Movie Review - Stung

Stung

2015

Rat Pack Film Produktion / XYZ films : Entertainment One / IFC Films / IFC Midnite

4.75

Giant wasps attacking a garden party; it's a simple premise with a simple story, so what could go wrong...

Everything...

But first, let's address the good issues about the movie.  The wasps are well thought-out and generated and they are also one of the better creations of the writer Adam Aresty who has them able to multiply by injecting something into their victims.  This has the effect of creating ultra large wasps from their hosts.  A tad unbelievable but this is a monster movie horror film.  I even liked the fact that Aresty didn't even try to explain the event with scientific twaddle.

The other good thing about the film is actor Daniele Rizzo who plays the musical entertainment, Larry.  He gets so into his character that he appears to be the only one their intent on earning his wage.  Even veteran Lance Henriksen comes across as being lost and confused for most of the movie.

Now for the bad parts of the movie...

This is listed as a comedy though there's less humour, even dark, here than there are in none comedy flicks,  Only one joke managed to flicker a smile on my face.

The acting; for most of the film the actors, with the exception of Rizzo, look bored and this hinders their performance and portrayal of the characters, which come across as two-dimensional.  This would be a bad thing in just one actor but in ninety percent it had me feeling the same way.

The direction;  Though Benni Diez does try to build some dark and ominous atmosphere, he fails at adding excitement, which is needed when the wasps' attack.  He's also not so good at filming comedy scenes; the beginning of the film is so badly filmed it comes across as monotonous rather than humourous and I wanted to turn off then and there.  But being a monster movie fan I had to wait for the monsters to turn up at least, didn't I(?)

What this film requires is a shot of life and energy.  If it's on telly when there appears to be nothing worth watching (like reality TV) then you could give it a try.

Movie Review - Mongolian Death Worm

Mongolian Death Worm

2010

Andrew Stevens Entertainment / Black Chrome Productions / Cinetel Films / RHI Entertainment / Sweet Tater :  SyFy / Eagle Films

6.5 / 10

Being a Tremors fan, of course, I was going to watch this movie and I'm glad I did as it turned out to be better than some of the Tremors sequels.  However, don't get me wrong this isn't a fantastic film, though I did find it entertaining.

The story isn't that original and the climax is as predictable as it can be, the writers, Neil Elman, Kevin Leeson, and Steven R Monroe (who also directs) doesn't give the audience anything new or any surprises along the way.  It's pretty average standard fayre for SyFy movies.

Monroe however, does a slightly better job of directing and goes for the rollercoaster effect which works well.  When the action starts he builds up the pace and the slows it down accordingly at other times.  The trouble is he's not too good at building up tension, anticipation, and excitement;  any of these would have made for a better film.

It's Sean Patrick Flanery as the wise-guy treasure hunter Daniel, and George Cheung, as the self-confident police officer, Timur, that make this film an enjoyable watch.  Their characters get the best lines and when they meet up you can tell theirs a chemistry between the pair as they work well off one another. The rest of the cast are also good and do a credible job with their characters and add strength to the story and film.

The CGI special effects for 2010 were pretty good, remember this is a TV movie so doesn't have the production of bigger budget movies.  One of the better aspects of the Death Worm were its teeth.  You definitely do not want a love bite from one of these.  

If you like Tremors or monster movies then you may like this, it's at least worth watching when it come on again, though I'd say I wouldn't spend money on buying it.

Movie Review - Lake Placid

Lake Placid

(1999)

Fox 2000 Pictures / Phoenix Pictures / Rocking Chair Productions : Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

8 / 10

Now, this is a monster movie for the twenty-first century.  A good romp through the bizarreness of science fiction.  In the fifties, it was the fear of radiation; now, it's mother nature.

There's no explanation of the killer croc being where it is, though all the experts say it shouldn't be there.  Be we don't need to know why it's in the lake, all we are worried about is the gory fun that will ensue because it is.

The strange thing about the film is that it's not really about the two lead roles.  I think this is down to the writers developing better roles in the Hecter Cyr played flamboyantly by Oliver Platt and Sheriff Hank Keough spiritedly portrayed by Brenden Gleeson and the repartee they have between them.  Then when Betty White come on the scene as Mrs Delores Bickerman, the croc's mother, she steals the show.  Which is a shame for Bill Pullman and Bridget Fonda as they look adrift next to the minor roles.

The director, Steve Minor does an expert job of building up the pace and keeping the excitement and humour rolling along at an increasing pace.

For the most part, the special effects are superb some of the hardest things to do are to create fur on animals and get their movements correct the digital artists did really good work here, and it was 1999.  Stan Winston and his studios looked after the hard effects and the puppet crocodile, which is amazing in its lifelike quality.

If you're looking for good fun that you don't need to think about just enjoy then I'd recommend this movie to you.  There are laughs, there's action, there are man-eating crocodiles... what more could you ask for... Oh Yeah, there's Betty White... nuff said!

Movie Review - Mimic

Mimic

(1997)

Dimension Films / Miramax : Buena Vista International

7.5 / 10

Man's greatest enemy turns out to be the cockroach that carries a deadly virus which is devastating the American population.  Enter Entomologist Dr Susan Tyler who has genetically modified a group of insects to become the cockroach's  greatest enemy.

Years later when the pandemic has been averted, something else is starting to kill off the human race.  We are not top of the food chain.  Though the designed insects were sterile and were engineered to only live six months, nature found a way, as it always does, to set a new balance.

This is a very clever Sci-Fi monster movie that adds thrills and scares into the genetically altered mix.  There are plenty of animals in the world that disguises themselves so they can hide when being hunted... or when hunting.  So why not disguise themselves as humans?  The writers, Donald A Wollheim who wrote the original short story, Matthew Robins and Guillermo del Toro, do a great job of using this fact and making this feel realistic.

The realism is also in thanks to Rob Bottin who designed the creature and the character shop and other special effects maestros who brought them to life.  Though released in 1997 the effects are just as strong today twenty years on.  I believe this is the case due to them not relying on CGI.

Del Toro does a brilliant job of bringing the story to the screen and adding his own style and artistry.  He also brings the best out of his cast to make the characters believable, though, with the likes of Mira Sorvino, Giancarlo Giannini, Charles S Dutton, Josh Brolin, and F Murray Abraham, it couldn't have been too difficult.  For this type of film, this is a stellar cast.

Though it's not the best film Guillermo del Toro has created, it isn't his worst.  If you have yet to see this movie then I would say give it a try, especially if you like monster movies, science fiction, or horror.

Movie Review - The Hatching

The Hatching

(2016)

Creativity Capitol / Media Pro One / Sabre Films / Spice Factory : Grindstone Entertainment / Lionsgate Home Entertainment

2 / 10

As a lover of B-Movie Monster Movies, I really was looking forward to this one as it's set in England in Somerset and stars Andrew Lee Potts, Thomas Turgoose, and Justin Lee Collins.

On paper, this sounds like it would have been brilliant, however, what we get are an unfunny comedy and a rubber crocodile monster movie.  In this day and age, we should be able to do better with the special effects.  Even if you have to resort to creating an artificial creature, that is pivotal to the plot, at least do it right.  The croc looks like it was built out of leftover Wellingtons and if it took a bite out of you all you would do was laugh, as there's no skull and no jawbones... it's all loose and floppy.

There are also some dismembered body parts that also suffer from the no bone syndrome, I've never seen a floppier leg.  These atrocious effects are the only thing that's funny in this movie as writers, Michael Anderson and Nick Squire, aren't the best at writing comedy and it really shows in this movie.  Apart from the laughable effects, the comedy falls flat on its face - and not in a good way like slapstick.

Michael Anderson who also directed this picture doesn't seem to be able to get the best out of his cast.  Potts and Turgoose are very good actors and I would watch anything they are in but this proves that under poor direction even good actors can come off weak and insincere.

If you like comedic monster movies then stay away from this film.

Movie Review - Zoombies

Zoombies

(2016)

The Asylum : Amazon / The Asylum / Vendetta Films

4.5 / 10

I love bad movies and The Asylum makes some of the worst, just look at the Sharknado saga and the Z-Nation television series, which are both awesome.

Unfortunately, this film doesn't have the same coolness to it.  It should have because the story is sound.  Due to a couple of infected monkeys, the whole of a new zoo is infected with a virus that kills the diseased then reanimates them in a killing frenzy.  However, it's the acting and directing that make this film poor, luckily the tongue-in-cheek style of this film keeps it from failing.

Most of the acting is wooden, with the exception of Kim Neilsen who plays Dr Ellen Rodgers and LaLa Nester, as her daughter Thea, who is actually the best actress on the set.  The award for the best hammed-up over-acting award goes to Brianna Joy Chomer who turns Amber into a maniacal, self-centred hothead.  This character is so way over the top it's as annoying as hell and helps to spoil the movie.

It's a low budget affair so you expect the special effects to be poor, but on the whole, the CGI is passable I especially liked the attacking giraffes.   Though in the same scene the director holds too long on the cutaways of the actors who are being attacked and because there are no Giraffe's in the scene it makes the entire scene implausible.  Since I like bad movies, I loved the man in the gorilla suit.  Sweet.

If the acting were better and the direction tighter then this would have been a more enjoyable and pleasing movie.

If you love B-movie films and The Asylum then this is worth a watch, though not more than once.

Movie Review - Terrordactyl

Terrordactyl

aka Jurassic Wars

2016

3rd Films : MarVista Entertainment / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

2 / 10

I had some hopes for this film, not high ones, after all, it is a budget B-Movie Monster flick.  Though MarVista has been distributing these type of movies for years now, I thought they would be "Cherry Picking" the better ones.  However, the budget must have been spent on the CGI and Model-FX as the rest of the movie was pitiful in the extreme.

So, the good first:  There were times when the CGI Terrordactyls were pretty decent and quite believable.  Unfortunately, viewers only remember the badly rendered scenes.  When the Terrordactyls are swarming and flying through the city and around the apartment block, these are the best CGI scenes.  The worst being the whenever a human gets snatched by one, these scenes made me smile in their badness.

Then there's the puppetry when you get the one-to-one fight scenes with the humans V the Terrordactyls.  The major drawback is the budget, once again.  But to be fair the 'Dactyls aren't too bad, that being said there are times when the movement of these puppets are awkward and I even felt embarrassed for the team working on them.  Especially the part in the apartment where the 'Dactyls keep lining up for the heroes to shoot them down - just like all the fairground games... it would've been funnier had the director decided to play calliope music over the scene.

This is another area where the film failed, the writer and director, Don Bitters III and Geoff Reisner, try to install humour throughout the film, though most of this falls flat.  Sometimes, due to the writer, but most of all due to the actors.

The best I can say about the actors is that they were below par and, at times, annoying.  The worst was Jonas' maniacal laugh, which wasn't even called for.  To be fair, they didn't have too much to work with, thanks to the writer, Don Bitters, whose characters were stereotypical. Even though characters in these genre films are usually stereotyped, in this movie there also boring to the N'th degree and two-dimensional.  Then you have the inane backstory of the Terrordacytls having been blown into space when the dinosaur-killing meteor hit the earth...  What else from Earth's past is waiting in space to fall upon us?

Hopefully, NOTHING by this film crew!

Except for the CGI artists.

I really don't understand why you want to make a movie (or do anything, for that matter) and not give it your best effort.  If this is their best effort than they should start working in call centers and stop inflicting your audiences with half-baked ideas and movies,  Give us something decent - and yes even Bad films can be entertaining "SHARKNADO!!!"

Don't waste your time on this badly written, badly acted, nonsense.  Go give blood - at least you get a cup of tea and biscuit after.

Bigfoot (2012)

The Asylum

0 / 10

Oh my God, what a travesty.  This should have a tagline - "How Not To Make A Movie"

I love bad movies and The Asylum make some of the baddest around.  However, they know that they are bad so they film them tongue-in-cheek.  The Asylum films have been a secret love of mine and now they are giving us the great Z-Nation I'm proud to shout their names loud.  They have also done some pretty decent films - The Reeker 2 was even better than the original and had a more defined storyline.  Their adaptation of "War of the Worlds" brought the H G Wells novel up-to-date and was so much better than the dreadful Tom Cruise vehicle, even though they had a far less rich budget.  I even liked their version of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" over the big budget remake.  Then there are the AWESOME SHARKNADO films which show you how a B-movie should be filmed.

So with their output, it's no surprise that one day they would make a really atrocious movie.

The other thing, after The Asylum, which drew me to this film was nostalgia.  The had Bruce Davison playing the Sheriff, and has been a favourite actor of mine since I saw him in Harry and the Henderson's... yes, he was back in Bigfoot territory.  Along with Sherilyn Fenn, Howard Hesserman, and a cameo from the great Alice Cooper; who was the best thing, by far, in this film.

So what made this film so bad?

Everything.  I know it was 2012 so I can let some of the CGI effects slide, though on the whole, they were bad and a worst, laughable.

Next was the acting itself, only Alice Cooper seemed to put any effort into his character, where all the other actors just turned up on set and read their lines.  The worst were Bruce Davison (who seemed tired and dispassionate), and Barry Williams (who seemed disjointed from the entire movie and cast).

The writers of this trash, Brian Brinkman and Micho Rutare, are the main reason this movie and story are so terrible.  They hit every cliche in the book, which isn't such a bad thing as this is what The Asylum, is all about.  However, the characterisation of the cast is so two-dimensional that you just don't care. The reason why Alice Cooper is the best character on screen is because he's portraying himself, and we already relate to him and the persona he creates.  The writers just don't bring any depth or interest to the rest of the cast, so you don't care what happens to them.

Lastly, the direction was all over the place.  Which I'm really sorry to say as Bruce Davison directed the film.  This movie is not his finest hour.  Ah, well, at least it's far behind him now.

If you have a chance to see this film...  Grab some paint... go paint the room you've been putting off until tomorrow while listening to Alice Cooper...  Then sit back and watch the paint dry.  This would be more appealing than watching this film.