Roger Corman sci-fi triple feature!

Yesterday I got to see the classic Ridley Scott's Alien on the big screen, digitally restored in all it's glory. It was an amazing viewing experience, I know that sounds corny but it was true. Out of movies I have seen in theaters vs on a tv, this has easily been one of the biggest differences I have experienced. The scope and detail of the sets is astounding, the sound of the ship filling up a dark theater, it was something else. It is still playing at The Plaza Theatre in Atlanta until after this Thursday, 7/10/14 so if you can GO SEE IT! It is easy to see then when this movie first came on the scene how people would flock to copy it and make a buck, so without further or do lets look at a couple of attempts via the king of cheap cheese: Roger Corman, who made a couple of sci-fi movies heavily inspired by Alien in the early 1980's.

Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
Ok, so this is a rip off of Star Wars primarily, and doesn't really have a connection to Alien, but I wanted to talk about it anyway. Predictably it starts off with a long shot beneath a huge space ship, which actually looks pretty good. The interior... not so much. The big ship is full of ass holes, which apparently have nothing better to do than be all empirey and conquer people who don't appear to have anything worth taking. The wizard of oz head booms our that he is gonna take this dirt planet's harvest, because EVIL. Oh wait, the poor agrarian people are going to get some mercenaries with hearts of gold to defend themselves from evil bastards who want their crops? Never seen that one before. They actually titled the Spanish dub The Magnificent Seven in Space, and Robert Vaughn was basically the same character in both this and Magnificent Seven. The main character reminds me of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory so I hate him. But its made up for by Hannibal from the A-Team being a literal space cowboy. As they mosey around they just about trip over people who want to help fight against the evil Sador, seems like if everyone hates him they should have kicked his ass already. In addition to Hannibal and Robert All-Business Vaughn they end up with a nerd girl who fixes things, some weird white dudes, a sexy viking chick with a ridiculous helmet, and a sleestak. Its pretty cornball, but there are some nice spaceship porn shots of the exteriors. The interiors are more Flash Gordon or Star Trek OS than gritty Ralph MacQuarry or HR Giger looking. Although one looks like a flying ball-sack. Not even joking. Or maybe they're boobs, it's right there on the poster. The movies is pretty damn ridiculous, and I am not entirely sure how much of it is intentionally goofy but you will definitely laugh at something.

Galaxy of Terror (1981)
Starting off with weird new-agey sci-fi spirituality mumbo jumbo (that barely comes into play agian through the rest of the movie) you might think this movie is gonna be a different type of shit. Actually it starts to get a lot better, especially the last 2/3rds of the movie. A weird demi god being that rules an space empire realizes one his ships found some ancient alien pyramid thing, and he wants more people to check it out. even though its evil and makes weird stuff happen. So they send a crack team of misfits with their own personal demons and some dirt between them. They fly over, fuck their ship up on the way down, explore the spooky pyramid and shit goes further south as they start to get picked off by a mysterious force that seems to play on their fears. Sid Haig plays a mute, because he hated his dialogue, and he probably gives the best performance of anyone here. Robert Englund is in this too but he was kind of under utilized, they could have had him go much crazier.There are some shots in the halls of the space ship where its really obvious that they used take out containers from McDonalds to decorate the halls. There are also some shots that look really cool and some neat effects. There are also some horribly cheesy sound effects, it is really hard to suspend your disbelief when the monster is making the same slobbery goop sound used in Scooby Doo. I really did enjoy this one, but it falls a little short of being actually pretty good which is really frustrating.

Forbidden World (1982, AKA Mutant)  Anyway the plot of this one involves a research lab on a remote planet that was attempting to genetically produce high-yield food or something. But Monsanto fucked up just like ally the hippies keep telling us and produce a damn monster that runs amok through the station and eats people and steals their DNA... or something. It is shameless in its ripping off of Alien. It does however include more gore and boobies, as a good ripoff should, also some really terrible synthesizer music. That being said there are some shots in this that are really cool, and only some of them involve tits. You may notice some similarities between the other movies I have mentioned, and by similarities I mean he recycled a bunch of shit. Particularly battle footage at the start from Battle Beyond the Stars, and the Big Mac container walls from the Galaxy of Terror set. What a forward-thinking, environmentally conscious producer! Remember, reduce, reuse, recycle! According to IMDB there during an early screening of the movie one viewer laughed out loud during a scene which Corman took as an insult and hit the dude. It's a pretty enjoyable flick, what it actually lack is a little more insanity and weirdness to push it over the edge of cult classic-ness. Its pretty straightforward bug hunt, and a serviceable vehicle for action and gore beats that only really lacks in film and sound clarity and the acting. The effects aren't really THAT bad, neither are the sets despite being partially made from take-out containers. My least favorite part is the child-like voice the android, robot guy has.

Out of the three, I think I enjoyed Galaxy of Terror the most, but I can see Battle Beyond the Stars being a more enjoyable experience for a group of friends drinking and watching something ridiculous. Galaxy of Terror was really close to being actually good, if it had just a bit more production value and maybe a script re-write.

Review: Attack of the Crab Monsters

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
Too many sea monster movies yet? The confusing thing about this one is that barely makes any use of probably the main reason to even make a beach monster movie: chicks in bikinis. Doubly weird is that its Roger Corman who is usually not shy about showing us some ladies. Instead the cast is almost entirely dude scientists. Its not bad though, well I mean its still entertaining, and its mercifully short at barely over an hour. It starts off with this crew of people coming ashore to this island, one guy falls out the boat and we get a quick glimpse of one of the crab monsters before they pull his headless corpse out of the water. We don't even know who these people are or what they are doing (except that one of them is the Professor from Gilligan's Island) before one of them gets killed! Corman doesn't like to waste time. They seem to be far less concerned than you would expect by this, and continue on with their mission, although we still have no clue what it is. This one fat french (I think) guy starts talking about how quiet it is there, and says something about talking to the voices of the people that used to be there (foreshadowing). I'll skip ahead to the part where they tell you each one of these guys and the one gal is a scientist in a different field and they are there to study the effects of radioactive fallout left over from an H-bomb test. What a simpler time this was. There was also another team there before them but it has since gone missing. The quickly realize that apart from seagulls and crabs there are no other living animals on the island. Time passes and they start hearing strange sounds at night, and eventually disembodied voices. They start trying to investigate and realize its all coming from giant crab monsters. The rest of the movie follows suit with them trying to survive which means killing the hungry hungry crustacean. The monster effects are awesome and its pretty great how it talks to them with the voices of the dead scientists, mostly trying to mock them. Its a fun little popcorn movie, an almost textbook example of hokey 50's atomic critter flicks.

We need something quick and dirty, just like Corman would do, something like an:

Atomic Crab Claw Shot

1 oz Clam juice (I'd use crab juice but I think that only exists in the Simpsons)
3 oz Vodka
1 oz Blue Curacao
2 oz warm clarified butter

Shake the first three ingredients with ice and strain and pour into a shot glass. Pound that shit down and chase it with clarified butter before you start hearing the voices. After you vomit you can wipe it up with your ascot.

Review: Blood Surf

Blood Surf (2000)

This movie is really stupid. I know that might be shocking, because normally movies about large animals eating people are really deep and nuanced. After the credit sequence the film starts off with a pair of surfer dudes, a douche bag TV producer and their Aussie camera-babe who have the ever so intelligent idea of inventing a sport they want to call... wait for it... blood surfing and film it for a tv documentary. I do want to mention that my favorite character is one of the surfers who is basically a skinny Guy Fieri who is really endearing at how much of a stupid douche bag he is. But what exactly is blood surfing? Its surfing with sharks of course! But your probably asking yourself now, isn't there a huge crocodile on the poster? Yes there is, and that's the joke. There is a very specific spot they want to do this, a particular body of water somewhere north of Australia inhabited apparently by sharks and south-east Asian stereotypes, but they need someone to take their dumb asses their because despite living in the area and sporting a Hawaiian shirt their chartered asian sea captain doesn't know how to get there. First we meet a very surly Australian sailor who says he wont do it, but he has as a bat-shit crazy American girlfriend who decides to awkwardly dance around the bar to really bad techno music as a way of changing his mind by annoying him into submission, apparently it works and he gives them directions to the island. Also that dancing scene is pretty incredible, not because it was in any way sexy, but in the way Brah Fieri reacts to it as if he is watching the single greatest thing in the history of the world. They set sail with the captain and his family, including his hot daughter who is coming on hilariously strong to Brah Fieri despite him being a total imbecile. They arrive at the place and start chumming the water to attract the sharks, which works. But that's not extreme enough for these dudes, oh-no. They cut open their feet to get the sharks that much more interested in them specifically. Now you can really get a sense of the level of intelligence we are dealing with here. They do their thing with some rad surfing shots and some really bad compositing of shark footage. After getting to the beach without getting bit by sharks they notice something big in the water and an explosion of blood and water as the croc eats one of the sharks. They decide to call it a day and they pair off and head into the jungle to bone, except the nice Asian couple. They get eaten by the giant crocodile. Because fuck them apparently. The daughter gets eaten too. Then they start fleeing into jungle from the thing and run directly into a camp of pirate rapists but are saved by the Australian guy from earlier. Unfortunately my favorite character gets eaten around this point and my interest started to go down-hill from here, despite the pace picking up. They spend the rest of the movie trying to kill the croc, but at some point they decide it would be a good idea to crash the boat so they can go back to the trap-infested rapist pirate island because somehow that's safer than just driving the boat back to someplace with a friendly navy. On the way back to the island the obnoxious tv producer gets eaten and no one bats an eye. Now that they are back on the island, which conspicuously now looks like miniature golf course with all the Styrofoam ruins and vines, they can spend the rest of the movie running from the awesomely bad animatronics and trying to figure out how to kill it in a series of adventure cliches including rickety rope bridges, crumbling ruins, and swinging vines. In the end it just kind of falls on a sharp rock and dies. I kind of rushed past through the last two acts, but i don't want to spend all night on this movie. Its a five-movement symphony of stupid, these have to be some of the dumbest characters I have ever seen, and I'm not entirely convinced this was supposed to be a comedy. I kind of expected cartoon sound-effects to go along with all the stupid shit they do in this movie. I went back and started watching it again as I wrote this, its impressive at how dumb it is. About the only thing that would have made this movie dumber was if they were cannibals in grass skirts instead of rapist pirates. I cant help but suggest this movie, although I don't really want to, maybe just to get a second opinion.

Ease the pain and confusion with a Bloody Surfer
.5 oz Midori
.5 oz Blue Curacao
2 oz  Grenadine
1 12oz bottle of Smirnoff Ice
Crushed Ice
This drink is as loud and colorful as your shirt, and so sugary it will make you puke on your flip flops. First spike your hair and put on your best Hawaiian shirt, but dont button it brah let the babes see your waxed chest. Fill half a Collins glass with the smirnoff ice and crushed ice, then try to layer the other ingredients in with the grenadine on top, be sure to flip the bottles around like an asshole while you do it. But then fuck it all up and just shake everything up in a Boston shaker and pour it into a tiki glass with an umbrella. Those are cool again apparently. Hopefully now everyone will mistake your stupidity for drunkenness, brah.

Review: Gamera vs Jiger

Gamera vs Jiger (1970)

US Title: Gamera vs Monster X
Yep, its a Gamera movie. If you've never watched Gamera he is a giant turtle that can fly by tucking his arms and/or legs into his shell and then jet-propels himself. He also breathes fire and is friend and defender of all children. The monster he fights in this movie has some interesting powers including firing spikes, a "super ultra violet light ray", and injecting baby monsters into Gamera with its tail. These movies were meant for children in mind, which I always thought was kind of odd, because on average they seem to be a little more violent then Godzilla movies. For example this movie, Monster X, or Jiger, fires his spines through Gamera's arms and legs preventing him from withdrawing them into his shell and flying. That was one of the more clever parts of this movie, also when the children drive a submarine into Gamera to find the Jiger's monster baby that is making Gamera sick. If you like rubber monster battles like I do this one has more of that and less talking, so I liked it.