The Last Woman On Earth (1960)

Delving back into the bottomless pit of the extremely low grade Mills Creek 250 Horror Collection (half of which are a stretch to even be in this set, being far from horror) another above average jewel of low budget entertainment can be found.  One of the more enjoyable films in this collection was Roger Corman's Creature From The Haunted Sea, a film that does a nice job of mixing cornball comedy of the 1960's with bad horror.  It was part of what's known as The Roger Corman Puerto Rico Trilogy, three films shot back to back in a period of five weeks... yes I said weeks.  Included in this trilogy was The Last Woman On Earth, a film that was shot on the same location with the same three lead actors.

Wealthy business man Harold Gern is vacationing with his newly acquired bride Evelyn in Puerto Rico.  They set out on a boat trip and go deep sea diving with Harold's attorney and friend Martin, but when they surface they discover they're the only ones left alive.  It appears some deadly toxin has penetrated the atmosphere, removing the oxygen and killing all those on the island and possibly the rest of the world.  With the prospect of being the only humans left alive on Earth, Harold and Martin begin to vie for the companionship of the lovely Evelyn whose relationship with her husband (Harold) was already strained prior to the worldwide disaster.

Unlike Corman's Creature From The Haunted Sea, The Last Woman On Earth is more of a apocalyptic drama which surprisingly turned out to be quite enjoyable.  It's a grand example of how Corman was able to take a simplistic story on a poor man's budget and make something that's not only watchable but quite entertaining, with the cast providing a little better performance with a more serious storyline.  If you're a Roger Corman fan or looking to get your feet wet this is definitely a good place to start, and it ranks among the more worth while films I've viewed from this Mills Creek collection.

7/10

Read More

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

In my attempt to discover another Roger Corman film that provides a similar level of entertainment as my two favorites (Death Race 2000 & Starcrash) I've finally been witness to another bizarre Corman classic that almost fits the bill of over-the-top cheesy, yet still remains to be incredibly enjoyable.  If transcontinental death races aren't your thing, and campy space flicks with robots and an evil vampire looking fellow don't tickle your fancy, maybe mutated fish-men with the urge to eat dogs, kill men and mate with women will be the ticket!

Humanoids from the Deep (aka Monster) is another spin on the classic monster idea of food sources mutating into creatures that aim to kill humanity, we saw it in Forbidden World and see it again here only in a much more enjoyable execution.  A small fishing town is about to get a break as a new cannery is bringing in a scientist who has been working on perfecting a new breed of salmon that will be bigger, better and reproduce faster, ultimately increasing the dwindling catch for the local fishermen.  But once again what happens when you mess with nature and the cycle of life is you end up creating something not natural to this world.  The fish grow at an extensive rate but what they grow into is mutated fish/man creatures that are systematically terrorizing the town by killing all the local animal life, the male population and having they're way with the women. At first a few of the townspeople blame the local Indian, Johnny Eagle, for the recent string of murdered animals and missing teenagers, but those accusations are soon thrown to the wayside when the fish creatures begin to attack in full force.

After the rather lack luster appeal with Piranha, Humanoids from the Deep was a nice retreat back into the overly campy atmosphere of a mutant Corman film.  Imagine Creature from the Black Lagoon on crack, with a fair amount of gore, a fair amount of skin and about twenty plus creatures!  Essentially that's the driving force behind this film and the aspects that make it an enjoyable ride.  My only major disappointment was the ending which was either a teaser to a possible sequel that never ended up seeing the light of day, or the writers twisted way of leaving the viewer wanting more, whatever the case I wanted more and was sorely disappointed when it simply ended.  Overall, Humanoids from the Deep is still not as entertaining as my top two Corman films but it's worth checking out if your a fan of creature films.

7/10

Humanoids From The Deep Full Film

Read More

Forbidden World (1982)

Unlike Roger Corman's Galaxy of Terror, Forbidden World truly deserves being referred to as an "Alien" rip-off, and for my money if I had to choose between the two science fiction stinkers, Forbidden World would easily be my poison of choice as after two viewings it still holds up as being slightly enjoyable.

On his way home after a lengthy mission, and many years in stasis, Mike Colby is awakened by his robot co-pilot SAM-104 to be informed they've been diverted to the planet Xarbia to assist in an emergency.  A Federation research lab was established there in hopes of creating a new food source and the scientists believe they've made an fantastic breakthrough.  The alien protein they discovered on the planet's surface multiplies at miraculous rates, but when a sample is mixed in with what they refer to as element B, the result is the mutation into a living life form.  The researchers don't think much about it until the organism begins killing people, and breaking down their bodies into a pure protein form which it is then consuming! As the situation in the research station begins to grow more grave and the creature begins to evolve at enormous speeds, Mike is finally brought up to date with what it is their dealing with and what exactly element B is which has appeared to cause this mutation.
 

Forbidden World is your typical alien story, where researchers end up taking exploration and science too far and create a beast that ends up killing them all.  For a B-movie the film has some pretty good special effects and a few pretty gruesome scenes that are well executed.  The story is alright and the acting mediocre, but that shouldn't be a shock.  Throw in a couple gratuitous skin shots from the film's two lovely ladies June Chadwick (of the original V television series) and Dawn Dunlap (who only has a few other B-movies to her name), and Forbidden World is a Corman classic that I've now seen twice (actually I've watched the director's cut entitled Mutant, but I don't think there's much of a difference between the two) and can say it's worth a viewing if this type of film suits your fancy.  And the new Corman Cult Classic release definitely boasts some excellent improvement on the video quality for the original release.

6/10

Forbidden World Full Film

Read More

Piranha (1978)

With the upcoming release of the seemingly overly gory remake and the recent re-release of the original on DVD and Blu-ray, I thought this would be a good opportunity to finally check out the film that's regarded by many as one of Roger Corman's greatest B-movie successes.  Like most of Corman's projects during this time, Piranha is a film that takes a lot of it's inspiration from some larger blockbuster successes, and on this occasion it's Jaws.

When two unsuspecting teenagers break into an abandoned mountain military research center they probably didn't expect to be eaten alive by piranhas during a midnight swim.  Eventually the two are reported missing by their families and Maggie (Heather Menzies) is hired to hunt them down.  In her investigation of the area where they were last seen she runs into Paul Grogan, a very unsociable individual who spends most of his days drinking and being exceptionally angry with the world.  Maggie, being rather blunt and outspoken, forces Paul to take her up to the military research center she's heard about believing the two missing teens might have hiked there.

When they arrive it appears the research center is not completely inactive as they discover a lab full of strange creatures.  Thinking it's possible the two might have drowned in the cement lake outside Maggie decides to drain it, draining the water and also the contents of the pool into the river, a pool of genitally engineered piranhas!  The piranhas were specially breed to be able to thrive in both salt and fresh water as a weapon to be used in the Vietnam war.  The initial plan was to fill the Vietnamese's water supply and destroy the entire population.  When the war ended abruptly that plan never became a reality, but the one scientist responsible for creating them kept some alive and continued to perfect the species.  Now with an unlimited population in the local river and numerous people dying as they make their way down stream towards the ocean, Maggie and Paul must find a way to stop them before more people die, or worse before they make it into the open oceans and spread everywhere.

I don't know what I expected out of Piranha but I must admit I was a little disappointed.  Compared to some of Corman's other productions Piranha is unusually tame in terms of the amount of gore.  It's been a while since I've seen Jaws, but I think it has more going for it in terms of gruesome shark attacks.  As always the greatest aspect of a B-movie, and especially a Corman picture, is the over-the-top gore, without that most of these films are simply mediocre rip-offs of films with superior acting, story and overall are more entertaining to watch.  For me Piranha is borderline boring, the acting is actually worse than prior Corman films I've seen, and the main characters are quite dull.

From what I've seen of the remake it looks to compensate for the originals tamer side with some of the most gory scenes I've ever seen in a film, although the CGI piranhas look quite lame compared to the originals prop fish.  It will be interesting to see how the new one stacks up in terms of story and acting, it shouldn't be too hard to top it in that department.  Overall, I'm a little amiss at the amount of love this film receives compared to some of the better productions Corman has been behind.  While the film definitely has some cult appeal it's missing that usual amount of over-the-top cheesiness you come to expect from a Corman project.  Maybe the fact that this film is more of a by the book creature feature is why it draws so much appeal, but for my tastes it could have stepped it up a little more.

5/10

Read More

Galaxy of Terror (1981)

With the re-releasing and upgrading of many Roger Corman classics I thought it would be a perfect time to dive into some of these films and see if I could discover any that match the entertainment value of Death Race 2000 and Starcrash.  The two Corman classics being released this month (July 2010) are Galaxy of Terror and Forbidden World, which are both in their own ways looked at as Alien ripoffs.  Galaxy of Terror is one I've been looking forward to viewing for sometime, and not because of all the "worm scene" hype, but because the film's trailer is awesome. 

A spaceship is sent on a mission to investigate and retrieve any survivors from a recently discovered crash on a deserted planet.  But when the crew arrives they quickly succumb to the same fate and find themselves stranded on the planet.  Quickly they realize they're not alone, and no survivors remain from the first crash.  Whatever was responsible for killing them is now picking off this crew one at a time.  Eventually they stumble upon a giant pyramid, the source of whatever dragged them down to the planet, it's also responsible for making the crew's fears turn into reality, fears that literally end up killing them!

To say I expected a lot more from a B-movie almost sounds crazy, but I actually was pretty disappointed with this film after all the Corman films I've seen up to this point have been fairly enjoyable.  Galaxy of Terror is nothing more than a bad science fiction film where someone gets killed every ten minutes and half the time you can't see much of it because the lighting is so dark.  The plot of the film is a lot like Sphere (with Sharon Stone, and Dustin Hoffman) which was made after this but is plenty close in terms of your fears killing you, only Sphere was a lot more entertaining.  Aside from that the story itself is simply a mess, there's no point in bothering to understand what's going on because I don't think the writers even had a coherent thought about it.  But this horrible excuse for an alien flick has some big names associated with it, you might recognize Erin Moran (Joanie from Happy Days), Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian), and someone named James Cameron did the production design (who might even be responsible for the worm scene), with Bill Paxton on set design.

Now onto the worm scene. The only real memorable scene in the entire film (and everyone agrees on this) is the scene with actress Taaffe O'Connell, who plays one of crew members, is molested by a giant worm.  Each crew member's death is supposedly tied in with one of their deepest fears.  She happens to be afraid of worms, so enter gigantic worm.  But this is no ordinary gory death scene, this granitic worm essentially sucks O'Connell's clothes off and then proceeds to slobber all over her in a manner that could be referred to as being raped.  But what's even more controversial about this scene to the fanboys of the film is the fact that in the final few seconds she's alive it appears she's actually enjoying it.  Personally I find the scene a little overrated, but I do see it's appeal to some of the more hardcore B-movie fans, it's 100% corny yet at the same time 100% unique and compared to the rest of this deary film is easily the most memorable scene.

Overall,  Galaxy of Terror simply didn't do anything for me.  While it definitely fits into the genre of bad movies nothing was Starcrash quality in it's absurdity, and there's nothing about this film (except for the worm scene), that remotely makes it standout among the hundreds of other alien kill-fest films.  Had the story not appeared to be written while filming by an incoherent eight year old, and the characters been minutely cohesive and interesting there might be something here worth carrying on about, but unless you're a dyed in the wool B-movie fan I don't see this impressing you.

4/10

Galaxy Of Terror Full Movie

Read More

Death Race 2000 (1975)

2008's Death Race starring Jason Statham came and went without much care, but you might be interested to know, and undoubtedly not too surprised to discover, that it was actually a remake to a little classic called Death Race 2000, starring none other than David Carradine and a very young Sylvester Stallone. It's one B-movie that appears to receive love from viewers and surprisingly critics as well, is it corny? Completely. But highly entertaining as well, if senseless comedic hit and runs strike your fancy.

It's the year 2000 and the United States of America is now under dictator rule by the current President whose been serving for twenty years. The people no longer have a say in how they live or what they do and the blame for the decline of the economy is placed on the Europeans, specifically the French. As the President places holds on the people and institutes laws that support the minority, he like the ancient Romans has discovered a way of disillusioning the people, distracting them from their misery, violence!

Much like the Roman Gladiator games, the institution of Transcontinental Road Race provides pleasure to the masses as a sport bent on killing innocent people. Unlike any normal race the winner is not only determined by who finishes first but who scores the most points, and points are gained by hitting pedestrians, with the highest points going those who take out toddlers, children and old people!

The favorite of the race is Frankenstein (David Carradine) a man who has supposedly been put back together so many times from the disasters of previous races that it is a miracle he's still alive. Pitted against his archenemy Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone) the two rivals will stop at nothing to win, or kill each other. But there's a special twist to this years race, this time the drivers themselves are targets, as a group of rebels are determined to sabotage the race and capture Frankenstein in hopes of forcing the President to return America's civil liberties. To assist in doing this the rebels have planted a spy in the midst of the race, the navigator for Frankenstein, who is none other than the grand daughter of the rebel leader.

Recently searching through the depths of the B-movie morgues I finally stumbled upon another bad movie worth watching, and this one has actually received high scores on IMDb.com compared to most B-movies! The film is produced by Roger Corman, who if you aren't familiar with is practically known as the present day Ed Wood, producing and directing bad movies since 1954; visit his IMDb.com page and be amazed. Corman has a knack for making bad films enjoyable through humor, a prime example of this is Creature from the Haunted Sea, which is a horribly written, terribly low budget film that I thoroughly found myself enjoying, Death Race 2000 is really no less.

Amazingly there are some shocking political similarities in this film that are not too far out. Cramming laws down people throats, passing insane legislation that protects and rewards the minority, and blaming economic climates on others instead of taking the responsibility for how it's currently being handled... sound familiar? Well lets just say we better not walk the streets alone or we better start driving incredibly fast vehicles if bloodsports suddenly appear in our cities; I've got a Bullitt so I'll be ready!

But aside from some rather eerie political similarities Dead Race 2000 does offer a bizarre 84 minutes of entertainment. Bizarre in the sense that the film makes senseless hit and runs enjoyable, even humorous. But again it's the classic weaving of an outlandish story, mixed with bizarre characters, and a strange satirical and sadistic humor that makes Death Race 2000 worth watching. And lets not forget the cast of David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone and the lovely Simone Griffeth, who only make this film that much cheesier and brilliant. Carradine is perfect as the mysterious, emotionless role of Frankenstein, and Stallone plays the meat-head gangster brilliantly. As for Simone Griffeth I'm surprised she didn't go on to do more films, only TV bit parts, aside from being beautiful she's not that bad of an actress. Overall, if your looking for an entertaining popcorn flick, Death Race 2000 is worth a look, besides watching David Carradine beat the crap out of Sylvester Stallone pretty much makes this film worth watching alone.

8/10

Read More

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

To label Creature from the Haunted Sea as a horror is almost a stretch that's too hard to prove. Better labeled as a comedy this film epitomizes what a good B-movie should really be, horrendously bad to the point of humor.

Creature from the Haunted Sea is a film that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but then again that's probably the point, it doesn't have to. The film sees American mobster Renzo Capeto assist a group of Cuban loyalists and their cartload of gold, escape from certain death during a Cuban rebellion. But Renzo's assistance is not out of the kindness of his heart but rather the greedy pit of his wallet, as he plans to murder the Cubans one by one and set off with their treasure. To do this Renzo comes up with an ingenious plan to create a monster and trick the Cubans into believing they are being hunted by a perilous creature from beneath the sea, ironically enough it turns out to be true. Oscar winning screenwriter Robert Towne co-stars, in one of his first films as the idiotic undercover agent XK150, a cross between Maxwell Smart and Barney Fife. XK150 joins Renzo's gang under the cover of Sparks Moran, and chronicles the party's adventures and crimes.

Creature from the Haunted Sea is pure cornball comedy from the very beginning, some people have gone as far as calling this "satire", but frankly give satire a little more credit. Director Roger Corman occupies the ranks of "great" directors such as the famed Ed Wood, so to claim this film is such a glorifying achievement in satire is giving way too much credit to a guy whose well known for cranking out low budget films in a matter of days... yes I said days! Ultimately, I found the Creature from the Haunted Sea to be a fun and campy "horror" that never once attempts to take itself seriously, and actually does a pretty good job of keeping the viewer entertained. If you can overlook the horrible audio quality of this film, and are a fan of B-movies or Corman, this is definitely worth a view. The film does run out of steam near the end but still manages to entertain most of the way through.

6/10

View: Creature from the Haunted Sea

Read More