What Waits Below (1984)

Nothing makes me happier then finding an oddball eighties science fiction or horror flick that I missed growing up. I watched a lot but with the boom of VHS there were so many movies getting made it isn’t shocking that I’ve not seen them all. That is one of the reasons I love the hobby of tracking down and reviewing so much. What Waits Below is one of those flicks that I could have eagerly grabbed off the shelf as it’s cave exploring mutant underground albino tribe story was and is right in my wheelhouse. So, what did I think? First let’s talk about the plot.

The movie opens with our hero Wolf spying on some soldiers scuba diving in what appears to be a small pond or stream. They spot him when an old friend, George, shows up to talk. This leads to a high speed chase, lots of shooting, and a crash. No worries though as our adventurous mercenaries are fine. George then tells Wolf of a high paying job with the U.S. Military. Seems they need help setting up a communication device in a cave system but need their expertise to pull it off. Why? Something about nuclear submarines and secret Cold War stuff.

None of the above really matters to the story other than to get the characters in the cave. Along the way Wolf and George pick up a couple of army guys and some anthropologists interested in the artifacts found in the cave system. When the gear is stolen and taken deeper into the cave system this group goes after it. They find some cave monster, glowing moss that is perfect for lighting a scene, and albino humans who have been isolated from the surface for thousands of years. Some folks die, lessons are learned, and the end credits roll.

The tribe

What Waits Below isn’t a good movie. The pacing is off as they meander to set up the story and when they do set off in the cave we get way too much wandering around in the “dark”. In reality this is about the brightest cave I’ve ever seen on film. Now they actually shot in a cave and not sets which you would think was a good thing. Instead it had the odd effect of them having to choose locations where they could fit their gear rather than have a flexible artificial setup. All the scenes are in the more open sections where stuff could fit and be lit. The end result is a movie set underground that doesn’t feel claustrophobic, which was a disappointment.

I also was a bit bummed that they spoil the albino underground tribe by showing them in the first attack. A little bit of mystery before a big reveal later on would have likely helped hold my interest in what I was watching. On a positive note, I did dig the rubber monsters that they encounter. They are small dog sized worm creatures but I’m always down for some latex monster mayhem.

I appreciate a good rubber monster!

The best part about the movie is some of the supporting cast. We get Timothy Bottoms as the army major who has a beef with Wolf and is going to accomplish his mission at all costs. I was also completely unaware of the fact that legendary genre actor Richard Johnson (The Haunting, Zombie) appears as one of the scientists. I was also pleased to see Lisa Blount (Prince of Darkness, Blind Fury) in a smaller role as a scientist. There was some talent involved in this one, at least in front of the camera.

Here is where things are difficult for me. Objectively What Waits Below isn’t a good movie, but I sort of liked it. It is just the sort of bad flick that I remember renting all the time when I was in high school. I don’t know if that will translate to anyone else so I can’t recommend it. That said if you like oddball eighties movies that probably lived on the VHS aisles of your local Mom and Pop rental store then maybe you will dig this one like I did. The good news is that there is a VHS rip of this currently on YouTube, so it isn’t hard to find and won’t cost you anything other than your time.

 

© Copyright 2024 John Shatzer

Mammoth (2006)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Blood Beast from Outer Space (1965)

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

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

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

Doing science stuff!

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

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

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

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Alien Within (1995)

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

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

McDowall is awesome as always!

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

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

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

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

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

War of the Worlds: The Attack (2023)

I decided to check out what was available on my various streaming services. I’ve always been a big fan of H.G. Wells so when I saw that someone had taken another shot at the classic War of the Worlds story I was interested. I really shouldn’t have been.

Things kick off with the familiar voiceover warning us that the Earth has been watched by it’s closest neighbor Mars. If you have ever watched any of these movies, you know the drill. Then there are some annoying college kids riding their bicycles in the woods. They are all apparently astronomy students or some nonsense like that. They are looking for a meteor that has crashed in the nearby woods but give up and go to Herbert’s house to crash for the night. Oh yeah one of them is named Herbert Wells as in H.G. Wells… uh oh.

The rest of the movie is them, Herbert and his friends Hannah and Ogilvy, alternately running away from aliens, running into crazy human beings, and then running away from aliens again. Along the way we get all the greatest hits like people being used as fertilizer, a crazy authority figure, and of course a science person explaining that they invaders got a cold or something microbial and died off. Why did I waste eighty-five minutes of my life on this?

This is another example of a movie that has no reason to exist. I have said repeatedly that not everything needs to reinvent the wheel and I stick to that. But War of the Worlds: The Attack begs the question “did we really need to see this same story rehashed again?” Honestly this is the same exact story only with college aged kids being the central characters. Now had they done something with that new perspective that told the story with a slightly different twist then sure good on them. But this is almost scene for scene the same story. So why?

Were the original movie and the Tom Cruise remake (which itself was somewhat interesting as it was seen thru the perspective of a father trying to save his daughter and reunite his family) not good enough? Just because something has hit public domain and is now free game for anyone to cash in on the name recognition doesn’t mean that you can’t at least try and tell your own version. In the end I found watching this incredibly boring. I’ve seen this very same story done way better several times if I include the mediocre nineties television show.

All of the above is further complicated by a production that clearly lacked the resources to bring to screen what the wanted to. Can’t drive cars because the aliens can track you, so I guess bicycles it is for our characters. Saved some cash there even if it does come off as absurdly stupid. I mean we see aliens sneak up on people standing near windows… so yeah. The few alien attacks we do see are brought to the screen using horribly rendered CGI that would have embarrassed even the fine folks over at the Asylum. Also the crowded survivor scenes is populated by at most twenty or thirty folks some of which are clearly crewmembers that weren’t needed behind the camera.

It is time for me to sound like a broken record again. Indy filmmakers please remember one of the biggest pitfalls of low budget movies. Shoot what you actually have the resources for. Sometimes that means writing a script with that in mind. Though I’m sure the scriptwriting process only went as far as “Hey War of the Worlds is in the public domain. People recognize that title grab the camera and make a movie.” The filmmakers really should have put more thought into their script. This is a terrible and pointless movie that simply didn’t need to be made. Obviously not a recommendation from me.

 

Ó Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Cosmic Sin (2021)

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

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

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

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

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

Well fellas... I hope the checks cleared!

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

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

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

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

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

Road Trip – Monster Bash at the Canton Palace August 2023

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

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

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

The Pipe Organ played between screenings

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

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

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

Now this is a proper robot!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1988)

I own a lot of terrible movies. Sometimes I’m surprised by how bad they are and other times I know what I’m getting myself into. This is the latter of those choices. While I’ve never seen this movie before I had my suspicions. Partly due to Albert Pyun being the director. Let me be clear I do like some of his stuff, but he has also made some stinkers. To the best of my knowledge this is the only movie that he ever had his name taken off of. When Pyun is embarrassed to have his name on a movie that is frightening.

The action starts off in England… well actually South Africa which is standing in for England and later for Hawaii. We meet Crystina, a nanny who is in the process of getting fired. She goes back to the agency that sent her there prepared to be let go by them as well. A weird call comes in and she is sent to Hawaii… again South Africa standing in for it… to work. When she arrives there is a rock star who has hired her to take care of his baby. His baby is a dog. Okay now what?

Here we meet Richard, a young man, who along with his younger brother and sister Bryan and Sara sneak off to explore a cave. Did I mention the park they go to is closed because of the volcano erupting nearby? There is a mix up where they end up with the dog, so Crystina ends up at the park with them. For some unknown reason she goes into the cave with them. Then there is an earthquake and Sara is left on the surface while the rest of them get trapped below. This is the last time we see Sara, who must be all of five or six. They walk a bit going deeper underground until they stop. Then they have dreams which means we get what appears to be footage that didn’t fit into the cut of the movie, so they just dumped scenes in as dreams. Waste not want not I suppose.

Then Richard goes one direction and is rescued by his parents and the National Guard. How does that make sense? It doesn’t. Crystina and the younger brother, Bryan fall down a hole and land in Atlantis. They meet a bunch of characters that were in Alien from L.A. which was another Pyun directed flick from earlier in the same year. Random stuff happens that makes not a bit of sense and then suddenly Bryan is at his home watching television about Crystina getting married to a guy from Atlantis who we barely saw on screen. Seems that they have opened diplomatic relations with the surface. Wait what? I give up.

Holy shit this is an awful movie. Though it makes sense since it apparently was cobbled together from a couple of other projects to meet some contractually obligated film. The budget was cut so even the new stuff that was shot looks cheap and doesn’t fit with the footage that was left over from Alien from L.A. and feels awkward. This does make sense because it certainly seems like a project put together by accountants and lawyers to get them out from under an agreement. There is no story, characters disappear at random, and the narrative jumps all over the place. I hate to use words like trash and/or garbage when reviewing a movie but if no effort is being made to make it watchable then it seems fair. I can see why Pyun was angry enough to force his name be removed from it.

It is odd that I recognized a couple of familiar faces in this movie. Ian Mitchell-Smith from Weird Science and The Wild Life is Bryan. Charlotte Stewart of Tremors fame appears for a hot minute as the kid’s mother. Hell IMDB even claims that Emo Phillips is in this. Though honestly, I didn’t see him and I’m sure as hell not going to watch this crap again just to find him. I’ll just have to trust the internet on this one. We also get to see stills of Kathy Ireland, who was the star from the previously mentioned Alien from L.A. but don’t be fooled into thinking she is in this movie. Lots of the posters and home video covers have her on them. She isn’t in this flick at all.

How did a film company waste the talent that was available for Journey to the Center of the Earth? As best I can tell this project was lying around during the end of the Golan-Globus/Cannon era. Again, the feeling that it was finished by accountants is making a lot of sense here. I think that they were trying to squeeze any value out of the company during some rough years. Please do me a favor and make the time I spent watching this mean something by avoiding it. Let me take this one for the team. Just to be clear this movie sucks and I’m telling you not to watch it. Cool? Okay I’m going to go question my life choices now. See you next time around.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Immortal (1969)

Jordan Braddock is a very sick and very wealthy man. We know this because when we first meet him he is flying on his private jet which crashes complicating his medical issues. While in the hospital on his death bed he is given a transfusion of blood from a man named Ben. He works for Braddock’s company in some sort of car racing or testing capacity. The blood works miracles… literally. Eventually the doctors figure out that Ben’s blood has amazing properties that heal and even make people younger. The catch is that it is only temporary.

Being a good guy Ben takes the opportunity to try and help everyone by allowing them to run tests and experiment. But Braddock is worried that if he dies in his dangerous job this fountain of youth will be lost to him. So doing what rich guys do he kidnaps him and locks him up. Though a mysterious benefactor, Braddock’s young wife who wants to inherit his money, helps him break out. This leads to Ben realizing that he has to go on the run looking for his long-lost brother who may also have the same blood and could be in danger. The end… not really as this made for television movie was a pilot for a series that lasted a year.

This is a solid bit of science fiction. We have a likeable main character in Ben whose first instinct is to use his gift to help the sick and is generally a good guy. Against him, at least in the movie, is Braddock as the greedy old man who wants to keep the benefits for himself and selfishly extend his own life. Is the rich old white guy as the villain overdone, maybe but it works here so who cares. What I find amusing is that when it went to series they couldn’t get the actor from the movie they just had another rich old white guy chasing him and say Braddock died. Completely interchangeable but again I’m okay with that. Or at least I think I am as I’ve never actually found the show. It seems to be hard to find.

The cast is filled with familiar faces including Christopher George, who most of us know from either Grizzly or Pieces but was in a bunch of great genre flicks and died way too young. Here he is cast as Ben and makes a wonderful protagonist. He is an underrated actor that certainly had the charisma to carry a show or movie by himself. Though he doesn’t have to as he is surrounded by the likes of Ralph Bellamy (Trading Places), Carol Lynley (The Night Stalker), and a very young Jessica Walter (Arrested Development). You may not recognize all the names but trust me you will know the faces.

If I had one bad thing to say about The Immortal is that it very much feels like a pilot for a series and doesn’t have an ending but rather is left open for the series that followed. Like I’ve already mentioned I haven’t seen the series and it may not be good, though I’ve heard positive things about it. But as a standalone movie even without a solid resolution to the story I still think that it is interesting enough to invest seventy minutes into checking it out. You can find it on the internet in a couple different spots so get to Googling it and give this one a chance.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The UFO Incident (1975)

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

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

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

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

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

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

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Kids vs. Aliens (2023)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Aliens look cool

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

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

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer