The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Published on by Chris Scullion5 Comments

Director: Stephen Spielberg

Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Vince Vaughn, Richard Attenborough

HAMMOND – “Don’t worry, I’m not making the same mistakes again.”
MALCOLM – “No, no, you’re making all new ones.”

If the original Jurassic Park was a love letter to our childhood obsessions with dinosaurs and our desire to one day see one in real life, The Lost World instead takes its inspiration from King Kong and others of its ilk, showing what happens when large beasts are confronted in their natural habitat and how they react when placed in unfamiliar surroundings. Fear is replaced with sympathy, and by the end of the film Spielberg’s big accomplishment this time isn’t making us believe these fearsome creatures exist, but making us actually want them to overcome our own species in order to survive. That’s right, I can get deep when I want to.

"Before we camp out tonight, I have to warn you all that
“Before we camp out tonight, I have to warn you all that I’m a bed wetter”

After the incidents of the first film essentially made the Jurassic Park complex in Isla Nublar a bit of a write-off, The Lost World starts with Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) meeting up with John Hammond (Attenborough) for a little chat. Hammond tells Malcolm that Isla Nublar wasn’t really the main site, and that there was actually another island called Isla Sornar where they bred the dinosaurs and raised them in their natural habitat before moving them over to Jurassic Park. Remember that scene at the start of the first Jurassic Park where they were putting the raptor in the crate? That was at the other island, that was.

Hammond tells Malcolm that Ingen, the company he was in charge of, has punted him and put a weaselly lawyer guy in charge instead. Not dissuaded by this, Hammond wants Malcolm to head to the second island as part of a research group to study the dinosaurs. Oh, and as if that weren’t enough, the sneaky old prick has also invited Malcolm’s scientist girlfriend to join the team and has already sent her there as a way of convincing him to go. Malcolm perhaps puts it best himself, in the first of many one-liners he gets in this film: “this is no longer a research project, it’s a rescue mission”. Little does Hammond know, however, that Ingen has sent its own workers to the island, in an attempt to bring the dinos back to the US and show them at a new Jurassic Park in San Diego. Because the last one worked out so well.

"That's nothing, you should see the size of my sister"
“That’s nothing, you should see the size of my sister”

The Lost World tries its best to outdo the original in every way possible. You liked the bit with the T-Rex? Well now there are two of them! You liked when they were running with the herd? Now there’s a bigger herd and people are trying to catch them! Remember the sick triceratops? There’s a healthy one this time, and it fucks shit up! You liked seeing people interact with the dinosaurs? Well now a whole army turns up at one point to hunt them all down! You wanted a stegosaurus? Job done, and while we’re at it let’s have it wreck loads of shit in the process so it looks more bad-ass.

The problem is, in adding all this extra action there’s less focus on the story, and while most people don’t exactly watch Jurassic Park films for the character development, there’s still something missing this time around in terms of that human element. You still care about Malcolm because he’s familiar to you after the first film, but the other main characters – his annoying daughter, his headstrong girlfriend (Julianne Moore), their photographer (Vince Vaughn), the veteran hunter who wants to bag a T-Rex (Pete Postlethwaite) – are all lacking that certain something and, ultimately, you couldn’t care less whether they survive or end up as part of a T-Rex’s next shite.

"I'll have a cone and a packet of salt & vinegar please"
“I’ll have a cone and a packet of salt & vinegar please”

Speaking of big Rexy, it’s once again the tyrannosaurs who steal the show despite the obligatory raptor scenes. The scene in which two T-Rexes push the team’s trailer off a cliff is impressive stuff, and when a solitary Rex discovers a large group of Ingen workers camping out chaos ensues.

By far the most memorable (and opinion-dividing) moment however is the film’s last fifteen minutes, in which Ingen manage to get a T-Rex back to the US and it starts running riot through the streets of San Diego. This is clearly Spielberg’s attempt at Godzilla and while it’s fun, it’s a bit of a jarring change of tone that doesn’t really sit well with the rest of the film.

The Lost World was never going to better the sheer novelty and innovation offered by the original Jurassic Park, but as sheer spectacle it’s still up there. It loses a little personality and while it’s still good fun to watch it does start to feel more like a generic monster movie by the end… but hey, you haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait until I review the third one.

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Gremlins (1984)

Published on by Chris Scullion3 Comments

Director: Joe Dante

Starring: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Dick Miller, Corey Feldman

“I warned you. With mogwai comes much responsibility. But you didn’t listen.” (Old man, Gremlins)

When it comes to Christmas presents, some people like to keep it simple. A few DVDs, a book or two, maybe some flowers or the ever-reliable box of Quality Street. Not so with Randall Peltzer’s dad. A dodgy inventor by trade, Randall decides that this Christmas he’s going to surprise his son Billy with something he’s never seen before in his life. While on a trip through Chinatown selling his wares, he comes across just the thing – a mogwai.

After naming it Gizmo, Randall gives Billy the mogwai while also passing along three very important instructions given to him by the shop owner – keep it away from bright lights, don’t get it wet and, above all else, don’t feed it after midnight. It’s like taking care of a fat goth, basically. Anyway, guess what happens next?

"I thought you said you were going to install seat belts in this bastard"

That’s right. After getting Gizmo wet and discovering it makes him multiply and spawn loads more mogwai, Billy’s clock dies and he accidentally feeds these new mogwai after midnight, causing them to turn into evil monsters called Gremlins.

At the time, Gremlins was a revelation. The creature effects were incredible, its sense of humour was the exception rather than the rule and it gained a large following, and for good reason. These days, sacrilegious though it may be to say it, Gremlins suffers from the same problem as Child’s Play in that it spends too long revealing what we already know. Whereas the sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, kicks off the action fairly early into the film, the original spends a lot of time faffing around with the rules, letting us get to know Gizmo and only revealing the monsters at the end of the second act.

Chainsaw versus baseball bat. Hmm

What’s more, moments that would have been hilarious at the time are merely smile-inducing these days, with the exception of the fun bar scene in which the Gremlins smoke a lot of cigarettes and generally take over the place.

If you’ve never seen it and have somehow managed to avoid the whole integration of its ‘three rules’ in popular culture then Gremlins is worth a watch because it’s still a fun movie, albeit one whose structure has been mimicked and refined many times by other films over the years. Otherwise, if you already know the deal with the Gremlins and you don’t want to spend the first 50 minutes waiting for the other characters to catch up with you, it might be worth skipping straight to the sequel first.

Series Overview – Scream (1996-2015)

Published on by Chris Scullion4 Comments

When director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson teamed up to release Scream in 1996, they changed the horror genre with its fourth wall-breaking, movie-referencing dialogue. Scream was a film that spoke to the newly born, savvy internet generation, a film that wasn’t afraid to reveal, discuss and make light of the unwritten rules that governed all slasher films until that point.

Click one of the posters below for a full review of that movie.

Scream (1996)
“Scream is to modern horror films what the Beatles were to rock music. Look at it now and it’s easy to forget the impact it’s had on so many of the films we’ve seen since. Nowadays almost every slasher movie has some sort of “clever” post-modern fourth wall-breaking scene where someone says “we shouldn’t split up, that’s how people die in the movies”. Scream did it first, and while it’s been imitated countless times since it’s somewhat telling that Scream still does it better than most, 15 years since its release. Continue reading “Series Overview – Scream (1996-2015)” →

Jurassic Park (1993)

Published on by Chris Scullion5 Comments

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Richard Attenborough, Jeff Goldblum

HAMMOND – “All major theme parks have had delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!”
MALCOLM – “But John, if the Pirates Of The Caribbean breaks down the pirates don’t eat the tourists.”

My childhood memories of Jurassic Park are a mixture of peaceful moments involving brachiosaurs and a triceratops, and loud noises played over a bright lime green colour.

You see, when it first hit cinemas in 1993 I was ten years old and I, my mum, my dad and my dinosaur-mad brother went to see it. Signs at the cinema warned that, although Jurassic Park was rated PG, there were some scary scenes that would be unsuitable for young children.

Anyone seeing us go into the cinema would think my seven-year-old brother was a potential problem, but in fact the opposite was the case.

"Look at the side of that car, my dear. I'm very proud of the sides of my cars. I do hope nothing happens to my cars, in particular the sides. I can't stress how important the sides of my cars are."
“Look at the side of that car, my dear. I’m very proud of the sides of my cars. I do hope nothing happens to my cars, in particular the sides. I can’t stress how important the sides of my cars are.”

For want of a better phrase, I was a bit of a pussy when I was younger, whereas at the tender age of seven my brother loved A Nightmare On Elm Street, Child’s Play and the like.

That’s why, when the T-Rex attacked the jeeps in the pouring rain and ate the annoying lawyer, or when the Dilophosaur spat on the double-crossing Dennis Nedry and attacked him in his car, or when the raptors were chasing Tim and Lex in the kitchen, I never saw those scenes – I only heard them, with my lime green t-shirt pulled over my face in fear.

Despite this fear I still loved Jurassic Park, and the majority of 1993 and 1994 was spent playing with the toys (remember the ones that roared when you moved their hand, and the Dino Damage ones that had chunks of flesh you could pull off?), playing the video games (the Mega Drive one let you play as the raptor) and re-watching the VHS over and over again, the smaller telly and lower volume providing me with a safer environment to watch the dodgier scenes. It was a part of my childhood and now, aged 28, I still love it.

"Well, that's the sides fucked"
“Well, that’s the sides fucked”

For the sake of procedure I feel obliged to explain the story of Jurassic Park, this being a review and all, though you really should know it by now.

Eccentric Scottish billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has opened up a theme park in a remote tropical island, a theme park that features real life dinosaurs he’s managed to clone using the DNA extracted from blood found in fossilised mosquitoes.

Excited about his park, he invites some guests – palaeontologist Alan Grant (Neill), palaeobotanist Ellie Sattler (Dern), theorist Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) and the aforementioned annoying lawyer – to see the park before it opens and get their expert opinions. Oh, and he’s invited his two grandchildren too, because things definitely won’t go tits-up.

"It's a fossilised penis. It must have fallen out of my pocket when we were being chased"
“It’s a fossilised penis. It must have fallen out of my pocket when we were being chased”

After a while, things go tits-up and, thanks to some underhand subterfuge from park IT nerd Dennis Nedry, the electric fences around the park go down, leaving the dinosaurs free to run riot and do what they feel like. And, somewhat unsurprisingly, what they feel like doing is munching on humans.

It’s up to the gang (who are scattered around the island) to regroup and get the fuck out of Dodge before a raptor puts them between two slices of bread.

Even watching it eighteen years later on Blu-ray, Jurassic Park still looks sensational. There are one or two moments where the CGI now looks ever so slightly dated (most notably the scene with the brachiosaurs where everyone sees the dinosaurs for the first time), but the fact that all of the dinosaur effects are still infinitely more convincing than the tripe churned out today – I’m looking at you Dinoshark, Lockjaw and Mega Piranha – just shows what an incredible achievement this film’s special effects were at the time on computer hardware that nowadays would be, if you’ll pardon the pun, prehistoric.

"When you told me we were going to meet your horny friend this wasn't what I had in mind. But hey, every hole's a goal"
“When you told me we were going to meet your horny friend this wasn’t what I had in mind. But hey, every hole’s a goal”

It’s just a perfect film that works on so many levels for all ages. Children get a kick out of seeing people interact with dinosaurs – something we’ve all wanted to do at some point – while adults can appreciate the arguments the characters have over the ethical and moral implications of cloning and disrupting the laws of natural selection by bringing back extinct animals, topics that are still strikingly relevant almost two decades later.

If you’ve never seen Jurassic Park, I feel like crying right in your face then whipping my head left and right so the tears slap across your inexperienced eyes. It’s simply an essential film that everyone with any sense of wonder or imagination has to see.

At the time it was released it was a revelation in filmmaking and its use of CGI changed the way movies were created, while these days it’s become a demonstration that even though its special effects DNA has been cloned and misused so many times since, when used properly it can make for some of the most spectacular cinema ever seen.

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WHERE CAN I GET IT?
Jurassic Park was recently released in a lovely Blu-ray trilogy boxset. UK peeps can get it by clicking here or get the DVD trilogy by clicking here. If you’re a Yankee Doodle Dandy you can get the US Blu-ray trilogy here or the DVD trilogy here.

Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

Published on by Chris Scullion3 Comments

Director: Stephen Chiodo

Starring: Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Nelson, John Vernon

“Killer clowns? From outer space? Holy shit.” (Mooney, Killer Klowns From Outer Space)

Sometimes a film is so clearly ridiculous it doesn’t pretend otherwise and instead proclaims through its title: “if you buy this film, you’re in for some weird shit”. As you can no doubt imagine, Killer Klowns From Outer Space falls directly into this category.

It was created by the Chido brothers, a trio of siblings with a love for the weird and wonderful and an admirable passion for film-making, in particular puppetry and special effects.

In fact, there’s a good chance you’ve seen their work before, because in recent times the Chiodos have made occasional contributions to The Simpsons (like the Gravey & Jobriath cartoon), and more notably created all the puppets in Team America. It’s fairly clear, then, what sort of sense of humour they have.

Yes, because that clown definitely looks 100% trustworthy

Killer Klowns From Outer Space, however, was the only time the Chiodos worked together to create the story, do the special effects and direct a whole movie, and while many these days regard it as a “good bad” movie among the ranks of Troll 2 and Howard The Duck in reality it’s actually pretty well made for its budget, hammy acting and ridiculous plot aside.

It’s set in a small country town, where one night a couple on a date see a flaming meteorite enter the atmosphere in the distance and land with a crash. When they go to investigate they find a circus big top in its place. They enter the big top and discover that it’s actually an alien spaceship, where aliens who look like clowns are abducting the townsfolk, placing them in big cotton candy cocoons and draining their blood to drink it.

This year's X Factor auditions were without a doubt the worst yet

While the acting is by-and-large horrible throughout the film (with the exception of Dirty Harry and Animal House star John Vernon as the police chief), there’s no denying that Killer Klowns From Outer Space is a labour of love, not just by the Chiodos but by the entire cast as well. They may not be great actors but by God you can tell they’re giving it their all.

Somewhat more impressive is the excellent clown costumes. While it would have been perfectly acceptable to just say “well, they’re from space, so let’s just say all the clowns look the same”, the Chiodos made all sorts of weird and wonderful clowns so that each looks completely unique. It’s a pleasant attention to detail that really gives the film a sense of character.

You’ll see a lot of things in Killer Klowns that you’ve never seen in any other film. Popcorn that comes to life and eats people, for example. Or custard pies that actually contain acid. And, of course, the classic scene where a group of people are eaten alive by a shadow puppet.

Killer Klowns From Outer Space is silly fun, and fantastic proof that a low budget doesn’t necessarily mean a film should be lacking in originality and great ideas. Get some mates around, get some (non-killer) popcorn and enjoy some proper low-budget ’80s comedy cheese. Oh, and the music is awesome too, as you can see by the trailer below.

Scream 4 (2011)

Published on by Chris Scullion3 Comments

Director: Wes Craven

Starring: Neve Campbell, Emma Roberts, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Hayden Panettiere, Rory Culkin

“All there are now are remakes. It’s the only horror studios green-light. I mean, there are still rules, but the rules have changed. The unexpected is the new cliche.” (Charlie, Scream 4)

A lot has changed in horror cinema since the release of Scream 3 back in 2000. Remakes and ‘torture porn’ fims like Saw and Hostel are now the big box-office hits, and new film monsters like Jigsaw and Samara from The Ring are the ones that get today’s teens pulling their covers over their eyes in fear at night.

What’s more, the clever post-modern ideas made popular by Scream – that the characters in the movie reference the rules and situations in other horror movies – are now freely imitated in many of today’s films, with almost every slasher these days containing one wisecracker going on about how you’re never supposed to say “I’ll be right back”, how the black guy always dies first and so on and so forth.

Sidney's fear of steaks made preparing dinner a daily challenge

Scream 4, then, had an uphill battle to be relevant in this new all-knowing, self-referential, nudge-nudge-wink-wink horror landscape, one the Scream series itself essentially created in the first place. It’s impressive, then, that writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven have taken these decade-old characters and ideas and brought them into the 2010s so convincingly, giving them more modern sensibilities but still keeping the elements of what made the original trilogy so popular in the first place.

And so the usual “what’s your favourite scary movie” spiel continues, with newer films added to the killer’s trivia repertoire and more graphic threats made over the phone. The killer is made harder to identify now because it’s revealed early on (when someone calls their friend to trick them) that there’s a voice-changing phone app, one that potentially anybody could be using. The film geeks this time are a couple of horror nerds who screen annual movie marathons of the eight Stab films.

The worst forensics squad ever fail to notice the dead body in the room

And yes, those classic ‘rules’ once again return, but this time updated for this new generation with new rules about remakes, which Scream 4 seems to focus most of its criticism on – I wonder if the remake of Craven’s A Nighhtmare On Elm Street had something to do with it. Indeed, the whole third act of the movie, without giving too much away, is very much influenced by the deluge of horror films we’ve seen recently, with one humorous moment in particular seeing a distressed Hayden Panetierre answer one of the killer’s phone questions by screaming out a seemingly endless stream of films that have been remade in the past decade, drawing stark attention to the sheer number of them.

A livid Hayden smells blood as she spots the person who did her hair

While three cast members from the original trilogy – Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courteney Cox – all return for Scream 4, it’s perhaps unsurprisingly Cox who steals the show. Campbell is her usual drab, miserably-voiced self, while Arquette’s character seems to have shaken off his permanent limp from the previous film and is now the sheriff, essentially making him a bit of a dick. Cox, however, is hilarious as Gale Weathers, suffering writer’s block as she tries to get back in the spotlight while jealously watching on a Sidney (Campbell) has success with a book of her own and her husband Dewey (Arquette) flirts with his new female deputy. Almost all of the best lines belong to Gale, to the extent that it’s almost exciting to see her turn up in another scene because you know something else is coming. I never thought I’d be praising Courteney Cox as the star in a school play, let alone a film, but fair play to her.

When Bob saw his date waiting for him, he suddenly realised she was joking when she said the party was fancy dress

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Scream film without a whodunit plot, and while the red herrings are perhaps a bit too obvious and clearly overacting to make you think it’s them, the real killer’s identity is a nice twist that actually makes sense and results in a great performance from the cast member in question.

It’s worth pointing out that the final act of Scream 4 does assume some prior knowledge of at least the first film in the series at times, so while it’s not essential I’d recommend you at least go into this one having seen at least the original film (if not necessarily all three) because you’ll get more out of Scream 4’s references, particularly those near the end of the film.

While Scream 4 could never be the revelation and genre-changer the original film was, it still does a great job updating the series to address the changes in horror cinema since the trilogy ended. It’s probably the best of the sequels, and well worth a watch if you enjoyed the first Scream.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)

Published on by Chris Scullion5 Comments

Director: Bill Condon

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

“No measure of time with you will be long enough. But we’ll start with forever.” (Edward, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1)

There’s a scene in Breaking Dawn where Jacob, the miserable hormonal werewolf, tells Edward, the miserable hormonal vampire: “I know how this ends, and I’m not stickin’ around to watch”. I wish I had that luxury.

You see, I love my girlfriend, and part of what makes our relationship so strong is our ability to compromise. She puts up with it as I make her watch a slew of shite horror films and I put up with her love of Sailor Moon, SpongeBob Squarepants, The X Factor and Twilight (don’t worry, she likes other stuff too, fortunately). The latter thankfully doesn’t affect me too much – the only time I have to put up with it is when the latest Twilight film hits the cinema. It’s for this reason I was made to watch Breaking Dawn.

"There's nothing like a good game of chess, that's what I always say"

Much like Jacob, then, I too know how this is going to end – I’ve already had the plot of the book explained to me in unnecessary detail and already I know how Part 2 goes – but unlike Jacob, my relationship means I won’t be able to avoid it. And if it’s going to be anything like Part 1, I’d better bring the sleeping pills.

Before I continue, a disclaimer: I am in no way a Twilight fan. I never saw the first film, then met my girlfriend and was subsequently dragged to (and struggled through) the last two. I have no doubt fans of the series will adore this film and weep openly throughout, after which they’ll run home and weep hysterically a little more as they cut their hair off and stick it on their homemade Jacob and Edward voodoo dolls. But I’m trying to judge it on its own merits.

"I've got to stop them playing chess. Hopefully this poster saying CHESS IS SHIT will do the trick"

While it would have been perfectly possible to fit Breaking Dawn into one film, it seems the studio behind it wanted to do a Harry Potter and spilt the film into two for the simple reason it’ll make them double the money. What we have, then, is the first two acts of the story stretched over an excruciating two hours, with more padding than that in the bras of its target audience.

Yawn! As a wedding scene lasts half an hour, complete with the longest “you may kiss the bride” moment in cinematic history. Struggle! As you endure a needlessly lengthy honeymoon scene complete with a white-hot montage featuring at least three scenes where Bella and Edward play chess for a bit. Sigh! As Bella gurns, looks gormless and bites her lip so often you wonder if she isn’t already practising to be a vampire.

"Don't worry, I don't believe what they're saying about chess either"

Incidentally, speaking of Bella and Edward, it’s understandable that Twilight is aimed at a teenage audience, because watching the on-screen relationship between actors Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson reminds me a lot of my own teenage school days – it’s awkward, it’s painful and (because of the subjects I chose) there’s no chemistry.

Anyway, after what has to be a whole fucking hour of wedding and honeymoon nothingness, the story finally progresses when Bella finds herself up the duff with some sort of mutant baby. Cue another 40 minutes of her looking deathly ill while the vampires look at her, then look at each other, then look back at her again, interspersed with bits where moany Jacob grudgingly chats with moany Edward then argues with the other werewolves who keep threatening to fuck up the vampires but take ages to actually go through with it.

I could go on and on, but I’m actually getting angry as I type this, and I just keep remembering ridiculous things. The scene where the werewolves all meet on a beachfront and argue with each other, in shoddy CGI werewolf form, without even opening their mouths. The numerous scenes where Edward zips around really quickly – while swimming, while walking through the woods, while packing his fucking suitcase – just to remind the audience he’s a vampire because otherwise he gets to do the best part of fuck all vampire-related.

"I fucking love chess, me"

The “fight” between the vampires and the werewolves, which takes place in the dark, lasts about two minutes and is so filled with jump cuts it’s impossible to tell what’s going on. Or the fact that the film is literally fifteen seconds old before Jacob once again peels his shirt off to appease the swooning teen audience.

The film’s one saving grace is the final scene, which admittedly is excellent and a fantastic way to end the film, and the story as a whole in fact. I’d much rather a line was drawn under it at this point, but of course we still have to deal with another whole film showing Bella coming to terms with her new situation, no doubt moping about for another two hours doing very little.

Breaking Dawn Part 1 is 110 minutes of piffle followed by 10 minutes of relatively interesting goings-on. Perhaps the best compliment I could give it is that it helped me understand how it must feel to be a vampire, because as I watched this mindless, over-long drivel I too felt dead inside.

Want to read more reviews of significantly better films? Click here for the home page

Swamp Shark (2011)

Published on by Chris Scullion3 Comments

Director: Griff Furst

Starring: Kristy Swanson, DB Sweeney, Jeff Chase, Jason Rogel, Sophie Sinise

“This isn’t a normal shark. It swims, it kills, and it’s out there.” (Tommy, Swamp Shark)

Swamp Shark is actually one of the better SyFy-produced movies out there, but that’s like saying an elbow is one of the least painful ways to receive a blow to the testicles.

As you’d expect from the title, it’s about a shark. In a swamp. The weekend before the annual Gator Fest at the Atchafalaya Basin (a shindig that, judging by the Gator Fest scenes in the film, attracts around seven people), a dodgy animal smuggling deal goes wrong and a giant shark ends up in the swamp.

"I'll kill it. I used to be Buffy, you know." "So you keep telling us. We don't care"

A local drunk falls into the water and is eaten alive by the shark but the police blame the McDaniels family, who run their own restaurant complete with a pack of alligators that sit outside. According to the police, one of their gators must have done it, but head of the family Rachel (Kristy “Buffy” Swanson) sees a shark outside and decides to head off to find it to prove that was the real culprit.

As it was a made-for-TV movie, Swamp Shark is very tame for a shark film. There’s one graphic scene in which the shark leaps out of the air and bites a man’s head clean off, but other than that most of the deaths involve the old classic trick of someone being pulled underwater and the water turning red.

Bob happily thought to himself: "You know, I think my headache's gone"

Meanwhile, the sex scenes are so desperate not to show any nudity that it actually gets silly – at one point one chap takes a topless photo of his girlfriend but when he then looks at the photo and sees a shark in the background, you can see that he somehow only managed to get a headshot of her, despite her, you know, being topless.

The shark effects themselves are a bit of a mixed bag. The first half of the film wisely goes down the Jaws route by barely showing the thing and only giving little glimpses here and there. It’s only when it starts appearing more often and decides to start leaping out of the water – as is the law with any killer animal in a SyFy movie – that the old dodgy CGI kicks in again.

Swamp Shark is harmless and it isn’t terrible. All the actors seem to be having fun, none of them put in a truly terrible performance, the characters you want to die end up dying, and the ending is silly, over-the-top fun. It’s no Jaws by any stretch of the imagination but if it’s on the telly and there’s nothing else to watch it’ll pass the time.

WHERE CAN I GET IT?
If you want Swamp Shark on DVD you can get it from Amazon if you click here. If you’re more of a Blu-Ray person then get yourself down to Tesco because, oddly, it’s a Tesco exclusive and it’ll only set you back £3 (or £3.90 from the Tesco website). And it’s worth a go at that price.

Lockjaw (2008)

Published on by Chris Scullion5 Comments

Director: Amir Valinia

Starring: DMX, Wes Brown, Louis Herthum, Lauren Fain

“Don’t forget, at the end of the day it’s just a snake. A really messed up snake.” (Nick, Lockjaw)

I’ve seen some bad films in my time – as you’ll know if you’ve taken more than a brief glance at some of the other reviews on this site – but Lockjaw is by far one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the past couple of years. It’s not the CGI effects or the hopeless music, those I can deal with. It’s the plot, the script and the acting that make this one such a stinker.

The film starts with a flashback in which a young lad called Alan and his friend Becky break into a voodoo-loving man’s house and steal a dangerous voodoo pen from him before he and his son (more about him later) find out.

So how do you defeat a mystical snake summoned by voodoo? With a voodoo bazooka, of course. Seriously.

Alan, disturbed by his dad’s abusive behaviour towards his mother, decides for no apparent reason to draw a picture – using the voodoo pen – of a big monster eating his dad. Sure enough, after his drunken father leaves the house, he’s gobbled up by the beast and never seen again.

Fast forward to the present day and Alan and Becky are now married. While they do gardening at their home Becky digs up the pen, but before she gets to ask Alan about it she’s run over by a van containing a group of teens who happen to be the biggest bunch of absolute cocks you’ve ever seen in any film to date. Alan uses the pen to draw the monster again, this time attacking the van, and so one by one the teens start getting picked off by the beast. A guy summoning a monster to get revenge on people killing someone close to him? Ah, so it’s basically Pumpkinhead then.

In one of the more impressive effects scenes, the filmmakers make this moron look capable of feeding himself

It’s hard to properly describe just how painful Lockjaw is to watch. Almost every member of the main cast has at least one infuriating quality – there’s the quirky guy who talks really loudly because he’s desperate to steal every scene, then there’s the slutty one who was clearly hired for the inevitable nudity alone but then doesn’t even get naked (resulting in an awkward sex scene in which she groans away as if she’s getting some then quickly jumps out of bed when she hears a noise, revealing that she’s clothed). Even rap legend DMX, who only appears in a couple of scenes, puts in a half-hearted performance at best because it’s clear that deep down he knows this is no 8 Mile.

The plot’s got more holes than an orgy – how did young Alan know to draw a picture with the magic stick in the first place? How could Alan get a good look at everyone in the van as it sped past after hitting his wife, to the point that he could draw good renditions of all five of them? And who was the joker who told the people in this film “you know, I reckon acting’s the job for you”?

Here's Lockjaw - a snake with a crocodile head. Great idea wasted on a shite film

The only thing Lockjaw has going for it is that the stupid CGI monster thing looks slightly more convincing than the stupid CGI monster things in SyFy-funded films like Dinoshark and Mega Python Vs Gatoroid. That’s literally it though – everything else is just cringeworthy. Every single scene is an exercise in amazement as you realise the director actually must have said to his actors “that’s fine, let’s move on” time and time again instead of “can you do that again, only not shit this time”. Don’t be swayed by the potential comedy value of DMX being in it either – he barely features and he’s as wooden as a bookshelf when he does.

When a film is so half-arsed that it doesn’t even bother to provide enough music to cover the whole of the credits (the music simply stops halfway through leaving the rest of them scrolling upwards in silence) then it’s clear that there wasn’t a lot of effort put into this one. Stay well away.

WHERE CAN I GET IT?
You’re really a glutton for punishment, aren’t you? Lockjaw is available at the time of writing for £6.49 on DVD, but if you check Amazon’s New/Used you can find some people selling it for the princely sum of £0.01 plus shipping. If you reckon you can stretch to that then click here to go shit-shopping.

The Exterminator (1980)

Published on by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

Director: James Glickenhaus

Starring: Robert Ginty, Christopher George, Samantha Eggar

CIA AGENT – “This Exterminator is the most dangerous serial killer in the United States and he’s in New York City! What do you think about all this?”

DALTON – “I think you need to take a shit. It’s coming out of your mouth instead of your asshole.”

One of the more popular vigilante films to hit during the grindhouse era, The Exterminator tells the story of a man out to clean up the city’s crime by dishing out some pain of his own.

John’s best friend Michael saves his life while they’re both fighting in Vietnam. After completing their service they return to New York to try to return to some sort of normality, but shortly afterwards Michael is mugged by a gang and left paralysed from the neck down. John vows to repay his friend by hunting down the gang and making them pay for their crime.

He doesn't look like your typical action hero but he means business

This should be a fairly straightforward movie, but after John deals with the gang he decides not to stop there. Instead, he decides to take on all crime and clean up New York by dishing out punishment to every sleazeball around. The media start calling him The Exterminator, the police want to catch him and the CIA start hunting him down because they think he’s working for a rival party to expose the government’s inability to deal with crime. Can John stay on the run from those who want to stop him?

The Exterminator gained a cult following in the grindhouse cinemas of the ’70s and early ’80s, and was also one of the more notorious films released on VHS in the early video boom. It’s unsurprising then that The Exterminator‘s most memorable moments are the more violent scenes, which are mostly executed (no pun intended) with style.

The Vietnam scene is effective stuff

By far the most notable example of this is the Vietnam prologue where special effects guru Stan Winston (The Terminator, Jurassic Park, Alien, Predator) was drafted in to help create a chillingly realistic decapitation scene. It’s a truly shocking moment and one that no doubt contributed a great deal to the film’s cult success.

While the rest of the film never quite manages to match this prologue in terms of shock factor, it comes close at times. A scene involving a giant meat grinder doesn’t look very convincing but is made so by the screams emitted by the victim, whereas a moment involving a prostitute and a soldering iron is still wince-inducing even though it mercifully takes place off-camera.

Robert Ginty is decent as the titular Exterminator. He plays the role completely straight, without any over-the-top rants or ridiculous ‘action movie’ facial expressions. He’s got one or two cheesy lines (“if you’re lying, I’ll be back”) but for the most part he’s a good lead.

The Exterminator is grindhouse cheese but it’s entertaining grindhouse cheese. The set-pieces are effective, the acting is understated but spot-on and the whole film’s got an unashamed seediness and grit to it. The final scene ruins what could have been a powerful ending, but that aside it’s one of the better-made films of its era.

WHERE CAN I GET IT?
The Exterminator has just been released in the UK on Blu-ray by Arrow Video. It comes with a commentary and a couple of documentaries, and you can get it by clicking here. It’s currently out of print on DVD but you can find it used in a two-pack with the similarly awesome Maniac Cop by clicking here.
The US has its own special edition Blu-ray/DVD combo, so if you’re on that side of the Atlantic you can click here to get it.