaker. B-movie schlock artist or perennially misunderstood genius, depending upon who’s doing the watching, Carpenter is a knowledgeable director who draws on his education, talents, and the best aspects of low-grade cinema to craft films that are unmistakably his. As soon as the opening credits roll, one enters Carpenter’s world. Viewer hears music (usually) from Carpenter’s own synthesizer, and the credits themselves are all the same white serif font on a black background, no matter which of his films is playing. Anamorphic lens effects and dark lighting cross among his works. Finally there is the thematic distrust of authority as a conceptual continuity throughout. All of this makes Carpenter’s films easily recognizable to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of his oeuvre. Continue reading “October Horrorshow, Retroactive: The Thing”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Doom
Sundays are usually pretty slow for me. The day and evening tend to drift by, lost in the newspaper, a book, televised sports, leisurely cooking, and the occasional shitty movie. It was late one Sunday that I came across an awful latter-day Godzilla film dubbed into Spanish (that I subsequently reviewed, along with its sequel). I usually get all heavy thinking out of the way before the sun goes down, and a mindless movie is a great complement to the relaxed nature of a Sunday evening. Paradoxically, this past Sunday’s fare, while mindless, was also frenetic and violent. But it was enough to satisfy the craving for bad cinema that I think all of us have a weak spot for. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Doom”
October Horrorshow, Retroactive: Aliens
Alien is an artful film. It is frightening and suspenseful, but it also has operatic grace and gritty realism, despite being set mostly aboard a spaceship. It’s hard to imagine Alien spawning a sequel so tonally different yet still so successful, but Aliens does just that. The two films are poles apart, sharing with each other only the alien creatures and Sigourney Weaver, who reprises her role from the first film as Ripley.
Many sequels born of successful films are flawed from the start, attempting to recreate the magic of the first film by simply imitating it. For example, Jaws 2 tried its damnedest to cash in on its progenitor’s success, but it was little more than a rehash of the same story with a less robust script, a less talented director, and a lame attempt at topping the original’s explosive climax. More examples abound, including Rocky and Rocky 2, King Kong and Son of Kong, along with many others.
Aliens director and screenwriter James Cameron was surely aware of film history and the perils of trying to recreate a successful formula when he conceived the project. His solution appears to have come about by asking some simple questions about Alien. Why didn’t the protagonists just shoot the alien? What would happen if there were more than one alien? Cameron apparently decided that a successful sequel could be made while adhering to conceptual precedent by arming the humans in his film with machine guns, flamethrowers, and grenade launchers. Since heroes bristling with such weaponry would make quick work of one alien, Cameron supplies dozens. Continue reading “October Horrorshow, Retroactive: Aliens”