Prime Time: Crocodile 2: Death Swamp (2002)

While the first Crocodile movie decided to take a fairly typical approach of putting a group of young adults in peril, Crocodile 2: Death Swamp (a film I first saw many years ago under the title Crocodile 2: Death Roll) decides to change things up a bit. The victims here are a group of armed robbers and some stranded airplane crew and passengers/hostages. So you can have all of your crocodile carnage, but you also get the kind of posturing and evil baddies who wouldn't look out of place in an '80s exploitation movie.

Heidi Lenhart plays Mia, a flight attendant looking forward to getting home and reuniting with her boyfriend, Zach (Chuck Walczak). That plan is thrown into disarray when a group of criminals on the plane cause a ruckus, to put it mildly, resulting in the plane crashing into a large area of swampland. And that large area of swampland contains one large crocodile. Zach hires a tracker, Roland (Martin Kove), to go looking for Mia, the criminals keep trying to just look out for themselves, and everyone soon realises that they need to be looking out for a killer crocodile.

While writers Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch are back on board for this schlocky sequel, it's Gary Jones in the director's chair this time around. Having previously delivered both Mosquito and Spiders, Jones has good form when it comes to mixing animal monsters with human killers. It's a shame that this film lacks the humour of some of his other work, seeming to instead wallow in clichés and moments that are unintentionally hilarious (no, considering the quality of the acting on display here, I'm not going to believe anyone that tells me it is all deliberate, although a better cast might have managed to lift the material).

Lenhart isn't a bad female lead, despite having to utter one of the worst "send off" lines I have ever heard. Darryl Theirse also isn't too bad, playing the leader of the criminals. Then you have Kove, who actually DOES feel as if he gets a grip on the material better than anyone else. His grizzled and savvy tracker is the most fun character in the film, and Kove plays him in a near-permanent state of hungover and tired nonchalance. Walczak isn't great in his role, but it's easy to forget everyone else onscreen when you watch the scenery-chewing turn from Jon Sklaroff (playing a scuzzy criminal named Sol), who is arguably the worst performer onscreen.

If you liked the first movie then I'd still think twice before recommending this one to you. It's not as much fun, it's not as well made, and the crocodile feels like less of a constant threat, even when everyone eventually finds themselves stuck in the swampland area that is basically croc's dining room. It's enjoyable for the way it veers erratically between creature feature and sleazy crime flick, but it doesn't ever satisfy as one or the other.

4/10

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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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June-Claude Van Damme: Derailed (2002)

And so it has come to this at last, the film that I deem the very worst yet in the filmography of Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg. There are still a couple of his films that I have never seen, at this moment, but I cannot imagine anything worse than this. Just how bad is it? Well it feels as if it was originally created as a vehicle for Steven Seagal. Not prime Seagal, no, but the Seagal of today. It's THAT bad.

Yet it still manages to avoid the very lowest rating possible, mainly because I have a soft spot for both Van Damme and Laura Harting, who at least has a sizable role here.

The plot sees JCVD meeting up with Harring and escorting her on a train journey. Going along with them is a batch of a nasty viral weapon, a very dangerous strain of smallpox, that has to be kept safe. Harting stole it, some baddies want it, action thriller hijinks ensue.

It's easy to pin down what doesn't work here because there is pretty much nothing that works. From the script to direction, this is a film almost farcical in how slapdash and cheap the whole thing feels. The motivation for the characters never feels anywhere close to plausible, things are overly complicated at times when a simpler approach would have worked better, and I should mention that the the writers, Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch, also decide to get Van Damme's family (wife and children, with his onscreen son played by one of his actual children, Kristopher Van Varenberg) on board the dangerous train. That is the sort of thing that might prove amusing in some of the other scripts that Anderson and Gierasch have written, including some fun creature features, but it feels far too contrived here.

Director Bob Misiorowski has, unsurprisingly, not directed any other movie after this one. Considering the lack of skill on display here, I can only be thankful that he's yet to find another idea he wants to turn into an ugly mess. Had it not been for the presence of the two leads here, this would be a film without any redeemable qualities. Visuals, score, special effects, all are poor. In fact, some of the special effects and stunt sequences in the second half of the film are SO bad that you would be forgiven for thinking that you were watching some spoof co-created by the Zucker brothers. I defy anyone to watch the moment that features Van Damme riding a bike across the top of the train and tell me that they believed it was really happening. I made more realistic set-pieces when I was a child playing with my Action Man figures.

Nobody else in the cast is too recognisable so I won't bother listing them here. Tomas Arana plays the villain of the piece, and does so on a par with many of the other supporting players, sadly. Susan Gibney is a little better, playing Van Damme's wife, but, bearing in mind that it's better to say nothing at all if you cannot say anything nice, I won't comment on anyone else.

If this wasn't a Van Damme movie then I would never have checked it out. If Laura Harring hadn't been his co-star then I probably wouldn't have made it beyond the first 10 minutes. Not recommended. Not recommended at all. You could say that the title was picked as much for the state of Van Damme's career as it was for the relevance to the plot.

2/10

Brave souls can buy it here.
Brave American souls can buy it here.

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

Night Of The Demons (2009)

For anyone interested, here are my reviews for the original Night Of The Demons, Night Of The Demons 2 and Night Of The Demons III: Demon House.

If you're going to pick a movie to remake then instead of taking on the classics, the Big Guns (if you will), things always seem to turn out better when the film being remade is a fondly remembered slice of fun  that can easily be adapted for modern audiences without losing the essence of it.

Night Of The Demons was a great movie but it was no classic. It was simple, it was fun and it had some excellent special effects. It also had a couple of very memorable moments featuring Linnea Quigley.

This remake takes the basic premise - a bunch of kids go to a Halloween party at a house that contains some tricky demons wanting to possess them - and uses a fantastic cast to great effect. It might be ridiculous and over the top in places but the original was no big lesson in subtlety either, so I don't see any problem.

Shannon Elizabeth plays Angela, the party hostess who unwittingly kickstarts the mayhem, and most of the movie focuses on her and the six others in the house (Monica Keena, Bobbi Sue Luther, the gorgeous Diora Baird, Edward Furlong, John F. Beach and Michael Copon). There's a cameo for the always-good-to-see Tiffany Shepis and an even better cameo for Linnea Quigley that changes an iconic moment from the original movie. Characterisations are slim but no matter - this is about young folk running around a house at night and trying to escape the clutches of demons.

The script written by Jace Anderson and director Adam Gierasch isn't the greatest ever but it references some of the best bits from the original - penned by Joe Augustyn and directed by Kevin Tenney - while joining the dots as we go from a solid prologue to a quick set-up to the beginning of the madness to a sustained sequence of fun and thrills that makes up the second half and finale.

The cast are a mixed bag but all do fairly well. Monica Keena is a likeable enough potential leading lady, Shannon Elizabeth does fine in the role of Angela, Bobbi Sue Luther is slightly underused but lovely anyway and I think I already mentioned the gorgeous Diora Baird (who also gets the two best moments in the movie). Edward Furlong is a bit of a disappointment and Michael Copon is even more underused than Bobbi Sue Luther but John F. Beach is very entertaining as the one male character you actually care about.

I've seen plenty people complain about this one but I honestly think that it's just an automatic "this is a remake so it's awful" reaction because I rate it exactly the same as the original. It has all of the same ingredients, including the failings, as the 1988 movie and it's slickly put together for 21st century audiences.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Demons-Blu-ray-Edward-Furlong/dp/B003YCYZCK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337969725&sr=8-1

Fertile Ground (2010)

Starting off with some unpleasantness that makes you get your hopes up for what’s to come, Fertile Ground quickly turns into a predictable, disappointing horror movie full of nothing more than lame jump scares. It’s like a mix of The Amityville Horror and Rosemary’s Baby without the atmosphere, quality or technical accomplishment of either.

Nate Weaver (Gale Harold) and his wife, Emily (Leisha Hailey), move out to an old family estate to start a fresh period of their life after a traumatic experience. Nate is eager to get back into his painting while Emily gets busy making the house into a home and, of course, finding bits and bobs that hint at a dark past. Her paranoia and concerns are made worse when the full history is revealed to her by local man Avery (Chelcie Ross).

Co-written and directed by Adam Gierasch (who also provided horror fans with the enjoyable Night Of The Demons remake), Fertile Ground contains all of the major failings of modern horror. The acting is okay, I guess, but everything else is severely lacking. No logic, no tension, no atmosphere, nobody to really care about (Emily just doesn’t do enough to get herself out of the house before things get too “scary”) and not even enough gore and nudity to at least please viewers on a shallower level. 

 

The fact that the movie is interspersed with a number of unnecessary title cards, making it feel like some strange offshoot of Frasier, doesn’t help either. Nope, this is one to avoid. 

3/10 

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