The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 635: The Bikeriders (2023), Jeff Nichols and Denim
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Mark and Andy discuss the 2023 crime drama The Bikeriders. Directed by Jeff Nichols, and starring Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and a lot of denim, the movie focuses on what happens when a guy watches The Wild One (1953) and decides to start a motorcycle gang. In this episode, they also talk about excellent accents, motorcycle movies, and the excellence of Jeff Nichols. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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Hot Spring Shark Attack (2024) – Review
Quick Thoughts:
1. It’s the kind of film that features characters eating submarine sandwiches whilst inside a submarine.
2. It’s about ancient sharks that can squish themselves through pipes so they can eat tourists.
3. It features the best shark punching since Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life.
4. It’s very silly.
5. If you’re looking for a random double feature, check out Evil Does Not Exist and Hot Spring Shark Attack. Both of the wildly different films feature important water, tourism, and corporate greed.
6. Writer-director Morihito Inoue has crafted a knowingly silly film that wants to entertain
7. Check out the website for screening information
The nice thing about the 80-minute Hot Spring Shark Attack is that it embraces chaos and wears its silly concept on its sleeve. It’s far from focused, but you can sense that director Morihito Inoue was laser-focused on making sure his crowdfunded film brought the goods. Inoue is a big fan of shark cinema, and his low-budget action comedy delivers an admirable amount of shark action and features the most shark punching you’ll ever witness in a single movie. It also features a helicopter explosion caused by a methane-spewing shark who comes across a tactical unit dubbed the “Anti-Hot Spring Unit,” who don’t realize their bullets will cause a massive explosion (it’s wild).
Taking place in the Japanese coastal city of Atsumi (The Monaco of the East), the film starts as a Jaws ripoff (in a loving way) by focusing on ancient sharks squishing their cartilage skeletons through pipes to eat spa goers who are enjoying the famous Atsumi hot springs. It then evolves into something akin to Sharknado as the hot water-loving sharks start attacking the denizens of Atsumi. It all culminates with an underwater battle between a buff guy nicknamed “Macho” and a large crown-wearing king shark.
Drawing inspiration from Jaws and Sharknado, Hot Spring Shark Attack is a lo-fi shark film that is loaded with an incredible amount of energy. On top of everything already mentioned, the movie features Influencer murder, anti-shark submarines, submarine sandwiches, weight-lifting montages, and sharks that require the smallest amount of hot spring water to pop up anywhere (seriously, anywhere). In a standout scene, an industrious shark sets a trap for tourists at the bottom of a playground slide and swallows them whole as they come down it (and it’s great).
Hot Spring Shark Attack pinballs around at a breakneck pace and feels like a collection of scenes slapped together. With a title like Hot Spring Shark Attack, it’s unfair to expect a focused experience. However, the looseness of the storytelling gives the movie a chaotic vibe, which doesn’t help the overall flow. The result is a loving homage to shark cinema that features knowingly cheeky performances from Daniel Aguilar (Shin Godzilla), Shôichirô Akaboshi, and Takuya Fujimura (One Cut of the Dead).
Final thoughts – I’ve now seen a movie featuring talking sharks squishing themselves through hot spring pipes to eat influencers – and I am very happy.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 634: Speak No Evil (2024), James McAvoy and Pointless Remakes
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Mark and Lisa discuss the 2024 remake Speak No Evil. Directed by James Watkins, and starring James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, and a stuffed bunny, the movie focuses on what happens when a family has a terrible vacation. In this episode, they also talk about toothless remakes, Blumhouse Productions, and plaid shirts. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: Beezel (2024), a quasi-found footage, documentsry-style, monstrous witch movie.
MY CALL: This is much less a witch movie, and much more a monstrous, ogre-like hag movie. Your satisfaction will be much more visual than cerebral, as the writing could use some work to complement the solid monstrous and witchy imagery. MORE MOVIES LIKE Beezel: Well, for higher budgeted ogre-witches, consider Barbarian (2022) and Blair Witch (2016).
A quirky but very polite man, Harold (Bob Gallagher) hires documentarian Apollo (LeJon Woods; The Hangman, The North Witch, Ouija Witch) tell help him tell his story. Years ago Harold’s first wife and child were killed, found partially eaten and dismembered and covered in bite marks, and he has been scandalously presumed to be their unconvicted murderer. When Harold shares some disturbing footage of his deceased wife never seen by the police, Apollo realizes he is in over his head. But it’s already too late. Harold is a zealot in service to a generations-old monstrous witch which feeds slowly on the flesh of the living. He wasn’t the first to serve this flesh-eating hag, and he won’t be the last.
The gore is decent! Better than I expected. Some wince-worthy eyeball scenes, a head torn from its shoulders, some rough oral sex mutilation, a disturbing scene with a newborn baby… not bad.
Our monstrous crone looks pretty cool, smacking of Mag Mucklebones from Legend (1985) or the she-ogre from Barbarian (2022), and moving with a rigor-mortis-like rigidity in the legs and spine. Some of the witchy imagery is also great. We enjoy top-notch gross drooling, weird slow eye-rolling, and corpse-like staggered movement. There are some fun jumpscares as well.
This film’s better qualities are somewhat outweighed by its shortcomings in pacing, resolution, storytelling. Watching this, you repeatedly see something cool or gross or scary, get psyched and very hopeful, and never find any proper greater payoff. Things just don’t build as the filmmakers intended. This movie has some very good visuals, fewer good overall scenes, and never really finds any synthesis to make the film work. However, it’s concepts and satisfying visuals give me hope for director and co-writer Aaron Fradkin (Bloody Bites, Val) and his future work.
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MY CALL: I’m not sure if this is a “so bad it’s good” movie or more a movie that was once awesome but just didn’t age well. In either case, this is the Sci-Horror oddity equivalent of a long forgotten exhibit gathering dust in the basement of a museum—it surely deserves to be seen, but is too overshadowed by its more shiny, polished contemporary successors. MORE MOVIES LIKE Saturn 3: For more robots behaving badly, consider the delightful Sci-Horror like of Demonseed (1977), Moontrap (1989), and Virus (1999).
This movie makes its style clear right away. Geeks will enjoy visual spacescape delights, and gorehounds enjoy a man getting diced through wires while being jettisoned through an air shaft into space. One part Sci-Fi grace, one part chunky gore.
A pair of lovers and researchers Alex (Farrah Fawcett; Charlie’s Angels) and Adam (Kirk Douglas; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Spartacus) on Saturn 3 are visited by a rigid, by-the-book official Benson (Harvey Keitel; Two Evil Eyes) to review their progress. Benson is somewhat secretive in his objectives; he makes his carnal, hedonsitic interest in Alex immediately clear; and he has brought a “demigod” robot to assist him. What could possibly go wrong?
Running on tubes of colored liquids and a core of pure brain matter, this giant robot (called Hector) is pretty snazzy for a 1980 film. Hector plays chess, performs first aid… and a gorily brutalizes Alex’s dog. More troubling, Hector actively learns from a direct brain-link to Benson, and thus Hector also is now infatuated with Alex! Yes, you read that right. The robot, which lacks genitals or an endocrine system to produce hormones, desires Alex. Oh, classic Sci-Fi, you rascal!
Trapped in their research compound with Hector, the humans must escape the station. The Star Wars-inspired special effects are solid on spaceship shots; cheap but enjoyable for planetary terrains harken closer to Doctor Who; and set design and visuals of on-ship tech is satisfyingly elaborate. Very good visuals for Sci-Fi fans abound.
Shockingly, this hidden gem was directed by Stanley Donen, who also directed your grandparents’ and great grandparents’ favorites Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). Donen only ever did one genre film, and this one is a banger worth your time!
We end up with one really cool gore scene that likely inspired the likes of Moontrap (1989) and Virus (1999). Frankly, for a nearly 50-year-old Sci-Fi movie, this held up pretty well for me! I enjoyed it a lot.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 633: Star Trek Generations (1994), Boat Scenes, and Energy Fields
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The Star Trek series continues! Mark and Niall discuss the 1994 sci-fi sequel Star Trek Generations. Directed by David Carson, and starring Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, Malcolm McDowell, and an extra-dimensional realm, the movie focuses on what happens when two captains battle a maniac. In this episode, they also talk about boat scenes, rock fights, and odd-numbered Star Trek films. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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MY CALL: Well, at least I’m one step closer to seeing every 80s horror movie ever made. That’s about the only positive I took away from this odd horror-drama. MORE MOVIES LIKE Eternal Evil: Maybe The Skeleton Key (2005) or Get Out (2017).
TV commercial director Paul (Winston Rekert) begins having out of body experiences during his dreams after learning about astral projection from an attractive dancer Janus (Karen Black; Invaders from Mars, Children of the Night, It’s Alive III, House of 1000 Corpses, Mirror Mirror, Night Angel). During these projections he essentially haunts those he observes, including his disapproving therapist. Some of Paul’s astrally observed victims turn up mysteriously dead from macabre, rib-protruding heart attacks. Now, this may sound really cool… if only it would lead somewhere satisfying. It won’t.
Meanwhile a detective is investigating these strange deaths, researching astral projection and spiritual vampires, and interviewing academics to explore the less rational possibilities. This sounds pretty cool, but the pacing is just too slow. And when death scenes transpire, there’s not much to them. Even when Paul’s own wife dies it is about as unexciting as this movie gets.
Let’s just spoil this movie, shall we. Some body-hopping spirits have been exchanging host bodies via astral projection over time in order to live forever. Once again, this may sound pretty cool… but it’s not. It’s boring. This all builds to a conceptually wild finale with numerous deaths that is, once again, yeah… kinda’ boring.
As far as 80s horror goes, this is perfectly competently made. Even more so than most typical teen-foddered slashers or haunted mansion movies of the era. This feels like a real movie; like more of a drama even. But just not a particularly good movie by any means. This is no hidden gem, and it has nothing particularly interesting to offer. I chose to sit through it after realizing it starred Karen Black and the director (George Mihalka; My Bloody Valentine, The Psychic) of at least one good horror movie. I may not regret the experience, and now I have checked another movie off my list of “all 80s horror movies I need to watch to see them all.” But I’m definitely not recommending this either.
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John’s Horror Corner: The Final Terror (1983), Daryl Hannah and Joe Pantoliano in a B-horror movie?
MY CALL: Yeah… this was pretty boring. Not awful. But there is too much from the early 80s slasher era that is much better to recommend this. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Final Terror: For more early 80s slashers featuring stars before they were famous, try Friday the 13th (1980; Kevin Bacon), Mortuary (1983; Bill Paxton) and Amityville 3-D (1983; Meg Ryan).
A training team of park rangers is assigned a camping-work detail in the woods. With four young men (including Joe Pantoliano; Tales from the Crypt S1) and four young women (including Daryl Hannah; Blade Runner), a lot of toxic masculinity and over-bro’d-up competitiveness ensues. Tensions build, they end up stranded in the forest, people turn up dead, and they realize they need to find a way back to civilization from their very remote location.
Early scenes in this early 80s b-horror show two twenty-somethings killed by some makeshift booby traps in the forest. There’s blood, but no cuts or stabs or horror violence is depicted on-screen. Later scenes feature a classic death mid-sex-scene (but you don’t see anything interesting on-screen there either). So death scenes is definitely not a strong suit for this slasher flick. There’s also a cabin with body parts in jars, and we learn that our protagonists are being hunted by a savvy woodsman with grimy grey hair.
We can see that a lot of effort went into the writing. And it’s not bad. Good even, for an old slasher. But this flick just doesn’t stick the landing at all as a horror movie. The scares are weak to non-existent, the gore is super basic, and the deaths are generally quite uninspired. Oh, and basically nothing worth watching ever happens… like ever. The final kill was almost cool. But just almost.
The original reels of this film were nearly lost forever. And what can be watched now is a Frankensteinian-stitched salvage job of the recovered damaged reels. This old 80s slasher may not be anything special. But it does feature some before-they-were-famous stars and director Andrew Davis (The Fugitive, Under Siege, Collateral Damage), who would go on to direct several action movie greats. Really, you just watch this movie to say you watched it, and to see two young actors sharpening their acting skills early in their careers.
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Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) – Review
Grade – 3.5 Genetically Modified Dinosaurs out of 5.
Quick Thoughts:
1. Aquatic action is plentiful – I love it
2. I like how straightforward it is. People go to an island and terrible things happen
3. As always, director Gareth Edwards understands scale
4. T-Rex in the water! Mosasaurus! Spinosaurus! – I love aquatic action.
5. Depending on the day, it’s the second or third-best JP film
The best thing that can be said about Jurassic World: Rebirth is that it goes back to basics and embraces the “people getting eaten on a remote island” trope. Director Gareth Edwards (The Creator, Godzilla, Monsters) and writer David Koepp (who wrote the adapted screenplay for the OG Jurassic Park) waste no time putting its main characters on multiple boats that have them converging on an island of death. Their goal is to find the three biggest dinosaur species (land, sea, air) so they can snag DNA samples from each of them in hopes of curing heart disease (and making a lot of money). Of course, things go wrong and it leads to several fun set pieces that involve river rafts, tunnel systems, and aquatic mayhem.
The film starts off with an obligatory dinosaur attack before it heads to the real world where dinosaurs are dying off due to the earth’s inhospitality and museums are closing because nobody cares about dinosaurs anymore. We learn that the remaining dinosaurs live on isolated tropical islands near the equator – and they are left alone because visiting the island means certain death. This is where mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) comes into play. Backed by pharmaceutical representative Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), she recruits paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and retrieval expert Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) to join on her nigh-impossible journey to the equator. On their way to death island, they pick up Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his two daughters, and Xavier (David Lacono), the boyfriend of the eldest daughter Teresa (Luna Blaise). The four were left shipwrecked after a Mosasaurus attack left them stranded in the water.
Things get violent before they get to the island as a Mosasaurus and a pack of Spinosaurus attack Kincaid’s boat during a lengthy action scene that sees several of his crew becoming dinosaur food. It’s a fantastic scene that looks great and ends with a bit involving a camouflaged Spinosaurus that received loud applause from the audience. After the aquatic battle, the group is separated which leads to two intercutting stories and several memorable set pieces.
What separates Jurassic World: Rebirth from the latest trilogy is that the dinosaurs on the island aren’t jerks (or super-intelligent). Before Zora and her team landed on the island the dinosaurs were living their lives and the introduction of easy-to-eat prey is what kicks off the action scenes. The Distortus Rex (Rancor-looking dino) and Mutadons (basically a flying Velociraptor) aren’t treated as antagonists because they just want to snack on Scarlett Johansson. Also, the characters are much more likable than the island travelers in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park III, and the JW trilogy. It was a smart move casting Johansson, Bailey, Friend and Ali – because they are all legit actors who are given enough backstory to be interesting. You can tell that Johansson (who wanted to be in this film), Bailey (who played his clarinet during the recording of the score) and Ali love being a part of the JP franchise and their energy is infectious. The casting directors should be applauded as well because David Lacono, Luna Blaise and Audrina Miranda are likable and I found myself cheering for them while they ran away from hungry monsters.
Since the film is directed by Gareth Edwards and filmed by John Mathieson (Gladiator, Logan, Kingdom of Heaven), the movie has a large scope and the dinosaurs look hefty. Whether it’s the Tyrannosaurus Rex (who gets a great scene) or the Distortus Rex, they both look huge and menacing. Their weight and size come across on screen and it’s something the franchise has been missing. The dinosaurs are respected in Jurassic World: Rebirth, and days after watching the film they’ve kept lingering in my memory.
Jurassic World: Rebirth plays things safe and isn’t afraid of playing the hits (kid endangerment, snooty villain, island mayhem), but it does introduce interesting dinosaurs who make things unique and interesting, For example, velociraptors are largely left out of the film and are replaced by Mutadons – who are flying Velociraptors (they are great). They play well because they’re familiar but different enough to feel fresh. By keeping the plot simple, Koepp and Edwards can give their characters backstories and focus on fun set pieces that deliver the goods.
Final Thoughts – It made me very happy.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 632: Alien: Romulus (2024), Fede Álvarez, and Xenomorphs
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Norbert discuss the 2024 sequel/prequel/rebootquel Alien: Romulus. Directed by pain merchant Fede Álvarez, and starring Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson and a bunch of dad jokes, the movie focuses on what happens when a group of young people get torn to shreds by a group of angry aliens. In this episode, they also talk about Alien franchise lore, swimming facehuggers, and mean movies. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Movies, Films & Flix 