The Seed (2021)

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

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

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

The alien looks decent

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

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

Swimming in some alien innards!

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

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

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Malnazidos (aka. Valley of the Dead) (2020)

I saw this Spanish language flick show up on Netflix and thought I’d give it a chance. I mean there are zombie and evil Nazi scientists… it has to be a little bit fun right? Set towards the end of the Spanish Civil war this movie has the Germans testing a new weapon out on the battlefield. It is a gas that reanimates corpses and sends them off on a killing spree. In the middle of this our main character, Jan, is pulled from his execution by his uncle, who happens to be a general. He is sent on a dangerous mission to deliver a message to another unit. Sort of a dirty dozen thing, only it is just him and his driver.

On the way there they take a shortcut and force their way pass some Germans who are setting up a roadblock. That might be a bad sign right there. To make things worse they also stop along the way to check on a pilot who bailed out of his plane after losing a dogfight. This leads them to get captured by the other side but that quickly becomes moot when the zombies show up and they need all hands-on deck to survive. Later they find even more survivors and again have to band together. This motley crew has to find the cure, or at least stop the experiment before everything goes completely to hell.

I really dig this movie. I love the setting of Spain during the late thirties. In the years before WWII both Germany and Russia used the war to test out all sorts of familiar strategies and equipment that would be used later on. So, slipping in some secret zombie tests works well and was sort of fun to watch. Plus, whenever you can work a Nazi in as your villain it makes your movie better. That said the movie focuses on those trying to survive rather than the bad guys and that is another good choice. The story takes enough time to introduce and make you like them before they die in heroic and sometimes horrible ways. Getting the audience invested in the characters and their fates which makes things much more engaging as a viewer.

The action is nonstop as our survivors go from one dangerous location to another. From the opening scene with the Germans crashing a wedding to scene after scene of them being pursued by the zombies things never get boring. This movie is an hour and forty minutes long and it was over before I knew it. I was totally sucked in with the story, characters, and action.

The zombies themselves are fairly generic, and you don’t get a ton of gore. Not much more than some torn throats and headshots. But Malnazidos more than makes up for that in the sheer volume of violence as many people and undead get blown away. The filmmakers also double down on their vision by mentioning in passing that the dead have dried powdery blood which they keep showing as each bullet hit causes a cloud of red dust to emerge from the wounds. Makes the all too familiar zombie horde scenes different and visually interesting. That said they do reference the genre and the flicks that came before it in a couple neat ways including the “when there is no more room in hell…” line.

I never heard of this before it showed up on Netflix for streaming. After poking around a bit, it appears that the release was delayed by COVID and that might be why. When it comes to zombie movies, I tend to know about them, even if they are from other countries and don’t get a theatrical release in the US. I’m a nerd about the subgenre. I can without qualification tell everyone to check out Malnazidos. It is a good time.

 

Ó Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Curse of the Kraken (2020)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Ice Spiders (2007)

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

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

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

Terrible composite shot

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

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

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

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Aquarium of the Dead (2021)

The Asylum is at it again with this third entry into the Zoombies trilogy, though they mix it up a bit and set this one at an aquarium. A batch of the bad drugs that caused the animals at other facilities to go all zombie gets sent to an aquarium and brings an octopus back from the dead. It kills some people and then sneaks off into the air ventilation system randomly turning other critters into zombies. The folks that are trapped in the aquarium, because they have a state-of-the-art security system that locks them in, struggle to reach and then turn on the generator so they can make good their escape. Toss in some betrayal, corrupt politicians, and you have the movie.

This is awful. I mean most of the Asylum movies aren’t great, but like the Sharknado series they at least try to be fun. This one not only doesn’t embrace the cheese but manages to be boring. There is zero tongue in cheek gags that attempt to wink at the audience, which is a hallmark of when these movies are good. Instead, what we get is a movie that instead is trying to just be a bad version of monster flicks we have already seen before. I’ve already mentioned their attempts to do so in my brief synopsis above. But let me add some more below.

The characters are forced to get to the McGuffin, here the generator. Along the way they get picked off one at a time by various monsters. Whether it be the zombie sharks, dolphins, crocodiles, or walrus’ it is all the same thing. Walk down a hallway, encounter something, get chased with perhaps someone dying and then get to a room. Talk on the walkie with the character in the security office who is directing them. Then go back into a hallway… repeat until you get to a feature length runtime and stop. I’m okay with you making a bad movie, but for the love of God don’t make a boring bad movie. That is what we get here and it sucks.

Worst Shark Zombies Ever!

The creatures, as you would expect, are all CGI. Somehow, I think that they have managed to make them worse than the previous movies. They barely interact with the actors and when it does the shots simply don’t match up. You might also be wondering why there are crocodiles in the aquarium. Well, I’ve been to an aquarium that did have some crocodiles, but I think that the real reason for them to be in this movie is to use the digital models from the previous Zoombies movie. The effects are basically the same thing as if you are paying attention the digital models make the same movements repeatedly. I don’t expect that much from a movie like this, but at least make some effort. Hell, the only scene with a zombie shark has them laying perfectly still in a hallway… C’mon guys!

This is a bad movie and a crappy way inclusion into this year’s October movie marathon. But then again, I watch a lot of terrible low budget movies, so this was likely to happen. Hopefully, I’ll get to some decent ones soon enough. With that in mind I recommend skipping Aquarium of the Dead.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Crypt of Dark Secrets (1976)

I love the fact that I’m still finding regional drive-in flicks that I’ve never seen before. These are low budget affairs made to fill the screens of the local mom and pop theaters, many of them hauled from engagement to engagement in the trunk of a car. It is one of my favorite eras in movie history and produced some real gems like Stanley, The Giant Spider Invasion, and Macon County Line. Is Crypt of Dark Secrets one of those? Let’s check it out and see. 

The movie kicks off with a witch, who we later find out is named Damballa, doing witchy stuff while dancing around a magic circle and levitating. Then it switches to the sheriff’s office where we get a bit of background. They are talking about a local legend of an Aztec witch, Damballa, who lives on a nearby island in the swamp. There is a fully furnished house that no one will claim because everyone gets chased off by the raven-haired girl who can turn into a snake. That is except for the current “young fella” a retired army ranger named Ted Watkins. Ted is looking for a quiet place to spend his time after his tour of Vietnam. 

Since Ted has lasted much longer than anyone else, they decide to visit him. It is here where we find out that he has been cashing his retirement checks and keeping the cash with him on the island. Some locals find out and a plan to steal his money is hatched. The most foolproof way to get away with it is to make sure there are no witnesses so sure enough they murder Ted before making off with the loot. But Damballa brings him back to life for some revenge. Well not really. She ends up doing her voodoo magic to get the payback on the thieves/murders because Ted is now alive again, but also at peace. Then there is some talk about a prophecy, and they live happily ever after. 

Okay I will freely admit that this isn’t a good movie. The story doesn’t make a lick of sense at times and the actors are clearly not professionals. Lines are stumbled over, characters look at the camera, and the dialogue is poorly written. I get the vibe from some of the scenes that they were just winging it and didn’t have marks to hit as more than once people are standing around looking a bit lost. It also felt like a letdown that they setup up the Ted character as an ex-special forces soldier and then have him do nothing after getting brought back by the dead. Instead Damballa uses a pirate treasure (I kid you not) to lure back the killers and take her vengeance. Despite all these flaws I still enjoyed the heck out of this one. Perhaps it is because of my love for all these goofy drive-in flicks or the can-do attitude of these filmmakers it comes off as earnest and fun. They are doing their best and that should count for something. 

It also helps that the filmmakers did manage to avoid the kiss of death the one thing that can kill a movie like this. It clocks in at a tight seventy-one minutes and is never boring. Sure the ending feels forced like they had run out of ideas and didn’t know how to finish the story. But up until that point we always had something interesting happening. Speaking of that I was sort of shocked by how naked our lead actress Maureen Ridley gets. As Damballa she disrobes and gyrates quite a bit onscreen. This includes full frontal nudity, which was still not common in mainstream movies (aka. not porn). This happens a couple of times and they linger quite a bit on her “assets”. I’m not trying to be creepy, but this is an example of a regional filmmaker using what they have to set themselves apart from the crowd. They really went for it and I appreciate that. 

Objectively Crypt of Dark Secrets feels like a forgettable bottom half of a double feature that served to fill up the promised time/value of getting to see a pair of movies for your entry fee. And I can’t argue with anyone that wants to take this movie to task for the flaws I’ve listed above. But damn it I like this sort of silliness and I think that it fits in quite nicely with contemporary flicks that filled this need. Hell, it is way better than many of them that meander and never get around to showing us much of anything on the screen. For that reason alone, I’m recommend my fellow drive-in nerds to track themselves down a copy of this one. I think you will dig it as much as I did. 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Slugs (1988)

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

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

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

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

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

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer