Slotherhouse (2023)

When I saw the trailer for Slotherhouse show up online I was sold. Sure, the concept of a killer sloth was absurd, and the movie looked like it was going to be completely silly, but sometimes absurd and silly is what I want. So, is that what I got?

The movie opens in the rainforest where we see a sloth above the water when a crocodile jumps from the water and snatches it off the low hanging tree branch. Blood flows to the surface and the sloth crawls out of the river. Soon after it is tranquilized and taken away. Then we see a college girl who we later find out is named Emily, saving a puppy from getting squished. A nearby man introduces himself and finding that she is an animal lover gives her his card. He is an exotic pet dealer. When Emily decides to run for president of her sorority, she needs a hook to get everyone’s attention. She decides to buy a sloth from the dealer… uh oh.

Of course it is the killer sloth who is medicated so not as homicidal as earlier with the crocodile. Though not well enough as we see it murder the pet guy before Emily arrives. Initially the sloth, that they name Alpha, is chill. Though that changes when it sees a selfie that Emily took with the dealer. From that point on the sloth goes full on murder machine. It begins picking off the girls and then uses their phones to take selfies and create cover stories as to where they have gone. Yeah, the sloth is using their phones! But that makes total sense since later it steals Emily’s car to finish off a girl who made it to the hospital! I did say this movie was absurd. Eventually there is a final battle between our heroine and the murderous sloth.

Catching some rays!

I love this movie. It is a perfect blend of horror tropes and comedy. It is basically a slasher flick with the mostly unkillable murderer being a sloth rather than a guy in a mask. We see it stalk it’s victims only to seemingly pop up for the final jump scare and kill. Remember how it always seems that the killer is slowly moving towards the soon to be victims and you wonder how they always catch them? Slotherhouse doubles down on that by having that slow moving killer be an actual sloth! The characters even mention how fast the sloth is despite us never seeing it move at anything other than a glacial pace. When I saw the trailer I wondered if it was just going to be a gimmick, but the writers put a lot of effort into being clever. It makes for a very funny watch.

There are a lot of kills in Slotherhouse, though many of them are offscreen. If you are looking for a lot of creative kills and gore this likely isn’t the movie for you. Many of the kills are played for laughs, but that fits with this movie much better than over the top kills and gore would have. We get a girl getting roofied by the sloth and slashed to death. There is also death by loofa, a mass killing during a hazing ritual in the shower, and a stabbing of the house mother who has enough time to express her regrets at a wasted life. The movie also has a murder montage that covers the couple of weeks where the sloth was killing and hiding his victims. Death by gravity, curiling iron, stuffed animals, and scissors to the face. The best part is when Alpha decides to send all the selfies she took to Emily to terrorize her at the end of the movie. #LastSelfie… Normally I don’t dig the social media crap in my horror movies as I’m an old fart. But I’ll be damned is this shit isn’t funny as hell.

Death by loofa

The sloth is brought to the screen without CGI but with puppetry. Does this limit them being able to show the sloth walking around a bit? Yes it does and for me that only adds to the charm. Despite being a puppet, the sloth has a lot of personality and I give credit to the director as well as the performer in making that happen. If you have spent much time here on the site you know that I’m all about monsters in suits, rubber or otherwise. The effort put into making this a practical effect already was in my wheelhouse, but doing it so well made me love this movie even more!

The filmmakers also decided to toss in some references for movie nerds. You have the Psycho music playing during a shower attack, the sloth ends up out the window and splayed on the ground only to be gone the next time Emily looks down at the grass ala Halloween. We even get an Empire Strikes Back “I know” gag! Seriously man if I haven’t convinced you to check out Slotherhouse yet I don’t know what else I can do. This is one of the best movies I’ve watched this year and will definitely make my top ten list in January. It is streaming on Hulu and is available for purchase from most of the big retailers. Buy a copy and get yourself ready for some laughs.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Return of the Killer Shrews (2012)

It must have been about thirteen years ago that I was interviewing actor James Best about his years on Dukes of Hazzard as well as his appearance in The Killer Shrews when he started talking about going into preproduction on this low budget sequel to the very low budget fifties original. I immediately jotted down that I should keep an eye out for the movie when it finally got made and released. I must have picked up this copy ten years ago or so and am just now getting around to watching it. I’ve already said this at least once but I really need to stop buying movies and taking a decade to watch them. 

Best returns as Captain Thorne Sherman. This time instead of delivering supplies to scientists on an isolated island he is dropping off cast and crew for a reality show. Now that is an interesting and appropriate update to the story! He is very uncomfortable returning to the place where he was almost shrew food but also apparently needs the paycheck. Almost as soon as they arrive we see a mysterious man controlling the shrews who get about to eating the filmmakers, though they don’t realize that until the next day.

When they find out folks are missing they go looking for them, which leads to those not killed right away being trapped in the old scientists’ compound from the first flick. The rest of the movie is them trying not to die, which admittedly doesn’t go so well, while mysteries such as who the man is as well as what the shrews have been up to get resolved. In the end some people die, some people live, and we get a fun continuation of a classic cheesy sci-fi monster flick most of us grew up watching on our local public domain creature feature shows.  

I want to start off being completely honest. I love the original movie, so I’m inclined to like this one. The cheesy special effects from the fifties with dogs in costumes chasing folks with pork chops in their pockets (a fun tidbit Best dropped during my interview with him so many years ago) is replaced by equally silly CGI. The digital effects work in Return of the Killer Shrews makes the worst Sci-Fi channel original look like a masterpiece so in addition to being silly it is really bad. Normally that would be a deal breaker for me, but as a sequel to a movie I love so much I found it hard to be too critical. 

The other complication I had was the fact that James Best was an awesome guy. My interview with him went so well and I have to say my interactions with him both before and afterwards made me a huge fan. He was a funny guy, which comes across in this movie. Much of it has him and another Dukes alum, Rick Hurst, cracking wise like they know they are in a cheesy movie. We even get John Schneider chewing up scenery as the start of the reality show so in a way it is a mini Dukes reunion. They really lean heavily into the jokes as this plays much more like a comedy rather than a creature feature. I found myself laughing along with the filmmakers rather than at them, so I think that made things a lot more fun. 

Admittedly though this isn’t a good movie. The CGI is terrible with the same crude digital models being used repeatedly for the shrews. That means you see the same random movements which many times doesn’t match up with the actors creating awkward composite shots. We do get some old school rubbery puppetry in a few of the closeups, but that isn’t nearly enough. They even double down with one of the worst “explosions” you will ever see in a movie. 

Not sure how I’m supposed to sum this one up. Personally, I liked this movie. But it is filled with things that normally bug me about low budget filmmaking. Clearly I’m digging this one for more than what just what is on the screen. Will other viewers have that same bias and connection to the cast as well as the original flick? Probably not. So, I can’t recommend this for everyone. That makes me more than a little bit sad. On the other hand, if you like James Best the actor or are a fan of The Killer Shrews you might get a kick out of this flick. I really do need to review that one for the site someday. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Throwback Thursday – The Conqueror Worms by Brian Keene

note: Earlier this year I posted another old review from a Brian Keene book, Dead Sea. I’ve read a lot more of his stuff, but I think these are the only two that I actually reviewed for the old Gutmunchers site. I certainly need to revisit more of them as I’ve never been let down by his books.

This is a very interesting novel from a writer that seems to be cranking out some decent genre related fiction. The story centers around an elderly man named Teddy Garnett who lives in a small town in West Virginia. We quickly find out that one day it started to rain and never stopped. While everyone in his neck of the woods is already gone and most of the surrounding towns are under water Teddy and a few of his neighbors are still hanging on refusing to leave. After more than forty days of rain everything is soaked and there is strange mold growing on most of the remaining animals and trees.

As if this disaster of biblical proportions wasn’t bad enough the raised water levels have driven some rather large earthworms to the surface. We are talking house-sized earthworms that seem just a bit aggressive. Part way into the story Keene has a helicopter full of additional characters show up and immediately get shot down by one of Teddy’s less sane neighbors. This allows Keene to introduce another group of survivors from a city on the East Coast. He tells their story of sea monsters, Satanists, and their eventual escape from the hotel that had been their home just before everything came tumbling down on them. It allows him to broaden the scale of the story and add some fun background to the end of the world. The final act of the book is Teddy and his new friends trying to fight off the horrors that are coming up from beneath the ground under their feet.

I find myself going thru long stretches of time where I end up reading book after book form the same author. The Conqueror Worms is probably the third or fourth book I’ve read from Keene, and I have to say it is one of my favorites. I’m a big sucker for the end of the world survivor type of books where you are introduced to a cast of characters, only to have them picked off one at a time. But the key for this type of story is that you need to really care about the characters, or at least have some sort of vested interest in what happens to them. Keen does a great job with The Conqueror Worms in establishing the characters, giving each a unique background and personality. When they start to get picked off it means something to the reader. I also think the idea of breaking the story of Teddy in half and wrapping it around the other survivor’s story makes for a much more interesting book and helps with the pacing of the story. 

If I have one complaint about much of Keene’s work it is that he has this nasty tendency to end all his stories ending on depressing notes. Everyone is always either dead or doomed. Traditionally that is a fine way to end a horror movie, story, or novel, but it sucks when it becomes predictable. The Conqueror Worms hints at an ending like this but does leave the door open for a potentially happier ending. I appreciated that slim ray of hope for the characters.    

In the end I found this effort from Keene to be an entertaining and fun read. At just over three hundred and twenty five pages it is an easy read and well worth your time. I recommend tracking yourself down a copy of this one.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Beast Below (2022)

If you are a frequent reader here at the site you will know that on occasion I like to stroll into my local big box retailer and browse the shelves for a title that grabs my attention. Honestly, this never works out in my favor but is a fun exercise and reminds me of being sold a bill of goods back in the old mom and pop VHS store days. On a recent Friday evening I did just this and found The Beast Below. The cover claimed this was Tremors with a lizard instead of a worm. Okay movie lets see what you’ve got. 

Things kick off with some guys in the desert hunting lizards. The tables are turned on them when we see them get hunted by what appears to be a giant lizard. While we only see the arm at this point the cover of the DVD sort of gives it away. Then we are introduced to Kao, a popular singer who has bailed on his producer/manager to start a new phase of his career. What does this have to do with a lizard monster in the desert? Well, he gets framed for drugs and is forced to return home in disgrace with his cousin for the funeral of his grandfather. His business was drilling for water because, you guessed it, they live near the desert. 

Now comes the fun part. Another local, a woman named Fon, is sponsoring a contest with a large cash prize. Find water for their town to use and win money. Since Kao is hard up for cash, being disgraced and all, he enters the contest so he can finish his new record. There are a bunch of other teams each with what I’m guessing is supposed to be unique themes (I think there are some hippies or druggies… not sure). All that noise gets the monster’s attention and then shenanigans happen. Spoilers… in the end everyone lives happily ever after. I mean except for those horribly killed by the monster. 

I wanted to like The Beast Below. It has a giant monster lizard and I think some of the comedy lands. The characters are likeable enough and if you understand that the movie is leaning heavily into being a bit silly then it all sort of works. But the movie is far too long at two hours and thirty minutes. For some reason the movie decides to take forever establishing the main character of Kao with flashbacks and an intro that keeps us from the monster stuff until we are almost thirty minutes into the story. Yeah, it takes that long for the characters to meet up with the monster lizard in a movie that is all about a monster lizard! And I don’t mean they are hiding the creature from us while folks are getting picked off. Nope this is a bunch of talking, funeral planning, and other unnecessary padding. 

I didn't hate the creature effects

Even when we do get to the monster there are even more flashbacks to let you know why Kao and his love interest Fon don’t get along. Let me be very clear… I DON’T CARE! I signed up for a lizard eating folks and that is what I want. Even when it does chow down on the locals, we find out that a bunch of them are just stuck to a wall in the monster’s nest for a snack later. Come on guys give me some mayhem and death here!

The monster is brought to the screen with CGI and for the most part is solid. There are a few shots that were a bit cringey but mostly it is okay. There is zero gore as the camera always pulls away from the gooey stuff as it is about to happen. But I’ll cut them some slack as this I think was leaning more into comedy then horror. Plus, when they do try to show us a couple of payoffs with heads off and bodies split it is all CGI and looks bad. 

Honestly, I could have dealt with most of my complaints if the story were tighter and the pace was picked up. As a viewer when I have less time to think about what is wrong with a movie the better chance there is that I like it. For me, the pacing and length of what should have been a much simpler monster movie is what kills any chance of enjoyment with The Beast Below. I should have left this one sit on the store shelf. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Throwback Thursday - That Time Rankin/Bass teamed up with the Japanese to make movies for ABC

note: A few years ago I signed on to write up some articles for a magazine titled Gravely Unusual. Specifically, I chose to write about various genre related television projects, which readers of Crappy Movie Reviews will know is a favorite of mine. Sadly this only lasted a couple of issues and I’ve already posted the other one here. Today I thought I’d share my other submission.

 

Television Terrors: Growing up in the Warm Glow of the Boob Tube

The Rankin/Bass and Japanese movies that ended up on ABC

by John Shatzer

Here we are back for another installment of Television Terrors. This time around I thought I’d talk about an odd collaboration that occurred in the late ‘70s between Rankin/Bass and some Japanese studios. This is a series of three movies that ended up premiering on ABC here in the States while getting a theatrical release in Japan. Initially, I had thought this was the plan all along. However, after doing research for this article I realized that the original idea had been for The Last Dinosaur to get released to theaters in the US, but the filmmakers couldn’t drum up any interest. After that movie was such a success, the other productions were sold to television even before they were finished. Because of this I consider these productions all to be television movies and decided to cover them here.

Before I go any further, I should chat a bit about my history with these movies. If you haven’t caught on yet I’m a huge fan of all things related to horror on the small screen. I was aware of the “movies of the week” that were cranked out to fill the voids in the schedule, having seen many of them in reruns on my local horror hosted shows years after their premieres. At some point in the mid ‘80s I heard about these strange projects and immediately went looking for them but was unable to find copies to watch. I filed it away and moved on to the next thing. I honestly had totally forgotten about it until recently when I stumbled over an article that mentioned them. This time, armed with the internet as a resource, I found what I was looking for. Though I imagine given the title of this article you probably figured that out already. After waiting over 3 decades, it is time to dive in.

I figured that I’d start with 1978’s The Bermuda Depths. This is the second of the trio and was the one that interested me the most. Mostly because one of the stars, Carl Weathers of Rocky and Predator fame, does battle with a giant sea turtle. The Japanese side of the production came from the same company that did the Ultraman shows that I loved growing up as a kid. I was so hoping for some killer Kaiju action which I must inform you never happens. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Things kick off with a guy sleeping on the beach who we later find out is our main character, Magnus. A beautiful woman, played by a very young Connie Sellecca, comes strolling up and smiles before disappearing back into the sea. Magnus wakes up and then we are given some background as he meets up with Eric, Weather’s character, who is working on a research vessel. Eric and another man named Paulis are continuing the work of Magnus’ father. Magnus has returned to the island to sort out his history and to try to remember what happened to his father. We get hints that since being orphaned as a child he has had a rough go of it. Signing on to help Magnus gets involved with Eric and Paulis’ work. Also in the mix is Sellecca’s character, Jennifer, who we find out has a strange connection to Magnus and his father.

Now you might have noticed that I have yet to mention the giant sea turtle. I’m not burying the lead here as the turtle is barely in the movie and is mostly seen in the last few minutes of the flick. Much of the movie is focused on developing the relationship between Jennifer and Magnus and revealing the secrets within that relationship. Be aware that there are some spoilers coming so if you don’t like that sort of thing stop reading right away. You have been warned.

Jennifer was/is the imaginary friend that Magnus had as a child (another flashback we get to see) who is also a legendary sea creature that was once a woman but sold her soul to a turtle god to avoid drowning. Or at least I think that is what they were going for. If I’m going to be completely honest here the movie is quite confusing. I had to stop it to go back and see if I missed something more than once. That hardly ever happens to me since I tend to really pay attention when I’m watching a movie. Sadly, that is only one of the many problems that I noticed.

Finally the Turtle!

The Bermuda Depths feels like a movie that tried to do a lot of stuff but never settled on one thing long enough to be entertaining. We get the promise of a monster, which never really happens. The title mentions Bermuda, which being a ‘70s production made me think it might have something to do with the Bermuda Triangle. While that is mentioned and hinted at nothing really comes of it. We get a bit of a mad/obsessed scientist vibe which also doesn’t turn into anything. There is even a bit of Jaws with the characters on the boat doing battle with the turtle, but it ends too quickly to be worthwhile. The filmmakers are throwing a lot at the audience to entertain, but it doesn’t work.

The casting of Burl Ives as the scientist Paulis also doesn’t work for me. He is wrong for the part and really the movie in general. He mostly mumbles through lines and spends his time cracking and eating peanuts. The only thing that I did really like about The Bermuda Depths was the casting of Carl Weathers. He is good playing Eric and is the only character that seems to have some sort of story arc going from friendly to obsessed with the fame that might be gained by killing the turtle and proving its existence. Plus, he wears a pair of shorts that have to be seen to be believed. I was having flashbacks to gym class in the ‘70s and was traumatized. 

One of the hazards of this hobby and tracking down movies is that when you find them you realize why they were difficult to locate in the first place. Many times, they were buried because they are just bad. While I’m pleased to have finally scratched this one off of my bucket list, I’m hoping that this isn’t a harbinger of things to come. Fingers crossed that the other two movies are more fun.  

Next up I thought I’d go back to the first project Rankin/Bass tried to get off the ground and look at The Last Dinosaur. This movie stars Richard Boone as Masten Thrust Jr., the owner of a large oil company that has been successfully exploring the polar caps in search of reserves of crude oil to drill. Thrust is also known as a big game hunter who has shot and killed many animals, including some endangered ones. We are given the idea that he is rich enough to get away with such things. The story picks up with him landing in Japan and heading off to company headquarters to check in with some scientists and have a press conference. Here is where the story kicks into gear.  

Chuck Wade works for Thrust’s oil company and is the only survivor of a mission that stumbled onto a hidden valley that is warmed by a nearby underwater volcano. This land is trapped in the past and is filled with dinosaurs, one of which ate the other members of his crew. Thrust is putting together an expedition to retrace their steps with the intent of studying the creature. Though when they arrive there are all sorts of dinosaurs to deal with as well as some cavemen! The T-Rex that ate the original crew causes some grief by constantly trying to snack on them, as well as stealing their ship because it was shiny. At least that is how they explain why it disappeared.

The plot then jumps to four months later as our survivors are struggling with the locals, both the reptile and mammal variety. They have also picked up one of the cavewomen who has taken a shine to them. They call her Hazel and try to teach her things. Stuff happens, including a dinosaur throwdown between the T-Rex and a Triceratops, as well some fighting with the cavemen over food. Eventually they do stumble over their ship and get it ready for a return home, but of course Thrust refuses. He has become obsessed with killing the T-Rex which leads to a weird but sort of enjoyable ending. I can’t say more without spoiling The Last Dinosaur. 

This is a much better movie than The Bermuda Depths with the most obvious reason being that we get to see the creature as well as other fun stuff. The dinosaurs are clearly actors in rubber suits flailing about at one another but being a Toho co-production that is exactly what I wanted. This movie promises monsters and doesn’t disappoint. In addition to the T-Rex there is a giant turtle, Pterodactyls, and the Triceratops. There is also miniature work used to bring the ship and its home base to the screen. If you dig Kaiju movies, then you will be pleased with what we get in The Last Dinosaur.

Richard Boone is chewing the scenery and having a blast. He yells a lot of his dialogue and the supposed love scenes between him and co-star Joan Van Ark are painfully awkward. Somehow this adds a certain cheeseball charm that works for the movie. The theme song is very ‘70s and again just fits. We even get some familiar giant lizard sounds coming from the T-Rex. Toho was involved so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this happened.

Sure it is silly... but I liked it.

While I was watching The Last Dinosaur, I also noticed something else that amused me. It probably wasn’t done on purpose but still, who knows? Our female lead is played by the previously mentioned, Joan Van Ark. Her name is Francesca Banks, and she is an award-winning photographer. She has cut her teeth taking photos in warzones including what I think was supposed to be Vietnam. She’s a blonde female photographer who is brought along as the press representative to document the expedition. Fans of Kong: Skull Island might notice some similarities here.

You might also notice that the movie is called The Last Dinosaur. Here is where I think that the writing is subtle and deeper than one would expect from a monster movie like this. The “dinosaur” referred to isn’t the giant reptile, but I believe is actually the character of Thrust. From his rough treatment of women (even for the ‘70s is a bit much), to the character’s resistance to returning to civilization, I believe the point is that he is the dinosaur. This is further reinforced with the casting of Boone, who is best known for playing cowboys and tough guys, and who was nearing the end of his long career when he made this movie. Then again maybe I’m just reading too much into it. Regardless, the movie engaged me in a way I wasn’t expecting and that added to my enjoyment.

Now it isn’t all good and I do have one complaint. The movie is way too long. I watched the uncut version of the movie that clocks in at 106 minutes long. There is a lot of padding at the beginning of the movie including an extended press conference that goes nowhere and is unnecessary. I did notice that the TV cut is only 95 minutes long so that might be the one to watch. Despite dragging at times there is still enough fun to be had that I think this one is worth a watch. If nothing else the giant rubber monsters stomping around should put a smile on your face.

Well, I’m glad that The Last Dinosaur was decent. I’ve spent a long time tracking these movies down and it would have been disappointing if they all were as bad as The Bermuda Depths. Fingers crossed that the last of three is also a good time. Might as well toss The Ivory Ape into the DVD player and see what I’ve gotten myself into.

The Ivory Ape starts with some farmers in Africa trying to protect their crops from a gorilla that is cleaning them out of bananas. There is a bit of an argument since the animal is protected and they are going to get in trouble with the game warden if they injure it. Though that doesn’t stop them from eventually shooting and capturing it. But it isn’t just any gorilla. It’s a rare white one that zoos and collectors all over the world will be willing to pay big bucks for. A ruthless poacher, Aubrey Range, takes the ape and loads it on a ship bound for Cuba. Why Cuba? Well, he illegally smuggled it out of the country so that is the only place he can sell it without getting arrested. A storm blows up and the ship is forced to dock in the Bahamas where the rest of our characters get involved.

Baxter and Lil are crusaders that have the papers to seize the ape and return it home where it belongs. Baxter also has a friend, a former big game hunter named Kazarian, who lives on the island. Kazarian gets roped into the hunt when the ape breaks free after killing someone and escapes onto the island. Behaving unusually aggressive, the gorilla creates a panic which leads to a posse of armed men tracking it down. One of those men is Kazarian and another is the poacher who is trying to destroy any evidence of his smuggling. Though the Inspector in charge gives Baxter and Lil a chance to capture it alive, things go about as well as you would expect, which isn’t great. In the end, which I won’t spoil here, we find out why the gorilla was acting aggressively and our characters either learn a lesson or are able to be righteously indignant.

Well crap… There are some things that I enjoyed about The Ivory Ape, but it is a flawed movie.  Much like The Bermuda Depths, I feel like this movie promised me a creature feature, but what I got instead was a drama with a conservation message. Normally I wouldn’t be too hard on a movie that did a switcheroo like that if they managed to do a decent job at it. Sadly, that isn’t the case here. The movie is padded with so much unnecessary baggage that I never could get into or care about the story.

For example, we get an entire subplot of Kazarian, Palance’s character, coming out of retirement to hunt again. Why did he quit? Thanks to a monologue we find out that his son was taken by a crocodile and he had to do the unthinkable to stop his suffering. He shoots the kid and not the croc (!), though it is hinted that it was already too late to save him. While this is interesting, it does nothing to move the story along and is never referenced in any way later in the movie. Combined with Palance barely playing a part in the movie, this is all wasted space. You could have cut his character out entirely and trimmed about twenty minutes off the runtime which would have helped the pacing a lot. Of course, they didn’t do that since Palance is top billed and used to sell the movie.

On the positive side of things Palance is very good in the movie. Unlike The Last Dinosaur where the Hollywood vet Boone chews scenery, Palance is subdued and very believable as the tortured Kazarian. The ending where he figures out what is happening through the scope of his rifle and tries to, but fails to stop what happens, there is a pain on his face that tells you more than any bit of dialogue could ever do. The rest of the cast is equally good including Steven Keats, who was also in The Last Dinosaur, and Cindy Pickett. A good cast can make up for some silly material and this is a very good cast.

Speaking of silly, I can’t ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room. See what I did there? The titular creature is nothing more than a man in a gorilla suit. It doesn’t look any better than the poverty row studio films of the ‘30s and ‘40s. I get that on their budget, and with the technology of the time, this was as good as they could do. But the choice of using stock footage side by side early on, just points out how fake it is. And I’m not going to lie that because this was a Toho co-production, I had expected a giant gorilla to appear and that the fact it is just a regular sized guy in a suit bummed me out. Again, if they had done the other stuff better my unmet expectations wouldn’t prevent me from enjoying The Ivory Ape.

The Ape

In the end, I can’t say that I would recommend The Ivory Ape. It isn’t awful and I’ve seen much worse, but it doesn’t do anything to make itself memorable. This is, at best, an oddity that “made for TV” nerds like me probably will need to track down. This is by far the hardest of the three to find. The weakest of these productions is clearly, The Bermuda Depths, which has zero going for it. The plot meanders along, never amounting to much, and is filled with characters that are uninspiring. Plus, we barely get any monster in it with the turtle showing itself at the very end for just a couple of minutes. Trust me it isn’t worth your time.

The best of the bunch is The Last Dinosaur. Now this is what I expected when I saw Toho was involved. Lots of guys in rubber monster suits, cheesy cavemen makeup, model ships zipping around the screen. This movie has it all! It isn’t perfect, but if you dig Kaiju flicks then I think you will have fun with it. It doesn’t surprise me that this was the easiest of the three for me to track down. I can see the appeal, which likely kept it in circulation.

So that is it for another installment of Television Terrors. It was a blast for me to finally track these movies down and to share them with you here in the pages of this fine magazine. As always, I want to thank Edwin for the opportunity to participate in such a cool project. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to get in touch by emailing me at gutmunchers@gmail.com. I love talking to other fans about this stuff. I’ll see you all next time when I return with even more spooky stuff from the old boob tube.

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Komodo (1999)

The movie opens with a ship unloading illegal animals on an island off of the coast of North Carolina. Some of those are mysterious looking eggs that the hippie (how they billed him, no judgement from me) drops. Nineteen years later, which we find out thanks to a nice crawl on the screen, a young boy named Patrick arrives on the island with his parents and his dog Buster. God Damn it movie don’t do it… After some exploring something chases him and yes they kill the dog. And his parents too! But I'm really sad about the dog. 

Things move to a time after that where we meet a therapist named Victoria who is trying to help Patrick. He has blocked out what happened and is suffering from PTSD. Her bright idea is to take him back on the island to see if they can trigger his memories and get him some resolution. The island is now off limits or at least I think it is. There is some question about that. What is obvious is the only people on the island are the oil company employees, specifically a couple of men hired to kill on the creatures running around on it. See those eggs from earlier were Komodo Dragons, which are endangered. If it were to get out that there was a colony of them on the island it would mean the company would have to stop drilling.

This led them to not telling anyone of the danger which the evil boss doubles down on when he callously gives the “no witnesses” order. Yep, everyone must die. Thankfully Oates, one of the hunters, saves Victoria and Patrick by flying them off in a helicopter to live happily ever after. Well other than the PTSD from all the other friends and relatives that Patrick just saw torn apart and eaten.

Komodo is one of those movies that you don’t want to overthink if you want to enjoy it. There are obvious plot holes that the audience needs to accept, and the movie has a sort of nonending that is a bit annoying. But what it lacks it more than makes up for by checking all the creature feature boxes. It establishes that there is something going on quickly and as much as I hate them killing the dog right off it does let you know that no one is safe. I mean honestly, they killed the dog! It is also a neat trick that they keep the creatures hidden for the first half hour or so while again letting the viewer know that there is danger. Showing the monster too early is a mistake that far too many of these movies commit.

When we do see the Komodo Dragons they look pretty good. They are brought to the screen with a combination of CGI and practical effects work. We get many closeups of the monster attacking the cast and it put a smile on my face to see the latex and rubber doing their thing. The appliances look great. When it is CGI, mostly for the long shots and them moving around the screen, it is also pretty good. CGI, especially in the late nineties, can be hit or miss but here they hit. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise since the director, Michael Lantieri, was a special effects guy on lots of movies including the first couple Jurassic Park flicks. When a guy comes from that side of the house it normally means that the creature effects will at least be good.

The cast has a couple familiar faces. Jill Hennessy is mostly known for her work on television but does a decent job here playing Victoria. She isn’t given much to do but does her best to bring what has to be the worst therapist ever to the screen. Billy Burke who I guess is best known to a certain crowd from the Twilight series is our heroic hunter who refuses to commit murder. They do try to shoehorn a backstory about a dead wife and being on the run in a ham-fisted way but again he isn’t given much to do other than shoot a shotgun and be heroic. Again, this isn’t the kind of movie you watch for plot and character development. Nope this is all about the big ass lizards!

While not a perfect movie this is a perfectly watchable creature feature. Manage your expectations and I think you will have fun with Komodo. This seems to be streaming all over the internet on various services as of the writing of this review so it shouldn’t be hard to find.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Frogs (1972)

If you have spent much time here at the site, you probably have noticed my love of regional drive-in movies. Frogs is one of those flicks, but I’ve never been a huge fan of it. That said I thought it was about time for me to revisit it.

The movie opens with a guy in a canoe taking pictures of the wildlife around a lake. We notice he is being watched by what appears to be some angry frogs. Later we find out that his name is Pickett, and he is working on an article for an ecology magazine. When a member of the local rich family, the Crocketts, almost runs him down in their fancy speedboat he gets an invite to the big fourth of July shindig. There he meets Karen, the granddaughter of the family’s patriarch Jason (played by a very crusty Ray Milland).

The rest of the movie has Crockett, the household staff, the Crockett family, and a couple guests hanging out at the house not noticing how the animals in the local swamp/lake have started behaving oddly. It isn’t until Jason asks Crockett to find his missing employee Grover, who is dead, that anyone even realizes how screwy things have become. But by then it is already too late as one by one the critters lay traps for the humans killing them off in creative ways. When the survivors finally do get off the island and back to the mainland, they find out that this is happening everywhere and that the frogs are in charge and coordinating the deaths… at least I think that was the point of the freeze frame at the end.

I’ll admit that I did like Frogs a bit more this time around, though I’m still not a fan. It is an early entry into the ecohorror subgenre that had flicks like Day of the Animals (Ozone Layer), Food of the Gods (pollution/nature hitting back), Prophecy (pollution again), Night of the Lepus (genetic manipulation), and many others. It is your basic mother nature being fed up with humans and fighting back. Though that is only hinted at here. You have Crockett’s work, but he isn’t too in your face about it. Not a single monologue about how it is our fault! Even the crusty old patriarch seems to tolerate the animals in the woods, though he does allow the liberal use of pesticides. But I expect these movies to beat us over the head with the message.

I find his lack of mustache disturbing

I think that the choice of frogs as our main “villain” is a bit of an issue. Especially since they don’t actually kill anyone until the end of the movie and that is only by freaking out Jason and giving him a heart attack. Instead we get a guy tripping-shooting himself-tarantula kill, lizards-greenhouse-poison containers getting knocked over kill, butterflies-leaches-snakebite kill, and a snapping turtle attack after someone gets trapped in the mud. There is also another snakebite ambush kill and a straight up alligator attack, which is probably the best. Most of the time the frogs are just watching and planning evilly… which of course I had to infer because we get nothing in the actual dialogue to explain it. Though everyone keeps bitching about being kept up all night by their croaking so maybe it is psychological warfare!

Really though the entire movie is quite silly and not in a giant mutant bear, killer dog sized wasps, or truck sized bunnies kind of way. At least in those cases the animals on the poster were the danger. Here the frogs, who by the way were imported toads, do nothing. Combine that with some slow pacing as even the “chase” scenes drag, and you get a movie that just doesn’t scratch that creature feature/nature attacks itch. I’m still not a fan and while I appreciate some of the goofy bits and the hammy acting from the legendary Ray Milland Frogs is still a drag to sit thru. Oh, and Sam Elliot without his signature manly mustache is a deal breaker as well. Skip this one and watch one of the other movies I mentioned in this review instead.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Food of the Gods (1976)

I need to review more Bert I. Gordon flicks for the site and this is one of my favorites. I remember more than one Friday night spent staying up late to watch this on my local horror hosted movie show. It was a staple.

The opening credits roll around a football field were a team is practicing for the upcoming big game. Our main character, Morgan, tells us in a voiceover that they are given a couple of days off and decide to go hunting on a nearby wooded island. One of them is killed, we know by giant wasps, but the characters don’t. This leads to Morgan running into a lady at a nearby farm when looking for help. After taking their friend back to the mainland Morgan and the other hunter return to the island knowing that they need to take care of the problem themselves.

Here is where things start to get good. In addition to the men returning, we are also introduced to a businessman and a scientist that have come to cash in on the discovery made by the farmer. See there is something bubbling out of the ground that when mixed with feed will cause animals to grow to enormous size. We also meet up with a pregnant woman and her boyfriend who are stranded in their RV. Now that the characters are back on the island they must deal with rats, giant rats that are feeling a bit peckish. That means that the characters are now on the menu! Stuff happens, which I’ll not spoil here, before it all ends… or does it?

Director/Writer Bert I. Gordon knows how to make a movie like this. He spends little time introducing characters but instead sets up the MacGuffin that is causing all the giant critters and then gets to them right away! There is no mystery here as right away we know giant wasps are buzzing about, even if the characters don’t. But then Morgan runs into giant chickens right away and sees a regular sized wasp munching away on some chicken feed. Hell, Mrs. Skinner even points out the rat holes showing us that they also have gotten into the super food! We know what is coming and it comes quickly with lots of mayhem and oversized critters. This makes for a movie that not only is a blast, but also doesn’t allow you to overthink what you are watching.

The wasps, chickens, worms/maggots (awesomely gross), and rats are brought to the screen with all of Gordon’s old school tricks. You have regular sized animals crawling over miniature sets to set the scale. This model work is well done, especially the Winnebago. There are also some crude in camera bits to bring the wasps attacking the characters that I admittedly wasn’t too impressed with. But my personal favorite gag was how they use puppets and latex to have the monsters interreact on camera with the cast. That is some classic stuff and while not giant rabbit attacking in Night of the Lepus it still made me smile.

Got to burn them!

The cast is solid with Marjoe Gortner starring as our main character Morgan. The guy showed up in so many seventies movies that while you may not recognize you know who he is. We also get some classic star power with Ralph Meeker and Ida Lupino. The latter who was in The Devil’s Rain the year before. Lastly the lovely Pamela Franklin is Lorna, Morgan’s love interest, who also appeared in one of my favorites The Legend of Hell House. Gordon knew how to assemble a cast, and this is one of his better ones.

Sure, Food of the Gods is a bit silly. But that is what you should expect from a Bert I. Gordon flick. Giant sized creatures running around killing folks before getting killed off in the final act. This is a formula, and it works especially well here. If you are looking for a monster movie, then you can do a whole lot worse than this one. Give it a chance.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Curse of the Kraken (2020)

Every October I try and find a new movie that showed up on the shelves at my local big box retailer. It is a wild card and if I’m honest it normally sucks. I mean a horror movie that I haven’t heard of but that made it to the shelves normally means it is not good. With that in mid I thought I’d check out a little Chinese production titled Curse of the Kraken. Hey maybe it is a cool monster movie… it could happen.

We start off with an ominous voice over warning us about pollution and mutations. The we join people frolicking at a beach. This includes a newly married couple, some folks competing in an octopus eating contest, and other such weird thing. Suddenly a bunch of garbage flies out of the ocean and lands on the beach. This is followed not long after by a giant monster called the Kraken. Some folks it eats, and others get a tentacle jammed down their throats. Those unlucky enough to be counted in the latter turn into hosts for the monster’s offspring. And they turn into weird looking monsters that also run around killing people. This is all before the credits roll and we meet the main characters.

There is a boat. We meet the crew. The captain is retiring and chooses not his son to be the new captain. They keep repeating one crew one heart, which is the ships motto. The lady doctor of the ship turns out to be the bride from the attack on the beach (it is here that we also find out that was years ago). She has a cure to kill the monster… don’t yell at me that is what they call it! Then there are some pirates, flesh eating beetles, lots of people die, there is some kung-fu, and then I think everyone is dead. Not sure the ending is confusing.

Curse of the Kraken is an incredible mess of a movie. I’m sure that some might say that it was lost in translation being that this was a Chinese production. But I’ve watched a lot of Chinese produced movies and I feel qualified enough to point out that nothing makes sense. The most obvious is that the titular Kraken shows up for a hot second before the main story and then really doesn’t do much until the end. Well unless you count it popping up to eat the flying two headed shark that comes out of nowhere and that none of the pirates seem concerned about. If you are going to have a movie called Curse of the Kraken how about making the Kraken a big part of the story. To not do so seems awfully random.

That reminds me of another issue I have with the movie. Things pop up out of nowhere and we are just supposed to be “okay that happened.” Pirates attack the ship and that is a thing. The pirate leader lady shows that she doesn’t care by having one of her guys shoot himself. You have guns pointed at her… why surrender to this? You outnumber them! Then they get taken to a pirate island where the flying two headed shark shows up. Wait… a pirate island! How has no one noticed that and taken care of it? We have a prisoner cut his ropes and “sneak” away in plain sight. No one ever notices or acknowledges that he is gone. Do you see the pattern yet? To top it all off out of nowhere the cast suddenly can fly around doing Kung-Fu twenty feet in the air and that is just now a thing they do now. Probably would have been helpful when fighting the pirates.

The digital effects work in the movie are laughable. Wait no that might give you the impression that there is some enjoyment. The effects are garbage. The size of the titular Kraken, again barely on screen, changes constantly. It also looks like something you would have seen in a video game cutscene from twenty years ago. It is distractingly bad and only gets worse when we get the “tentacle view” of it jamming said appendages down people’s throats to infect them. The monster masks on the infected/incubators are silly but at least practical. Though I’m sure a hundred bucks and a trip to Spirt Halloween would produce the same results. The kills are tame and consist of digital models dragging characters away to an unseen fate or one of the rubber faced critters biting someone and running away.

There is nothing good to say about Curse of the Kraken. Well, okay it is only an hour and ten minutes long, so the pain is over quick. This is a bad movie that I recommend you stay very far away from.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Slugs (1988)

This fun bit of eighties horror comes from the director, Juan Piquer Simon, who also brought us the classic Pieces as well as the under-appreciated Cthulhu Mansion. This heartwarming little drama follows a small town that is dealing with an unfortunate infestation of slugs. But not just any slugs mind you, but mutated ones that have been living in a toxic waste dump! 

Things start off with a man about to be evicted from his home being found mostly eaten. Then we have an unfortunate gardening mishap, followed by a prime example of why you should always clean your lettuce before making a salad. Just saying, those anchovies weren’t anchovies, and we also get coitus interruptus slug style! Our main character is Mike Brady… heh that is funny. He is the local health inspector and catches on that something bad is happening. He ends up enlisting the sewer guy, Don Palmer, to help him deal with the critters by luring them into a central location so they can blow them up. You know typical monster movies stuff. People live and others die before the day is saved… or is it? 

I’ve always enjoyed this movie. Hell, I read the book it was based on before ever watching it. I highly recommend the book from Shaun Hutson as well as his other horror outings. They are a blast. This movie captures the spirit of novel very well tossing lots of good gore and creature mayhem at the audience right away and never letting up. The characters might seem a little two dimensional as they fit the established roles for a movie like this, damsel in distress, local official who gets what is coming to him, the hero, and the doomed sidekick, just to name a few. They also toss in some nudity and teenage shenanigans to round out the formula. This is all packed together in a nice tight package that clocks in at just under ninety minutes. Not one second of which is wasted. Sure, Slugs might be a silly movie, but it is never boring, and I appreciate that. 

Speaking of the kills we get a respectable nine, though a couple of them are offscreen and/or seen after the fact. There is the first kill where they find the body, which is all hamburger and bone. A hand gets lopped off before a couple gets exploded in their greenhouse. The best ones are the teenage girl landing face first in the slug pile popping up with an eye out as the critters munch furiously on her, followed not long after by her boyfriend. Oh, and a guy’s head collapses after taking a dip in a pool full of the hungry little bastards. But my favorite has to be the salad eating developer whose eyeballs pop out at a fancy lunch meeting. Seems even the slug’s parasites have mutated and do a number on his brain! This is a very gooey and fun flick for sure. I suppose I should also mention the design of the slugs. When we do get closeups of them we see a lot of teeth and that alone is enough. 

There is also some awkward dialogue, inappropriate music choices, and other such wackiness that only add to the fun that is Slugs. If you are looking for a scary creature feature, then this isn’t what you want. But if you are looking for a movie that gleefully tosses gore at you without taking itself too seriously then I highly recommend this flick. 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)

This movie finds us watching the crew of an American nuclear submarine on maneuvers in the Pacific. The sonarman lets them know that something is shadowing them and then accelerates to intercept the sub. They are grabbed and stuck fast no matter how much they push the engines. Rocking back and forth they finally get free but when they look, they notice something odd stuck to the hull. Something biological!

One of our three main characters is the sub commander Pete. When he goes to see what the scientists think we meet the other two. Dr. Carter and the lovely professor Lesley Joyce. Hint… she is the love interest! The three of them get swept up in trying to convince the military that a huge octopus is out there wrecking ships and killing folks. Then after it has become obvious it is up to them to sort out how to stop it before it wrecks San Francisco. Yeah, this is the movie where the giant octopus destroys the Golden Gate Bridge. Who wins and who dies? Let’s just say there is a special on calamari for the foreseeable future.

This is one of those monster movies that I grew up watching as a kid. It was on heavy rotation with our local horror hosted programs, and I always dug it. The story is very simple but delivers the goods with enough creature mayhem to keep me occupied. The cast is filled with decent actors, and I have to say that the beautiful Faith Domergue, playing Lesley, was certainly interesting to an adolescent me as well. Kenneth Tobey as the sub commander Pete was also the first time that I noticed an actor in more than one role. He also starred in one of my favorites, The Thing from Another World.

The highlight of It Came from Beneath the Sea then and now is the monster. This is brought to the screen with a combination of rear projection and stop motion animation. These old school special effects always make me smile, especially when they are done well. Considering that the legendary Ray Harryhausen was responsible for the monster and the models it crushed it is no wonder that I loved this one so much. If you are looking for a fun creature feature, you could do a lot worse than this.

So far I’ve mostly talked about what I loved about the movie as a kid growing up. While I still dig it, I must be honest and admit that this time around I noticed how much stock footage was used. We get lots of jets, navy ships, and various ordinance expended in pursuit of the creature thanks to grainy footage of the real thing. Most of this is narrated which only goes to make it even more obvious. I was surprised to hear that It Came from Beneath the Sea was a lower budget movie, but that does explain a lot. Rumor is that the octopus in this movie only had six tentacles to save money. It didn’t ruin things, but it also bumps it down a bit from the other classic Harryhausen flicks that are out there.

This movie is well worth checking out. If for nothing else than the iconic attack on the Golden Gate bridge. Whenever you see a documentary discussing the fifties and sci-fi movies that is always in the mix. Might as well check out where it came from.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer