Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)
MY CALL: This movie contains very graphic violence, full frontal male and female nudity, graphic prostituticide, lots of gore including an improvised brain surgery scene, graphic Dolph Lundgren…what? Do you need more reasons? How about Scott Adkins fighting EVERYBODY!?! Pure fun reignites this franchise to and beyond its former glory. [B] IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009), The Expendables 2 (2012) and Dragon Eyes (2012). ALTERNATE TITLE: This movie is also marketed as Universal Soldier 4: A New Dimension.
During a home invasion, family man John (Scott Adkins; The Expendables 2, Assassination Games) gets his head used as crowbar batting practice and is forced to witness the murder of his family at the hands of Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme; The Expendables 2, Dragons Eyes)—who looks perfectly villainous, sleek and creepy with his new skinhead haircut. John later awakens from a 9-month coma in a high tech facility.
Meanwhile, Lt. Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren; The Expendables 2, Universal Soldier: Regeneration) is up to something, “freeing” other Unisols with some deprogramming (or reprogramming) video injection. It gets a little confusing here. Life made more sense when his insanity was limited to crafting ear necklaces. John starts having visions of Deveraux, so we assume he was injected at some point…or something. So are Deveraux and Scott working together?
As John investigates he finds that he has done things he doesn’t recall doing and people he doesn’t know seem to know him quite well—like stripper Sarah (Mariah Bonner; Freerunner), who helps him out with his identity sleuthing. It seems he was quite a violent guy who many feared. He even learns who his “boss” is, which comes as quite a surprise. The fun surprise comes during the “athletics store fight,” where John is losing a fight to a Unisol until he suddenly discovers his Unisol combat abilities; because you don’t put Scott Adkins in a Universal Soldier movie and NOT have him rock out. More surprises come along, most heavily at the end.
Lots of kicks to the head in this movie.
The action in the end segment is really great. John goes ape-shit rabid postal on a rogue Unisol compound with some nihilistic mantra about “taking back what’s theirs.” He takes down Andrew Scott in a serious fight with a devastatingly clever Dolph-blow, and against Deveraux, in some of the creepiest commando face paint ever, he has yet another major fight complete with multiple exchanges on bone-impaling machete strikes.
Adkins tank top started out white. Just FYI. Red with the blood of awesome!
Director John Hyam (Universal Soldier: Regeneration, Dragon Eyes) has developed a fine knack for making the most out of humbly budgeted action flicks. I’m guessing it’s just to please JCVD, but among his common actors is Kristopher Van Varenberg (Van Damme’s son; Dragons Eyes) in a tiny role. I’ll let it pass. If that’s what it takes to get this level of Van Damme-ity, it’s worth it.
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Bad Movie Tuesday: A Sock Stuffed With Marshmellows.
Nowadays it is easy to watch a movie and question the motives and actors. Thousands of movies have taught me to appreciate the bad and rarely be surprised. However, twenty years ago I had serious issues with the guy fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando. I couldn’t understand why this skinny dude could land an uppercut on the brawniest man alive when just five minutes prior the muscled foreigner literally scalped a man with a garden tool. My new to R-rated mayhem brain couldn’t process the fight scene being shoved down my throat.
If you remember Arnold in the 80s he was a brick sh*t house who could pick up other brick sh*t houses easily. He could kill 127 mercenaries and if he couldn’t get to you he would simply pick up the phone booth you were hiding in (he does this in Commando).
That is why my ten year old brain couldn’t understand why a flabby mustachioed man in a steel tank top could challenge the Austrian Oak (EDIT: I originality wrote Muscles from Brussels but I was quickly corrected and I apologize to any JCVD fan who hates the comparison. In addition I still don’t understand how Timecop JCVD needed a massive ship to send him back in time when he also had that time traveling Rolex that did the same thing.)
The original Bennett was fired because he wasn’t macho enough so Australian tough guy Vernon Wells was brought in with little notice. Wells was bigger than the other actor and with no time for new costumes he was shoved into the tiny garb that is now the second most famous 80s wardrobe next to Phoebe Cate’s red bikini in Fast Times. Arnold wasn’t impressed with the mustached man so Vernon had to prove himself by being injured multiple times whilst battling Arnold. In fact, Wells would attack Arnold so fiercely that the Governator told the director “to never give Wells a real knife.”
What did he get for all his hard work? He got tiny clothes and his character is now called “Freddie Mercury on steroids.” Also, according to the fantastic Empire Magazine article about the 1985 movie Clive James called him “a sock stuffed with marshmellows.” He also had to recite this line of dialogue “I’m not going to shoot you between the eyes. I’m going to shoot you between the balls.”
The Urban Dictionary defines Bennett like this:
- BENNETT
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The hard hitting, immense, chainmail and leather trouser wearing bad guy of the best film that has ever been absconded onto film… Commando. People think that Arnie’s quotes are funny and good, they have nothing on this bastards. Is currently letting off some steam while planning revenge on John Matrix with that double crossing bastard General Franklin Kirby
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According to AMC Story Notes Wells “played Wez in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Empire magazine named Wez the greatest henchman in movie history.” Now, he is a punchline in Arnold’s catalog of wasted villains. Did he get a great send off like the lead terrorist in True Lies who was attached to a missile then shot into his allies helicopter? The answer is no. Arnold takes a pipe and throws it through his chest and into a steam pipe. Arnold then mutters the line “let off some steam, Bennett.”
This death could have been prevented too. Before he let off steam he had Arnold dead to rights. However, Arnold convinces him to put down the gun and engage in the most awkward knife fight ever. Well’s fingerless gloves glide through the air as he slices up his former friend and eventually threatens to shoot him between the balls (which would be an amazing shot).
Few bad guys stand the test of time. Some are great (read the post I wrote about the five greatest villains), Some are underappreciated like the Scarecrow and some of them are really annoying. Bennett has stood the test of time. His loud mustache and poor choice in clothing has made him an underground cult hero who deserves a spot in the B-list bad guy Expendables.
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Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted
Fun, exuberant and beautiful to look at. Madagascar 3 is a breezy film that features circus afros, fantastic action scenes and an odd love story between a Ducati riding bear and a king lemur. I wasn’t a fan of the first film and I didn’t watch the sequel but after listening to the Empire film magazine podcast I rented the the film. The folks at Empire gave the film four stars and applauded the insanity and sight gags. The four stars were well deserved because the film is a delight to the senses and packs a comedic punch.
The film opens with the heroes swimming from Africa to Monaco in search of the fantastic penguins. You know the movie is on to something when the characters can swim vast lengths with no question. The film has a madcap anything goes attitude that allowed critics (78% RT) and audiences ($728 million worldwide) to appreciate it more than the predecessors. Also, indie king Noah Baumbach (Squid and the Whale, Greenberg) is credited for the screenplay which meant there was more nuance then a film like this deserves. Richard Corliss from TIME Magazine sums it up perfectly when he wrote:
“I have to give props to a movie that ascends from eccentricity to insanity without losing its footing.”
Insanity is correct. This film is so intelligently nonsensical and bombastic it feels like a roller coaster on top of a roller coaster. Sometimes you have to sit back, relax and appreciate characters who effortlessly swim thousands of miles to entertain you.
The animals quickly cause a ruckus and are hunted by the insane Captain Chantal Dubois. The character voiced by Frances McDormand is a mixture of Cruella Deville and the Terminator. She is an unstoppable force of nature who can sniff like a bloodhound and is lethal with a dart gun. She is a perfect bad guy who only wants to put Alex the lions head on her wall.
The animals buy a fledgling circus in hopes of making it through Europe and back to America. This allows new characters to be introduced and creates a catchy new jingle about Circus Afros. The shows are marvels of bright lights, nonsensical acrobatics and dogs flying around on jet packs. I love that they are absolutely bonkers and defy gravity and logic. Lions jump through tiny rings, neon colors are ablaze and countless stoners will be pleasantly surprised by the visuals presented to them.
The thing I appreciate most about this threequel is that it is in no way phoned in. The creators have earned enough money and played the studio game long enough to the make the film they want. It has a madcap vibe that was lacking in the first film and the animation and 3D keep getting better and better. Where else will you see a Lemur falling in love with a bear whilst doing doughnuts in the Parthenon? The movie opens with an impressionistic dream and quickly explodes into a chase involving mopeds and a van with no brakes powered by a nuclear reactor.
Watch Madagascar 3. Appreciate circus afros, Try to jump through tiny hoops. Be first in line for the Penguin spinoff in 2015.
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Rock of Ages
Rock of Ages began as an off Broadway show starring Chris Hardwicke and Tenacious D member Kyle Gass. It was a raunchy little musical that featured dialogue as segways to rock.
After a successful Broadway run the little show that rocked hit the big screen with a huge cast and mixed results. It is an odd mixture of bland fun, cheeky raunch and a monkey named Hey Man. I legitimately thought it was about to end then realized 40 minutes were left. Rock of Ages is overly long with too many actors but features some laughs and a bonkers all-in performance from Tom Cruise. His character Stacee Jaxx is a washed up arena rocker who has consumed so much scotch his blood has been turned into Glenlivet. His duet with Malin Akerman is a highlight of the film and makes you wish the film had more rock/raunch/silly moments.
The film centers around a naive yet sweet singer played by Julianne Hough who gets a job at the famous rock club The Bourbon Room. She meets another good looking person and together they meet cute, fall in love, break up, become a stripper or join a boy band then reunite and sing some Journey.
The film also features Alec Baldwin and Russel Brand as two very confused club owners. Alec Baldwin rocks his wig with aplomb while Brand is Brand (which isn’t a bad thing).
There are about 134 other featured actors who are clearly relishing their roles in this big musical. The problem is there is nothing distinguishing about their characters. They are stereotypes who occasionally sing well. The most memorable character trait is the mustache that Paul Giamatti rocks. It is a miracle of girth and length.
There is fun to be had with Rock of Ages. However, the two hour running time spreads the funny out so it might be a chore finding the laughs. If you like Tom Cruise, angry baboons and mustaches that inspire nightmares you will love Rock of Ages
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Sound of My Voice
DIY independent science fiction done well. Co-Writer and stat Brit Marling continues her trend of good ideas and vague endings. She burst on the independent scene with a duo of intelligent talkies Another Earth and Sound of My Voice. Sound of My Voice is the story of a couple trying to infiltrate a cult and prove the leader to be a hoax. What they don’t expect is that the leader is a charismatic blond from 2054 (?) who can run vocal circles around her followers.
The film is a neat blend of capable film-making, solid acting and a low budget. It feels like Primer (time travel) meets Martha Marcy May Marelene (cult life) It is a vehicle for Co-writer and star Marling. She has a screen presence similar to Elizabeth Olsen and seems content with telling small, confounding and intelligent science fiction stories. At times the film plays too much like a vehicle for Marling to flex her acting and writing chops. However, She holds the screen well and I do appreciate her habit of not making things easy.
Roger Ebert summed it up well with this quote:
“The Sound of My Voice never precisely declares whether her story is true. Without going into detail, I can say that the film never precisely declares anything to be true.”
Is it a violent cult? Is she crazy? Is she from the future? Why did she sing a Cranberries song? Will the duo get sucked in? Why do they wear so many hoodies?
There isn’t much to the film but I think Marling intended it this way. Sound of My Voice is a neat little film told by a unique voice who hopefully continues to create and realize she doesn’t need so many monologues.
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The Campaign
Will Ferrell and. Zach Galifianakis play North Carolina Republicans fighting for a congressional seat. They are both dumb, odd and everything a liberal Hollywood actor thinks Republicans are. The biggest problem with this film is instead of creating a unique narrative it is an attack on former political issues. It pokes fun at ballot counting, gun wounds, affairs, big money, alcoholism, improperly pronounced words and features Greenday songs.
The best parts of this satire are the moments when the creators strive for originality. Instead of force feeding obvious humor the movie should have toned down on the personas of each actor and allowed them to create something new. The Will/Zach DNA is so prevalent it makes you miss the days of Anchorman, Hangover and Out Cold (not a good movie but I enjoyed it). It is unfair to compare any satire to Dr. Strangelove but what that movie excelled at was creating memorable characters. You know all their names and the moments they had are stuff of comedy legend. The Campaign wants to entertain but doesn’t strive for intelligent humor and thinks the funny actors are enough. The result is a breezy 85 minutes that is quickly forgotten.
The film does provide several funny moments and a couple big laughs. Ferrell has mastered the boisterous man child who speaks loudly and calls pugs “tiny little munchkin butts.” His Cam Brady is a volatile man who gets hyped by “listening to Metallica in a sauna while doing pushups.” However, a rogue voice message gets him in trouble and hispoll numbers suffer which allow Zach to enter the race.
Zach plays a man whom focus groups call “odd, clammy, probably Serbian and looks like the Travelocity gnome.” Dylan McDermott takes the clammy gnome and turns him into a tiny dynamo of dumb. He becomes a vicious little pug who will do anything to win and is responsible for keeping Dylan’s supply of Honey Nut Cheerio’s stocked.
There is an inspired scene where Will has to recite the Lord’s Prayer and takes the lead from a pantomiming Jason Sudekis. It leads to a decent set piece that doesn’t feel like the actors shoving improvisation down our throats. Judd Apatow is another director who allows his actors to imrov but he also incorporates an interesting story to serve as a buoy for the copious amounts of dialogue. Without the narrative the films feel like a mash up of scenes on top of a speeding locomotive. The Campaign is 82 minutes of dirty political satire that thinks it is smarter than it is.
The biggest problem with this film is that it thinks it is incredibly smart but still incorporates laughs around tickle sh*ts, boobs and certain feelings about Drew Carey. Characters are not important and are dwarfed by the next potential laugh. This movie has memorable scenes but nobody will be talking about the characters because there is nothing to them.
Watch The Campaign. Laugh a few times. Cross your fingers that Anchorman 2 won’t go down the same road.
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The Greatest Movie Monster of all Time
Forget Universal’s Wolfman, Frankenstein, Invisible Man and Dracula. Trantor the Troll from Ernest Scared Stupid is the scariest monster of all time. David Caruso from CSI: Sunglasses couldn’t investigate his crime scenes. Whoever is on Criminal Minds couldn’t profile the diminutive monster. He is a powerful force of nature who can stop trucks in their tracks, snot wildly and has zero fear of pure Bulgarian Miak.
The scariest thing is that there never was a pattern to his madness. Fellow baddies like Jason attacked people at a camp, Freddy stalked dreams, Dracula sucked blood at night and Demons love pea soup. Trantor kidnaps children at will and is small enough to hide under beds. If he missed one kid he would just grab another in hopes of growing massive brussel sprouts.
I watched this film in 1991 and it gave me nightmares for months. Would a snotty troll turn me into a wooden statue? When I looked under the bed would it sneakily lay on the other side to scare me? Would I have enough milk to splash onto it’s evil little head.
The only thing that kept me from having more extreme nightmares were Ernest’s one-liners:
“How ’bout a bumper sandwich, Boogerlips?”
“Oh, I sure hope you’re from Keebler!”
“You’d better stay away. I know jujitsu, kung fu, karate, tai chi, and I saw “Hulkamania” three times. Once in slow-mo.”
“He looked like a big giant Mr. Potato Head. Except he was shaped more like a watermelon.”
“Nuh uh, ain’t no trees in Botswana, nuh uh, I know, I AM a Botswanian lumberjack, and I ain’t never had a job…”
“We got him, Rimshot, we got ol’ Honkerhead himself.”
Ernest Scared Stupid is a fantastic film full of zany moments, big jumps and creative use of the word “honkerhead.” Is my love of a childhood favorite clouding my judgement? Yes, it is. However, It is in no way crazier than my adoration for Surf Ninjas.
Also, check out Troll Hunter on Netflix. It is a wonderfully inventive and creative film that will make you smile and appreciate the beauty of Troll cinema.
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John’s Horror Corner: Altitude (2010), a totally credible movie about a giant flying squid monster.
See those tentacles on the cover there? Yup! Movie SPOILED!
MY CALL: Okay. Just skip it. I plan on spoiling the movie for you. Just trust me when I say it will be even more spoiled for you if you watch it on your own. I enjoyed laughing at this flick even though everything was spoiled for me. Hell, the movie poster spoiled the movie for everyone! I’ll just leave the very end a disappointing mystery for your own viewing disapproval. [D+] WHAT TO WATCH INSTEAD: Hmmm. Even though it’s not even out yet I’m tempted to go with 7500 (directed by Takashi Shimizu; The Grudge, Ju-On and sequels). It also takes place on a plane and “something” starts picking people off. Only these people represent a larger cast in a movie that will actually make it to theaters. Otherwise, try Final Destination 5. They make fun use of a plane. BUDGET: The effects are too bad for theaters but feel just about right for the sci-fi network, if that good.
Five friends—Sara (Jessica Lowndes; The Devil’s Carnival, The Haunting of Molly Hartley), Mel (Scream Queen Julianna Guill; who doesn’t even take her top off like she did in that sex scene from the Friday the 13th remake, The Apparition), Cory (Ryan Donowho; The O. C.), Bruce (Landon Liboiron; The Howling: Reborn) and Sal (Jake Weary; As the World Turns)—set off on a trip together on a six passenger plane piloted by Sara, whose mother died while piloting a six passenger plane (dun dun dunnnnn!).
What? Oh, yeah. Like, I’m totes a pilot.
As we meet these late teens we find an immediate sexual triangle between Sal, Cory and Mel (who’s dating uber-douche-jock Sal). Bruce is Sara’s out-of-place friend-with-benefits who is suspiciously squirrely before getting on the plane—feels like the opening of Final Destination (2000), doesn’t it? They play out the various forms of teen angst well and clique-like jabs vying for top alpha dog status start almost immediately—still feeling like the Final Destination series.
Just as the bro-jibes start to hit a little too hard for comfort and the boy-girl tension starts rising there is a malfunction with the plane preventing them from descending. Then, as if it came out of nowhere, they get trapped in a dark cloudy superstorm at high altitudes and now communication and navigation instruments are disabled as well. Already, this film feels like a disaster film where the greatest downfall is the decomposition of social unity of the group… Sort of Lord of the Flies takes flight.
The problems continue to add up: distrust among the teens heightens, the jerk-off jock Sal is drunk and thinks he sees some “thing” in the clouds, they’re losing fuel for some reason, they have too much cargo, they’re lost, two of them get into a fist fight, another has a panic attack, another overdoses on drugs, and if they try to descend through the dark clouds to put an end to all this nonsense they just may hit a Canadian mountain and die! But when the wings ice up in high altitudes and someone “has to go outside” to manually fix the rudder-thing that is jammed and forcing them to ascend yet higher they finally work together. But, hold on. Some teenager is gonna’ fix the plane wing while dangling outside of a plane soaring through a storm? Huh!?!? Well, this leads to “quite a realistic” scene which, in no way, made me glad I gave this flick a chance.
Yup. That happens. He does that…from a plane…at 20 thousand feet, at 200+ mph…successfully. This is as accurate as the medical science backing “The Human Centipede.”
The movie progresses (or, degenerates) and these teens start to die one by one—like ya’ do. As if we needed anything else to compound these kids’ fate, Sal sees “the thing in the sky” again. Yup, the tentacled thing that was spoiled for you the moment you saw the movie poster or blu-ray cover. Evidently there’s a gargantuan flying squid monster up there with them. How it flies, I have no idea!
“Just saw a giant flying squid!
Just saw a giant flying squid!
My friend just got eaten by a giant flying…”
Anyway, after fixing the plane—oh, right, the teenager fixed a plane wing with a few dedicated kicks—so it can finally descend they somehow fail to see the ground after 20 minutes! How high were they? If they weren’t panicking yet, now it’s really setting in. They start throwing around crazy hypotheses like they’re part of an experiment, they’ve been drugged, or it’s all a dream. Thankfully this brainstorming session is interrupted by the thunderous rumblings of the sky kraken.
At this point the aero-octupus is trying to kill them and they’re trying to kill each other. It’s anybody’s game really.
So what’s going on here? The reason this is all happening to them is unspeakably stupid and what saves the final survivors is somehow upsettingly yet STUPIDER. The action finale against the flying octopus should aggravate any and all viewers on the basis of physics, gravity, silliness, and the fact that a skinny teen was in a tug-of-warring stalemate against a 50 ton airborne octopod. I’ll repeat that last bit even though I’m giving the “big scene” of the movie away here…a teenager pits his strength against something over 500 times his size and ties in a tug-of-war.
This is not happening in the sea. It’s happening 20 thousand feet above the ground at 200 mph!!!! I’m pretty sure that their plane would get shredded in the tail winds of this monster, which, by the way, is flying 200 mph backwards while assaulting this plane.
And the kid basically out-muscles this thing? This giant, disembodied Emperor Krang?
SCREW THIS MOVIE! If you thought that an entire movie filmed in the space of a six-passenger airplane was destined to fail, you were right! I dare I doubt you.
Mystery, SOLVED. I researched it in this comic book I happened to have with me.
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Bad Movie Tuesday: The Darkest Hour (2011)
John Leavengood, here, pinch-hitting for your regular Bad Movie Tuesday forefather The Hof. Today, I thought I’d warn you away from the movie so bad we have dedicated now two Bad Movie Tuesdays to it. Click here to read The Hof’s review.
Emile Hirsch, what happened to you? You’re playing a douchy wannabe software entrepreneur whose best lines involve flirting with a flight attendant over airplane-cell phone propaganda. We’re only a few minutes into this movie and I already finding myself disliking your protagonist. I’ve seen you quiet and soulful in Into the Wild (2007), humorously innocent in the amazing The Girl Next Door (2004), credibly authoritative in Alpha Dog (2006)…and now this? Did you lose a bet or just piss off one too many directors with vegan, gluten-free, organic catering demands? Simply accepting this role and this script was a failure before the cameras even started rolling. We’ll call this strike one.
Anyway, this software designer and his partner are on a business trip to Moscow to market a social networking app for navigating the club circuit in any major city in the world. [Why did they need to go to Moscow for this? Because it was cheaper to film the movie there.] Hirsch plays the more laid back, carefree partner who is always telling his business-oriented friend to relax. Not even ten minutes into this flick they are double-crossed by a third party and ousted out of their own deal. This really deviates from the standard formula. The Hostel series, The Chernobyl Diaries, Wrong Turn, Wolf Creek and The Cabin in the Woods rely more simply on a group of friends going on a vacation. It’s simple but it works. You never find yourself saying “what’s the point in them being in Moscow for this business deal” and the movie’s credibility is maintained until the real fun starts when the players begin to drop one by one to whatever the random malevolent force the writers dreamed up. That’s strike two.
So our boys go out clubbing to drink away their failed business venture and meet up with two cuties. They seem to get along when suddenly there’s a world-scale power outage and countless energy-based life forms fall from the sky like snow-flaky embers aglow with Tinkerbell’s fairy dust. They start incinerating people like vampires to Blade’s silver katana, people start running and screaming, and we’re only fifteen minutes into the movie. Well, at least we didn’t have to suffer through the business deal plot any more.
As people scream and turn into aerosol compost our heroes, now numbering five with the addition of the shark who screwed them over on their app idea, hide in a restaurant store room. A week after the invisible, incinerating invasion began, they emerge to go to the US Embassy…because they wouldn’t have been charred, right? Oh, and the slick douchebag has turned into an annoying high strung coward. Those characters are so annoying and they never get killed off as fast as you’d like.
The streets of Moscow have turned into an I Am Legend, soulless dust bowl of abandoned cars and ghostly edifices. Hirsch leads the way as they remain ever vigilant. Because these energy-based aliens activate electronic devices (i.e., lights) when they are present, our heroes learn to travel when it’s safest: night.
At one point Hirsch avoids detection by standing perfectly still as the creature just strolled by unaware on the other side of a window. Considering that these things see lifeforms like glowing fireballs of infrared, making them extremely obvious, I think that moment of idiocy makes for strike three. They can’t see through glass or metal cages? Whatever! Now I have to watch these idiots walking around like glass shield-bearing knights. Just stupid!
Along the way their group grows by two, one of which is an annoying Russian girl with such memorable lines as “It’s okay, I’m tough” and “I am not a kid!” Barf! I hope she dies next. But luckily the other addition, a wacked out electrician, invented a Ghostbusters microwave gun to combat our electric invaders.
I guess the effects were tolerable. But how many times can you entertain me with people getting jerked into the air for a second and then getting turned to spiraling cinders by some invisible dust devil alien? They shatter glass and detonate doors—boring. After they disintegrated the first few people and a dog the kills got boring. Our heroes start freaking out every time a breeze kicks up some debris and then the dumb shit really hits the fan. They meet dumber tough-talking characters who fight the aliens in dumb ways wearing dumb outfits amid ridiculously dumb scenarios and give dumb speeches about preserving every human life they can. Just truckloads and truckloads of dumb! Oh, and eventually you get to see these aliens and, you guessed it, they look dumb! The worst effects in the movie were dedicated to showing us what the aliens truly look like without their invisibility shield—they look like some weird floating head monster from Doom. It’s most upsettingly dumb when Hirsch kills an alien by throwing a charred piece of another dead alien at it. One throw? Really? Climax-fail! Sorry, we’re out of strikes.
In the end I wished everyone died. The quality of this movie actually decreased as the running time wore on and, accordingly, I turned on the characters more and more with every passing scene. I won’t say skip this movie. But if you choose to watch it, watch and mock it with friends.
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John’s Horror Corner: Xtro (1983), the weirdest sci-fi horror thing you’ll ever watch
Not Safe For Work:
Folks, let’s be real. No article called John’s Horror Corner should be considered suitable for workplace viewing. While not all such reviews include brow-raising images of the macabre, you just may encounter images of aliens or evil babies tearing out of their mothers, melting flesh, gaping wounds with hanging entrails, and other disturbing, gore-slathered imagery that you don’t want you boss to see on your screen when looking over your shoulder. THANKS FOR READING!!
MY CALL: So awesomely inappropriate, mentally unbalanced and deliciously gross! [B] IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: This is essentially an off the wall rip off of Alien (1979). So watch the Alien series all the way through starting with Prometheus (2012). Like the cheap, gory, exploitative Corman-Alien-rips of the 80s? Then aim for the acceptably awful Alien Contamination (1980), Breeders (1986) or Deep Space (1988).
A slimy, fugly crab-walking alien with a deadly tentacle tongue crash lands in England. In the spirit of Alien impregnation, it wastes no time before mouth-raping the first woman it encounters with what seems analogous to a slimy alien penis. Quite groggy, the woman finds the alien evidently melted all over her flow after it’s “finished.” This poor woman is instantly pregnant and gives bloody disgusting birth on her kitchen floor to none other than Tony’s (Simon Nash; Brazil) father Sam (Philip Sayer; The Hunger), who was abducted by aliens years ago. For something that makes absolutely no sense I must admit, I find this AWESOME!
And then we have another unwanted evil alien pregnancy.
It’s a boy! A 170 pound boy.
So alien-birth-Sam has no idea where he’s been for the past three years and Tony’s mother (Bernice Stegers; Macabre, Doll’s Eye) is not too pleased about it. But she is willing to bring him back into her home, much to her boyfriend Joe’s displeasure.
Dad isn’t the same. Dad sloppily eats his son’s pet snake’s eggs and gives his son a disgusting pulsating alien hickey which bestows him with telekinesis and other nifty powers. Tony abuses this power by turning his GI Joe into a man-sized assassin to kill the annoying lady who lives in the apartment downstairs by bayoneting her to death.
Their live-in 21-year old French nanny Analise (Maryam d’Abo; Tales from the Crypt, Something is Out There, Chillers) is gorgeous. However, she seems to have no place in this story beyond her occasional gratuitous nudity. But then I finally found her purpose: to be abducted by an evil clown midget that Tony manifested with his psychic powers. Then, after Tony mouth-impregnates her stomach and cocoons her, he sends his live-ammo’d toy tank and a MF’n panther to kill her boyfriend. Random! Analise has now been mutated into some weird alien egg-laying thing with a big, gaping…ummmm…how do I put this? Ovipositor 😉
Sam’s flesh starts falling off as he apparently reverts to yet another alien form and, like father like son, Tony is also transforming. They go off to space leaving Tony’s mother to tend to a refrigerator full of Analise’s future mouth-raping eggs.
There you go. A happy ending!
Movies, Films & Flix 
