A Few Thoughts on SyFy Channel Originals

If there's one thing the Cap'n gets more grief about from friends, it's my unwillingness to embrace the Syfy (née Sci-Fi) Channel Original films. "But you love schlock," they say, "this is the same kind of b-to-z grade crap they churned out in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, so where's the love?"

And it's true: I have no love for Syfy originals like Frankenfish, Mega Piranha, Raptor Island, S.S. Doomtrooper, Ice Spiders, and Grizzly Rage. Beyond that, I really don't like the more recent trend of "giant _____" films that are then combined into dreck like Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus or Dinocroc vs. Supergator (or the forthcoming Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid). I'm not even sure the latter qualify as "Syfy Originals" or if Syfy just airs them.

It is true that I enjoy low budget "thrillers" like Them! or Fiend without a Face or The Beginning of the End. All are imminently watchable, and while cheap often attempt to disguise their low budgets with imaginative monster effects and as many thrills as they can muster with a no-name cast. Attack of the Crab Monsters, a very early Roger Corman film, is still far better than it has any right to be, as does Beast from Haunted Cave. So yes, I do like vintage schlock; now allow me to explain why calling what Syfy does the same is erroneous.

The central difference between the films listed in the above paragraph (plus many, many others) and the weekly Syfy output is simple - every time I see a Syfy Original, it seems like nobody is trying at all. The films are barely competent, and not because the people involved weren't capable of doing so, but because many of them look like they're in it for a quick paycheck. I mean, who's going to see this garbage, right?

That's the impression one quickly gleans from these films, which all seem to follow a similar formula: cast one or two actors / musicians / quasi-celebrities on a career decline in lead roles, find one more B-movie icon to cast in a tiny role that requires as little work from them as possible, fill the rest of the cast out with desperate unknowns, then unleash a Toy Story 1-era CGI monster to kill them off, mostly by eating them because it requires less animation for one "gulp."

The films then pad out the cheap, uninteresting "monster" attacks with long, pointless subplots that continually separate the main characters from the action, introduce superfluous roles for truly talentless amateurs as "comic relief," then eventually get back to the monster in time for the finale, which of late consists of the main characters watching two badly animated creatures "fight" until one or both "die" - at least until the next sequel.

For example, this is exactly what happens in Dinocroc vs. Supergator, minus any recognizable cast members aside from the late David Carradine, who really seemed to be shooting his scenes at home and literally phones in most of his dialogue as the evil corporation head who had something to do with... I don't know, let's say Supergator's existence. Even he doesn't seem to care that he's in the movie, so why should I be enthused that he graced this waste of 90 minutes with his presence? Or F. Murray Abraham trying to stay involved in Blood Monkey before being killed? (Oops, SPOILER).

The Mega-whatevers vs Giant-whatsits are even more transparent in their attempts to draw audiences into interminably boring conversations and lab scenes by including "whatever happened to's" like Deborah Gibson, Lorenzo Lamas, Jaleel White, Corin Nemec, Vanessa Williams, Casper Van Dien, Lou Diamond Phillips, Sean Patrick Flannery, Armand Assante, Amy Locane, Robbie Williams, Mickey Dolenz, Barry Williams, Daniel Baldwin, and Tiffany. The plots are so interchangeable that it doesn't matter how the monsters got there, let's just watch the singer of "I Think We're Alone Now" fight a giant piranha! Then they throw in Bruce Campbell, Robert Englund, Tony Todd, Daryl Hannah, John Rhys-Davies and Jeffrey Combs (or anyone else who won't say "no") to come in and give the film some "cred" for fanboys.

It's fair to note that the other big Syfy trick has been licensing sequels on the cheap, like Lake Placid 2 (and 3), Firestarter 2, Stir of Echoes: The Homecoming, House of the Dead 2, Pumpkinhead (Ashes to Ashes and Blood Feud), Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, Bats: Human Harvest, Anacondas 3 and 4, and a remake of Children of the Corn. Of the films I've sampled from that last, almost all of them had the same "we just don't care" attitude that rubs off on the audience.

Say what you will about schlock films of yesteryear, but they weren't boring. Well, some of them were boring, and a lot of those have faded into obscurity, with good reason. Horror of the Blood Monsters is a turgid, lifeless mishmash of prehistoric and vampire elements, and I can't finish it. I will happily watch The Blob though, because an effort was made to, oh, entertain audiences even as the producers sought a quick buck.

By the way, it's not as though movies with virtual unknowns and limited cgi effects can't be entertaining - Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, which has Torchwood's John Barrowman as its marquee name (nothing against Barrowman, who is great in the movie and on the show, but this did come out four years before Torchwood and I'm making a huge assumption that the average visitor to this site has seen the spin-off of the 2005 relaunch of Doctor Who). It has all of the same hallmarks of cheap "giant monster" schlock, but the film is funny, occasionally surprising, has better than expected "kills," and the best pick-up line in film history (even better than "get the butter"). Blood Car, another Blogorium favorite, has no monster but a better gimmick and My Girl's Anna Chlumsky, and it's better than any Syfy film mentioned above.

There are a handful of Syfy Originals that I've found amusing in small doses - Alien Express, Terminal Invasion, parts of Alien Apocalypse, The Man with the Screaming Brain, and Beyond Re-Animator. It's probably worth noting that almost all of them deviate from the formula listed above in one or all aspects. Alien Express, for example, has actual puppets instead of CG monsters, and even if they look goofy, it's a creative choice. Terminal Invasion makes the best of a limited location, and Alien Apocalypse tries hard (and fails miserably, if enterainingly) to tell an Planet of the Apes knock-off story. I've heard good things about Abominable from people like Dr. Murder and the Cranpire, and he also swears by Hammerhead because of the presence of William Forsythe and Jeffrey Combs.

The recent Sharktopus (with Eric Roberts) at least has the right idea with the goofy trailer and theme song, even if it looks like every other "hybrid / giant monster" movie the channel ever aired. And what is Syfy airing this week? Will it break the trend of movies the Cap'n is happier not seeing? It's - oh, something called Mega Snake. No thanks. Let me know when the execution actually meets the premise of this so-called "schlock."