Featured Creature: The one that's the best giant spider movie

 

Title: Eight Legged Freaks

What Year?: 2002

Classification: Parody/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: That’s Good! (4/4)

 

As I write this, it’s the second week of the month of Halloween, which is when I’m usually in high gear plowing through anything and everything monster/ zombie/ horror related. This time around, I’m still recovering from some big changes, and I have been debating whether to take it easy. I decided I owed it to myself to try to fill out the lineup with at least a few posts every week. I also got off to a head start watching a movie I have meant to get to for a while. For this feature in particular, there was one that was always going to be here. I present Eight Legged Freaks, the best 1990s monster movie that technically didn’t come out in the Nineties.

Our story begins with a ranting conspiracist who occasionally makes sense, introducing a story that we are apparently expected to take at face value. We then meet our cast, who will have less to do with him than anyone else: A drifter returning to a dying Arizona town; the lady sheriff and her geeky son and spunky teen daughter; the token corrupt mayor; and an exotic pets breeder with a collection of spiders. While the drifter and the sheriff play will-they-won’t-they, a toxic waste spill spreads through the ecosystem, causing a proliferation of enlarged crickets. (Wait, why did we never get a killer-cricket movie?) When the spider enthusiast feeds the crickets to his spiders, the rapidly enlarging arachnids promptly lunch him and spread through the town. Soon, the spiders have grown to low-end kaiju sizes, still able to climb, run and even leap. As the arachnids go into full rampage, the sheriff and the drifter must rally the townspeople at an outlet mall. But the deadliest of the creatures is already lurking right beneath their feet!

Eight Legged Freaks was a 2002 science fiction/ horror comedy directed by New Zealand filmmaker Ellory Elkayem from a script cowritten with Jesse Alexander, based on Elkayem’s short film “Larger Than Life”. The film starred David Arquette and Kari Wuhrer as the drifter and sheriff, with Scarlett Johannson (see Jojo Rabbit), 17 at the time of the film’s release, as the teenager. Other cast included comedian Doug E. Doug as the conspiracy theorist Griffith, Leon Rippy (see… Maximum Overdrive?) as the mayor and Tom Noonan of Robocop 2 as the spider breeder. The score was composed by John Ottman, also known for 2013’s Jack The Giant Killer and several films in the X-Men franchise, with a song “Itsy Bitsy Spider” sung by Joey Deluxe in the final credits. The film was shot mainly in Glendale and other locations in Arizona. Footage from the famous 1950s monster movie Them! is played during the film. The finished film was distributed by Warner Bros. It was a possible commercial failure, earning $45 million against a $30M budget. It received comparatively favorable reviews, including a positive one from Roger Ebert, and gained in popularity on home video and streaming.

For my experiences, this is a prime example of a film that people would probably have expected to make a lot more of an impression than it did. I saw what I now know to be the end of the film on TV (and dear Logos, the song…), and rented it somewhere around 2005 after hearing favorable comments about it from a friend. I don’t recall if I looked it up again until I bought a tape during the great wave of video store liquidations. With more leisurely viewing, I came to appreciate it far more, above all as a showcase of the very best 1990s-early 2000s CGI monster effects. As for the movie itself, it is a pretty good film that just about makes it to actual greatness.

Moving forward, the central reality is that this is a polished film that encompasses what is both good and bad in that description. The cast and acting, in particular, clearly represents far too much money and talent not to be satisfactory. The story and dialogue are likewise too solid to fail, without ever quite delivering the outright subversion that it hints at. Even the effects are, on a certain level, successful simply because nobody was trendy enough to mess with what had actually worked in the preceding decade: The creatures look like actual, functioning organisms; the action sequences are linear and coherent; and there’s enough goddamn light to see what the Hell is going on. What pulls things up are the peripheral skirmishes in the apocalyptic onslaught. It is here that things get genuinely unpredictable. Likeable characters can die where villains live. All the more impressively, at least one character set up for nothing better than a telegraphed self-sacrifice actually pulls through. The proceedings are greatly helped by the music, which perfectly fits the intended mood; it may be cliches, but they are livened by a sense of mischief.

Then there are the spiders, and this is where people might be surprised by what I find good, bad or unobjectionable. To start with, many/ most of the spiders look to be about the same mass as a human, which I am willing to grant as within the bare minimum of plausibility. (How could I not plug the Evil Possum Vs Eurypterids?) Further credit is due that the much larger spiders seen later do not replace their more compact counterparts, or make them less threatening. The tarantula that is the biggest we see serves as nothing more or less than a battering ram for the others, while the end-boss queen owes her menace first and foremost to her mastery of her own hostile environment. The biggest hole in the biology is that the film unquestioningly copies the cliche of spiders gathering in swarms (see also, of all things, The Beyond), which in reality makes about as much sense as using feral cats to run the Iditarod. Even then, there is at least a sense of a hierarchy that might or might not be sustained under other circumstances, as witnessed by one hapless specimen that the tarantula seemingly stomps be accident. Meanwhile, any further objections are easily overruled by the surreal high point of the jumping spiders, who are neither mutually hostile nor coordinated but simply focused on the chase as they each leap after a suitable prey.

Now for the “one scene”, in all the wealth of material (honorable mention has to go to the conspiracist mentioning L. Ron Hubbard), I’m going to go with a deleted scene that I know well from my old tape. In the final act, we find the main characters underground in a mine that the drifter keeps reminding them is full of explosive gas. There’s a distant scream (one more thing I was meaning to rant about on the biology), and then a swarm of tiny spiders rush in that I swear I remember seeing in here somewhere. (I now suspect that effects shots were interchanged with an earlier gross-out sequence that undeservedly made the final cut.) Alas, in the version of the scene I could find, we see literally nothing even as the cast react quite convincingly. After they draw back, the leads start stomping. Then the jerkiest of several jerk teenagers steps forward and begins squashing in bulk. He remarks that these are much less intimidating than the ones we and they have already seen. The geek abruptly warns them to stop, and when questioned, says succinctly, “They’re babies.” Then the scream is repeated, and he adds the hypothesis that it is the mother. And my whole point in including it here is that this is just the stuff they cut out of this one.

Now I come to the rating, and this is one where I kind of changed my mind. My plan going in was to give this one no more or less than 3 out of 4, and that is probably about what it would deserve entirely on its own merits. But further viewing convinced me that this is a movie better than the sum of its parts. The decisive consideration was that this is indeed a comedy, and as such subject to hits and misses that can come down to simple taste. Yet, with due allowances, it lives up to the tradition of Dark Star and Galaxy Quest as a parody that is at least as good as many “straight” examples of the genre it is supposed to be making fun of. On a sadder note, it also proved to be one of the last gasps of an era that reinvented the monster movie without leaving the Hollywood “mainstream” any wiser about how to make a good one. This is one time where “good enough” is more than enough. “…Okay, he did all right…”

The Horrible Horror Vault: The one with Emily Blunt

 

 

Title: Wind Chill

What Year?: 2007

Classification: Mashup/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

As I write this, I’ve been going back through some movies I previously put in the vast “maybe” pile, particularly ones I watched through the Jurassic rent-by-mail service that is publicly shutting down shortly. That gave me an epiphany just how many films there are that I probably wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of watching if my choices had been to stream or buy them outright. This, in turn, brought me back to what just might be a definitive example. It’s an odd film that came on my radar because of the participation of someone whose profile has risen since, which I have still never seen spontaneously mentioned by anyone else, and it happens to fall right in the post-2000 horror category I have been covering since I revived this feature. I present Wind Chill, and even by my standards, it is odd.

Our story begins with a guy and a girl (with no other names) who have just gotten out of college for Christmas. They apparently know each other just well enough for the girl to accept a ride from the guy, which isn’t actually going to lead to that kind of horror film. Things do start to go wrong when the guy tries to take a scenic shortcut, only to be run off the road by a mysterious car that doesn’t seem to leave any tracks on the snow-covered road. The pair face a night of isolation in the wilderness as temperatures drop, and the girl soon discovers the guy hasn’t told her his full story. But any creepiness on the guy’s part takes a back seat as mysterious figures and strange visions begin to appear. The girl soon realizes that they are only the latest of many to be trapped on this road, and the passers-by are the victims of a nasty ghost who started it all. Can they fight back against the undead? Or is it all in their heads? Either way, it’s cold outside, and this is definitely the kind of horror film where nobody is sure to come out alive!

Wind Chill is a 2007 British/ American supernatural/ psychological horror film directed by Gregory Jacobs, known as a veteran assistant director on films including Nightmare On Elm Street 6. The film was a coproduction of Tristar, the British company Blueprint Pictures and Section Eight Productions, the last associated with George Clooney. Filming took place in Vancouver and other locations in western Canada (which is “America”…) in 2006.  The film starred the British actress Emily Blunt (see A Quiet Place) and American Ashton Homes as the unnamed girl and guy, with veteran character Ned Bellamy (Mystery Men) as a would-be rescuer. The film received a limited US theatrical release and subsequent DVD releases in 2007, coinciding with appearances by Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada and Sunshine Cleaning. The film received mixed reviews. It is currently available for digital purchase or rental on VUDU.

For my experiences, this is one that I watched within the last year and gave some consideration for my No Good Very Bad Movies feature, which was not in itself ignominious distinction. By all my recollections, the reason I passed over it at that point was that it didn’t really stand out from many, many other contenders good and bad. (I suppose Frozen and High Tension ended up representing the respective extremes for the current millennium.) With further reflection, what does set it apart is just how unknown this one is for a modern film with a significant star, in those terms a plausible challenger to Two Evil Eyes as the most truly and unaccountably obscure film I have reviewed. Another potential distinction is that it is very much a mashup, specifically of the different varieties of horror. It is usually counted as supernatural horror, but I find it more like “survival horror” with either psychological or supernatural elements. The paradox is that I have found it difficult to say if that should be counted as a nuance in its favor or simply as being too timid to pick a line. On that among other things, the viewing for this review did not really help.

Moving forward, the things the film has going for it come down to good cinematography and camera work and predictably good acting. On the first point, the film’s visual vocabulary speaks for itself: The wilderness shots are utterly forbidding, with little if any romanticism of nature, while the interior scenes are claustrophobic without exaggerated melodrama. On the latter front, it’s striking that Blunt never simply upstages the other lead or anyone else. As things move along, there is a real building of rapport in spite of multiple revelations that clearly give the lady reason to question the guy’s intentions. What is genuinely unconventional is that the survival situation never becomes a projection of the “relationship”. It becomes clear that the guy is misguided to put it mildly, but the film never asks the viewer to invest in his redemption or demonization. What we see is a flake who doesn’t deserve his fate any more than a happy ending. If there’s a problem, it’s that we are still given more reason to sympathize with him than the heroine who is clearly slated to survive.

That leaves the ghosts, and this is where things get hit or miss. The first few appearances of the phantoms are very effective, but this is to be expected given the noted high standards in play. When the film tries to build on this early moments with effects and gore, it becomes a literal case of “too much and not enough”. The makeup is more convincing and effective on the specters that are clearly intended to look like regular people, and the occasional attempts at jump scares are bluntly telegraphed. The best moments all come from the very bad ghost cop, who transforms by increments from a jerk to an animistic god-demon that seems to personify the cold. Where the story cops out early is that it stretches “ambiguity” to whether the living characters are doing anything but freezing in the car, which spoils the narrative stakes of what would be the most effective moments of the film (especially the death of Bellamy’s character). Something also has to be said about the rating, which is upped to R for absolutely no comprehensible reason. (It’s all the more enraging given what “’70s PG” horror films like Tourist Trap got away with.) There can be little doubt that this was a case where the filmmakers were going for PG-13, and it’s hard to imagine anything that could have placated the ratings police after such an arbitrary verdict. However, there are certainly ways this could have been better if they had gone back and tried to “earn” the rating outright.

That leaves the “one scene”, and this is yet another time I returned the disc before I got this far. Fortunately, there’s one particular scene I thought of several times in the course of this review, which is the appearance of the villain. Partway through, the pair are still thinking of their misadventure as waiting for help while a few odd characters pass by. They are relieved when someone knocks on the window, and we see a smiling patrolman. The lady in particular is immediately relieved, but the cop goes right into a spiel like they are a couple he caught making out, with all the grotesque implications that implies. The pair still take this at face value and scramble to get some pocket money together. Then, in a questionable decision even for a horror movie damsel, the lady leaves the car to deliver the bribe, aside from anything else ignoring his strong insinuations that what he wants isn’t money. I admit I don’t recall exactly what happens from here, but it is an effective sequence that gets more intriguing on cross-examination. Is this a Sixth Sense deal where the ghost still thinks he’s alive? Is he acting out his former misdeeds before moving in for the kill? Or is this already a hallucination or completely visionary experience? It’s the kind of thing that makes a film like this fascinating, but it’s the most conspicuous point where this would have been better without any tomfoolery about what’s “real”.

In closing, I come in my usual course to the rating. I have to say that this is one time where the rating I give is exactly what I planned on before and after. This certainly isn’t a “bad” film, and it definitely deserves to be a lot better known. But it remains very much a “middle of the road” movie, in large part by its own choices, and in those terms it can be more frustrating than a more seriously flawed but ambitious film like Two Evil Eyes or Dead Heat. (Yeah, I need to do something about Treat Williams.) The bottom line, they tried, they did okay and then they went on to better things. That’s good enough for me to finish on a high note. Onward and upward!

Fiction: Retro games fan fic/ parody demo part 2!

I still haven't decided what I'm going to do this month, and also, I decided to put all my other fiction projects on hold while I turned my Nintendo fan fic/ parody demo into a novel that I'm actually on track to finish. To have something for this week, I decided to post a chapter that's about two-thirds of the way through what I have so far, featuring an old creature idea based on the creepiest effects demo reel ever. Yes, this is what I used to write; yes, this is a Super Mario/ Metroid crossover; and no, I have never owned or used a gun.

 “All right,” Meliboia of the Myrmidons said. “We do this by the numbers.” In the viewport ahead, a planet loomed. It was ugly. It was brown. It was the most dangerous planet in the Star Union.

“I’m ready,” King Ajax said.

“So am I,” said Nopalina, his senior Maiden.

“I’m sorry," said Maiden Persephone, "if it’s all the same, I’d rather stay up here and read."

 

Meliboia briefed them in the main cabin. She wore only her Cingulum mesh suit, scandalous on every world they had visited. For Ajax, it drew his gaze no longer than her long olive legs and pearl and platinum hair. She dragged her footlocker into the middle of the space. She opened it and pointed out the weapons. “These are the variants of the 6mm MFCASK caseless small-arms family,” she said. She took out the two largest weapons. One had a bipod and a very sophisticated electronic sight. The other had a circular drum and a hard point for a tripod mount. “These are configured for Tactical Suppression and Area Defense. The first one is my primary weapon, 50 round topside mag standard. There’s room for spares on the side.” She held up a transparent magazine clipped to the stock. It was loaded with 10 triangular caseless cartridges. “The other takes standard clips or a 200-round drum. Pray we don’t need it.”

She unlimbered a third weapon with an extending stock. “This is the Multi-Role Carbine, they’ll take a 50 clip but you’re better off with 30,” she said. “It’s what you use when things are getting hot but you’re still keeping cool.” She attached a grenade launcher with a 5-round magazine. “And this is the 3cm Direct/ Indirect Fire Grenade Launcher, in case you have to explain something.” She gave Ajax the weapon. When Nopalina pressed to hold one herself, Mel gave her a smaller case that held a nearly identical weapon. “This has a shorter barrel. It should be easier to carry, but it can be harder to handle.”

Finally, she drew not one but two pistols. “These are Close Assault Tactical, for if something gets up close and personal,” she said. She waved the more compact of the two. “This is semi auto, 10 rounds; use this if you ask politely.” She attached a stock and an extended clip to the other. “This is selective fire, 20 rounds, in case you have to tell them twice.” She gave the smaller pistol to Nopalina, and kept the other for herself after Ajax declined it.

“They are fine weapons, my Lady,” Ajax said. Mel leaned over for a kiss.

“Excuse me,” Persephone said. “What do the letters stand for?”

“Easy,” Nopalina said. She attached a spare single-shot grenade launcher to her weapon. “Mother Fo-‘Cking Ar-Se Kicker.”

 

The bridge module of the Amphion descended to the planet. Mel aimed for a long, narrow ridge. “We can follow the ridge to our objective,” she said. “Stay away from the sand. It’s where the borer worms are. Mostly.”

They touched down between two distinct sections of the ridge. Mel emerged in her Lorica. She carried the Area Defense Weapon and a tripod. “There,” she said. “Think you can handle this?”

Persephone followed behind in a basic environmental suit. She tried sighting the weapon. She pulled the trigger once. She did not flinch at the short burst of fire. “I guess so,” she said. She took a book out of her bag. It was on raising Tatzelwurms. “Have fun.”

 

Mel led the way in full armor. She wore a full breastplate, a heavy Hoplite helmet, and what looked like a pair of wings on her back, in fact a pair of radiator fins. She carried her rifle slung over her back. Her carbine hung under one arm. On the belt that supported her greaves, she had holstered the machine pistol and a grenade launcher fitted with its own trigger and grip. Ajax and Nopalina followed in light armor. Once, a toothed proboscis at least 10 Cubits long erupted from the sand. It whipped back and forth, tasting the air. Mel raised her rifle warily, but did not fire. After a minute, the proboscis withdrew. “It smelled them,” she said.

As they approached the end of the ridge, she waved for another halt. She connected a small screen to her scope, allowing the others to see what it showed. Ahead were numerous stands of large cacti with asymmetrical bulbous pads and even uglier black fruit, each as extensive as a small orchard. “This is our objective,” she said. “The fruit is the only known source for several highly dense, very reactive compounds. For some races, it can cure cancer. For others, it gets them really stoned. For a few, it just gets their Mushroom fruiting. This is the only planet where the plant grows. They farm it…”

Nopalina took out a bag. “I collect prickly pear back home,” she said. “This should be no problem.” She patted the pistol at her own hip.

“We will cover you,” Ajax said. He raised his carbine. Mel took aim at what looked like a cave a hundred meters away. “Run.”

The first of them came out as soon as Nopalina moved. Its kind were called Kophon, meaning Deaf-Mute. It flopped down, giving Ajax a good look as it thrashed. It would have been two Cubits tall upright, but it was clearly adapted to run on all fours. A second pair of arms were folded against its visible rib cage. Its skin was purple, its blood was orange, its viscera black. Already two more had emerged, then five, then ten, and then he pointed and shouted as twenty burst out of a burrow in the opposite direction, at only half the distance.

Nopalina reached the cactus colony and began picking fruit. By then, Mel had brought down 5 of the Kophon with single shots. Ajax joined in as a group of 4 came close enough to hurl their own projectiles. A perfectly spherical rock bounced off his visor. He fired instinctively, felling the creature that threw it with a three-shot burst to the head. The scope gave him his first good look at their faces. They had large eyes with reddish-brown irises. In place of a mouth, they had an array of mouthparts. That was the source of their name, as they had neither a jaw to form speech nor a counterpart to the delicate bones that were the organs of hearing. What looked like tufted ears in fact detected scent like the feelers of a moth. He took down another with two bursts. He then fired a grenade, set to burst over the heads of the others. That sent them scurrying back.

Nopalina opened fire with her pistol. Ajax looked to see three of the Kophon among the cacti. She felled one. The others tried to cut her off as she retreated through the chaotic garden. She still took time to pick three more fruit for her half-full bag. One of the creatures stepped directly into her path. Rather than draw the holstered pistol, she brought her carbine to bear. She fired the launcher instead of the gun. It discharged a needle canister almost point blank into the creature’s face. Ajax overheard her on a channel she obviously had not remembered was open: “Not now, Kiv… Yes, I am with her…”

A steady hail of projectiles pounded their armor. Most were mere rocks, but there were also seedpods that burned or burst in clouds of smoke. Mel was staggered by Ajax tried to cover Nopalina while Mel continued to pick off the main force of the Kophon. A dozen of them were circling the cactus colony. The Maiden brought down three with five bursts, emptying her clip. He took down two more and fired his last grenade. By then, Mel was firing bursts herself. At a quick glance, the King estimated that she had brought down at least 20, if not 30. She slammed a spare clip into her weapon. The cartridges transferred from the clip to the main feed with a clacking sound like billiard balls. “Something isn’t right,” she said. Then she resumed firing.

“We are leaving!” Ajax called to Nopalina. He winced as a rock struck his helmet. She shrugged and started running back. “Leave the bag!” She shook her head furiously.  Mel traded her rifle for the pistol as a group that threatened to cut them off. Two more Kophon went down. She risked a fully automatic burst without the stock that doubled as a holster, felling one more before the others scattered. She drew her grenade launcher and fired down a newly opened burrow that the group had emerged from. Nopalina scrambled up the ridge. Ajax hauled her up. Mel fixed the stock to her pistol and loaded a 20-round clip, just in time to fire a burst into the face of a lunging Kophon. They hurried along the ridge, with well over a hundred of the Kophon behind them.

The proboscis of the borer erupted from the sand as they retreated. A needle canister from Nopalina’s weapon shredded its hide without serious damage. Ajax grabbed the rifle from between Mel’s wings and emptied a clip. The rounds from the harder-hitting weapon drilled through and through. The creature withdrew. As they approached, Persephone set down her book and readied her weapon. Mel dived and pulled Ajax with her as the first volley went over their heads. “Sorry,” Persephone called out.

As they ran for the ramp, an especially large Kophon sprang out from beneath the ship. It reared up on hind legs, 3 Cubits high, directly in Mel’s path. Each arm bore slashing blades. Its mouthparts spread, revealing a gaping maw lined with teeth. Mel drew her sword and assumed a fighting stance, just before Persephone blew it in half. Mel could barely see through the orange gore that spattered her armor, but she made no attempt to clear her visor. She grabbed the Area Defense weapon, tripod and all, and raced up the ramp. Persephone gasped as Ajax threw her over his shoulder.

“We have to go go go!” Mel called out. She backed up to a wall mount that linked to her Lorica. The armor split open, allowing her to climb out. She scrambled into the cockpit proper, clad only in her Cingulum and inner mail. Ajax ran to her side, himself down to an undershirt and trousers. A push of a button started the firing sequence. As it counted down, they looked up… and saw a Kophon with a vastly enlarged skull standing on the canopy. Mel pushed another button, and the hum of the engine died.

 

“Well, they let us keep the fruit,” Persephone said as they rose to reunite with the main hull of the Amphion.

“The fruit’s no good,” Mel said. “It’s the wrong strain, and not ripe. The big one was probably trying to tell us that. I should have figured that out. The compounds will be unstable.”

“I still don’t understand,” Ajax said. “They let tourists come and shoot them to collect the fruit?”

“I told you, they’re a hive mind species,” Mel said. “The ones we saw were drones at the end of their lifespan. If we hadn’t put them down, they would have been turned into cactus fertilizer.”

Ajax shook his head. “Do people do this knowing the truth?”

“The tour guides have kept the real rubes in the dark,” Mel said. “They usually empty their guns in the air and run away as soon as they see one Kophon, never mind a hundred. I heard of one guy who got left behind when one of the marks hotwired his ship. The ones who pay enough for a real fight are usually in the know. It’s not risk-free. About 2% of professional hunts end in one or more human casualties.”

They cleaned the Lorica over a grate in the lavatory floor, using a detachable showerhead set for maximum pressure. When that failed to clean off the heaviest residue, Mel used a flame unit at the lowest setting. Ajax considered the fruit. “Does this really have value?” he asked sadly.

“Enough to make a profit on a successful hunt,” Mel said. She had finished cleaning the suit and started applying a powdered cleanser to a trail of gore on the floor of the bridge module. “They figured out how to synthesize the active compounds years ago. It’s difficult enough that only the pharmaceutical concerns can really afford it. Of course, they only market their products for approved, regulated medical purposes. Gray-area applications are only sustainable with a supply of the fruit. Now that I think about it, we could get something for this after all…”

Ajax clasped her hand. She looked up in surprise. “My Lady,” he said, “I still do not know if you would choose to be my Queen. But whatever comes, promise me this… Never go back there again.”

Mel dropped the bag. Several of the fruit rolled out. “All right,” she said. “By my name, I promise.” Then they kissed. 

The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs: Direct to Walmart Carnotaurus!

 

It's literally the last day of the month, and last month was the second time I skipped this, my longest-running feature. It crossed my mind that I genuinely feel that letting this go would truly be letting part of me fade away. So, I decided to see what I could dig out, and what I came up with was this, a Carnotaurus from my extensive direct-to-Walmart collection. It also happened that I already had a couple photos saved. Here's a couple pics on the Couch Mark 1, originally taken at the same time as my pachycephalosaurs post.

"What are orthodontics???"

Looking back, what I remember about Carnotaurus was that it was quite possibly the biggest "new" discovery at the time I was going from a kid obsessed with dinosaurs to a semi-mature student of paleontology. Sure, there were other major finds in the late 1980s-mid-'90s timeframe, like the nesting Oviraptor colonies, the first semi-complete spinosaurs, and Argentinosaurus and Giganotosaurus (which I still haven't gotten to). These, however, all felt like extensions of the old, either new and better remains of creatures we already knew about or bigger versions of same. Carnotaurus was something truly different, possessing not only horns but a very odd skull. On top of that, the type specimen was found with the most extensive skin impressions of any carnosaur, giving us our first (and in hindsight inconclusive) look at what they were really like. As a bonus, they got into the Jurassic Park franchise starting with The Lost World the novel, and had a role in Disney's Dinosaur. (That one really went down the memory hole...) Now, here's some more new pics on the Couch Mark 2.

Cut me out of the movie, will you?

And of course one with the Truckstop Queen...

Now for the part that really interested me, I had previously featured Carnotaurus thanks to the Mystery Box. As I commented at the time, that particularly cheap and silly awesome-looking dino actually did a good job capturing what made Carnotaurus unique, particularly its short skull and oddly small lower jaw. By comparison, the present specimen has struck me as a case of attempting to make it look "normal"; you can still see the features there, but they are subtle where the "real" thing is jarring. (There are also things that are just off, especially the oversized feet.) Here are a few comparison shots that for the most part confirmed my point. 

Yeah, who has buckteeth and bunny ears now?

Another detail is the jaw. It might be apparent that there is a joint to open and close the mouth. On inspection, it didn't open any further than already shows in the pics. More curiously, it doesn't really stay shut on its own. I finally had to put my hand in the frame to get a pic of the mouth shut. Here it is for completeness.

One more development in this saga is that I finally sighted another example of the little Carnotaurus in the wild, as part of a brand new set (in Walmart...). I had previously estimated this was from the 1990s, which I stand by as the likeliest provenance for the sculpt. It's always possible that this has been recycled for 20-30 years. As for the big guy, I decided to give him a few comparison shots with my other previously covered Walmart dinos, the spino and the Retro Raptor. Overall, it's not quite as good, but still well-done and definitely big. Here we go...

Don't make me start the argument whether I could kill a T. rex again...

So, that's one post to continue the run. These are always fun to do, and this time around, it actually went pretty quickly. I could talk about past, present and future, but what it all comes down to is that it's nice to work with a dino that's really cool. And why not one more with the Queen?

You think you're big? King Kong is my ex...

And that is all for now, always more to come!

Robot Revolution: The one that's the worst Alien movie

 

 

Title: Alien: Resurrection

What Year?: 1997

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

With this review, I’m continuing my survey of robot movies, and after Willy’s Wonderland, I decided to do one more movie that I have been simply looking for an opening to review. As I have regularly commented, there are many movies that are simply “above the radar” for what I do, especially when it comes to franchises. I have worked around this rule when it comes to sequels, especially of the controversial and obscure variety. Even so, there is one franchise that I have still never featured, despite discussing it regularly since my second review. (Yeah, Inseminoid, you all owe me.) That ends now, and while I’m at it, I’m going to talk about why this monster franchise is also a big part of the history of robot cinema. I present Alien: Resurrection, and yes, it is not great. But, it can be a whole lot of fun.

Our story begins in deep space, where a secret government project has resurrected both the Alien and Ellen Ripley. They are both put under the care of one of the maddest mad scientists in history, who still hasn’t considered that if you need a host for a dangerous parasitoid, a dog or a pig should work as well as a human. Enter a crew of space pirates with a crop of kidnapped workers in suspended animation, who will never discuss the ethics of this again. The aliens spawn faster than usual, while the nosiest of the pirates connects with the clone of Ripley, now a hybrid of human and xenomorph. Alas, the aliens escape, with literally no opposition from the military crew, leaving the pirates and the Ali-Ellen trapped on board with the aliens. They must fight their way to an escape craft with the help of the least trustworthy of the remaining staff. But one of the renegades is not what he/ she/ it seems, and the queen is about to give birth to a brand new abomination!

Alien: Resurrection was a 1997 science fiction/ horror film from Fox and Brandywine Pictures. It was the fourth film in the Alien franchise created by Dan O’Bannon, developed after the character of Ellen Ripley was killed at the insistence of Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3. (Yeah, still thinking about that one.) The film was directed by French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet from a script by Joss Whedon. Weaver returned as the clone of Ripley, with Winona Ryder as Call and Brad Dourif as the mad doctor. Other cast included Ron Perlman (see Island of Dr. Moreau) as the pirate Johner and Leland Orser of Saving Private Ryan (yes, I recognized him) as the infected Purvis. The film was a commercial success, earning a box office of over $161 million against a $70 million budget. Jeunet returned to filmmaking in France, notably with the romantic comedy Amelie in 2001. The Alien franchise was not revived again until Alien Vs. Predator in 2004, which Weaver had refused to appear in prior to the release of Alien 3. Alien: Resurrection remains the final film in chronological order with Alien.

For my experiences, the Alien franchise was one more thing that I only got into at a ludicrously late date, which didn’t stop me from falling in deep. In all that time, my longest-running rant has been that I simply don’t believe in “canon” as applicable to the franchise (see, if anything, my review of Contamination). A big part of this is what Fox brought on themselves by dragging Alien 3 through development Hell just to turn out the most divisive entry in the entire franchise. But it’s also what I consider to be the best use of the franchise and creature: Keep the xenomorph, the universe and a few core characters, then let each creator do what they want. This has made me tolerant. I can take Alien, Aliens, Dark Horse, AVP, and even Alien 3 all in their place. The one thing I don’t like is being told that one entry in this vast mythos has to be accepted at the expense of any other, which has really happened only once. By comparison, the present film is the closest we ever got to an “official” film that embraced my own view of the franchise, and I have no qualms saying that what works bears out my point.

Moving forward, what can really be said about this movie is everything good and bad about the franchise, dialed up exponentially. Yes, the Aliens get as much plot armor as any of the human characters. Yes, the ship design is willfully useless. Yes, the characters repeatedly make stupid decisions for the benefit of the plot. But these are egregious for the franchise, not unique, and there are plenty of good points here, particularly a character actor-heavy cast that is well above average. Perlman and Dourif in particular are in top scenery-stomping form, somehow actually matched by Weaver. The Aliens, too, reach a surreal peak. The fine cinematography brings out the calculating menace of the creatures, and there’s real pathos from the final hybrid abomination. My pick for the two best shots in the movie are the intimate closeup of two preparing to dispatch a third (why did only Dark Horse ever think of making a cage out of dead Aliens?) and the CGI effect of a pair under water, not flailing but holding their arms at their sides for a torpedo profile. At peak momentum, this feels like either a live-action Dark Horse comic or what might have been if Roger Corman had made the first movie. (Old rant, yes, Galaxy of Terror was a rip-off, but Fox did kind of rip Corman off first…)

Then there is the robot angle. While the franchise has always been known for its title creature, it has always featured creative artificial intelligence, and this film in particular, the concepts are both developed and varied. On one hand, the ship’s computer “Father” is a fitting successor to the ship computer in the first film (really already there in Dark Star). The unobtrusive details of the ship’s functions gives a picture of decentralized artificial intelligence that is in many ways is more convincing now. Then there is (spoiler) Ryder as the android, powered by the still-unexplained gooey semi-organic tech. If anything, her character and arc is the one element that was clearly intended to be more than it is, an occupational hazard with a cast and story this bonkers. Still, she does have a part to play that becomes greater as her capabilities are revealed. It’s all the more intriguing to compare her with Ash and Bishop from the previous films. The earlier bots turned in some of the most memorable moments of the franchise, but they did not fundamentally challenge the role of the robot as either antagonist or subservient helper. Here, we truly have an AI with its (?) own agenda, with all the nuances and paradoxes that implies. There’s an extra layer of retrospective fascination in small details of behavior that don’t serve what we learn of her higher purposes. My personal favorite, by all means due for honorable mention as “one scene”, is an attempt to pick things up while wearing boxing gloves, with absolutely no pressure or encouragement from anyone else. It is a truly random moment, and that is exactly what makes a character interesting, AI or not.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the one that has fascinated me for a very long time. As the inevitable escape unfolds, we find the military complement of the research ship running away, not only without firing a shot but seemingly without their guns. The troops at least line up to board the life pods in good order, overseen by the designated military man played by Dan Hedaya, if anything one of the more subdued of the character actors on hand. We get a good look at the pods, which have iris hatches and nifty retracting ladders. We see one or two on their way before an Alien comes into the frame, apparently still at some distance from the pod currently loading. We see the last guy climb in, then cut to the exterior, to find that the CGI-rendered creature has already reached the hatch. What follows is a stylized exterior view of the carnage (wait, is this referencing O’Bannon’s “B-17” segment in Heavy Metal?), culminating in the same unlucky guy trying frantically to get out. The commander shows no emotion as he sends a grenade clattering on the deck, shown with one of several very odd Rube Goldberg action/ reaction slow-motion shots. The pod ejects, just before exploding. That’s when we cut to the commander saluting his subordinate, without looking back at what’s coming. It may sound absurd in cold blood, and it is, but it’s a striking example of what makes the film actually work.

In closing, what I come back to is how I would rank not just this film but the franchise as a whole. When it comes to the first film and its original sequel, I have always punted. They are both excellent, yet at the same time too fundamentally different for direct comparison. By further comparison, the present film and Alien 3 are each flawed in their own ways, and by any standard outside of effects and action sequences, this one is far inferior. What makes the difference to me is that I find it to be the one entry that truly lets you take it or leave it. On top of its internal insanity, it sets itself far enough ahead that the events of the preceding films become more like legends and myth than “fact”. In this context, you could just as well say that this is a comic book or video game within the Alien/ Aliens cinematic universe, and its relative merits would be no less. Per my standard rants, this was in fact an acceptable “norm” well into the modern era of franchise genre films. I still stand by it as a valid alternative to the canon overanalysis people have become used to. With that, I can say that I have finally covered one more iconic franchise. That’s enough for one day. “Punch it, Bishop!”

Miniature Giants: Universal Monsters Glow In The Dark Reissues!

 

It's the start of a week I was planning to use for a full lineup of posts, and I'm already a bit late getting this started. Fortunately, it happens that I thought to save a few leftovers from my last Marx post. So here I go with another sequel, this time about the Universal Monsters line I covered from exactly one figure before. While I'm at it, here's a pic I was going to use before of my "new" acquisitions with the freakishly tall Campus Cutie girl.

Now for some previously covered backstory, the Marx Universal Monsters line was released in 1963, the first year of the 6-inch figures. This was an evidently licensed release, since the bases of the figures have Universal Pictures along with the Marx branding. What is of some note is that this was not entirely necessary, as Universal had itself cut legal corners by claiming to use sources in the public domain, and in some cases used works and characters that had been adapted for the screen before. Needless to say, I'll get to that in more detail. In any event, these were evidently popular at the time and continue to command respectable prices in online listings. That was followed by reissues, most notably by Uncle Milton in the 1990s. The company made the further move of selling the figures with paints for the artistically minded, like the Mummy figure shown in the top photo for the post. They also released glow-in-the-dark versions of the figures. Initially, I wasn't that interested in these. Eventually, I got a Hunchback of Notre Dame figure that went in the backlog. Then, during the buying spree where I acquired other figures covered earlier this months, I picked up a figure purporting to be the Phantom of the Opera, and that was where things got intriguing. Here is a pic of the pair together.

Now, what's interesting about these figures is that they most closely resemble the silent films of Lon Chaney, the original makeup/ suit effects guy. With the Hunchback, the figure is just kind of generic, though the grotesque asymmetrical face (photos do not pick up detail on these things at all) certainly looks like something Chaney would have created. The Phantom, on the other hand, most definitely resembles Chaney's version far more than anything else. The twist is, Marx could easily have gotten away with using the characters without Universal's permission. The studio had made the original films (one more reason to downgrade the status of Dracula), and in the case of the Phantom followed with a sound version in 1943, but they would both have fallen into public domain status by the 1950s. The reasonable inference is that the Universal licensing was a matter of cooperation rather than necessity, securing the right to reference the studio's name and films directly in marketing as well as the use of iconic original characters like the Mummy and Creature From The Black Lagoon. Now that I think of the legal angles, the absence of Dracula makes a lot more sense. Given the infamous litigation around Nosferatu, I find myself wondering if Universal was paranoid about an adverse ruling. Now, here's a few more pics. From the back...

Closeup; yeash, this makes Chaney's work look a little tame...

Profile; I think this really caught the most actual detail of any of these...

And one more with the Mummy; this damn thing would be gruesome for a McFarlane figure!

One more thing I'm going to shoehorn in is a little terminology: "original", reissue and recast. As I have commented (see my video on the Star Wars scale figures), what to call original is already a bit of a gray area, as it can include things like the Ukrainian figures (also now a video). I for one am willing to count anything made with Marx's permission up to the company's bankruptcy in 1979. For "reissue", I consider the present figures to be a good example of the most useful criteria: They were still made in the "vintage" 1980s-1990s period; they were sold commercially in the United States; and perhaps most significantly, they were at least nominally made and marketed for kids rather than adult collectors. By further comparison, I would prefer to use the recast designation for items made within the current millennium, which are likely to be made for the US collector market even though most are made in Mexico (see my Space Guys unbagging). For the moment, this remains a minor distinction that really doesn't even have much effect on price, but things could get a lot more complicated down the line.

And while I'm at it, here's a bonus because I already went through all the hoops to use them. These are pics of a full set of Soviet soldiers from Ukraine, used with permission from seller Double Duncan Treasures. Per the seller's very helpful correspondence, these were played-with figures from an owner from eastern Europe, originally part of a set that also included Wild West and Viking figures. Of most interest, he reports that about half of them have Cyrillic markings, which failed to translate as anything but abbreviations. He also confirmed that the reddish color is that of the original plastic rather than an aging effect. Here they are...

And that catches me up. That's all for now, more to come!

No Good Very Bad Movies Legacy: The worst movies I didn't review???

 

As I write this, I have been overdue for a movie review, and finally decided to do another list (see my best and worst posts). For broader context, I’m in the neighborhood of 300 movie reviews, including what I freely endorse as the worst movies ever made that both survive and fulfill all major characteristics of a movie. In the process, I have frequently commented that there are indeed films I have passed over as “too bad” to review. As an appendix to my "worst" movie feature, I have finally decided to give a representative list of the ones I threw back and why they did not work for what I do. So, here goes with a countdown…

10. Bride of the Monster (1955)- A mad scientist plots world conquest, or something. This gets in here simply as a representative example for the work of Ed Wood, who got a “good” review for Plan 9 From Outer Space and never got back on my radar. The general comment I have to make about Wood’s infamous filmography is that he represents what is to me the bare minimum of competency. I base that on two things. First, his work is coherent, to the extent that they normally satisfy the definition of a narrative sound film: There is a story, characters, dialogue, and enough ideas to provide deeper themes and meaning. Second, the balance of Wood’s efforts are sufficient to demonstrate the knowledge and capability to make a “good” film. The corresponding reality is that the vast majority of his problems came down to not having money, and that in turn had everything to do with making films in the 1950s while being Ed Wood. My verdict is, yes, they are “that bad”, but I could never find interest or entertainment in taking them apart.

9. Xtro (1983)- This is the story of a boy whose father returns from an alien abduction, as the spawn of an alien and a human woman. Another kind of (dis)honorable mention, this is a film that was never on the board because I have never wanted to watch it. It’s an Alien knockoff that skips story, character development and coherent xenobiology in favor of stringing together as much creepy Freudian imagery as possible, which actually manage to go downhill from a woman giving birth to an adult man. As a bonus, the cut that I actually watched all the way through had a version of the ending that I have never found again. I tried it, I am not going back. Next…

8. The Phantom Empire (1988)- An ancient subterranean civilization happens to emerge in the California suburbs. An expedition discovers Sybil Danning (see Battle Beyond The Stars), an alleged Robby the Robot rig and recycled effects from Planet of Dinosaurs. This was my first round with the work of Fred Olen Ray, who got on my good side with Deep Space. It’s a direct-to-video mess that occasionally rises to “so bad it’s good”, not what I do.

7. Star Crystal (1986)- An interplanetary expedition discovers a crystal that turns into a deadly alien. It’s very possibly the worst 1980s monster movie I have personally viewed. One or two decent suspense/ jump scare sequences and a cop-out twist ending make it a little more interesting than it deserves to be. I didn’t care enough to get back to it.

6. Flesh Gordon (1974)- Yes, the Flash Gordon porn parody. I really didn’t want to include this one, but I haven’t made a secret that I had seen this one, so I’m throwing it in. The problem with this one is that it has less to say about changing mores and gender roles than the De Laurentiis version got away with under a PG rating. What’s left is a clearly intelligent genre satire that throws in with the status quo wherever it matters. Watch the actually good stop-motion effects in video clips, skip the rest. I suppose I should credit this as the nucleus of my Space Guys proxy rant about how much “adult” entertainment (especially the 1970s variety) doesn’t work for people with sensory differences.

5. The People Under The Stairs (1991)- Children are raised in hiding by a brother and sister. I planned on getting in one “big budget” movie here, and this entry from Wes Craven really deserves it. I suppose you could draw a redeeming social allegory out of the director’s imagery, but it’s everything I just find contrived and pretentious in horror.

4. Don’t Torture A Duckling (1972)- This one came up during my survey of the giallo genre, by my Number 2 archnemesis, Lucio Fulci. A serial killer targets adolescent boys who are starting to go bad, while the authorities interview a series of obvious red herrings who still don’t make any less sense than the actual killer. I literally said while I was watching this that I could not do anything with this. It’s cringey sensuality, irritating characters, a poorly paced story and the bonus of ludicrous effects for the villain’s demise, none of which added up to anything I found worthwhile to comment on. You got lucky on this one, Lucio…

3. Killers From Space (1954)- A test pilot recovering from a crash is troubled by memories of being held captive by mysterious entities. As his memory returns, he warns his superiors of an alien base where insects and other creepy crawlies are being raised to gigantic size for a war against humankind. This fairly early B-movie combines laughable “alien” costumes with routine nature footage and a tame plot. It rivals even Robot Monster and the work of Ed Wood as the weakest and most truly inept of its kind, adding a sense of laziness to its considerable faults.

2. Wild World of Batwoman (1966)- A lady superhero sends her amateur fangirls to catch criminals, then is surprised when they are captured by a mad scientist with a doomsday bomb. For a variety of good reasons, I chose Invasion of the (the) Eye Creatures over this one as the worst movie shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000. By almost any technical or narrative standard, however, this is actually worse by a wide margin. The plot is nonsense, the supposed heroines are irritating, stupid and cowardly (to the point of running out of a room when the bomb is about to go off- and it does), and the late and incredibly shoddy black-and-white camerawork makes Night of the Living Dead look like Dr. Strangelove. I spared it on the small virtue that it is intended as a comedy, and I freely admit that it can make me laugh when it is trying to be funny… occasionally. “End! END!!!”

1. Weasels Rip My Flesh (1979)- A weasel-like creature escapes from a crashed space probe, wreaking havoc as it turns humans into giant mutant weasels. I think. Allegedly shot entirely by a teenager, this one just might be the most actually inept film I have ever watched, which once again isn’t the same as “worst” (see Ingagi). This is the kind of production that makes an Ed Wood film look like polished, linear narrative. Viewed in the right mood and setting, it just might be fun.

So, there’s my list. Do you think these films are good, bad or no big deal? Have you heard of any of them? Do you think you’ve seen worse??? At any rate, I’ve got something to round out the week. That’s all for now, more to come!