John’s Horror Corner: The Strangeness (1985), a bad tentacle monster movie with some redeeming Claymation monster effects.
MY CALL: A very, very, very boring tentacle monster movie. MOVIES LIKE The Strangeness: For more tentacle monster movies, please consider The Boogens (1981), The Kindred (1987), Wicked City (1987), Deep Rising (1998), Dagon (2001), Slither (2006), BioSlime (2010), Grabbers (2012), Night of the Tentacles (2013), Harbinger Down (2015), The Void (2016), The Creature Below (2016) and Life (2017).
I need to start by warning all you readers of how boring this film was. Very, very, very boring—with the first hour being nigh unforgivable. After 30 minutes, you see a tentacle for a few seconds; after 45 minutes, you momentarily see the monster’s face; and after 60 minutes you see most of its body for a moment. And with all these sightings, there aren’t even any off-screen kills worth mentioning! All the exposition feels needless, it takes its toll on our patience, and nothing that happens seems to serve any purpose. No funny characters, no good gore, no gratuitous nudity, no silly tropes. Why am I even here?
Now, yes, I know what you’re thinking. That’s how most early 80s monster movies were. And you’d be right. They were slow for an hour and then had 20-30 minutes of fun. This film follows that model, it’s just that those first 60 minutes were extra stale.
An industry-hired team of spelunking investigators survey an abandoned gold mine, get trapped, and are hunted by a slimy tentacle monster—a vagina-mouthed tentacle Claymation monster, at that! And for this perversely designed creature with some fun effects, we finally get to actually see one (but just one) cool on-screen death scene as it swallows whole a greedy schmuck. Yes, that was fun. But definitely not worth the wait in my opinion.
This film seems to get a lot of positive commentary on social media. I can’t help but to wonder if this film’s reputation survives by that one death scene alone or the monster itself. It really has no other redeeming aspects.
As such, I don’t recommend this. It wasn’t very entertaining.
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John’s Horror Corner: Razorback (1984), a nostalgic giant Australian killer boar movie.
MY CALL: More satisfying in its classic 80s nostalgia and animatronic monster, than actually “good.” MOVIES LIKE Razorback: For more Australian horror try Wolf Creek (2005), The Howling III: Marsupials (1987), Dark Age (1987), Rogue (2007), Black Water (2007), Charlie’s Farm (2014), Boar (2018) and Wyrmwood (2014).
After his journalist wife disappears on the other side of the world in Gamulla—an Australian town appropriately named for the aboriginal word for “guts”—a man (Gregory Harrison; Trilogy of Terror) ventures into the dangerous outback to investigate her disappearance.
The old (and often lower budget) creature features often waited until the final act to reveal their monster’s true form. Director Russell Mulcahy (Resident Evil: Extinction, Highlander I-II) swiftly deviates from the trends of the 70s and 80s era by revealing his beast right away. That is, we know the beasts form, albeit shadowy.
All the tropey staples are here: some vile rapey locals, silly melodramatic townsfolk, and people investigating their missing loved ones only to stumble across the path of a hulking tusked hog. But after an energetic 20 minutes, the film drags to a bore with little more than an occasional giant pig sighting here or there.
I’ve come to notice a few things during this film which, I feel, may very well apply to many (but clearly not all) other creature features:
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A featured creature is most dangerous at the beginning of the film and becomes progressively less dangerous every time we see it. In the case of our killer boar, it goes from leveling a house and evading a professional razorback hunter, to a big dumb pig that always remained in sight while herding his prey (and becoming predictable).
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Our creature becomes less dangerous, less tactical, and dumber the closer it comes to our protagonist. When our hero was across the world, this boar was unstoppable and smart and sneaky.
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No matter how dangerous the creature, the locals will always be your biggest problem. Those slaughterhouse bogans were the cause of our protagonist’s wife’s death… after they tried to rape her!
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Unnaturally large animals seem to desire a diet of human flesh.
All said and done, the greatest asset of this film outside of its 80s nostalgia would be its delightfully vintage badness. I enjoyed seeing the awesomely over-sized animatronic/puppeteered boar and its snarling drooling mouth. But this film is far from “good.”
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John’s Horror Corner: Victor Crowley (2017), Kane Hodder returns for the gory Hatchet IV.
MY CALL: My least favorite of the franchise—and it pains me to say it. But there is still much gory fun to be had in the second half of the movie even if it fails to measure up to its lower-budgeted predecessors. MOVIES LIKE Victor Crowley: Of course see the first Hatchet (2006), Hatchet II (2010), Hatchet III (2013) and the Friday the 13th (1980), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Wrong Turn (2003) franchises comprise the more serious suggestions—being that these are the movies being lampooned. But Final Destination 5 (2011), Piranha 3D (2010), Piranha 3DD (2012), The Hazing (2004) and Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010) seem to better capture the flavor of Hatchet. For more gore-geared hilarity, try Drag Me to Hell (2009) and The Cabin in the Woods (2012).
Part III SIDEBAR: The last film closed after Marybeth (Danielle Harris; Halloween I-II, The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond) presented Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder; Friday the 13th parts VII-X, Hatchet I-III) with his father’s ashes and watched him melt to death, shooting his decrepit remains as she succumbed to her own tree-impaling. The first three movies took place over the course of a total of three consecutive days (like Friday the 13th parts II-IV). We learned that every day Crowley begins (i.e., reforms) anew until reunited with his father by the hands of the bloodline of those who killed him. Convoluted curse, if you ask me! But those are the rules as we’re told.
Writer/director Adam Green (Frozen, Hatchet I-II) returns to the director’s chair for the fourth and perhaps final installment of the Hatchet series. With him, be brings minor horror icons Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Tiffany Shepis (The Hazing/Dead Scared, Sharknado 2) and Tyler Mane (Halloween I-II) to join Parry Shen (The Hazing/Dead Scared), who returns to reprise his third role (Andrew the survivor/paramedic) in as many movies after playing the part II’s brother (Shawn; killed) of part I’s tour guide (Justin; killed). Only now, Shen has risen to the lead role.
Flashback to Parry Shen in 2006.
Franchise Timeline SIDEBAR: Over the course of three films (2006-2013) we came to learn that, because of a curse, Victor Crowley would respawn every night in the swamp of his origin—which is why he kept coming back to life after nonsensically unsurvivable deaths. Part III ended the curse, but much as the comical demonic resurgence in Ash vs Evil Dead (2015-2018), a Youtube video reciting the incantation resurrects Crowley yet again—now ten years after the three-night massacre (of parts I-III).
Much like part II (and III), this sequel opens with a brutal, gorily sloppy opener. Crowley is back to his favorite tactics of mass-dismemberment and yanking limbs from their arterially-spraying sockets. It’s silly, it’s gooey, and I love it. But, also like part II, this opening scene does not forgive the exceedingly boring 40 minutes that follow before the gore and action kick back into gear. Despite having by far the biggest budget of the franchise (about $7M, dwarfing the $1.5M next biggest budget of part I), its delivery is clearly the weakest and, honestly, I thought the budget was below $1M as I watched. The dialogue might be yet weaker than before, and somehow most of this highly budgeted sequel takes place in a pair of weakly designed and ill-utilized airplane sets (interior and exterior).
Although my least favorite of the series, there is fun to be had. Brutal head-stomping, squishy face-hammering, scalping, decapitating, limb-severing… and a woman is “violated” by her own severed arm. Yes, it’s fun. But after the outstanding third franchise installment it just doesn’t measure up to what we’ve come to expect. Not even close.
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Mom and Dad could’ve easily coasted on its Nicolas Cage/Selma Blair murdering their children plot and showcased a lot of Nic Cage overacting while any resemblance of a plot vanished around him. However, director/writer Brian Taylor (Crank, Gamer) creates a violent world that allows character development, unexpected relationship therapy and a massive set-piece involving a football field melee. It was a lot better than I could’ve imagined and I don’t think it needed the Nic Cage “freaking out” moments because the plot was crazy enough.
Mom and Dad focuses on a family having a terrible night after a mysterious broadcast signal turns parents on their children. The interesting spin on the “murderous signal” is that the parents remain totally normal around everyone else and have no problem going about their day in logical and normal ways. However, once they see their kids they become rage-infested (think 28 days Later) maniacs who desperately want to kill them in any way they can. It’s like they are wearing murderous blinders towards only their children and everyone else is cool. For instance, if the broadcast hit you at the mall the only person you’d want to kill is your kid, all the other shoppers would be safe.
The majority of the movie features the plight of two kids named Carly (Anne Winters) and Josh (Zackary Arthur) who are being attacked by their parents Brent (Nicolas Cage) and Kendall (Selma Blair) in their suburban household. Before the broadcast hits, we learn they have the normal family-of-four-problems in that the teenage girl is rude to her mother, and the dad is going through a mid-life crisis (poor pool table). They are all stock problems which become moot once the parents start trying to kill their kids via asphyxiation and fire. The neat thing is a lot of their issues are surprisingly aired-out throughout the night and I really liked how the momentary insanity actually strengthens Brent and Kendall’s marriage.
Teamwork makes the marriage work.
Mom and Dad is a lot better than it has any right to be and I like how it took very dark themes and made them work in a non-exploitative way that doesn’t feel fake or tacked-on. Mom and Dad features the right amount of insane for what it is (a mildly-insane movie) and I liked that.
If you are into dark-comedy, Nic Cage yelling, and pool table destruction you will love Mom and Dad.
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We here at MFF love creature features and we’ve spent a lot of time writing and podcasting about them (listen to our sea beast podcast). That is why I (Mark) would like to share an article that I wrote for Rotten Tomatoes that focuses on monster screen time and Tomatometer scores. I pulled together 36 films and figured out how many minutes their creatures were onscreen and when they were fully introduced to the world. Then, I examined their Tomatometer scores and came up with some results that focus on the 36 movies in the dataset (they will change your life).
Grabbers is in the dataset!
I had a lot of fun revisiting movies like King Kong (1933), Alien, Eight-Legged Freaks, Deep Rising, Bubba Ho-Tep and The Thing, and now my brain is loaded with creature feature data that I can share with the world (whether they like it or not).
Check out the post! Hopefully, you enjoy.
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The MFF Podcast #124: Ready Player One
You can download the pod on Itunes, Stitcher, Podbean, or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
The MFF podcast is back and we are talking about Steven Spielberg’s nostalgia bomb known as Ready Player One. If you are into 80’s references, The Shining and Ben Mendelsohn being a dirtbag you will enjoy every second of this retro podcast episode. We had a great time watching the movie and we ponder which characters we would’ve added to the mix and suggest horror movies to be featured in the sequel (that will never happen). Get ready for a whole lot of pop-culture references!
As always, we answer random listener questions and discuss The Rancor crushing folks in the Ready Player One world. If you are a fan of the podcast make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening and hope you enjoy the pod!
You can download the pod on Itunes, Stitcher, Podbean, or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
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Happy April Fools’ Day – I wish this thing was real. I had fun writing it.
While looking back at my cinematic watching life I can only think of several moments that have legitimately blown my mind. Here they are:
- Dolph Lundgren front kicking a massive ground worm into oblivion in Sandblaster
- Kurt Russell surfing in Escape From L.A.
- Kate Winslet’s 47-minute drum solo in Whiplash 2
- Sigourney Weaver nailing the behind the back basketball shot in Alien: Resurrection
There is a moment in Geostorm that features Gerard Butler going toe-to-toe with a space tornado that blew my mind. When I left the empty theater I knew I had to research the scene for my collection of dumb data. When I started digging into Geostorm I realized that the creators went out of their way to make it as realistic as possible and I couldn’t believe how much effort went into researching and filming the space tornado fight. They hired physicists and space tornado experts and created actual space like conditions that worked perfectly within the multi-million dollar sets. Here is the clip of the scene and a quick breakdown:
I’m going to punch that space tornado with a copper punching glove.
Gerald Butler is forced to go into space to stop the climate satellite (Dutch Boy) he created from destroying the world. Before he can turn off the systems that are “geostorming” earth he has to put on a spacesuit and confront a dangerous space tornado that is moving towards the station at an alarming rate. Butler knows that the funnel-shaped clouds of charged particles carry around 100,000 amperes and can reach speeds of over a million miles per hour. Thus, after doing some calculations he learns that by propelling the right thruster on his suit to a magnitude of 7.6 gigolowatts he can create enough clockwise speed to stop the tornado which is moving counterclockwise. The problem is that somebody on the “The Dutch Boy” sabotaged Butler’s suit before he left and only the left thruster works. This forces him to think quickly, and he flips himself upside down so his right thrusters propel his body counterclockwise at a speed of 250 spins per second. In the end, Butler manages to land ferocious right hooks that manage to change the direction of the tornado and safely guide it around the space station.
The math behind the tornado punching is 100% legit
At first, I thought the scene was gobbledygook so I decided to break it down (like I’ve done so many times) in an effort to figure out how it happened. After reading a lot of interviews and science journals I learned that a space tornado could, in fact, take place around the orbit of the space station (article here). Solar windstorms typically occur in earth’s outer atmosphere (ionosphere) and are responsible for the beautiful auroras that we see (Northern Lights). Also, since these storms are so electrically charged large conductors have been used by NASA to channel the electricity into satellites and space stations (article here). However, these tornados which occur frequently have been known to short-circuit satellites and disrupt GPS and cell signals (article here). The crazy thing is Gerry Butler said all of this stuff in the movie and I disregarded it because I thought it was all nonsense. Geostorm is more Contact or Arrival than Armageddon.
When Butler learns of the storm and the timeframe needed to stop the tornados he creates a “punching glove” comprised of rubber, cloth and bent copper plating that would be used to conduct a magnetic field (article here) that wouldn’t dissipate the energy of a storm (think of a head-on collision). What I appreciated most about his makeshift copper punching glove is how it worked as a magnetic conductor which pulled the storm away from the space station without causing it to suddenly halt the momentum which would be similar to a train hitting a massive concrete wall (think Toldeo 1973)
After watching the tornado punching clip many times I was able to gauge the distance between The Dutch Boy and the oncoming tornado. If you look at the curvature and polarity of earth’s surface in regards to the distance it’s clear the storm was roughly 178 kilometers away from the massive space station when Gerry Butler went outside to fight it. Here is the math that leads me to this distance:
14(x)∅/37 (circumference) divided by 8* over GaryBusey47‰. = 178 Kilometers.
So, with his hindered jetpack going upside down Butler had 23 seconds to travel 3000 feet in order to get a punching angle on the storm. The math works because tornadoes move at a very quick speed of 7,000 MPH which works perfectly with the speed of Butler’s jetpack and the angle he was traveling.
I was amazed to learn that the director built a spinning recreation of the storm in a massive set in England. Using the largest studio in Pinewood (pictures here) they made a spinning system that mathematically worked with the trajectory of Butler’s punching pattern. They actually put a stuntman upside down and worked out the process. When watching you will notice that Butler’s stuntman isn’t CGI during the upside down punching. They spun him in the correct trajectory then used a technology called “Super Spin” to speed it up and make it look like he was spinning 250 times per second. It’s no surprise they won the Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and Production Design.
In the end, Gerry Butler saves the day via actual science and nobody expected it. I applaud Geostorm for its adherence to science and I hope people see it with new eyes now.
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The Ritual is a very good horror film that delivers on almost every level. Director David Bruckner (The Signal, V/H/S) and writer Joe Barton have delivered a neat lost-in-the-woods thriller that features solid performances, creative cinematography and a badass monster that I want to see more of. The Blair Witch-esque plot and obligatory “people get lost” twist may feel familiar but I liked how The Ritual quickly moved away from familiar tropes and proved itself to be more than the sums of its parts. Don’t let the familiar territory jade the experience because The Ritual builds to something totally original and memorable.
The Ritual revolves around four long-time friends getting lost while hiking in Sweden and having to deal with a murderous creature. Luke (Rafe Spall), Phil (Arsher Ali), Hutch (Robert James-Collier) and Dom (Sam Troughton) are on the trip to honor their friend Robert (Paul Reid) who was killed during their last “guys outing.” The death of Robert causes the groups already fraying friendship to further unravel and as they hike through the beautiful Swedish wilderness you can tell that they would all rather be somewhere else.
Their hiking is anything but smooth, and they are forced to take a shortcut when Dom hurts his ankle when he gets too carried away while bitching about the hiking, From there, they find a spooky cabin, see some terrible things and are harassed by a large creature that looks like a human, giraffe, and elk joined together and formed something terrifying.
They are looking at something really gross.
There has been a legit amount of press about the monster (here, here, here, here, and here) and I like that critics and audiences appreciate it and respect the work that was put into creating it. Very rarely do I see something and think “I’ve never seen that before,” and I’d rank the beast alongside the monsters in The Host, The Descent and Attack the Block. I just watched the movie again and was more impressed by the monster because I appreciated how much creativity and thought went into making it look awesome. It is an elegant creation and if you listened to our recent two-hour podcast about The Ritual (it’s excessive but awesome) you will hear all about how Bruckner and crew made it happen.
If you are into horror films that make familiar tropes fresh via interesting monsters, solid performances and A+ cinemtography you will love The Ritual.
Make sure to read John’s review as well. He really loved the movie.
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Download the pod on iTunes, PodBean, Stitcher or
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SUMMARY: This week we discuss the Netflix film The Ritual (2017), weighing the mythological Norse Jötunn against H. P. Lovecraft’s Black Goat of the Forest, the use of creatures in features and the filming styles that complement them, classic woodsy horror clichés, and the weight of guilt on protagonists. We LOVED this film!
If you enjoy discussions about creature features, check out Episode 47: Let’s Grab a Beer and Hunt Some Bigfoot Trolls. And if you want more “forest horror,” check out Episode 57: The Podcast in the Woods and Episode 76: The Blair Witch Pod (1999-2016).
For more horror podcast discussions, check out…
Episode 117: Event Horizon, Hellraiser in space, and wrestling Graboids
Episode 116: Happy Death Day
Episode 115: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Episode 114: Office Horror, Mayhem & The Belko Experiment
Episode 113: Elise, her Demons and the Insidious Franchise
Episode 108: The Best Horror Films of 2017
Episode 78: Carpenter vs Zombie Halloween Rematch (1981 vs 2009)
Episode 76: The Blair Witch Pod (1999-2016)
Download the pod on iTunes, PodBean, Stitcher or
LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
Please SUBSCRIBE, REVIEW, RATE and SHARE.
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John’s Horror Corner: Hellraiser X: Judgment (2018), an inspired yet completely uninnovating retelling of Hell’s mythology.
MY CALL: Great ideas do not necessarily make great films. Great ideas, awful execution. I mean… it’s passable as an almost interesting bad horror film if you’ve never seen a Hellraiser film. MORE MOVIES LIKE Judgment: Be sure to see Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) first, of course. Then maybe Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth (1992) and Hellraiser IV: Bloodline (1996). Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), Hellseeker (2002) and Hellraiser: Deader (2005); all are more standalone films. Hellworld (2005) and Revelations (2011) are easily the worst.
There was a time when Hellraiser films had substance and depth, building a dark mythology around the perceived reality of its tempters, tempted and victims. Right around Hellworld (2005) and Revelations (2011) this notion was cast aside like a crushed Miller Lite can on Daytona Beach after Bike Week.
So much anticipation had built up before I finally got to see this. And, you know what, there were a lot of great ideas here. But that’s where it stops… ideas. Not execution; not follow-through; not synthesis. This film is a love letter to the franchise, and it’s a love letter written by a deeply passionate heart—but this love letter was written by someone who couldn’t write, and they kept crumbling up their discarded drafts, and then someone gathered those frayed balls of paper from the floor and gleaned the ideas from them and mashed them into a film with no sense of development.
Emerging from a heavy make-up department background (Piranha 3DD, Apollo 18, Hellraiser: Revelations/Deader/Bloodline/Hellseeker/Hell on Earth, The Collector, My Bloody Valentine), writer and director Gary J. Tunnicliffe clearly loves the franchise and tries his damnedest. For that much, I admire and appreciate his efforts. But despite this obvious passion the writing, characters, dialogue and story run stale. You find yourself constantly wanting to like what’s in front of you, but the weak set design and uninspired lines strip any possible joy from it. That, and the sophomoric use of the bethonged, big breasted bimbos of Hell that get way too much screen time. Apparently, Hell is big on plastic surgery and lingerie to complement the crass blood-dousing of naked women as if a fifteen-year-old had crossed his notions of damnation with a wet dream.
But despite some of these cheaper tactics, attempts (all inspired yet completely failed in execution) were made again and again to be thoughtful and provocative. Such notions as eating ones scribed sins with a gravy of children’s tears, then regurgitated and judged by infernal mistresses… Lord, what am I even writing? See how that idea started okay and then…? I mean, this is curiously entertaining, but nothing worthy of comparison to the franchise.
We truly feel the meager $350K budget in the special effects. Skin peeling and flaying have never had a weaker screen presence in the series, and none of the gore or effects occur on-screen. In terms of effects, I think I was more impressed with the equally budgeted Revelations (2011). But to Judgment’s credit, Paul T. Taylor fares well as Pinhead—if we can look past the script and focus on his presence and delivery.
But again, the delivery simply wasn’t there for the most integral components of the mythology. Was the Puzzle Box there…? Sort of. Were there hooked chains? Yes, but they sucked. How about Cenobites? Yes…but they served no purpose.
Was this a brave endeavor? Sure. But were any of the requisite skills present in the filmmakers? No. Not beyond bravado. This is a terrible Hellraiser film, but perhaps a passable bad horror movie. Temper your expectations accordingly.
Movies, Films & Flix 