Tag Archives: monsters

REVIEW: Jeepers Creepers (2001)

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Jeepers Creepers - Es ist angerichtet!   Jeepers Creepers: C

A flesh-eating man-bat hybrid ritualistically slaughters people and consumes their body parts in Jeepers Creepers. Justin Long and his sister are driving home from Spring Break when they unknowingly drive through the portion of isolated countryside which the monster uses as his killing fields. You can see how this would lead to trouble. We don’t have to sit through an origin story for the man-bat but the “wise elder” character, a crazy old cat lady, tells us that the “Creeper” eats body parts which are then absorbed into the creature’s own body. Once the Creeper gets a whiff of a body part he wants to eat, he’ll stop at nothing to get it. He smells Justin Long and targets him for consumption. I’ve watched way less original stuff.

Justin Long gets worried a lot and he keeps making this face that looks like someone stuck his dick in a waffle iron.

The whole movie is Long and his sister trying to out-run the Creeper. There is a car chase and the song “Jeepers Creepers” plays. Imagine there’s an axe-wielding carnivorous man-bat out to get you and you actually manage to run him over with your car and immobilize him. From here, which things would you not fucking do? Whatever you thought of not doing, Justin Long does it. He loiters around town, asks a psychic for help, and tries to logically explain the phenomena of man-bat attacks to redneck police officers. Stop sitting in a fucking diner cringing like someone stuck your penis in a waffle iron! Get the fuck out of there!

Justin Long winds up at the police station and the Creeper breaks in. It’s nothing like the awesome police station scene in Terminator. The song “Jeepers Creepers” plays for the second time and the Creeper walks on the ceiling. The Creeper gets Justin Long and takes him to his hideout so he can mutilate him and the song “Jeepers Creepers” plays again. The credits roll and “Jeepers Creepers” plays for the fourth time.

SPOILER: You get to see Long’s dead body and, I swear, that fucking waffle iron look is on his dead face. I think they did a great job titling the movie Jeepers Creepers because of all the “Jeepers Creepers” in the movie but they could have totally called it “Ow, My Dick is Stuck in the Waffle Iron!” if they wanted.

REVIEW: Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

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Humanoids from the Deep: C-

This isn’t the first movie I’ve seen where disgusting monsters mate with gorgeous, terrified girls, and, if my addiction to horror movies continues, it probably won’t be the last.

Horny, amphibious, carnivorous, sea monsters slaughter, molest, and mate with the teen populace of a run-down beach town in this 1980’s gore-fest. Everyone in the town is either a flannel-wearing Indian-hating mustached redneck or a nubile teen, so the movie has nothing but disposable lives/boobs to feed to the monsters.

The whole Indian-hating thing exists so we can have this subplot where the Indian character rescues some racist rednecks from Humanoids and then they learn that maybe Indians aren’t so bad after all. They’re way better than murderous Humanoids and maybe we can all get along.

The Humanoids themselves suffer from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers syndrome and all look like dudes in moss covered rubber Godzilla suits. They lumber around slowly and made perfunctory monster noises. The carnage is decent, though. There are a half dozen dog corpses and some gnarled up boyfriends/fathers-of-nubile-teen-girls that actually look pretty gruesome.

I didn’t feel too much sympathy for the people who get killed. One guy’s cut-off jean shorts made me pretty glad he met with a painful death. Another few fatalities are Indian-hating bigots for whom you are incapable of feeling pity.

I really felt bad for the girls. How would you like to be rebelling against your Indian-hating redneck dock worker father by frolicking around a deserted beach with some pale dude who wears daisy-dukes only to have your afternoon ruined by a biped sea-creature who holds you down and does bad, bad things to you?

This movie is like the deformed twin of Species, where a sexy female alien seduces willing human men in a gripping thriller with an all-star cast. In Humanoids, un-sexy male monsters rape human women in a schlocky actor-less creature feature.

If you have a room full of friends and don’t feel like using your brain, this movie is worth a peripheral watch.

REVIEW: Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

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Jacob’s Ladder: B-

Tim Robbins plays a scatterbrained ‘Nam vet who believes that demons, real and figurative, are out to get him. Is it a government conspiracy, or is Robbins nuts, or both? He has sort of a mullet, that’s for sure.

I hope you enjoy movies in which the protagonist suddenly wakes from a nightmare, drenched in sweat with a look of terror still on their face. Over and over. Because this is one of those movies.

The film progresses with the jagged velocity of a bad LSD trip. There are tense quiet scenes that are interrupted by violent Vietnam flashbacks and demon action. You might get up to grab a beer while Robbins is being adjusted by his chiropractor and when you sit back down, he’s being stabbed by Charlie in a jungle ambush.

The demons are great. Sometimes there’s just a reptilian tail subtly hanging out of someone’s trench coat. Sometimes, some guy in a car will jiggle around and morph into a demon. In one scene, Robbins is bobbing his head at a house party and everything explodes into demonic pandemonium like the orgiastic “lizard scene” from Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.

Imagine you work at the post office, have a mullet, and ate the brown acid and now that’s your life forever.

When Robbins discovers that his war buddies are also haunted by demons, the supernatural element of the film settles down a bit and now we’re in an X-Files style government cover-up story complete with sunglasses-wearing guys in black suits and an abundance of car-bombs. Did the US government expose Robbins’s platoon to toxic materials that induce hallucinatory demon trips? Sweaty sleep-deprived Tim Robbins tries to get to the bottom of this.

You aren’t really sure if it’s demons or the government who are ruining Tim Robbins’ life, so the movie keeps you guessing, which is good. Macaulay Culkin gets hit by a truck, which is okay.

Points off for the most pompous/abrupt post-modernist cop-out ending I’ve seen in a while. This is the godfather of M Night Shyamalanian “twist” horror endings for sure.

REVIEW: Grabbers (2012)

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Grabbers

Grabbers: C+

There’s these sea monsters in Ireland that, yup, grab people. They have tentacles and an appetite for human flesh.

When the natives realize that alcohol to these monsters is like holy water to vampires, they all get super-trashed and the monsters leave them alone. Any monster that tries to snack on a drunk person pops like a water balloon.

After this plot point is out of the way, we get a Sean of the Dead style splat-stick where a gaggle of foul-mouthed gregarious Irishmen (and women) drunkenly beat up amphibious CGI monsters. There’s a variety of monsters ranging from chicken-sized face-huggers, to dog-sized octopi, to a building-sized full-fledged sea monster. They all get literally smashed by figuratively smashed, inebriated gingers.

Yeah, this movie cheaply relies on the stereotype that Irish people are wont to be drunkards, but it was somehow entertaining to watch people stumble around and bludgeon purple carnivorous octopi with table legs. Way more entertaining than other horror movies I’ve seen that shamelessly rely on stereotypes to carry the plot.

I actually got into the spirit of things and I got black out shit-housed while watching this one. So, I dunno, maybe it deserves better than a C+. Maybe worse. All I know is that it was a swell, hair-above-average time taking belts of Jameson and watching this one.

Burp!

REVIEW: Devil’s Pass (2013)

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Devils-Pass

Devil’s Pass: D-

This film, that claims to be “based on a true story,” is about a Russian mountain range that was the site for the mysterious deaths of several hikers in the late 1950’s. Also, in this film that is “based on a true story,” the mountain range covers a space-time vortex. Yeah. Just like in other stories “based” on “true” ones.

Some annoying 20-somethings go snooping around the mountains with camcorders which results in some wretched found footage, about 90% of which focuses on the boring dynamics of their hiking group. I guess this was the “based on a true story” stuff.

One hiker looks IDENTICAL to Claire Danes but is not Claire Danes.

This aura of disappointing familiarity pervades the film. I feel like they tried to channel the disorienting, creeping found-footage terror from The Blair Witch Project where inexperienced explorers go searching for answers and wind up getting lost and slaughtered. The mountain landscapes defy their maps, nullify their compasses/GPS devices, and worry the one sensible character, who didn’t star in that show Homeland, but looks like she could have. This ate up a lot of movie time and ate away at my will to live. No shortage on complaint-ridden wandering scenes.

“People have gotten lost before,” the producers must’ve said. “That’s a true story.”

Further highlights from this story “based” on a “true” one include CGI teleporting cannibals, radioactive Star-Gate-like portals to other dimensions, subterranean Russian bunkers, and X-Files levels of government conspiracy relating to illegal and immoral science experiments. There is a fucking monster on the cover of the DVD right next to the words “Based on a true story” and right under the name of the actress who didn’t star in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet.

I kept watching to see what was in the bunker but wound up being pretty disappointed. The actress who didn’t star in My So-Called Life uncovers a huge international conspiracy that doesn’t seem like anything resembling a “true story” and then you’re treated to really loud insufferable monsters who look like Silent Hill rejects. They lope around with all the rigidity of poorly rendered Resident Evil Playstation graphics while they scream, scream, scream for a long, long time.

Or was that me screaming? Probably was.

REVIEW: Sssssss (1973)

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sssssss

 

Sssssss: UV

Not five S’s. Not six S’s. Seven S’s. Sssssss .

I was really tempted to just copy+paste “Sssssss” until it filled up the page and have that be my review for this garbage, but I ultimately decided against it (and it almost went the other way). One of the hardest calls I’ve ever had to make. The movie itself was basically one big “Sssssss.”

Here’s what happens:

  1. An ominous disclaimer fills the screen warning the viewer that ALL of the snakes in the film are REAL SNAKES flown in from exotic locations for the sole purpose of making Sssssss. The disclaimer also thanks the actors for being brave because they had to work with REAL king cobras and pythons. OMG HERO ALERT! Fucking heroes here!
  2. A hunky college bro named David starts working for this guy named Dr. Stoner. Dr. Stoner loves snakes. David looks like a handsome corn-fed character from that show The Waltons and his line delivery rivals a certain garbage day in its awkwardness.
  3. Dr. Stoner shows off his snake collection which includes a cobra, a python, and a black mamba.
  4. Snake footage. All the snake footage you could ever want.
  5. First day of work: Dr. Stoner injects David with a serum that slowly transforms him into a human-snake hybrid. Rough.
  6. Anyone who starts to realize that Dr. Stoner is a Mad Scientist who wants to create a new race of Snake People gets killed by snakes. We’re talking a lot of out-of-context shots they use to make the snakes look like they’re attacking people.
  7. All sorts of Snake Stuff happens. Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss Sssssss.
  8. David becomes a recluse because he is becoming more snake-like kind of like Goldblum in The Fly but the make-up is a billion times worse. Dr. Stoner is stoked and he delivers a passionate monologue about the glorious future of Man-Snakekind.
  9. There’s a mongoose all of a sudden.
  10. Dr. Stoner is bitten and killed by the king cobra and sheriffs blow the snake’s head off. It looks like a piñata filled with grapefruit getting shot with buckshot.
  11. David turns full snake and fights the mongoose. The sheriffs kick the door in and watch David the Snake fight the mongoose.
  12. That’s it. Locked in a bitter stalemate with the mongoose, the frame freezes on David’s screaming girlfriend and the credits start rolling.

 

REVIEW: They (2002)

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they

 

They: D

Wes Craven presents They, a herald of the onslaught of shitty early 2000’s PG-13 movies with CGI monsters and a played out story arc. They sucks and the actual “They,” Them, fuck Them; They are lame.

There’s this girl named Julia who gets night terrors. Really, it’s not night terrors; it’s just the “They” fucking with her. Isn’t that exciting?!

They are little CGI gremlin things that hide in her closet like the Boogie Man and they come out at night and try to, I don’t know, eat her or maul her or take her to the other closet world or something. Anyone else who has ever almost died huffing glue will know what I’m talking about. It’s like that, am I right?

I know I’m right…

Anyway, They drive her crazier and crazier as the movie progresses. Her friend looks like the guy who loves torturing Theon in Game of Thrones. Even his wily ass doesn’t believe her when she tries explaining Them.

She winds up going to the nut house because They made her so hyphy, she hurt some folks. I’ll admit, I kept watching until the end to see how it all wraps up. You know how at the end of most Freddy movies, the kids figure out what is going on and there’s a climactic confrontation and exciting explosions and awesome cackling and frightening animatronic monsters and acts of heroism and raw carnage and violence? Wasn’t that mind-blowingly badass? Well, there’s nothing like that at the end of They. The ending is just a big busy unscary cluster-fuck of CGI Them.

Thanks, Wes Craven.

Wah-wah.

 

REVIEW: Monsters University (2013)

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Monsters University:  A

You know that scene in The Silence of the Lambs where Jodi Foster and a bunch of guys check out the dead body of one of Buffalo Bill’s victims?  Remember how they put some sort of white stuff under their noses, presumably to mask the smell of rotting flesh?  Well, before you go see Monsters University, find out what that stuff is and rub a ton of it under your nose, ’cause you’re gonna need it.  Why?  Because everybody in the theater, to a person, will shit himself or herself in absolute terror, and you don’t want to smell that, because then you’d probably barf, and then you’d also have to deal with the smell of barf.  You might also want to look into getting some adult diapers, but that depends on your tolerance of how much shit can be in your pants.

This isn’t terrifying in your usual horror movie fashion.  It’s not about sudden shocks and gore.  It’s just that it creates a very real, plausible explanation as to why we are frightened.  If there are monsters, then why is the evidence of them so scarce?  It’s because they live in a different dimension, and they only come into ours for the sole purpose of scaring us.

Their devotion to frightening people is so fervent that they even have educational institutions that promote the psychological torment of the human race.  And what’s worse, they deliberately go for the children.  As a parent, I can tell you that I seethed with anger when I was watching this.  Isn’t it bad enough that I have Michelle Obama trying to tell my kid what to eat?  Do I really need monsters giving them psychological trauma?

The story follows one monster, a gruesome cyclopian ball named Mike, as he goes through a program to learn how to be a “scarer”, while the whole time he is casually indifferent to the plight of the children he hopes to permanently damage.  Why is his name something so simple like Mike?  To remind us of the banality of evil.

I only recommend this movie if you can completely separate yourself from what the fictional, although completely believable, world that’s created.  Whatever you do, don’t be like the morons who brought their kids to see this.  Seriously, there was a two-year-old sitting right next to me.  He was so disturbed by it that he called me “Daddy”.  Sure, he looked like he was really entertained by it, and so did the adults, but I know the truth.