Eye of the Beast (2007)

Holy Crap “the Dawson” aka. James Van Der Beek vs. a giant Squid? Yeah this is a movie that I totally need to check out. Good or bad it should be at least a bit of fun.

Van Der Beek plays a scientist sent to check out why the fish population in a lake has dropped so much. The locals aren’t happy with him being there since they don’t trust the government and are convinced it is their fault. We also get a healthy bit of racism as the local whites don’t like that the Indians are exempt to the same laws about fishing that they have to follow. This reminded me of another creature feature Humanoids from the Deep that had a similar angry white guy vs Indians theme. Of course, that movie had Vic Morrow in it so it was better than Eye of the Beast.

So anyway, they eventually figure out that there is a giant squid in the lake that has been eating all the fish and is now moved onto people. We also get a subplot about the lady sheriff that is the love interest for Van Der Beek’s character and her own issues with the squid. It ate her Dad years ago and no one believed her! Everyone has to get along and work together to go out into the lake and kill the monster squid before it destroys the lake and everyone living around it. Boats sink, fishermen die, and electricity happens but, in the end, Van Der Beek gets the girl.

The Dawson to the rescue!

This is a decent movie. It is fairly tight and gets to the good stuff right away. We get some plot development with the characters, but they do a good job mixing in the creature action so that it never gets boring. Though there are a couple of times where you get the feeling people are being introduced solely to become food for the squid. It also seemed a bit forced that the lady sheriff suddenly has this backstory with her Dad being killed by the beast. I mean if it were that big twenty years ago where has it been? Still this is a monster movie, so I don’t want to overthink things.

I love monster movies.

The creature is brought to life with the combination of old school tricks and CGI. For much of the movie the creature’s presence is implied with the use of clever camerawork and sound. It is always just out of sight, but you know that something is there. Most of the action takes place at night which helps keep the creepy factor dialed up to an eleven. These are the old school tricks that movies used to have to rely on. When the creature does show up, we get both CGI and some rubber appliances wrapped around the cast. This is especially true of the big showdown at the end where the fishing boats head out to kill it. The only other effects work to speak of are the bits and pieces of victims that wash up on shore. Here again we actually get so see some creepy latex bloated up to look like bits of a corpse. Good times.

Between Sci-Fi channel (I refuse the hipster spelling!), DVD, and Amazon Prime this one is easy to find on the cheap. Not a classic but a fun way to kill ninety minutes. Plus, it has “the Dawson” in it! Consider this a recommendation.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer

7 Guardians of the Tomb (2018)

I caught the trailer to this one last year and wanted to see it. Not so much because I was interested in the story, but because Kelsey Grammer appeared to be chewing up some scenery. I will say he didn’t disappoint.

Grammer plays Mason, a wealthy CEO who has an expedition in the middle of China looking for some McGuffin that will be used to drive the rest of the story. In the case of this movie it is the secret to eternal life! So that would be worth some decent cash. When that group disappears, he recruits one of the missing men’s sister to join a rescue mission. Of course, it is obvious that he cares more about what they were looking for than the missing employees. At the first opportunity he takes the Maguffin and abandons everyone to their fate.

I should also mention the spiders. In a flashback to ancient times we see that the Chinese had come to Australia and found a particularly nasty spider that their wizard was able to make the elixir of youth out of. Those same spiders eventually overran the tomb/palace and kill everyone who comes near them. So bad stuff happens to our characters before some of them make their escape. Not really a spoiler that not everybody dies. Have you ever watched a movie like this before?

It is obvious that the writers of this movie have. Again and again the tropes for a flick like this are drug out for the audience to watch. The bad guy businessman who betrays them before it even makes sense to. A rickety bridge that puts our characters in danger. Booby traps everywhere. The brother is alive but needs the elixir to heal ala. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Heck there is even a ceiling dropping on them where I expected our hero to reach back and grab his hat! For the briefest of moments I had thought that they were going to let the comic relief live… Not so much. Normally this lifting from other flicks doesn’t bother me too much but here it is poorly executed and predictable. If you are going to reference much better movies you had better make sure you are bringing you’re A game. Here they don’t.  

Someone was having fun chewing on the scenery!

Where I think the movie does work is with the spiders. You get all sizes of them including a rather large looking queen at the end. Though when will filmmakers realize that spiders aren’t ants and don’t do the queen thing? Regardless their bite is deadly and with all the little ones crawling over everything it makes for some creepy moments. I was also happy with Kelsey Grammer chewing up the scenery, though he isn’t in a big chunk of the movie. Making him run off and abandon everyone was a nice plot device to cover for the fact that the clearly was only available for a few days. The rest of the cast is okay, but nothing terribly memorable.

I paid four bucks for a used copy at my local Family Video. That seems about right for this movie. It was worth watching once but I can’t imagine ever having the desire to revisit it. In fact, I’ve already given that copy away! All in all, it was mediocre.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer