Bug-Eyed Movies

MegaForce

2010-08-09T01:09:05Z

Directed by: Hal Needham
Written by: Bob Kachler, James Whittaker, etc.
Starring: Barry Bostwick, Persis Khambatta, Edward Mulhare

A Turd is still a Turd even in the Eighties.

When the fictional country of Sardun gets fed up with the hit and run border attacks by their equally fictional neighbors Gamibia, they turn to Megaforce for help. Megaforce is a covert multinational military team composed of the worst stereotypes each country has to offer. The top Sardunian military officials, Gen. Edward Byrne-White (Edward Mulhare) and Major Zara (Persis Khambatta), arrange for a secret rendezvous with the elite group. After a display of their martial prowess (shooting balloons with rockets from their black and gold motorbikes) Ace Hunter, the baby blue bandana-wearing badass leader of Megaforce, takes them on a tour of their secret base. We meet Egg, the resident absent-minded scientist, who invents the stuff our heroes use in their missions. At this point I realized that Megaforce was more than just a collection of national stereotypes. It was also filled with broad caricatures pretending to be characters.

Moving on, Ace devises a plan to destroy a military base in less than 4 minutes and lead the Gamibian forces across the border where Sardun can officially attack them. Major Zara trains with Megaforce so she can join the assault. Training with Ace apparently means skydiving with him alone while cheesy love music plays in the background. In the end Ace decides against bringing Zara along as the presence of a woman would be too distracting for his manly men. They’ve already fallen in love though, and planned to meet up in England when all this is over.

Everything goes according to plan. Megaforce barges in, apparently their gold and black vehicles changes color for these covert assignments. The base is destroyed under 4 minutes, we know this because there’s a handy countdown clock in the corner of the screen. General Guerrera, commander of the Gamibian mercenaries and former comrade of Ace, has a surprise for Megaforce. Sardun cannot allow the team to cross the border because that would make their raid a n official act of war – wait a minute? I thought they were trying to do that?! Who cares who starts the damn war! Hold on, dear readers, it only gets dumber from here. Since the only way out of Gamibia is a dry lakebed that can double as a landing strip, Guerrera decides to park all of his forces there. Except that Megaforce is a covert military group with stealth motorbikes that can cross the border under the cover of darkness. It seems that both Ace Hunter and General Guerrera went to the same special military school because they both decide that a confrontation on the dry lakebed was the best idea ever. Guerrara concentrates all his firepower on Megaforce, ignoring the two defenseless carrier planes landing to pick his enemies up. Our heroes board the planes safely but Ace is still missing. He confronts Guerrera and says the greatest line ever written in the English language. “The good guys always win, even in the eighties!”

Ace chases the taxiing plane on a Megaforce bike and just when you thought this couldn’t get any sillier, the bike flies. Never mind that they’re running for their lives, Ace performs a couple of barrel rolls to the delight of his cheering men, none of whom remembered to lay down cover fire for their commander. Megaforce lands in Sardun so Ace can remind Zara of their date and blow up a Sardunian helicopter for fun. Zara and General Byrne-White laugh it off like it was a kid’s prank and Ace blows his special lady a kiss with his thumb.

There are so many things that Megaforce got wrong that it’s easier to say what they got right, nothing. Seriously though, I give them props for trying to do a GI Joe/Mask type action movie back then. It seems that the producers’ hearts were in the right place, it’s their minds I’m worried about. Megaforce is what happens when you let a roomful of 5 year old boys write your big budget movie. Everything that I found cool as a little kid was in this film, rocket shooting bikes, holograms, dune buggies with lasers and flying kisses instead of all that real kissing that grownups do, yuck!
I love the fact that it’s meant to be a summer blockbuster that failed spectacularly instead of the straight to DVD/SyFy fare that we usually watch. If you want to see a real train wreck of a movie you can’t go wrong with Megaforce.

Best Trailer Ever Sharktopus!

2010-07-16T09:37:07Z

Matt Leach - http://www.mcleach.com

The upcoming Syfy Original movie “Sharktopus” finally has a trailer out. From the cheesy girl group soundtrack to the surprisingly good monster CGI this looks like it’s gonna blow both Megashark and the Giant Octopus out of the water.

Produced by the “King of B-movies” Roger Corman and starring Eric Roberts this has the makings of a cult classic.

Trailer here

Mega Python vs. Gatoroid!

2010-06-30T15:11:58Z

Asylum and SyFy does it again.They have plumbed the depths of my nightmares and dredged up two of the most frightening creatures for a battle of epic proportions. Tiffany vs Debbie Gibson in Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.

I almost feel bad for the monsters in this monster flick as all eyes will surely be on the two former teen pop stars. Gibson plays an animal rights activist irresponsibly releasing captive pythons from pet stores while Tiffany is a park ranger on the side of the threatened alligators. I’ve read news stories about the ecological damage that pet snakes released into the wild cause but never in my wildest dreams did I say “That sounds like a great Tiffany-Debbie Gibson vehicle!”

Tiffany last starred for SyFy in Mega Piranha and Debbie Gibson in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.

Full story here.

Splice: Same old Dren?

2010-05-20T14:35:01Z

Dren, the genetically engineered creature at the heart of the new film Splice, looks amazing. From the oddly spaced eyes to the reverse articulated legs there’s more than enough alien in Dren to keep you from thinking she’s another sexy posthuman.

The trailer reminds me of “The Hollow Man” and not in a good way. They’re both films that feature an intriguing science fiction idea and amazing effects work to bring that idea to life. I am hoping that “Splice” distances itself from “The Hollow Man” by not degenerating into an average slasher film by the third act.

Dren, incidentally, is also a word used in Sci-Fi’s Farscape as an alien expletive similar to shit. Watching the trailer for “Splice” I kept asking myself “Is this going to be the next Science Fiction gem or is it the same old Dren?”

Here is the international trailer for “Splice” directed by Vincenzo Natali and starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley.

Doctor Who: The Ark In Space

2010-05-13T02:45:38Z

Directed by: Rodney Bennett
Written by: Robert Holmes
Starring: Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Ian Marter

In the 30th century solar flares have left the Earth a barren waste and the only hope for the human race is the space station Nerva. The titular “Ark In Space”, the station is filled with enough cryogenically suspended humans, plants and animals to restart the planet in 5,000 years. Humanity’s knowledge, history and culture is also stored in its vast microfilm library(what? It was the seventies).

Of course everything goes wrong when an alien insectoid creature sneaks in and sabotages their alarm clock. They finally wake up thousands of years later when the Doctor and his companions Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith stumble upon the ark. Unfortunately the humans aren’t the only ones they’ve roused. The alien Wirrn, our bug-eyed monsters from millennia ago also wakes and starts feeding off the still-frozen humans. The station commander, Noah (who else?), is accuses the Doctor of sabotage but changes his mind when he becomes Wirrn food and slowly turns into a giant insect himself. The Doctor, his companions and a couple of reanimated sleepers save the day by jettisoning the Wirrn larvae into space.

Doctor Who is remembered fondly for a lot of things: its charismatic leads, the inventive storylines, the beautiful lady companions but one thing it never had was great special effects. The “Ark in Space” is no exception, the Nerva is a plastic model and looks like it. The larval form of the Wirrn is a man encased in spray painted bubble wrap and its adult form isn’t much better. This wasn’t the strongest story either but it does have Tom Baker, the much loved fourth Doctor, who injects life into every scene. I first saw the “Ark in Space” as a kid and while I remember the plot, the only image I remember from it is Sarah Jane crawling through the airducts. Apparently my 10 year old self suppressed the memory of paper mache monsters and plastic spacecraft so I can only remember the good bits. The DVD did try to improve on the effects by offering a version of the serial with brand new CGI to replace the old miniatures. If you can only take so much budget effects work, the DVD extra is for you.

This is a must watch for any Doctor Who fan but can also serve as a great introduction to the fourth doctor for people just getting into the Classic stories.

Buy Doctor Who: The Ark In Space Now

Watch Clip

Man with the Screaming Brain

2010-04-30T02:16:49Z

Directed by: Bruce Campbell
Written by: Bruce Campbell
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Antoinette Byron, Ted Raimi, Tamara Gorski

You would think that a movie with this much Bruce Campbell would be the greatest thing since the Evil Dead Trilogy (which topped slice bread a long time ago) but apparently there we can have too much of a good thing. The Man With The Screaming Brain(TMWTSB) starts with Bruce and his wife going to the fictional country of Bravoda on business. They meet former KGB cabbie Yegor and they spend the next half hour of the movie in the cab. Meanwhile, in a mad scientist’s lab, Stacy Keach and Ted Raimi are discovering things that will be vital to the plot later. The fun sort of begins when the long boring cab ride ends.

Yegor, Bruce and his wife all end up dead and guinea pigs in Dr. Stacy Keach’s science project. Bruce ends up with half of Yegor’s brain and his wife in a robot body. Realizing that they were killed by the same woman, Tatoya, the hybrid Bruce/Yegor hunt her down while trying to look normal. Normal is the farthest thing from Bruce’s wife as she freaks out and escapes. Lab assistant Ted Raimi(who uses a horrible eastern European accent) goes after her and ends up witnessing the showdown between Bruce/Yegor, Tatoya and robot wife. Hilarity ensues – not. Long story short, Bruce and Yegor decided to share his body and robot wife transferred her brain to Tatoya and they live unusually ever after.

Bruce Campbell is a legend. We’ll always love him for the Evil Dead films and Bubba Ho-Tep but I’m afraid he was wearing too many hats in this production and it shows. You can tell that his heart is in the right place though; TMWTSB has all the elements of an entertaining film it just never gets it quite right. There are one or two scenes where you can see all of its hilarious potential, but most of the time it falls flat on its unfunny face. I’m disappointed, not just because the film didn’t live up to my unrealistic expectations of a film written, directed and starring Bruce Campbell but because the brain didn’t even scream. And that’s something that I’d hope Bruce would at least get right.

Buy Man with the Screaming Brain Now!

Watch Clip

Snakehead Terror

2010-04-23T05:34:54Z

Directed by: Paul Ziller
Written by: A.G. Lawrence, Patrick J. Vitale
Starring: Bruce Boxleitner, Carol Alt

The introduction of the northern snakehead, an East Asian species of fish, to the American ecosystem caused a mild media panic back in 2002. The non-native species was killing off all of the local aquatic wildlife and the Department of Natural Resources had to poison the waters to stop the invasive fish. That story is true. The inelegant solution employed by the government apparently wasn’t good enough for the producers of Snakehead Terror, who decided to give this minor news item a sequel. Say hello to Snakehead Terror.

When the [insert name of town here] was forced to poison their lake because of the snakehead incident, it destroyed their whole fishing tourism industry. The last thing that the town needs is a series of unexplained deaths to drive people away. Being a Sci Fi channel original movie, this is exactly what they get. Town Sheriff Patrick James (Bruce Boxleitner) wants to close the lake off especially after his daughter’s boyfriend became fish chow. The Mayor has seen Jaws though, and knows his role. He vehemently opposes the Sheriff because someone has to think about the economy. Grabbing a page from Roy Scheider’s playbook, James enlists a marine biologist, Lori Dale (Carol Alt) to identify the killer. Apparently, the snakeheads are back and they’re bigger than ever. They discover that a couple of well-meaning townies were dumping Human Growth Hormone in a misguided attempt to revive the town’s tourism (We Have Mutant Fish!).

Speaking of misguided attempts, the Sheriff’s daughter Amber and her friends decide to go on a fishing trip for vengeance. Unsurprisingly, this ends with most of their party dead and the teenagers trapped on a patch of land littered with snakeheads (Did we mention that they can crawl on land?). If things weren’t bad enough, a Godzilla sized snakehead appears but James and his sexy marine biologist come to the rescue.

In the end, they needed a creative solution from the Sheriff to rid the town of the snakehead terror. Sheriff James and Amber hug and the film ends.
If you’ve seen Jaws or any other b-grade monster movie in the past 30 years you could pretty much write Snakehead Terror yourself. Start with a small town Sheriff, add a couple of unexplained murders, a skeptical government official, an unauthorized hunt to up the body count and a scientist/expert for exposition and you got yourself a monster movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with following the Jaws template, hell we didn’t care when Maneater did it. But when you already share the same danger in the water theme with Jaws maybe you should change it up a little.

All in all, Snakehead Terror is a by-the-numbers monster flick that only watchable for Bruce Boxleitner. He may have been playing a stock small town sheriff but I always want TRON to win in the end. I am so not looking forward to Frankenfish.

Buy Snakehead Terror Now!

Watch Clip

Destination: Outer Space Saved by Fans!

2010-04-22T06:10:37Z

Photo by Marlin Levison, Star Tribune

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune ran a great story on how B-movie fans saved Christopher Mihm’s latest black and white masterpiece by donating $50 each for future DVDs, premiere tickets and associate producer credit. We’ve only recently discovered Mihm but the fact that his own fans were willing to fund his film production speaks volumes about his work.

The Daleks are Back and in Colour!

2010-04-19T13:24:04Z

This past week I’ve been trying and failing to write a review of the first couple of episodes of the new season of Doctor Who. For the uninitiated, Doctor Who is a Science Fiction show that scared generations of British children and showed the world what you can do with a modest special effects budget(not much). Still, it ran from 1963-1989 and was successfully relaunched in 2005.

Anyway, io9 has put up some of the concept art for the 3rd episode, Victory of the Daleks. Featuring, you guessed it, the Daleks, long time nemeses of the Doctor. Apparently, they come in different flavors now, all of them itching to EX-TER-MI-NATE!

If you haven’t seen Doctor Who before this is probably the best time to come aboard. This season comes back with a new Executive Producer , Stephen Moffat as well as a new Doctor and companion. I’ve seen all the new eps and I’m really liking Matt Smith’s portrayal of the Eleventh Doctor and his connection with new companion, Amy (Karen Gillan), has been interesting so far. The first few episodes are probably available at your friendly neighborhood torrent site but if you like your entertainment paid for, catch up on the relaunched series on DVD.

Here’s the season(or series if you’re English) 5 trailer.

Doctor Who: The Complete Specials (The Next Doctor / Planet of the Dead / The Waters of Mars / The End of Time Parts 1 and 2)

Doctor Who: The Complete Fourth Series

Doctor Who – The Complete Third Series

Doctor Who – The Complete Second Series

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series

Codex: Werewolf Hunter

2010-04-16T02:20:16Z

Obviously SyFy is tapping into my unconscious for ideas. They’ve lined up a bunch of movies for 2010 headlined by Roger Corman’s Sharktopus. It’s filled with your typical SyFy Original cheapos but one film, I’m sure, they got straight out of my lycanthrope-loving, Guild-obsessed brain.

Red is about a werewolf hunting descendant of Little Red Riding Hood played by Felicia Day. Codex hunting werewolves! I’m there!

SyFy tweeted this pic from the set of Red and I can’t wait!

Edit: Apparently Felicia Day is blogging about her time in Canada shooting Red.