If you're a genre fan, chances are...
...you already have a warm spot in your heart for the wonderful Beverly Garland.
And her amazing performance in "It Conquered the World" (1956) is just one of the many reasons why.
Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights over this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
Originally posted on 3/3/11
"Dumb" has a new name, and that name is SHARKTOPUS (2010). This highly-rated SyFy Original Movie, produced by legendary filmmaker Roger Corman and his wife Julie, will either make you giddy with bad-movie excitement or leave you utterly stupified. Maybe even both.
After the success of DINOSHARK, SyFy contacted Corman about doing this film as a follow-up. As he relates in the commentary, he initially turned it down because, while "dinosharks" might conceivably have existed in prehistoric times, the idea of a half-shark, half-octopus just seemed a little too farfetched. (Unlike, say, giant crab monsters.) He eventually gave in, on the condition that the creature be a product of genetic engineering rather than a freak of nature.
Thus, we have scientist Nathan Sands (Eric Roberts) and his daughter Nicole (Sara Malakul Lane), whom he affectionately refers to as "Pumpkin", creating the dreaded Sharktopus for the military. Pumpkin naively hopes Sharktopus will be used for good, but her sneaky dad has designed it to be a ruthless killing machine, which it demonstrates when its electronic restraints are damaged during a test and it starts eating people all up and down the coast of scenic Puerto Vallarta. With the Navy breathing down his back, Sands hires fun-loving aquatic mercenary Andy Flynn (Kerem Bursin) to reel the big fish in and bring it back alive.
With this set-up quickly established, the film now treats us to an endless series of Sharktopus attacks with lots of tourists getting snared by the creature's tentacles right there on the shore and dragged into its toothy maw. Several of these kills begin with an establishing montage of festive beach images and ample footage of bikini-clad babes cavorting around like monster appetizers. When Sharktopus suddenly appears, the various bit players must then hop around screaming as the SPFX guys wrap bad-CGI tentacles around them and make with the spewing digital blood.
The big, cartoony shark head which pops out of the water to chow down on them is highly effective--at generating laughs. Seeing the entire mismatched monstrosity perched on a guardrail or the roof of a bamboo hut in all its writhing, snarling glory, treating the fleeing humans like a sushi buffet, is a sight you won't soon forget. Special mention goes to the bunjee-jumping scene, which Corman tells us got the biggest response from audiences and is one of the movie's few genuinely effective moments. (Roger and Julie's daughter guest-stars as the bouncing bait.)
With few exceptions, the performances range from awful to not-really-trying. Mostly the actors just seem anxious to knock off their scenes and get back to partying in Puerta Vallarta. Blake Lindsey isn't bad as Pez, a fisherman who leads TV newswoman Stacy Everheart (Liv Boughn) and her dopey cameraman Bones (Héctor Jiménez, who played Lonnie Donaho in GENTLEMEN BRONCOS) to wherever Sharktopus is likely to appear next. As a pirate radio DJ, Ralph Garman of "The Joe Schmo Show" seems to be having fun. Bursin and Lane make a dull main couple as Flynn and Pumpkin and could probably use a few more acting lessons.
As for Eric Roberts, he's one of my favorite actors and I'd watch him in anything, which is fitting since these days it looks like he'll show up in anything. Going from THE DARK KNIGHT to this must've been like falling out of a yacht into a swamp. (Look for Roger Corman himself in a cameo as a beach bum.)
On a technical level, SHARKTOPUS is slapdash at best. Things like camerawork, editing, and scene transitions are a dizzying jumble of ineptitude, while the subpar direction makes it hard to believe Declan O'Brien is the same guy who did such a solid job with WRONG TURN 3: LEFT FOR DEAD.
The script, which seems to have been written on a Big Chief tablet, obviously doesn't take itself very seriously, as when Flynn offers this warning to the patrons of an open-air restaurant by the beach: "Excuse me, everyone. There's a killer shark-octopus hybrid headed this way. Please leave the marina in a timely fashion." The thing is, movies like this are funnier when they aren't trying to be, so the scenes that actually mean to shock or excite us invariably provoke the most giggles.
The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish. Extras include a commentary with Roger and Julie Corman plus the film's trailer.
Any movie containing Eric Roberts, bikini babes, extras doing the imaginary-tentacle-tango, the guy who played Lonnie Donaho in GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, and one of the dumbest monsters in film history can't be all bad. And SHARKTOPUS doesn't let up for a minute--it keeps assaulting us with undiluted stupid during its entire running time. That's a claim some of this year's Best Picture nominees can't even make.
Originally posted on 9/13/16
I don't know how often your local stations showed it, but when I was a little Monster Kid back in the 60s I only got to see THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS (1959) once. So viewing the new DVD from Olive Films was literally only my second time to watch this modest but effective monster thriller from the tail end of the 50s creature-feature era.
Still, I always remembered it fondly, and I have a feeling a lot of lifelong Monster Kids also hold this seldom-seen gem in warm regard. Partly because it's such an enjoyably low-key and earnest effort, but mainly due to its titular monster, a scaly, bloodthirsty, and extremely foul-tempered beast with a penchant for decapitating his victims.
Indeed, the most enduring images from the film, which many of us first saw in the pages of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine, are those of the monster carrying around a bloody, realistic-looking severed head (as he does right there on the DVD cover itself). This really piqued our morbid imaginations in those days since such graphic gore was still a novelty, especially on television.
Originally posted on 10/15/10
It's been so long since I saw the original TROLL, all I remember about it is that it stars Shelley Hack and Sonny Bono, takes place in an apartment building with a troll in it (not Sonny Bono), features John Carl Buechler as both director and makeup effects creator, and, as I was reminded recently, has a kid in it named Harry Potter, Jr. Oh yeah, and there's a pretty cool performance by a little girl named Jenny Beck who at one point gets to be possessed by the title creature.
The in-name-only sequel, TROLL 2, has none of these things. It does, however, share one quality with the original--one of the best performances comes from the kid in the lead role, in this case Michael Stephenson as Joshua Waits, a boy who is visited by the ghost of his deceased grandfather, Seth (Robert Ormsby). Grandpa Seth reads Josh scary bedtime stories about trolls--or, as he calls them, goblins--who assume human form and trick people into eating a gooey substance that turns them into half-human, half-plant hybrids, which is the goblins' favorite food.
Nobody, including Josh's mom (Margo Prey) and step-dad (George Hardy) and his big sister Molly (Connie McFarland), believe him about Grandpa Seth's ghost or his warning that the goblins are real. So when the family travels to the tiny town of Nilbog (catchy name) on a house-swapping vacation and all the local citizens turn out to be goblins looking for their next meal, it's up to Josh and his ghostly gramps to hold the ravenous little buggers at bay until the rest of the clueless family wises up and takes action.
TROLL 2 may have been made in 1990, but in spirit it's still a product of the 80s. From the cheesy score, to sister Molly's awful aerobic workout dance, to her horny boyfriend Elliott (Jason Wright) and his chums who are like braindead refugees from a dull edition of "USA's Up All Night", the film is steeped in that golden decade's kitschy goodness. Not surprisingly, the film known by some as "the best worst movie ever" also glows with the same cheapo charm of a million other junk films of the era that I rented on VHS or watched on late-night cable between used car commercials.
Horror-wise, there's not much on the scary side going on here, with the trolls--sorry, goblins--resembling a bunch of fat little kids in oversized Halloween masks. These are designed to resemble the ones in the first film but clearly lack John Carl Buechler's artistry. There's no gore to speak of, since anyone who ingests the tainted goblin-goo instantly starts bleeding green tree sap and literally vegging out.
The creatures themselves are actually scarier in their mock-human forms, coming off as a cross between the hostile yokels from DELIVERANCE and the pagan farm punks of CHILDREN OF THE CORN. When they surround the Waits family in their vacation house and start slowly closing in, it's a little like something out of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
Technically, TROLL 2 is pretty amateurish, with camerawork, direction, and editing that are definitely not so hot. Yet it remains well-paced and watchable throughout, the story moving at a pretty snappy clip with few draggy spots and little or no padding. The smalltown locations in Utah are certainly atmospheric--just being in this crummy little flyspeck burg would seem nightmarish enough even without the trolls (sorry, goblins).
As for the acting, most of the leads seem to have been recruited from grade-school plays, yet they invest their roles with conviction. I love the awkward, stilted dialogue scenes between Molly and her boyfriend Elliott, who infuriates her by insisting on dragging his buds along on the trip. While these guys aren't so hot in the acting department either, they do make good plant food. One of them even ends up as a potted plant in the lair of Miss Creedence Leonore Gielgud, who turns out to be the evil queen of the trolls (sorry, goblins).
Deborah Reed, whose acting dial is clearly stuck on "eleven", mugs her way through this role with the eye-rolling gusto of a horror-movie hostess. When she's surrounded by her warty minions in the bowels of her inner sanctum, sporting a Technicolor makeup job and playing to the back row like Margaret Hamilton on PCP, the film resembles a particularly demented Sid and Marty Krofft production.
Also of note is Michael Stephenson as Josh, who makes up for his lack of acting polish with an intense performance that oftens has him emoting his little buns off. There's a nice nightmare sequence early on in which his family turn into goblins as he begins to bleed chlorophyll and sprout branches through his fingers and chest. Best of all, though, is when a famished Mom, Dad, and Molly sit down to eat a poisoned dinner and Josh has to act fast in order to stop them. His solution, which was pretty much the last thing I expected, had me howling.
The Blu-Ray/DVD combo labeled "The 20th Anniversary Nilbog Edition" is from MGM and 20th-Century Fox. The Blu-Ray is in English 5.1 DTS-HD master audio and English mono. Features as listed on the box are feature film in high definition, 1080p, lossless audio, smart menu technology, and original theatrical trailer. I reviewed the DVD only, which contains the feature film in standard definition with English mono sound, plus the trailer. Both discs are in 1.85:1 widescreen and offer English, Spanish, and French subtitles.
Like a Halloween spook-house slapped together by a bunch of enthusiastic but drunk neighborhood slobs, TROLL 2 is dumb as a doorknob but engagingly lively and fun right up to its startling conclusion. (And it's one of the few films I've seen in which bologna plays an integral part in the finale.) Although the whole thing threatens to fall apart any second, it never does. In fact, for all its faults, the chewing gum and baling wire ingenuity that holds this creaky creature feature together somehow makes it more entertaining than your usual big-budget bomb.
Originally posted on 12/18/19
If you ever wondered what a vintage Russian horror movie would be like, look no further than VIY (Severin Films, 1967). This old-country ghost story of a young would-be monk's terrifying supernatural clash against an undead witch with a thirst for vengeance should check that box on your bucket list quite nicely.
In fact, when this well-produced and beautifully-mounted tale really gets cranked up, some scenes easily match those whacked-out Shaw Brothers martial arts/ghost stories such as HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD and THE BATTLE WIZARD for sheer supernatural weirdness.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The story begins when a group of rowdy young seminary students are released from the monastery for what amounts to their version of Sprink Break. Three of them, including Khoma (Leonid Kuravlyov), get lost walking to the nearest village and ask for lodging in a secluded house.
Originally posted on 12/16/11
I'm not sure how the average H.P. Lovecraft fan will react to it, so my impressions of BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP (2006) were based solely on the movie itself and not on how well or how badly screenwriter Barrett J. Leigh adapted it from Lovecraft's short story. As such, I found it to be one of the creepiest and most over-the-top horror films I've seen in recent years.
The story takes place in one of those nightmarish insane asylums (circa 1911) in which the grievously abused and neglected patients serve as guinea pigs in the mad experiments of crazed doctors. Young Dr. Eischel (Fountain Yount) is conducting his own really interesting experiment on a catatonic, cadaverous-looking woman named Ardelia--strapped to a chair, her skull has been sawed through for easy pop-top access to her brain, into which Dr. Eischel sticks electrodes that are hooked up to a device he uses to stimulate various nerve centers. I was never really sure what his goal was (something about harnessing the enery of thought), but it didn't really matter because the whole thing was wonderfully weird and horrific.
Meanwhile, Dr. Wardlow (Kurt Hargan), a profoundly cruel, power-mad alienist (okay, I had to look it up--"alienist: n. 'A physician who has been accepted by a court of law as an expert on the mental competence of principals or witnesses appearing before it'", according to www.answers.com) is presiding over the hearing of a wretched piece of human flotsam named Joe Slaader (William Sanderson, BLADE RUNNER, "Newhart"), who has been caught butchering a bunch of his fellow inbred hillbillies and running around in the woods with one of the severed heads. Dr. Wardlow delights in pointing out Joe's myriad less-appealing qualities, including a large hump in his back that resembles a human face--the result of a fetal twin that didn't quite successfully make it through the gestation process.
Wardlow, who can't wait to get this guy on an operating table for some good old surgical fun, applies leeches to Joe's body to "suck out the madness" and suggests cutting out the malformed twin, but Dr. Eischel contemptuously derides him as an idiot, initiating an intensely confrontational relationship between the two. When Dr. Eischel later finds the chance to examine Joe on his own, he discovers that the fetal twin is alive and conscious--in fact, it is the dominant consciousness within the shared body, coming to the fore whenever Joe goes to sleep and telekinetically ripping people to bloody shreds (one of the few coherent things Joe ever says is the chant, "I kiss my loved ones...I go to sleep...I wake up with bad things"). Giddy with anticipation, Eischel vows to circumvent Dr. Wardlow's surgical plans and get Joe hooked up to his brain machine.
And that's just for starters. Believe me, this is one weird movie, and it gets weirder by the minute, eventually culminating in a grand, blood-drenched finale in which skulls are drilled, electrodes are implanted into living brains and the brains of several severed heads on spikes, and a terrifying Netherworld creature named Amducious claws its way into our dimension (via some not-so-great CGI).
Along the way, some of the patients in the asylum find themselves hanging upside-down in their cells by some unseen force as all the flesh is ripped from their bones, and the lovely Ardelia, her body reanimated by Amducious' will, pries the head off of the recently-ousted asylum director who has discovered her in the basement, just as he is about to gleefully rape her. One thing you have to say about this movie--it's pretty eventful.
It's also very deliberately stylish, and stylized--filmed in black-and-white, with color appearing only in the scenes in which Amducious' presence is felt, BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP is a dizzying collage of wild camerawork and sometimes rapid-fire editing, especially in the deeply unsettling dream sequences. The most unique thing about it, though, which is also the thing that will turn off many viewers, is the highly stylized acting. Everyone in the cast attacks their characters as though they were performing in a silent movie or perhaps the most melodramatic Grand Guignol theater presentation imaginable, manically emoting for the people in the back row, and this effect is even carried over into the stagelike makeup, costumes, and set design.
It's purely intentional on the part of directors Barrett J. Leigh and Thom Maurer, and contributes to the heavy layer of black humor that permeates the entire movie, as well as its oppressive sense of unenlightened antiquity. I'm sure a lot of people will simply regard this as horrible acting, which, in some cases, it may be. But it worked for me.
Will Lovecraft fans like this movie? I have no idea, but judging from their reactions to most of the previous cinematic adaptations of the author's works, probably not. On its own terms, however, I found it to be a wildly inventive, nightmarish, shocking, funny, and unabashedly bizarre experience that was enough fun for me to disregard its faults. Plus, it's a visual feast for gorehounds, who will also be pleased to see Tom Savini in an all-too-brief role early on.
BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP is a film that is definitely not for everyone, but if you get hooked into it just right, you may have almost as much fun as Ardelia does when Dr. Eischel sticks an electrode into the pleasure center of her brain and turns up the dial.
The She-Monster is played by Shirley Kilpatrick...
..rumored to have later changed her named to Shirley Stoler of "The Deer Hunter" and "Seven Beauties" fame.
Exterior shooting took place in various parks around Los Angeles.
Interiors were shot at Larchmont Studios in Hollywood.
Much of the music was later reused in "The Beast of Yucca Flats" (1961).
Kenne Duncan was an Ed Wood regular, appearing in five of his productions including "Night of the Ghouls."
Often cast as a bad guy, he was known as "The Meanest Man in Movies."
Robert Clarke would star as "The Hideous Sun Demon" in 1958.
Marilyn Harvey's only other movie role was an uncredited bit part in "Rosemary's Baby" (1968).
Bit player Jeanne Tatum (left) had but one other credited role, in "Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow" (1959).
Director Ronald V. Ashcroft hired his own wife Lorraine as Shirley Kilpatrick's stunt double.
Ashcroft was an assistant director on Ed Wood's "Night of the Ghouls."
The Official Razzie Movie Guide lists this as one of the top 100 most amusingly bad movies ever made.
Shirley Kilpatrick rarely turns her back during her scenes because the zipper on her costume broke during filming.
The film was released in the UK under the title "Mysterious Invader."
The film was made in four days with a cost of $18,000...
...and was sold to American International Pictures for $60,000.
Originally posted on 10/3/18
I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
(Originally posted on 10/2/19)
If you loved JAWS and just can't get enough of hapless landlubbers being menaced by a huge, bad-tempered amphibian with a sweet tooth for people, then you may be just the person KILLER CROCODILE (Severin Films, 1989) was made for. Especially if you also love really bad movies that are, for some reason, really fun to watch.
This one finds a group of idealistic young ecologists in the swamps of Santo Domingo, investigating reports that radioactive industrial waste is being dumped there. Toodling around in their flimsy little boat, they present a tasty buffet to the gigantic mutant crocodile that's cruising the area waiting for a chance to sink its teeth into them.
Meanwhile back at the village, an evil industrialist named Foley (Wohrman Williams) is conspiring to dump even more waste as local law official The Judge (a seriously slumming Van Johnson) looks the other way.
