Mammoth (2006)

I thought that I’d end my October 2023 movie review marathon with my all time favorite Sci-Fi Channel original. I watch this one every year but somehow had never covered it for the site. I’m guess I kept thinking I had already covered Mammoth, but I hadn’t. I also suppose it was a spoiler telling you that it is my all-time favorite from the Sci-Fi channel. Oh well, onto the review.

There is a frozen mammoth carcass being studied by a scientist named Frank. He leaves work late to take his daughter, Jack, for her driving test. We see that he is late when she is watching old movies with her grandpa and Frank’s Dad Simon. This is our primary family unit and main characters along with a man in black type who happens to be a lady named Agent Powers as well as Jack’s boyfriend Squirrelly.

Okay now back to the story. While poking around the frozen mammoth Frank accidentally activates a doohickey that calls to space. We see a spaceship shoot something to Earth in response. It crashes into the museum and turns into some living liquid that then animates the mammoth’s corpse. It goes on a rampage killing folks and doing alien invader type stuff. This includes crashing a high school party filled with thirty year olds. Eventually our heroes figure out that while they can’t destroy it they can refreeze it which leads to an exciting showdown at a factory where they do just that.

This is a simple movie that takes the standard low budget formula that was used not only in these made for television Sci-Fi channel originals but also for the cheapie fifties flicks that I love as well and has some fun with it. Fun is the operative word here as this isn’t the sort of movie that should be taken seriously. The story is filled with all the tropes you would expect including a monster stomping around unnoticed by anyone not top billed, government agents who show up with all sorts of mysterious technology, and some bumbling slapstick from characters who only seem to exist to be incompetent. That last bit is what makes Mammoth such a good time as instead of trying to be serious it leans into the jokes and laughs. Let me give you some examples.

We have the boyfriend, Squirrelly, who stumbles around putting himself in danger along with a couple of sheriff deputies that lean more into silly dialogue that shows them to be less than intelligent. There are also some goofy bits with a one handed medical examiner who along with the sheriff have a huge secret that is only revealed when needed to crack some wise. There is even a funny throwaway gag with what I’d like to call Jurassic dentures. Trust me if you watch Mammoth you will know exactly the scene I’m talking about. I’m thinking that either this was added back in after it was broadcast or if it did air on cable the censors missed what was implied.

Even the actors playing straight man, or I suppose men get to have some fun with goofy dialogue. Vincent Ventresca, who plays Frank, gets to have fun with dialogue talking about having a daughter and worrying about all the wieners as well as the classic “Did you give her the WEED?”. But the one who is clearly having the most fun is Tom Skerritt playing Grandpa Simon. He is the true believer of the family and has all sorts of fun with is conspiracy theories as well as thinking the gorilla suit wearing singing telegram is the lead creature of an invasion of space monkeys!

The special effects aren’t great. As is the case with most Sci-Fi channel originals this is all CGI and hasn’t held up well. Though it probably wasn’t great to begin with. The mammoth stomps around but does very little interaction with the actors. Most of the kills are hidden either behind the mammoth or some other object like a car or building. The best gag in the movie is probably the hand in the morgue. Even that is played for laughs as we see it scurrying around in the background. Truthfully, I appreciated that they knew the limits on what they could do and had fun with it. If they tried to be serious then the bad CGI would have likely been a dealbreaker for me.

I’m telling you guys this is a silly flick and a lot of fun. You just need to turn off your brain and have a good time. If you want a serious or scary creature feature then Mammoth isn’t the movie for you. It is one of those perfect excuses to invite some friends over, crack open a beer, and laugh your ass off.  I highly recommend it.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Dead Meat (2004)

This isn’t my first time watching this movie as I think I checked it out fourteen or fifteen years ago for my old website. I don’t remember anything about it so that is probably a bad sign. And this is another low budget zombie flick, which of course I said I wasn’t going to do again. But I think we all knew I wasn’t going to stop. What did draw me back to this one is the director, Conor McMahon. This was I think his first feature film and later did some movies that I really dig. Check out Stitches (a clown back from the dead for some murders!) and Let the Wrong One In (silly vampire comedy) if you get the chance. Also, this isn’t just a indie low budget zombie flick but it is an Irish indie low budget zombie flick. Don’t see many of those. Now onto the review. 

The movie opens with a farmer hearing some strange noises outside and going out to check on them. He gets attacked by a zombie cow. Let that process for a second. Movie you have my attention. Then the action moves to a couple driving along while an announcer on the radio talks about a farmer who was illegally feeding dead animals to his herd. They are distracted and hit a man in the road killing him. Or did they? I mean he was already dead and proceeds to tear the man’s, Martin, throat out. This leads to his lady friend, Helena, to head off to the creepy farm nearby for help. After poking around a bit zombie Martin shows up and she has to dispatch him and then flee when more zombies show up. 

Later she runs into local gravedigger and all around good guy Desmond. The pair of them head off to his house but keep getting waylaid by more zombies. Eventually they meet up with a little girl, never ever trust kids in zombie movies, and another couple Cathal and Francie. This group decides to head to a rescue station but again keep running into zombie problems. This includes the return of the zombie cow from earlier! The survivors are eventually cornered in a castle and have to do battle with the horde of undead that surround them. 

Finally it happened I found a filmmaker that is able to make a movie that doesn’t try to exceed the resources available at hand. This movie, both directed and written by McMahon, has a small cast and simple story. Get from point A to point B. Along the way we get a few set pieces with some local undead attacking them. The locations are simple and were what was available to them. They don’t use some terrible CGI to make giant hordes or try and shoot scenes on busy city streets while onlookers watch. The characters crack a few jokes, deliver their lines well, and do a fine job in the action sequences. The story moves along at a brisk pace never slowing down from the opening scene to the final scene. There is always something happening during the entire hour and twenty minute running time. Now what that hard to do? Apparently so since most of the folks in the almost twenty years since this was made have failed to achieve it. 

Being a zombie movie, we should talk about the special effects work. I don’t think that there are any “featured” lead undead that will stand out. But overall the makeup is good enough. I mean these are all supposed to be pretty fresh, so it works. Most of the kills are actually inflicted on the dead folks. We get a smashed head, another is run thru, there is a stick to the eyeball, a jaw is knocked off a face, and we get a zombie head lopped off with a shovel complete with some brains spilling out. Though my favorite is a kill that I’ve never seen before. A zombie is dispatched with a vacuum sucking out an eyeball! I’ve watched a lot of flicks in this shuffling subgenre and I can honestly say I’ve not seen that before. All of the work is practical and occasionally shows the low budget but that is part of the charm here. 

As an added bit of extra fun keep an eye out, pun not intended, for the road zombie that chomps on Martin. He is played by Ned Dennehy who would later go on to appear in much larger roles in flicks like Guns Akimbo and Mandy. He has also appeared in shows like Outlander (a favorite of my lovely wife) as well as The Walking Dead franchise. Just cool to see someone near the beginning of their career or at least notoriety in the genre. 

Dead Meat isn’t perfect, but I had fun with it. This is the sort of good time on a budget that I’m always hoping to get when I dive into the shallow end of low budget zombie flicks. It worked out for me… this time. You can find this one on YouTube as well as a few other spots on the internet. Give it a shot. 

© Copyright 2023 JohnShatzer

Frostbitten (2006)

The movie kicks off during World War II with some German soldiers fighting in Ukraine. They end up spending the night in what they think is an abandoned farmhouse, but being a horror flick it clearly isn’t vacant. After the sun goes down something crawls out of the basement and starts to attack them. Though we don’t find out until later there is only one survivor. Before you get mad this isn’t a spoiler as it is pretty obvious what is going on. Anyway the action moves to the present day.

Dr. Wallen and her daughter Saga are moving to a small town in Sweden so that she can work at a hospital. She moved her daughter and herself to such an isolated place to work with Professor Beckert, who is doing genetic research. Once they arrive it becomes clear that things aren’t what they seem to be. First off, the professor is a bit weird and mysterious only having a single patient. Then there are the interns at the hospital that seem more interested in goofing around and taking drugs then they are their education. If that isn’t enough Saga gets invited by the cool girl in town, Vega, to a big party. Mysterious research, party drugs, and cool kids… how could that go wrong? Well it does and in a very entertaining and bloody way!

I’ve had this one in my “to watch” pile for a couple of years. I thought that with my annual Halloween movie review marathon in full swing it was time to check it out. I’m glad that I finally did so. Before I proceed, I want to acknowledge that this isn’t a perfect movie. It is low budget and that shows at times. The ideas and gags are also not terribly original but executed well enough to be fun.

The story is familiar but moves the action along briskly so that the ninety plus minute long running time flies by. I was impressed by the volume of characters in the movie and how well the story juggles them. In addition to Saga and her mother, whose plotlines veer off from one another before reconnecting, we also get some comedic stuff from a couple of cops on patrol. Many filmmakers toss too many characters into the mix and end up with a mess that is impossible to follow. Here they clearly had a well-defined script and stuck to it. If you have read my stuff here at all you know that I hate it when movies meander clearly not having a clue where to go next. With Frostbitten I was engaged from start to finish.

The party gets bloody

Visually this movie is stunning at times. With the setting of perpetual night along with how they light the interiors bleeding out all of the colors from the background this looks like a much more expensive flick. We also get a neat trick of seeing someone delivering flowers but in shadow, so it looks like something else is happening and an amazing shot pulling back out of the cabin thru the window and looking into the night sky. That last one was done with a CGI assist but is good enough and ambitious. The special effects work is solid and the vampires look decent. But be aware they mostly use digital to achieve this. The kills are sort of tame and there was a bit too much digital blood but overall the results are okay. Again with the resources they had I can cut them some slack.

My favorite gag has to be the talking dogs. In this movie’s universe when you go bloodsucker you can chat with your canine friends. They have a lot to say and are quite funny! If it isn’t obvious yet I enjoyed Frostbitten and am going to recommend it. I can’t find it streaming here in the states but there is a pricey DVD available. Not sure if I can recommend dropping thirty or forty bucks on it but if you can get your hands on it cheaper, I think that this one is worth a watch.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Scorpius Gigantus (2006)

Sometimes I just know what is coming and still can’t help myself. When I dug thru my pile of movies that I hadn’t watched yet this thing jumped out at me. Not literally as I don’t have a ghost haunting me that wants me to watch shitty movies. Not yet anyways… Seeing that it was executive produced by Roger Corman and starred Jeff Fahey I thought ‘Hey this might be okay.’ That was immediately followed up by ‘Don’t be a dumbass!’

The story begins with a convoy getting ambushed by some bad guys. They shoot the army dudes guarding it and steal the trucks. They think that they are hijacking some valuable plutonium but instead get some science experiments that kill them all as soon as they open the doors! We find out later that a lady scientist had genetically modified some scorpions with cockroach and human DNA to make a super drug that would cure everything. Hey if you are going to science badly at least be ambitious I say.

Then we meet some more army dudes lead by Major Nick (Fahey’s character) who practice saving hostages and then get sent to retrieve the bugs. Only they don’t know that they are looking for bugs until they run into them and some of the army dudes get killed. They get some NATO army dudes as replacements and then arm wrestle. Also Nick argues with the lady scientist some as well. Then they shoot a bug and find out that it isn’t dead because the bugs are able to “eat” the bullets that were inside them. How? SCIENCE! Almost all the army dudes die before Nick and the lady scientist decide to blow up the bugs. By then they are on a boat so that makes it much easier to accomplish. Why are they on a boat? Don’t know… don’t care. Just happy that the movie is over after an excruciating ninety one minutes.

I could tell by looking at the DVD cover that I was making a huge mistake. Not only is it incredibly generic but the tagline “In the Tradition of Starship Troopers” clued me in on a minimum effort production to cash in on what was renting well at the video store at the moment they crapped this one out. Sure enough this plays out just like a copy of a much better movie where the scriptwriters were more concerned about checking the boxes than they were about telling a story or developing characters.

A prime example of this is how we keep getting unnamed soldiers/cops/security/criminals walking into the same abandoned factory (the location where this movie was clearly shot almost entirely) to be killed off by the bugs. Don’t have anything to say or do… grab an extra and have him scream at the camera before cutting to some CGI blood. This happens over and over again, and it gets boring. I’d say this plays out like a video game but they at least try and have a story. I’m not even talking about the newer games either. The Pitfall guy on my Atari 2600 at least was motivated to not fall into the pits or get eaten by the alligator. That is more than we get with Scorpius Gigantus. How sad is that?

The cast is made up of Jeff Fahey and a bunch of folks who happened to be in Bulgaria where they filmed this thing. The only casting choices that I can see is if you have a less obvious accent you got to play the American soldiers and if you accent was thick you then became the NATO reinforcements. That is about all I can say about the cast. Well other than I hope that Mr. Fahey’s check cleared.

The special effects work is a combination of terrible CGI where the same model was used repeatedly and latex for the close up encounters. There is a bit of gore with the kills but not enough to make the ninety plus minute runtime any less painful. My favorite bit, and that wasn’t a high bar to clear, was the previously mentioned occasional use of a latex puppet for the close up attacks. That had a cheesy seventies feel to it that I appreciated and was the closest I got to enjoying what I was watching. I mean I didn’t but at least it almost happened.

I’m a huge fan of Roger Corman but this late in his career when you saw him as an executive producer it simply meant that he had a financial stake but likely not any creative control. Most of those movies ended up being as bad as this one. What is even more frustrating is this is a remake of Carnosaur 3 with the bugs standing in for the dinosaurs. Let me just say this. I watched Carnosaur 3. I know Carnosaur 3… Scorpius Gigantus you are no Carnosaur 3! And Carnosaur 3 isn’t even that great of a movie! If you haven’t figured it out yet I’m not recommending this one.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Boo (2005)

It was time to check out the offerings on Amazon Prime again. Yeah, I know the last few times I’ve done this it hasn’t worked out well. But there must be some gem hiding from me on that service. Keeping hope alive I saw Boo and figured it was time to check out another generic ghost story set in an abandoned insane asylum. Can’t have enough of those.

It is Halloween and a bunch of twentysomethings are planning to have a big party. The annoying boyfriend decides to have it at a local abandoned insane asylum that is rumored to be haunted. He convinces his girlfriend with a dark backstory who has had visions since her mother died to go along.

In a parallel plot there is a guy who is looking for his missing sister who was last seen going to another impromptu party at the same asylum. Honestly, they need better security, but I digress. He goes to ask his father’s former partner, he was a cop, for help. The man, Arlo, complains it is out of his jurisdiction and tells him he can’t help. Though almost immediately follows him anyway. Did I mention that Arlo was a former Blaxploitation star? I thought that was going to be important later, but it isn’t.

Once everyone has arrived, they go in and are trapped by the ghost that haunts the place. There are attempts to create a backstory for one of the patients being a child murder/molester who was killed in a fire during a failed escape attempt. Sound familiar? More on that later. There are other ghosts of those who died in the fire because a brave nurse threw the keys out of the window to stop the escape from happening. Wait she is our hero because she doomed a bunch of innocent folks to a horrible death including a young girl? Okay don’t overthink it… In the end the bad ghost is defeated and a few of our characters make it out. The end.

This isn’t a good movie. The story is utterly generic and lacks any new or creative twist that would allow it to not remind me of much better movies. Don’t believe me? Well, we have the horribly burnt child molesting ghost that gets inside your head and dreams… Nightmare on Elm Street. Then there is the wheelchair that keeps rolling itself around as well as a ball that likes to roll down hallways… The Changeling. The movie even opens with an obscene phone call that turns out to be a friend who was chewing or some other nonsense… Halloween. Damn it movie don’t remind me how bad you are by blatantly referencing things I’d much rather be watching!

The pacing is also terrible. We get scene after scene of them walking around in the dark with some flashbacks that I guess are supposed to reveal plot details but aren’t all that interesting. When something does happen, it is crappy CGI. I did find the one oddball twist of the possessed folks melting when a ghost takes them over. This leads to quite a few characters popping like a balloon when getting shot. The attempts at building suspense or jump scares also fell flat. This is a ghost story that is neither spooky nor creepy. I found the entire proceeding to be tedious and generally unpleasant.

A couple of other things to note. The nurse in the flashbacks is played by Dee Wallace. It is very sad when I see an actor or actress slumming it for a paycheck. I don’t blame them, they have bills to pay, but to be utterly wasted in junk like Boo is a bummer. Also the reason I gave this one a shot is that the director Anthony C. Ferrante is best known as the director and creator of the Sharknado franchise. Had he gone silly and over the top here the movie might have worked but he didn’t, and it doesn’t. I can’t recommend this one.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

REC (2007)

I keep saying that I’m not a fan of found footage but then turn around and review found footage movies that I end up liking. Now this one is a movie that I know I enjoyed when it first came out, but I hadn’t reviewed so I thought I’d give it a rewatch and talk about it here. Does the movie hold up? Do I still like it? Might as well find out.

The story has us following a reporter and her cameraman as they shadow a group of firefighters. The movie starts off with some interviews as they capture what an average night at the station is like. Then a call comes in and they rush off to an apartment building in the city. When they arrive they are greeted by police and the tenants. They were called because an elderly woman living on an upper floor was screaming and making an awful racket. They bust in and there is clearly something wrong with her. She attacks and critically injures one of the patrolmen. When they try to rush him out of the building for help they find all of the doors locked and guarded by armed me.

The rest of the movie are the ever shrinking group of survivors at first trying to find a way out around the quarantine and then trying to survive the infected. It seems that the old woman had some sort of virus that made her violent and anyone she bit also becomes violent. This passes from person to person until there are less uninfected folks than there are infected. That is what the authorities were trying to prevent. This is all explained and there is also a bit of a supernatural connection that I won’t spoil here. But this is basically an outbreak flick.

This is a decently paced movie that comes in at a rather tight seventy minutes. It wastes no time getting to the good stuff as our characters get the call after maybe seven or eight minutes of setup. Once they arrive at the building, we get some rather creepy stuff as they break into the apartment, get attacked, and then realize they can’t leave. It slows a bit while our reporter interviews folks which serves to introduce some of the other characters before picking up with another batch of violence that carries thru until the end. Even on a rewatch I found myself sucked in and never bored, which shows how well constructed and paced REC is. This is doubly impressive as this is a story that most genre fans, including myself, have seen repeatedly.

We get a few decent gags like a gnarly neck bite/wound, a shocking landing from height onto a tile floor, a snapped neck, and my personal favorite an up close injection into a face that while not gory did have me squirming in my seat. There are also plenty of spooky moments as well as a couple good jump scares. There is a sequence at the end in the attic which was super effective and creepy. And this movie has a memorable ending that was played in the trailer and became the poster child for horror during the first decade of this century with the woman being dragged away from the camera.

There is some of the shaky camera footage that I detest, but it is brief and relegated to the action sequences only. This means the audience gets to take a breath with the characters but also wait for the next horrible thing to occur. It works nicely and is an approach that I wish more movies like this would consider. I don’t need to spend an hour getting motion sickness and not being able to see what is happening. But I’m getting off topic. REC is a great example of a found footage movie done right and is worth a look. I need to go back and check out the sequels which I also remember liking. I also should mention that the US remake Quarantine was also a decent watch. Though I’d recommend this over that one.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Ice Spiders (2007)

I miss the good old days of Sci-Fi channel originals like Ice Spiders. They were normally a bit of cheesy fun throwbacks to the creature features of the fifties and early sixties. Simple and fun. I remember this movie fondly but honestly now I’m beginning to question my memories.

The action starts with a couple of inept hunters out in the woods looking for game. One of them has his sights set on a large elk when they see a giant freaking spider scurrying around. Of course, they take that shot and only manage to piss it off. Things don’t go their way and they end up on the menu. The “action” then shifts to a bunch of Olympic hopefuls being brought to the ski resort for some training. They arrive and meet a has been skier named Dash and his boss played by Stephen J. Cannell who we children of the eighties will remember as the “sit Ubu sit” guy. They do some skiing, some army guys show up, there is a science lady, and a bunch of folks die to badly rendered CGI spiders.

I honestly remember liking this movie when I first saw it. Admittedly it has been more than ten years since I last took a look, but this was surprisingly disappointing. The pacing of the movie is way off with a bit of action involving the hunters before the introduction of the main characters. The movie slows way down as it plods thru trying to establish them and in the end fails as I couldn’t tell or care when/why characters died. That might also be because most everyone that gets chowed down on by the arachnids are nameless and seem to exist in the story only to up the body count.

Terrible composite shot

Monster movies aren’t hard to pull off if you do one simple thing. Make us like the characters, or at least identify with them and then kill some of our new favorites off. Here all the “good” guys survive until the end. I’m not expecting high drama or emotional impact from a goofy movie like Ice Spiders, but at least try and make me care just a little bit! I didn’t even get a chance to like Ranger Rick before he was killed off, lamely. To that end I suppose it is time to discuss the kills and special effects work.

The spiders are brought to the screen with digital effects work, no surprise there. But even for the time and budget these are terrible effects work. It seems rushed as the CGI arachnids don’t seem to match up with the environments they are being added too. And while the movie hints at a much larger scale for the carnage we only get seven kills onscreen and not just in the background. Here is where I would normally list off the kills and rank them from favorite to least liked. But they all blend together without a single standout kill for good or bad reasons. I was disappointed.

Toss in some generic metal music that makes the outdoor scenes feel like one of those horrible extreme sports VHS tapes that people inexplicably bought in the nineties, and you end up with an unpleasant and tedious way to kill ninety minutes. I need to revisit some of the better Sci-Fi originals like Mammoth or Metal Shifters to wash the bad taste of this one out of my mouth. I obviously am not recommending this flick.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Jack Frost 2: The Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000)

I love these movies and I’m not going to apologize for it. They are silly, over the top, and filled with goofy dialogue as Jack drops one-liners right and left. While this isn’t as good as the original there is still some fun to be had with this worthy sequel. With that said lets get to the story.

It has been a year since Sheriff Tiler and his town were terrorized by the killer snowman Jack. After a recap of what happened and how he was created we are treated to some dummies digging up the containers of antifreeze that contain his remains. Of course, someone dumps hot chocolate in the tank and that brings Jack back to life. Why? Hey man I don’t need to explain the science! He immediately heads off to kill Tiler who happens to be in the tropics celebrating Christmas with his wife and soon to be married friends.

Now you would expect that location to prevent our snowman from being able to continue his homicidal ways, but you would be wrong. Jack heads on down to the islands stopping along the way to murder some lost at sea guys for their carrot. Hey, he needed a nose. When he gets to where he was headed, he takes a few tourists out before changing the climate and making it snow. How does he manage this? Hey man I really don’t need to explain the science. We do find out that Jack was able to track the sheriff because he bled into the antifreeze in the first movie, so they share some genetic material now. That is important because of a banana allergy.

This movie is goofy as hell, and I love it. The dialogue is filled with some very funny lines which I won’t ruin by repeating them in this review. Even after repeated viewings it still is laugh out loud funny. We also have some great setups for the kills including an ice cube gag with a model that was a blast… literally. The plot is quickly paced and wastes no time getting to what we want, a wisecracking killer taking out his victims. The characters aren’t well developed but the cast is solid enough to get the job done and lets be honest this isn’t the sort of flick that leans too heavily into that sort of thing anyway. The late Christopher Allport is back as the Sheriff, and he has some fun chewing up scenery. The rest of the actors aren’t well known but again they do a good job. That said watch for a blink and you’ll miss it appearance from genre favorite Doug Jones.

The kills are more cartoonish and played for laughs. While we get a lot of CGI because of the tongue in cheek nature of the proceedings I was okay with this. The highlights include some icicles bursting thru chests, a woman drowning in a frozen swimming pool, a neck slash, an arm gets torn off with a wicked snowball, and some tongs to the eyes. My favorite is an ice anvil that squishes one woman “Wile E. Coyote” style. In addition to Jack, who is basically just a costumed actor we also get some baby snowball monsters that are puppets. They get to create some havoc before getting whacked by science. Well, I mean someone figures out that they share DNA with the sheriff, so we wrap back around to bananas again!

Jack Frost 2 is played for laughs and does it very well. I’ve always enjoyed this one and try to watch it every couple of years around Christmas. If you haven’t seen this or the first movie I can’t recommend them enough. Trust me this will put you in a very merry mood for this most festive time of year.

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

 

 

Thankskilling (2009)

Before I start the review, I want to assure everyone that I’m well aware that this is a goofy movie that some consider bad. Super low budget and cheesy it is about what I’d expect from a killer rubber turkey flick. But for reasons that I’ll explain later this was perfect and made the movie all the much more enjoyable.

The movie starts in olden days with boobs… Pilgrim boobs! There is a lady running from the killer turkey. He catches her and does what a homicidal turkey will do. Then it fast forwards to now. Some students are heading off for Thanksgiving break. They talk some shit, pick up some girls, and are generally annoying. Yeah, I’m rooting for the turkey already. We then see a redneck and his dog. The dog pees on the killer turkey’s grave and it climbs out of the ground to start killing again. Though later they say it was going to happen every five hundred and five years so maybe the pooch just had bad timing.

Back to the kids we see them break down and camp in the woods. The same woods that the killer turkey is stalking. Bad stuff happens when he follows them back to town. Parents are killed, kids are killed, faces are worn, and a lot of bad jokes/one-liners are uttered. In the end do they stop the killer turkey? Well sort of, I mean there is a sequel.

This is the way you should approach an independent movie. While it has some of the common flaws like generic music and some audio issues, they avoid the most common mistakes. Thankskilling clocks in at a tight ninety minutes and none of it is padding. That means they had a solid script and knew how to edit what they shot. Far too many independent flicks show up with half the footage improvised and filled with people just walking around with nothing happening. This movie might be silly, but it is never boring and I appreciated that.

The filmmakers also knew that they didn’t have a cast of professional actors. Instead of trying to hide that they lean into it giving them absurd lines and setting them up in situations that put the bad acting right in your face. This establishes right from the start that they are also in on the joke and not taking them self or the story too seriously. Speaking of that there are some very funny situations and lines in this one. I won’t spoil Turkie’s dialogue, but I will say this is one of those thoroughly quotable flicks that will have you repeating the dialogue to your friends.

This is a very funny movie. Though I suppose you may need to have an odd sense of humor. For example, if a stuffed baby bunny (it isn’t real!) getting tossed into a campfire doesn’t make you giggle then Turkie “tapping in” after killing a boyfriend isn’t going to be your thing either. I won’t even go into detail on the wearing of the dead father’s face and how none of the characters notice. Personally, I loved the twisted humor and the absurdity of Thankskilling was spot on.

I’m going to recommend this one as I have always loved it and feel like it has held up over several viewings. Heck until I watched Black Friday this year this movie was my must watch Thanksgiving flick. This was much to my lovely and patient wife’s dismay. I hope she digs mutant turkeys from space more. But I’m getting off topic. If you want a few laughs, then this is the movie for you. Maybe next year I’ll cover the sequel.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

 

 

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

The movie opens with some narration from Laurie aka. Jamie Lee Curtis talking about a tunnel that we all end up going down. One that may lead to hell. Then the action shifts to some nurses who are there for some exposition. Thru them we find out that it wasn’t Michael that Laurie killed at the end of the last movie, but an ambulance driver who he switched clothes with. Since she killed an innocent man, she has been locked up in the looney bin in a comatose state. Of course, that is nonsense because we immediately see that she is faking it. She has been waiting for her brother to come for her again and he does. This time he finally kills her. Seriously this was supposed to be her last time in the role, and they finally kill Laurie off!

The action then moves to an entirely new group of victims. Some college kids have signed up for a spooky night investigating the old Myers house for an online show. What they don’t know is that Michael has been living in the sewers underneath the house and can come and go as he pleases thru the dungeon where his parents used to lock him up. Wait… what the hell? He kills a bunch of kids as he stalks them thru the small house because no one can see him moving around or hears a sound in the small house. Finally, there is a final girl who he is about to kill but then Busta Rhymes does some Kung Fu and saves the day. God damn it.

Resurrection is by far the worst of the non-Rob Zombie Halloween movies (which I utterly detest and will not be covering since they are remakes). The story is an absolute mess with too many characters, a plot that grinds to a halt after a decent opening with the stalking killing of Laurie in the first ten or so minutes. The “kids” in the movie are completely generic and I wasn’t at all interested in them. This isn’t helped by them not getting any backstory at all. I’m not even sure their motivations. Our final girl, Sara, is only memorable for her being able to scream loud enough when scared to shatter glass. Cool that must somehow be important later right? Especially when they take the time to establish earlier that Michael has issues with loud noises. Nope it is never mentioned again. That is the kind of awful writing we are dealing with here.

Kung Fu Fighting

The kills are okay but not great. We get a head in a clothes dryer (someone watched My Bloody Valentine!), a throat getting cut, another getting a tripod jammed thru it, a head gets squeezed, and someone gets ruth thru a metal spike. The most memorable kill is a head getting chopped off. Though it stuck with me not because it was good but because the effect looks so silly. We also get zero tension as you always know where Michael is and any jump scares are poorly executed and telegraphed.

This is just a bad movie that wastes some early performances from up and comers Katee Sackhoff, Thomas Ian Nicholas, and Sean Patrick Thomas. I’ve seen all of them in much better movies and know that they can act. Sadly, after Jamie Lee Curtis leaves the screen early on there is nothing worth watching. This is a bad movie that could have been a franchise killer. In fact, it was so bad that sixteen years later we would get another soft reboot of the franchise. Again, I’m ignoring those Zombie made abominations. Skip Halloween Resurrection as it is not worth your time.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Dire Wolf (2009)

Time for some more Fred Olen Ray in my life! This time I check out a gem about a science experiment gone horribly wrong. Things kick off with a science lady doing science stuff. A critter gets out of a tube kills a security guard and spoilers… the science lady! Then we meet an OCD sheriff and his adopted son who is a park ranger. Stuff happens, Gil Gerard calls some agents… we only ever see him on the phone, but it is Buck Freaking Rogers! Eventually we find out that the crazy science people made a half man half dire wolf hybrid. That explains the terrible Halloween werewolf costume! Another science guy is killed, and the military loses their weapon when the critter is killed by our heroes.

This isn’t a good movie, but it is fun. Director Ray knows what he is doing and manages the audience’s expectations nicely. The sets are super cheap and the monster, which we see early, is too. The plot is straightforward and follows most if not all the monster movie tropes we are used to. It’s by the numbers here folks and that isn’t a bad thing. The familiar path does have the movie dragging a bit in the middle and the who lives and who dies is predictable. It would have been some fun to see a twist or two, but we don’t get that. Still, I found the movie to be worth a watch.

Seriously... Fred Olen Ray is awesome!

I say that because the execution is solid and the cast entertaining. In addition to Gil Gerard, we also have another favorite Maxwell Caulfield as Sheriff Parker. He is clearly having fun playing up the quirky aspects of his character, especially his OCD. Though that doesn’t end well. But it is funny. The rest of the cast I recognize from other low budget productions and honestly, they are all okay. Of course, the above is helped with a decent script and a tight runtime of eighty-six minutes. This makes the previously mentioned slow spots brief and therefore bearable. Let me just say this again, Fred Olen Ray knows how to make a fun flick on the cheap.

The characters are introduced after some killings, the story tosses in enough fodder to give a decent body count. The gore is on a budget and mostly forgettable, but there is a decent kill with a victim getting shredded on screen. In addition to the nods that I was enjoying to the genre in general I loved the fact that they basically lifted the ending from Thing from Another World to defeat the creature in the big finale. Again, no original but sort of fun to see a movie fan like Ray tip his hat to a classic.

Fred Olen Ray’s stuff is a mixed bag for me. Some are decent and some are downright awful. But the one constant is his love for the horror and sci-fi genres. Dire Wolf feels like an old school cheapie monster movie from the fifties, and I think that is why he was going for. If it was then he hit it out of the park. If that isn’t your kind of movie then maybe this one isn’t for you.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Gutterballs (2008)

Before I begin it is important to know that for this review I watched my copy of Gutterballs that I purchased from the filmmaker when it was first released. This would be what they call the Balls-Out Uncut edition. I say this because I know the “normal” version of the movie that most people have access to has the hardcore penetration and some of the nudity cut out. More on that later, I just mention this so that if you understand the version you watch might not be the version that I’m reviewing.

The movie takes place entirely in a bowling alley in the eighties. We can tell that from the clothes and music. You have a group of preppies bowling against an assortment of oddballs. There are some ladies, a tranny, an athlete, a punk girl, and a musician. A big fight breaks out and afterwards the preppies trap one of the girls, Lisa, when she comes back for her purse. This leads to an unnecessarily brutal rape scene that goes on and on.

The next night everyone returns to the alley to finish the game that was interrupted by the fight. Lisa shows up clearly traumatized but not talking about what happened. We the audience know from a “gearing” up montage that someone has made a bunch of bowling themed weapons and made a mask out of a bowling ball bag. Not long after the victims arrive and start to pair off the killer gets to work picking them off one at a time. Eventually we are down to just a couple survivors when the big twist is revealed, and all is explained.

I don’t want to go any further and ruin the movie for you. I’m not going to recommend Gutterballs, especially not this version, but it might appeal to some folks out there. My issue with the movie is how explicit it is. We get a lot of genitals on the screen, both ladies and men. I’m not a prude but it does get excessive. I found myself wanting the movie to get onto the traditional slasher stuff rather than yet another sex scene where we see more than we need to. I know that director Ryan Nicholson was going for an exploitation vibe, but you can overdo that stuff. The rape scene is uncomfortable as it goes on forever and is more voyeuristic than it is making me angry at the antagonists.

The first kill has a woman, who is performing a sex act on camera, get choked out when her head is forced down and she isn’t allowed to come up for air. I suppose that is supposed to set the tone for the movie and it does. We get a lot more kills, though not as explicit, but many of which are sexual in nature. The language used in the movie is distracting as well. Every other word is an “F” bomb and if that isn’t enough there are all kinds of slurs tossed around as well. This isn’t helped by a cast that isn’t very good. The line delivery is clunky and the performances wooden. In the end Gutterballs feels like a flick that is trying too hard to be shocking and to “go there”.

I do have some nice things to say about the movie. The gore and kills are great. They manage to have a theme to the kills using bowling related items as the weapons. A bowling pin gets rammed down a throat, a sharpened pin is used on a few body orifices, a girl gets a couple bowling balls to the noggin’, another gets choked out with laces from bowling shoes, and a face ends up in a ball polisher. Toss in the mentioned death by sex and some shotgun action for a respectable twelve kills, most of them on screen! The execution is great as the camera lingers on some gooey stuff as faces are ground off and eyes gouged out. The best though is the exploding head and guts flopping out from the shotgun work. These are some great effects.

The movie has a decent soundtrack, though it is my understanding that it was all switched up after the release I got. So, results may vary for your viewing. I thought the twist at the end was decent, which is why I didn’t spoil it. I also thought that after a slow start the last forty minutes scooted along quickly and got us to the kills and other good stuff.

Gutterballs would have been an unenthusiastic “it was okay” if it didn’t have all the explicit material. But I found that stuff to be very distracting and in an odd way trying to be over the top hurt the movie in my mind. Now I’m not sure if the other versions just cut the sexual stuff and left the gore intact. That might make for a much better watch. But this is what I watched, and I just can’t recommend it.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Wrong Turn (2003)

I struggled with whether I should put Wrong Turn into the slasher movie marathon. An argument can be made that it doesn’t follow the formula and is more of a Hills Have Eyes type of flick. But then again it does have a Just Before Dawn vibe. I might overthink these things… In the end I decided to include it in this year’s marathon so let us dive right into the plot.

After watching a couple of rock climbers meet a grisly fate we are introduced to Chris, a newly minted doctor on his way to a job interview a week after the rock climbers are killed. Due to a traffic jam he decides to take some backroads and ends up running into the other characters, literally. His vintage Mustang is trashed when he rear ends an SUV that was stopped in the middle of the road due to some tire damage. Damage we soon find out was caused by some barbed wire on the road. Staring off ominous, aren’t we?

No one is hurt in the accident, so they head off in search of help leaving a couple at the cars to keep an eye on things. First thing that happens is that couple is picked off by some unseen killer or killers. The rest of them end up at a shack in the woods that is disgusting and freaky. There is a container of something in the fridge that the doctor realizes is bad, but before they can leave the owners come home. Here is where we meet our cannibal inbred mutant hillbillies. Some bodies are butchered, there is a big chase thru the woods, arrows are shot, heads are lopped off, and basically a good time is had.

Great creature design on the mutants

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this movie. While far from perfect Wrong Turn has enough going for it that it is a solid horror flick. The story is paced well and the movie clocks in at a tight eighty-four minutes. This makes for a very entertaining experience where there is always something interesting happening on screen. This is the case even before the killers show up! While the character are being introduced, they are simultaneously setting up the environment and creating a spooky atmosphere. Having grown up in the country I know how creepy the woods can be and they capture that nicely.

When I sit down to watch a movie like this, I want to enjoy the special effects work. We get a respectable seven kills in the movie with most of them being onscreen. If I have one complaint about Wrong Turn it is the use of CGI to bring the kills to the audience. We do get some decent practical effect work with a couple of arrow hits and a fun gag with barbed wire, but a majority of the most creative stuff is digital. This includes my favorite kill that involves an axe to the face and a neat gag with the life going out of a victim’s eyes. I hadn’t seen anything quite like this before and enjoyed the ingenuity of the kill, but was a bit bummed it wasn’t done with practical effects work. Though I suppose I’m being a bit picky about it and should probably cut them some slack.

I have no complaints with the design of the killers. We get three different inbred mutant hillbillies and they all look great. Even without dialogue they seem to have different personalities and are a lot of fun to watch on screen. The creature design allows the actors to give a performance with just enough latex to make them look twisted without being cartoonish. These are clearly well thought out and for me are the highlight of the movie.

Wrong Turn is a good movie that unlike many of its contemporaries holds up well almost twenty years after it was released. If you want to see a “newer” slasher with an old school feel this is one of a couple that I’d recommend checking out. Stay tuned as you are going to see even more newer slasher flicks on my list this year.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Witchcraft XIII: Blood of the Chosen (2008)

Before you start reading this review is part of a larger marathon that I’m doing where I watch all sixteen of the Witchcraft movies in a row. I may reference those so check out the following link to start at the beginning. If you have already done that then enjoy my misery.

These movies are getting so bad. As much as I’ve complained about it the only thing that the series had going for it was the softcore sleaze. The last couple entries including this one can’t even get that right. Instead, all it has to offer is the same story executed even more poorly than it has been done the eleven times before. Let me explain.

William is back again and has also been recast again. He is hanging out with his warlock buddy, because I guess there are good ones now, who helped him win a case. I think that is why he is dropping off some money for him. I say I think because the sound is terrible in this movie. Worse than it ever was before as I couldn’t hear at least half of the dialogue. That isn’t an exaggeration for the longest time I had no idea what the hell was going on. So anyway, he gives him an envelope of cash and then his pal leaves with a lady. A lady who rips out his heart when they are alone. How rude is that?

Now William is on the case and after arguing with some generic cop characters, thankfully no more Lutz played by Stephanie Beaton, he uses his warlock powers to see stuff. Not sure what because it makes no sense. But then he trails a cute blonde girl, and they get friendly. Of course, she is bad, but what can you do because she is hot. She tries to kill him but fails. Then William meets a sister looking for her brother who is obviously a bad guy too. There is some nonsense about if he, as the chosen one hooks up with the big bad evil leader their baby will rule the world for evil.

You know she is the leader, and they get frisky. Somehow William the all-powerful warlock is clueless of this fact. If I’ve learned one thing from the Witchcraft series, it is that if William would only pay attention the world would almost end a lot less often. So, there is this cave where the evil heart stealing ladies are chanting, and William crashes their “lets summon the big baddie” party. Some CGI pew pew pew happens, and we see that the sister is actually the big bad. Which of course we already knew that. But it is a shock to old William. She is also preggers with their child who is again going to rule the world. The big twist is that she is really William’s long lost sister… um gross.

The cops show up and shoot some folks and William does battle with his pregnant girlfriend/sister. This leads to some more CGI pew pew pew and he gets frustrated when she tells him he can’t stop her because he is basically a big wuss. That was probably a mistake as William gets pissed and rips out her heart! He also chews on it to take her power. No more sister or evil world ruling baby to worry about.

The music, acting, editing, sound, plot, dialogue, and everything else about this movie sucks. Thirteen movies in I’m done trying to be clever and repackage the same damn review for the same damn movie. Skip this one like all the rest. Of course, there are still three more for me to watch.

 

Up next Witchcraft XIV: Angel of Death (2016)

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

 

Witchcraft XII: In the Lair of the Serpent (2002)

Before you start reading this review is part of a larger marathon that I’m doing where I watch all sixteen of the Witchcraft movies in a row. I may reference those so check out the following link to start at the beginning. If you have already done that then enjoy my misery.

God Damn it they did it to me again. No more Stephanie Beaton as Lutz, in fact there is no Lutz in this movie at all. But before I could breathe a sigh of relief the name Brad Sykes popped up as the director and writer. I believed I mentioned the other terrible horror franchise that I’ve reviewed this year, Camp Blood. Well guess who created and directed the first three installments of that franchise? If you guessed Brad Sykes, you would be right. I’m feeling that this might be the perfect shitstorm of awfulness.

We are back in Los Angeles and watch as a woman and man go bar hopping and end up in a strip club. The guy is Jeff, and the lady is his sister Cindy. Wait dude you took your sister to a nudie bar to drink? Okay then… Jeff hooks up with a girl on the way to the bathroom and leaves with her never to be seen alive again. That is a bummer. Then we see William pull up, it can be confusing because he has been recast again and visit Cindy. It seems that he was best friends with Jeff. He and Cindy also have a history together.

Being the super cool lawyer warlock that he is William figures out something bad is going on. So, he uses some magic to watch part of the movie that we already watched only upside down. That helps him get a license plate number and with an assist from the cops the tracks down the lady to was last seen with Jeff. Thru some rigamarole he eventually ends up face to face with the serpent god who is killing everyone, he uses the women to lure his sacrifices to him. Some lighting lasers shoot around, and the movie ends with William and Cindy watching home movies.

If you have been reading my reviews, you know that I don’t like the Witchcraft movies at all. I wanted to find one that wasn’t terrible as it is always my goal to unearth a hidden gem. But this franchise is the same recycled story that itself isn’t enough to fill fifteen minutes screen time padded out with nonsense that itself is an excuse to pop from one softcore naughty escapade to another. Having watched Sykes’ movies in the past I can tell you one very important fact, he can’t shoot those sorts of scenes. Are you beginning to see the problem?

We have a Witchcraft movie that while it tries doesn’t give the viewer the sleaze that has been promised and delivered from the previous ten or so movies. Again, I’m not a fan of this which should be abundantly clear by now. But damn it if you aren’t going to hang your hat on that sort of thing then that means you need a plot and characters. We also don’t get that which means this is a huge failure. It doesn’t even work as a crappy Witchcraft movie!

I could talk about the normal padding, but we have already beaten that horse to death. The bad guy spends most of the movie in a crappy Halloween mask and hooded robe shooting badly done laser lighting out of his eyes. The one highlight is when he is unmasked, and we see he is a snake god. That makeup job is actually really good for the low budget production that this is. I give them props for that. Sadly, that is the only good thing about Witchcraft XII: In the Lair of the Serpent. This is as bad as any of the previous eleven attempts, and they were all firmly in the miserably horrible territory. Skip this one like the rest.

 

Next up Witchcraft XIII: Blood of the Chosen

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer