Blood Bath (1966)

It has been a while since I’ve watched Blood Bath, but I remember thinking it was okay. This played on my local horror hosted shows in the seventies long before the fact it was co-directed by Jack Hill and produced by Roger Corman would have meant anything to me. Since I’m digging for some stuff to review in this years Halloween marathon it seemed like a good fit. 

The movie opens with a man talking to the painting of a woman. He is clearly not wrapped all that tightly. He begs for her to return to him and then the credits roll. Post opening credits we watch as another man stalks and kills a woman. We see his face and he has fangs so I suppose he must be a vampire. Then we see some annoying beatniks talking about their art. Here I was finally interested when I noticed frequent Corman collaborator Jonathon Haze as well as Sid Haig in small roles. Haig showed up in quite a few Jack Hill flicks so we have that connection as well. The beatniks are upset that their art doesn’t sell but folks are flocking in to buy the work of another artist, Sordi. His stuff is all about death. 

Here is when shit gets a bit weird. Sordi, played by another familiar face William Campbell, is a painter. In a bit of dialogue we find out that he is the ancestor of another painter who was killed, and his art destroyed. That picture from before is one of his paintings and somehow haunts Sordi. He paints and then kills ladies before tossing them into a vat of wax. Why does he do that when he is a painter? Not sure. The vampire is his ancestor who seems to come and go on his own. Initially I thought Sordi transformed into him but that never is explained. All I do know is that in the big finale all his previous victims in covered in wax come back to life and kill him. Wait… what the hell!

I have no idea what I was thinking or why I thought I liked Blood Bath. This movie is an absolute mess, but I guess it sort of makes some sense. Fans always want to act like Jack Hill and Roger Corman could do no wrong or at least they only talk about the good movies that they made. But both men were also not above making “product” for the drive-in market. Not worried so much about the quality and more about getting to that magical hour long runtime the second and third feature on a double/triple bill needed. If you could use footage from an earlier movie and cut some corners, then that was all the better. 

What we have here is a happy coincidence of actor William Campbell being available on the cheap and some footage to cut costs. When Corman was stuck with a movie he made in Yugoslavia named Operation Titian, a crime thriller with no supernatural elements, he reused some of the footage for this movie. That flick also starred William Campbell so they shot a few extra scenes with an American Cast, added in the beatniks and had another actor play a vampire. They stuck all they had together to hit that magical sixty two minute mark and viola you have a movie. 

Sadly, none of the footage works together and it feels like something that was assembled from ill-fitting pieces. I don’t want to act like this is padded out because I thought the stuff from Operation Titian looks cool (I will have to track that flick down someday to watch it) and the additional stuff with the beatniks has a fun Walter Paisley vibe to it. For those not in the know that last bit is referencing A Bucket of Blood from nineteen fifty nine which was another artist as a killer flick made by Corman. Plus, this is where we get to see Sid Haig, who has an actual role with dialogue! I would have loved to see an entire movie about those characters. The vampire stuff was lame though. Really this feels like three movies fighting against each other for my attention. 

Sometimes it was about the bottom line and not making a good movie for Roger Corman. Blood Bath is product meant to recoup some money from a failed project that initially couldn’t get much play. Knowing his ingenuity and reputation for making a profit I’m sure it worked. But as far as a movie this one isn’t worth your time.  

© 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

Scorpius Gigantus (2006)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Grand Theft Auto (1977)

I haven’t covered nearly enough car movies for the site. The seventies were filled will all kinds of automotive mayhem, especially for the drive-in crowd. I thought I’d kick off my look at these movies with Grand Theft Auto. Produced by Roger Corman it was Ron Howard’s first directorial effort. Time to check it out.

Howard plays Sam a wholesome good guy who fell in love with a rich girl named Paula. They go to see her parents to tell them they are getting married, and they freak out. Her dad is running for governor and wants her to marry into the right family. They have already gotten her engaged to a rich boy named Collins Hedgeworth. They take away her keys and think that is that. But of course, this would be a very short movie if it were.

Paula sneaks out and takes the only other car available, her dad’s Rolls Royce. She and Sam head to Las Vegas to get hitched and her father freaks out. Not sure if he is more worried about her or the car! Since he is running for governor, he wants to keep this on the downlow so instead of calling the cops he sends private security after them. When that doesn’t work, he puts out a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward on her safe return. This if further complicated when old Collins Hedgeworth takes off after them and his mother panics and offers a reward for his safe return. This is basically an excuse to have a bunch of oddballs involved in what is for all intents and purposes an hour-long chase on screen.

My favorite part of Grand Theft Auto is the will they or won’t they wreck the Rolls. The movie keeps teasing you with close calls. It isn’t until the end that you find out if the movie is going to trash the classic. I won’t spoil it for you here. I also wanted to mention that the movie uses a trick that many of these car flicks use. There is a radio DJ who is following the progress of the Rolls and acts as a narrator. This helps fill in the blanks and keeps the audience on track between the crazy wrecks and stunts. As we dig further into these flicks you will see this again.

The stars of the movie...

I love this movie. The story is very simple and the characters likeable. There isn’t much character development but this is a car movie so who cares about that? We get plenty of crashes, stunts, funny characters, and great lines. This isn’t mean to be some new groundbreaking piece of art. I like the cast and it is filled with a ton of familiar faces. We get a couple of Corman regulars like Paul Bartel and Allan Arkush, as well as a lot of Howard’s friends and family. His dad Rance, brother Clint (a personal favorite of mine), and even his television mom Marion Ross appear! It was awesome to hear her swear and flip people off. Someone was certainly having fun. We even get an appearance from Paul Linke (Motel Hell) as snooty rich boy Collins Hedgeworth.  

You can tell that there is a lot of talent in front of and behind the camera. Not only does Howard show his future directing chops buy keeping things exciting and the action moving but he is helped by his editor. Normally I don’t mention editors by name in my reviews but with Grand Theft Auto I thought you might recognize the name Joe Dante. Corman had a hell of a group working with him in the seventies.

...the real star of the movie!

Now that I’ve talked about the cast, I have to tell you that the real stars of the movie are the cars. In addition to the Rolls Royce, we also get a vintage Dodge Charger, a nice little Volkswagen Beetle, and a sweet looking Porsche. These are just a few of the cars that we see on screen. One of my favorite things about these car flicks are looking at the classics that you don’t see on the road anymore. I’m an older guy so as a kid I remember the muscle cars driving around town all the time. It makes me nostalgic.

I’ve mentioned the stunts so let’s take a deeper look at them. There are multiple jumps, burn outs, and other such staples of car chases. Some of the highlights are a smashed chicken coop, dynamite being tossed at cars, a bridge that blows up, and of course they drive a car thru a house. My favorite though has always been the Rolls playing chicken with a helicopter. I noticed that there are a couple spots where they did stuff off screen. Once I think it is for a comedic reveal and the other because they couldn’t actually wreck that particular vehicle. The story wraps up with a demolition derby that sadly takes out many of the stars, the cars, of the movie.

I highly recommend you guys check out Grand Theft Auto. This has been and continues to be one of my favorite drive-in movies. Sadly, I never got to see it there, but it was in heavy rotation on the various late-night movie shows that I did watch.

 

Ó Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

 

 

The Raven (1963)

When your movie begins with an actor with such a classic and iconic voice reciting Edgar Allen Poe’s the Raven, you know it is going to be good. Price is portraying Dr. Craven, a magician who is waxing poetic about his dead wife Lenore. He is interrupted by a raven tapping at his window. Turns out the bird is another magician, Dr. Bedlo (played by Peter Lorre!) who has been transmuted by yet another magician named Dr. Scarabus (played by yet another legend Boris Karloff!). Craven helps to restore Bedlo who insists on going back for round two with Scarabus. Craven wants nothing to do with this until Bedlo recognizes a portrait of his dead wife as the spitting image of a woman who was at Scarabus’ castle. 

You following me so far? Before the pair can leave some mind control shenanigans happen that convince Craven his daughter won’t be safe at home, so she needs to come with them. Also, Bedlo’s son shows up to haul him back home. The boy, Rexford, is played by a young Jack Nicholson. This movie has a hell of a cast! The four of them head to Scarabus’ castle to sort things out. Without spoiling the fun I’ll just say it leads to more magic, a spellcaster’s duel, and a fun reveal about the foibles of marriage to a less than honest lady. 

This is a great movie. I had forgotten that this was played less for horror and more for laughs. I know that Lorre was excellent at playing the drunken weasel as I’ve seen him do it many times before. But Price and Karloff have great comedic timing, especially when sharing the screen together. They are genuinely funny at times while playing straight man to Lorre’s shenanigans when that need arises. I found myself giggling and enjoying myself for the duration. Again, this isn’t my first watch, but it has been years. Still the comedy holds up and is still funny on repeated viewings. While inspired loosely by Poe’s writings the script was penned by the great Richard Matheson so the quality of the writing shouldn’t be a surprise. 

I’ve already talked about the cast a bit. Seeing Price, Lorre, and Karloff interact on screen is like watching an all star game of horror icons. There are a few movies that combine such iconic talent but none do it better than The Raven. Nicholson doesn’t have much to do other than act as a love interest, but he is good. Leo Gordon has a small supporting role, but it’s a memorable one. We even get one of the queens of early British horror, Hazel Court, as Lenore. Top all of this off with expert direction from genre legend Roger Corman and it should come as no surprise that this turned out so well. 

What else can I say? The sets are amazing and are about what I’d expect from these larger Corman produced and directed Poe “adaptations”. I use the quotations because they are only loosely based on his work most of the time. Also, the in camera tricks used to pull off the various spells might look a bit silly to a modern audience, but I loved them and for the time they were about as good as it got. 

If you haven’t seen The Raven before or if like me, it had been a while you really need to spend some time watching it. Between cast, writer, and director it simply doesn’t get better. You have a lot of talent working at the top of their collective game. 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Not of this Earth (1957)

It has been far too long since I’ve gotten my Roger Corman on, so I figured that checking out Not of this Earth was a good place to jump back in. Not only does Corman direct it, but his regulars Jonathan Haze and Dick Miller show up as well! I’m predicting a good time is about to be had.

The movie kicks off with a teenage couple sitting in a car making a little bit with the smooching. She calls it a night and heads off to her front door while he drives away. But before the girl can make it home, she is stopped by a weird dude who eye zaps her and then steals her blood with his briefcase. We later find out when he goes to the hospital for a transfusion that his name is Mr. Johnson, and he can put people under his command with his soulless monster eyes. Sometimes he kills them, and other times just controls them.

What is up with Johnson? Well, it turns out that he is an alien come to Earth to see if our primitive blood will work as a source to save his dying race. They had a nuclear war and now they need our blood! It is up to his hired nurse, he needs nightly transfusions to live you see, and her cop boyfriend to save the day. They do but sadly his assistant, Jonathan Haze’s character and a traveling vacuum salesman, Dick Miller, end up dead! Seriously Miller is awesome as the super hip huckster.

Dick Miller rulex!

Roger Corman had a formula early in his career. He made quick, cheap, and entertaining movies that got the job done. Clocking in a barely over an hour Not of this Earth is a prime example of how it worked. There is a simple concept that could be shot on generic sets without a ton of special effects work. Basically, the only alien bit is his eyes and most of the movie Mr. Johnson is wearing dark glasses. This is simple and genius. The story is very tight with no wasted scenes and again the runtime is on the short side, which means it never gets boring. This is admittedly a story that probably wouldn’t hold up if it stuck around much longer than it does.

Another thing that Corman did was get great actors. Here he cast the lovely Beverly Garland as the nurse and veteran actor Paul Birch as Mr. Johnson the alien. They take what are admittedly absurd situations and play the hell out of them. To pad things out he lets regulars Jonathan Haze (Little Shop of Horrors) chew some scenery up being hip daddio as right-hand man Jeremy. Dick Miller gets a much smaller part but is very memorable in his role as well. These scenes are clearly there to pad things about a bit, but they are so good at it that the movie doesn’t suffer. Roger Corman was a genius at identifying talent and letting them be creative.

Not sure what else I can say. This isn’t a classic by any stretch. It isn’t even one of Corman’s best movies. But it’s fun and not a bad way to kill an hour. I guess that the only thing that was a bit of a bummer is that Not of this Earth is lacking the iconic monster that a lot of his movies featured. Still, I dig it and can recommend this one.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

 

 

Tales of Terror (1962)

This is a fantastic anthology of horror tales all starring Vincent Price in different roles. He also narrates the bit in between to tie them together. These are all supposed to reference death in some way. Oh and if Price isn’t a big enough draw for you this is also a Roger Corman production so you have two of the best right there.

The first story is about what happens after death. A young lady arrives at a spooky old house by carriage and is dropped off. She knocks on the door and is greeted by her father, played by Price. He is very cold to her, and we find out that he blames her for the death of his wife, her mother. The woman never recovered from giving birth and died when the baby was just months old. The daughter’s name is Lenora, and she wants to reconnect with him. He is having none of it until it slips out that she is dying. This snaps him back to reality and he changes his tune. Realizing he is going to lose her as well he suddenly becomes affectionate and offers to take care of her. So, things are going to turn out well yeah? Nope.

Dear old dad was very attached to mom and kept her body in an upstairs bedroom. This is disturbing to Lenora, but what is worse is that the spirit of mom comes to life and either posses Lenora’s body or steals her life essence. Apparently, she didn’t like her daughter either. Some crazy stuff happens, and the house burns down… basically everyone dies. Sort of a bummer.

This story is very well shot with excellent sets. Price is great in his role with his performance adding to the creepiness. This is yet another example of where he is able to not only rise above what is honestly a melodramatic story and make you believe it is reasonable. His character goes from horrible to loving in such a short time that a lesser actor would have made that seem unlikely or impossible. The ghost stuff is good with the decayed body on the bed and neat use of shadows to show the ethereal creature moving around the old house. This is a good time.

The second story has to do about what happens before death. Peter Lorre co-stars with Price and plays a drunk who is abusive towards his wife and spends all their money on wine. One night when he is out of cash, he stumbles into a wine tasting convention where the attendees laugh at him. Though he takes on the most arrogant and fanciest of them, played by Price. Despite being an uncouth alcoholic Lorre’s character can identify the wine and shocks everyone there with his skill. When next we see them, the pair are returning to the drunk’s house where the fancy man falls for and starts an affair with his wife. The rest of the segment is Lorre’s character finding out and plotting his revenge. This is of course the classic wall them up in the cellar revenge. His big mistake is also walling up his wife’s black cat with them, so when the police come calling his perfect hiding spot for the bodies is quickly discovered and he is caught.

Price takes a back seat to Lorre in this one. Don’t get me wrong as Price is great as the wine snob, but Lorre steals the show. He ability to play the drunk is amazing. I think I’ve seen him do this in other movies before but never to this level. His line delivery is very convincing as someone who is several sheets to the wind, while at the same time still sharp. He holds his own with Price, which is amazing when you think about it. The scenes between the pair are so damn good. We have a couple of legendary actors at the top of their games tossing the dialogue back and forth. Of the three this is my favorite.

The third stars Price again as well as Basil Rathbone. Here we don’t get nearly enough of Price as he is a bedridden man who is on the verge of death. Rathbone plays an unscrupulous doctor that is trying to use the situation to his advantage. He wants to hypnotize the dying man at the moment of his death so that he can research what happens. That brings us to the theme of this story, the Sanctity of Death. Of course, the doctor is also up to shenanigans involving the soon to be widow. When he gets too rough and insistent with her after his death old zombie husband climbs out of bed and defends her.

This is very solid and I liked it, but compared to the previous two it is a bit weak. Rathbone is decent but either can’t carry the story on his own or just isn’t given much to do. Price is wasted as he spends all but the finale in bed dying. I think that is why hurts this one the most is the lack of Price. He is the reason that you watch a movie like this and to not have him play much of a part in the story is a bummer. Still, I need to stress that this isn’t terrible, just not as good as the others.

In the end I loved Tales of Terror. If you like Vincent Price and his collaborations with Roger Corman you are going to be a fan of this flick. It is beautifully shot, features some classic actors in addition to Price, and generally scratches that creepy itch that horror fans want when they sit down to a movie like this. I highly recommend Tales of Terror.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

 

 

Water Wars (2014)

This is an interesting movie that recently popped up on my radar. It was pitched to me as a Filipino Mad Max clone directed by Cirio H. Santiago, who worked on some of my favorite drive-in flicks like TNT Jackson, Vampire Hookers, and The Big Bird Cage. This was the last movie he directed, and Roger Corman produced it! It was so disappointing.

The movie is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth where the most important resource is water. The oceans and rivers have dried up and warlords control their territory by hoarding it and doling it out as they please. One of those warlords is Bane, played by Michael Madsen. He captures a beautiful blonde lady who has a tattoo that lets them know she, according to legend, belongs to a tribe that has a pure natural spring. Realizing the power this would bring him Bane tortures her to reveal the secret location.

Another beautiful blonde gets into a bar fight and is saved by Slade. He is our good guy/mercenary. She offers him a bunch of water to save her sister, the other blonde. He assembles a team of mercenaries, and they go off to save her. They do so and then are betrayed by a dude that was of course going to do that. Bane and the boys show up to attack the nice people and Slade saves the day. Some sad shit happens and then it rains. On a world that is a desert, but it gives him a dramatic scene at the end so cool… I guess.

If that plot sounds a bit thin there is a reason for that. This movie is filled with footage from other movies. According to IMDB there are four flicks cut into this one. Almost all the action sequences aren’t new and most of it doesn’t match. This includes a bit with characters that have nothing to do with the story and never get names! Some of the reused footage is from an earlier movie that this is supposed to be a remake of! What happened? After poking around a bit, I think I have found the answer.

Santiago was only able to work on this movie for a few days before getting sick. Jim Wynorski was brought in to finish the movie. I like the guy, but I don’t think he had much if anything to work with here. If that wasn’t enough of a concern Wynorski’s name is nowhere on the credits that I could see so it appears even he disowned this one. I also noticed that Santiago sadly passed away six years before this movie was released. That means that is sat around for a while. It has the feel of a release that was tossed together to try and salvage the money spent on a doomed project.

I know that this review has been light on the merits or lack of for Water Wars as a movie. That is because this incoherent mess of cobbled together excerpts doesn’t feel at all like a movie at all. If you had any question as to where I stand on Water Wars I hope that answered it. Stay far away from this turkey.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Carnosaur 2 (1995)

You know I haven’t had enough Roger Corman here at the site, so I figured that I’d review a movie that he produced while running New Horizon Pictures in the nineties. This is a sequel to the earlier movie that manages to “homage” both Jurassic Park as well as Aliens. I call this a two for one.

This movie wastes no time getting to the good stuff. We have a couple minutes establishing the facility as a government run uranium mine. Some kids get up to mischief and find a bunch of dynamite, this is important later, and then all hell breaks loose as some dinosaurs start munching on the staff. How did they get there? Well don’t worry because that will eventually be explained.

Then we are introduced to our main cast of experts sent in to repair and secure the facility that isn’t responding to radio calls. They arrive in time to find everyone dead with the exception of one teenage boy who our hero ends up bonding with. There is a company man who makes things complicated by telling them certain areas are off limits and trying to cover up what is happening. Eventually of course they run into the dinosaurs and do battle with them. Oh and because of the damage done during the fights they find out that the entire facility is going to explode. This is both good and bad as they need to get out of the place before it goes boom, but if they can trap the dinosaurs in when it does problem solved! Luckily, the kid knows where the dynamite is. I told you that would be important later.

Okay this might be the most blatant and amusing rip off movies to come out in the eighties or nineties. First off, the creatures are cloned dinosaurs that were recovered from the facility in the first movie. Cloned dinosaurs that hatch out of eggs… sound familiar? Very Jurassic Park, but that isn’t even the most fun. While featuring dinosaurs Carnosaur 2 clearly has taken inspiration from Aliens. We get the teenage survivor bonding with one of the rescuers, the team being dropped in to investigate, and the company man causing trouble.

I’m sure that we can all think of examples from other movies that use these very same plot devices but there are scenes lifted right out of the movie as well. You have a bit where the pilot to the helicopter, their way to leave the facility, taking off only to be killed by a dinosaur that hid behind her thus causing a crash. We even get a bit where a couple of characters are stuck and being closed in on from all directions by the dinosaurs that decide to blow themselves up rather than be taken. Hell, you even have an actor playing a character named Monk that is doing his best Bill Paxton impression! Clearly Carnosaur 2 isn’t the most original of movies.

Okay... does this not seem familiar to you?

Now with all that said I will say that the movie is a lot of fun in a turn your brain off sort of way. The action kicks off quickly and never slows down much. Sure, things are a bit cheesy at times but there is a fun vibe that kept me interested. The movie isn’t terribly long clocking in at a brisk eighty-three minutes which helps a lot with the pacing. The cast is solid and includes genre favorite Miguel Nunez as well as John Savage, Don Stroud, and Cliff De Young. You might not recognize all these names, but I promise you’ll remember them from other movies and television shows.

The creatures were created by John Beuchler with some of the props and even a few scenes being reused from the earlier film. I was very impressed with the creature design and the fact that they used puppets to bring the creatures to life. Some of the miniature work can be rough, but for a low budget nineties flick it is good enough. The kills are a bit tame with the best gags being an arm getting torn off and some guts being munched. It seems that they used most of the budget on the creature design and I’m okay with that.

Carnosaur 2 isn’t a good movie, but it is a fun one. I will always have a place in my collection for a goofy monster movie and that is what this flick is. If you are looking to kick back and watch something stupid, then I highly recommend it.

Ó Copyright 2020 John Shatzer

The Wasp Woman (1959)

I’ve been doing these Fab Fifties Friday posts for a while now and I realized that Roger Corman has only appeared once! For such a prolific filmmaker that seems weird. With that in mind I thought it was about time to take a look at another of his flicks.

The Wasp Woman is a cautionary tale of vanity and the dangers of science run amok! Janice Starlin is a successful business woman who runs a cosmetics company. The movie starts off with a meeting where she is discussing declining sales with the board of directors. They point out that the problems started when she stopped advertising the products herself. In an ironic twist it seems that the only person concerned about her getting older is Janice. This makes her an easy target for a scientist named Zinthrop who shows up with a miracle cure. His idea? Using the royal jelly from a queen wasp to reverse the aging process!

Do I need to tell you how horribly this goes wrong? Well I’m going to. Things go sideways when Zinthrop is in an accident and Starlin starts using a concentrated version of the formula because she is impatient to see the results. This has the side effect of turning her into a wasp woman that paralyzes and eats her victims. Seriously they never find any of the bodies so she must be munching them down… but yet keeps her girlish figure! If you have ever seen a monster movie you know this doesn’t end well.

The Wasp Woman is an excellent example of why Roger Corman was a successful filmmaker. The story is simple, but well thought out. There is a formula to these things and they normally involve a flawed character that engages in dangerous behavior leading to bad things happening. Here we have Starlin struggling with her internal issues and grasping onto the research of Zinthrop as a cure all. What makes Corman so much better at this is that his script makes Starlin a sympathetic character. She could have been vain and unlikeable, but they take the time to show her vulnerability and desperation. This makes for a more balanced character that engages the audience. Far too many filmmakers considered movies like this fodder for the drive-in crowd, but Corman is trying to make a movie with real characters and it shows.

Being a complete nerd, I noticed and appreciated how the filmmakers cut corners without making it too noticeable. Pay attention and you will notice how few locations there are as they clearly shot most of this on a couple of sets. There is an effort made to make the same walls look different, but it is clear what they were up to. When they do venture outside it is either stock footage or new footage shot without sound to save money. None of this hurts the story at all and I’m not complaining. I like pointing it out because I’ve seen it done horribly by other filmmakers, but Corman is one of those guys that knows how to make it work.

Since this is a monster movie, we have to talk creature effects. For a low budget horror flick from the late fifties I was satisfied with what we get. It is clearly just the actress wearing a mask and gloves, but they are nice looking. As much as I dig the rubber suit craziness that we get elsewhere not every movie has the budget for that sort of thing. The kills are all offscreen and we don’t really see any bodies. But that is typical of a movie from the fifties.

I love this movie. Cheaply made and cheesy as hell, even by Corman standards, The Wasp Woman knows what it is and is the best version of that. I’ve said this before and will say it here again. Not everything needs to be art, sometimes being fun is good enough. I highly recommend this gem from one of the greatest and most prolific independent filmmakers of all time.

Note: Instead of a trailer I've linked the entire movie above. 

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer