When Nature Attacks! – Page 3

Giant Monstershow: The Black Scorpion

The Black Scorpion The poor performers in films like this. They come to a production, ready to put in enough work to make some mortgage payments, maybe dig a pool in the backyard, and they do a decent enough job. But then they go to the premiere of the film, with not the highest of expectations (after all, it ain’t John Ford or Howard Hawks they were working with), and they find the audience howling with laughter at the monster effects. Take a moment to appreciate the plight of the bad movie actor.

The Black Scorpion, the 1957 film from director Edward Ludwig and screenwriters David Duncan and Robert Blees, opens, as so many of these monster films from the ’50s do, with stock footage. But, for once, it’s not footage of Air Force jets or Arctic wastes. This time it’s footage of volcanoes oozing lava over the land. The expository voiceover informs the viewer that a new volcano is rising out of the ground in Mexico. In little over a month it has grown to gigantic size, threatening the surrounding ranches. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: The Black Scorpion”

Giant Monstershow: The Deadly Mantis

The October Horrorshow Giant Monstershow returns to the land of giant insects with today’s flick. From 1957, The Deadly Mantis is an early directorial effort from Nathan Juran, who had an Oscar-winning career as an art director before becoming a director. It was written by Martin Berkeley, who also had a screenwriting credit for the execrable Tarantula. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: The Deadly Mantis”

October Horrorshow: Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Films like Birdemic: Shock and Terror exist on a rare plain where traditional criticism and traditional standards of film quality no longer apply. There is no way possible that I could point out, any more effectively than the film itself, just how God-awful it is. This is, without a doubt, the single worst movie I have ever seen. There is nothing in it, at any point, that appears to be the result of a professional film production. It has a staggering amount of ineptness in everything — from pacing, plot, dialogue, cinematography, editing, sound, direction, acting, or anything else I can’t be bothered to name. Possibly the costumes were passable, but I’m not going back to double check. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Birdemic: Shock and Terror”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Last Shark, aka Great White, aka L’ultimo squalo

Oh, Enzo G. Castellari, I’m so glad I found you. Shitty Movie Sundays has been further enlightened by your presence. Master of schlock, minister of exploitation, employer of flamethrowers, you can be counted among the progenitors of the mockbuster, those sad, cash grab excuses for films. It seems your only purpose as a filmmaker was to piggyback on the accomplishments of others, and prey upon an audience that didn’t realize what your producers were selling. Who would have thought that so many decades after your heyday, there would be people like me seeking out your films — not only to mock and deride, but to enjoy? Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Last Shark, aka Great White, aka L’ultimo squalo”

October Horrorshow: Eight Legged Freaks

Sometimes horror films can be a downer. In preparing for this month of reviews, I watch a lot of horror. For every film that makes it to the Horrorshow, I probably watch two others that didn’t interest me enough to write about. That means I spend a lot of evenings listening to young women scream in terror, watching grievous bodily injury, and living in a state of general anxiety brought about by all that scary stuff on the screen. Sleep is no respite, as we tend to dream about things that are on our minds. It’s not uncommon for me to watch yet another gory horror film followed up by a night of dreaming about the zombie apocalypse or a demonic presence in my home. Good grief. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Eight Legged Freaks”

October Horrorshow: Jaws 3-D

What a putrid mess. Jaws 3-D has about all the care one would expect from a film that was originally pitched as Jaws 3, People 0. That’s right. This movie, the second sequel to a great film that redefined the industry’s business model, was planned as a spoof flick. Had that film been made, it would probably have been no better than Airplane II: The Sequel, but could not have been much worse than what actually came to be made.

Jaws 3-D, released in 1983, follows Mike Brody (Dennis Quaid), Sherriff Martin Brody’s oldest son from the first two films. There’s a little trickery when it comes to Mike’s age in this film, as with his younger brother, Sean (John Putch). Eagle-eyed viewers will wonder how Mike is in his late twenties and Sean is in college, when, only eight years earlier, when the original Jaws was released, Mike was around twelve years old and Sean looked like he was just about ready to start elementary school. This far away from both films’ releases, it barely registers as an issue, but I remember this bugging the hell out me when I saw this movie as a kid. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Jaws 3-D”

October Horrorshow: Jaws

I couldn’t say how many times I’ve seen Jaws. It’s been so many times that the film feels like a familiar presence in my life. My first viewing was so long ago that it’s mostly faded back into the ether, consisting of little snippets that have been distorted by time. I remember that I was young, maybe five or six years old, and that my old man was there to make sure I covered my eyes during the gory bits. Was it irresponsible to let someone so young watch a movie featuring such gruesome scenes of death as Jaws? Well, it was rated PG, for Parental Guidance, and that’s just what I got. I was too young for the gore, but there were about 120 minutes of really good movie that wouldn’t cause nightmares, and that I got to see until I was old enough for the rest. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Jaws”

October Horrorshow: Lake Placid

Giant animal flicks have had a resurgence of late, thanks to the adventurous executives over at SyFy. Every week seems to see the introduction of a new Asylum or Roger Corman b-movie with gruel-thin plots and awful CGI. These movies fill a niche, sure, but while some viewers find these movies’ intentional cheapness a main draw, endearing even, most are such amateurish productions that they are unwatchable. That’s a shame. Flicks such as Dinoshark or Mega Python vs. Gatoroid share a pedigree with Them! and The Beginning of the End, but while Bert I. Gordon could never be accused of being a great filmmaker, his silly movies are still watchable 60 years later. These newest monster flicks are just putrid, marring what can be a very dynamic subgenre of sci-fi/horror. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Lake Placid”

October Horrorshow: Bug (1975)

This isn’t the original trailer, but this is the video that made me want to see this movie.

This movie had such shitty promise. For one thing, it was produced by William Castle, whose lasting contribution to film history was a series of horror flicks with gimmicky contraptions placed in theaters to enhance the experience for viewers. Much of the silliness of something like House on Haunted Hill doesn’t translate into a restrained living room viewing, but it’s still a well-regarded b-horror flick nonetheless. Bug is the last film in Castle’s filmography, and while it had the potential to be a spectacle of shitty proportions, it falls short. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Bug (1975)”

October Horrorshow: Anaconda

What a gloriously stupid movie. It makes me happy to write that sentence again; something I have not done since way back in May. But, this flick deserves it. If I had not already named another film the official film of this year’s Horrorshow (revealed at a later date), then Anaconda would have won the distinction running away. Anaconda is a fantastic example of the heights to which a shitty movie can soar. It features a soon to be breakout superstar, a fading has-been whose Oscar is gathering substantial amounts of dust, and a rapper in the midst of crossing over into movie stardom. It hails from a time when CGI was in its infancy, yet relies on these effects too much. It’s self-aware and amateurish at the same time. It’s a piece of shit, and I love it. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Anaconda”