Review : Spiders (2013)

Its not every day that I come across a giant bug movie I find it hard to get behind, man. Give me some radiated insect, some hot and sultry scientist gal, some military hi-jinx and some city/town-wide destruction, and I'm popping smiles left and right, but somehow, this months SPIDERS failed to do it for me, in any way whatsoever. Let me attempt to pinpoint the reasons why, and maybe save you a buck or ten...

First off...the plot.

SPIDERS is your typical 'space insects hurtle towards earth on a shuttle-fragment and once here presume to grow faster than Russell Crowe's beer-gut' scenario. We've been here a million times before, and lets be honest, we don't give a good shit how the giant spiders get here, just as long as when they DO get here, they fuck shit up like the MC5 circa '69. Plots, characters, acting and drama almost always get a pass in these b-movies. They get by on charm, playfulness and yes, big-ass bugs eating hapless extras. Its not much to ask. Occasionally we'll get a serious take on this thing, (MIMIC comes immediately to mind), and some of them are even stone-cold classics, (THEM! still ranks as the big daddy of the giant creep-crawly flicks, and TREMORS resides among the all-time greats like a boss), but for the most part they're simply throwaway fun. Shamelessly made and slightly shaming to watch and enjoy. Not that such confliction of standards will stop us hungry horror fans...

So, as a bug-movie enthusiast, and a well-known chronic arachnophobe, I jumped into SPIDERS with a mix of apprehension and boyish glee. A big bug bonanza made for the big screen sounded like just the ticket, man. Well you know what? It wasn't.

The show starts off pretty strong, with a cool opening shot of some space-spiders scuttling amidst the corpses of a derelict space-hub, (is that what we're calling these things? I have no fucking clue...I'm not a scientist), that pans through the devastation wrought by the little eight-legged bastards, and out into open space, where we see some random meteors smash the 'hub' to shit. This, of course, sends our little buddies on a one-way trip to New York, (obviously), where they crash into the subway, set up home, and begin to grow at 'AN ALARMING RATE!!!!!!'. The usual...so far, so good. No complaints.
Even the introduction of the characters is passable. Its a scenario cribbed straight from a thousand other films of this ilk...deadbeat dad's kids think hes something of an ass-packet, invasion occurs, deadbeat dad steps up to the plate and saves his ungrateful little shits from becoming lunch, (don't kids in these films realise daddy has to work to buy 'em all that Ipod and Ipad shit!!??). Its WAR OF THE WORLDS on welfare. Again...so far, so good.

Its somewhere around the ten minute mark, when the spiders are discovered, that the film begins to feel, well...flat. That's the best description I can think of for the vibe this thing gives off. Any bug movie fan knows the drill...we catch glimpses of the beasts, some useless characters are killed in gruesome but mysterious fashion, and lo and behold, by the time the second half of the movie is underway, we're dick-deep in insectiod mayhem. We're used to the slow build, but with SPIDERS, its nearly 45 minutes before anything of any note, or any action for that matter, takes place.

We saw the spiders in the opening shot, albeit in much smaller form, so there's no mystery there as to the otherworldly appearance of the little fuckers, and the early kills are distinctly tension-free and bloodless. I know this is rated PG but so was ARACHNOPHOBIA, and that shit still gives me nightmares to this very day. There's no spine-tingling anticipation at all here. And when thats coming from the mouth of a giant pussy like me, who cringes at the mere mention of spiders, you know you got yourself some major issues. This film should have worked for me on the insects alone.

The special effects really do hurt the film, too. They're distractingly bad, and the creatures themselves have no personality. These are space-spiders, man! Have some fun with this shit! The CG looks extremely dated...bewilderingly so. If you happen to see this thing, and I'm sure many of you will, just compare the effects here to the work in EIGHT-LEGGED FREAKS, and that film is around ten years old. There's no comparison to be made. ELF stands up on its effects work to this day. In SPIDERS, the creatures don't only lack personality, they lack the most vital component required for CG to convince in any real way...weight. There's no sense of pressure or of gravity with these things. They just seem to float around the screen like they wandered off the set of a ScyFy Original. And that's what this film feels like, a low-budget, DTV bug flick. Were it to hang with its peers, such as SHARKTOPUS, OCTO-MOM and GARGANTUA-WHATEVER-THE-FUCK, it would stand as one of the better looking kids in the gang, but as a full release...now way, man. ELF was a cinema experience...SPIDERS is a six-pack-and-in-your-boxers experience.

And I'm gonna use that much-loved little b-movie homage as a comparison here because, well, why wouldn't I? They both have similar plots, similar beasties and similar action scenes, but one of them has oodles of charm, funny dialogue, great effects, brilliant action, a genuine 1950's bug movie vibe and a sense of goofy fun...the other one is SPIDERS.

I don't wanna beat down on this thing for long, man. It is what it is. Its a cheaply made, well-meaning b-movie that sadly lacks the sparkle and the wit that drives the best of these films. Its punching above its weight and would find itself much more at home among the legion of VOD releases of similar ilk. It's action falls flat, its effects are sub-par and, while the characters are likable, (though it doesn't help that this thing stars an actor from STARSHIP TROOPERS, drawing yet more comparisons to far greater films), there's no sense of tension or danger in the whole thing. It's a spider movie that can't elicit even the mildest shiver from a deeply arachnophobic reviewer. It's not the worst giant insect movie out there, but it's a real disappointment to anyone expecting this decades EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS. My advice...go watch that film instead.

Sorry guys, this ones a dud.

3 Dr Smirnoffs out of 10

Review : Wrong Turn 5 (2012)

WRONG TURN 5?

Did I miss the memo or something?

Last time I looked there was a WRONG TURN 2. I had no idea there was a Part 3 or a Part 4, or if I did, come across them, I may have blanked out the memory. Some shit is too painful to carry around in this world, so perhaps I'm suffering from some post traumatic head-fuck. Who knows.

Hell, maybe their worthwhile slasher films. The second one sure was. Plenty of fun to be had in that low-budget romp through the backwoods. In fact, in many ways it rose above the original. It lacked the tension that WRONG TURN boasted, but in taking itself way less seriously, it made for perfectly demented fun. A six-beer movie, best enjoyed while baked and with equally immature buddies.

Perhaps three and four follow suite. I'll need to look into it.

The law of diminishing returns dictates that each sequel will more than likely be a paired down version of what worked previously. Seems unlikely the second ones creativity could carry through to two more movies, never mind three. Such was my thinking...and that brings us to this installment.

In WRONG TURN 5, we find ourselves joining the revelers at the 'Mountain Man Festival', a music festival that we are informed is rivaling Lollopalooza in terms of size and crowd. Its held at Halloween, and the partygoers tend to dress up in fancy costumes, often as inbred redneck hillbillies. Meanwhile, deep in the surrounding woods, a trio of cannibals in badly designed inbred make-up are being raised by a relative and patriarch, (played by Pinhead, himself, if you can believe that shit). When some of the festival kids find themelves arrested alongside dear old Daddy, his boys come valiantly to his rescue. As the ugly bastards go about their jailbreak, the two parties clash in seriously violent fashion...

WRONG TURN 5 was nowhere near as awful as I assumed it would be. Perhaps my low expectations helped in swallowing this junk-food in one bite, but it really wasn't too painful an experience at all. Its cheesy as hell with some atrocious acting, (though not always) and is about as scary as STUART LITTLE, but it does relish in the violence, and at least tries to do something original with its worn down characters.

Speaking of which, I'm a little confused. Are these the same hillbilly face-chewers from the first and second film, because one of them looks just like the rat-faced mutant from part one? I'm guessing its simply a case of designing with familiarity in mind, but I can't say for sure. Again, I have to mention the makeup on these bozo's. THE WALKING DEAD this ain't. These mutant chaps look like their wearing cheap Halloween masks fashioned on the monster designs from the previous films. In short, they look like shit, but even this works in the films favor, as its very believable that these jokers could mingle with the costumed revelers without anyone believing their actually mutants. They fit in just fine with the festival folk, because they look every bit as shitty. Genius or ineptitude on the creators part? No idea...

There's very artistry on display here, and next to no tension, but the kills are vicious, often unexpected and the effects are handled pretty well, (with less reliance on cheap CG than many low-budget genre films these days). Call me a reprobate, but watching one of our mutants gutting a gal and feeding her her own intestines while a soft rock ballad plays in the background, is pretty damn entertaining. And a  scene featuring two trapped kids, a football field and a huge lawnmower is so way over the top its impossible not to laugh out loud. Very messy. Perhaps I was raised wrong.

Doug Bradley is great fun too...overacting like a hero, and spending most of the movie laughing his ass off 'evilly' and letting everyone know they're deader than disco when his clan comes to break him out of jail.  He's like a more pro-active harbinger. I always think of this cat as being very classy, and seeing him in a goofy-ass role like this is a blast.

The people who made WRONG TURN 5 knew what they were getting into. They know this ain't anything other than a good time. Kids will love it for the boobs and body parts, growth-stunted adults such as myself will enjoy it for the shameless sense of trashy fun. I found the whole thing hilarious. I mean, how often do you get to see a mutant cannibal hillbilly jailbreak?

Make no mistake, this is pure cheese. Nonsense of the lowest order, but its just dumb enough to be a riot if your in the right mood. It scores points for being the fifth film in a series and not sucking like a rent-boy. I'll maybe even go back and watch three and four now. Maybe.

And has anyone noticed how 'Rat-Mutants' insane giggling sounds just like the Jockey in LEFT 4 DEAD 2? Creepy....

6 Hair-lips out of 10

Horror Hotel Cinema : The Maze (1953)

A slice of homegrown horror for you tonight...

Well, not quite, though this quaint and atmospheric little chiller is set in the remote Scottish Highlands, I'm purdy sure it wasn't filmed there. This is studio bound as they come, folks. And you all know what that means.....fog, great lighting, picturesque as hell, and Gothic as all get out. Good times, old chaps!

The plot revolves around a dashing Scotsman, played by the ever excellent Richard Carlson, (THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE), who is heir to a spooky Scottish castle, and breaks off his engagement to some hot 50's dame to return to the family estate after learning his uncle has went to the big caber-tossing competition in the sky. Said ladyfriend doesn;t hear from the fella in weeks, and decides to go investigate the situation for herself. Soon, she's up to her flapjacks in misty mountains, crumbling castles, aging actors and macabre mazes. And you, the audience, are in for a fun, old-timey ride.

Admittedly, its a little slow to get going, but Carlson holds the interest with a fine performance, and when the action does shift to my bonnie home-world, things pick up pretty quickly. Its a spooky, atmospheric work, and it has a very entertaining and worthwhile finale. And yes, that means its ridiculous and features a cheap, rubber beastie!

So, stop reading, and start viewing.

And stay the fuck away from Haggis....

Horror Hotel Cinema - The Hideous Sun Demon (1959)

Its beautiful here in Scotland at the moment, and as that's something that happens as often as a politician telling the truth, I figured I'd post the first of this months classic cult movies, THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON.

I first came across this movie fifteen years ago, while reading a coffee-table book on Cult Horror. The article, and in fact, the book, were sub-par, but there was a picture of the films protagonist in there in full costume and make-up, standing under the rays of the burning sun in all his hideous, lizard-like glory. Looked cool, but what really sold it was the piss-stain on his pants. Now that's attention to detail right there!

Here's the picture, folks. Classic cinema...

There's little more need be said. Its got a sun demon, he's hideous, and he has some wicked pants, (though shorts would be far better in that burny old sun). Its time you watched it already.....