Project Terrible: The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955)

 

For something completely different, we have my next Project Terrible film, assigned to me by Mr. Maynard Morrissey. And it's a crappy science fiction movie from the 50s, which can sometimes be fun, but is not really at all in this case. Plus, I was having some computer and sleeping issues while trying to watch it and have now seen the first 20 minutes about five times now. They didn't really improve over time, in case you were wondering.

So this movie is about a mysterious "phantom" in the sea that is claiming the lives of some people that we don't care about. A government agent and an oceanographer both arrive on scene at the same time to find out what the monster is and who or what created him. And a local professor has been acting very secretive lately...

The first of many big mistakes of Phantom from 10,000 Leagues is that they show the audience the "phantom" literally within two minutes of the movie starting, when it kills a local fisherman. I know it's on the poster, but seriously. Do they have no sense of mystery at all?! You can pretty much turn off the movie after seeing that, because the monster is the most interesting part about it. He looks kind of like a Chinese Fu Dog - except for the hole right under his chin for the head of the actor in the suit. There's a lot of talk about the science about how the Fu Dog was created and such but it all sounds like blah, blah, blah to me. Something about a radioactive rock and nuclear light.

Another problem is that there are a lot of characters to get straight. First Ted Baxter shows up and finds the dead fisherman at the beginning, then he meets up with the Department of Defense investigator Grant. Then this other guy named George Thomas shows up next, and he's the assistant to Professor King, who works at the local oceanographic college. But then Ted Baxter's real name is not Ted Baxter, it's Dr. Stevens, and he's another oceanographer who has done research on the effects of radiation on marine life. Then there's the Professor's daughter, the Professor's secretary, and this other blonde femme fatale who all play somewhat important parts. Ahhh! Stop bringing in new characters! Nobody is really the main character for most of the movie and it gets a bit hard to follow sometimes, especially if you're half-asleep like I was. Also, transitions between scenes and characters are not very good, and you never know who you are going to be following next.

You're so busy trying to figure out what is going one with these people and who is lying to who and who is selling secrets to a foreign power, that you forget about the phantom for a while. He pops up again at about 45 minutes in, but only very briefly. With that huge headpiece on the costume, the poor stunt guy can't really do much anyway to make the monster look scary, except move his arms around a little bit. Definitely not as fluid as The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Wait! Did poor Ethel just get SPEARED on the beach? Hey, things are looking up! Well, not too much. The climax has some cool explosions, but still nothing all that exciting from the monster. Maybe the movie is trying to say that the humans who created him are worse the monster himself! How thought-provoking!

Like any good movie from this era, there has to be an unbelievable love story in it. I knew from the second that Stevens met King's daughter Lois that they were going to hook up. And surprise, surprise - they did! There's even a little meet-cute scene where arrives at the house to meet the Professor and Lois walks out of the bathroom after taking a shower, not knowing he's there. Oh, how awkward and full of sexual tension! They probably end up getting married after they watch Lois's father blow up in the ocean with the phantom - something that she surprisingly doesn't freak out about. Your father just got BLOWN UP. Shed a tear, at least.

I guess there's some nostalgic charm to The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues because of the monster and all the talk about radiation and death rays. It's definitely a product of its time and fits in nicely with other similar movies from the decade. But for me, it feels way longer than its 80-minute runtime because the movie is so slow and full of exposition. The action is minimal and lame, and the overall presentation of the movie is just plain boring. Nice pick, Maynard!

Movie Review: Deadly Friend (1986)

 

Wes Craven has a way of really messing with my head. I love the dude, but some of his less talked about movies often confound me when I get around to seeing them. Case in point: Deadly Friend. Just the synopsis for the film sounded a little out of the realm of what Mr. Craven is usually involved with. So then I had to wonder, what kind of Craven film was this going to be?

Teenager Paul is a genius who has built himself an artificial intelligence robot named BB. He and his mother move to a new town where Paul can continue his studies of robots and their connection to how the human brain works. He soon becomes friends with fellow teen Tom, and is immediately infatuated with his sweet but troubled next door neighbor Samantha. And when both BB and Sam meet with tragic fates, Paul uses his skills to save his friend - with deadly consequences.

I completely enjoyed Deadly Friend for what it was, even if at times I couldn't actually figure out what it was. Earlier scenes make the film look like a sweet story about a boy and his robot; then it becomes some whacky sci-fi/science-gone-wrong thing; then it's about a teenage robot-zombie girl on a murder spree. But the tone is all wrong, or at least wrong from what you think it would be. The film has a strange plot that should be easy to make fun of, but despite the fact that there are some funny moments, the tone of the film is not that comedic. Instead it is a pretty sad and heartbreaking movie that really takes itself seriously.

Kristy Swanson is a dear whom I will always love because she is and always will be the original Buffy Summers. And here in Deadly Friend she is surprisingly just as impressive, though at times her performance comes dangerously close to being way too campy. As the nice, beautiful girl with a depressing home life, her physical appearance and demeanor fit the character perfectly. She even has some nice touches of comedy in there that are so quick you might miss them. Swanson also does a wonderful job when she is in her zombie state, and this is where she could have made the most mistakes. Her unblinking eyes, and stiff movements are stereotypical of how one would think you would act if you were trying to be a robot but somehow Swanson makes it work - even the strange Spock-like way she holds her fingers to resemble BB's robot hands.

Deadly Friend arrived just two years after Craven did A Nightmare on Elm Street, and there are definitely parts where you can see the studio's influence on Craven to make Deadly Friend more "Nightmare-like." There are a few very odd dream sequences in the film, the first being one that Sam has about her father. He comes into her room at night, hovering over her bed (possibly implying some sort of sexual interest in her), and starts berating and almost hurting her, and Sam fights back by stabbing him with a broken vase. His body then proceeds to squirt a huge amount of blood all over poor Sam as she is screaming while getting ever more drenched - and the audience isn't sure if they should be amused or horrified.

Another dream sequence is quite clearly in reference to Nightmare on Elm Street. After Sam has killed... um, somebody (resisting spoilers is hard), Paul must dispose of the body. Later on that night, Paul dreams of a strange round object moving around under the covers. When he pulls back the blanket, the round thing is the burnt head of Sam's victim, and the body comes out of the mattress and is just about to attack Paul when he wakes up. The reference is obvious and fun for Nightmare fans, but I wonder how it played out for audiences who had just seen the first Nightmare only two years prior.

Of course, one cannot talk about Deadly Friend without mentioning the word "basketball." Watch the video below to find out why. And if you already know why, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't mind seeing it again:



That's definitely a movie moment where you have to either stop or rewind the flick because you're too busy almost dying with laughter. As a scene that comes completely out of left field from what we have so far come to expect in this movie, it is a more than welcome surprise - even if it doesn't particularly fit with the rest of the rather tame killings in the film. The fact the victim in question is the great Anne Ramsey also makes this a standout sequence.

One that that seemed wrong about the plot was how Paul made absolutely no attempt to hide or safeguard his new zombie friend. I thought right away that the most obvious place for her was in the attic, as the access was right there in Paul's bedroom, but for some stupid reason he doesn't do that, at least not right away. He first hides her in the garden shed, without locking the door or anything - a place where his mother could easily run into her and almost does. I thought this kid was some kind of genius or something?

I also didn't particularly care for the shock ending, even though it is left a little open to interpretation that this could be a dream sequence as well. The first ending was sad enough and brought the story to the right conclusion, so this shock ending was really not needed. All in all, I can't seem to help the fact that I really liked Deadly Friend. It walks a fine line between B-movie stupidity and a genuinely well-told tale, and I guess if anybody could pull that off, it would be my man Wes Craven.

Project Terrible: Track of the Moon Beast (1976)

Is it that time already again?! Oh, you betcha. Some of us just can't seem to get enough of those terrible, terrible movies so here we are with Project Terrible Round... oh, I forgot... 14? Something crazy like that. Anywho, I decided to with Maynard Morrissey's movie choice for me since he always seems to torture me the most. This time from him I got another obscure sci-fi movie from the 70s called Track of the Moon Beast. Goody. Let's get started.

So this movie has one of the best plots I've ever heard. Seriously. This hunky young mineralogist named Paul falls in love with a really boring chick named Kathy on the same night that he gets hit in the head by a meteor from an asteroid that hit the moon. Herein comes the "moon beast" part of this fantastic story because apparently, having a little bit of meteor in your brain turns you into... a lizard monster. I know you're anxious to hear how this turns out.

As hilariously stupid as the plot of Track of the Moon Beast is, it's really a shame that the rest of the movie is rather boring. There's just not enough Paul-monster-moon-beast action, too much talky-talky with all the other characters, and not enough of those whacky 70s sci-fi effects that I was looking forward to. Though it almost kills me to admit it, overall the movie isn't that bad. The production value - albeit minimal - is workable for the plot and the characters are not nearly as annoying as expected. Hey, you even get some musical entertainment in the movie. What more do you want?

If you're like me, your main question with this oh-so-magnificent plot is the relationship between some meteor shit (yay Creepshow!) and transforming into a lizard beast. Like, how are those two things related in any way at all? How does having a piece of meteor imbedded in your brain cause you to turn into a lizard creature that is closely related to the Tyrannosaurus Rex (I didn't say it - the movie did, I swear)? Paul's good friend is Native American and professor Johnny Longbow, who not only has the recipe for awesome stew, but also can give you the most minimal explanation for all of this possible. It's a Native American legend. I think. I wasn't really paying attention. However, no explanation could make this plot point make sense enough for anybody to take it seriously.

Paul only changes into the moon beast about three times in the whole movie and it all takes up about five minutes of the movie's run time. There's one really crappy dissolve transformation scene - which I can forgive because they did their best - and just what Paul transforms into is not at all what you would expect. He doesn't look much like a lizard and is instead this dark, bumpy headed Creature from the Black Lagoon type thing. He goes a little rampagey by killing some random guy outside his house and then some more random people in a tent where he rips one of their arms off... and that's pretty much it. At the the end, he runs around the desert some more before he's killed. Eh, boring.

Fan art for Johnny Longbow's famous stew

Just need to interject here another plot point that begs repeating: The piece of meteor in Paul's head disintegrates after a while and some NASA guys who come to help out tell Johnny Longbow that Paul will basically explode when the moon comes out. Awesome. Just awesome. Bad part is that you never get to see him explode. Johnny Longbow decides to kill Paul before that happens by shooting him with an arrow made of the meteor that hit him. The screen goes red filter and Paul's just kinda gone after that. Oh, you're breaking my heart.

There's some questionable dialogue in Track of the Moon Beast, and the actress playing Kathy is basically a blonde two-by-four, but everybody else does a relatively good job for what they have to work with. The goofy plot warmed me up to the movie quite a bit more than it should have but seriously - when have you ever heard of something like this before? The bad part is the painfully slow pace and way too many boring scenes of people just standing around and talking. I actually say give this one a shot, if only for nostalgia's sake - they don't make 'em like this anymore. Thank goodness.

Project Terrible: The War of the Robots (1978)

Well, I was hoping that my other Project Terrible buddies would just sort of forget that I still had to watch this movie for Project Terrible, but Alec sure is a persistent fellow. I had problems getting it to load all the way on YouTube so that was my initial excuse for not reviewing the movie yet. Then I made the mistake of getting my internet fixed (just took a new modem - imagine that!) so my sense of duty and honest nature made me venture into the strange, Italian sci-fi world of War of the Robots, a truly gawd awful movie if ever there was one. Thank you, Maynard. You sure know how to pick 'em.

The plot. There's an old professor and his hottie assistant who are working on creating life out of nothing. No more explanation is given on how exactly that can be accomplished or what the hell he's actually doing. Anyway, these two get kidnapped by some robot aliens and taken back to their planet, so's they can use his expertise to help their race. Captain John Boyd of the ship Trissi, who is banging the hottie assistant, and his crew are sent to go after them and get help from some other aliens in order to do that. Or something.

War of the Robots has forced me resort to a meme to accurately describe my reaction to it. I think this one will do:

Indeed, Will Smith. I'm pretty sure that was the face I was making during the whole movie. I mean, I'll give the flick some props for being a bit more involved than I expected it to be, but then again, that fact just made the whole thing about 10 times harder for me to follow, mostly because I didn't want to. The movie is an hour and forty minutes long and it's about... an hour and forty minutes too long. I tried not to space out too much, but it was damn near impossible, especially during the space battle at the end that went on for about four hours. I actually clapped for myself when the credits finally came on screen.

Despite all that, there were many things to enjoy about War of the Robots thanks to some wonderfully bad dubbing, bad costuming, bad set design, and oh yes, bad acting. I have to mention one of my new favorite movie lines, which is when Captain John is first meeting the other alien race - the bald eyeless guys - and the alien asks if John can understand him. John's response? He points to some retarded gizmo on his wrist and says something like, "Yes I can understand you... thanks to this electronic translator." Bhaha! Really?!

The rest of acting is incredibly stilted and emotionless from pretty much all involved. I don't think I can completely blame it on the dubbing because, hell, I wouldn't have put that much effort into any of these roles either. I didn't even listen to half the dialogue at the beginning because it was all ridiculous spaceship jargon that didn't even try to make any sense. The actors were obviously just saying the words without having the slightest idea what the hell they were really saying.

Bad costuming... Okay, it's understandable for the time the movie was filmed and therefore it's hilariously bad. They all wear similar skintight outfits, just that some of them are different colors and some of the women's outfits are a bit more low cut. The robot aliens from Anthor (or whatever) are all freaking clones and have wonderful Village of the Damned hairdos - as do some of the humans on the Trissi, which is slightly confusing. Their "anti-radiation suits" when they arrive on the other planet are also hilarious because it is just more shiny, skintight plastic leotards that can't possible protect them against radiation, for one because they don't wear gloves or helmets with them. Lois's hairdo when she becomes the empress of the aliens (yeah, that happens somewhere in there) is quite impressive, I must say.

The set design and the action scenes also suck a lot. My favorite thing was how all their little laser guns didn't actually shoot anything - they just had a light at the end of the barrel to make it look like something was happening. Then when somebody actually got shot, apparently all the actors went to the Elementary School Playground School of Dying which consists of your upper body going all stiff all of the sudden and then just sort of crumpling to your knees. Every single alien died this way and it was way annoying. The space battles had only the basics of effects but it surprisingly didn't bother me all that much because it could have been much worse. Though light sabers come into play later on, it doesn't really help any of these scenes, despite the fact that they actually get to cut the aliens in half and cut off their arms.

For a while there, I thought I was dead and was actually experiencing what hell was like. Then War of the Robots ended and I was gladly brought back to real life. True sci-fi buffs might actually get something from this movie just for nostalgia or history but for everyone else, it is one that you can go your entire life without seeing and not miss a thing. No, truly. It's not a good movie. And you never need to see it, believe me.

Project Terrible: Android Insurrection (2012)

Fuck me, have I about had it with technology this week.

When I went to watch my newly assigned Project Terrible movie - Android Insurrection - this morning on my instant streaming, I literally watched it for five minutes before my PS3 up and fucking DIED on me. It is just fucking dead. So I wasted $1.29 to get Android Insurrection out of Redbox and I bought me a Blu-ray player with wireless so I got Netflix back. The PS3 will just have to sit in the corner and think about what it's done before I decide whether or not I want to get it fixed or buy a new one.

Anyway, on to the review of the shitty robot movie.

For serious, why do they even bother to make movies like this at all? They can't have made any money off of it at all (except maybe for my $1.29) and they spent some money on CGI for a movie that absolutely does nothing and says nothing. Android Insurrection is not only just a plain old shitty movie, it's boring. BO-ring. With a weak plot and atrocious effects, this low-budget sci-fi flick wasn't even worth the effort. The thanks goes to our newest PT member, Alex Jowski, who was kind enough to replace the much more promising-looking movie Vampire Wars with this turd. 

Led by tough leader Karen Foxwell, a group of military-type people are the best robot-killers around. After a tough two-week mission, they are immediately sent on a more secretive mission to a facility in order to retrieve an android that's gone rogue. The android has built some kind of machine that does... something. I think it was something bad that could kill humans. But they're supposed to destroy this thing but also bring back an android that can help them? Yes? No? Who cares. Moving on.

I have only one nice thing to say about the movie, which is that it has a nice opening credit sequence. The animation is cool and there is a guy giving a speech about how great robots are and how useful they are to humans, and then it goes on to imply that humans should be careful around the robots. Dun dun DUN! But this sequence is so misleading as to the quality of the rest of the film, which quickly reveals itself to be just as bad as, if not worse than, a stock SyFy movie.

I can't even be funny about this movie because there's almost nothing going on here to talk about. Poor dialogue doesn't move the story along at all, and the story itself paper thin and nothing you haven't seen in literally every single freaking science fiction movie ever made. Even as a action movie, Android Insurrection is a failure. Several of our main group are killed by the rogue android - and not a single thing is seen. It's not even implied. I have no idea how that thing killed anybody. The rest of the action is shit as well, as the guys just sort of stand there and limply shoot their guns at stuff, relying on the CG sparks or whatever to let us know that the guns are actually firing. 

The faceless, unimportant characters are all pulled straight from the cliche handbook - tough chick, smart mouth tough chick, sunglass-wearing cocky bastard, skinny nerd, ball-busting muscle guy, and slimy corporate guy. Blah blah blah, just kill these uninteresting people already, I didn't care about them from the start. The main tough chick, Foxwell, is emotionless and authoritative like a commander should be. They mention a couple times that she never gets hit when they go on a mission and she really hates androids, so I immediately knew that she actually was an android herself. And surprise, surprise, she is. That was the big twist, but it was ridiculously unnecessary. Also, the Colonel had a horrendous German accent.

The same sets are used over and over again and not a single thing screamed to me that this was supposed to be the year 2532. There's a white Chevy truck somewhere in there, metal filing cabinets, paper notes taped to doors - I mean seriously, this is 500 years in the future? The movie is so small and has absolutely no scope in terms of creating a sense of urgency or danger for the characters. An amazing thing about these sets is how the huge freaking robots are able to jump out of nowhere in them, completely unseen and unheard by the characters until they are right next to them. Ridic. The whole thing is absolutely ridic. Good thing the movie is short.

Ugh, what a bore and what a waste. Nothing about Android Insurrection is entertaining because it's just the same old recycled sci-fi shit. I'm almost more angry at it for being so lazy rather than amused at its shittiness. 

Last up for Project Terrible, is a robot movie from the 50s. Is it going to be better or worse than this one? I honestly don't know!