Insect Armaggedon!

TICKS

D: Tony Randel 1993

 Oh, flashbacks to my youth – a bunch o’ dumbshit city kids – little rich girl, muscle boy, street smart black, nerdy nervous whitebread etc are off to camp in the woods where something lurks.  No, not a psychopathic serial killing legend from years gone by, instead its ticks, fist sized, bloodsucking ticks!  See, Clint Howard (bow before the legend that is he) and a mate have a dope plantation and the growth hormone they’re using on their mull works on the ticks too!  Big fucking ugly jelly bellied slobbering ticks start showing up but no one seems to notice.  

Not nearly enough bodies in this, hell most of the kids escape but there was enough dumb shit, walking corpses, exploding ticks, Clint getting’ fucked up, hallucinations and general b-grade clichés to keep me happy.  (of course the beer helped – or was it the mull?)  No tit though!! Curse the PC nineties – violence and eco-disaster is fine but sex is out!!!??? No wonder everyone is going back to the 80s.  at least there were tits back then. (although most of you kids were probably still suckin’ on yer mummy’s udders)

there goes yr crop!

Cheese and Honey go so well together

The Bees

Directed By: Alfredo Zacarias 1978

John Saxon, John Carradine, President Ford and killer bees in a low budget eco-disaster Swarm knock off (with a twist)!!  I mean what more do you need?

Okay, okay I guess we should mention the storyline then for those who aren’t already rushing out to buy this baby.  A yankee scientist is working in South America trying to create a hybrid bee that will provide higher honey yields. He’s having problems back home though and suspects corruption in higher places. Unfortunately the bees he is working with are pretty vicious and after a boy is killed by a swarm of them (well by a bunch of glitches and scratches on the screen that represent the bees!) the natives get restless and trash the place, releasing the bees who take out their vengeance on the yankee scientist.

Meanwhile back in the USA our two Johns are talking to a table of world leaders in some sort of segue/comedy skit to introduce their characters into the story.  Turns out Carradine is a scientist type himself and he’s also the uncle of our poor yankee scientist’s wife… And she’s on her way home to continue her late hubby’s work.  She’s also going to get very friendly with Saxon – so much for the grieving widow routine.  Turns out the yankee scientist was right, there is some corruption going on and when big biz steps in, our two Johns are forced to go rogue so they can continue their studies ‘for the sake of humanity’.  Not that humanity is having much luck since the killer bees are already swarming, or at least some scratchy black clouds that look like they are actually drawn onto the film stock, are swarming!!  The beach is attacked, poorly paid extras die, things aren’t looking good. Turns out the swarm is near a radar station and the signals are mutating them.  

it's what all the modern grieving widows are wearing

The hive itself looks almost alien and is quite effective in its appearance, particularly when you consider that the swarm is usually drawn onto the screen.  When the bees attack the Rose Parade, complete with stock footage of President Ford, things get serious.  Chemical warfare, planes, flame throwers, UN observers, romance, love, betrayal, hitmen take out poor old Uncle John but then the bees hunt them down!  The Capitol comes under attack, there’s stock footage carnage, planes crashing and those swarms of hand drawn bees.  BUT then there’s the twist.  You see Uncle John was working on another project, he was working on communicating with the bees!!  So of course with him out of the picture the bees go to the other John who wakes up to find his bedroom is a hive, a hive visually reminiscent in fact of Contagion, another nice touch.  The bees want us humans to clean up our act before we destroy the world so John and the merry widow take their message to the United Nations for a stirring speech by man and bee!  I tell ya, I couldn’t make this up.  This is so cheap, so dumb and yet so much fun.  Carradine with a bad German accent, Saxon at his peak, talking bees, corrupt politicians, it has it all.  And on a budget that probably didn’t provide more than honey sandwiches for lunch.  You just have to love it.

Guess Who's mum forgot the aeroguard?

Who ordered the Calamari with cheese?

   

 

Octaman

                                                          Director: Harry Essex 1971

In a little Mexican village radiation is poisoning the water and American scientist Dr. Torres is there trying to solve the mysteries of the deep, or at least the lake.  Mysteries like why does his voice not match his lips, why is it so dark all the time and why does a plastic octopus have human eyes?  

This plastic octopus gets Torres excited but when he whips back over the border to get more funding he finds the scientific community want nothing to do with him so he’s forced to accept the backing of a carnival owner who is hoping to bag himself a freak for the carny. Carny brings his buddy Bert Reynolds Jr along for the ride too. By the time they get back over the border to Mexico all the doc finds though is his friend’s corpse and an empty bucket.  The plastic octopus is gone!  A couple of leftover Spaghetti Western actors then wander on set and tell the tale of Octaman, a many armed, tentacle legged half man/half beast who, after the doc shares a brief dialogue about pollution, turns up to take out a couple of the locals. No more western movies for those guys. Luckily the good looking one survives so he can continue to help the gringos out. Good thing too cos it turns out Octaman has his eye(s) on the doctor’s gal and attacks the camp while the doc, the carny and Bert are out on the lake looking for him. (now there’s an episode of River monsters I’d like to see!) Occy gets the gal but the doc and Bert discombobulate him with lights (too many eyes you see) and then form a ring of fire to burn up the oxygen around him!  An ankle high ring of fire it must be pointed out but it seems that Occy isn’t smart enough to lift those tentacles over the flames so he collapses and is netted and tranquilised by a very happy Carny crew.  

did you want the Calamari well done?

But nature has a way of fighting back and when it rains, the water revives our many tentacled rubber skinned fiend who is less than happy at his surroundings and once again escapes.  When our intrepid heroes decide to get outta town they discover that though Occy isn’t smart enough to step over the flames he is smart enough to topple trees on the road and trap them.  Our Mexican friend then tracks Occy down to a cave and invites the rest to follow.  Of course they get trapped down there too since nighttime isn’t dark enough in a shitty, low budget way, a dank dark cave is perfect for making sure you can’t see shit.  In the end they find their way out to sunlight where Occy starts the party with a great rendition of Devo’s Whip It Good.  I won’t give away anymore cos hell, I fell asleep so I don’t know what happened. (actually that’s a lie, I stayed awake for the whole thing but the end was so dull I’ve erased it from my memory). 

look, there's our agent!  let's kill the bastard!!

This movie is bad beyond description, not helped by the “digital remastering” that seems to just mean it was dubbed straight from VHS to CDR – there are times when you seriously cannot see a thing but then again that just may be a blessing.  Featuring very early FX work by Rick Baker, the Octaman is actually pretty cool for a zipper wearing, rubber suited whatever he is but in the end you get what you paid for, so don’t pay too much.  An eco- disaster movie where disaster has more than one meaning, Octaman promises so much more than it delivers but then come on, what else did you really expect?

You want fries with that?

Sometimes a movie is just so bad, you can't help but love it!

Swamp Witch

Directed By: Kerry KnightYear: 2009

Written, directed, produced and starring Kerry Knight, this is a movie destined, like the Titanic, to go down in history! 

This movie holds a special place in my heart.  A place for the cheese, the bad, the outrageous and the dumb. Swamp Witch is something special, I mean really, really "special".  It's fitting that Cheezy Flicks are distributing it, I mean who else would? 

Our story starts with a couple watching the film “Swamp Witch” whilst out camping in the woods, (as you do when you are camping) – only to be attacked by the (digital) Swamp Witch!! This scene has nothing at all to do with the movie but heck why let logic get in the way. It introduces us to the Swamp Witch and throws in a couple of low budget kills so what the hell it’s done its job!  Now we get to the real movie.  

It’s 1910 Jamaica and Shona is a rich whitey’s mistress who gets sprung and is cursed to live forever as a witch at night but still gorgeous by day. (Much like my first wife) A century later we find Shona working at a 4 table café in a little southern town in Powaqa County in between stealing kids for food and fun.  Luckily for her the local sheriff (played by Mr. Knight himself) is a nonchalant laidback sort of chap who doesn’t let things like rising body counts and missing kids affect that laidback manner at all. Hell he finds a chewed up arm, even sees the witch but doesn’t break a sweat. His deputy tells him the stories about the witch in the woods and kids disappearing but he doesn’t get the hint, yet. Even the Halloween massacre – kids disappearing, two decapitations (including a little digital head in a bowl action!) doesn’t make him move any faster. And as it is one of the murders never gets mentioned so I don’t even know if anyone even noticed?  The mayor however is a little more agitated, this sort of thing isn’t good for the town so she calls in her daughter (Poe) who just happens to be a blonde CSI agent! (I think we all know where they got the inspiration for this character from – Miami anyone?)

what do you mean I can't get out of the contract?

 Now it starts to get funny bad instead of just bad.  For example: Poe’s son went missing years ago and she is still haunted by the case and flashbacks abound although they don’t lead anywhere or add anything to the story.  The sheriff goes to check out the “witches” shed in the woods, bumps into Shona and accepts her story that grandma lives in the shed.  He doesn’t even go inside.  Kids are missing, there’s an old lady living in the woods but he doesn’t check the place out?!  Instead he flies to Jamaica (as you do when you are a local sheriff) to check out Shona’s story and then ambles back with the truth but doesn’t quite know what to do with it. His deputies think there is someone in the police station but rather than look for them, they just leave and lock up! Shona drives a pencil through a customer’s arm but they don’t report it straight away. Oh no, they make us wait while Knight still just ambles and Poe has more flashbacks. When they eventually do get there to report Shona, they also mention an old lady they saw chowing down on a deer in the woods.  So the sheriff and Poe check out the old shed in the woods again, find blood and weapons but still don’t do anything about it.  Meanwhile the boys cop some Shona revenge with a forklift impaling but again, no one seems to care.  Hell, at one point Poe and the sheriff find a body in the woods and then have a philosophical discussion by the lake about life, the universe and unsolved crimes!  

the catering on this film leaves a lot to be desired

In this town everything seems to move slow until finally Poe heads out to the shed, finds a body in a car and pulls it out to take the car (as you do) and confronts the witch. The sheriff ain’t far behind, just a little more leisurely.  I won’t spoil the ending because hell, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

At first I wasn’t sure what I was watching, was it a TV movie that never made it to the small screen, was it a training tape (Knight apparently runs a film school) or was it just plain bad? Well it is bad, very, very bad but in a way that you just cannot believe!!  And that’s what makes it so good.   This film goes on far too long (105 mins!!??) but that is because Knight was trying to add back story and give his characters life rather than just kill them off… he should probably have just killed them off but then that’s what makes this movie so “special”. It lacks, tension, logic, reason but it does have Poe (Lori Wilford) and Knight. It has bad digital fx, made for TV acting, great (and bad) lines and an ending that just makes you go “seriously?” Swamp Witch is in a class of its own.   Like Scream Dream, Robo-Monster, Curse Of The Screaming Dead and all those cheesy, c-grade, no budget, I need a 6 pack at least to watch this, type of films, Swamp Witch is destined to be a remembered, just probably not the way Kerry Knight wanted it to be.  

EGO thy name is Kerry Knight!

Dracula Meets The Professionals!

The Satanic Rites Of Dracula

Director: Alan Gibson 1973

 With the success of the Count Yorga movies leading the way, in the early 70s Hammer Horror decided to bring back the king of the fang fuckers, the one and only Count Dracula and update the bastard too, bringing him into the twentieth century.  Two films were made, both directed by Gibson, Dracula AD 1972 and this, the follow up – The Satanic Rites Of Dracula.  With Christopher Lee back as the one and only Count and Peter Cushing as his nemesis Professor Van Helsing the two movies proved popular and cashed in on not only the new found audience that Yorga had provided but also the new trendy witch coven craze that was sweeping Great Britain at the time as well.  Both movies would use the premise of covens and satanic masses to their advantage.  AD 1972 used a swinging young crowd of nihilistic bastards to revive the count but Satanic Rites went for a much more powerful nemesis – big business.

It’s 1973, swinging London and in a country mansion on the outskirts of the city a black mass is taking place while a couple of likely lads in sheepskin jackets watch over some poor bloke tied on a bed who will soon find out is a spy, or at least an undercover agent who’s been rumbled.  While the hooded Satanists drool over a dead cockerel and a ginger minge live altar babe dripping with blood, the undercover agent escapes the sheepskin jackets and run for the gates where his comrades await.  We soon learn from the now dying spyboy that the satanic sect contains a corrupt government minister (who just happens to run the department doing the spying!) a nobel prize winning professor, a lord of the peer and a rich bastard land owner.  Rich, powerful and up to no good, what with their robes and upside down crosses on their foreheads and their sweaty palms and all that.  The spyboys realise though that they can’t tell anyone cos their boss is after all one of the baddies so they enlist the help of Inspector Murray (played by Michael Coles) from the Special Branch. Why?  Well, because he was in Dracula AD 1972 that’s why, thus providing us with the link to Professor Van Helsing and his delectable grand daughter Jessica, this time played by Ab Fab’s Joanna Lumley.  (Stephanie Beacham had the honour in AD 1972) 

So we have Murray, Van Helsing (Peter Cushing at his sublime best), Jessica, spy bloke Torrence (Pommy familiar face William Franklin) and his boss Matthews who have to figure out what’s going on.  While Van Helsing goes to check up on his mate the professor, Murray, Torrence and Jessica go and have a look at the mansion. (as you do, vampires, satanic cults – send yr grand daughter along, she’ll be ok).  Turns out there’s a batch of vampire scrubbers in the basement, including Torrence’s secretary freshly bitten by our man Christopher Lee and Jessica has stumbled onto them.  She’s not looking so Ab Fab now, what with four greedy fang fuckers trying to get a bite on.  Luckily for her, Murray and Torrence rush in, stake the secretary (not quite what Torrence had in mind I’m sure) and drag her out to safety.  After of course, a brief struggle with the sheepskin boys.  Meanwhile, Van Helsing has found his mate the nobel winning prof in a bit of a state, in the midst a nervous breakdown and having just created a new and even more virulent strain of the bubonic plague!  Unfortunately before he can find out just what the hell is going on, another sheepskin boy bursts in and when the good Van Helsing awakens, his mate is hanging from the rafters and the plague cultures have gone. Seems like there’s more than just a bit of bloodletting going on.

Turns out that a mysterious Mr. D.D. Denham has built an empire on the very spot where Van Helsing last staked Dracula (AD1972) and on his board of management? The four Satanist rich bastards. Ah, the link they were looking for.  So while the others stake out the mansion, (bad pun I know) Van Helsing goes to confront the mysterious Mr D who by the by has never been photographed, interviewed or even seen in public.  (how long before the penny drops you wonder?)  Van Helsing and Mr D have a chat (bad move really, Dracula does not talk, he kills) and yes, surprise surprise it’s the evil one hisself!  But before Van Helsing can do away with the vampire with his silver bullet (huh? I thought that was werewolves) his henchmen grab the good prof and he’s whisked off to the mansion where a surprise awaits.  You see, while he’s been toying with the Count, Torrence and Matthews have been shot dead by the sheepskin boys and Murray and Jessica have been captured.  But Murray is a good improviser and he stakes a couple of the vamp scrubbers, turns the sprinkler system on the others (clear running water is bad for them apparently) and then hides upstairs.  Apparently Dracula has a master plan, one the rich bastards didn’t know about.  He plans to make the tasty Jessica his bride then unleash the plague on the world, an apocalypse to destroy the human race with the remaining three rich bastards plus and unwilling Van Helsing as his four horsemen of the apocalypse!  The rich bastards aren’t cool with this plan however, they figured the plague was a back up threat so they could just, you know, take over the world.  Suckas!!! Let that be a lesson to you never trust the king of the undead.  The corrupt minister is the first infected and while he bubbles and screams, Murray is upstairs brawling with another sheepskin bloke (how many are there?) and starts a fire that sort of fucks things up for our Count.  The floor collapses, the fire spreads downstairs, Van Helsing and Dracula have a bit of a push me shove you – Murray saves Jessica, the minister burns thus preventing the plague from spreading and the vampire and the vampire hunter take their fight outside. 

Finally, Van Helsing tricks Dracula into walking into a Hawthorn Tree (Heyzeus’s crown of thorns was made from the same) apparently he doesn’t like this sort of thing and tangled up and bleeding, Van Helsing stakes the sucka through the heart.  The End.

So, what do we get?  Well it’s sort of The Professionals meets Count Dracula but for some reason it works. Maybe even more so now, what with conspiracy theories on everything from 9/11 to the price of bread to cricket being rigged… the idea of a small group of evil satan worshipping rich bastards led by the king of the undead, trying to take over the world?  Doesn’t sound that far fetched to me.  Sure the clobber is dated and hopefully those sleeveless sheepskin jackets will never come back in fashion, but the acting is great, Cushing is sublime, Lee over acts a little but hell he’s Dracula what do you expect?  It’s a fast paced movie, there’s no real downtime, everything slowly peels away to reveal the ugly truth, it’s a typical good (but not great) Hammer Horror but that’s still a step above most of their competitors.

Breasts, blood, the plague, vampires, satanic cults – what more could you want?  

It's happening right now! apparently

Demons, drugs, nerds, presidents... oh and fred williamson!

Dropping Evil 

Directed By: Adam Protextor 2012

Kicking off like it’s going to be another teens in the woods, bad guy slaughtering them type o’ low budget fun, Dropping Evil quickly takes a turn to something much more.  Trouble is it also gets very confusing before you really work out what that turn is. In the end we get a movie that is part slasher, part conspiracy, part looney tunes and even has some fantasy thrown in, sort of, maybe, in a weird gods and devils type thing, sort of, maybe. Let me just say there’s a lot going on and it isn’t always clear just what that means.  Sort of, maybe…

 Anyway, our four main protagonists go like this – Mike and Samantha are a couple, cool, good lookin’ kids, the other two Becky and Nancy are nerds.  Oh and despite the name Nancy is a boy, he’s also a straight edge god fearing cliché. And I loved that about the boy.  In fact while the four are off on a weekend trip away, he’s such a pain in the arse that the others decide to spike his drink with a little acid, just to liven him up and save them from a weekend of total god bothering. Things don’t go to plan though and when godboy has a bad trip he “sees” his friends’ true natures and kills them off. That’s not really a spoiler cos this isn’t your normal stalker flick. You kind of work that out when before the kids head off for their weekend in the woods we see Becky having a camera fitted into her eye by some mysterious corporation called ValYouCorp. Oh and in black and white no less while some musclebound god delivers his lines like he’s an amateur wrestler and Tiffany Shepis does… well, I’m not sure what she does really, she’s just eye candy or a confusing plot link or something, sort of, maybe.  

okay, okay i take it back, you are an integral part of the story... now put the knife down

Once Nancy goes nuts though things get really out of hand, with a branch through the head, a fishhook in the mouth, a decapitation and a wacked out tennis style showdown between axe and cardoor before a great what the fuck moment involving Mike and Nancy that I wont give away simply because it’s fun to make you wait for it yourself.  It’s only after this showdown though that we start to get a little explanation about just what the fuck is going on and how our four mainstay teens have a connection to ValYouCorp that goes back all of 18 years ago, when they were still babies in the wombs of their confused mothers. 

Because you axed for it!!

Throw in some cyborgs, a talking head and some godlike figures with connections to the President of the USA and you have a very weird stew. Before you really get any further though the damn movie abruptly ends and goes straight into the trailer for the sequel!! Yes, you heard me… sequelitis at its worst or best depending on how you feel… I don’t mind cliffhanger tv shows but a dvd?  Further inspection of the credits also reveals that this movie took four years to make so I guess that there explains why the movie finishes so abruptly, leaving us with far more questions than answers.  

Luckily this package contains three mini sequels(Daddy-O Died So Love Could Live, The Rise Of Gunhead and Becky’s The Boss ) that explain a little more of this convoluted story, a story that combines mythology, gods, zombies, science and big business, oh and explains what Tiffany is supposed to be doing (besides taking her shirt off). This has all the usual problems of a low budget flick but the use of colour and black and white to differentiate between the quartet’s story and the Corporation’s view point is a clever trick and the acting of Tom Taylor (Mike), Rachel Howell (Samantha) and Armin Shimerman as the CEO of Valyou Corp definitely lifts the movie.  And the story once you get it worked out is good, it’s just that it takes till the end before it starts to make sense and even then there are characters that aren’t quite explained and holes in the story that you don’t work out until you watch the mini movies. The real trouble it seems is over ambition, Protextor and crew had too many ideas and not enough time or money to fulfill them. A shame really because those extra mini movies really help you to understand just what the hell the story is about but you have to get to them first and I can see a lot of people not bothering, their loss really.  Ambitious, daft, entertaining, infuriating, occasionally funny this could have been much much more but hell I can’t fault ‘em for trying to be a little different, I just wish it had been a little smoother ride.

don't mess with the nerd!

Vampire Babe Vs The Mummy!

BLOOD SCARAB

D: Donald F Glut 2008

A b-grade throwback to the days of monster vs monster that reminds me at times of the later, trashy Hammer Horror flicks this movie pits the legendary Elizabeth Bathory (played with relish by Monique T. Parent) against a shambling mummy that looks suspiciously like Jason’s dead corpse (something to do with JC Beuchler’s F13 pt7 fx me thinks) in that hotspot of monster madness – California! (where else would you go if you can’t be in sunlight?)  

Bathory has survived all these centuries because she wed her Transylvanian neighbour, one Count Dracula but after the Count stays out too late perving at terrible actresses with great hooters and is reduced to dust, she craves the ability to be out sucking blood 24/7.  Trusty servant Renfield (Del Howison doing a corker job) finds the clue, an ancient Egyptian spell that will give her that power.  She needs a mummy though and luckily there’s one in town.  Not that it’s doing much this time around, though it has been active in movies past (Mummy’s Kiss), this time it’s a waiting game, because after all, a mummy topless is not that attractive but the three gals that Bathory needs to invoke the spell are.  And the Egyptian goddess Hathor and her dancing sidekicks are pretty easy on the eye too.  After getting her way and discovering that she can now work on her tan (she takes her kit off to prove it) Bathory decides she no longer needs Hathor but the Egyptian bitch won’t take that lying down so of course, it’s mummy vs vampire in an old school Universal movies moment.  I won’t give away the ending but I will say that this is more Abbot and Costello than Freddy V Jason.  

Still, this is a fun movie.  Glut has no illusions of grandeur, he knows he’s making a b-grade flick and he’s having fun with it.  Parent and Howison are great, Howison especially and that makes up for the lack of acting skill in the babes, but hell they get their kit off, they look good and they’re vamps – who cares if they can’t act?

What you’ve got here is a labour of love that is a good b-grade, second feature, drive-in movie (if we still had drive-ins) and I for one think it’s great that Glut still has that passion.  On a sad note this film was dedicated to the late great Jillian (Naked Fist) Kessner.  Now there’s a lost classic!

rubber ducky you're the one, you make bathtime so much fun