I feel like I'm taking a bit of a chance with this review, considering certain conditions nowadays, and the fact that this is about a "maniac cop". However, considering this is the next Campbell movie on my list to review, famous in the Campbell subculture and has two sequels to cover, I'm going in, chin first. This is only meant to be a review on a film from 1988 for fun, and is not meant to stir up any controversy. This one comes to us from writer Larry Cohen (probably best known to a broader audience as a writer on 'Phone Booth' or 'Cellular') and director William Lustig (best known for either a few underground thrillers, or a wide range of horror/thriller documentary production). The pair give us an effective low budget slasher, much more in sync with something from the '70's. To compare, by this time Freddy was up to his fourth film, Jason was up to his seventh, and Michael Myers had only just "returned". While things were getting turned up in pop culture horror, this came along under the radar. It makes me think of the effectiveness of horror films closer to the first 'Halloween', in which our imagination showed us more gore than what was actually on screen. It's a friendly reminds that often less is more. In New York City, innocent citizens are being brutally slain by who appears to be a severely disgruntled NYPD officer. With a rising body count, Lt. Frank McCrae (Tom Atkins - who some may know best from 'Halloween III') ends up being told by his superiors to cover it up, and to head the investigation. Meanwhile, panicked New Yorkers are avoiding cops as much as possible, sometimes by killing them. We soon meet Jack Forrest (Campbell); a man with spousal problems at home, as his wife, Ellen (Victoria Catlin) suspects him of being the killer. She eventually follows him to a hotel, where she catches him cheating on her with his fellow officer, Theresa Mallory (Laurene Landon). Distraught, Ellen flees the scene, one thing leads to another, and Jack suddenly becomes suspect #1. Mallory, who was with him that night, then works with Jack to hopefully find the help he needs to clear his name. For as big a name as this is within the Campbell Community, I'm not sure that I particularly found much in this. It's in a weird situation where its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. I find it cool, and respectable that this was a film that did harken back to the early slashers of the 70's, giving horror fans that "less is more" reminder. But that coming into play at the same time effects were starting to take off, and become a really big part of horror isn't effective. Mainstream horror movies were really brushed up, offering a few cool new practical effects, so this was probably pretty boring for its time. It might only be now that one can look back on this and appreciate it for what it was. So, while it's definitely not my favorite Campbell movie, I can appreciate that it did what it did on its low budget with some pretty solid underground players. Other than Campbell, the name Tom Atkins was one that really stuck out for me. He's from the non-Myers 'Halloween' movie, which I find gets similar appreciation to this one, in that it's far better to look at it nowadays (though maybe not right now) as a hidden classic rather than something that just "sucks". It may not have done much for me, but I can say that at the very least, it was an interesting piece of homework on Bruce Campbell's early stuff. 3/5
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An action hero turned washed up, B movie actor, Colton West (Steve Guttenberg) spends his current life forced to fight off giant bugs for big screen entertainment. He hates it, and it makes him miss his glory days in the 90's as a well-known superhero (at least in this universe). However, on his way home after being let go from a project, he suddenly finds himself facing off against a swarm of horrifying, fire-breathing spiders that erupt from a volcano nearby. This ultimately triggers Colton to get himself home to his family. In the meantime, his family ends up on separate paths. His son, Wyatt (Noah Hunt) ends up fighting his own battle against the flame-spewing arachnids alongside his friends, Jordan (Diana Hopper), Eli (Ben Snowden) and Travis (Zac Goodspeed). Meanwhile, his wife, Olivia (Nia Peeples) soon finds herself taken in by the Army after having a cheesetasticaly bad ass face-to-face with one of the spiders in her own home. While his family survives the arach-attack as best they can, it may be up to Colton to channel his hatred of working with bugs into finding a way to hopefully never do it again. But then, sequels are a thing. 'Lavalantula' actually happens to take place in the same universe as the 'Sharknado' films, as there is some character crossover here. In fact, Colton West eventually appears after this in 'Sharknado 4: The Fourth Awakens' and this film's sequel, '2 Lava, 2 Lantula'. You've gotta appreciate word-play like that when it comes to movies like these. I further appreciate the whole elemental aspect of these films, incorporating one of the four elements with a natural disaster and a creature. It's like they roll a three-sided die. What will they think of next? (and why do I already know I'm gonna be watching it?) Another interesting attachment is that it comes from the same guy who directed last week's Spider Feature, 'Big Ass Spider', Mike Mendez. This is a director who is slowly coming to my attention, and I'm enjoying his work, for the most part. He's about being very self-aware and having fun, realizing you're there for nothing more than a creature feature. He also directed the 'Friday the 31st' segment of 'Tales of Halloween'; a personal underground favorite for the season. Going back to the movie at hand for a second though, I can't say it's not completely without its problems. I never thought I'd see the day, but this actually features Michael Winslow who has been brought back to do a whole bunch of noises and sound effects. It's a lot of fun when he does this stuff to mess with people in the 'Police Academy' movies, or just act like someone who's lost his mind (as seen in 'Cheech & Chong's Next Movie'). But here, I get the feeling there wasn't much of a guideline for him to follow and they just let him do his thing, which unfortunately results in things like stereotypical Kung-Fu voices that don't necessarily fly with people as much these days. Its often kinda cringe-worthy, but I woudn't say he kills the movie, either. Another cameo comes along here that made me do a double-take. Only a select few will remember him, but Patrick Renna shows up here. He would be best known for his role as "Ham" Porter in 'The Sandlot', but ended up in a few things including 'The Big Green', and even an episode of 'X-Files' where he played an obsessive compulsive vampire named Ronnie Strickland. We haven't seen him for a while, but he actually hasn't stopped for all these years. Remembering him as comedy relief in films like 'Sandlot', he's got a similar role here as an obsessive and starstruck fan of Colton's. It's actually pretty entertaining to me how he's so in awe, but casual about it at the same time. He hasn't lost his timing. It's kinda funny that I remember not getting a whole lot out of 'Sharknado', perhaps looking at it the wrong way at the time. I never did bother with anything in the series since then, but this made me second guess myself. One could take both of these series and parallel watch them, looking for some sort of continuity. The best part is, these movies are Syfy originals, so no one's really looking for cinematic quality. It's just some B movie fun, and I would say very similar to 'Eight Legged Freaks' in some of its execution. I had a lot of fun with it, see it for what it is, and once again recommend it lights down with a bunch of popcorn - check for spiders first. 4/5 It's not all too often that I get completely torn about a movie, but this was one of those situations. With a title as silly as 'Big Ass Spider!', one has to know that they're in for something pretty laughable. It's a modern B movie, plain and simple. And with that, I got some good laughs, some good scares (there's a face-melting scene here that hit a nerve), but for some reason, I still feel a bit let down by it. The whole thing opens with a very tragic-looking scene; emotional music playing, slow-mo, and our hero, Alex Mathis (Greg Grunberg) approaching the scene in the accompanying photo. It then flashes back to tell us the story of how he got there. The way it does it is very abrupt, and I felt like there wasn't really any set-up. The audience already knows they're there to see a "Big Ass Spider", and all this really did was show us the obvious before it got going. It may as well have just started, and it almost just felt like a spoiler. Anyway, Alex is an exterminator, working in LA. One day on the job, he gets bitten by a spider and sent to the hospital for treatment. Meanwhile, in the hospital's morgue, rodent-sized spider pulls an 'Alien', bursts out of a new cadaver's chest, and bites the mortician, resulting in... nothing much. The mortician brings the spider to the attention of the rest of the staff by pulling the fire alarm, which brings in some authority, led by Major Braxton Tanner (Ray Wise) and Lt. Karly Brant (Clare Kramer) who seems to know exactly what this spider is all about. Alex offers to capture the spider if his hospital bill can be paid off in exchange for his services. He is assisted by a security guard named Jose (Lombardo Boyar), and together they discover that this spider seems to be growing in size. Come to find out that the spider is the result of a military experiment that involves mixing the DNA of a spider and an alien (giving the chest spider a whole new perspective, but don't worry, no ties to 'Alien' movies here). That brings me to my next point - it's never explained why the military made this giant spider. The only thing my imagination can fill in the blank with is weaponization, otherwise I suppose it was just them pushing the big red button and saying "I wonder what would happen if I did this". It becomes unimportant and tossed aside because the spider is growing exponentially, and about to terrorize the city. Can the spider expert and the security guard help the military to stop the spider before it becomes too much to handle? This is a difficult one for me because the bad and the good are almost equal extremes. On one hand, it delivers in laughs, scares (including not terribly cheap jumps), and only promises its audience exactly what the title suggests. As mentioned before, you can't go into a movie with a title like this and expect to be blown away. On the other hand, some of the issues I had are big deals to me. The opportunity for an explanation behind this creature was there, even if the explanation was stupid, we never got a "why" answer. I'm also still a bit baffled by the beginning. I could see the filmmakers wanting to have a big reveal at the beginning if the trailers didn't give us anything, but they did. Generally, a beginning like this is meant to set up the story you're about to see, but this was just a long, drawn-out visual that honestly felt like filler. It's a weird thing to get under my skin, but it does - just get going with the movie, unless you have something to say first. Criticisms and nitpicking aside, however, the overall product is still a fun, creepy crawly time, and it's probably just about as violent as one would want it to be as a PG-13 flick. It had a very limited theatrical run, and critics seemed to eat it up, seeing it as the fun, senseless thrill ride that it is. Meanwhile, audiences faltered in its overall fandom for various reasons. It's odd to see a movie so split where critics have a higher opinion, but it does happen the odd time. As for myself, despite my overall criticism, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have fun, or said I wouldn't ever watch it again. I do have a soft spot for these 8-legged creature features, and I can't really explain why. Perhaps it's because I'm not particularly arachnophobic (though they make me hesitate to visit Australia any time soon), but they are just creepy enough when monsterized that I get a creepy crawly kick out of it. If spiders do freak you out, you should know that this is no walk in the park, and you might be better off with something like 'Eight Legged Freaks'. But if you're on the lookout for a decent brain-out-the-window horror comedy, it's not a bad place to look. 3/5 Imagine, if you will, the early 2000's era of film. Superhero movies were just finding their footing with equal successes and flops. They wouldn't really get huge until about 2008, when 'Dark Knight' and 'Iron Man' became paralleling benchmarks. Up until then, the big Box Office hits at the turn of the century were a mishmash of 'Star Wars', 'Lord of the Rings', whatever superheroes were doing at the time (again, finding footing) and lingering disaster movies that people were finally getting sick of (they were a big deal in the late 90s). Enter 'Eight Legged Freaks' in 2002, which pulled the same sort of thing 'Scream' did for slasher movies in the mid 90s. It said "hell, we know this type of thing is ridiculous, so let's just have some fun with it." It dug its creepy-crawly legs into the past, dug up all the ironic fun of a 60's B movie, put a modern twist on it. Titles like 'Mars Attacks' tried prior to this, but there was too much of a divide. People weren't quite ready for that goofiness yet, as disaster movies were a part of the same era. It was seen often as "trying too hard" at the time. But by 2002, this one was a breath of fresh air - something really different, but familiar enough to play on some kind of nostalgia. By the way, 'Mars Attacks' did eventually find is audience over time, but that's a whole other review waiting to happen. For now, let's take a peek into that trap door and allow the spiders to pull us in. A guy by the name of Chris McCormick (David Arquette) makes a return to his sleepy little fictional hometown of Prosperity, Arizona to reopen the gold mines that his late father left behind. Due to a toxic chemical spill, however, we get some of that old school monster movie action when the local spider population is affected, causing them to grow several times their original size. With the help of the town's Sheriff (also Chris' ex), Sam Parker (Kari Wuhrer), and her kids, Mike (Scott Tera) and Ashley (Scarlett Johansson), can they figure out how to stop these "eight legged freaks" from turning the town into an all-you-can-suck-the-guts-out-of buffet? As the film unfolds, it proves to be a pretty well-paced ride, and it does a fantastic job of really leaning on that PG-13 rating with its visuals. I don't consider myself arachnophobic at all, but I'm not ashamed to admit that it wasn't without its scenes that made me squirm. Of course, all that means is that it really did its job. It delivered a lot of good laughs, but balanced it with some pretty horrific imagery. By the way, I feel absolutely obligated to inform you that pets are not safe at all in this. If that's the kind of thing that gets to you, it might not be the best go-to. That said, their deaths are pretty well always off-screen and somewhat comical. That's coming from a guy who loves his cats dearly, so I do feel like it can all be taken with a grain of salt. Aside from the fun of it all, it's not without its place in a certain actresses history. It's actually pretty interesting to see Scarlett Johansson is in this while she hadn't quite found her big break yet. It's the last film of hers that predates 'Lost in Translation' (which arguably was her big break) by about a year. Thus, this is pretty much the last smaller role for her before she went on to bigger and better things (though one could count 'Ghost World' from 2001, but she certainly became more famous because of 'Lost in Translation'). She is still finding her acting muscles here though, so don't be shocked if she's not quite the mother from 'Jojo Rabbit' yet. As for the other roles in this, there are no real surprises from anyone. The big lead is David Arquette, playing another version of Dewey from 'Scream'; Kari Wuhrer is pretty much in her element, known for roles at the time in movies like 'Anaconda' or 'Thinner'; and Scott Terra, the other lead, probably has his most notable role here as a fairly typical nerdy kid. Otherwise he may be best recognized as young Matt Murdock in 2003's 'Daredevil'. But there's one addition to the cast I consider a guilty pleasure of a character. Doug E. Doug plays a radio announcer named Harlan Griffith, and you will either love this guy because you loved Sanka Coffee in 'Cool Runnings', or hate him because he's the irritating comedy relief. I tend to lean towards the former, as this guy has always had this effect on me. Even when he's being recognizably irritating, I can't help but laugh at what he does. He's this off the wall character here, so convinced about an alien invasion that he constantly has to be reminded that the spiders aren't aliens. On top of that, his biggest fear is getting probed. It all adds to the absurdity of it being a modern B movie, as in the 60's, those films were so often about either giant monsters or alien invasion. So, if you can make it past a few things, this one does end up on my list of recommendations to some degree. If you're severely arachnophobic, or have a very soft spot for your pets, it might be one to avoid. That said, being 2002, a lot of the CG here is still a little obvious, and in all honesty, it could be passed off as a cartoon in the way its executed - and I mean that in a good way. It makes for a great watch around Halloween when you want something creepy but fun, but remember to accept it for what it is. It doesn't take itself seriously in the slightest, and neither should anyone else. Just enjoy the ride! 4/5 For anyone who may have seen the movie 'Next Friday' - the follow-up to the 1995 stoner flick, 'Friday', you've seen the chemistry between the tough-as-nails Ice Cube, and the jittery but hilarious Mike Epps. I have to admit that while their movies aren't amazing, they generally make for a fun time. They're not going for any Oscars, they know their audience, and that's satisfactory enough for yours truly. 'All About the Benjamins' gives us bounty hunter, Bucum (Ice Cube), pronounced "book 'em", which I hope isn't supposed to be a coincidence. In pursuit of con man, Reggie Wright (Mike Epps), the un likely pair find themselves working together in order to locate a stash of diamonds that Bucum is after, along with a missing, winning lottery ticket that Reggie is after. Along the way, Gina (Eva Mendes) and Pam (Valarie Rae Miller), Reggie and Bucum's respective significant others, join them in the search. Added to the batch of characters is our villain and diamond thief, Williamson (Tommy Flanagan) who's a bit over the top at times, but every time he was, I laughed a little. But it's that kind of laugh that you know not everyone would join you in - almost awkward in a way. This one kind of exists in the same vein as something like 'Bulletproof' or 'Nothing to Lose' - a comedy duo action movie that doesn't exactly shine, but it can make for a fun time, nonetheless. There's nothing entirely new or different about it, but it doesn't exactly fall under "guilty pleasures" either, 'cause it's really not that bad. So, we've got a short review here on a movie that's a bit of a throwaway. I can't imagine ever owning it on DVD or blu-ray, but if it comes on TV, I might still sit and watch it for something to do. It offers some decent laughs, some decent action without going full Michael Bay (although this was Kevin Bray), but completely lacks any sort of wow factor. I say this about a lot of movies, but once again, this one is kinda just "there". Something to watch in passing as opposed to something to get excited for. 3/5 In a stray away from his usual, Richard Linklater decided to write and direct an adaptation of a book, telling the story of the Newton Gang - the most successful bank robbers in history. For those unfamiliar, this was a group of brothers who staged bank and train robberies throughout the early 1920s. They claim a total of 87 banks and 6 trains. And they did it all non-violently, also claiming that here was never any bloodshed during these robberies. Our respective performers, portrtaying the Newton brothers are Matthew McConaughey (Willis), Skeet Ulrich (Joe), Ethan Hawke (Jess), and Vincent D'Onofrio (Dock), so we have a pretty damned solid cast of actors here, all doing their performances very well. However, it's doing well with what the actors have to work with. While the overall true story is pretty fascinating, it kinda just translates to screen as some sort of typical, bank-robbing western. It's neat at first, but eventually starts to drag a bit. It ends up being one of Linklater's more disliked films among audiences, and that might be mostly because its a stray away from his usual, whether it be teen angst, deep thinking or a combination of both. The movie is by no means bad, it's just kinda... there. At the end of the day, it's a title I could pretty much take or leave, and certainly wouldn't make my "Linklater Top 5". In some ways, it even comes across as something that may have been made for daytime television. With that said, it's sort of a fascinating one to go back and have a look at, considering there's quite a few big names to it. And as I said before, everyone does a great job here with what they have to work with. I'd even say it's one of McConaughey's finer dramatic performances while still including what he shows up in today. It's sort of hard to flat out recommend this one, even to fans of westerns and biopics, due to its slow pacing. However, apparently it's pretty historically accurate, overall. There's even a whole bit through the end credits where the real Willis and Joe show up to speak on the subject - Joe on an episode of Johnny Carson. That's sort of a formula they have for biopics nowadays, but for 1998, the idea was still pretty fresh. I'd probably just say check this one out if you find yourself curious about it - in other words, treat it like any new movie you see sitting on the rental shelves that don't exist anymore. If the cover story gets your attention, check it out. If not, I can't say you'd be missing out on a whole lot. Linklater's library is full of movies that represent who he is as a director, with style and substance. As I said before, this movie's okay, but it's just kinda "there". 3/5 |