Shudder Saturday: Monster Island (2024)

AKA Orang Ikan.

It may be all the review you need when I say that I was very surprised to learn that writer-director Mike Wiluan already had a number of features to his name before Monster Island. This feels very much like a debut. It's a decent enough idea without enough substance to make it bearable for even the relatively short runtime (it clocks in at about 83 minutes).

It's 1942, and viewers are introduced to a Japanese sea vessel that serves as a floating prison for some of the people on board. Dean Fujioka is Saito, a Japanese soldier who has been deemed a traitor. He's chained to a British POW named Bronson (Callum Woodhouse). When the ship is torpedoed, Saito and Bronson end up overboard. They come ashore on an island, quickly figuring out that they need to work together if they want to gain complete freedom, from one another and the island. There's at least one other figure on the island though. A monster who will try to maul and kill you before you can say "I didn't know we were near any black lagoon".

Having only heard about the central concept of this, I was quite optimistic about it. It didn't need a big budget. It didn't need any more added to it. Just put a bunch of people on an island and then have a monster endangering them. Simple. Sadly, Wiluan really drops the ball here. He doesn't have a good enough script, he doesn't have any big surprises in store, and, perhaps worst of all, he decides not to add more than a mere handful of potential victims to the film once the main characters, and the viewers, start to figure out how dangerous the island is.

The real shame of it is that Fujioka and Woodhouse don't do bad at all. The few scenes that work well are thanks to the exchanges between the two leads. They have the expected mistrust and reticence to stick together, but it's not overdone, and it is cast aside believably swiftly once they have bigger fish to fry (no pun intended). The others onscreen aren't very interesting, although I'll also mention Alan Maxson for his fine work in the monster suit. 

There are some things to enjoy here. The practical effects are pretty good, and this approach is now appreciated much more than the easier (and cheaper?) option of the kind of computer work that the low budget would permit. There's also pleasure to be had in the moments that have Fujioka and Woodhouse becoming a formidable duo. It's just a shame that Wiluan doesn't fully invest in the potential fun of his premise. Monster Island needed a bit more of everything, but it particularly needed some more genre treats sprinkled throughout it.

4/10

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Prime Time: Gamera vs. Guiron (1969)

It’s time to go on another adventure with everyone’s second-favourite giant turtle beastie (because The Great  A’Tuin should be number one on anyone’s ranked shortlist of giant turtles), and Gamera is once again on a mission to battle other strange life-forms and keep some children safe.

Two young boys, Akio (Nobuhira Kajima) and Tom (Miyuki Akiyama), end up spying a flying saucer landing that they then proceed to board. The vehicle then takes off with the boys on board, taking them eventually to a different planet, where Gamera fights a new foe, and also encounters an old enemy.

With everything once again in the hands of writer Niisan Takahasi and director Noriaki Yuasa, this is solid entertainment for those who are happy enough when the kaiju movies skew towards a younger demographic (as so many of them do). There is a sense of adventure and playfulness throughout, but no real danger, and the slight plot pauses for a few good smackdowns (and Guiron is a worthy opponent, in terms of both strength and design).

There’s no point in spending too much time discussing the cast (something I say during almost every kaiju movie review . . . seriously, just check out a sample of them and get back to me), but both Kajima and Akiyama are decent child actors, maintaining the right expressions of awe and nervousness as they watch everything happening around them. 

Considering my past worries as I started to work through the Gamera movies, I am very happy to report my positive response to this one, and any Gamera features still in my future. Either the movies have moved on from the low point that had me worried or I have recalibrated my mindset as I become more used to the tone and presentation of these movies. Gamera fans will have some fun with this. Everyone else will just have to accept that they don’t like joy.

6/10

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Sting (2024)

The main creature at the centre of Sting may actually be a small alien, but it looks like a spider, makes webbing, and generally triggers my arachnophobia, so I will be referring to it as another spider horror flick, coming along relatively hot on the heels of Infested.

Annoyingly starting with a sequence that shows some peril and the apparent fates of one or two characters, we then move back a few days to see how we got to that point. We got there thanks to a young girl named Charlotte (Alyla Browne). Charlotte finds a spider and decides to keep it as a pet. She feeds it, she learns that it can mimic certain sounds it hears, and she watches it get bigger in the jar. Things soon get out of control though, and when Sting, because that is what she has named it, is free and roaming around the building, Charlotte can’t imagine just how big and mean it is going to get.

Writer-director Kiah Roache-Turner has a lot of fun here. I have been a big fan of pretty much everything I have seen from him, and this is another success, albeit a low-key one. It’s not as effective as it could be, often missing major opportunities to make viewers skittish and uncomfortable, and it’s disappointingly tame for most of the runtime, but works brilliantly when it sets everything up to maximize the fun of the concept.

Roache-Turner knows exactly what he wants to do, and he starts the film off by filling up scenes with Chekhov’s Everything. The character details, the quirks of the building, the behaviour of the spider, viewers used to this kind of movie will know that almost everything is a set-up to some kind of pay-off, big or small, further down the line. And once everything is in place, it’s just a waiting game to see how much pain and death can be caused by the central creature.

Browne is a solid lead, likable enough to compensate for the stupidity of keeping a strange, potentially deadly, spider in a jar in her bedroom. Penelope Mitchell and Ryan Corr play her mother and step-father, respectively, with the latter more involved in the central storyline the tension in their relationship, and in the household. There are other people who may or may not end up in grave danger (played by Silvia Colloca, Noni Hazlehurst, Danny Kim, and Robyn Nevin), but the one who gets to make the most impact is Jermaine Fowler, playing a pest control guy about to be in way over his head. Fowler is fun, and it is obvious what film Roache-Turner is trying to emulate with his scenes, but his energy and humour would work better if the rest of the film was a bit darker and sharper.

I can understand people not liking this. It certainly isn’t great, and it’s generally far too predictable. I enjoyed it though. It did what I wanted it to do, even if I would have preferred some more blood and gore, and the pacing and set-pieces all show that it was made by someone with a real knowledge of, and love for, creature features. There’s still an even better modern spider horror to be made, in my opinion, but this is the better of the two recent ones, although most people seem to think otherwise.

7/10

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Shudder Saturday: Infested AKA Vermines (2023)

I am majorly arachnophobic. I know it makes little sense, especially living in the UK (where we tend not to have many deadly spiders), but my brain is just wired that way, and it seems to have got worse and worse over the years, as spiders that wander into my eyeline seem to have grown in size. Admittedly, that might be my imagination. I'm not sure of any scientific data backing me up on that. 

I also like to face my fears occasionally though, especially via the medium of movies, which is why I watch so many shark movies. Is a fear of sharks some kind of phobia, or just a very understandable longing to keep all of your limbs attached to your body? When I saw the trailer for Infested, and also started to hear the good word about it, I knew I'd end up watching it. I also knew there would be moments to make me very itchy and nervous. I steeled myself, did a quick peripheral check for any creepy-crawlies that might try to surprise me during my viewing experience, and then pressed play.

Set in a run-down apartment building in France, Infested introduces us to Kaleb (Théo Christine), a young man who has a whole room full of exotic animals. That seems to be his main interest, when he's not trying to make extra money from selling designer sneakers to customers in his local community. Kaleb buys a poisonous spider from someone, takes it back home, and ends up endangering everyone in the building before you can say "incy wincy". The spider quickly starts reproducing, and all of the offspring are big, vicious, and deadly.

The feature debut from director Sébastien Vanicek, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Florent Bernard, there's a lot to appreciate here, especially in the first half of the film. Vanicek knows how to make the most of the premise as he builds up to the expected third act madness, and the pacing is great as viewers are introduced to various characters while we see their situation start to turn from good to bad, and then from bad to worse. He has a couple of scenes that really ratchet up the tension as people are unwittingly approached by a cluster of the deadly spiders. Unfortunately, a lot of that good work is undone by the second half of the film, where tension starts to dissipate as the spiders become bigger and greater in number, and the final scenes are really hard to care about, even downright laughable when it should be most intense.

The cast all do well, and well done to them all for the scenes that have them involved with real spiders amidst the many CG creations, but they're left floundering once the group dynamic has been established. Christine is a decent lead, and both Sofia Lesaffre and Lisa Nyarko do well alongside him (the latter playing his exasperated sister), but I can't say that I was all that invested in any other member of the core group. Jérôme Niel, Finnegan Oldfield, Abdella Moundy, Mahamadou Sangaré, Marie-Philomène Nga, and Xing Xing Cheng play a variety of supporting characters (some being part of the main group, some appearing long enough to add to the bodycount). They do a decent job, but it's only Cheng who manages to overcome the weak character development with her fun performance.

A lot of other people loved this, and it’s certainly hard to argue against how effective it is when that first half exploits a common fear in a way that is both nerve-wracking and playful (a scene showing spiders getting into a bathroom is the absolute highlight of the film), but I think it’s a film of two halves. The first half is about as good as you could hope for. The second half goes downhill fast, and ultimately self-destructs in a finale that feels very hard to care about. Whether you view it as a standard arachno-horror or a metaphor for the discrimination people experience in France (and elsewhere around the world), Infested disappoints. The whole thing is still worth a watch, but be prepared to start losing interest once you get beyond the halfway mark.

6/10

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Godzilla, King Of The Monsters! (1956)

Although not the second film in the series, chronologically, I decided to continue my journey through the filmography of Godzilla with this instalment because it is the film that rejigged the original film and repackaged it for mainstream Western audiences. It's probably the first Godzilla movie I ever saw, and I would say that applies to many other Brits and Americans of my generation.

The plot is the same as it was in Godzilla, with the main difference between the two films being a new character (an American reporter named Steve Martin, played by Raymond Burr) who narrates everything in a way that removes the need for subtitles. Most of this is accomplished by simply editing footage from the original film around the exposition delivered by Burr's character, but some of it is accomplished by a variety of stand-ins allowing moments to be reframed with our American at the heart of the the Godzilla carnage.

Put into the hands of Terry Morse for this interpretation, Godzilla, King Of The Monsters! isn't a terrible film. It works exactly as it is intended to work, and I would still mention it as an ideal introductory film if you have younger viewers who are interested in giant monster movies and the history of cinema. It suffers greatly in comparison to the original (because it's constantly patronising, and let's kindly and euphemistically refer to it as mired in some of the attitudes of the time), and those who have already moved through the majority of the classic Japanese films will probably view this as something to sneer it, but it's okay for a gateway film.

Burr is Burr, happy to have his hair mussed up as he tries to stay alive while a city is being ruined around him. It's hard not to take on that central role and not realise what it is, and he willingly takes on that task, being the narrator providing what is basically a summary of a much better movie. Everyone else is, well, I already commented on their performances in the original movie. Are they just as good here? Sadly not, but that's not their fault. It's the fault of the editing and the clumsy way some of the footage is altered to include Burr.

The good thing about Godzilla, King Of The Monsters! is that I can barely remember it after the end credits have rolled. It's a very small critter that stays resting peacefully in the shadow of a roaring titan. It's the Godzooky of the film series, if you will. There's space for Godzooky, in the grand scheme of things, but it will never be a rival to Big G.

6/10

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Godzilla (1954)

This year, 2024, marks the 70th anniversary of Godzilla, and I have taken that as a cue to finally work my way through as many "Big G" outings as possible, as well as numerous other kaiju movies. This review first appeared, in a slightly different form, over on Flickfeast, so please don't panic if you get a feeling of déjà vu.

It would be easy for me to write a lengthy essay about the circumstances that affected Japan so seriously it ended up creating Gojira (to give him his proper name). Okay, it would take some more time and research, but I would still end up covering ground that has already been well covered, and by better writers than myself. It would also be relatively easy to look upon this film and laugh, albeit with affection, at some of the melodramatic plotting and hokey special effects. But I’m not going to do either of those things.

Instead, as it has been many years since I last saw this movie, I am going to take a moment to remind everyone of an oft-forgotten aspect. The fact remains, despite the age and limitations of this film, that the build up to, and initial appearance of, “Big G” is an impressive and unnerving sequence. Admittedly, it becomes easier to see the crudity of the design work later on, but that very first main encounter so unexpectedly brings the monster into rather plain view that most people watching need some extra seconds to process exactly what they’re seeing.

Yet, at the other end of the spectrum, we also have a very human heart beating at the centre of it all. Takashi Shimura is Professor Yamane, the man doing his best to both help his fellow man and also avoid killing a remarkable beast. His daughter is played by Momoko Kôchi, and she’s believably attractive to both scientist Daisuke Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata) and Hideto Ogata (Akira Takarada), providing a love triangle that allows for all involved to back up their feelings with actions, be they courageous or cowardly.

The script, co-written by Takeo Murata and director Ishirô Honda (blending and translating works from Shigeru Kayama and Tomoyuki Tanaka), perfectly balances tension, spectacle, and moments that directly address the unique and specific fear felt by the people of Japan in relation to hugely powerful objects that can save or destroy mankind.

The special effects are uneven, but effective, remaining impressive today thanks to a mix of inventiveness and charm, and the scale of the destruction is established right from the off, although it would grow and grow throughout this enduring movie series, making this yet another classic that has remained a classic for good reason. It has an intelligence to it, an interesting mix of characters desperate to weigh up a situation before immediately looking to solve things with more detruction, and a giant monster laying waste to cityscapes. What’s not to love?

9/10

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The Relic (1997)

One of those films I tend to revisit every ten years or so, mainly because my memory of it is slightly better than the reality, The Relic is a creature feature that is as enjoyable as it is silly. It’s a mess, both visually and in terms of the stupid plotting, but it’s an enjoyable mess.

Set in the Field Museum Of Natural History, in Chicago, this is your standard template. People start dying, police investigate the deaths, evidence eventually leads to some creature being to blame, the finale relies on a plucky cop and plucky scientist saving the day. Oh, but some VIPs need the museum to stay “safe” and usable for a bit charity gala do that is set to go ahead - giving the film an obvious “the beaches are open” riff - and there is a bit more work to be done before the scientist figures out EXACTLY what the creature is before it can be destroyed.

Based on a popular novel, co-written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (sadly, no, I haven’t read it), The Relic may suffer from a number of failings, but a dearth of writers isn’t one of them. Four other people worked to adapt the source material into a screenplay, which is pretty astonishing when you think of how laughable and formulaic it is in places. I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, but there are one or two “revelations” that prove to be completely unsurprising, and the ultimate solution to the big beastie problem is something that would have worked on almost every other creature on the planet.

Director Peter Hyams doesn’t distract from the simple pleasures of the main story structure, although the scene in which a SWAT team tries to enter the building remains a glorious highlight, but he is slightly hampered by the fact that he has to blend practical effects and  mid-‘90s CGI. Everything holds up a bit better than expected, but that’s down to the low lighting levels used in many scenes and plenty of canny editing keeping things only partially-seen until the outrageous third act.

Stuck in the midst of the madness are Penelope Ann Miller (plucky scientist) and Tom Sizemore (plucky cop), who both try their best with the cheesy dialogue. Sizemore fares a bit better, his natural air of pessimism and slight grumpiness offset by the determination and strength of his character (helped by a fun little conversational thread about him losing custody of his dog in divorce proceedings). Miller gets more exposition, and she is easy to root for when she is uncomfortably backed into a dangerous space as “the relic” looks set to defeat everyone around it. Linda Hunt and James Whitmore are enjoyable in supporting roles, as are one or two others, but things would have been helped enormously if we had been given a much larger ensemble cast of great character actors to watch being placed in peril.

If you remember enjoying The Relic many years ago then you will still enjoy The Relic now. Unlike the mutation at the heart of it, it is pleasingly constant and unevolved. Neither the best film of this kind, nor the worst, it’s still a great choice for whenever you are having a lazy evening in and after some undemanding entertainment. The 110-minute runtime goes by quickly enough, the setting is used well, the John Debney score is another plus point, and it’s just a shame that Hyams and co. didn’t decide to throw some more blood and guts around. 

6/10

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Netflix And Chill: Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996)

The graboids return in this fun sequel to the brilliant creature feature that was the first movie. Fred Ward and Michael Gross are also back, with the latter being the only main player, to my knowledge, to star in every movie in the franchise, to date. 

Earl Bassett (Ward) hasn't gone on to any great success after the events of the first movie. That looks set to change, however, when he's hired by a Mexican oil company that finds itself with a major graboid problem. Earl ends up working with a young man, Grady (Chris Gartin), who is determined to help both of them earn as much money as possible. These graboids can make them a tidy sum, and there's even more available if they can catch one or two alive. Knowing how helpful he can be, Earl calls in Burt Gummer (Gross), and the hunting begins in earnest. But these graboids aren't exactly the same as the last creatures that Earl and Burt encountered. They're about to witness a further evolution of the creatures, and that may put them in even greater danger.

Co-written by Brent Maddock and S. S. Wilson (who both worked on writing the first film with that film's director, Ron Underwood), this is a fun time for those who were firm fans of the first film. It's not a complete retread, but it stays close enough to the winning formula. You get dry humour, a fun juxtaposition of the fantastical and the standard Joe/Joan Public dealing with it, and decent special effects throughout (although some CGI in the second half shows up the limitations of the budget). Wilson also takes on the directing duties this time around, and he benefits from the camaraderie between the two returning stars.

While Ward retains his usual charm, and works well enough with Gartin, his character really perks up again when onscreen with the character played by Gross. The two men are very reluctant heroes, and as likely to mess things up as they are to succeed, and Gross once again positions himself perfectly to steal some scenes and become the linchpin of the entire franchise. Gartin is perfectly fine, and Helen Shaver does her best to overcome some of the weakest writing, playing a geologist named Kate who has a secret in her past that would be laughed offscreen from anything that didn't have the charm or goofy sweetness of a Tremors movie. There are a smattering of other characters here and there, but the focus remains on our central quartet for the majority of the runtime. And the creatures, of course. 

It's not as good as the first film, which set a very high bar, and there are other films in the series that are better, but this is an enjoyable sequel that gives a glimpse of how easily the franchise could move beyond the boundaries of Perfection without losing sight of what made the first movie so beloved by the fanbase it developed. Having said that, the next two movies in the series return the action to that desert town, but things are different enough in each instalment that I stand by what I just said.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: The Lair (2022)

Some people, SOME, have been saying that The Lair is a return to form for writer-director Neil Marshall. They are becoming an even smaller minority, but they're around. Somewhere. They're also being far too kind to a film that, rather than reminding you of how good Marshall can be, actually serves to remind you how far away he has moved from his best work.

Charlotte Kirk, who also co-wrote the movie with Marshall, stars as a pilot, Kate Sinclair, shot down over Afghanistan. She ends up encountering some hostile enemies, to be expected, but also discovers something else aiming to cause her harm. Eventually in the company of other military allies, Kate has to convince them of what she saw, and everyone has to figure out how to survive, and destroy, the monsters on the prowl.

Marshall may be very happy with the work he gets to do now, movies in which he can work with actress/co-writer/partner Kirk, but I cannot help thinking that he has lost his way, and that is sadly even more obvious in The Lair than it was in his previous film, The Reckoning. I don't think that Kirk helps him in the writing department, and she's certainly not a good enough actress to make up for the weaknesses in the script (compare any part of her performance to the many other women that Marshall has worked with and it will highlight how poor she is).

I could barely work up the energy to fully review this, it was so surprisingly dull throughout, but people should know what they're getting into. The creature design isn't bad, I guess, but nothing else works here. Action beats aren't exciting, none of the characters are given any personality (which leaves the other cast members hung out to dry), and there's no sense of anything that should be here: no tension, no real sense of place, no oppressive atmosphere, not even good banter between the soldiers.

As already mentioned, and I don't want to seem mean about it, Kirk isn't great in the lead role. Sadly, the rest of the cast pitch their performance in line with the lead/what Marshall wants. Jonathan Howard, Jamie Bamber, Leon Ockenden, and many others do poor work. Hadi Khanjanpour is the only person who almost rises above the material. Almost.

I remember one good gore gag. There were maybe one or two more, it's strange how my brain is already trying to erase this from my memory after just watching it last night, but it's hard to appreciate any fleeting highlight under the cumulative weight of one bad moment after another. And there's no silver lining on this cloud. Nothing works - score, cinematography, production design, etc - and the whole thing feels cheap and unworthy of Marshall's considerable talent. IF he has managed to hold on to some of his considerable talent.

I am happy that Marshall and Kirk are very happy together. I would be a lot happier if they could maintain that happiness without making movies together. 

3/10

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Sting Of Death (1966)

If you  are going to watch some low-budget nonsense about people being terrorised in watery environments then I think you owe it to yourself to watch at least one of the memorable features directed by William Grefé. I am not saying they are memorable for the right reasons, but I cannot bring myself to dislike his goofy attempts to entertain viewers. His films feel dangerous, he often has ambition far outweighing his resources, and they at least try to do things that are, for better or worse, a step removed from the norm.

Sting Of Death is a title that comes close to evoking what the movie is about, but doesn’t quite give you the full picture. If you expect some dangerous jellyfish then you would be correct. You probably wouldn’t expect someone to have figured out a way to become half-human and half-jellyfish though, and that is the extra silliness that is served up here.

Valerie Hawkins plays Karen Richardson, a young woman who is visiting her father, a doctor (played by John Nagle), with a group of friends accompanying her. There is another doctor present, the handsome John Hoyt (played by Joe Morrison), and there’s also an “Igor”-like assistant named Egon (John Vella). And numerous jellyfish, of course.

If you want some real scares, lively dialogue, and something that feels as if those involved had more than $50 available to them then this isn’t for you. The script, written by William Kerwin (credited as Al Dempsey), is flimsy, and also laughable, and Grefé doesn’t let any limitations stop him from showcasing his special effects, which seem to be a number of plastic bags being used in place of various jelly creatures.

The acting is generally quite poor, although Vella is hugely entertaining with his over the top performance, and there is a random sequence that has cool kids dancing to a groovy tune and partying in a lifeless way that feels exactly like what it is, filler, but the strange mix of weak performances just adds to the charm. Grefé seemed to rope in anyone he could (I am not staying this as fact, but he certainly seemed to go for availability ahead of talent), knowing that the focus would be on the creature(s).

Again, I need to finish with an emphasis on this, Sting Of Death isn’t a good movie. And I would still rewatch it ahead of many other films. What it lacks in skill and polish, it makes up for in a sense of pluckiness, charm, and DIY derring-do.

5/10

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Lake Placid: Legacy (2018)

Here we are, at last. This is the final (to date) film in the killer croc movie series, and I have to say that my expectations were very low as I went into it. Anyone else would feel the same after slogging through the previous instalments, which crashed so low after the fun of the first film. And yet, despite the odds, I also held on to a small bit of hope. 

Directed by Darrell Roodt, who has a few movies in his filmography that make it worthy of exploration, this presents a script from Jonathan Walker that puts a bunch of urban explorers in peril. It may not be the most complex premise, but it still feels as if more effort has been made here than was made in so many of the other sequels (that really all just had numerous people accidentally wandering into a lake full of happy snappers). 

Am I going to dive further into the plot? No. Despite making an effort to make use of a different location, the rest of the movie plays out in predictably familiar fashion. People don’t realise they are being stalked by a huge crocodile, some of them die, people then realise they are being stalked by a huge crocodile, they strive to survive in territory that is more suited to the predator hunting them, they wrack their brains trying to figure out how to kill it.

The cast are decent enough, and I was happy to see Joe Pantoliano as the one established actor given a supporting role this time (and giving a performance a lot more restrained than anything we saw from Yancy Butler or Robert Englund in previous movies). Katherine Barrell, Tim Rozon, Sai Bennett, Luke Newton, Craig Stein, and others who will be devastated that I haven’t namechecked them here, all at least try to act well enough to overcome their lack of character development. As a group of relative unknowns (relatively unknown to me anyway), there is some extra fun to be had from knowing that anyone could be chomped at any moment. Well . . . until it starts to become obvious who has been given the lead/survivor role.

Although clearly not a movie with a huge budget, the FX work here is something else that feels like a step up from most of the preceding films. Those involved either had some more money to play with or decent CGI has become easier and cheaper to get right, and it’s a relief to see a killer crocodile that doesn’t look as if it crawled out of an early Resident Evil game. It’s not a perfect creation, but it’s good enough.

The main setting is used well, dressed and lit in a cost-effective way, and the pacing just manages to keep boredom at bay. I could recommend you at least 20 crocodile/alligator movies better than this one, and most of those could be off the top of my head right now, but I could also name a fair few films that were a lot worse than this (although most of them, sadly, have Lake Placid in the title).

Not one to mark as a high priority, but those working through the series will be relieved to find that it ends on a relative high note. Until they decide to remake/reboot/make another unnecessary sequel.

5/10

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Shudder Saturday: Wild Country (2005)

The feature movie directorial debut from writer-director Craig Strachan, who hasn't done anything else since this (thankfully), Wild Country is a film that starts off well enough, presenting a very familiar premise with a decent young cast onscreen, before falling apart quicker than the flimsiest house of cards.

Samantha Shields is Kelly Ann, a young woman we first see giving birth to a baby. That baby is then given to someone else, a decision made based on the fact that Kelly Ann is deemed too young and ill-equipped to be a mother. Some weeks later, Kelly Ann and a few other teenagers are driven up to the Highlands by Father Steve (Peter Capaldi), where they are supposed to hike their way to a designated meeting point. Kelly Ann's ex-boyfriend, Lee (Martin Compston), turns up, making things a little bit tense. And then some creature starts menacing them. 

The tension within the main group, the idea of these teens being left all alone in the middle of nowhere, and even the plot detail of finding a baby (because, yes, Kelly Ann finds a baby, which means she spends a lot of the movie protecting it), these are all decent elements to mix together for what could be a potentially enjoyable, low-budget, horror movie. Adding a strange creature isn't a terrible idea either, in theory. Where Strachan goes spectacularly wrong is in the execution of the material, particularly in scenes that show off a creature that never once looks as scary as it could be. It's a shame that nobody advised Strachan to turn his limitations to his advantage, because some better sound design and just an occasional glimpse here and there would have been a much better way to show the presence of something that endangers the main characters.

Strachan doesn't help himself with the script either, reducing the serious side of the film to little more than a few soap opera moments before making viewers watch a bunch of people it's very hard to care for fight for their survival. And when I say fight for their survival, I mean . . . run around in a dark field and shout at one another. And the strangely comedic diversion showing Father Steve having a surprise tryst with a Highland innkeeper may not crop up too often, but it belongs in another movie entirely.

Sadly, I can't even praise the cast. Shields tries hard, and I think she does well with what she's given, but it's not enough to improve the movie. The same can be said of Compston, an actor who I rate very highly. Capaldi is welcome, simply because he's Capaldi, but mis-used, and Jamie Quinn is at least one extra familiar face (playing one of two brothers, the other one being played by his real brother, Kevin Quinn), especially to fans of Still Game.

Despite everything, I quite liked the ending of this, but it was once again something that worked better in theory than the execution (which is, sorry to say, a bit laughable). I think others may be even less charitable, and this isn't something to recommend to anyone, because the rest of the film is a mess of murky night-time action, characters wandering around while they fear their impending doom, and creature design so woefully inept that it would have been better to just thrown a bathmat over a dog.

3/10

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Lake Placid vs Anaconda (2015)

The first feature directed by A. B. Stone and the last film written by Berkeley Anderson, to date, Lake Placid Vs Anaconda is a film as stupid and lazy as the title would suggest. 

Robert Englund returns to the role of Jim Bickerman, minus a couple of body parts after his close encounters in the last movie. This time he is helping to bag a croc for people that want to use them in a major experiment that also involves some very big anaconda (hence the title). It isn’t long until things go wrong, which then leads to people being threatened by the crocodiles, the big snakes, and sometimes both together. Rolling her eyes as the body parts start to pile up, Yancy Butler is also back, her character, Reba, now the local Sheriff. She ends up working alongside Tull (played by Corin Nemec) as they try to get to the animals before a group of teens get munched.

There are other things I could mention here, the ruthless scientist and her lackey being one of them, but all you really need to know is that this is another instalment in a movie series that should have really stopped after the first film. Varying levels of acting talent and poor CGI are the order of the day, although it has to be said that Anderson actually creates some decent humour when focusing on one or two “mean girls” who end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Englund is fun in his role, once again keeping an eye on whatever will get him a great payday, and Butler is just the same as she has been in all of her Lake Placid appearances so far. It’s not a nuanced performance, but I guess it works, especially if you like Butler. Nemec is appropriately bland and willing to play second fiddle, Oliver Walker is moderately amusing as an inexperienced Deputy, and Skye Lourie is okay as Bethany, the young woman who is supposed to be worth rooting for ahead of many other characters. 

Stone does what is required of them, helped at times by the script while hindered by the obviously tiny FX budget, but it is bizarre to see just how much of a wasted opportunity this is. Neither the crocs nor the snakes feel like the star of a movie that is clearly intended that way, and the pacing, music cues, and lack of gore mean that viewers never forget this is very much a TV movie.

Nobody would willingly choose to seek this out or watch it, it’s a film you catch accidentally while flicking between channels, and nobody would own it in digital form. Except me. I own it, and I just willingly watched it. And I believe I have one more dip left to watch in this series. So I will be getting to that soon enough.

3/10

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Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (2012)

Spoiler warning, this isn't the last film in the Lake Placid movie series. I am sure that most people wouldn't have been fooled by "The Final Chapter" sub-heading, especially horror fans who saw the same words used so memorably in the Friday The 13th movie series (for a film that currently has about 7 or 8 films after it already). I knew this wouldn't be any kind of proper finale, but I also knew that I would probably wish it WAS a proper finale. This is a series that really hasn't been served well by the people wanting to wring more and more money from sequels that provide nothing but diminishing returns.

The plot isn't even worth the time and space it would take to describe it. Suffice to say, a group of young folk end up beside the wrong lake, which means they could quite quickly become snacks for some hungry crocodiles. Looking out for the kids are Sheriff Giove (Elisabeth Röhm), Reba (Yancy Butler, reprising a character we all thought had died in the previous movie), and Loflin (Paul Nicholls). And Robert Englund plays a hunter/poacher called Jim Bickerman.

Writer David Reed is also returning from the previous movie, where he didn't do too bad a job, although I wish he hadn't. This is a step down, in terms of both the writing and the direction, the latter now in the hands of Don Michael Paul. Neither man does more than a perfunctory job behind the camera, obviously hoping that the wonky CGI and poor pacing will be made easier to accept by the main cast.

It isn't.

Oddly enough, there's at least some potential with the main adults. Röhm has a good presence, and her chemistry with Nicholls works quite well as their characters are pushed closer and closer together by the clumsy script. Butler is happy to once again ham things up a bit, although she has less scenery left to chew on whenever Englund has been onscreen ahead of her. Someone clearly forgot to tell Englund that he didn't have to play his character like a bastard cousin of Ahab. I'm happy about that though, because he certainly adds some fun. Poppy Lee Friar, Benedict Smith, Caroline Ford, Scarlett Hefner, and the rest of the younger cast members are sadly left hanging out to dry, not given any character depth nor any truly memorable moments, which means every scene they are involved in becomes a waiting game until we see some of the older characters back in action.

I know not to expect great things from these movies, I'm not a complete idiot (ahem, no need to look so surprised), but it shouldn't be so hard to make something moderately amusing and entertaining. They almost managed it with the previous film. They don't manage it this time though, and this isn't really worth your time. Unless your a masochistic completist. Like me.

3/10

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Netflix And Chill: Tremors (1990)

I have seen Tremors before. In fact, I have seen it many times. I own it in a couple of different formats, I own the excellent book by Jonathan Melville, I even own the t-shirt (a great design from the now-defunct darkbunnytees). It is very much comfort food in movie form, and I know that many others agree. It's also up there with the very best creature features. Who doesn't like Tremors? People with no soul, that's who. 

The plot here is simple. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward are Valentine and Earl, two friends and co-workers who are looking forward to getting away from Perfection, the small desert town they have felt trapped in for many years. They end up feeling more trapped than usual, however, when the local area becomes a hunting ground for a number of subterranean creatures. The creatures are blind, but they're able to pick up on vibrations and sound, and they're fast and powerful. But the local residents, including the heavily-armed Burt (Michael Gross) and Heather Gummer (Reba McEntire) aren't going to be easy pickings.

The feature film debut of director Ron Underwood, (who spent a decade or so working on numerous shorts, knocked out a few movies, and almost ended his career by helming The Adventures Of Pluto Nash) this is a perfect storm of great ingredients, from the cast to the creature design, from the screenplay, by S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, to the ingenuity of the team all making the most of the relatively small budget.

Bacon and Ward are perfect in the lead roles, easygoing guys with a very believable friendship connecting them. Bacon has had his star shining brightly for decades now, but it's a shame that Ward rarely received due credit for the many wonderful performances he's delivered over the years. This remains one of his best turns, however, and we can just be thankful to the casting department for their great taste. That taste also gives us a lot of fun in the characters portrayed so wonderfully by Gross and McEntire, both highly proficient with their huge selection of weaponry. Finn Carter works well as Rhonda LeBeck, a graduate student conducting a number of seismology tests in the area, and a way to deliver more exposition at times (as well as being a potential romantic interest for one of our leads), and there are moments for Bobby Jacoby, Charlotte Stewart, Tony Genaro, Ariana Richards, and Victor Wong that provide a great mix of memorable moments for memorable characters. Everyone gets to be involved in the unfolding action, and nobody lets the team down. 

It's actually very easy to pull Tremors apart and show why it works as well as it does, and the biggest reason for the enduring success of it lies in the script. Following a structure that is familiar to any fan of decent creature features, or even most disaster movies, the pacing of every scene allows for beautifully-developed characterisations to run parallel to the increasingly dangerous threat to the lives of everyone onscreen. Add some creature POV shots, and a nice streak of humour, and the end result is something memorable, eminently rewatchable, and, well, almost perfectly designed to grab your attention and keep hold of it. And many of the films that would follow on from this (a number of sequels and one film set in the past) are also highly recommended, even if they aren't quite as good as this one.

Most people will have already seen this, which makes this yet another redundant review in a long line of redundant reviews. But if you haven't yet seen it . . . make it a priority. Today. treat yourself. You will definitely enjoy it. Unless you have no soul.

9/10

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Lake Placid 3 (2010)

The third film in the series that seemed planned to squander all of the goodwill gained from the first film, Lake Placid 3 isn't terrible, but it's still a very far step down from that first film.

Colin Ferguson and Kirsty Mitchell play Nathan and Susan, a couple who end up taking over the lakeside property left by Sadie Bickerman (there's no substitute this time around, no Betty White or Cloris Leachman amusing viewers as a profane elder). Unbeknownst to Nathan and Susan, their son, Connor (Jordan Grehs) soon starts to amuse himself by feeding baby crocodiles. But baby crocodiles soon grow into big crocodiles. Nathan soon has his hands full, much to his disbelief, helped by Sheriff Tony Willinger (Michael Ironside) and a local hunter named Reba (Yancy Butler). There's also a selection of teens spending time at the lake, bumping up the potential bodycount.

Writer David Reed, who also delivered the next movie in this series, at least does a better job than his immediate predecessors with mixing the humour and the thrills, and director Griff Furst is used to the format for this kind of thing (just browse his filmography to see a variety of great titles that tell you exactly what you can expect from him, including the likes of Arachnoquake and Ghost Shark). He's hampered by the low standard in special effects that most SyFy Channel seem to have, but that doesn't stop him from working well with a script that aims for fun over any attempts at plausibility. 

Ferguson and Mitchell are about as bland as you can get, but that's all well and good when you have Ironside being very likeable in his supporting role, as well as Butler being amusingly over the top as someone who enjoys hunting any kind of prey, from the local wildlife to local young men. Grehs just has to be a kid with a secret habit of feeding crocs, which he does well enough, and Kacey Clarke, Mark Evans, Nils Hognestad, Brian Landon, and Angelica Penn play the main teens/appetisers.

Slight spoiler warning here, I guess . . . for anyone who enjoys the turn from Butler in this movie, you may be pleased to see that she is able to return for the next two films in the series, both of which also feature Robert Englund, despite her last scene in this film seeming to have quite an unambiguous fate. Mind you, expecting rigid continuity in a movie series about large killer crocs is probably like expecting to find a side of chips available for a quid in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

If you endured Lake Placid 2 then you might want to at least check this out. It's not one I would recommend to anyone else though. Only the hardiest of creature feature viewers need bother with it (and, indeed, with any other sequel entry in this snap-happy series), and anyone who wants to enjoy an all-too-brief sequence that features crocodiles on the hunt in a grocery store.

4/10

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Lake Placid 2 (2007)

It may sound like ridiculous hyperbole, but I can think of few first sequels that have been as big a step down in quality as Lake Placid 2, a film that was released directly to the Sci-Fi/SyFy Channel in 2007, eight years after the sharp and witty first movie. It's a miracle that this is even watchable, thanks to writers Tood Hurvitz and Howie Miller at least occasionally trying to sprinkle in some of the humour that made the first film work so well.

The plot is very simple. Killer crocodiles are on the loose. Yes, there's more than one this time around. Sheriff James Riley (John Schneider) ends up working with Fish & Game Officer Emily (Sarah Lafleur) to get to the bottom of things. They end up being assisted by a poacher named Struthers (Sam McMurray), as well as his assistant, Ahmad (Joe Holt). Meanwhile, elsewhere around the lake area, the Sheriff's son, Scott (Chad Michael Collins), is enjoying the company of Kerri (Alicia Ziegler) and a few other potential croc snacks. And you have Cloris Leachman in the role of Sadie Bickerman, a relative of the character played by Betty White in the first movie.

It's a real shame about Lake Placid 2, and about the other films that would come after it. Some of the people involved try, despite the first film setting a surprisingly high benchmark, but then they have to rely on someone delivering the special effects. These special effects seem to have been created by a CGI company who forgot about their deadline until the very last hour, after having spent a full day in their local pub. The killer crocodiles shown here are just about on a par with anything seen in the earlier Resident Evil videogames. They're crude, move without the menacing fluidity of a real crocodile, and generate much more laughter than tension.

Director David Flores has just over half a dozen TV movies to his credit, as a director, and it's no surprise to see that most of his films were in this kind of vein (i.e. standard SyFy Channel movie stuff). Hurvitz and Miller have spent most of their career writing for TV shows, but they don't do a terrible job here. Yes, you get plenty of familiarity, because of the simplicity of the set-ups and the need to nod to the first film, but they at least try to craft some decent chemistry between the main adult leads.

Schneider is a decent enough lead, acting nicely laid back and easygoing for the most part. Lafleur does well alongside him, although she's often just there to explain either the creature or the background of new characters. McMurray is a lot of fun, although I did feel sorry for Holt, stuck playing a character who feels not too far removed from a "Friday" character (from Robinson Crusoe, not from the Ice Cube/Chris Tucker movie). Collins, Ziegler, and co. are all much less interesting, and obviously there to be placed in peril. Leachman is enjoyable, and would have been an absolute highlight if her character wasn’t just there to try recreating the fun turn from White.

Lake Placid was a great film. From what I know of the sequels, and there are many, none of them come close to the original. But that won’t stop me watching them all anyway (some of them for a second time).

3/10

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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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Lake Placid (1999)

Steve Miner has quite the varied filmography, but he's arguably best known for being the man who served up the second and third (3D) instalment of the Friday The 13th movie series. Having also given us Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and House, he's quite the horror franchise guy. Lake Placid is a different beast from those films, but the mix of humour and thrills is not entirely removed from the playfulness that Miner has often had in his best work. And I would put this up there as some of his best work.

The story is quite simple. There seems to be a big beast that has made home in a large lake in Maine. This becomes obvious when the beast attacks someone scuba diving in the lake, biting them in half. Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson), Fish & Game Officer Jack Wells (Bill Pullman), and a paleontologist sent along from the big city, Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda), all get to work trying to figure out what is hiding in the lake. Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt), an expert on mythology and crocodiles, thinks that he already knows.

A creature feature that decides to focus on the interaction between the characters, as well as plenty of humour, Lake Placid might be a bit tame for some (there's only one truly memorable death scene, and it's in the first few minutes of the film), but it's a lot of fun, doesn't outstay its welcome, and features some superb special effects work. The big croc looks fantastic throughout, and feels like a very real, physical, threat to anyone nearby.

Writer David E. Kelly goes for quirkiness, and is helped by the casting. Profanity always sounds better coming from Betty White, and she gets to deliver a couple of truly memorable lines here. While we get the standard meet-cute moments between Pullman and Fonda, the better relationship is the one between Gleeson and Platt, two men who immediately start off butting heads before starting to grudgingly admire one another.

When it comes to Gleeson and Platt, two men I enjoy seeing in anything, this gives them some great dialogue to spout, making it an easy film to recommend if you're fans of their work. Pullman is doing his fairly bland, but likeable, schtick, and that's fine for this, and Fonda gives yet another very enjoyable performance that makes me remember how disappointed I was when she seemed to suddenly disappear from movies. White, playing an old woman who lives lakeside, and who may know a bit more than she's letting on about any possible nearby crocodile, is a joy every time she's onscreen.

It may not be as good as the amazing Alligator, but Lake Placid can easily make a claim to be the best killer crocodile movie. And with a runtime of only 82 minutes, it's almost impossible for you to feel as if you've wasted your time on it, even if you somehow end up not enjoying it as much as I do.

8/10

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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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