The Devil Below (2021)

I’m generally a pessimist when I see new horror movies coming out. They always seem to disappoint me, but when I saw this trailer, I was intrigued. Mysterious creatures from a deep mine start snatching and killing people. That seems right in my wheelhouse. Toss in the fact that criminally underrated Will Patton figures heavily in the trailer and I was sold. God Damn it movie…

The story kicks off with the aforementioned Patton’s character Schuttmann talking to his son about one of the workers in the mine. Something grabs his kid and takes him away. Then we meet our main cast. Yeah, Patton is a bit of stunt casting as he is hardly in the movie. Strike one. A group of scientists are doing environmental research, only in a plot twist you can see coming miles away they aren’t. To that end they hire Arianne, a mysterious woman who acts as security and a guide. They sneak into what they think is a disaster area surrounding a mine disaster. Sure enough they let the monsters out. 

The rest of the movie is them trying not to die as the locals work to put the genie back in the bottle. Not sure if they are being paid to or just feel responsible for the monsters, but they all work to keep them locked up in the old mine. Lots of people die, and then the survivors close the gate and go back to keeping them contained. Yeah, that is pretty much the entire story. So, there you go. Before I forget Patton does show up a bit in the middle and at the end for a couple of scenes. I guess they had him for a whole weekend?

If you can’t tell I was very disappointed with The Devil Below. Firstly, I hate it when movies do the stunt casting and make you think with their trailer that a familiar actor plays a large role. That seems to be a dick move and sets expectations higher than they should be. I don’t mind watching horror flicks with unknowns, I would just rather know that is what I’m getting. Additionally, I’d also like to be able to watch the movie, including the action. Far too much of what happens with the creatures in The Devil Below is either from the point of view of a camera one of the characters is carrying, or just shitty camera work where you can’t follow what is happening. Not quite to the level of a found footage flick, but it does go there a few times. That sucks because the couple of times we get to see the creatures they look decent. 

Pacing is also a big problem for this one. After an interesting opening there is a lot of stuff establishing the characters of the scientists and their guide. Well, there is an attempt to anyway. I wasn’t quite sure what the group dynamic was and what motivations were before they started killing them off. Though that isn’t because they didn’t have time. We get plenty of walking, talking, camping, walking, and more talking. It just doesn’t go anywhere. Once the creatures do get out things pick up, but by then I should have been invested in at least some of the characters. Spoilers… I wasn’t. 

Other than one fun gag with a spike or talon thru the head I found the kills bland. Nothing else stands out to me. In fact, looking at my notes taken while watching I don’t have much about them. Most of what you get is yelling, the camera bouncing around like a twelve-year-old off his Ritalin, and blood splatter. Again, the creatures look good when we can see them but overall, this was a disappointment. 

The Devil Below is an utterly forgettable and generic monster movie that had a lot of promise but fails to deliver the goods. I can’t recommend this one at all. There are much better movies just like this that you should spend your time on instead. 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Target Earth (1954)

A woman wakes up next to a bottle of sleeping pills. She tries the lights and water, but are both out. She gets dressed and discovers that there is no one else in her building or on the streets. She wanders around getting more and more stressed when she finds a woman’s body lying in an alley. Backing up in horror she runs into a man. His name is Frank, and he was mugged and knocked out. He also woke up not knowing what happened. They also find a couple of drunks named Jim and Vicki. The four of them end up running into a robot one of many who are killing anyone the mechanical terrors can find. 

Along with our survivors we see some army scientists trying to figure out how to defeat the robots. Luckily, they have found one that is damaged and are able to experiment on it. They keep cutting back and forth between our survivors and the army working on the problem. Eventually Frank and Nora, the woman with the sleeping pills, are corned on a roof about to be zapped by a robot when the army shows up with their new weapon and saves the day!

I’m shocked that I had never seen this movie before. If you have paid attention here at the site, I love old fifties science fiction flicks. This is a decent one with a superior script and cast. I loved the characters and the actors portraying them. Richard Denning, who played Frank, was in The Black Scorpion (an underrated monster movie) and Creature from the Black Lagoon. He is excellent in this kind of role, that of the hero, and nails it yet again in Target Earth. Whit Bissell has a small part as an army scientist. He also was in Creature from the Black Lagoon and many other awesome genre movies. Though I mostly

remember him as the psychologist who turns Michael Landon into a werewolf in, I was a Teenage Werewolf. The rest of the cast is also solid and were all working actors. This is what is great about these lower budgeted genre flicks from the fifties. They took the time and effort to get good actors in the roles no matter how silly the premise was. 

The story is paced evenly and keeps you guessing for a while as to what is going on. They mention “A” bombs and biological weapons, giving you some other options. When they do reveal the robot, it is only as a shadow. We get a neat gag with a newspaper explaining things before finally seeing what the threat is. My only complaint is the constant cutting away to the army story. This happens too often and is told with a lot of stock footage. I was way more interested in the survivors and them hiding from the deadly invaders. They even toss in a human threat which could have been fleshed out more. Still overall I found the story satisfying and decent. It just could have been better. 

If there is one thing that might trip up a modern viewer it is going to be the look of the robots. Honestly, they look cheesy as hell. Now I love that sort of thing and it doesn’t take away from what is a serious storyline with death and murder. Heck I forgot that we find out that Vicki tried to kill herself with sleeping pills which is why she slept thru the invasion. This movie isn’t playing around. I understand that this was decent looking for fifty-four and that it was a serious attempt but like many of these older science fiction flicks the creature design doesn’t hold up. But don’t hold that against Target Earth.

Clearly, I liked this movie and am going to recommend it. It blows my mind that this is the first time I checked it out. It won’t be the last as I can see it going into the rotation with Thing from Another World or The Deadly Mantis. I liked it that much!

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

The Crawlers (1993)

A truck is driving with ominous music playing in the background as the credits roll. Then we meet a couple of girls on a bus, Susan and Josie. The bus stops at a gas station and leaves before Susan can get back on. She ends up catching a ride with a creepy dude who gets all grabby and ends up chasing her into the woods. Susan is attacked by something and killed. Then we see that Josie is returning to her hometown nearby. She has an ex-boyfriend, a precocious brother, and a few other familiar/friend character archetypes.  

There is also a science guy who works at a nearby nuclear power plant. He likes to walk around the woods with his Geiger counter and notices that there is a lot of radiation. Maybe that is what got Susan! Well sort of. The plant is run by a crook who has been embezzling money meant for the disposal of nuclear waste and instead has been dumping it in the woods. This mutated not the trees but just their roots. Yep, mutant tree roots are killing everyone! Stuff happens like suicide, the sad demise of the heroic hooker, rednecks shooting at trespassers, and of course the big final battle. You know how you kill roots? Why you bury them of course! Wait… what?

I should have known. The minute that I saw this was co-written and co-directed by an uncredited Joe D’Amato my alarms should have been going off. I mean when he is good, which honestly isn’t often, he makes some fun cheesy flicks. But when he is bad… well you get the idea. This is a bad movie. The story is inadequate for the ninety-minute runtime. We have far too many characters and storylines for the movie to build any momentum. Instead of seeing the roots attacking people we get a lot of walking and talking. There are not one, but two scenes with different guys hanging with the hooker talking about stuff. By the time the bodies start to drop I was already bored out of my mind and wanting the movie to be over. That isn’t a good thing at all. 

Someone needs to layoff the Miracle Grow!

The creatures in this movie are basically just roots. That means they can just have some rubbery tentacle like things flop onto the actors when the things attack. I’m not kidding about this either. This movie reminded me of a very sad Bela Lugosi rolling around being “attacked” by the rubber octopus all while trying to wrap the tentacles around himself. It is that bad. Things aren’t helped by the goofy faces that many of the actors make as they are dying. Though it is kind of funny and is one of the few things I enjoyed about The Crawlers. 

If I’m honest the terrible writing also gives us some awkward dialogue that itself is further complicated by a cast that simply can’t act. Some people overact and others barely can get their lines out before apparently falling asleep. I’m used to some bad acting, but this might be the worst that I’ve seen, at least in a long time. This movie was a real chore to get thru and I’m recommending that you don’t bother. Bottom line here this flick is bad… really bad. 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

The Blob by David Bischoff

This review is for a novelization of the Blob remake from a script written by Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell. I used to read a lot of these novelizations when I was in High School. It was a fun way to revisit my favorite horror movies when minimum wage was still less than five bucks an hour and tapes ran upwards of eighty bucks. Plus, sometimes you would get bits that never made it in the movie but were in the script and therefore ended up in the book.

The story here is easy to follow. A satellite carrying an experiment crashes near a small town and is discovered by a local homeless man derisively named Can Man for his penchant of making a living off recycling. When he pokes it with a stick a small gooey thing grabs onto his arm. It is then that he goes running off and bumps into local bad boy Brian. Freaking out Can Man then runs into the road and is hit by a couple of teenagers, Meg and Paul, who are on a date. The three of them take him to the hospital where of course things get worse. The blob digests him and then others, growing bigger as it goes. Eventually the army shows up, but they are more worried about capturing their experiment then they are the locals. Luckily for everyone Brian has a plan to save the day and get the girl!

This is a perfect example of what makes a great novelization of a movie. Much like the movie it is quickly paced and gets right to the action. The language is concise and descriptive making for a fast and enjoyable reading experience. I was able to knock this one out in less than two hours and enjoyed every minute of it. The characters were defined enough to know what archetype they were and for what purpose they would serve to move things along. While some folks might be annoyed by the book following the monster movie formula so closely, I liked that. There is nothing wrong with a familiar experience which is exactly what The Blob is, an old-fashioned creature story.

It is always interesting to compare the movie and the book, especially in the case of a novel written off a script like this one was. I’m guessing other than a few changes due to the actor that was cast, the character descriptions are a bit off, the shooting script was not much different from what the author was working from. I can’t think of any deviations from the story and if there are they are minor. I can almost guarantee that if you dig the movie you are going to have fun with the book.

If you have read my book reviews, then you are aware that I don’t shy away from challenges. When I’m in the mood for a complicated novel that takes a commitment of time, I jump right in. But there are also days where I just want to kick back, but my brain on cruise control and nerd out with something easy. This is that kind of book and I dig it. Much like I say about many of the movies I review here at the site not everything has to be art and here that applies as well. I recommend The Blob from author David Bischoff.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Web of the Spider (1971)

The movie opens with the great Klaus Kinski stumbling around a crypt. He finds a particular grave and then a raven caws and freaks him out. Taking a swig from the bottle he starts busting the grave open only to have the camera zoom up on his face while he screams. Then the scene moves, and we see that he was telling a rapt audience in a tavern a story. Kinski is playing Edgar Allen Poe who is visiting England and telling stories to the locals. 

An American journalist named Alan Foster shows up and begins peppering Poe with questions. He has been sent to follow him and collect information for a story. This leads to Poe telling him that he doesn’t write fiction but just relates the truth. All of this leads to a bet where Foster spends the night in a nearby haunted castle to prove that there are no such things as ghosts. Soon he is dropped off with a key and told they will return at dawn. Now at this point I’m debating how much more I should give away. I will say that as the night goes on things get creepy and that the supposedly abandoned castle is surprisingly busy. But are they ghosts or something else? What happens when they arrive to pick him up at dawn? These are things that I think I’ll keep vague while trying to explain why you should watch Web of the Spider. 

This is a good movie. The characters are well drawn out and the story is satisfying. We get an opening, middle, and end with a resolution that I saw coming but still liked. The cast is good with Anthony Francciosa (Death Wish II, Tenebrae) having to carry most of the story as Foster. The movie focuses on him and what he experiences in the house. So, we get characters coming and going but the only consistency is Foster. Kinski only shows up at the beginning and end but is very memorable. Often when he is in a movie he chews on the scenery but here he is a bit more subdued and does a wonderful job as Poe. 

The performances probably have to do with some great direction from Antonio Margheriti (Seven Dead in a Cat’s Eye). I was also impressed with how well the old school visual effects were done. This is a haunted house flick, so I wanted some scares. From a great mirror gag, a clock that seems to tick when it wants to, and finally a camera that feels like it is spying on him all adds to the fun. The audience gets to feel like we are watching him from the eyes of some mysterious entity. This helps set the tone and sell what happens later. There are also some beautiful shots that are framed at odd angles as well as a few close ups that are just unsettling. All of this creates an unsettling visceral reaction that makes Web of the Spider a great watch. 

This movie has been sitting on my to watch pile for a long time. Mostly because I’m always scared to watch a Klaus Kinski flick. When he is good, he is great, when he is bad it is awful. Here he was great, and the rest of the movie was as well. While I’ll admit there are about twenty minutes in the middle as they are setting up the story that things get a little slow, this is necessary for the ending to have any meaning. Though the rest of the movie is so much fun that this didn’t bug me at all. I highly recommend Web of the Spider. 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Road Trip to Dead End Cinema – ‘50s Double Feature Night

Damn it has been a long time since I was able to toss one of these Road Trip reports together. Between COVID and the time of year there wasn’t an opportunity. My good friends Mr. and Mrs. Fright announced that they were reopening their backyard drive-in. The first night was a Clint Eastwood night, but we only made it thru one flick, so I didn’t have much to talk about. But with a full double feature on night two it gave me plenty to report. 

The day started off early as my buddy Sean and I had an morning event to attend. I’m nerdy in ways other than movies and was running an event for Goodman Games at our local hobby store. After that we hit up a late lunch and ran some errands before driving to the Fright estate! By the time we got there they were already setting up the screen and gear. We also had a chance to hang out and shoot the shit about movies, how much the pandemic sucked, and family drama. Mostly my family drama… long story that I’m not going to talk about here. Then it was time for some movies!

This week’s double feature was a pair of classic fifties flicks. The first up was The Thing from Another World. I’ve covered this for the site already, you can read the review here, but I’ll give a brief recap for those that haven’t seen it before. This gem stars familiar face Kenneth Tobey who showed up in a lot of science fiction and horror movies. Though most younger fans will probably recognize him as the gas station attendant that buys the smokeless ash tray in Gremlins. We also get an appearance from Marshall Dillon himself James Arness, though he is buried under the monster makeup as he is the Thing. 

The story unfolds with an air force crew being summoned to an artic base to assist some scientists. It seems that a UFO has crashed nearby, and they are to assist in the recovery. That doesn’t go well, and they lose the ship, though they do find one of the passengers and bring it back to base. It thaws out and goes on a killing spree. This movie sets up the classic tropes of what many future science fiction flicks would use. The scientist blinded to danger in the pursuit of knowledge and the isolated setting that so many stories would use later. This is a fantastic flick that everyone should watch. 

After a short break to get refills and use the bathroom the bottom half of the double bill started. What pairs well with The Thing from Another World? How about Vincent Price in the Fly? This is another classic that everyone must see. Price plays Francois a wealthy industrialist who tries to figure out why his sister-in-law killed his brother. They were a very happy couple, and it makes no sense. Not only does she admit to the crime but refuses to tell anyone why she did it. 

Eventually Francois tricks her into talking and he is horrified to hear that his brother was experimenting with a teleportation device when it went horribly wrong. In the process of experimenting on himself he rematerialized with the head and arm of a fly, with his head and arm buzzing away from him on the body of the fly. Obviously, things don’t go well since we know he is dead, crushed under an industrial press so that he is unrecognizable. The drama is whether they can convince the police that she is innocent, especially since all the evidence was destroyed, except for the fly that is. 

This really is a must watch for anyone that considers themselves a fan of the horror genre. Hell, it has one of the most iconic scenes in movie history with human headed fly caught in a spider’s web calling out “Help me…help me”. I realize that I’ve not covered this for the website yet so keep an eye out as I’m determined to correct that. 

That wrapped up the night at the Dead End Cinema and a rather successful one at that. I had a blast watching a couple of classics, talking movies with friends, and generally just getting out of the house. It still feels weird to be allowed to be around my peeps again. Before we left plans were already being made for the next event. The theme is action movies with aliens. The double feature? Predator and They Live! I’m already excited for this one. Until next time stay safe and watch some good movies. 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

The Cyclops (1957)

This bit of sci-fi horror from the fifties introduces us to a woman named Susan who is looking for her lost fiancé Bruce. He disappeared in a plane crash three years prior, but she hasn’t given up hope. Along with her are a hired pilot named Lee, a friend named Russ, and a businessman named Marty who tagged along while paying some of the expenses. Marty is looking for some uranium to stake a claim too, while the others are looking for Bruce. This becomes important later on. 

Their plane is forced to land in some forbidden territory that the local authorities refused them permission to search. They quickly realize that the area is heavily irradiated, which makes Marty happy. But Susan doesn’t care and insists that they keep looking for Bruce. They find him but along the way realize that the radiation has caused all of the local critters to grow very large. This includes Bruce who looks like he was banged up really bad in the crash. Stuff happens and they eventually make their escape. 

This is a straightforward creature movie from director Bert I. Gordon. We get giant lizards, a giant mouse, a giant hawk, a giant spider, a giant snake, and of course a giant Bruce. These are brought to the screen with a combination of old movie tricks. Composite shots are stitched together with rear projection to make it look like the actors are interacting with the oversized critters. While far from Gordon’s best work this isn’t too terrible. You do see on more than one occasion the creatures become transparent, but that is normal for the techniques that they were using. For a movie that is over sixty years old it isn’t too bad. 

I normally talk about the plot first but that isn’t why you watch a Bert I. Gordon movie. Still lets briefly take a look at it. The movie is very short, clocking in at barely over an hour with a running time of sixty-six minutes. That is a wise decision because there isn’t much to the story. They get told they can’t fly somewhere, they do anyway, Marty freaks out and the plane lands. Then giant monsters happen, someone does something stupid, and they fly away. See not much to it, but it does adhere to the “B” monster movie tropes. Again, you watch a movie like this to see the oversized assorted threats to the cast rather than an engaging story and/or interesting characters. 

Despite not having much of a story they do have a fairly strong cast. The highlight for me is Lon Chaney Jr. as the businessman Marty. He does some inexplicably dumb things, but I blame the script and not the actor for that. It was also cool to see Gloria Talbott who I recognized from I Married a Monster from Outer Space. Tom Drake who plays the pilot Lee did a bunch of television, including one of my favorite Kolchak episodes. Most everyone in this movie were working actors and do a good job. 

I like these cheesy fifties flicks. I know that they aren’t for everyone and I think that you have to be a fan of these to get a kick out of The Cyclops. Silly and gimmicky this was right up my alley but may not be up yours. With that caveat I recommend this one. 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer