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

Blood Beast from Outer Space (1965)

The movie opens with some scientists tracking what they initially think is a meteor about to crash into the countryside near London. But then it starts to slow down, and they quickly figure out that it is being controlled by something. Then we get a groovy sixties theme song over the opening credits before rejoining the scientists at an army roadblock. Dr. Morley and Dr. Costain go to see the man in charge as they have the clearance to work on top secret stuff. Instead of a ship they find a small sphere that is brought back to the lab for study. Weird stuff starts to happen and poor Dr. Morley is killed when something materializes and kills him before taking off with the object making good it’s escape in a stolen car.

Then the action moves to later. How much later? I don’t have a clue. But the army guys are gone and Dr. Costain is now in the offices of Scotland Yard talking to an inspector about missing women. Somehow, it isn’t ever explained, he has figured out that whatever came out of the sphere is now posting ads in Bikini Girl Magazine and kidnapping or killing the ladies that respond to it. Why? It is only hinted at but basically the alien is planning on bringing them back home to one of the moons of Jupiter so they can breed. I guess Jupiter’s moon needs women! Some murders happen, shenanigans ensue, and the alien gets away with his hostages. I mean he insists they won’t be hurt. Though being forced to bear the children of an alien race doesn’t seem pleasant. But hey it was the sixties so what do I know?

This is an odd movie. Other than the obvious logical loopholes like how did Dr. Costain make the connection to the missing girls and the visitor from outer space, which is the most blatant but not the only head scratcher, Blood Beast from Outer Space is sort of boring. It kicks off with the mystery and some action but then abruptly jumps to some time later. It feels like something is missing from the story. This was based on a book so I’m thinking maybe there was more to it but that the movie couldn’t squeeze it into the standard ninety minute runtime. It was at that jump where the movie lost me. It also doesn’t help that we go from science, monsters, and creepy spheres to the police interviewing quirky characters while trying to solve the mystery of Medra. Which is the name that the alien uses on Earth. There are also thrilling phone calls, people typing, and ladies going to bed. Meh.

Doing science stuff!

I hadn’t heard of this movie before so it must not have played on my local horror hosted shows. What caught my attention was the fact that the late great John Saxon stars as Dr. Costain. I’m always down to watch him. He is good but sadly there is absolutely nothing here for him to work with. There is also a twenty minute stretch where he completely disappears from the story which is also where Blood Beast is at it’s slowest. No surprise there.

The lack of creature is also a disappointment. Medra is mostly in the shadows and except for the very end where we see one tiny bit of rubber on his face the only creature effect we see is his one messed up hand. I get the feeling that this was a super low budget affair, but couldn’t they have spent a bit more on the monster?

With a story that is hard to follow, a creature that never pays off, and the wasting of John Saxon I can’t recommend Blood Beast from Outer Space. It is an uneven and at times annoying watch which I simply can’t recommend.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Alien Within (1995)

There were a ton of Alien knock off movies set in the deep sea that came out in the late eighties and thru most of the nineties. The best of them is probably Deep Star Six but there were a lot of lower budget efforts as well. The Alien Within is one of those and has the added bonus of being made under the Roger Corman Presents banner. If you aren’t familiar with that it was Showtime’s attempt to get into the low budget cheesy movie business. These lower budgeted flicks were made to go directly to the cable channel’s lineup. I should cover more of these as a few of them are a lot of fun. And as a double bonus this also checks another off my Roddy McDowall movie list. I will watch everything he did in his career damn it! But enough of that lets get to the good stuff here.

The movie opens with the crew of an underwater mining operation talking about being behind schedule and having to pull double shifts to meet their quota. This leads to an accident where one of the miners, Louis, gets hurt and suffers Uranium poisoning. Before that can settle in they get a distress call from a nearby Russian mining facility and go to help. When the arrive the crew is mostly dead, one of them that is alive tries to kill the other survivor before being gunned down, and there is evidence of a spaceship being found. Sound familiar? I think someone watched The Thing before writing this script.

McDowall is awesome as always!

The crew takes some of the bodies and the survivor back to their ship. Another crewmember breaks quarantine letting the Alien hiding inside out to infect others. This leads the crew to grab improvised weapons like flamethrowers and cobble together motion sensors to go on a bug hunt. Okay maybe they also watched the first couple Alien movies as well. There is also a lot of paranoia as they bicker over who is infected and dangerous. Which goes back to The Thing. Damn movie do you have an original idea? Spoilers… the answer to that is no! This all leads to a twist ending that I didn’t like all that much but also wasn’t too invested to be that annoyed by.

The Alien Within is exactly what I thought it would be. A completely derivative cheapie made to fill seventy five minutes. When you see the Concorde-New Horizons logo and realize that Roger Corman is involved then be assured that this isn’t going to be groundbreaking. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. While I’ve seen everything here done better in other movies this one isn’t too bad. The story moves along quickly and checks all the boxes you would expect. We get some over the top acting and goofy dialogue. This is delivered by the expected cast of “B” actors such as Melanie Shatner (Cthulhu Mansion), Don Stroud (too many to mention), Richard Biggs (Babylon 5), and my personal favorite Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes, Fright Night Franchise, The Legend of Hell House, and so many more). McDowall in particular is clearly having some fun playing the scientist that wants to save the “scientific find of the century” regardless of the danger.

The monster is an appropriately weird looking bit of latex that crawls in and out of the cast members. This allows you to see the monster without them having to create a giant creature effect. Instead, much of the big action sequences are left up to the cast members who are possessed. Leave it up to an old pro like Corman to keep his costs down. Along those lines it was also amusing that I recognized the sub and exterior footage from an earlier movie Lords of the Deep. Yeah, I’m a huge Corman nerd so I noticed things like this.

You get all the tropes in this one but packaged in a way that it gets to the fun and keeps it going until the end credits. Clearly this isn’t the kind of movie that you will want or need to rewatch like those it “borrows” from are. But if you grab a few friends and a couple adult beverages it can make for a nice evening. As of the writing of this review the movie is a bit hard to find but I did notice that is seems to show up now and again on various streaming services. If you see it give The Alien Within a chance.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Cosmic Sin (2021)

I knew that this was going to be a bad movie before I ever popped it on. This flick is best known as the movie that earned Bruce Willis a Razzie for worst performance that was later revoked when it was revealed that he was suffering from medical issues that affected his speech and memory. But how bad could it be? And was it really such a terrible performance?

The movie opens with a crawl about humanity colonizing space and the inevitable conflicts that those early colonies had with each other. One of those conflicts was resolved by a general dropping a “Q” bomb on a planet wiping out tens of millions of folks. What is a “Q” bomb? I guess it makes a black hole and destroys everything in the nearby solar system.

Now we move to a couple about to get busy on an uninhabited planet. Aliens show up and this first contact goes poorly. The surviving crew is brought back to Earth for interrogation but has been infected and controlled by the aliens. They go on the attack and the military eventually kills them all. The disgraced general played by Willis is recruited on a team that is teleported out to the last known location of the aliens. With them they take another “Q” bomb to wipe out the enemy. There is some back and forth about morality before they shoot it into a portal that wipes out the aliens killing the entire race. So much for morality I suppose.

First things first. Willis isn’t the reason that this movie sucks. His performance isn’t even all that bad. I mean it is flat and he delivers his dialogue without much effort but knowing what we know now it all makes sense. The truth is he is barely in the movie enough to impact it at all. Apparently, he was on set for a couple of days and was paid a couple million bucks for his time. That said the movie is terrible it just isn’t his fault.

The story is complete and utter garbage. We have an interesting idea where the military has in place a plan that is executed on first contact with an alien race. If it is a positive for the human race then everything is fine. If it goes badly then we murder them all. While that sort of overly simplistic agenda might be somewhat accurate to how humanity would respond (we do sort of suck if we are being honest) it makes for a terrible science fiction story. I kept waiting for some sort of message or really anything clever but nope. It went badly so genocide time!

Well fellas... I hope the checks cleared!

The execution of the plot doubles down on the suck. You get random characters that appear and disappear throughout the movie. There are some familiar faces in addition to Willis like Frank Grillo, Lochlyn Munro, and Costas Mandylor. They clearly weren’t all available on set on the same days as they rarely share scenes together. This I’m guessing was the primary reason that the story feels so disjointed and choppy.

There is also a lack of budget getting in the way. We do get some CGI spaceships but at times they look downright awful. The crew is teleported to the planet, so we don’t any actual scenes set in a ship, the camera just goes zipping by them. The aliens possess human beings, so they saved some cash there by just having folks dressed in black being the invaders. I guess that means after the aliens take them over they go change into matching outfits before assaulting the remaining humans. A lot of the action takes place on a nearby planet aka. the woods in Georgia where this was shot.

Terrible story, misspent budget, bad editing forced by cast members not being available for the entire shoot all ends up making Cosmic Sin a complete waste of time. Oh, and that damn title. If it is meant to imply the destruction of an entire alien species is supposed to be some underlying message of it being shameful or sinful, then maybe don’t give the aliens lines like “either you destroy us or we destroy you.” They clearly want to wipe out the human race so what the hell is this supposed cosmic sin? This one is trash and you can skip it.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Road Trip – Monster Bash at the Canton Palace August 2023

It has been a while since I’ve been to a proper event/screening. Sort of got out of the habit with COVID but I decided it was time to get back in the theater watching movies. Now as many of you may know most new movies just don’t do it for me or at least motivate me to hit a brick and mortar theater. Sure, I’ll go to the drive-in, but the setting is what gets me there and the movies are just icing on the cake. But when I realized I’d have the chance to check out a couple favorites on the big screen for the first time I had to check it out!

Before I start I thought I’d fill you guys in on where and what I was doing. First up the event was held at the Canton Palace Theater. If you have read some of my earlier Road Trip articles you will notice that this is a theater that I frequently (or at least in the past) have visited. This restored movie palace, and it really is, comes complete with a gentlemen’s lounge, the original pipe organ, and a classic atmosphere that adds to the experience of going to the movies that much cooler. The Palace Theater was built when going to the movies was an event and they manage to capture that magic even today.

Monster Bash is a cool convention held in Pittsburgh. Not only does their show kick ass but they have all sorts of neat merchandise for sale at their tables. You may see them as they frequently setup at other shows. The folks involved have a real love for the classics from the Universal flicks, the cheesy giant bug movies of the fifties, to the in your face fun of Hammer if you dig old school horror/sci-fi these guys have something for you. That is why the line up of movies for the Friday/Saturday show was so killer. While I didn’t go to the Friday screenings, I wasn’t going to miss Saturday. Now that I’m done rambling lets get to the day.

The Pipe Organ played between screenings

I met my brother-in-law Richard for some lunch. The usual suspects bailed on me, so he was going to be my wingman for part of the show. If it matters, and it really doesn’t but folks like to blog about food, I had a nice double cheeseburger and some tomato basil soup. Then we hit a local department store on the way and I found a nice Mego Hammer Frankenstein. It seemed on theme for the day’s events, so I thought I’d mention it. I collect all the Mego monsters and get a real kick out of them. As a child of the seventies I always felt bad that I missed out on them when they were new so that wasn’t going to happen to me again.

We finally arrived at the Palace before the first screening. Had a few minutes to wander around talking to the dealers. There weren’t a lot of vendors setup, mostly I think due to the lack of space. They only have the upper and lower lobbies for tables. But I did meet some nice people and scoped somethings out for later purchase. Then it was time for the first movie.

Target Earth (1954) is a fun little science fiction flick with some familiar names attached. I’ve always liked this one and have already reviewed it for the site, review link here. I was wondering how the admittedly goofy looking robot monsters were going to play for the audience and I wasn’t disappointed. There was some laughing, but not in a bad way. People were enjoying the movie I think… at least I hope so. I don’t feel the need to go much farther into this one as I’ve reviewed it and you can check that out at the link I’ve already mentioned.

Now this is a proper robot!

After the movie it was time to buy some stuff. I picked up some odds and ends like a cool button and patch. I like to deck my convention gear (jacket, bag) with some spooky themed accessories. I also finally upgraded my old snap case DVD of The Thing from Another World to a nice Blu-ray. If you don’t know what a snap case is it was one of the original cardboard cases for DVDs before they went to the current packaging we are used to now. Sort of a transition from the old cardboard sleeves on VHS and the later hard plastic cases for DVDs with it being a bit of each. Being one of my favorite fifties flicks it was time for this to happen.

There was also a boardgame that is billed as playing out like a movie. They have versions that lean into Aliens (Area 51) and Zombies (Pittsburgh ’68). It looks like a good time and I can’t wait to break them out and get a few sessions in. One other thing I grabbed was a t-shirt inspired by some of the animation in the credits for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. I love that movie and you hardly ever find anything related to it. But then if anyone was going to have something it would be Monster Bash.

Richard called it a day before the second movie started so I was flying solo. The Thing from Another World (1951) is another favorite of mine. This was a big deal for me since it is the first time that I ever had the chance to watch it on the big screen in a proper theater. This is another movie that I’ve already covered for the site, which you can check out here. The short of it is an alien attacks an isolated research facility at the North Pole and it is up to Kenneth Tobey and friends to save the Earth! It was a blast and the crowd was a lot less silly with this movie. It still has the ability to be creepy and engaging to a modern audience used to explicit gore and violence.

Between this and the next screening I wandered around the vendors area again. Talked to some more attendees about nerdy movie stuff. That is a must for me since I don’t have people in my regular life that are into these like I am. It is always good to be amongst “my people”. I also found another t-shirt, this time a cool Bowery Boys themed Monster Bash shirt. I love those movies and do plan on covering all fifty plus of them someday for the site. Then it was time for the next movie to start.

Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) is a movie that I have always loved. I remember distinctly catching it the first time on Superhost which was a local Saturday afternoon movie show here in Northeast Ohio. As a kid I loved the aliens, which even if you haven’t seen the movie (and many folks haven’t) are iconic enough that people recognize them even if they don’t know what movie they came from.

I realized as of the writing of this I’ve not covered the movie for the site. I need to do that sooner rather than later as again it is one of my favorites. Because of that I’ll go into a bit more detail with this movie. Here we have adults ignoring the teenagers, the army being incompetent, creepy little aliens, and a bull that loves to drink beer! Bullets don’t hurt them but headlights do and they will kill you by injecting you with alcohol… which mostly just makes people drunk. The movie plays out like a parody of the creature flicks of the era with a healthy bit of satire of authority figures. That last bit is very different from what I’d expect of a movie like this. The army and adults in general are incompetent and not to be trusted. As an adult I dig the subtlety of it though the younger me just liked the monsters.

There was another movie to be shown yet but I’ve already seen The Blob (1958) before in a theater. Hell, it was at the Canton Palace Theater (link to my write up here). It had been a long day and I’m not as young as I used to be so I decided to call it after Saucer Men ended. I consider this to be another successful day of nerding out and can’t wait for next year when I get to do it all again.

With that in mind I highly recommend you check out Monster Bash’s website. The show is shaping up to be a good time and I never need that much of an excuse to visit Pittsburgh! If you happen to be in the Canton Ohio area you should check out The Canton Palace Theater. They have some fun screenings coming up with Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and Animal House. They haven’t put anything up for October yet, but they also normally have at least a Rocky Horror showing around the 31^st. Oh and I must recommend their Three Stooges night that normally takes place in April. Check out their website here for more information and to see what they announce.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The UFO Incident (1975)

More made for television fun with this based on “real events” NBC movie of the week. Back in the seventies everyone was all about Bigfoot, The Bermuda Triangle, and yes Aliens! The UFO Incident is based on the story told by a married couple, Barney and Betty Hill. Apparently in the early sixties while returning from vacation they were abducted by some little grey aliens and poked/prodded before having their memories wiped out. Only that last bit didn’t take as they started having nightmares and health issues. They finally went to see a doctor who helped them recover their memories under hypnosis. 

Years later after Barney had passed away in the late sixties Betty became a regular in the UFO community. Again, there was such a thing because as I’ve already mentioned the seventies were all about spooky unknown stuff like this. Personally, I think that all the conspiracy stuff got so popular since a big portion of the public no longer trusted the government… I blame the Vietnam War and Watergate. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

What I’ve written above is honestly the whole story. There isn’t much else to talk about. The movie plays out in an interesting way though. All the various sessions both the interviews as well as them under hypnosis were recorded so the movie uses recreations of those to tell the story. This is accomplished with a combination of them sitting in a chair talking as well as some flashbacks. It makes for a rather slow and at times boring watch. The movie teases the audience by bringing you right to something happening only to cut away to them having an argument or the doctor hypothesizing about what might be going on. When we finally get to the abduction it is brief and while staged well for the time and budget hasn’t held up well. 

There is even a bit of social commentary due to the fact that they were an interracial couple, Barney was African American and Estelle was white. This took place in the sixties so that was a very controversial thing at the time and the stress of it on Barney was used as an excuse for him maybe hallucinating the abduction. It gets weird when they try to explain things. This as well as them being overly tired are given as plausible explanations in what I expect the filmmakers trying to be fair and give alternate possibilities other than just aliens. But the movie is already slow and muddled and honestly the audience doesn’t need more to slow things down and muddy the water. 

While the writing left me underwhelmed, I loved the performances from James Earl Jones as Barney and Estelle Parsons as Betty. Especially so since most of their most dramatic and emotional scenes are them sitting in a chair recalling horrible memories. They have to make it both engaging and believable on their own and don’t even have many chances to play off each other. The acting from the pair is the best part of the movie. When they are on the screen together they play the loving couple with chemistry that makes it feel like love each other and that translates into us being invested in them as characters. It really does suck that the writing doesn’t do much to support this excellent cast. 

I wonder if I had seen this when I was younger and still a believer in all this cryptid, mysterious disappearances, and alien stuff if The UFO Incident would have played differently for me. As a child of the seventies I grew up on these stories and the documentaries so maybe. That said this movie seems to lack the charm and fun of something like The Mysterious Monsters or The Bermuda Triangle so perhaps not. Regardless I can’t recommend this one though if it does interest you there is a copy floating around YouTube as of the writing of this review so you can check it out for free. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Kids vs. Aliens (2023)

I saw this one pop up on Shudder and that combined with the fact that it is from the director of Hobo with a Shotgun I was sold. I mean I loved Hobo, and this was also based on a short he, Jason Eisener, directed for V\H\S\2 so I had high hopes. Where those hopes dashed or did I enjoy the feature length take on the story?

Right away it is established that something odd is happening as a bright light crashes into the ocean near some fishermen. When they are snatched off the boat by a creature in the water, we are given the proper foreshadowing. Then we meet our main characters. Teenager Samantha is babysitting/hanging out with her younger brother and his friends. They are making a movie about aliens and wrestling when some teenagers lead by the cool boy, Billy shows up at the barn. There is a bit of a conflict before Billy starts to flirt with Samantha. Well that isn’t going to end well.

Thru the flirting Billy convinces/manipulates Samantha into hosting a party at her family’s house while mom and dad are out of town. He then gives all his shitty friends permission to trash the place because he is a dick and was just using her. After that is established Aliens show up and attack the party hauling off a lot of the party goers including the little brother and his friends off to the lake. Samantha grabs some convenient scuba gear and goes after them. This leads her to the ship, which was underwater, where she finds a sword. The rest of the movie are the kids fighting the aliens all while Billy turns into a bigger and bigger asshat. Then we get to the end… Be warned spoilers are below.

The kids... don't get attached to them

Ready for the ending of the story? The government or perhaps an alien allied conspiracy shows up. They kill all the characters, again most of whom are just children, and put them in meat lockers with the alien bodies. The end. Seriously movie what the actual hell is this shit? But then I shouldn’t be surprised by such a nihilistic ending from a movie that completely misses the tone that I believe they were going for. The movie plays out like a tween type Goonies or Attack the Block style story. The protagonists are all younger and there is that over the top and at times silly (the sister finds a magical sword and cuts her way thru aliens to save the day!) vibe that is unique to movies or shows like this.

But then in a rather jarring and underwhelming turn of events the characters are dropping “F” bombs all over the place. I get that might be how kids talk but this is a movie about aliens invading a high school kegger so don’t try to pull that excuse on me. There is also some pretty nasty bullying that honestly isn’t ever resolved with the bullied kid getting their revenge/happy ending. Again, everyone freaking dies! I suppose unresolved storylines shouldn’t be that surprising. Though did we need to see their bodies hanging in cold storage as the last shot of the movie?

The Aliens look cool

For the budget we get a couple decent kills and the aliens are fine. Lots of aliens are hacked and run thru, which is fun. There is also a mutation where one of the teenagers is dumped with some goo that turns them into a monster. Why does this happen? They never explain it. Another of the teenagers gets dunked in some other goo and melts into liquid. That is a neat gag though they also never explain why that is happening. The lack of explanation is rather annoying given that Kids vs. Aliens is slow at times, despite only being seventy five minutes long. Some dialogue attempting to throw out theories from the characters for the audience to grab onto would have been a welcome respite from the yelling back and forth that we get.

This movie is an example of genres being stuck together when they probably shouldn’t. The language, gore, and nihilistic ending simply doesn’t mesh with the kids as main characters adventure story with some humor. What was the audience for this movie? And then we have the pacing issues that I briefly mentioned above as well. In the end this feels like a short that was extended into a feature without having enough meat on the bone nor a clear idea of who the audience was supposed to be. I can’t recommend it.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Message from Space (1978)

You know for all my love of seventies cinema and as much as I constantly talk about and cover various “sploitation” flicks I’ve never dove into the fertile ground of Star Wars “sploitation”. In case you are wondering what the hell I’m talking about these would be the movies that were inspired by bigger budget successful Hollywood flicks. Jaws spawned movies like Piranha and Grizzly. Other examples would be the Exorcist “homages” like Abby or The Possessed. “Mockbusters” weren’t a new invention, sorry The Asylum, but existed for as long as someone had a camera and an idea how to cash in on what was popular. And there wasn’t anything quite as popular in a post nineteen seventy seven America then Star Wars.

So why haven’t I covered these movies before? Mostly because they are, at least in my experience, quite awful. Not sure if it is an inability for most filmmakers to make a science fiction flick but unlike some of the other examples I’ve mentioned from other movies the ones cashing in on Star Wars are bad. Off the top of my head the only one that I remember sort of enjoying is Star Crash and that is mostly watching Joe Spinell being his own special sort of greasy. But since one of my colleagues on the Bloodbaths and Boomsticks Podcast picked Message from Space and I had to watch it anyway I thought I’d sit down and share my thoughts with you folks here.

Here is my plot synopsis. Some bad guys invaded some good guys planet and in that process apparently made it a terrible place to life. The remaining locals, completely outgunned, have some magic nuts. An old guy throws those magic nuts into space and tells Bootleg Japanese Princess Leia to go protect them. It is at this point where we meet the bad guy, Samurai Darth Vader, who sees the magic space nuts fly away. He doesn’t care until his mom comes in and yells at him, so the sends bad guys after Bootleg Japanese Princess Leia. She has escaped the planet on her wooden sailing ship…because that works.

"Bootleg" Japanese Princess Leia

Following me so far? Then we are introduced to the Teenage Hot Rod gang in Space who are racing around in their “jalopy” space ships. There is a rich girl, who is actually part of their gang I think… it gets confusing. But they get chased by spaceman Roscoe P. Coltrane aka. the space cops. They get away but end up crashing because the magic nuts smashed into their ships. Why? Because they were chosen to save the peaceful folks. We also get to meet military guy, played by Vic Morrow, who quits the military after they make him deactivate his favorite robot friend. Not to worry though he has a new robot friend which I guess is an improved model? He also gets a magic space nut. A few more folks get magic space nuts like Barbershop quartet guy who lost his three partners and the rightful king of the bad guys who rids a horse and happens to be Sony Chiba. I’ll call him Space Hattori Hanzo.

Still with me? The chosen nut heroes go back to the planet to stop the bad guys who have used a memory machine to read a witch’s mind which is code for stock footage of nature. But it is really good stock footage because now they want to invade Earth! So, they fly the planet they have currently wrecked… no you didn’t read that wrong… and start a war. Now the nut heroes not only have to defeat the bad guys, save the good guys, but also rescue the Earth. They do manage that and sail away on the wooden ship. Woo hoo.

What the actual hell did I just watch? Honestly, I’m not sure what the point was with Message from Space. They are clearly “borrowing” from the Star Wars characters with the archetypes. Hell, the costumes the characters wear are very similar to what those they were inspired by wear in Lucas’s flick. That is why I named them the way I did. The big finale of the movie even has then flying thru a gauntlet of laser cannons and fighters so they can shoot the “generator” and blow up the planet, which looks suspiciously like “not a moon” aka. a space station. There is even a musical cue that comes very close to but totally not infringing on some of the John Williams score.

I guess this is a space ship...

When they do their own thing, it gets very weird. What is up with the magic space nuts flying around choosing folks to fight the bad guys? Why the hell was that the choice? Also, when not almost getting sued by John Williams the soundtrack is filled with odd ‘70s music that would have fit better in a Moonshiner being chased by cops type of movie. It is very out of place in what is supposed to be a science fiction flick. All of this is wrapped up in a meandering hour and forty five minute runtime that feels much longer. While I totally get that sometimes things are lost in translation, this is a Japanese production, I’m a huge fan of the Kaiju movies and most genre offerings from Japan. I am also inclined to like anything from Toei. This is the same company that made The Green Slime and I love that movie. When I say that this movie is painfully slow I think that I’m being reasonable and fair.

The one positive that I took away from this one is that the miniature work is good. If you like small models flying around the screen and exploding, then the movie with scratch that itch. I’m a fan of this type of practical effects work and appreciated both the design as well as the execution. That said I found Message from Space to be difficult to get thru and can’t recommend it. It will be a long time before I sit thru another Star Wars “sploitation” again.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Alien Escape (1997)

There is something comfortable and almost innocent about the straight to home video science fiction flicks of the mid to late nineties. I mean if anything that focuses on getting as many lovely ladies topless while connecting those scenes with a paper thin alien invasion story can be innocent. More on that later.

Things open with a naked lady in a shower. I did sort of warn you… Something is outside spying on her. She gets out of the shower and eventually is attacked by a black glove with I’m guessing someone attached to it. Then we see three ladies in a convertible. After trying to convince us that one of them is a lawyer they stop because you know girls have to pee in the woods. Hey man I’m sure that happens! Eventually they arrive at a resort aka. the house they rented to shoot the movie and find that the person they were expecting, Janet is missing. Yeah, she was the naked lady from earlier. But they do find another naked lady named Laticia who talks to them.

Later two of the girls get naked and get into a bathtub to soap each other up. Hey, I did tell you what to expect a couple of times already! The third, Cindy, goes for a walk. In the dark woods all alone. Then a lady hiker shows up… after getting naked in the stream to take a bath… and asks for a glass of water. The lawyer lady’s boss shows up and acts like a creep. He and the lady hiker get killed by the same black glove. Then Cindy finds a spaceship, shows the other girls. A car explodes they meet Matt, who is an alien, and the girls with Cindy get killed. Then Cindy gets naked with Matt, and they fight the bad alien that was killing everyone. The end.

This isn’t a good movie, but I was entertained. When I was younger all the ladies would have been the reason I liked Alien Escape, but an older and much more jaded (thanks internet) me had to find other reasons to like this flick. Luckily, this is the sort of movie that embraces the silliness and piles on a lot of laughs. While the plot is thin and the dialogue rough there are a lot of pop culture references and intentionally (I think) lines that had me giggling.

The best example of this is legendary no budget filmmakers Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski showing up in acting roles as a couple of locals working road construction. They go all redneck when the “city folk” are around but then shift back to wine sipping intellectuals who discuss art as soon as they are out of earshot. Silly? Yes, but I think that the filmmakers were playing with the prototypical stereotypes present in the more serious attempts to tell stories like this. There is also a much less funny bit with some government agents tracking the aliens, but I will give them an “A” for effort.

For a movie with little to no budget they do a decent job with the alien. Sure, it is a guy wearing a suite topped off with a cheesy rubber mask, but it works fine. We also get some movie magic where characters climb into the “hatch” of the ship in the woods to clearly be climbing down a ladder in some industrial location located elsewhere. But that kind of movie “magic” is what low budget filmmakers must use to make things happen. And it wasn’t too bad. The kills are tame and well that is about all I have to say.

Alien Escape isn’t a good movie. I’ll freely admit that. It may also seem weird that I describe a flick that uses nudity and titillation as a selling point innocent. But when I watch a flick like this one, I get very nostalgic for the days of renting crap at my local video store. Despite watching a digital copy I swear I could hear my VCR chugging along. If you have the same sort of memories or are looking for something silly, then check this one out. I think you might get a kick out of it.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Lair (2022)

Director Neil Marshall is back with a new monster movie. When this hit Shudder I couldn’t wait to check it out and I wasn’t disappointed. Things kick off with a British pilot, Kate Sinclair, and her back seater getting shot down in Afghanistan. They parachute safely to he ground but the insurgents who downed their aircraft are on them immediately. They end up in a firefight where Sinclair is the only survivor. She heads off but enemy reinforcements arrive, and she is forced to take shelter in an abandoned Russian bunker. Here is where things get interesting.

It seems that the Russians were experimenting with a downed alien spacecraft or more specifically the passenger! They have created some alien/human hybrids that are bloodthirsty but safely locked up. That is until the gunbattle in the lab frees them. Sinclair is again the only survivor and is picked up by an American patrol. But the critters are loose and end up attacking the base. Soon the survivors are forced to either wait to die or go back to the lab and destroy the nest. This leads to more firefights with insurgents and some neat monster gore and violence.

I enjoyed the heck out of The Lair. Marshall has always been good for some military versus creature action (Dog Soldiers) as well as creepy claustrophobic horror (The Descent) and I thought he pulled off both nicely here. The soldier characters are developed enough that fans of the genre will know what archetype they fall into. There is the angry leader who won’t end well but is likeable. The screw up that runs away… dude you died on a toilet! Some general badasses who talk shit to each other. These are just a few examples of what you get. There is even the local who starts off as an enemy but obviously due to backstory has an axe to grind with the creatures and becomes an ally.

The Setting is great... very spooky!

I suppose that in many ways these characters and how the story plays out in such a predictable way is why this movie is getting savaged by so many fans. Yeah, I read the reviews before I watched and honestly didn’t care. But as I’ve stated in the past some movies can just be comfortable fun and don’t need to be “art”. When did making an ultra-violent fast paced action creature feature with characters dropping funny one-liners become unacceptable? Neither the director nor the cast are taking things too seriously and are just trying to entertain the audience and I think they succeeded marvelously.

We get dozens of kills, many of which are of the standard getting shot variety. But there is also some gut-munching (a favorite here at the site), face ripped off, jaw ripped off, head off, a fist thru the face, a double grenade while holding them monster dispatching, and a flare to the chest. But my personal favorite was half a head getting munched off in one bite… sadly off screen but the post chomp scene lingers enough to be enjoyable. This is a very violent and bloody movie and was just the sort of thing that I wanted when I saw the trailer and heard the plot synopsis. And I almost forgot the alien autopsy by skill saw! 

Tentacle time

If that doesn’t get you then let me tell you about the creature design. They are humanoid but very alien looking at the same time. Giant gaping maws filled with sharp teeth are scary, but then they also spring some mouth tentacles that just don’t grab you but sort of caress the victims in an uncomfortable way that only adds to the horror. Marshall also sets much of the action, basically anything not the night attack on the base, in the underground lab. As I’ve already mentioned the man knows how to make you feel claustrophobic and creeped out in such a location.

The Lair checks all the expected boxes with a gleeful and maniacal energy that I just couldn’t help but love it. Currently the movie is streaming on Shudder, and I highly recommend you check it out. I know that the year is still young, but this is the best thing I’ve watched so far.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Island of the Burning Damned (aka. Night of the Big Heat) (1967)

It is winter in England… well except if you live on the small island of Fara. There the temperature has hit the high nineties with so stop in sight. To that end we meet the locals. Jeff is a writer who also runs the local pub with his wife Frankie. There is also the island’s M.D. Dr. Stone and a cranky mysterious man named Hanson. As we see folks complaining about the heat Jeff’s new secretary Angela shows up to start her job. She wears a bikini, which is quite the thing. What is odd is that no one seems terribly concerned that the island is cooking while it is freezing right across on the mainland. We also know that everyone is aware of it because of radio reports.

What is up? Turns out that Hanson is a scientist that has come to investigate Fara. He has tried to convince the authorities that aliens have followed a radio signal back to the observatory and are testing Earth out for colonization. They apparently need things to be hot so cue the heat wave. Despite the obvious strange weather no one is coming to help them, so they must try and stop the invasion themselves. Nothing works and pretty much everyone is dead before the last three minutes happen. In those three minutes we hear thunder, it rains, and all the aliens die… probably because they cooled off. The end.

The Drama... The Scandal!

Island of the Burning Damned had all the ingredients for a cool movie. Isolated island setting, alien invasion, mysterious deaths, and a great cast, more on that later. So, what the hell happened? First up the story is painfully slow. We get so much walking around and people talking about the heat that there is never any momentum. We spend more time watching Hanson setup a camera trap then we do with them discussing the aliens! This is even worse with the introduction of a major subplot involving Jeff and his new secretary Angela. They had an affair in London, and she has pursued him to the island to try and continue things while he wants to leave peacefully with his wife. Sweet… forget the aliens I want the drama of an affair. Not really. The movie feels like they didn’t really have much of a plot and threw a bunch of random plotlines in to pad things out. I still can’t get over the abrupt and silly ending. I mean advanced spacefaring aliens didn’t know it was going to rain! Really?

I was especially disappointed with this because it wasted direction from Terence Fisher, and performances from both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. That is some legendary British horror both in front of and behind the camera. All three are hamstrung with a script that goes nowhere and other characters that don’t deserve the screentime they get. I wanted more Lee and Cushing and less girl drama! Damn asshole script killed them off and left the girl alive… stupid movie.

Yinz gonna move... ever?

The aliens in this alien invasion movie are saved until the very end. For most of the movie they are a portrayed as a spotlight on the victim while a loud sound plays. When we do see them, they are at best a Horta (classic Trek reference… hope you get it) looking rubber blob that I don’t believe ever actually moves on camera. You know real scary stuff. Other than that we get nothing. Despite them telling us “something landed” we never see a ship or anything. Not even a crappy cardboard set! Very disappointing.

I can’t recommend spending your time on Island of the Burning Damned. It just isn’t a good movie. If you want to see a very similar and much better executed flick check out Island of Terror also starring Peter Cushing and directed by Terence Fisher. It is even from the same year!

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Seed (2021)

Influencers… this is a concept that I never wanted to understand and certainly didn’t want in my horror flicks. But even an old guy like me has to deal with changes in society so when I realized this flick was all about some influencers that head out to an isolated house for a photoshoot to post on social media, I sucked it up and sat down to watch. I’m glad that I did.

The three ladies are Deidre, Heather, and Charlotte. The first two are all about posting to their lives to the internet and somehow make their living that way. Charlotte works in a pet store and has a crappy phone that the other girls laugh at. It is cool though since they are friends. They have headed out to Heather’s place… or rather her dad’s place… to shoot some pictures for the launch of Deidre’s new cosmetics line. There is also a “once in a lifetime” meteor shower to watch, which they almost miss because they are complaining about the lack of cell service. While this is happening, something crashes into the swimming pool.

Here is where it gets good. The thing in the pool is some sort of creature that slowly works its way into the house before hypnotizing the girls into rolling around in the innards that it can shoot out of its chest. At least that is what Deidre and Heather do. Charlotte is our voice of reason and notices something is wrong with her friends. She goes to see the nearest neighbor, Edna, but she has blown her head off. There is a journal that Edna was keeping where she had drawn pictures of the creature. That is what we call foreshadowing my friends. Turns out the critter is an alien, and it has come to Earth to use the ladies as incubators for it’s young. Now Charlotte must kill it and stop her infected friends from reaching civilization and passing along the spawn to others.

The alien looks decent

This is an interesting movie that shows what a talented filmmaker can do when they have a solid story and script. We have a small cast with just the three girls and a couple locals who roll in and out briefly. The story is contained in basically a couple locations with most of the action taking place at the house. This could have made for a slow paced and tedious flick, but the story has enough twists and turns to keep the audience interested. The three actresses also do a lot to help this along as even the “mean” girl seems real and you could see why they would hang out. The movie also does a clever thing with some dialogue that slips in the history of them being friends since they were little. That might not seem like much but between that and the performances I bought that they would hang out together.

I also was impressed with how the story was made to feel like it was much larger. This was obviously a smaller budgeted project but thru the creature communicating with Charlotte thru flashes of images as well as a fun ending it shows that this isn’t a one off incident but the beginning of a much larger invasion. I always say when reviewing independent productions that you should shoot what you have locations and budget for and that is what was done here with the bonus of creatively making it feel like a much more epic story. The filmmakers did a wonderful job.

Swimming in some alien innards!

I like the story and I like the cast. Now how do I feel about the special effects work? The look of the alien is cool. It isn’t the sort of thing that is going to leap up and menace anyone but instead manipulates people into rolling around in the goo and guts so it can infect them. So it mostly just lies on the floor or bed, but it is a practical creature that looks decent enough. The girls do get a bit sticky after going full on alien mom, but it is mostly puking up black blood and swollen bellies. But we do get a tentacle arm that was fun. There are just three kills, but they include a headshot and a smashed noggin’ which is bloody and fun. For the budget I found the fact that they leaned into practical effects work rather than relying on CGI a refreshing change. The meteors are CGI but that is done well enough, and it looks decent.

The Seed ended up being way better than I thought it would. This is why I keep sitting thru newer horror flicks. There are some gems out there that deserve to be given a shot and this is one of those movies. As of the writing of this review you can catch it streaming on Shudder. I recommend doing just that.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer