Tag: horror classics

Really Awful Movies: Ep 214 – Creature from the Black Lagoon

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A geology expedition in the Amazon uncovers fossilized evidence of a mysterious creature in the form of a skeletal hand with webbed fingers.

On this episode of the podcast, travel to Brazil with us (OK, Florida) as we discuss Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Expedition leader Dr. Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno) orders his two assistants to stay in camp while he visits the marine biology institute to get answers about his find.

Maia reunites with his friend and former student, ichthyologist Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson). Dr. Reed works at an aquarium in California, but more recently he has been a guest at Maia’s institute in Brazil to study lungfish. Reed persuades his boss, Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Denning), to fund a return expedition to the Amazon to look for the remainder of the skeleton down river.

Soon, the research expedition gets wind of a certain gilled amphibious humanoid thing down in the depths.

Director Jack Arnold’s first foray into the science-fiction genre was the fun, It Came from Outer Space (1953). Jack achieved his greatest enduring cult popularity with this film, a well-crafted reworking of “Beauty and the Beast”. Revenge of the Creature (1955) was a (semi) worthy sequel.

Critic Leonard Maltin said about the film that it was an “Archetypal ’50s monster movie has been copied so often that some of the edge is gone, but … is still entertaining, with juicy atmosphere and luminous underwater photography sequences.”

Really Awful Movies: Ep 207 – Creep

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Ah, found footage. It’s usually crap. So when a barn-burner like Creep comes out, color us surprised.

Creep is a 2014 American independent found footage horror film directed by Patrick Brice, based on a story written by Brice and collaborator Mark Duplass. The film is Brice’s directorial debut, and boy is this one solid.

Creep premiered 2014, at South by Southwest, and was released on video on demand on June 23, 2015, by The Orchard prior to an international release via Netflix on July 14, 2015.

The film follows nebbish Aaron (portrayed by Brice), a videographer who answers an odd Craigslist ad, created by Josef (portrayed by Duplass). Josef is suffering from terminal cancer and wants to have a posthumous record for his unborn son. So far so good, right?

But not is what it appears to be.

Josef is, to say the least, weird. In the midst of one of Aaron’s early documentations, Josef gets naked and slips into the bath. Fine, you may say, the guy’s got The Big C and maybe he’s just cracking? But Brice and Duplass gradually reveal that Josef is a megalomaniac and yes, a creep.

Movies like Mike Leigh’s Naked, or the likes of My Dinner with Andre, rely heavily on strong performances/dialogue as there are so few characters. And here, the banter is highly naturalistic (much was improvised) and the acting’s top-drawer.

It really helps drive the cat-and-mouse dynamic between these two.

The New York Times said that Creep “is remarkable, considering its minimal means and surprising lack of bloodshed, given the genre.” Very true, but that doesn’t mean the scares aren’t there.

And Creep has just a terrific climax too.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 194 – Chopping Mall

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Scenes from a mall. A CHOPPING Mall. On this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, a look at this Jim Wynorski feature, Chopping Mall.

Wynorski (The Return of Swamp Thing / Hard to Die / Big Bad Mama II) is known as a highly prolific genre director. He directed 7 features from the mid eighties to the decade’s end. And usually worked on a really low budget. This Corman production was no exception, filmed at the same mall as the one used for the excellent Arnold vehicle, Commando (which we podcasted on this very show).

And the plot could not be any more simple: a team of robotic security bots malfunction, causing them to run amok and destroy everything in their path. The “everything” in question includes a bunch of “teen” partiers, some of whom work in a furniture store, and therefore have access to lots of bedding. It also includes some mall staffers unlucky enough to be working overtime/after-hours.

Chopping Mall has a few things going for it, namely, the always gorgeous Barbara Crampton, a terrific score, and of course, cheesy killer robots. But there’s more to it than that. There are some winking cameos by Corman regulars (you’ll have to watch the film, and then listen to our show!), a dash of nudity (according to the DVD extras, Wynorski reported that ““Roger wanted some nudity in this picture.”) and of course, a couple of terrific kills.

With a shooting schedule of less than a month, the film, released as Killbots bombed (audiences thought it was a cutesy robot feature). However, it was given a new lease on life with its new slasher audience-friendly title, Chopping Mall.

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