Island of the Fishmen (1979)
Ah, so my patience finally paid off, and after waiting through several date shifts for Mya Communications to release Island of the Fishmen, it has arrived from Netflix. The box cover lead me to believe I’d be watching a cheesy Italian knock off of the already cheesy Humanoids from the Deep. What I got instead was an incredibly slow fucking film with a random mish mash of voodoo, monsters, a pissed off evil dude, and a heroic doctor just trying to survive. Too bad the story wasn’t good enough to pull this off and it dragged along with a few smatterings of death thrown in for good measure.
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Big Bad Wolf (2006)
When was the last time you had fun watching a straight werewolf flick? The last time I had fun was Dog Soldiers. It was a little cheesy, but entertaining from start to finish. Well, I just finished Big Bad Wolf, and, while it is nowhere near the caliber of film that Dog Soldiers is, it sure as hell entertained me from start to finish with cheesy dialogue, a decent looking villain, generic story, and gore and boobs. What else could you possibly expect from yet another low-budget entry into the werewolf sub-genre? I can’t say I was hoping for much, and what I got was at least enough to make me not feel like I wasted an hour and a half of my life.
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Wyvern (2009)
According to Wikipedia, a wyvern is ‘a legendary winged reptilian creature with two legs often found in mediaeval heraldry.’ So, how could a film about a giant monster killing people not be good? Well, by pulling a SyFy channel special approach (complete with shitty CGI monster) and mashing together bits of The Fog and The Mist (more on this later). Wyvren also should be given credit for the most convenient and out of place monologue I’ve seen in a long time. What you get when you pop this bad boy in is nothing short of a late night cheesefest that would go down great with a few drinks.
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Alien Raiders (2008) – DVD Review
Alien Raiders is a pretty damned good sci-fi/horror flick that suffers from a terrible name that not only sounds like a third grader wrote it, but it gives away what the film’s about before you even hit play. I mean, it’s not like the audience wouldn’t realize what’s going on within ten minutes, but still…jeez Warner Bros. Anyway, Alien Raiders is what you’d get if Terminal Invasion had a bigger budget, a better script and took place in a supermarket instead of an air terminal…and, that’s a good thing.
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Locusts: The 8th Plague (2005) – DVD Review
So, another Sci Fi Channel flick is out and once again, it disappoints. I know, I know. Why would I get my hopes up? Truth is, I didn’t, and this thing still underperformed. I would go into my rant now, but then you’d have no reason to read the rest of the review. The flick already had plenty against it, because, let’s face it, locusts are pretty boring on the killer animal scale. Well, they sure as hell didn’t try to make up for the boring antagonists with anything involving story, character development or even some nifty camerawork.
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The War of the Gargantuas (1966)
What would you get if you took the ass-kickery of Godzilla and crossed him with a retarded looking version of King Kong? Why, you’d get a Gargantua. War of the Gargantuas, or Furankenshutain no kaijû: Sanda tai Gaira, is the story two Gargantuas and the doctor that raised one as a child. Yeah, it gets a bit weird, but the flick is so filled with cheesy violence and destruction that it’s easy to overlook the massive lapses in story development. Heck, all you really want is to see a giant monster stomping ass all over town anyway.
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Barracuda (1978) – DVD Review
When you make a film called Barracuda make sure you have the damned animal in it more than a handful of times. For a flick with a kick ass, pissed-off looking demon fish on the cover there sure wasn’t a lot of the aforementioned beast. In fact, after the halfway point I’m hard pressed to think of more than twice that they make an appearance (even though the first half would lead many to believe that there was the potential for some fun feeding frenzies). What a tease.
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Cruel Jaws (1995)
There are rip-offs, and then there are RIP-OFFS. Cruel Jaws is of the latter category. I mean, seriously, they even used Jaws in the title. Not only did this movie manage to use one of the names from one of the finest films ever created, but it also stole shots from Jaws, as well as several of the other rip-offs that came out afterward. Cruel Jaws has no shame, and is friggin’ hilarious because of how hard if fails.
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Prophecy (1979)
There’s something to be said for great “nature run amuck” films. They may not be the best acted, written, or edited films ever and they may suffer from piss-poor special effects, but I’ll be damned if many of them are not funny as hell. In the vein of Day of the Animals and, to a lesser extent, Razorback and Alligator we get Prophecy. Wow. If you thought the stupid hippies in 28 Days Later were dumb, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Prophecy, while not a good film per se, is an excellent comedy that had me in stitches and owes its amazing-ness to a certain oversized skinless bear. That’s right, but I’ll get to him in a bit.
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Splinter (2008)
The horror film Splinter is set to get under your skin and snap crackle pop it’s way out. Things start out simple enough; a couple, Polly (Jill Wagner) and Seth (Paulo Costanzo) attempt to go camping but have some bad luck and head for a hotel. On the way they get caught up with a criminal couple, Dennis (Shea Whigham) and Lacey (Rachel Kerbs) who take them hostage and hijack their car. After a run in with some splintered road kill that flattens a tire and punctures the radiator they all wind up stranded at a deserted gas station.
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Webs (2003) – DVD Review
Webs is quite an anomaly. I received the screener in the mail and the first thing I noticed was the massive “SciFi Essentials” plastered across the top of the DVD case. Anyone that watches the SciFi channel knows that they usually put out dull, lifeless films that are chalk full of horrible CGI and acting that would make a kid in elementary school blush. With my standards already knocked down a peg I glanced over the rest of the DVD packaging. The cover is generic enough as is the back, yet the summary is attention grabbing. “…savage, cannibalistic humans with spider appendages stalk and swarm.” Webs is, after all is said and done, an entertaining film that suffers from the SciFi Channel syndrome.
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Lair of the White Worm (1988)
The Lair of the White Worm is an incredibly hard film to classify. It covers just about every genre as it slithers to an incredibly tongue-in-cheek climax. I would place The Lair of the White Worm into the horror genre, because that seems to be the overlying theme, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot else going on underneath the surface. Ken Russell (director of the criminally overlooked The Devils) takes Bram Stoker’s classic novel, and gives it a modern touch-up, bringing the horrors of the White Worm into the present day. Because Ken Russell made the film, viewers can expect ridiculously over-the-top scenes with a sprinkling of dark humor and some intense violence; but it all looks beautiful.
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Mothra (1961)
Note: This review is for the original Japanese version
I hold a special place in my heart for Japanese films involving giant monsters laying waste to entire cities. In my younger days, I used to look so forward to Saturday’s when some local station would usually play one of these films on the “Creature Feature”. Unfortunately though, I think many that didn’t grow up as a fan of these films look at them as being nothing more than low-grade, cheesy entertainment. And I can’t blame them, as the US dubbed versions of most of these films are cringe-worthy. Many people probably don’t realize that the Japanese version of Godzilla (or Gojira to us purist snobs) is actually a meditation on the dangers of nuclear testing, and that most of these films are heavily altered upon import. Sure, many of them are just good escapist fun in their original forms, but there are those few that stand above the others and attempt to do something other than just provide monsters on the rampage. Mothra is one of those films, and it’s one of the most unique entries in the Kaiju genre.
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Dark Floors (2008)
It’s nothing new for musical acts to get themselves into the film game. With films like KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, Cool as Ice, and the most horrific of them all, Spice World, history has proven that this is generally not a good idea. Once in a great while however, it works, like David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth. Finnish hard rock band and GWAR worshippers Lordi have decided to attempt and crossover into the realm of cinema with the horror film Dark Floors. Not surprisingly, history has repeated itself and Dark Floors fails at everything it attempts to do, although it may very well be the best comedy of the year.
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Humanoids from the Deep (1980)
When I hear the words “Exploitation Film” the first thing that pops into my head is Humanoids from the Deep. This film had pretty much every convention of an exploitation film including: nudity, gore, horrible acting, destruction, death, cheesy dialogue, a generic story, and terrible effects. Humanoids from the Deep fails on so many levels that anyone with any common sense would know to stay away, but I don’t. This movie is easily in my top 10 exploitation films and after seeing a print on the big screen I can honestly say that if you think you’re an exploitation fan, you need to see this film. Immediately. I know this may be difficult since the damned thing is out of print and goes for a mint on eBay (anyone that finds a good retail copy – under $30 – shoot me an E-mail).
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Grizzly (1976)
What would you get if you took out the water, shark, Oscar-caliber acting, solid script and overall power of Jaws and replaced it with a forest, a grizzly bear, C-grade acting, a script that was written by a crazy man and ended up with a film that has absolutely nothing going for it except laughs? You’d get Grizzly: a film that has almost nothing going for it except for laughs, explosions and a baby-meets-bear scene that has to be seen to be believed. It almost comes off as a spoof on Jaws, except you can tell the filmmakers were actually trying to make a good film, and because it was so horrible it falls into the “so-bad-it’s-good” category.
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Crocodile (1981)
Now, when you’ve got a film called Crocodile, you pretty much know what you’re getting into. Especially when the DVD cover looks the way it does. How awesome is that? Do you get what you paid for? Yes. Do you get what other reviewers have promised? No. I saw this years ago and remember just being bored, I don’t even think I finished it. So, I read some reviews on IMDB and they ranged from love to hate. One guy said the film is basically the croc munching on topless Thai women. I was sold. So, what’d I think?
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PS. I couldn’t find a trailer (really?) so I found a girl beating a croc with a stick…
Rogue (2007)
Greg Mclean must hate tourists…or at the very least enjoys watching them suffer. While he already got his kicks with human-on-tourist violence with Wolf Creek, he’s now decided to go the animal-on-tourist route with his latest film Rogue, which centers on an angry, hungry croc. I was interested in seeing his take on the killer croc genre, as let’s be honest here; these films are generally cheesy as hell and not very good. While this is certainly better than most killer croc flicks, some shenanigans in the final act costs the film from being the Jaws of its ilk.
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That looks like one of the dumbest movies of all time!! That trailer puts it in at... - 
I must admit I’m not to sure about this casting bit, Downey seems... - 
Wow. I’m digging it. Fucking love PA movies - 