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Tail Sting (2001)
TURBULENCE meets EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS!
Imagine my shock about 30 minutes into TAIL STING when what seemed as though it was going to be another lame, direct-to-video "monster run amok" movie in the vein of CARNOSAUR, CROCODILE, and OCTOPUS suddenly turned into a fun, albeit dopey, monster mash. The best way to describe TAIL STING would be to call it a hybrid of a 1970s Irwin Allen disaster movie and a 1950s AIP monster movie, but with it's tongue planted firmly in cheek. It's cheap and it's illogical, but it knows this and decides to have fun with what it has to work with.
The budget was obviously quite low as the production values are of Cinemax After Dark quality. The monster scorpions themselves are brought to life through the use of old-fashioned puppetry, which while totally unrealistic, still possesses a hokey charm that is sorely lacking in modern monster movies that rely so heavily on CGI. In fact, I'm not sure there's a single computer effect in the whole film. The footage of the plane taking off, flying, and landing were all accomplished using actual footage of jumbo jets just as the atomic age sci-fi films would do.
While I would never dare to say that TAIL STING was well written or well acted, the banter between the characters does elicit some chuckles occasionally and everyone in the movie seems to be having a good time. Unlike most other films of this genre, especially the ones on a very limited budget, it doesn't make the fatal mistake of being all doom and gloom and played totally straight. The other thing that makes some of the humor work is that it's more about how the characters play off of one another and the situations they're in than instead of desperately trying to be hip in an overly self-conscious SCREAM sort of way.
And then there are the true scene-stealers, the Muslim duo and the scheming scientist. The two Muslim men, who the film at first leads you to believe could be terrorists as a red herring, are these MacGuyver-like mechanics who constantly insist that, `We can fix anything!' Not only can they rewire a 747, in a matter of minutes they manage to build a communication system out a megaphone and boombox as well as a makeshift battle suit out of a wet suit attached with defibrillators that they've supercharged. Seriously, these two are like the Professor from Gilligan's Island. I kept waiting for them to build a radio out of coconuts or a bamboo car. And then there's the scheming scientist who is responsible for freeing scorpions while trying to steal the embryos. He starts out playing the standard greedy villain, but by the midway point, he turns into an over-the-top madman with a Daffy Duck complex. It's performances like these that help make a bad movie into a fun bad movie.
Granted, everything doesn't work. The wisecracking black guy is just as annoying and unfunny as always, the stuff with the FAA isn't really needed, some scenes just fall flat, and the film is constantly at the mercy of it's very low budget. None the less, I kinda enjoyed it. So if you've got 90 minutes to kill and a few bucks to blow and you're in the mood for a campy, low budget monster movie, then you could do a hell of a lot worse than TAIL STING.
Swimming Pool - Der Tod feiert mit (2001)
Everyone Out Of The Pool!
The only thing that sets THE POOL apart from, let's say, VALENTINE, is the fact that the film is set in Europe with a predominantly European cast speaking fluent English with a variety of accents. Set at the International High School of Prague (i.e. rich kids boarding school) on the last day of school, a group of one-dimensional teens, who all look to be in their mid/late 20s, embark on their annual end of school party held at a secret location. In this case, they break into this posh spa after-hours that features a humongous Roman bath (which I suppose is the pool that the film is named after), a waterslide, a hot tub, and a weight room. Considering some of the ridiculous plot points to come, one almost has to wonder whether this is a spa or the biodome. You'll know what I mean if you make the mistake of renting this one. The actual plot can be summed up like this - sex, booze, and mass murder.
The characters range from cliched to one-dimensional and then there's the guy playing the heroine's boyfriend. He's this chain smoking, Eurotrash, Peter Facinelli look-a-like who is absolutely terrible. He comes across like the French guy who was always trying to steal Woody's girlfriend on Cheers. In fact, the only character I did like was the mousy redhead played by Isla Fisher who was the only one willing to call out these spoiled, self absorbed, rich kids for what they really are. In many slasher movies, this character would be the film's lead heroine. In this film however, she gets a machete through the gut about 15 minute in.
As for the killer himself, he's dressed like the killer from PROM NIGHT but with a skull-like mask, he wields Jason's machete, and drives a Toyota. He's not a supernatural maniac, but he does seem to be psychic since he always knows exactly where everyone is and where they're going. In addition, he seems to develop the power of teleportation at one point in the film. His methods of killing are your generic slash and stab except for the film's only inventive kill in which one unlucky girl on the waterslide gets split up the middle sliding right into the waiting machete. The revelation of the killer's identity is especially lame and his motivations are even lamer. Basically, the killer is a homicidal misogynist who dresses up like the villain in a European comic book.
I'm sure there are some slasher fans who will enjoy THE POOL for it's retro style of doing things in the post-SCREAM era, but truthfully, this is the kind of crap that pretty much killed off this genre to begin with. Even with slick production values and an international flavor, THE POOL is still just another lame entry in the, as Roger Ebert calls it, "dead teenager' genre. The nicest thing I can say is that at least it was slightly less insulting to the intelligence than I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.
Fangs (2002)
The screenwriter used to write for MAMA'S FAMILY! Is that a strong enough warning to avoid FANGS at all costs?
About 20 minutes into FANGS I was almost convinced that this film wasn't new, but actually some movie made in the 80s by NBC that they would have aired sometime around Halloween hyping it as "spooky fun for the whole family." I can't begin to fathom the sheer number of people who are going to be suckered into renting this on the basis of its box art alone. That box art makes the film look like it's about vicious little bats up to no good. It lies! This is not a jolly good fangfest! While it may be about killer bats, virtually everything actually involving the bats takes place off-screen. A more honest title for the movie would have been OFF-CAMERA BAT ATTACK! Instead we have a never-ending sea of cutesy one-liners that wouldn't even be considered witty enough to be used on HeeHaw! You almost anticipate these jokes to be immediately followed by a few chords of a piano to help punctuate that something amusing has just been said. MAMA'S FAMILY was a laugh riot compared to this movie. Heck, SCOOBY DOO has more suspense and on-screen mayhem in a single half hour episode than this atrocious movie does in it's entire running time. Just a total bore. BATS looks like JAWS by comparison!
There's no gore, no on-screen deaths, no profanity, no sex, no nudity, no cleavage, and no kissing because, as it turns out, FANGS was really supposed to be wholesome family entertainment about a lunatic who uses vicious bats to savagely maul people to death! That concept alone is an oxymoron. I got a family value the producers at Porchlight Entertainment need, it's called shame!
FANGS isn't even so bad it's good. It's so bad it's worse!
Lone Tiger (1996)
Tiger Bomb!
SPOILER WARNING (This is definately a warning in more ways than one!)
It is amazing how a joint US/Japanese co-production could still look cheaper than one of those crime reenactment segments on America's Most Wanted. The film's mask wearing title character is clearly inspired by the Japanese wrestling icon, Tiger Mask. Similarities end there. Our hero, played by Bruce Locke (most famous as the robot ninja in Robocop 3), is the son of a murdered Tiger Mask rip-off who now wanders the streets of Las Vegas, hangs out with the homeless, and gets into back alley fights with escapees from Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video, led by the immortal Stoney Jackson, only to be recruited by an evil rich guy to take part in the big money sport of human cockfighting. When engaging in one of these fights to the death, he dons his dad's tiger mask, but our hero refuses to kill and soon comes to realize that his evil benifactor may have also had something to do with dad's murder. Insert plenty of flashbacks, montages, and guys being kicked in slow motion. The actual fighting in this duller than dirt movie is so poorly choreographed it makes the battles in an episode of Bibleman look like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!
Ironically, the tiger mask is less a mask than a helmet and leaves one wondering how it manages to stay on his head during the fights. In addition to the underground fighting, our hero also does some pro wrestling to boot. However, wrestling is portrayed in this movie as being essentially the same as the underground fighting only with an actual ring and a referee to count pins. So not only are the karate fights crappy, but the wrestling matches defy all logic!
You'd think having Richard Lynch (who played the bad guy in most direct to video action films made in the late 80s/early 90s), Robert Z'Dar (Maniac Cop himself), Matthias Hues (the evil drug dealing alien from I Come In Peace), & the legendary Stoney Jackson together in one movie for the first time would be a good thing? WRONG! Not even the brief cameo by Timothy "I know that name from somewhere, but I just can't place it" Bottoms can save it. Personally, I think Lynch only agreed to be in this stinker as long as he received free cigars, back rubs from moderately attractive women, and that he be allowed to dress like a combination of Dr. Who & Kolchak The Night Stalker.
One final sure fire sign of this film's wretchedness is the fact that IMDB lists it's year of release as 1998, yet the closing credits list 1994. Four years from the time it was made to the time it was released. I'm amazed this snoozefest got released at all!
Uchû daikaijû Girara (1967)
ALL HAIL GUILALA!!!
Nobody is ever going to confuse THE X FROM OUTER SPACE for a good movie, but it is so strange, so goofy, so gleefully silly that it can be a ton of fun. The star of the show is GUILALA & it is one of the greatest Japanese monster creations ever! The daikaiju design ranges from absurd to brilliantly cheesy even down to its roar. If you like Godzilla or Gamera movies, then this somewhat obscure little gem is worth tracking down.