The Snarling (2018)

A werewolf horror comedy made on a very small budget. I guess that could work so when I read the plot synopsis of the Snarling, I decided to give the movie a chance. I guess I’m okay with my decision. More on that later.

A low budget zombie movie is shooting near a small English town. The locals are excited about the extra business, but there are troubles. They talk about the death of a cameraman under mysterious circumstances and we get to see some hitchhikers dispatched… offscreen with none of the fun on the screen. I’ll have more to say about that later. Eventually we find our main characters, three guys from the pub, who get jobs as extras on the movie. One of them looks just like the star which leads to some funny gags. While this is happening there is a subplot involving the local police trying to solve the murders. This eventually leads to some werewolf shenanigans… that mostly happen off screen. Damn it!

I’m always on the lookout for another werewolf movie. Though most of the time I’m disappointed as it is way too easy to screw these up. You need to have a decent looking creature and kills for one of these flicks to work. Sadly, that isn’t at all what we get with The Snarling. We hardly get to see the creature and when we do it is obvious why. It is terrible looking. The thing looks like a Halloween costume that you would pick up from the shop at the last minute. Totally static with no articulation this is about as cheap as it comes. They even botch the transformation scene with having most of it happen offscreen. While I’m glad they didn’t try some cheap CGI, it was still very disappointing.

They do use some CGI for the kills, though just to splatter blood across the screen. If you have ever read any of my reviews, you know how much I hate that. When did it become cool to pretend that blood has hit the lens of the camera? We get a second here and there of the attacks before the camera cuts away. So there isn’t any gore to be had in this wild beast tearing people apart movie. The best we get are some plastic limbs being picked up after the attacks. Much like the werewolf these look like Halloween decorations that are sold every October.

This Werewolf has "Googly" eyes

So, I’ve told you all the things that The Snarling does wrong. What I didn’t expect was how well it handles the comedy. The writing is quite good and there are some really amusing lines and situations. I found myself laughing more than once at the hijinks that the guys get up to. Other than the main characters we also have some amusing stuff with the local police as they bumble their way thru the investigation. After a while some of the jokes did get repetitive, but I still appreciate the delivery and commitment to the humor. This is a genuinely funny movie, so it has that going for it.

Bottom line for me is that when you sell a flick as a horror comedy to the audience you have to deliver both. The Snarling nails the comedy parts and is one of the better efforts that I’ve seen from a lower budget movie when it comes to the gags. The flip side of that is the movie totally fails to bring any decent horror to the screen. The creature is bad and there is zero gore, even badly executed effects would have been something. So basically, we get half a good movie, which means they failed. I can’t recommend the Snarling, though I noticed they are making a sequel with the same characters only this time there are cultists. That might be easier to pull off so I will be giving that one a chance.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer

The Killings at Outpost Zeta (1980)

The seventies were a good decade for science fiction. Between Star Wars, Alien, and the relaunch of the Star Trek franchise we had a lot of good stuff. That lead to a lot of knock off movies trying to tap into the newfound love for the genre. I’ve seen movies try to cash in on one of the three franchises mentioned above but never all three. This should be interesting.

Outpost Zeta is either the planet or the name of the base on a newly discovered planet. The movie opens with a man yelling at the radio because the rescue team sent to investigate why the outpost went silent has itself gone quiet. After a staff meeting with some generals, pay attention to what I just said, he assembles another rescue team. This will actually be the third one since two have been sent and lost. They have a second staff meeting to discuss this and other challenges they might face. Then it is time to blast off into space. Once on the way to Zeta the crew has a staff meeting to figure out what they might encounter. They land and find a lot of bodies at the base. This leads to an autopsy (offscreen) and another staff meeting to discuss the results. God Damn it movie!

I don’t understand what they were thinking when they made this movie. For most of the duration nothing happens but people sitting around talking about what might happen. When I say they keep having staff meetings that isn’t me trying to be funny. I’m being serious as this is what most of the movie is. They do eventually find the monster(s) which turn out to be rock creatures. At least that is what I think they are because we hardly get to see them on the screen. When we do it looks like those papier-mâché rocks from Star Trek the original series. Speaking of that the organization that they belong to is called Star Fleet… and they are all wearing red! You know that doesn’t bode well for the crew.

Speaking of Star Trek with the rock monsters and the fact that the “babies” are trapped in the base this feels a lot like the Horta episode. Though there even with that next to no budget the series had they still managed a better creature. Sure, it was a guy under a blanket with fake rocks glued to it… but it is still better.

Nano Nano...

Let’s see what we have so far. Humans trapped with a monster that is killing them one at a time and then laying their young in the bodies to grow. That checks the Alien box. Then we have the above bits with Star Fleet, red shirts, and the rock monster. That should cover Star Trek pretty well. So, what about Star Wars? Well there is a scene during their escape where they are shooting lasers down the hallway and one of them pulls a grate off so they can sneak off. The female lead makes some familiar comments before reluctantly jumping in followed by the hero. Sound familiar? Time to check off that Star Wars box.

This is a horrible movie that I’ll never watch again. It is tedious and reminds me why most attempts at science fiction movies/shows tended to fail. But it also feels like as someone who grew up in the seventies as well as the early days of VHS rentals, I needed to watch The Killings at Outpost Zeta. At least once. Trust me once is enough. Unless you feel that same need as me then I’d recommend skipping this one. One more thing about the movie before I go. While they are all wearing red their costumes look oddly like that of our favorite alien from the planet Ork…

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer