Tag: monster movies

Really Awful Movies: Ep 223 – The Kindred

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A furtive lab experiment. In a basement. On today’s episode, the fun, smart and occasionally gory 1980s creature feature, The Kindred.

The Kindred is a fairly obscure 1987 American horror film directed by Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter. Are two directors better than one? Not generally. Here, not bad!

Obrow also produced the film and co-wrote it along with Carpenter, Earl Ghaffari and John Penney. The film stars David Allen Brooks, Amanda Pays (Planet of the Apes) and Rod Steiger (he needs no introduction). The movie was released on January 9, 1987 and grossed just over $2 million.

Dr Amanda Hollins’ deathbed request to her son, John, was for him to destroy all the lab notes from her last experiment, lest it get into the wrong hands (Dr. Lloyd, played by Steiger).

John and some buddies (including Melissa, a grad student devotee of Hollins) head up to the cottage where Hollins did her experiments. What do they find? We think you’ll have a pretty good idea.

Bloody Disgusting said: “The Kindred is a bonafide fun house full of splattery effects work. Based off the artistry on display here, it’s no shock that lead makeup effects artist, Matthew Mungle, went directly from this to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (the second best film in the series).

Join us for smart genre chat on the Really Awful Movies Podcast, every week.

 

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 212 – Grabbers

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Grabbers! Grabbers! What’s a grabber? It’s some kind of octopus-like tentacled creature.

On this St Patrick’s Day episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, we talk Ireland, JP Donleavy, Brendan Behan, Father Ted, pub culture, drinking, and cultural similarities between Canada and Ireland.

We have quite a few listeners in Ireland, and we thought we’d reach out to them and say “hi.” And what better way to do it, than through a fun, crazy, booze-fueled Roger Corman-esque tale?

Grabbers starts out with trawler fishermen who encounter strange tentacled things out on the high seas, later dubbed “Grabbers” by one of the denizens of a nearby island when they’re attacked by the creatures.

Have no fear, there’s a police presence. Barely. Garda O’Shea (Richard Coyle) is a useless drunk who barely keeps things in check in terms of getting folks to uphold the law. His partner, Nolan, is fresh from fighting real crime in Dublin. She’s visiting the island for a brief stint, to get away from big city problems.

Once the Grabbers take a foothold, it’s up to these two to marshal the forces of the island to combat them.

Turns out Grabbers are allergic to booze. Alcohol is toxic to these creatures, so this is used to wonderful comedic effect to rebuff them. The film turns into Assault on Precinct 13, with a publican and his patrons battening down the hatches to battle these beasts, all the while getting “pissed as a newt”. Sh*tfaced. Drunk as a lark. Drunk as a lord. Pissed.

If you’re a fan of monster movies, you’ll find yourself enjoying Grabbers. There are delightful characters, choice references to similar films (Predator and Alien) and compelling performances all around.

Join us every Friday on the Really Awful Movies Podcast, subscribe, and listen to fun (occasionally informed) genre film chat.