Movie Mania: Lanard Alien/ predator returns!

 

In the course of running this blog, one common denominator is that when I do get something new that I choose to cover here, it's completely up in the air how soon I will get to it. Usually, this doesn't have much bearing on what I do in the meantime, particularly given my disregard for keeping things in the packaging. Once in a while, though, I have held off any permanent action until I can properly document. For this post, I have something I waited on longer than usual, from a line that has provided a non-trivial chunk of my posts. Here is one more unboxing from the Lanard Alien/ Predator line!

As previously recounted, this all started with a direct-to-Walmart release by Lanard Toys, already on my radar for the Primal Clash megafauna, that was actually licensed as tie-in merchandise for the Alien/ Aliens franchise. I first covered this line for the colossal kaiju Alien Queen, and later covered an earlier Alien haul that accounted for most of the line. The line returned with a series of larger-scale 7-inch figures that also included Predator entries. Because of limited availability, I only got one of the Predator figures (plus the insane 12-inch Predator). My interest dropped off after I got the excellent Aliens-style figure. A while later, I found the one I had missed, a Predator clearly based on the first movie. I held onto it in the box for a long time, not because I cared about collector value (really, in the time it takes for the real market to emerge, there's going to be more of these things in the box than out of it), but because I didn't want to unbox without documenting immediately. This week, I finally got to it, and still ended up taking a few days to get to it. Here's a few pics from the unboxing.

Also, here's the interior packaging, demonstrating the usual standards of unnecessary detail.

As you can see, this is intended to be the half-cloaked Predator. Ironically, it's painted with a little more detail than other figures, which skimped on the forearms and the mesh. Here, you can differentiate the forearm shield and the wrist nuke from the flesh tones of the elbows. There's also some sense of texturing behind the netting stuff. It looks like there would be more detail on the back. Of course, I had to take it out of the box to confirm they skimped on that big-time. Here's some pics.

What's worse, that the joints can bend this way, or that this worked better than anything else I tried?

If it bleeds, we can sell it health insurance...

And here's one more pic with the City Predator. Can we just say the second movie is better... kiiiind of?

"Hey, at least I stabbed more humans than I shot with the plasma bazooka!"

And one more! By the way, the accessory is something that only appears in Predator 2. And wow, those claws are long.

And while I'm at it, here's a round of bonus pics of the Aliens. I tried to use more of their articulation, but I could still barely make them look threatening. In place of the ladies, I brought in the Marx astronauts and Evil Space Guys. The scale works disconcertingly well (see also the Aliens APC). It gives me a vibe of a throwback to the pulps and B movies Alien ripped off.

"No, actually, I don't want to know what's in that bag..."

"Are you sure you don't want to see a mysterious empty starship?"

"See, this never works when we have guns..."

"Yeah, well, what else are you going to do if you're in outer space and you need to slice a pie?"

"You're telling me pink doesn't work???"

And how about a lineup with real lighting?

"Okay, the sportsman code means you don't use the gun.... uh, right???"

With that, it's the end of one more chapter for this blog and for me, at least unless more of these come out. It was indeed a good run, and it's safe to bet there will be more ahead from Lanard. That's all for now, more to come!

Fantasy Zone: The one where a dragon gets suicide-bombed

 

Title: Dragonslayer

What Year?: 1981

Classification: Runnerup

Rating: That’s Good! (4/4)

 

In the course of my reviews, something I’ve acknowledged again and again is that there are movies that are above my radar. What might be counterintuitive is that this isn’t a personal judgment. I may give good reviews to the most infamous movies ever made, but that’s not because I instinctively hate anything that’s good or popular. On the contrary, some of my all-time favorites are the ones I don’t feel I could do anything with as a reviewer. With this review, I’m finally getting to a definitive case and point, an undisputed classic I have repeatedly held up yet never found space to review, except for a post on the novelization. Here is Dragonslayer, the greatest 1980s fantasy film… at least before Willow.

Our story begins with a magician and his young apprentice Galen in a gloomy castle. A group of peasants arrive, led by a spunky youth who pleads for help against a dragon that has plagued their kingdom. It’s revealed that their kings have chosen appeasement, offering maidens by lottery as sacrifices to the monster. To prove the point, the king’s most trusted warrior arrives and murders the magician. Galen accepts the challenge and makes the journey, discovering on the way that the youth is a woman hiding from the lottery. When his magic appears to trap the dragon in its lair, the kingdom rejoices, except the king, who locks Galen in the dungeon. But of course, the dragon isn’t quite dead, and chaos ensues as it resurfaces. When the king’s own daughter becomes the next sacrifice, Galen must go forth to do battle with the dragon. Can he prevail, or has the sorcerer’s apprentice overestimated his powers for the last time?

Dragonslayer was a 1981 heroic fantasy film directed by Matthew Robbins from a script cowritten with Bill Barwood. The movie was made as a joint production between Paramount and Disney. The film starred Peter MacNicol as Galen and the late Caitlin Clarke as Valerian, with Ralph Richardson (see Tales From The Crypt and Time Bandits) as the magician Ulrich and John Hallam of  Flash Gordon  (d. 2006) as the warrior Tyrian. Effects for the dragon Vermithrax included “go-motion” by ILM’s Phil Tippett (all hail Phil), as well as a life-sized practical/ animatronic rig. A novelization was written by Wayland Drew. The film was well-received by critics and genre fans, including Roger Ebert and Peter Nicholls, but was a commercial failure, earning a box office of $14.1 million against an $18M budget. It was successful as a “cult” film on VHS. Later DVD releases were criticized for censorship and misleading claims about screen formats. Richardson died in 1983, before the release of his last credited film, the 1984 Tarzan adaptation Greystoke. Clarke died in 2004 of ovarian cancer.

For my experiences, this was a movie I first saw on VHS in junior high as an alleged introduction to mythology. The funny thing is, I don’t recall being that impressed with it. It was probably a decade or more before I looked into getting my own copy; I specifically recall choosing a VHS tape over DVD because of complaints and rumors about the latter. I watched that tape regularly for a very long time, and I still don’t knos ifit became a favorite, even compared to undisputedly flawed films like Krull and Conan The Destroyer. What kept it in my mind was how often it was spoken of well (plus a chance encounter with the novel). When I contemplated reviewing it, I puzzled further over how to classify it. It definitely felt like what I have called a “runnerup”, except that there was never really any one film to dominate the field. The very strange thing about the whole early to mid-‘80s fantasy wave is how few were successful commercially or in any other sense. It’s all the more odd that this film in particular would be the most infamous dud, as it actually got to theaters ahead of most of the rest.

In this review and leading up to it, the one thing I have increasingly appreciated is just how solid the film is on virtually every front. For me, this is more grudging respect, as there’s plenty of things that gets on my bad side. I don’t care for the impressionist soundtrack at all, for example, nor the virgin-sacrifice innuendo (ignored in the novel) and haphazardly developed criticisms of Christianity. I have also found the running time and pacing problematic, too long for an old-school creature feature without the depth of an epic. What I most actively irritating is the princess, whom I can’t regard as anything but spoiled and self-centered even in self-inflicted martyrdom. (Then again, Krull has Ken Marshall in the starring role…) Still, I will freely admit these are small if not entirely petty things next to what it does right. As fans have regularly said, this is above all a smart film, and this shows especially in its moral ambiguity. This isn’t a tale of pure-hearted heroes against pure-hearted heroes, nor an amoral vision of barbarians ravaging and ravishing across the landscape. Instead, we have a scenario where everyone has a point, and the hero knows he is fallible. The standouts that redeem the whole movie are Richardson and Hallam, who have an impact far beyond their surprisingly limited roles, enough that I will get back to them.

Then, of course, there is Vermithrax Pejorative, truly the definitive monster. Like many things, what’s easily underestimated is how little we really see. Much of the screen time is the dragon aloft, which paradoxically looks like not doing anything except for the frequent fire-breathing. We get a much better sense of the beast when Galen follows it into its lair, complete with a little extra fun when he encounters the brood of dragonets. What makes it all truly exceptional is the oddly prosaic design (reused in Rick And Morty), in which the wings must be incorporated into all modes of locomotion rather than being put out of the way by the convenient multiplication of wings. (There’s wonky continuity in an early scene when the dragon reaches out with what should really be its hindfoot, but this is a dream sequence.) It further fits the de-romanticization of the dragon; this isn’t a misunderstood thing of beauty, but a big, damn, beady-eyed murdering lizard. (Am I the only one who thinks it looks a little like the Skekses in Dark Crystal?) Still, there is real pathos, especially in the discovery of its young and its final battle with the resurrected sorcerer. My favorite scene of all with the beast is its brief encounter with the cleric, played by Ian McDiarmid before his Star Wars turn, embodying the thematic clash of paganism and Judeo-Christianity better than anything else in the film.

That brings me to the “one scene”, and it had to be the one and only scene between Hallam and Richardson. As the people of Urland make their plea for the magician’s aid, the warrior arrives and gleefully sets about dashing their hopes. Valerian identifies him by name on sight, and there’s a few moments of banter before he comes toe with the magician. When the elderly servant tries to intervene, Tyrian muses, “If he’s ready to lay a dragon in its grave, he has nothing to fear from me.” He continues to needle at the sorcerer, building on the servant’s well-meant words. Finally, Ulrich steps in, with enough dignity to silence the skeptic. He calls for a knife, which Galen throws down. Then, fatefully, the doors slam shut on the apprentice, surely a demonstration that would give even Tyrian pause if he saw it. Then we cut to Richardson as he says cryptically, “You can’t hurt me.” What follows will surely be remembered if you have seen the movie at all, and the one thing worth further note is that it’s the warrior who seems unnerved.

In closing, what I come back to is just what happened to start the ‘80s fantasy wave and keep it going in the face of ample discouragement. On that point, I already laid out my suspicions in reviewing The Black Cauldron (see also Leviathan for the even more improbable “underwater sci fi” niche genre). One studio greenlights a project, another decides to do the same with a similar one under consideration, and so on until nobody can say who really was responsible. The punchline of history is that the blind rush of the fantasy craze generated more real creativity than any number of profitable and properly analyzed “trends”. It might not have led to many films that made money, yet it produced the perfect storm for later film enthusiasts, a bumper crop of films that were strange, unclassifiable, goofy, and yet sometimes beautiful and powerful. That is the legacy embodied in Dragonslayer, and it’s enough to be glad for the whole fantasy boomlet. Because where would we be if Hollywood had to make sense?

The Anthology Anthology: Pan horror!

 

Something I've commented on previously is the degree to which both horror and fantasy went underground from the 1950s through the 1960s. To really figure out what was happening, the best place to go is the now-obscure anthologies I conceived this feature for. After kicking things off with the Helen Hoke YA horror anthologies, the natural next step was the series regularly cannibalized in those books, the infamous Pan Book of Horror Stories, which Ramsey Campbell famously commended as "illiterate, disgusting and meritless".

For my experiences, I became aware of this series gradually. I started paying attention when I looked into a story called "The Ski Lift", very suspiciously similar to Frozen. Another line of inquiry that went in that direction was research on Gef the Mongoose, during which I learned of a potentially related story called "The Tunisian Talking Ferret" by Harry Turner (see the Gef blog). It was the latter that finally convinced me to buy one of the damn things, with great reservations. It turned out what I was looking for was in volume 16 of the series, which was warning enough especially since that still was barely halfway through the total run. I then ordered it online for a mid-range price typical for the series, not so high that only a collector would pay but not so low that one can simply build up a collection for casual reading. What quickly became clear was that I had had good reason to be cautious.

In my little volume, the central exhibit is certainly the entry from Turner, a moderately noteworthy author who published much of his output in this series. It's about a traveler who witnesses a talking animal on the streets of a North African city, and decides to try to find out the secret. It's hackwork, but the kind that works, with some nicely understated grue and a colonialist vibe that's on the deconstructed side of such things. It all leads to a mad doctor who would make Megavolt and the villain from Wild, Wild Planet politely change seats. The one real surprise is that it ends in a stock last-minute rescue rather than what would already have been an equally formulaic "dark" ending. As an extra foot note, this and a number of other Pan contributions were included in a now-expensive 1978 collection of Turner's work with the mindboggling title The Man Who Could Hear Fishes Scream (honest!). I managed to find and read the title story, and have respectfully declined to cover any more of his fiction.

Returning to the collection, I'm honestly not sure how much more of this thing I even read. What's by far the most interesting thing about the collection is the mix of genres, including a number of entries that are science fictional at face value. It's further apparent that many trends in the US did not extend to Britain or Europe, including the separation of horror from "respectable" science fiction and fantasy.  For the individual stories, the ones that interested me enough to make an impression were "The Eve of the Wedding", one of several contributions to the series by Maureen O'Hara, and "Revolt of the Ant People" by one Lavan E. Coberley. The former is a giallo-style crime/ psychological horror piece that relies on mental illness and amnesia for its posited twists. The latter is obviously a science fiction piece, actually just about more or less normal-sized ants on a rampage on the vein of Phase IV. It's all kinds of not good, yet entertaining and unconceited. The rest I'm sure I read before I started this post will not be dignified with comment, though I will be getting to one more.

Returning to the bigger picture, the series went on for a total of 30 volumes, from 1959 to 1989, with the vast majority edited by Herbert Van Thal. The first few volumes were mainly reprints of "literary" horror and fantasy, including both Victorian/ gothic writers like Bram Stoker and H.G. Wells and modern talent like Jack Finney, Nigel Kneale and Muriel Spark. Later volumes shifted to original fiction and "new" writers, including some genuine rising stars like Joan Aiken and many more who may or may not have ever published again. Some volumes were republished in the US, along with certain individual stories that were reprinted in anthologies. By all accounts, quality declined over time, though fans seem to argue how soon and fast it happened. My guess is that past the initial wave of reprints, the quality probably didn't change that much. What it did surely provide was an outlet for new material, especially in the 1960s. The writing on the wall would have been when Stephen King and certain other authors started taking horror back into classy venues. Once the real talent had other places to go, Pan would have been in the same position as much of its fiction, halfway between old and new.

Meanwhile, I recently managed to find a couple more of these collections in downloadable form, which in turn gave me a better sense of the real tone of the series. These were the 8th and 10th volumes, which contained certain stories I had previously taken an interest in. Here's an overview of the more interesting stories.

"The Growth" by Bruce Lowery (8th volume)- This was another thread that led me to this series, a story with a similar plot to The Manitou. It's by an author who published mainly in French and evidently for the "YA" market, now best known for the 1960 novel La Cicatrice. It's laid out as a science fiction piece, complete with a postulated future history that includes a "Canado-American War". Otherwise, this is straight-up body horror, recounting the ordeal of the narrator's mother as she is afflicted by a mysterious mass that seems to take on a life of its own as it grows and finally absorbs her. Naturally, she proves to be the first casualty of an epidemic. There's a good sense of clinical detail as the top men of science and medicine examine the inexplicable malady. However, as with many entries in these books, it's surprisingly tame even for the time. My favorite line cements its status as self-dated relic: "It all began in the dreadful year 2021..."

"The Ski Lift" by Diane Buttenshaw (10th volume)- I already covered this one in my Frozen review (as I headlined, not the Disney movie), so I won't go into it further. I will, however, include an excerpt I previously posted only in a usenet discussion, where one of the characters actually tries the clothes-as-rope escape: "Klaus felt his way down, the material stretching and awkward in his grasp. He could feel the knot beginning to give way. He would have to jump now; to let go as he reached the end of his rope before it broke. The ground couldn't be all that far. He let go, falling, falling, far farther than he had expected. The rocks hit him in a blinding, smashing, flaming sheet of pain..."

"The Ringing Tone" by John Christopher (10th volume)- This could be the most interesting and impressive entry I've read, by another author otherwise best known for YA fiction, this time the classic Tripods trilogy. It's a short, uncomfortable tale of an outwardly respectable, not-quite-elderly veteran who makes obscene phone calls to fill his time. Things get stranger and more awkward than they already were when he calls up a woman with her own secrets to share. It's not "really" horror, just a tableau of the dysfunctionality of urban life, but then, you could say the same thing about Duel.

 "The Morning Echo" by Giles Gordon (16th volume)- This was a pleasant surprise while I was looking through my hard-copy volume, a polished borderline SF/ fantasy story about tomorrow's newspaper, by an evidently prolific genre author. It would have been at home (and rather routine) in the pages of Unknown. The only real twist is that there is no twist, but like Christopher's contribution, it rises to the level of pointed satire, complete with a prescient glimpse of the overinformed yet oblivious media consumer.

And while I'm at it, here's the covers of the other two volumes, somehow exactly what you'd expect British 1960s horror to be...

You really need some newspaper here, because this thing is going to move, and you're definitely going to have fluids...

What, can't a guy have pets?

With that, I'm wrapping this up. For me, this whole misadventure was all a snapshot of a period people are already forgetting. That's why I have always loved anthologies. They gather stories from the past and the present, and then they endure in their own right, old, self-dated, yet occasionally with enough punch to incite a book burning if anyone was paying attention. It may be going out of fashion in the age of the internet, but there will always be a place on my shelves for a pokey old story collection. That's all for now, more to come!

No Good Very Bad Movies 16: The one with Harry Potter

 

Title: Troll

What Year?: 1986

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Mashup

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/3)

 

As I write this, it’s closing on half a year since I started this feature, and I’m really much further along than I thought I would be. A major reason for this is that quite a few movies featured up here would otherwise have ended up elsewhere, especially under Featured Creature and my animation reviews. Often, these decisions have been spur of the moment judgment calls. With the present review, I am coming to something different, a movie that’s been on my radar a long time which I went through a lot of further debate about. What settled its place here was its quite unusual history and status, as a movie at once notorious and relatively overlooked, all because of developments completely beyond the control of those who made it. I present Troll, the movie that Troll 2 was supposed to be a sequel to, which somehow ended up overshadowed by it, and as a bonus, it does indeed have a kid named Harry Potter.

Our story begins with a family called the Potters moving into an apartment building otherwise populated entirely by annoying sitcom side characters. As they are unpacking, another new arrival appears, a strange humanoid creature who promptly takes the place of their daughter Wendy. The big brother, named Harry Jr, is immediately suspicious at his sister’s increasingly rambunctious and precocious behavior, but no one else notices anything amiss. Meanwhile, the supernatural being quickly picks off the apartment denizens, apparently transforming them into woodland fay folk of his own sylvan dimension. It all gets a convenient backstory when Junior meets up with a spunky matron who reveals herself to be an enchantress and the villain’s old flame. She reveals that the entity is a great warlock transformed into a troll, in punishment for his dastardly scheme to wipe out the human race and replace them with fairies. Now, the troll needs only to transform the last of the tenants to bring the fairy world to Earth. It’s up to the kid to save his sister and the world, or the building is truly going green!

Troll was a 1986 horror/ urban fantasy film from Empire Pictures and producers Charles and Albert Band. The movie became the directorial debut of special effects creator John Carl Buechler, following a credit for one segment of Empire’s Dungeonmaster the previous year. The film starred veteran character/ B-movie actor Michael Moriarty as Harry Potter and Noah Hathaway of The Neverending Story as Junior, with June Lockhart as the witch Eunice and Philip Fondacaro in a duel role as the troll and professor Michael Mallory. The supporting cast included Sonny Bono and Julia Louis Dreyfuss as apartment dwellers and Anne Lockhart as a stand-in for her real-life mother as the de-aged Eunice in the finale. Effects for the film were created mainly with practical/ animatronic puppets and some stop-motion and optical effects; it notably did not feature the Band crew’s chronic offender David Allen. The movie received mixed to negative reviews on release, with many criticizing its mix of horror and fantasy elements, but still grossed $5.5 million against a budget of up to $1.1M. The film received further notoriety due to the release of an unrelated film as Troll 2 in 1990, without the knowledge or consent of the makers of either film. The film is available for streaming from Amazon.

For my experiences, I’m sure I first heard of this one in connection with Troll 2. What quickly struck me was how rarely reviewers that film ever discussed this one at any length. Considering the infamy of the non-sequel, one might expect a collateral notoriety, if not backhanded praise just to emphasize how bad the other was. Instead, it slipped so far into the shadow of Troll 2 that it was for a long stretch difficult to obtain except as an add-on with that film. The only other film I had encountered with this kind of negative space was “Trek 1”, with the obvious difference that the sequel which overshadowed it was actually good. I finally got motivated to investigate when I acquired Dungeonmaster, along with the mess that was Creepers. After I reviewed that film, I finally requested the 2-pack from Netflix, and it was genuinely up in the air which one I was going to review. I never regretted my choice, but I knew I had unfinished business. Ultimately, I returned to it several times before I was ready for this review, because it is weird.

The first and obvious point to make about this movie is that it has nothing like the issues of Troll 2 or Creepers. At the same time, it’s not hard to see why it never rose to the status of a “cult classic”. For fans of the Band crew in particular, it’s difficult to take as anything but a disappointment. This shows especially in the effects, which is all the more baffling as I’m entirely satisfied that several of the creature puppets were flat-out recycled from Dungeonmaster, which certainly did better in this among other areas. The obvious explanation is the familiar problem of letting an effects guy run the show, which in this case can be said to get better if you look at other films the director did. What remains even more puzzling is that it does on a certain level bear out its unmemorable reputation, which shouldn’t be the case by any object standard. This is easily among the most surreal entries in an era of strange experiments, as evidenced especially by the transformation effects (not to mention the musical numbers…). The best explanation I can suggest is that it’s just polished and “mainstream” enough to create a misleading sense of familiarity. That, in turn, brings in the prominent debate whether it either ripped off or was ripped off by certain other properties, a question I find no more interesting than its similarities to other Band crew efforts.

Meanwhile, what I find most noteworthy about the film is its nearly on-the-nose treatment of urban fantasy. In these terms, it is definitely forward-thinking (compare with The Gate a year later), but it also shows many of the potential drawbacks of the genre. The ultramundane apartment dwellers furnish a few good moments, like an early interaction between Bono’s character and a lady friend (“…Unfortunately…”), but there are many more that feel as trite and dated as a sitcom. The premise is further stretched by the lack of genuinely likeable characters, with Moriarty’s father figure being perhaps the most nuanced (and the source of easily the best lines). These issues further divert from the simple fact that the fantasy elements of the story remain quite routine. After all the strangeness of the effects, it comes down to a story of a kid who can conveniently beat the competent adults with information and artifacts that are literally handed to him. (That brings up an idea I’ve kicked around for a satire where all the fantasy-land denizens really just humor the human child adventurers to keep them out of any actual danger.) It’s a good enough story, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before and since. For that matter, it’s the type of fantasy that would usually be aimed at younger audiences than the  movie’s PG13 rating indicates.

That leaves the “one scene”, and there’s one that has stood out to me from early on. In the middle act, a friendship begins between the troll in its child guise and the midget professor Mallory. In their longest one-on-one interaction, the child persona starts with pleasantries and an accepted offer of juice. She innocently muses, “You seem at peace with the world around you,” then asks about the professor’s health. When he responds with more pleasantries, she says, “You’re fibbing.” He quickly admits that he is terminally ill, doing his best to explain in a child’s terms. There’s signs of empathy and deeper thoughtfulness as the troll responds, seemingly vexed by the questions of mortality. He then shares a further memory of learning of his dwarfism, finally remarking, “I kept on waiting.” It’s a genuinely poignant scene, not quite in character for the film yet not entirely wasted, and a further setup for one of the most effective creature shots soon after.

In closing, I come as I often have to why I am covering this movie here. It definitely didn’t fit in with Space 1979, even less so than Troll 2 did. I gave it more though for Featured Creature or its spinoff (see The Dark Crystal), but very quickly decided it simply wasn’t up to the quality of the movies I was covering there (yes, including Mimic 2 and Starship Troopers 3). That left this feature, and I freely admit I still had mixed feelings about it. For the rating in particular, it got what it has virtually by default, except not in the sense I have used it for maligned or controversial films like Saturn 3 and Frozen. Again, it’s not nearly as bad as Troll 2, let alone Creepers, but then, nobody ever said it was. The one thing it didn’t deserve reputation-wise was to be overlooked, especially in comparison with the “sequels”. Even then, the final verdict is that there are clear and understandable reasons it was forgotten, which would probably have been even more complete without the infamy of the subsequent film. I stand up for it as a film worth watching despite its flaws. And with that, I have one more loose end out of the way.

Fiction: The Adventures of Sidekick Carl, Part 18!

 It's the end of the month, and I decided it was a matter of self-respect to do an installment of Sidekick Carl. No intro this time, just links for first and previous installments.

The Toxo Warriors sat together in their lab. The TV showed a short clip of a damaged convention center. “Authorities have still not confirmed the identity of the individual or individuals responsible for the attack,” the announcer said. “However, sources say that a single attacker was taken into custody at the scene…”

The TV turned off. “Well, we know she failed,” said the one who had most of the plans. “We don’t know if she’s alive.”

“She could talk,” the second said. “She might have already. She know enough.”

The first shook his head. “She wouldn’t,” he said. “There’s nothing they can do to her that would matter. She never really cared about what we were doing.”

The second nodded. “Do we really want to finish?” he said.

“We’ve come too far not to,” said the first.

“That’s what they said,” the second countered.

“Well,” the first said, “at least we can see if it’s finished…”

He opened the door, and they emerged into the larger warehouse space. Before them was an enormous, vaguely serpentine metal form, colored blue-green, with wheels on its four feet. It was clear that it was missing only the head. The second one reluctantly removed a tarp from the mechanical dragon head. Now it, too, was a pristine sea green, without a hint of the corrosion and encrustations that had covered it. Its mouth flickered as it spoke but one word: “Excellent.” And the two Toxo Warriors looked nervously at each other.

* * *

 

Dana Shelton turned a laptop around to show the pictures of two men with dark hair. “These are… were… John Turner and Ian Chesterton. They were second cousins, or that was on record. There were rumors that they might have been half-brothers, but nobody would say who said so. Turner had a doctorate in chemistry, Ian was a construction and landscaping contractor who tried to get a chemical engineering degree. Turner got hired by some big companies and a couple schools, but never lasted more than a few years. He was married, too; his wife divorced him a year before the Toxo Warriors first appeared. I’m still working on what happened to her. She filed for a restraining order right before the divorce was finalized, then things go dark. She had a child, from a previous relationship. There’s a trail there, I just need time to run it down.”

Even through the camera, her gaze focused pointedly on Agent John Carter. He shrugged. “All right, we knew about them,” he said. “We put them on a list of persons of interest. It was a long list. We found the wife, too, once. She didn’t know anything.”

Carl nodded, though he frowned, and turned back to his partner’s daughter. “I’m sure you can tell us more,” he said. “What about the other one?”

“We have less on him,” she said. “He owned his own company, but he never made much of an impression, even on his employees. The only people he was close to talked about him differently. They say he was intense, into superhumans, cryptozoology, conspiracies, you know the drill. The big break is, he was a contractor for the companies that owned the properties where the Toxo Warriors operated. He even worked at one of the same sites.”

Carter nodded, and idly clasped his own Dana’s hand. “That was how he got on our radar,” he said. He looked back at Ms. Shelton. “Well, you might as well tell them the rest.”

She smiled. “Sure, so, after the lab blew up, both men completely disappeared. With Turner, nobody was really looking for him, so he wasn’t declared missing until he didn’t turn up for a court date. But Chesterton’s employees and partners were calling police within a few days. Most of them thought he had skipped out on paying them, so a lot of them called their lawyers first. There were a few who talked about whether he was a Toxo Warrior, but nobody really took it seriously. By then, he was supposed to be hundreds of miles from the lab, so there was nothing conclusive to connect him.”

“I know,” Carter said. “It still wasn’t more than we had on other people. So what’s different now?”

Shelton’s smile became a grin. Then, here’s what nobody knew,” she said. “He took a quarter-million dollar loan from one of the Raven’s shell companies. That was after the Toxo Warriors’ lab was built.”

Carl glanced sidelong at Carter. His face was nearly blank, which he knew was a sign of surprise or great concern. The agent glanced back. “No, we didn’t know,” he said. “Sure, that’s not noise level. But can you prove it means anything?”

“How about this?” the other Dana said. “He took out the loan after 3 different accounts the Toxo Warriors used were emptied. And, he had a meeting for the loan while the logs at one of their work sites said he was on the clock. That was why so many people thought he was just going to bail, but none of them knew about the money.”

“Fine,” Carl finally cut in. “We have a connection. But how does it help us now?”

That was when his Dana spoke up. “Well, we already know what  really happened to the Toxo Warriors, don’t we?” she said. “Everyone said they couldn’t have survived, nobody saw these guys again, so the simplest explanation is, they never got out of the lab. That means whoever is out there is another pair. Maybe they were part of the crew, maybe they’re just copying the original. Still, different.”

“Sure,” Carter said. “But I’d say, not different enough. They definitely know things we never released, and none of the copycats we caught before ever figured out. And they aren’t thinking small, either. They may not be building armies like Basiliskus or Dr. Hydro, but they aren’t just out to knock off a bank or a gold train. It might be even bigger than anything the original guys ever thought of. At least I have something to take home.”

Carter left, while Dana stayed on the line to catch up in earnest. The two woman chattered, notwithstanding the deep voice of the Nine Foot Woman. When they were finally done, Carl stepped outside while his wife prepared for bed. He looked back, and forth, and finally up. “Are you ready to talk?” he called out.

 

As he turned again, he saw no surprise at the sight of two shining red eyes already there.

Featured Creature: The one with a deaf girl and aliens

 

Title: A Quiet Place

What Year?: 2018

Category: Anachronistic Outlier

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

 

If you’re a reader who’s been with me for a while, you might easily get the impression that I hardly watch anything new. It’s certainly true that when it comes to what I review, it’s a big deal when I watch something that was made in the last 20 years (see Starship Troopers 3). But I do watch new stuff, even it’s heavy on horror movies and cartoons. There was even a time when I actually reviewed quite a few then-contemporary movies that I greatly admire to this day. With this review, I’m finally back to the present, at least by my standards, with a movie I saw in the theater. Here is A Quiet Place, an actually popular movie that people probably expected me to like.

Our story begins with a family on a supply run in an empty town that ends in a completely predictable tragedy. We soon learn that this is a near-future Earth overrun by mysterious predators that hunt by sound. Our survivors’ advantage is that their teenage daughter is deaf, so they all know sign language. On the other hand, they have another kid on the way, and in the meantime, the father is torturing the deaf girl trying to make a hearing aid. As the due date approaches, the creatures seem to close in. When their home is invaded, it’s up to the family to stop surviving and fight back!

A Quiet Place was a 2018 film by John Krasinski, who starred, directed and received cowriter credit. The story and script was reportedly first developed by writers Bryan Woods and Scott Beck as college students, then sold to paramount in 2016. The film costarred Krasinski’s real-life spouse Emily Blunt and Millicent Simmonds, who is deaf/ hearing-impaired. The soundtrack was composed by Marco Beltrami, also known for Hellboy. The film received a general theatrical release in April 2018 following screenings at the South By Southwest festival. It was an immediate success, earning $350 million against a $17M budget. A sequel was released in 2021 after repeated delays. A possible third film is reportedly in development.

For my experiences, I saw this movie with somewhat cautious interest. My immediate impression was that it provides a typical example of a “mainstream” genre film by people who obviously don’t have a deeper grounding that actual fans would. In particular, it presents a collision of several tropes already thoroughly dissected, notably what I call the “tidy apocalypse” (see Night of the Comet). What’s most noteworthy is the idea of beating a monster by hiding from it. My long-standing take on this is that critics tend to miss the point as much as those who uncritically rely on it. To give the most infamous example, if you’re facing a T. rex, freezing in place is not that bad a plan, for reasons that would apply to any carnivore. At least you aren’t actively advertising that you’re slow and weak, or doing anything to provoke or annoy it. The same applies for any other mumbo jumbo; if a predator doesn’t eat you, the simplest explanation is that you didn’t look or act like food. As I pointed out when I mentioned the present movie in my Green Slime review, a “monster” that doesn’t attack can be terrifying in its own right.

With that in mind, the present movie is actually quite interesting. The monsters are very menacing and damn fast, with a deceptively simple design apart from the weird artichoke heads. They make me think of evil Oz characters, with just enough anthropomorphic qualities to fall in Uncanny Valley territory. On further questions of biology and ecology, what the movie really does right is leaving enough honest unknowns that more common and improbable assumptions of the “monster” genre are unneeded. For example, there’s no serious suggestion that they might be invulnerable to firearms, even if takes a problematically long time for anyone to use one. It’s not difficult to apply further realistic limitations. If they are breeding, it can’t be fast enough for hundreds or thousands of young to be underfoot. While they don’t show communication or pack hunting, there are just enough of them that some social behavior is likely.  Most significantly, their posited strength/ weakness of sound has enough unpredictable effects that it can't easily be taken advantage of. At several unnerving points, they attack machines and other clearly non-edible objects for no reason except irritation. Thus, it is clear that defeating them isn’t just a matter of blasting them with the most powerful sound system you can find, though surely somebody would have tried that at some point.

As often happens, the biggest problems rise from the plot and other mundane considerations. The obvious issues, covered in part above, are where the creatures came from, how they got here and why they weren’t eradicated by military force. For the most part, though, these objections fall under the already expansive category of allowable unknowns. As far as we know, the monsters might not be the only cause or even the main one for the civilizational collapse in evidence. For the purposes of the story, we don’t need to know any more than the human characters do, and it’s clear these aren’t the types who would know that much. What’s far less forgivable is the unnecessary plot contrivances and predictable “mainstream” emotional manipulation. The defining tragedy, considered in cold blood, would probably happen in some form even if the family all followed their own rules to the letter. The resulting guilt and implied conflicts come down in less flattering lights to standard teen angst and self-hatred, while the self-sacrifice of the finale is a lot harder to stomach when the parental figure is literally directing himself. The bottom line to me is that the film and especially the director overplays an already good hand. Monsters versus farmers doesn’t have to be complicated, and where the film that works, it isn’t. The one thing this didn’t need was extra and obvious melodrama.

That brings me to the “one scene”, and I worked in a whole extra viewing to get to the one that’s always interested me the most. In the final act, the mother and her newborn are left behind in a soundproof room. As she wakes up, she discovers that the room is flooding, for reasons I’ve never quite pieced together but seem unrelated to any of the creatures’ depredations. As she looks around, we see a creature on the far side of the chamber, not really doing anything. It makes a kind of rattling or clicking sound, and partly submerges without clearly advancing. Her eyes then fix on a box in use as an improvised cradle, now evidently floating. There’s a low, repeated note in the background as she opens the box and finds the baby safe inside. Just as she retrieves the baby, the creature’s head breaks the surface. And this is one point where my “head canon” take is that the creature knows exactly where the humans are and probably has the whole time. She withdraws, finally retreating behind a sheet of water, while the creature continues its strange sounds that I say fit with actual echolocation. What happens from here is exactly where the interesting part is not what happens but why. Maybe it’s confused or irritated by the noise. Maybe they dislike water. Maybe they are stressed by confined and/or manmade spaces (which would really explain a lot of things we see). Maybe this was never really about hunting for food at all. Like almost all the better aspects of the film, this is a mystery that doesn’t need an answer, though that’s probably not going to stop the sequels from trying.

In closing, the thought that continues to linger in my mind is whether the “monster movie” genre has gone dormant. A major selling point for this movie in particular was to present itself as a willful throwback, with the implication that its own sources belong in the past rather than the present. By my own assessment, the one real low point for monster movies was the 1970s and perhaps the 1960s before that (see Squirm), and that applied more for the American “mainstream” than for genre films as a whole (see Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster). By comparison, the post-2010 era has at least maintained a steady and varied output. There are remakes and belated sequels, of course, the best by a wide margin being Kong. There are “old school” homages like Pacific Rim. There are movies that more properly belong in other genres while having a “monster” vibe, like Lights Out and Frozen. Then there are certainly those here and there that do their own thing within the genre, like Attack The Block and Crawl. In that company, this film was really middle of the road, definitely “retro” in its underpinnings with plenty that’s genuinely new. In the process, it manages to be decent to good, with just a few flaws bringing it down from what could have been a higher rating. All in all, it’s a good prognosis for the future, and that’s enough for me to call it a night.

Retrobots Revisited: Changeables Gen 2!

 

It's my day off on the last week of an "off" month, and I've been trying to work ahead a bit. For the post today, I have another bot lineup, following up on what seems to have been my last installment of this feature, the McDonalds Changeables. Since that post, I made a couple orders adding to my collection, from later releases I consciously declined to pick up back when. Here's the first pic of the lineup including one we met last time, all based on vintage packaging that's probably being collected on some far-off planet (all that just to reference my review of The Hidden).

Of this lot, the one featured before is the first-wave McNuggets bot. The others are supposed to be a very similar sandwich box marked Quarter Pounder, and a pancake box that obviously isn't disguised from all angles. It's noteworthy that, where both Transformers and its rivals and competitors often took these shortcuts, this is the only Changeable to do so, thus one more reason they're awesome. Here's the group transformed. The McNuggets is cool as always, the flapjack box is silly, but the Quarter Pounder is just... not... right.

Needless to say, it was the sandwich-box bot that got me interested in expanding my collection. What makes him and other "G2" bots different is that there's a lot more detail painted on, which in turn makes it more difficult to find them in good condition. The Quarter Pounder in particular is prone to wear on the outer box detail and the face; the one I finally got is in moderately good condition. On close examination, I found some streaks on the inside that must have worn off during "transformations", and quickly concluded the only good option is to leave him in bot mode. And that face... dear Logos, the face... You can only appreciate it in closeup.

"Have I told you how I got these scars?"

Something I realized as I did further research was that two of my figures, the Fries and the Big Mac, were G2 figures, released with different colors. This incidentally explained why the Fry bot's fists are visible when he's not transformed; originally it was all red anyway. It also accounted for a vague memory of what I took as the original Quarter Pounder on the Happy Meal boxes, as it turned out both originally had the same yellow/ blue colors. Since many of the online offers included duplicates, I looked into getting a G1 figure for comparison. I didn't care for the prices, but I did end up with an extra Big Mac in better condition. I noticed after posting this, there's a further, minor difference in the molding of the lettuce, which is completely gratuitous compared to the expense of multiple molds. Here they are with the G1 Quarter Pounder; even in the pic, I can tell the one on the right is the one I already had.

Something else I confirmed in my research is that I had already sort of had a G2 bot, in the form of a 3rd wave of transforming toys that became dinos instead of bots. Here's a lineup of that one with the Fry and Shake bots. You can see the extra detail on the Fry bot's face, which is solid, deep blue in G1. I also determined that the Shake bot's red/ blue detail is painted on, something I initially thought was unique but then confirmed on the McNuggets bot.

And here's a closeup of the dino.

And last and probably least, here's a couple burger-based Transformers. The first is one I'm sure I held in my hand in the second-hand stores back in the day, which the extra Big Mac bot came with. The other is another dino, clearly based on the Big Mac bot but definitely of separate origin. The Cheeseburger bot has a kind of charm, but definitely doesn't measure up to G1. The dino is just weird.

"I have no mouth, and I must siiiiiing..."

And for something different, here's one that got away. Something I had already confirmed is that the Shake bot was replaced by a completely different design in G2, which was wonky even compared to the flapjack bot. But then I found a listing for this, by a seller in Australia. It looks like a repaint/ upgrade of the G1 bot, except this time, there's clearly a new faceplate. I didn't get it because of the price, including a big hit on shipping, and I haven't seen any independent confirmation of its provenance. For now, it must remain a mystery. And wow, that face...

And to wind things up, a couple reference model pics. First, Connie and Cassie, back on the stand. I got out the purse from the box the Trailer Park Princess came in, and Cass has been rocking it.

"I don't know, maybe I should give King Kong another chance. But what would we have for dinner?..."

And as an extra project I might get back to, I've been testing out the articulation on the Lanard large Alien figures to see if I can get a pose that's actually threatening. This is the best so far...

"Wait a minute, we're robots... but we're disguised as something it can eat???"

That's all for now, more to come!