Movie Review: Big Ass Spider! (2013)

There's really no introduction needed for today's movie. It's called Big Ass Spider! (exclamation point included) and whatever crosses your mind when you imagine a movie with that title, you're probably right. But don't be thinking anything bad, though, because Big Ass Spider! is actually pretty great and a movie that is incredibly fun to watch.

Exterminator Alex is a guy who ends up being in the right place at the wrong time when a body shows up at the hospital carrying a spider that is bigger than anything he's ever seen. With the help of a hospital security guard, Alex starts tracking the spider, along with the military, through the city as it continues to grow to epic proportions, the result of some accidental interaction with alien growth hormone.

As the title implies about itself, this movie understands what kind of movie it is and plays to that expectation every chance it gets. Right off the bat, the movie hides nothing from us, as it starts with a flash forward to the end when the enormous spider is fighting off helicopters at the top of a skyscraper (hm, I wonder what that is a reference to), all with some sweeping slow motion and a ballad playing over it that has nothing to do with what is happening on screen. After that the fun really starts, even as the movie goes through the usual motions of meeting the characters and setting up the plot. Though it's not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, the movie keeps up a constant humorous tone throughout, even through some of the more mundane scenes. I know I had a smile on my face practically the whole time I was watching it.

Alex Mathis is my kind of everyday nice guy, played adorably by Greg Grunberg. Lombardo Boyar plays his enthusiastic sidekick Jose, who is responsible for most of the comedy. Other important roles are Ray Wise as Major Braxton and he expertly delivers each line like only an awesome B-movie actor could. Clare Kramer (wahoo for a Buffy reference! She was the Big Bad in season five, Glory) is Lieutenant Carly Brant, the requisite hot chick in a power position role. I saw in Buffy that she has a knack for comedy so I was a little disappointed that they didn't use that much of her full talent here. My only real problem with the movie is that the requisite love story between Alex and Carly felt so incredibly forced, and nothing about it was believable. These two characters had hardly any interaction with each other and by the end, they are in love and kissing. It's like the filmmakers felt like they had to give the nice guy a girl at the end, so they just kinda said, "yeah, these two totally like each other! Don't you see it?" Eh, not really.

Being the horror nut that I am and given my usual reaction to movies like this, my favorite part of the movie has got to be when the spider rampages the park. We get an excellent introduction to this scene by none other than Lloyd Kaufman himself, who plays a random jogger that falls victim to the spider. After that, utter chaos ensues as the giant arachnid plows its way through as many park-goers as it can. It grabs people with its web and quickly eats them (I'm not sure that's biologically correct, but I am so over such trivialities at this point in the movie), and uses its legs to stab several people through the chest. What makes this scene even more hilarious is the gaggle of girls who provide the TandA of the film, as they are playing volleyball in a family park wearing practically nothing.

The poster really says it all, people - Big Ass Spider! is exactly what you'd want; it's hilarious; it's a great time at the movies; and yes, it is even surprisingly clever. It doesn't always take the obvious plot turns when you think it will and its great cast help make the unbelievable seem believable. Big Ass Spider! is definitely one to pick up for a fun movie night.

Movie Review: Barracuda (1978)

Given the title of today's movie and the year of its release, you can probably make some safe assumptions about it right off the bat. Yes, it's another one of those movies that was made after Jaws became the coolest thing since shelled pistachios. No, it's not nearly as good as Jaws. Like, not even close to nearly. There's a subtitle to the movie called "The Lucifer Project" but you don't find out what that means until the end, and by then you don't care enough to think about the fact that the name makes no sense for what the project actually is.

In the small town of Palm Cove, there is a mysterious menace stalking both the water and the land. Several people and fish have turned up dead lately, and the people in the town have been acting strangely - lashing out at each other for no reason. A marine biologist thinks it has to do with a nearby chemical company polluting the water, so he and the town sheriff work together to expose the truth.

So the worst thing about Barracuda is that the promise of any actual barracuda action is mostly just a ruse to get you to watch the movie in the first place. Sure, there are some underwater barracuda attacks on a few divers and a couple of severed limbs and heads, but believe me, none of it is anything worth getting excited over. The attack scenes are no better than the stuff we were given in the original Piranha, with a lot of fast close-ups where you can barely tell what is happening. Some cloudy red water and spooky music, and the scene is over. Bo-ring.

Only somewhat less boring is the cast of characters we get to follow through this dull ride. Heading up the pack is the town sheriff Ben Williams and the marine biologist Mike. The former actually seems like a cool dude who believes things easily and is much smarter than some of the other people in his town. The latter, Mike, is a cocky young guy whom I didn't like at all even though the movie tried to make me think I should. I just didn't dig his attitude or the way he treated the sheriff's daughter, with that kind of aloof manner. The fat deputy Lester is the comic relief of the movie and his role consisted mostly of him sleeping in the sheriff's office and having weird lines like asking what the word "aural" meant. So strangely, the characters were interesting enough distract me from the fact that they completely bullshitted me on the barracuda angle.

You see, after a while the barracudas are all but forgotten and the last third of the movie plays out like some weird evil government chase thriller. I was actually kind of interested in this part of the movie because in earlier scenes, there were some random, seemingly out-of-place instances involving other townspeople that I really needed to be explained to me. In one scene, the camera focuses on two people arguing on the street in the background. Later, it's a small fender bender that sends one guy over the edge. A spilled drink in a diner makes another guy go ballistic on a waitress. Then while Mike is using the town doctor's lab to do some research on the barracudas, he starts to become suspicious that the doctor might know more than he is letting on. This is why the movie is not so much like some of the other Jaws rip-offs. It uses the Jaws angle to get people interested, but it actually tries to do something different for itself.

Though the story they come up with is not horrible, it's also really lame. The government is making the doctor do some stupid experiment on Palm Cove where they put chemicals in the water to give them low blood sugar which makes them violent. And the government wants to make people more violent so they'll be more prepared and willing to go to war. WHUH? Yeah, that's the gist. The barracudas acting all crazy and eating people is just a side affect of those same chemicals being dumped in the water.

Ugh, that means that I have been double-duped by this movie and I don't like it. Barracuda has got its very few moments here and there but for the most part it is pretty forgettable.

Movie Review: Leviathan (1989)

There's really no need for you to read my review of Leviathan. Nor is there any need for you to see the movie yourself, because, believe it or not, you've already seen this movie. Or at least, you've already seen every character and scenario that happens in Leviathan in some other movie. Leviathan isn't bad or anything, it's just really, really redundant and inferior to the movies it's trying to be.

In a facility at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, a group of underwater miners are on their last days of a mission to retrieve silver and other precious metals from the depths. They discover a sunken Russian ship, the "Leviathan," and unknowingly bring on board the reason the ship was sunk in the first place - the crew was experimenting with genetic mutation drugs that turn people into hideous sea creatures.

Yeah, so I'm going to say what probably everybody else says about this movie: I liked Leviathan... when it was called The Thing. Or Alien. It rips from both and doesn't seem like it's trying to hide it at all. With all the metal hallways and bulkhead doors and crawlspaces with pipes and shit, the feeling of claustrophobia and being trapped is straight up Alien. Just underwater this time. The way the creature is able to sneakily hide in air ducts (even when it keeps growing and growing) and pop out at the just the right time also made me think of Alien, so there are no feelings of suspense or surprise at any time while watching Leviathan. The Thing was suspenseful. Alien was scary. Leviathan was boring and predictable.

I was actually kind of excited to see what this creature was going to look like because we all know that science-gone-wrong genetic experiments can sometimes have awesome results for horror movies. Instead what I got was just a fishy rip-off of the alien from The Thing. After the two infected people die, the mutation keeps working in their bodies until it absorbs them both together and they look like a fleshy, bulbous mass. It's pretty gross. After it kills more people, it absorbs them too so that you can see their faces in the mass. Does that sound familiar??!! Argh, so not inventive.

The kicker is that even after watching the whole damn movie, I still don't think I've fully seen the creature. We are shown different bits and pieces of the creature as it attacks at different times but I'm not for sure how all pieces come together or what the whole thing looks like. It's got a fishy head, human-like arms, tentacles, but no legs, so how the hell does it move? The practical creature effects by Stan Winston are nice, and therefore I would have appreciated being able to see the whole thing in a wide shot or something. Actually as I was surfing around pictures to include here, I came across one that is supposedly a prop replica of the creature:

Huh. I would have never guessed. There's actually two creatures at one point in the movie I think but there's no differentiation between them so I don't know if they both looked like this or what. At the end, the creature pops up on the surface with the survivors after the facility implodes itself (because that's always fun to think about happening), and even then they only show it in quick cuts. 

They try to make all the characters real cute and endearing. They have nicknames like Sixpack and Willie, and call each other by their last names. I didn't care. They are all the standard characters that you'll find in a movie like this and nobody stands out as being more than two dimensional. Daniel Stern tries his hardest, but he's the annoying sex pervert who hits on the girls all the time so you can't really like him too much. There are some other really good names here - Hector Elizondo, Peter Weller, Ernie Hudson, Meg Foster's eyes - and they do what they can. By the third act, when the movie turns into the run-around-and-try-to-escape-the-facility-before-it-implodes movie, I think all of us, including the actors, were just looking for a way to end this thing with some dignity. And they almost do - until the last shot of the movie was Peter Weller punching Meg Foster's eyes in the face. It was funny, and you wanted him to do it because her character is an evil bitch that was going to leave them all to die down there, but seriously. That's how you end the movie?

Eh, you're not missing anything with Leviathan. The creature effects are great and I liked the practical nastiness of them, but everything else just didn't do it for me.

Indie Movie Review: They Will Outlive Us All (2013)

 

This has been one of the coolest things about having this blog - independent filmmakers and new authors send me their books and movies to review to help spread the word about their work. In return, I get to discover new entertainment that I might not otherwise have even known about. From "a gotta and two shearers" comes They Will Outlive Us All, a horror comedy that shows tremendous potential from all involved, and one that any horror fan can appreciate and enjoy.

 

Set in 2016, They Will Outlive Us All follows roommates Margot and Daniel as they try to escape the desolation that has become of New York City after a wave of devastating hurricanes by hiding out in their apartment, drinking booze and watching movies. Three strange deaths have occurred in their building and the arrival of an unwelcome visitor finally get them off their couch and fighting for their lives!

First of all, love the title. If you get the reference, then you should have a good idea as to what the movie is about. It's nice to see independent filmmakers do something outside the box for a feature instead of going with what's popular at the time. Forget zombies - let's do giant mutant cockroaches! You could even take it so far as to being a comment on the whole man's influence and on nature thing but we can leave that for another time.

One thing I was immensely impressed with in this movie was the acting by the two main characters. Many times in indie movies, the actors' performances can seem too forced, or they don't know how to talk and pause naturally. Nat Cassidy as Daniel and Jessi Gotta (also a producer and writer) as Margot had no problems at all acting like two roommates who know each other well and were incredibly comfortable and natural around each other. Their comedic timing and delivery had me laughing many times throughout, and the little quirks that the characters were given had a wonderful way of coming around at the end in both a funny and heartwarming way. By the climax, things become less about big roaches and more about the relationship between these two people, which I actually found to be really sweet.

Also impressive is the direction and camerawork which is fluid, artistic and at times quite inventive for the director having to film in such a small space (almost all the scenes are in Margot and Daniel's tiny Brooklyn apartment). There's one really nice day-to-night transition from the window and lots of different camera angles to keep the action and the story interesting and different in every scene. The lighting matches the apparent dark and depressing world that the characters live in, with tints of blue and green to make it look more bleak.

Whoever got the job of cockroach creating and puppeteering must have had a good time. The roaches (C.O.U.Ss - Cockroaches Of Unusual Size... absolutely love that) look pretty good for what they are, and the somewhat crude appearance of them actually adds a lot to the comedy element of the film. One of the best scenes is when Daniel traps the roach in a bag, it flails around for a bit while Margot tries to hit it with a baseball bat, and then it drags both of them down the hallway. I'm not so sure about it being able to be flushed down a toilet, but I guess they had to leave the big kill for the movie's climactic scene.

They Will Outlive Us All is a wonderfully shot and acted feature worthy of standing beside any other comedy horror out there. It's a tad short at only 73 minutes but that doesn't matter - I watched it twice after receiving it and thoroughly enjoyed it both times, actually wanting more by the time it was over. If you get the chance, don't miss seeing this one!

For more information on this movie and other productions the cast and crew are involved in, go to www.theywilloutliveusall.com.

Movie Review: The Bay (2012)

With my Sons of Anarchy obsession temporarily satiated, I guess it's time for me to get back to my real job here. I have a backlog of watched movies that need reviews, a host of books that need to be read and reviewed, and of course the ever-growing Netflix queue that needs to be worked through. Good thing I've got vacation time coming up. I also had an almost-catastrophe with my computer a couple of days ago, but everything seems to be fine now. So let's get this shit going!

First up in my series of possibly shorter-than-usual reviews is the 2012 found footage movie The Bay. Ah yes, more found footage. I should maybe be sick of this little subgenre by now, but... nope! Still love it. And The Bay is happily a nice addition to all the other awesome movies like it.

A news reporter who was present at an ecological disaster outbreak in Claridge, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay narrates the chaos as it unfolded on that fateful day, using all the professional and personal video footage that was confiscated by the government to cover up what happened.

The Bay offers horror fans a few welcome differences from what we are used to seeing in FF movies. The reporter, Donna Thompson, is Skyping with someone who is interviewing her about the 4th of July from hell in Chesapeake Bay for a documentary about the truth of the events. Donna is sort of the main character, but her narration also shows us the experiences of several other residents. It's nice to have more than one or two of the same cameramen to follow through the whole movie, as The Bay includes security footage, video phone footage, personal camcorders, police dashcam footage, and Skype conversations.

All these new shifts in point of view keep the story interesting and engaging, and the suspense heightened. The way they are all cut together lets the audience slowly get the truth, as everybody involved seems to have a little piece of the puzzle as to what is going on. The two scientists that are doing research on the water and the fish a few weeks before the 4th and the doctor at the local hospital talking to the CDC having probably the most interesting stories. The stuff with the police was a little random and not really related to the main story, though. And I really liked the choice of casting for all involved. Kristin Connolly was the only recognizable face to me (The Cabin in the Woods, FTW) but everybody looked just like they were supposed to - normal people in this quaint little seaside town. I love it when movies are cast like that.

The other difference with The Bay is that it is an infection story. It's not an infection that leads to zombiism, either, it's a true infection by a mutated parasite caused by all the (literal) shit that's been building up in the bay. The terror and fear from an outbreak like this is just as real for both the characters and the audience as it would be for zombies or a masked killer. This kind of story also gets us into the realm of body horror, which personally freaks me and grosses me out. There's plenty of nasty stuff for all to enjoy like bodies covered in disgusting boils, and those gross little bug-parasite things coming out of people's necks. I love it and I hate it at the same time.

My only real complaint is that the makeup on the people who had the nasty boils did not look all that realistic to me. They were too obviously makeup and looked kind of dried out to me when I thought boils and blisters were more... I don't know, liquidy.

Do I care about the film's not-so-subliminal message about humans fucking up the environment and stuff? Not really, but it's definitely there. The whole disaster is caused by a chicken farm dumping chicken poop into the water, the local officials covering up/ignoring early warning signs of impending doom, and bad water tests at a desalination plant. Poop and toxicity apparently make these little parasites, or isopods, grow rapidly inside the body and then they just eat their way out. I guess it's a good way to send the message about how it might be a bad idea to drink water that people dumped chicken poop into.

The Bay gets a solid thumbs up from this found footage lover. It's an interesting turn for director Barry Levinson, and gives me another reason to really fear nature. As if I needed that.

Movie Review: Orca: The Killer Whale (1977)

So while I was watching Orca the other day, I hadn't really planned on writing a review for it. However, I simply cannot let this movie go. Orca: The Killer Whale is... my goodness, this thing is an atrocity. This is not the way to respond to a blockbuster like Jaws, this is a way to make everyone whoever sees this movie take vengeance on those that made it for so hurting their psyches with this rubbish. Alright let's get into it and get this over with.

Captain Nolan is trying to catch a great white shark to sell to an aquarium. But when he witnesses an orca, or killer whale, attack a shark, he decides that capturing one of them will be more profitable. He gets himself in deep trouble with the animal, however, when he kills its mate and unborn baby, the orca vows vengeance.

No, seriously. I swear to goodness that that is what the movie is about. How ridiculous is that? I thought Jaws: The Revenge was bad enough with its similar storyline, but holy hell, Orca: The Killer Whale just goes so far beyond ridiculous. Perhaps I'm mad at the movie because of my love for Free Willy because, honestly, who doesn't love that 90s feel-good movie? I was 26 years old when I got all giddy after finding the Free Willy DVD pack at Wal-mart. It's one of my favorites, not gonna lie. So now here comes this piece of shit that turns these beautiful and intelligent creatures in vengeance-filled assholes. That's not cool.

You all should know I love me a good animals-run-amok piece but I definitely did not love Orca. I don't even feel the need to remark on the acting, or the fake orcas vs. the real orcas, or anything other than how stupidly the orcas are portrayed in this movie, and what the filmmakers want us to believe they are capable of. First of all, the orca is able to pick out Nolan on the deck of the ship as the one responsible for the death of his mate and baby - not any of the other guys. Just Nolan. He sorta gets imprinted in the orca's brain and from then on the whale always knows where he is and has this whole elaborate plan to get his revenge.

Thus begins Father Orca's scheme to ruin Nolan's life. His continual presence makes the other fishermen pissed at Nolan because the orca is scaring all the fish in the area away. The orca attacks all the fishermen's boats in the harbor (except Nolan's because, as they theorize, the orca wants to fight him on the water... okay, sure...). The orca starts an explosion. The orca knocks out the support beams on Nolan's rental house, making it fall into the water. The orca bites off Bo Derek's leg. The orca eats another of Nolan's crew members. Now, I knew orcas were smart but this one must be the smartest goshdarn whale in the water. It boggles the mind, yes?

There was one thing I actually loved during all these orca-on-a-rampage escapades. Like I said before, this beyond brilliant whale is actually able to execute a very effective explosion. Amazing, right? He leaps out of the water to precisely bust the gas lines which leads to a huge explosion on the island. The really awesome part is all the different shots of the orca sort of triumphantly leaping out of the water several times (in a composite shot) as the fire rages behind him. I couldn't help but imagine him saying something like, "Boo-ya!" every time he jumped. It was hilarious, trust me.

The absolute worst part of this movie (and trust me, there are many to choose from) is the god-awful ridiculous, and slightly traumatizing, scene where the female orca gives birth on the deck on the deck of the ship. This isn't a sweet, miracle of life birthing scene either - the mother is half dead, hanging upside down above the ship when the little pink fetus kind of poops out of her. It was another one of those times when I was so stunned at the stupidity that I wasn't sure whether I should laugh my ass off or throw something at the television.

But all that is only part of the crap this movie has to offer, my friends. The whole last third consists of the orca actually leading Nolan and his crew to their final battle ground of some polar ice caps or some shit. The orca tips an ice sheet that Nolan is standing on, sliding him into the water, then picks Nolan up with his tail and throws him against an iceberg, finally killing him. It's actually not all that bad of an ending - just how the movie ended up there is the stupid part. And as stupid as it all is and as much as I didn't like this movie, I must say that you all need to see Orca: The Killer Whale. You must see what I have seen to believe it.

Project Terrible: Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008)

The Internet has returned, o my brothers (and sistas), and life is ever the more glorious because of it. I fed my Law and Order addiction for a while and then finally settled down on this unseasonably nice December day to finish up my Project Terrible duties. I chose Craig from the blog Let's Get Out of Here as one of my torturers this time around, and was not disappointed in his terrible taste. Birdemic: Shock and Terror can be described with many an expletive as to its suckiness, however, I'll take the high road and just call it EPICALLY BAD.

It's probably easy to guess what this movie is about. A low-brow ripoff of Hitchcock's The Birds wherein we have to watch people fight stupidly against birds (in this case, eagles) who suddenly start to attack and kill humans for no reason. I was never even that big a fan of The Birds to begin with so already I was not excited for Birdemic. The fact that the film has garnered a cult status for being one of the worst movies ever made doesn't help in the least, but it does give me a lot to write about. 

But oh my gosh, where do I even start??? First off, there are no birds, and no shock or terror, at all for the first almost two-thirds of the movie. For 38 FUCKING MINUTES we have to watch some half-assed cheesy romance story between a software salesman named Rob and the beautiful girl that he meets (well, almost stalks) at a diner one day. Her name is Natalie and she's supposed to be a fashion model but the only place we see her getting her picture taken is at a one-hour photo place. Sounds legit. They go on dates, have awkward conversations, Natalie talks to her mom, Rob gets a lot of money from his job and starts a new company. Blah blah blah blah. Everything is just going so awesome in these people's lives and it's like we're watching the end of some romantic comedy instead of the beginning of a movie about killer birds. 

No fear, though! After 38 nauseating minutes, Rob and Natalie come across a dead (CGI) bird on the beach. Okay, let's get the killing started!.... What? No? We have to take a musical break first? 

Okay, I gotta admit that was really awesome. But back to the birds.

After Rob and Natalie wake up in their hotel room to the screeching of eagles and destruction of the city, they spend the next hour or so doing what any good character in a horror movie does, which is to drive around aimlessly, have no plan, and make plenty of stupid decisions along the way. The plot is completely nonsensical at every turn. Rob and Natalie meet up with another couple at the hotel, Ramsey and Becky, for a while they all do the noble thing like stopping along the road to save two kids whose parents were killed by the birds, but what is their real plan? Where are they going? And why the hell do they keep stopping to get out of the safety of their van? I can't count the number of times this group just starts wandering leisurely around outside - you know, WHERE THE KILLER BIRDS ARE - and oftentimes, they go wandering around so far from their van that they have to keep running back to it to get away from the birds. Argh. 

I could almost deal with the ridiculous plot and wooden acting if the execution of it all wasn't so amateur and annoying. Here's a rundown of the bad filmmaking techniques: horrible canted camera angles, awkward pauses while a shot edits from one person to another during a conversation, shots that linger on stupid things for too long, bad sound editing all the way through (sometimes no sound, sometimes too much background noise to hear dialogue, bad edits where background noise doesn't match up to previous shots), and of course, the intensely bad CGI birds, explosions and fires throughout. They were the worst. There is not a single live bird to be found in this movie and the CGI birds look like they were created by someone who has never seen a bird before in their life. We never see them from the front and they don't do anything that looks even remotely natural. I... I can't even describe it. The way they hover in the shot while Rob, Natalie, Ramsey, and Becky swat at them with coat hangers? How they never really flap their wings all that much but still stay in the air? It makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. And I'm pretty sure that at one point a bird actually explodes.

By the way, that coat hanger bit was the BEST. When they're preparing to leave the hotel room, Ramsey suggests that they find something to arm themselves with - and grabs a bunch of coat hangers from the closet. BAHAHAHA!! Really? And that's not even the best part - in the very next scene, Ramsey whips out a fucking machine gun and starts blasting away at the little feathered dudes. Like, where did you get a machine gun all of a sudden and why were coat hangers a better option before that?

You know what I couldn't help thinking of for most of this movie?

You betcha - DUCK HUNT. What a blast from the past. Seriously though, every time the birds are just sort of unnaturally hovering anywhere and Rob and Ramsey are shooting them, there are these awesomely bad shots of a bird getting hit and dropping out of the sky. I couldn't help but wonder where the giggling dog was. I would rather watch somebody play Duck Hunt nonstop for a week than watch Birdemic again. Mostly because Duck Hunt had far superior graphics. And I'm only partially joking there.

One of the most annoying things about the movie (besides, well, almost everything) is the whole tree-hugging and humans-are-evil mentality throughout. I love nature and all, and I know that humans are destroying the earth and each other with war and stuff, but I don't need some freaking Birdemic movie shoving it in my face. Rob is getting solar panels installed on his roof; Rob and Natalie go on a double date where they go see the movie An Inconvenient Truth; Natalie's friend Mai wears an Imagine Peace shirt and has a poster on her wall; Ramsey didn't like being a Marine because of "all the fucking killing in Iraq"; the groups meets a guy who lives in an actual treehouse (and stops to listen him go on about how the redwoods are his friends); the group conveniently meets an ornithologist who tries to explain that global warming is the cause for the birds' behavior, and on and on and on and on. I get it. Now shut up.

I'm done with this movie. There's no way to be kind about this: Birdemic is just awful, awful, awful. I could rant and rave for a lot longer about all the other ridiculous scenes and characters that we meet in the course of this pile of poop, but um... well, I'm hungry and it's taco night. You understand. 

My Love Letter to Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

Whuzzup, Eight Legged Freaks!

YES! I LOVE YOU, EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS! I love you so freaking much! I get so ecstatically happy when I think about you and your silly good fun. Giant spiders! Giant. Freaking. Spiders. And David Arquette. And self-aware humor that is actually funny. And giant spiders. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Your movie is a love letter in and of itself to the classic giant bug B-movies from the '50s - not as if you are making fun of them, of course, but you're honestly paying tribute and still having a great time in the process. I think your title more than anything proves this and your knowledge of just how silly you are and not giving a shit. Look at your poster, at the pose that Kari Wuhrer is giving - it's exaggerated and funny, but all in a good way, just like the rest of the movie.

Oh my gosh, okay, I'm so stoked to be talking to you and about you and your awesomeness. Like many people in the world, I don't consider spiders my particular favorite animal if you know what I mean, so I thought it would freak me out to see spiders bigger than people in this movie. But the way you presented the situation made it less scary (but still gross and freaky) and way more fun. I think even the biggest arachnophobe could watch you and still laugh their asses off.

Your story is a classic in itself. A multitude of spiders at Taft's Exotic Spider Farm in Prosperity, Arizona are exposed to toxic chemicals and soon grow to enormous size. A female sheriff, a smart kid, and a prodigal son become the ones who rally the townspeople into fighting the beasts, for their lives and for their town.

Okay, so the spiders are your biggest star, Eight Legged Freaks, and what I love most about them is all the different kinds that get represented. You got huge tarantulas, trapdoor spiders, jumpers, spitters, and Consuela, the biggest and baddest bitch of the bunch. What's also great about these spiders is the fact that they freaking talk throughout the movie! I've never heard a spider make any kind of noise before, but you've got them screaming and screeching and growling. It's hilarious.

One thing I like about you as well, is that a good deal of your story is about the people of Prosperity. The main focus for the first 40 minutes is on setting up all the characters of the people, the town's financial problems, and the budding love story between Sam the sheriff and Chris. It makes you more than just a giant bug movie - we love these people's personalities and they are not just fodder for the spiders, we want them to succeed. And though you could definitely be classified as horror, I think people love you more for just watching all the crazy antics of the giant spiders and not so much for the kills, which are actually quite tame. Probably why you got a PG-13 rating. All you PG-13 haters, remember Eight Legged Freaks! Sometimes the rating isn't such a downer after all.

I seriously don't have enough time here to talk about all of the wonderful individual scenes and gags that you have during the spider attacks. The murder of Zeke the cat, the cocooning of the guy in the barbershop, the tarantula attacking Harlan's trailer, all the little in-jokes and funny lines... These are all fantastic and ingenious ways to give not only the horror fans what they want out of a movie like you, but also give the comedy fans something to get a kick out of as well.

I love your music! At times slightly serious but mostly just campy and upbeat, your music no doubt helps keep the tone of the movie light-hearted and comedic. And, oh my goodness, I love that "Itsy Bitsy Spider" song that plays over the end credits so much that I have to play it all the way through every time I watch you.

Seeing as how giant spiders don't really exist (well, at least not as big as you present them), I'm totally down with all the CGI work done. It's not exactly seamless at some points, and the spiders do a lot of unnatural things - biting the moose head and then spitting it out, for one (HAHA) - but all that was completely welcome and a real joy to watch. I don't care if nothing you say or do here is scientifically accurate, that's not why I or anyone else watch you over and over again.

Really, Eight Legged Freaks, I have so much more to say about you and it could take all day. To me you are an instant B-movie classic and I don't think I'll ever get tired of you. Director Ellory Elkayem created something really special with you (BTW, the short film he made that inspired you, "Larger Than Life," is pretty awesome too. Fans should check that out) and he should be proud! You are a crazy good time, absolutely hilarious, and one of my personal favorites of all time. Stay cool, bro.

Your bestest best bud,
Michele


P.S. "Lose the face fuzz before you go. It makes your mouth look like a stripper's crotch." BEST. LINE. EVER.

Movie Review: Shark Night 3D (2011)

I actually saw this movie a week ago and am just now writing a review. Me a slacker. Me admit it.

Oh, Shark Night. You could have been sooooo much better. And yet, you were one of the biggest disappointments this year for me. In Shark Night, a group of college friends travels to pretty girl Sarah's remote island home on a local lake. Ready for a weekend of fun, their plans are soon screeched to a halt by the discovery of several sharks in the water. 

The first question about this movie of course is why the hell are there freaking sharks in a lake? Well, I'll tell you. The first possible explanation given is because it is a salt water lake, it's possible that recent hurricanes could have relocated the sharks by washing them over a dam or something. Okay, I might buy that. THEN, we find out that the real reason is something different entirely. The bad guys in the movie (and it's not hard to spot who they are) have brought the sharks into the lake so that they can film the monsters eating people and sell the footage online. Because everybody loves Shark Week. Yeah.

While this diabolical plan is on the one hand kind of hokey and ridiculous, I like it. For one thing, it solves the plot problem that befalls any Animals Run Amok movie having to do with water animals - if there's a killer shark or whatever in the water, don't go in the water. Problem solved. But, if you have some crazy bastards throwing you in the water and feeding you to the sharks, then you have a movie. So I actually didn't mind that aspect of the film because it turned out to be a good way to keep our main characters in danger when they could have just stayed out of the water. 

Despite the PG-13 rating, I was still mostly expecting from Shark Night a film along the lines of Piranha, minus most of the excessive gore and boobs, of course. Just a fun, action-filled movie with some sharks eating people, which I love (Deep Blue Sea... I'm thinking of you here, baby). But somehow Shark Night got it wrong. The action is minimal and the cliches abound. We've got crazy racist townies, the twist of the good guy who's really a bad guy, and a guy who thinks it's all noble to feed himself to the sharks after they've killed his true love. Blah. The gore is also quite minimal and had the film been rated R and put in a few more buckets of blood and intestines, I (and everyone else) probably would have liked it a lot more.  

The obvious CGI sharks took me out of it a bit. Have filmmakers just completely said "fuck you" to practical effects because you can build whatever you want on a computer? Or does it make the 3D stuff easier? I don't know, but CGI sharks have nothing on the real McCoy mainly because the facial mannerisms and body movements just don't look that genuine. 

As for the 3D aspect... I didn't love it. I'm already way over the 3D craze, and while it's a different way to watch a movie, it's usually not as cool as the advertisements make it out to be. The only cool 3D part in Shark Night is when one of the shark's face takes up the whole screen and it's pokey head appears to be coming out the screen at you. 

There's no real emotion in the film, whether dramatic or comedic. It tries to be funny throughout but never got a laugh or a chuckle out of me. Bad jokes, though, not bad acting. Most of the actors are alright, and pretty natural in their roles but I wouldn't say that this would be a hard movie to act in. I liked the main bad guy, Sarah's crazy ex-BF, and the water sheriff, Donal Logue, is one of my favorite character actors. Always loved his stuff. 

So despite the promise of some fun romping around with sharks, Shark Night turns out to be lackluster. There is no climactic ending, even when the "big" shark makes its appearance. Sarah's in the shark cage, Big Momma shark comes a-charging, and then it gets killed. Hm. It took 2 hours for three men to kill Jaws and about 2 minutes for two college kids to kill a similar shark. Kind of lame. There are a few good moments here and there but overall, a disappointment Shark Night is, as Yoda would say. 

A question I still have for this movie: Is freaking Sarah Paxton ever going to get dressed??? 

Deadly Dogs Week: Cujo (1983)

You didn't think I'd leave out the mother of all killer dog movies, did you? Of course not! It's a simple but well told story and came from the brilliant mind of my God, Stephen King (although even he admits that he was high as a fucking kite at the time and doesn't remember writing the book). Over 20 years since its release, Cujo still packs a pretty good punch.

Hopefully you don't need much of a synopsis for this one but it's become part of the format for my posts so here's a very short one: Donna and her young son Tad become stranded in their broken down Pinto by a rabid Saint Bernard. My review here is going to be less about the movie as a whole but rather some specific elements of it that I've always thought were intriguing.

Watching the movie again, there is a long setup until we get to the Camber house and all hell breaks loose with Cujo and poor Donna and Tad in the middle of it. This setup is necessary though to make the situation seem realistic and believable. We have to know that Joe Camber was planning to go out of town and stopped his mail. We have to know about Charity wanting to get her and her son away from Joe for a while so that no one knew something was wrong with Cujo until it was too late. We have to know about Vic's also going out of town and Donna's extramarital affair so that Vic thinks there's another possible reason for Donna's absence when he comes back home.

As the book mentions several times, there are a lot of factors that come into play that make this unique situation possible. Otherwise, you'd have people saying "Well why didn't they do this..." all through the movie. So the prolonged setup here in the movie is important both story-wise and in building suspense. But then I guess the biggest question of all is why didn't Donna call Joe Camber to make sure he'd be at his house before she took that piece of car way out there in the first place???

I actually love the earlier scenes where Cujo is just beginning to feel his sickness and you can tell that it is really hurting him. The little movements that they got the dog to do totally portrayed the progression of the rabies infection. Hopefully it also makes you feel a little sorry for Cujo, as well, because he is very much the victim of the story along with being the villain.

A word about Danny Pintauro as Tad Trenton. This kid absolutely KILLS in this movie. When I see a child acting as real and amazing as little Danny does in Cujo, I'm of the mind that maybe kids make better actors than adults overall. When he's all gaunt and pale-looking and crouched in the back of the Pinto screaming his head off while Cujo attacks his mother? Forget about it. It is his acting that sells most of the scenes in the car and he is perhaps the catalyst for Donna's actions. She might have given up or done something stupid a lot sooner if she didn't have her son to think about. Plus, his being brought back from the brink of death sort of becomes the redemptive factor for Donna and Vic's relationship.

Oh, the poor Pinto. Often known for being pretty much the worst car ever made, it is also gloriously immortalized as Donna and Tad's other captor in Cujo. The car is the reason they become stranded and does absolutely nothing to alleviate their situation, as it becomes an oven baking them in the heat and increasingly smaller and more uncomfortable. There is a great 360 degree dizzying shot of the inside of the Pinto after Donna has first been attacked by Cujo. The camera turns from Donna to Tad screaming and then back to Donna and then back to Tad, spinning faster and faster until the shot is a blur. 

I've always had mixed feelings about Stephen King's choice of a Saint Bernard for the rabid dog in Cujo. On the one hand, it's a good choice because even though giving any kind of dog rabies will make them a believable foe, Saint Bernards are very large and strong. On the other hand, Saint Bernards are also known for being a relatively gentle and loyal breed, and people often say they are the best dogs for families because they are so good with children. So it kinda sucks that they're given such a bad rap in this movie. Oh well, I guess Beethoven makes up for the damage done in Cujo.

So despite any of the usual problems with older movies - aging and whatnot - I think Cujo is one that can still affect people on the visceral level and continue to wear the hat of the first and probably the best of movies that make the family pet our worst nightmare.

Alright, this concludes Deadly Dogs Week! There was another movie I wanted to do for this called Play Dead but Netflix said it was going to be a "very long wait."