Prime Time: Crocodile (2000)

A cheap 'n' cheerful creature feature directed by Tobe Hooper, Crocodile is a film that makes up for a number of failings with some sly wit and fun sequences showing the titular creature terrorising a decent number of potential meals/victims. While it's no classic, it's actually one of the better films from the latter part of Tobe Hooper's career.

A group of friends are on their spring break holiday. They decide to rent a houseboat, planning to spend their time drinking and cruising leisurely on a lake. Unfortunately, a very big crocodile decides to spend the same time eating as many people as it can. You have a small amount of tension within the group, due to one character trying to keep a past infidelity secret from his girlfriend, but all of the non-crocodile moments feel like too much filler in between the highlights.

Written by Jace Anderson, Adam Gierasch, and Michael D. Weiss, from a story by Boaz Davidson, this definitely isn’t the kind of thing you expect so many writers to have worked on. A lot of the main character interactions are slightly inane, although once the film starts to jump between the teens, the lurking croc, and a local Sheriff on their trail (played by Harrison Young), things do improve. This film may be a mess, but it’s an entertaining one. So entertaining that it is easy to overlook the highly varying quality of the CGI used to show the crocodile on the rampage.

Hooper knows what he has to do, and he does it well. He’s not shy about showing off the big beastie at the heart of things, for better or worse. Even better is the fact that he intersperses the moments of creeping stealth with entertaining sudden scares (the first main attack on one of our partying youngsters if a great moment). While some may view this as Hooper “slumming it”, the man himself never seems to act that way, instead opting to do the best he can with whatever limited resources were available to him.

Although few of the cast really stand out, Mark McLachlan and Caitlin Martin are just fine as Brady and Clare, the couple you think may make it to the very end. I am surprised that Martin doesn’t have too many more film credits, as she’s cute and likeable. The others worth mentioning are Chris Solari, as the semi-comic character looking like he has just been kicked out of a Crazy Town music video, and he just about manages to avoid becoming too irritating, and Young, that Sheriff, being a great mix of tough authority and understandable concern for people holidaying without full awareness of the trouble they could land in.

You may not ever need to put this as a top priority on your viewing schedule, and you shouldn’t pay a high price if you ever want to pick it up in any form, but it’s just ahead of so many other creature features that you can find every day on the SyFy Channel. As a bonus, it also feels like a stepping stone for Hooper to find his feet again, which would lead to him delivering a superb horror in the shape of his The Toolbox Murders remake. 

6/10

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Hospital Massacre AKA X-Ray (1982)

Directed by Boaz Davidson, who also wrote the story that was developed into the screenplay by Marc Behm, Hospital Massacre AKA X-Ray is a film so inept in so many ways that you'll watch it and start to wonder when Leslie Nielsen will appear. It feels like a spoof, but it's also brilliantly demented entertainment that's never dull for one minute of the run-time.

The lovely Barbi Benton plays Susan Jeremy, a young woman who heads in to hospital to receive some test results. Unfortunately for her, the doctor that would have seen her has been killed and her x-rays have been switched by a madman who obviously wants her to stay in the hospital long enough for him to make her clinically dead. Susan initially goes along with the hospital procedures with nothing more than a slight hint of impatience, but as time drags on she starts to get more and more frustrated. That frustration turns into real anger when she realises that her life is in danger and is unable to convince any of the hospital staff around her.

Boaz Davidson might be best known to a lot of people as the director of a number of films, including the very first, in the Lemon Popsicle franchise. That's certainly where I knew his name from anyway before seeing any of his work in the horror genre. I think it's fair to say that he brings the same subtlety and restraint to the slasher movie as he did to the teen sex comedy. So that's none at all then.

Thankfully, a lack of subtlety and restraint isn't the worst thing for either a teen sex comedy or a slasher horror movie and that's why I remain a fan of Boaz Davidson's work. His films may never top any "best of..." lists, but he makes some fun stuff that just needs to be watched in the right frame of mind. And usually a smirk, ready to develop into a grin.

I'm not going to pretend that the cast members do any great work, but they manage to keep a straight face while delivering some truly laughable dialogue, and they deserve some small amount of praise for that. Benton is a very attractive leading lady who puts herself across as being quite likable, Charles Lucia (billed as Chip Lucia) is a handsome doctor who seems more helpful than anyone else in the hospital and John Warner Williams is a doctor who refuses to believe any of the outlandish claims from Benton's character, though he's only too happy to get her topless for a prolonged examination/bit of gratuitous nudity. Gloria Jean Morrison and Karen Smith are two stone-faced nurses who won't put up with any histrionics.

There's a score derivative of some classic horror movie tunes, a lead character who just can't seem to help herself at all and proves to be one of the clumsiest people to try to survive to the end of a slasher movie, a great selection of scripted moments that have people saying something and then completely contradicting themselves/turning around a moment later and a classic comedy moment in which a room full of people in traction are shown moving frantically as someone walks into their room.

However, there are also a number of entertaining deaths, some absurd moments that carry on until they become surreal and a surprisingly decent finale that stands as some small reward for viewers who make it all the way to the end.

The comedy factor may not usually be the main thing that horror fans look for in their movies, but this one is really worth seeing if you go into it in the right frame of mind.

6/10

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Spiders (2000)

Yes, Spiders is a bad film in many ways. It's a horror movie about giant spiders so you should know what to expect. However, Spiders is also great fun in many ways. It hits absolutely every beat that you expect and it shows no shame in doing so. In fact, there are even a few laughs and self-aware moments in the script - especially when one young man realises the situation developing and says that it's "like a bad science fiction movie" - as well as the required amount of spider mayhem.

The plot involves a bunch of young folk putting themselves in peril by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A space shuttle crashes and they go to investigate the wreckage. When a bunch of government types turn up to remove bodies and help any survivors, the young folk try to keep hidden and go along for the ride to find out just what's going on a la the Scooby gang. Unfortunately, what's going on turns out to involve conspiracy theories, meddling with things that shouldn't really be meddled with and, of course, some big, ugly bastards with eight legs.

Directed by Gary Jones, working from a script by Stephen David Brooks, Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch that was based on a story by Boaz Davidson, Spiders isn't going to be the first film choice for anyone seeking high art but it's surprisingly good for what it is.

The special effects, for starters, are very good at times. That will probably have something to do with the fact that KNB Effects worked on the movie. Not every practical effect is convincing, and the CGI is pretty poor in places, but there are some great moments of gore and gloopiness.

The acting is also . . . . . . . . . oh wait, nope. The acting isn't that good BUT everyone involved somehow manages to give the impression that they're being a good sport about it all, going along with every ridiculous turn of events. Leading lady Lana Parrilla is likeable enough, even if her character does lose her glasses about a third of the way into things and then never needs them again (a hilariously obvious war to show the transition from brainy to brainy beauty). Josh Green is okay, if a bit bland, and Oliver Macready and Nick Swarts both do well, it's just a shame that they didn't get more to do. Mark Phelan is good enough in his role and the spiders go about being very spidery.

There are people who never want to see these kinds of movies being made, ever. But if you're going to make a film like this then THIS is how to do it. With a sense of humour, a number of moments that meet audience expectations and no limits on where the craziness could end up.

5/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spiders-DVD-Lana-Parrilla/dp/B003H9MXVK/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1350419460&sr=1-1