Before you get to the salesy blurb, this is my favorite project every time we do one. There’s some art from me inside, including some Deadly Spawn stickers that you can only get if you order RIGHT NOW.
DIA #12 is just slithering with fantastic content, a lot of which leans heavily toward ravenous monsters that eat you alive. No, I’m not talking about your wireless phone company or your cable provider, I’m talking about THE DEADLY SPAWN, that 1983 indie horror flick about alien spores that fall to Earth and immediately start eating people. And the more they eat, the bigger they grow! Director Douglas McKeown talks to us about his role in creating this low budget masterpiece.
Jack Neubeck may be better known for his work in the theater, but we’re so excited to present an interview with him regarding his appearance in cult faves INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS (1972) and SHRIEK OF THE MUTILATED (1974). Jack talks to us about his experiences making these two cartoonishly grisly pics, as well as his memories of working with cult filmmakers Michael and Roberta Findlay.
Bret McCormick is a lifelong film fan who achieved what has got to be every monster kid’s goal; after making his own scary movies on Super 8, he worked his way up to working for B-movie icon Roger Corman, as well as making numerous contacts with independent filmmakers like S.F. Brownrigg, Robert A. Burns, and Larry Buchanan. Bret has written a new book called TEXAS SCHLOCK, that is part memoir, part commentary, and a vital document about regional filmmaking. Bret talks to us about his book, as well as his own 1986 ultra low budget gorefest THE ABOMINATION.
We’ve also got plenty of commentary ourselves. J.H. Rood has a profile of American serial killer Ed Gein, who inspired some grisly cinematic flickers. Sam Panico has a major crush on CATHY’S CURSE, and Victor C. Leroi discusses Tobe Hooper’s THE FUNHOUSE as part of his Video Nasty series. Lana Revok writes about Manson TV docudrama HELTER SKELTER, and newcomer Roger Braden highlights ALONE IN THE DARK and PSYCHIC KILLER as two must-watch movies. Dustin Fallon takes on WITHOUT WARNING, that 1980 alien-on-earth movie that is really sort of like a FRIDAY THE 13th film, with an alien instead of a mad slasher.
And of course, all of these are accompanied by the pulpy newsprint ads that you love to see in DIA! Hearken back to that era where you got your vital info about what was at the movies by picking up the local newspaper, and you were frequently greeted by sleazy adverts that promised all sorts of gruesome thrills.
Each issue of DRIVE-IN ASYLUM comes with a 4×6 matte print of a random vintage movie ad, and we’ve also got some fantastic die-cut DEADLY SPAWN stickers, too — but the number of SPAWN stickers is limited, so order early to be sure you get one!
5.5 x 8.5, black and white (some pages are printed on colored paper), 52 pages.
In 2015 — remember when — the US government outlawed gasoline, only allowing the elite, the military and law enforcement to use it. No one is allowed to own or use a car and those who go against the law are called Burners, who are policed by the DVC (the Department of Vehicle Control).
Red (Darren McGavin, Carl Kolchak himself) is a Burner who loves his 1980 Trans Am. His son, Cameron, has no interest in cars and continually gets upset at his father for breaking the law.
Another Burner is working with a Senator to make civilian use of cars legal again, but as he’s on his way, a DVC squad led by McBain (Doug McClure, SST: Death Flight, TV’s The Virginian) intercepts him. Dolan, one of the crazier DVC members, blows the guy up with a grenade launcher. Shana, another team member, is upset about this and how the matter has been handled.
Red keeps trying to get Cameron into cars, including having him watch a race between him and Indy, a Burner who races a Mustang. But Cameron is more into Indy’s daughter Jill, who shows him how to drive a dune buggy. While the two older men race, they run afoul of the DVC.
Cameron and Jill have better plans — they go to a barn to have sex. Of course, the DVC attack them, kicking Cameron’s wimpy ass and stealing Jill. It’s up to the two Burners to save her.
Shana helps them out and Cameron and Jill use Red’s Firebird to drive the Senator to the meeting while Red gets to know Shana better.
Is it a coincidence that this Canadian movie — and the Canadian band Rush in the song “Red Barchetta” — both created a world where racing cars were illegal?
This movie never gets as good as the poster. Or as what it should be about. That said, Darren McGavin does this material a favor and seems like he’s having fun. It’s an interesting concept and I wish it had been better, but there you go. As Orange Goblin says, “Some you win. Some you lose.”
In the Christian year 2015, the insensitivity of man finally triumphs and hundreds of atomic bombs devastate all five continents. Terrified of the slaughter and destruction, the few survivors of the disaster seek refuge under the ground. From that moment begins the era that will come to be called “after the bomb” — the period of the second human race. A century later, several men, dissatisfied with the system imposed on them by the new humanity, choose to revolt and live on the surface of the Earth as their ancestors did. So, yet another race begins, that of the new primitives. The two communities have no contact for a long period. The humans still living below ground are sophisticated and despise the primitives, regarding them as savages. This story begins on the surface of the Earth in the year 225 A.B. (After the Bomb)
Rats the Night of Terror begins with a punk gang investigating a mysterious town. Let’s meet the folks we’re going to spend the next 105 minutes with. Kurt and Taurus (Massimo Vanni, Warriors of the Wasteland) share the leadership responsibilities, but Duke really wants to take over. Then there’s Chocolate (Geretta Geretta from Demons), a poorly named black woman who gets flour all over herself and dances around while yelling, “I’m whiter than you!” Obviously Italian directors in 1984 were not yet “woke.” Lucifer and Lilith are, of course, a couple. At least she has plenty of fashion sense, traveling through the end of days wearing a cape and fedora. Noah is the resident genius, while Video is an expert at video games. Yep, that’s why they brought him along, despite the fact that there are no video games left. Deus has a shaved head with a strange symbol, is given to mystic rantings and has on one of The Warriors’ vests. Finally, we have Diana, who wears a studded headband and is the girlfriend of Barry Gibb lookalike Kurt, and Myrna, whose scream is ready to reduce your eardrums to quivering masses of cartilage.
Surprisingly, the gang finds plenty of food in this town. Of course, they also discover plenty of mutilated bodies and lots of rats. But at least the town looks nice, maybe because it’s the same set as Once Upon a Time in America.
Why aren’t the rats eating the food? Look, this was written and directed by Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso, so you better be ready to throw logic into the cold, dead void of space. What else can you expect from the team that brought you Zombie 3, The Other Hell, Robowar and Emanuelle Escapes from Hell? And you may also know Fragasso from another film that makes perfect sense, Troll 2. Just like that film, which has nothing to do with the movie it succeeds, this was billed as the third part of Enzo G. Castellari’s BronxWarriors series. Again — check logical storytelling at la porta.
Luckily for our heroes, they discover a hydroponic growing system that’s made the kindest bud ever known to man. Just kidding — the crops are fruit, vegetables and plants, along with purified water.
Night falls and everyone goes to sleep in the same room. Lilith and Lucifer have sex while everyone else either watches or performs their signature character move, such as polishing a guitar or meditating. Our young lovers get stuck in their sleeping bag while everyone laughs at them, using that hearty guffaw that only Italian dubbed voices can perform. Lilith ends up deciding not to have any more sex — her Southern accent is beyond reproach — and Lucifer stalks off, while she zips herself back into that troublesome sleeping bag.
That’s when our merry band discovers that while they may have dressed for a Road Warrior ripoff, they took a wrong turn at Barter Town and ended up in a slasher film.
Even after the bombs drop, you should know better than to have sex in one of these affairs. That means we can cross off our demonically named couple. He just falls into a hole of rats whereas she gets stuck in that cursed sleeping bag as rats climb in. When the rest of the crew discovers her, a rat climbs out from her mouth in a scene that’s sure to make you either laugh uncontrollably, puke out your last meal or some combination thereof.
I just had a flash — the way everyone is dressed in this film, including Kurt in his white shirt and red ascot, it’s as if the Scooby Gang tried to escape New York. The costumes in this film are fabulous! Good work, Elda Chinellato!
This film sets new standards for rats killing humans. How did they achieve such special effects? One assumes that someone was off camera, just tossing rodents at the unfortunate cast. Well, one doesn’t have to assume, because that’s pretty much exactly what happened, PETA be damned.
Meanwhile, Noah gets attacked by rats, so they decide to scare the rodents off with a flamethrower. Bad idea, unless you enjoy barbecuing your friends. Then, they discover that the rats have eaten their tires off of their motorcycles. How did they do such a thing? What do you mean they cut the power? How could they cut the power, man? They’re animals!
Myrna continues to scream at any and every opportunity while our heroes barricade themselves into the building and wonder, “Has there ever been worse dubbing in a film?” No, my friends. No, there has not. Instead of just asking you rhetorically to imagine the diseases a rat can give you, this film lists them at length.
Who is the biggest enemy? Duke or the rats? Well, Duke may be shooting at them with a machine gun, but he hasn’t eaten anyone from within yet. The good guys keep giving Duke chance after chance, even after he’s more than proved that he’s a ne’er do well. Eventually, he blows himself and Myrna up real good.
Diana just can’t take it any longer, so she slits her wrists. Then, Video learns that the building they’re hiding in was an experimental station for something called Return to Light. Not “Remain In Light.” That’s a Talking Heads record. Also, the rats are super intelligent and see this place as an affront. ”This is worse than being dead,” says Kurt, while he sashays in his little pirate costume.
Have you ever thought, “It must be really fun to be an actor?” Then you weren’t in this movie. For the entire running time, giant piles of rats are poured everywhere and anywhere and on just about everyone.
The rats finally try to break the door down to the control room and all hell breaks loose. Meanwhile, these guys in yellow hazmat suits and masks from The Crazies start walking through the streets.
Deus is killed by Myrna’s corpse and even Kurt is killed by a bunch of rats that fly at him from every angle. Video and Chocolate are then saved by the people in the hazmat suits, who have been gassing all of the rats.
Here’s where Rats: The Night of Terror unveils its shock ending. The hazmat guys are the people from Delta 2. Chocolate then says to one of her rescuers, ““Once, someone told me they read in a book that we all lived on the Earth together, that we were all brothers. The book was called the Bible, and it said that God created man and animals.” The leader of the men takes off his mask and he’s no man at all — he’s a human rat!
It’s a twist ending that isn’t explained and doesn’t make any sense at all! It would be like Peyton Farquhar shat his pants at the end of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge instead of getting lynched!
Rats: The Night of Terror isn’t a good movie. But it’s a great movie. A movie that you can tell people about and they’ll say, “That’s not a real movie.” But it is. It totally is.
Hours before a nuclear attack, couples that have been matched by computer are taken to an underground shelter so they can eventually repopulate the Earth. A great plan, if it wasn’t for the vampire bats!
Starring Jackie Cooper (Superman), Richard Jaeckel (Grizzly), Bradford Dillman (The Swarm), Star Trek: TNG’s Diana Muldaur, Lincoln Kilpatrick (who has an amazing scene where he tries to find a way out by climbing up and out) and more, this post-apocalyptic film is very 70s. There’s a lot of talking, not much action and plenty of in-fighting.
Can what’s left of humanity get along long enough to make some post-bomb babies? Will the bats bite their butts? Will you be offended when a rape scene turns into a seduction because this is the 70’s? These questions and more will all be answered.
Francis Turner (John Saxon, who I will opine is my favorite American actor in a foreign genre film ever) has created a cyborg who is 70% robot and 30% human, Paco Queruak (Daniel Greene from Falcon Crest). He programs him to kill a scientist with plans to cure acid rain (that was a big problem back in the 80’s that, much like killer bees, has just gone away). However, his solution runs afoul of the military/industrial complex that Turner works for. So he must die. And guess who programs him? Donald O’Brien, Doctor Butcher, M.D.himself!
However, Paco still has humanity inside and abandons his mission and sets out to discover more of his past in Arizona. There, he finds love with Linda (Janet Agren, City of the Living Dead, Eaten Alive!) in literally ten or twenty seconds of screen time. And he gets into a feud with Paul Morales (George Eastman!), a redneck trucker who don’t take too kindly to strangers around these parts.
Paul is an arm wrestler, too. It’s no coincidence that Hands of Steel was going to come out at the same time as Over the Top (which according to this article, was filming just 50 miles away).
Then it’s back to the military/industrial complex, who sends a whole bunch of killers after our hero. There are bikers, mafia guys and even a ripoff of Pris from Blade Runner that Paco beats by ripping off her head. Then Paul comes back to try and kill Paco, but our hero literally crushes his head with his cyborg grip.
Paco takes down a helicopter and stops Saxon, who has a giant gun, before cops surround the building ala the Rambo: First Blood. Thinking Linda is dead, Paco has gone crazy, but she survives and is able to talk him into surrendering.
Even worse, there’s a tragedy that happened during the filming, as Claudio Cassinelli (Warriors of the Year 2072, Murder Rock) was killed when the helicopter he was in crashed. The rotor blades struck the underside of the bridge and broke off, sending the helicopter into a canyon, where Cassinelli and the pilot died. It wasn’t Martino’s fault, as the National Transportation Safety Board reported that there were prescription drugs in the pilot’s hotel room that would have impaired his judgment. Because John Saxon was a stickler for Screen Actors Guild rules, he shot all of his scenes in Italy and refused to appear in any of the non-union American shot footage. He believes that the SAG saved his life, as otherwise, he would have been on that helicopter.
At least there’s a score by Claudio Simonetti of Goblin to liven things up.
Hands of Stone is a kind of movie we don’t get much of any longer — a movie that found life on the video shelves, a cyborg movie we could rent when Terminator was out of stock. If there’s one compliment I can give this film, the art that sells it is awesome. You can watch it on Amazon Prime and buy it at Diabolik DVD. There’s free copies on You Tube HERE and HERE.
And don’t let the recycling of video box art fool you: Top Line, starring Franco Nero, and Cy-Warrior, starring Henry Silva, are two completely different movies — about renegade cyborgs, natch. Well, they’re almost not the same movie. See for yourself!
There’s a moment where Isla Nublar sinks as a volcano destroys what was once Jurassic World — no real spoiler, the film’s tagline is “The island is gone” — and a brontosaurus stands in the smoke, unable to escape, where real emotion came out of me. It’s like that moment when I was a child, when we went to a Mystery Spot near Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. They had a dino tour that had statues of different creatures and sound effects, acting like they were real and at one point of the tour, encouraged you to shoot at them with fake M16 machine guns. I ran up and down our little train and begged everyone to please stop shooting the dinosaurs.
I have a troubled relationship with Jurassic Park. This film makes the same mistakes as nearly every other in the series. One, never go back to the island. Two, every kindly inventor of the park has a younger successor who only cares about making money and has hired mercenaries who are never there to help. Third, BD Wong is always up to no good.
Yet I found myself really enjoying this movie much more than previous films in the series. Maybe it’s because so many of this iterations set pieces play out more like a horror or disaster movie than a blockbuster, starting with an attempt to retrieve the DNA of Indominus Rex from what is left of Jurassic World, which ends with a spectacular attack by the Mosasaurus.
Throughout the film, the question is often posed — should these creatures live or die? During a Senate hearing, Dr. Ian Malcolm (a welcome Jeff Goldblum) opines that they should go extinct again to make up for the mistakes of John Hammond. Meanwhile, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) from the last film has started a group to save them. Late in the film, it’s posed that she — by authorizing Idominus Rex in the first place — is just as responsible for where the world is as the bad guys. Malcolm may have said the same if asked — he feels that mankind cannot handle the power of evolution, a trait that holds true to his character in the original film.
Of course, we have to go back to the island. And Claire is lured, just as everyone has been, by the chance to fix her mistakes and save the creatures that are left. She’s contacted by Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), Hammond’s original partner, and asked to help save what’s left of the species on the island. There’s another reason to go back — a chance to see her one-time (twice now?) boyfriend Owen Grady (Chris Pratt, making a very real run for man of summer between this and Infinity War) and rescue his dino daughter, Blue the raptor.
There are secrets, though. Eli Mills, Lockwood’s aide, has a secret agenda. If this seems like a rerun of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, well, it totally is. And if Ken Wheatley (Silence of the Lamb‘s Ted Levine) is the same merc as every other merc in the series, so be it, although his trait of taking teeth from every dinosaur is a neat character tic.
That said, there are some thrilling moments here, such as the aforementioned destruction of the island, an auction where the viewer cannot wait for the chaos that the dinosaurs will eventually cause and a horrific sequence where the new Indoraptor stalks Maisie, Lockwood’s granddaughter (kinda sorta — there’s a reveal here). There’s some fun character interplay between techie Franklin Webb and Dr. Zia Rodriguez, a paleoveterinarian who has never seen a dinosaur for real. And the end — where the question is asked once again if these creatures should live or die — hit all my emotional buttons.
Look — it’s a big dumb summer blockbuster. Sometimes, that’s all you need on a Friday night after a long week of work. Sure, we’ve seen everything before in this series, but the end of this film, which finally takes the dinosaurs away from the park and loose in the world for the final part of this trilogy cycle, sets up something brand new. And that’s actually the most exciting part of this film.
What if The Shining wasn’t in the snowy hills of Oregon, but instead found itself in Australia? What if a woman found herself repeating the same horrors that her mother had faced twenty years before? And what if we decide to watch Next of Kin, today’s movie of the day?
Linda inherits Montclare, a retirement home that belonged to her mother. When she comes back to her hometown to settle her affairs, she feels unwelcome, with only Barry, an old boyfriend (John Jarratt, the evil Mick Taylor in the Wolf Creek series of movies), being understanding.
Things certainly aren’t helped by Montclare’s staff, including Connie and Dr. Barton (Alex Scott, The Asphyx), who have been conducting a secret affair and may be conspiring to drive Linda insane. Or perhaps the house is truly haunted, as drowned corpses appear at will and windows mysteriously open. No matter what, there’s something wrong and it’s probably due to the years of madness and murder that Linda’s mother has covered up.
There’s an amazing moment near the end where Linda has gone near insane, barricading herself within the diner, where she builds a pyramid of sugar cubes as the forces of evil gather themselves to do her in. It’s strangely gorgeous. And not the only original sight in a film that seemingly would only be a rip-off.
Throw in an amazing score by Tangerine Dream’s Klaus Schulze and you have a film that’s quite worthy of experiencing.
Sadly, there’s been no official U.S. DVD or blu-ray release of the film. You can find it on YouTube and through the gray market. And you totally should. It’s nothing like the poster promises and is instead a psychologically rich trip through past sins and a family curse.
UPDATE: Of course, if one company is going to release an amazing horror movie that has never been out in the U.S. before and do it right, it’s going to be Severin. Their new blu ray of Next of Kin can be ordered now.
In 1990, Universal Studios bought the rights to Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park before it was even published. The idea of dinosaurs being cloned and brought into our modern world just works.
Starting with 1993’s Jurassic Park and across several follow-ups, including 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World 3, announced for 2021, people can’t seem to get enough of these movies. Sure, they’re all about the same thing — you can’t stop dinosaurs from being dinosaurs — but for some reason, people just keep coming back to see these movies.
Steven Spielberg first learned of the novel while working on the pitch for the TV series ER with Crichton. To even get the rights, Universal had to pay $1.5 million and a substantial percentage of the gross to the writer, a fee that he would not negotiate on. Even better, he got $500,000 just to adapt his own book for the screen. They were hungry for a hit and after the film did well, even hungrier for sequels. Well, they got them.
Jurassic Park (1993)
John Hammond (Richard Attenborough, Magic) and his company InGen have figured out how to clone dinosaurs from DNA trapped in blood trapped in bugs trapped in amber. This science is inherently bullshit, but if that’s going to stop you from watching these films, you better just quit now.
He’s created a theme park called Jurassic Park on Isla Nublar that’s packed with several of his cloned dinosaurs. Never mind that one of the raptors has already killed a highly trained handler. The park’s investors demand that dinosaur experts visit the park and certify its safety.
How are there dinosaur experts that know how real live dinosaurs would behave? I mean, putting giant monsters around humans who act like people in a theme park? How can that go wrong? I’m not a dinosaur expert by any means, but I can sit here and tell you that this is amongst the dumbest ideas ever concocted.
Those experts are chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum, who doesn’t just come from Pittsburgh but comes from our neighborhood), paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill, Possession) and paleobotanist Dr. Elliw Sattler (Laura Dern, Wild at Heart).
Everyone is amazed to see real live dinosaurs, which would have to be a dream come true. I mean, once I realized that all the dinosaurs were dead, I didn’t want to be an archaeologist any longer.
That’s when they learn that every dinosaur is female and the park is using select breeding. But Malcolm believes that nature will always find a way to thrive. Spoiler warning: it does, because they used frog DNA to fill in the gaps and frogs will switch gender to keep breeding. I love that they have scientists smart enough to handle creating living creatures from ancient DNA, but they aren’t smart enough to realize that things like this happen. I blame B.D. Wong’s Dr. Henry Wu, who will go on to make every more monumental boners in the series. In fact, he fucks up so much that they are forced to make him a bad guy to explain just how much one man can screw things up.
You know what would be a great idea? To bring kids around these uncontrollable killing machines. That’s exactly why Hammond’s grandkids, Lex and Tim, are flown in. The first trip through the park goes bad, with most of the dinosaurs not showing up, other than a sick triceratops. A tropical storm is on the horizon, so everyone heads back to the base. Hammond is upset, but Samuel Jackson’s Ray Arnold character says that things could have gone worse. Yeah, no shit it could have gone worse. You built a death trap thrill ride in a place with the worst storms on Earth and let your pre-teen grandkids romp around in it.
Meanwhile, Newman from Seinfeld has sold out Hammond and has messed up all of the parks security systems so that he can steal dinosaur embryos and put them in a shaving cream can. Yes, Michael Crichton got paid $2 million dollars for that. Don’t worry — a dilophosaurus sprays Newman, something it never could do, and eats him. He leaves behind chaos, with a T. Rex breaking through its fence and attacking everyone, including eating a lawyer while he takes a fearful dump.
This sets up the basic action of every movie that will follow this one: raptors chase everyone, kids are put in danger and a man that is the worst parent type ever learns to love those children. Along the way, anyone that’s been trained to deal with these creatures gets torn asunder.
In the end, the T. Rex eats the raptors and everyone leaves the island. In the real world, lawsuits would decimate InGen, but this is the world of Crichton and Spielberg. They’re coming back. You know it. I know it. They know it.
My favorite parts of this film are when Sam Neill treats children with utter contempt, including dressing down a rotund tween and explaining how a raptor would tear him into pieces and leave his intestines in the dirt. It’s heartwarming. I also love that William Hurt was offered this role and turned it down, refusing to even read the script.
The special effects in this film blew minds when it came out 25 years ago and they still look good today. You can poke some holes in the CGI but this was groundbreaking special effects back then.
As for me, I was very much in the art school of film when this came out, sure that Spielberg had sold out the promise of early 1970’s Hollywood as he embraced the blockbuster. Watching it years later with the benefit of old man hindsight, it’s a decent summer film, a rollercoaster ride that demands that you probably shouldn’t think about too much, packed with great effects and fun characters.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
There’s another island. Isla Sorna is where the dinosaurs were raised and also where a rich little girl wanders into a compsognathus attack. From this opening, you know that you’re in for a much darker ride. It’s one of those movies where kindly Spielberg decides that he should have made Night Skies instead of E.T. and indulges all the meanness he has festering inside upon his characters.
John Hammond’s nephew, Peter Ludlow is trying to use the island to fix the losses that Jurassic Park incurred. The old man has taken a dramatic change of heart, realizing that he should have never tried to open a theme park all those years ago and that these dinosaurs need to be protected. If you’re kind of taken aback by all of the character flip-flops here, buckle up. You know — because guys in their seventies suddenly stop being capitalists and suddenly start caring for the common man, like Peter on the road to Damascus. It can happen.
Ian Malcolm is the only one that comes back, save for cameos from his grandchildren. Turns out that Julianne Moore is in this, playing Ian’s girlfriend Dr. Sarah Harding, and that she’s already on the island. For the last four years, Ian has been discredited and disbarred for speaking out on Jurassic Park. The last thing he wants to do is go back, but to save the girl he loves, he has to.
Ian joins the team of equipment guy Eddie Carr and documentarian Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), as well as his daughter Kelly who has stowed away. Just as they catch up with Dr. Sarah, a whole new InGen squad shows up, made up of mercs and hunters. Chief amongst them are Pete Postlethwaite as Roland Tembo, a big game hunter who dreams of bagging a T. Rex, Fargo‘s Peter Stormare as Dieter Stark and Dr. Robert Burke, a dinosaur expert played by Thomas F. Duffy (the demeted Charles Wilson from Death Wish 2!).
Tembo’s plan is to tie up a baby T. Rex and use it to lure in the mother or father. And InGen wants to get as many dinosaurs as possible so they can open a new Jurassic Park in San Diego. None of these ideas are good and they blow up in everyone’s face.
There’s a great moment in here where all of Malcolm’s team’s vehicles plunge off a cliff and some nifty action pieces, but it all feels rather disjointed. By the time everyone teams up and gets off the island, I was kind of hoping the film was over, only to learn there was so much more movie left. It’s a very late 90’s style of blockbuster — give it more running time and more story versus more thinking.
At the end, the dinosaurs are placed in an animal preserve free from human interference. Hammond steals Malcolm’s line, saying that “Life will find a way.”
Spielberg eventually said that he didn’t enjoy making this film. It kind of shows. He stated, “I beat myself up… growing more and more impatient with myself… It made me wistful about doing a talking picture because sometimes I got the feeling I was just making this big silent-roar movie… I found myself saying, ‘Is that all there is? It’s not enough for me.'”
That said, the movie did big numbers, so of course, it was time for another one. This time, Joe Johnson (Captain America: The First Avenger and The Rocketeer) would direct.
Jurassic Park 3 (2001)
The first film in the series to not be based on a Crichton book or directed by Spielberg, who saw the films as “a big Advil headache.”
I hate watched this movie, to be perfectly honest. Why would anyone go near this park? Why would anyone be dumb enough to parasail with pterodactyls? That’s what we call thinning the herd. Come on, people.
It all starts when Ben Hildebrand takes his girlfriend’s kid, Eric Kirby, parasailing with the dinosaurs, as mentioned above. However, they are pulled toward Isla Sorna and Eric’s parents, Paul and Amanda (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) con Dr. Alan Grant into coming back to the island.
We learn early on that Dr. Grant screwed things up with Dr. Sattler and that she’s married to someone else. He’s a man alone, back on digs with an assistant that barely listens to him, Billy Brennan.
All the Kirbys say they want to do is fly over the island. However, the mercs on board knock out Grant and then it’s time to find Eric, who is actually the most resourceful of everyone.
Seriously, this movie felt like it went on forever, as they walked over the same ground trod upon by the other films. That said — the scene where Dr. Grant has the dream on the plane and the raptor talks to him? I could watch that over and over again.
There’s also a scene where everyone has to dig through dinosaur shit to find a satellite phone. That’s a first for the series and really the high point of this entire movie.
Jurassic World (2015)
14 years later and we have another sequel, planned as part of a trilogy. Set 22 years after the first movie, the theme park has now been open for ten years, but when a newly cloned dinosaur breaks loose everything comes full circle.
Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard, Lady in the Water), the park’s operations manager, has brought her nephews to the park. She’s too busy to keep an eye on them as the pterodactyl shit hits the fan. There’s also her boyfriend, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy), who has been able to train the velociraptors.
Meanwhile, there’s an InGen security asshole (as always), this time played by Vincent D’Onofrio, who wants to use those dinosaurs for military use.
Then there’s that big bad indominus rex, which uses DNA from all sorts of horrifying beasts instead of frogs, like raptors. Who made this thing? Our old friend Dr. Henry Wu.
The best part of this film is the end and I don’t mean that in a mean way. I loved how the original T. Rex comes back and all of the dinosaurs have reclaimed their island, having defeated the new beast. There’s even a gigantic mosasaurus that gets a crowd-pleasing moment right before the conclusion.
I love that one of the plans for this movie was to prove that humans descended from dinosaurs. That sounds like more my kind of movie. However, the last Jurassic Park film may be the best. Until the new one comes out this week. And of course, I’ll be there, ready to wade through the brontosaurus shit.
It’s been six years since Nick Cooper has recorded an album. He left the UK behind for Los Angeles and his wife, but now, divorce has landed him back home and back behind the mic. Retiring to the English countryside to record what he hopes will be his return to the limelight, he finds himself haunted by screams and visions of death.
Pete Walker’s filmography is filled with sex and murder and little, if any, subtext. From House of Whipchord and Frightmare to Schizo and House of the Long Shadows, which united Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine, his films are quickly made and easily digested.
The opening of the film has Gail Cooper (Holly Palance, daughter of Jack and the doomed nanny from The Omen) is going through her ex-husband’s London apartment one more time. She’s not bitter, but almost wistful, remembering their love. Nick isn’t home, but she isn’t alone. Someone is there, watching her answer a reporter about her upcoming divorce and field questions about her husband’s comeback. Moments after she finishes a phone call, someone in an old lady mask kills her in graphic detail, even chopping her hand off. As graphic as this scene is, it gets worse as we return to the scene of the crime multiple times as the camera watches her decompose. And this is one of Walker’s restrained movies!
Gail’s ex-husband Nick (Jack Jones) has no idea that any of this has happened. He’s just trying to get through the recording sessions and make his manager Webster (David Doyle, TV’s Charlie’s Angels) happy. He’s moved into the Surrey countryside where Mr. and Mrs. B (Bill Owen and Sheila Keith, who appeared in four of Walker’s films) take care of his every need. Yet all is not well. At night, he hears screaming and sees visions of his ex-wife’s decaying face. At least he’s hooking up with Webster’s secretary Linda (Pamela Stephenson, an SNL cast member for season 10 of the show, which was the year Lorne Michaels came back, as well as Superman III).
Nick has all sorts of shady people around him, including his right-hand man from the old days, Harry. At one point, Nick ran with a druggy crowd, but now tries to avoid everything, even cigarettes. After discovering that Webster and Linda used to be a couple and the disappearance of Harry, Nick goes crazy. He searches for the voice in the house and only finds Gail’s severed head, which sends him into a catatonic state. He’s admitted to the hospital for exhaustion and they put him into five days of medical sleep (which sounds wonderful).
Nick and Linda finally have sex, but she disappears the next day. This makes Nick even crazier and we start to wonder who is behind all of this. There’s a red herring thrown when we discover Webster likes to dress up as an old woman. He also paid off Gail and got her to divorce our hero.
When Nick goes back to his old apartment, he learns that it’s been cleaned and all the carpeting has been replaced.
As Mrs. B tells him not to worry, the old woman attacks. He ducks an axe blow and the old woman is killed, revealing the killer as her husband! It turns out that their beloved daughter was an obsessed fan who committed suicide once Nick married Gail. All of this psychological torture has been their attempt to drive him to suicide.
Webster and the police arrive, just as Nick discovers that Linda has been walled inside the house, along with the body of the B’s dead daughter, who is clutching a photo of Nick as her body lies in state within a shrine to the singer.
As the police arrest Mr. B, Nick looks to the window of the house and sees his ex-wife waving goodbye to him. It seems that all of the psychological turmoil he had been put through wasn’t all in his head or in the hands of his would-be murderers.
Initially, Walker wanted Bryan Ferry from Roxy Music to play the lead, but Jack Jones chose this as his film debut. A legitimate pop singer who performed nightly concerts while acting daily in this film, he’s probably best known for singing the Love Boat theme song. He’s had a long career with several Grammy awards and acting roles to his name, including Top Secret and American Hustle.
He’s really great in this film, a rare example of a man in peril. This British giallo-style shocker is centered by his performance, as his sanity slowly slips. Also, he has the most chest hair I’ve ever seen on a man, a veritable forest of fluff that freaked out Becca.
Redemption put this film out several years ago and you should be able to find it at an affordable used price. It’s worth looking for. Diabolik DVD has it at a great price, too.
Anthony Cardoza produced some really interesting films. You may call them turkeys. You may also call them…well, you wouldn’t call them works of art. But hey, his movies live on, like The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Hellcats and today’s film, Bigfoot.
Jasper B. Hawks (John Carradine!) and Elmer Briggs (John Mitchum, brother of Robert and the writer of the John Wayne voiced “America, Why I Love Her” that TV stations used to sign off when TV stations still existed and actually signed off) are driving around the forest. And Joi Landis (Joi Lansing, a former MGM contract girl who shows up in the long tracking shot that begins Touch of Evil, in her final role) is a pilot whose plane breaks down. She parachutes into the woods and encounters Bigfoot.
Then there’s Rick (Chris Mitchum, son of Robert and also an actor in films like Jodorowsky’s Tusk and Faceless) and his girlfriend Chris who find a Bigfoot cemetery and get attacked, too.
Of course, the authorities are of no help. Only Jasper will help Rick and that’s because he wants a Bigfoot for his freak show.
Peggy gets kidnapped by Bigfoot and we discover that Joi has been taken, too. Upon reaching the lair of the Bigfoots (Bigfeet?), we discover that the creatures we’ve seen are his wives and the real creature is 200 feet tall. Yes. You just read that right. And he’s about to fight a bear that’s just as huge.
A gang of bikers gas Bigfoot but he escapes the freakshow, goes nuts in town and then gets blown up by bikers. John Carradine quotes from King Kong (he does throughout the film) and the movie ends.
Along the way, we find Doodles Weaver, whose scene in the completely bonkers The Zodiac Killer may be the most ridiculous scene in what is quite honestly one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen.
And hey, is that Bing Crosby’s son Lindsey? Yes, it is! And the first singing cowboy, Ken Maynard! This movie is packed with actors who have much more interesting stories than the film they’re stuck in.
But you know what is interesting? The strange doom funk that plays every time the bikers show up. And keep your eyes open for a quick appearance by Haji, who famously appeared in Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Director Robert F. Slatzer only did two other movies, but one of them was The Hellcats, where Russ Hagen battles a female gang. Leather on the outside…all woman on the inside!
But hey — Bigfoot. Come for the bikers. Stay for the bigfoots. Enjoy the bikinis. But dig this crazy sound, man!
You can get this from Cheezy Flicks for a really great price.
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