Low Budget Sc-Fi

 

 (imdb)

SPAWN OF THE SLITHIS-1978-After some neighborhood dogs are killed, a mutated sea monster created by a nuclear leak at a petroleum company prowls around. Wayne Connors (Alan Blanchard), a high school teacher, investigates. Some of the victims are intentionally comical but I'm not so sure about the rest. The acting and direction are pretty bad. A police lieutenant (Hy Pike) acts like an insane Shakespearean actor. The monster (Win Condict) looks like an overgrown mutated Ninja Turtle. Connors, his wife (Judy Motulsky), Dr. John (Dennis Falt) and boat Capt. Chris (Mello Alexandria) (who's seen JAWS too many times) go after it. 

There are some gory deaths but too much talky scientific mumbo jumbo. Writer/director Stephen Traxler later produced DRACULA'S WIDOW (1988).

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Killer Babe

 

 (tcm)

IT'S ALIVE-1974-A woman named Lenore (Sharon Farrell) gives birth to a monster baby that kills all the doctors and nurses who helped bring it out. Frank (John P. Ryan), the monstrosity's father acts weird and wants to know what happened to his baby. His boss (Guy Stockwell) wants him to take a vacation. Meanwhile the mutant moppet kills people (the milkman victim is particularly crazy). A university head (Andrew Duggan) wants the baby body dead or alive. The cause of it may have been some birth control pills and the CEO of the company (Robert Emhardt) wants the baby destroyed. SWAT teams converge on it at one point but only find a normal harmless baby. The killer babe goes home and mom hides it in the basement. It threatens their older son and kills a neighbor. Mom goes crazy. 

Eventually the police trap it in a sewer but Frank feeling fatherly saves it. It screams a lot and Frank tries to convince the cops it's harmless (right after the shootout what looks like to me a UFO dots across the sky...). The baby is killed but a police lieutenant gets a call that another mutant baby has been born. 

IT'S ALIVE was the brainchild of maverick writer/director Larry Cohen, made in between HELL UP IN HARLEM and GOD TOLD ME TO. It caused a stir upon its initial release. Many people didn't like the idea of a “killer baby”. It still holds up well today and is better than most modern dunnage that passes for horror. (There was a remake in 2009!) Cohen made two sequels.

Of course I reviewed the Part 2 first!

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An American In England

 THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE-1959-A US astronaut Don Prescott (Bill Edwards) is launched into space. He runs into some problems and crashes back to Earth. His brother Commander Charles Prescott (Marshall Thompson) investigates. He finds the ship but not his brother. It turns out Don, an uptight wise guy beat it out to be with his Italian girlfriend Tia (Marla Landi)! On a second flight, Don hits a meteor shower and disappears. After the mysterious death of cattle and people and the destruction of a blood bank, it becomes obvious that Prescott has come back home a wheezing blood drinking monster! He looks like he's encased in dried mud but that doesn't stop him from driving a car. Tia, who also happens to be a scientist at first blames everything on Charles but later warms to him and helps out. Roger Delgado (the first "master" on the original DOCTOR WHO) plays a Mexican diplomat who's upset because the space crash ruined a bull fight!

Despite it's low budget THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE is a decent British production partially filmed in the US. It starts off kind of stupidly but gets better when the monster shows up. Two of it's producers Charles Vetter and Richard Gordon had already made two memorable horror films : FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (also with Thompson) and THE HAUNTED STRANGLER with Boris Karloff. Wyatt Ordung is one of the credited writers as his original script was first offered to AIP who turned it down.

Director Robert Day made the previously mentioned Haunted Strangler as well as the usually overlooked CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, also with Karloff. He went on to make the Hammer version of SHE as well as several '60's Tarzan movies and worked on British and American TV.

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Nonsense

DARK FLOORS-2008-A nurse, a high strung guy, a security guard, a nutty guy and man with a semi-comatose daughter are trapped in a hospital. All the doctors and patients have disappeared and they are menaced by a strange apparition (it looks like Uncle Creepy from the black and white Warren comics). It all seems to be related to the daughter. A scaly monster bites the high strung guy's leg. Later the monster (which looks like The Predator dressed to go clubbing) kills some of them. Two survivors become "displaced" in time and eventually corpses come back to life. It's all Stephen King/David Lynch/J-horror inspired nonsense very drawn out and un-entertaining.

This Finland/Iceland co-production (in English) was directed by Pete Riski and features English actor Ronald Pickup and the Finnish rock group Lordi  (I like their song "Hard Rock Hallelujah") as most of the demons.

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He-Man

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE-1987-I always heard a lot of negative things about this Sci-Fi movie based on the popular '80's toys but I kind of liked it!

Dolph Lundgren is He-Man who with his companions Duncan (Jon Cypher), Teela (Chelsea Field) and Gwildor (Billy Barty) is transported to Earth through Gwildor's invention called "a tonal key". The evil Skeletor (Frank Langella) wants the key and sends a bevy of super baddies with names like Beastman, Saurod and Blade (Anthony De Longis) to get it. Evil-Lyn (Meg Foster) leads them in the hunt. Courtney Cox is the earth girl who helps the good guys.

There's lots of action and crazy monster costumes and some of the dialogue is pretty funny. Despite all the battles there are really no deaths so a scene where He-Man is flogged seems a little out of place.

James Tolkan is a hot headed cop and Stanley Livingston (Ernie on TV's MY THREE SONS) is thrown in for comic relief. The part where Skeletor receives some power made me think of a scene with Langella, (an obvious ham), in the later THE NINTH GATE!).

Future TV director Robert Duncan McNeill is Cox's boyfriend and Christina Pickles is the imprisoned Sorceress of Castle Greyskull. Director Gary Goddard had written the Bo Derek version of TARZAN OF THE APES and later worked on things like HERSHEY'S REALLY BIG 3-D SHOW.

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Live Action Manga

THE GUYVER-1991-This is a crazy kind of Sci-Fi superhero comedy drama based on a Japanese manga.

A scientist working for the evil Chronus corporation has created “the most dangerous technology since the atom bomb”. It's called The Guyver, an armor that sort of fuses with the body. It looks like an sinister version of Ultra-Man.

Chronus CEO Balcus (David Gale from RE-ANIMATOR in his last role) wants the armor. His semi-comical goon squad includes Jimmy Walker, Michael Berryman and Spice Williams. They can all mutate into monsters too. After the scientist is killed a dumb martial arts student (Jack Armstrong) accidentally gets the armor and must save the late scientist’s daughter (Vivian Wu). Mark Hamil is a CIA agent who helps out but becomes a monster in the climax. It’s a fun movie if you like outrageous monsters fighting with a little comedy thrown in.

Linnea Quigley has one scream, I mean scene and REANIMATOR star Jeffery Combs has a small role. Co-director Screaming Mad George did SFX on many movies (including BRIDE OF THE RE-ANIMATOR) but this is his only full length feature credit.

Co-director Steve Wang later made a sequel GUYVER: DARK HERO and episodes of MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS. If THE GUYVER seems to have a lot of Re-Animator connects, Brian Yuzna was the producer.



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Short Anime Catch Up

QUEEN EMERALDAS-1999-This is a spinoff of the popular Capt. Harlock anime series featuring his pirate ally Emeraldas who's more a wandering do-gooder than an actual pirate. She helps Hiroshi, a young boy who has lost his faith in humanity. If it sounds a little like GALAXY 999 it's because it all takes place in the some universe created by manga artist Leiji Matsumoto and Emeraldas is the sister of GALAXY's lead female character Maetel. This is a 60 min. OVA in two parts and very enjoyable. 


SOL BIANCA-1990-Japanese anime involving a group of female space pilots, their stolen space ship and a young stowaway who wants to rescue his mother from the evil villian Battros. There's a lot of action and soul searching and it spawned a sequel and a TV series.




BIOHUNTER-1997-Another anime, very weird and violent, about a vampire like virus that turns victims into powerful monsters. Not for everyone I guess but I liked it...

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Night Fright!

NIGHT FRIGHT-1967-This made in Texas atrocity seems to feature scenes with a monster as an afterthought. It’s very very talky and way too dark. A very skinny John Agar stars as a small town sheriff battling a killer mutant monster that came out of a secret government rocket crash. A lot of local teens (all very bad actors) are terrorized and Agar’s character almost loses it when one of them calls him “fuzz” (“Listen, punk. Don’t call me fuzz”).

The grumbling monster looks like a man in an ape suit except for the head, which is very shiny and plastic looking and resembles a Klingon! An elaborate plan to capture the creature is mostly characters just sitting around waiting! Though the monster is suppose to be big and noisy victims don’t really notice him until he’s right on top of them! Larry Buchanan regular Bill Thurman plays Agar’s deputy who gets killed (Agar had been in 2 Buchanan outings himself). Screenwriter Russ Marker (who also has a role) had made THE YESTERDAY MACHINE but this is 10 times worst. Nothing happens! But what can you expect from a director (James A. Sullivan) who edited MANOS –HANDS OF FATE!!

The same year Agar had a small role in Corman’s THE ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE. It stinks but I wonder it if Dean R. Koontz saw this before writing “Watchers"?

One of the young people is played Brenda Venus who went on to write a column for Playboy magazine and was "the muse" to author Henry Miller in the last years of his life. His letters to her were collected into a book titled "Dear, Dear Brenda". 

Final note: The script supervisor on NIGHT FRIGHT was Annabelle Weenick from DON’T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT and Larry Buchanan movies....

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