Summer Fest 5 (Day One) Sidenote: Sharknado

 This doesn't really fit into any of the actual coverage of Summer Fest, but because of its highly successful airing on Syfy the night before, nearly everybody who came over on Saturday and Sunday asked the Cap'n about Sharknado. Now it just so happens that the Cap'n and Cranpire sampled some of Sharknado before the crowds arrived, so we found ourselves repeatedly explaining that (as usual) The Asylum had misled viewers as to what a "sharknado" is.

 If you've seen the poster - and who hasn't at this point, since it's right next to this paragraph - you expect a tornado comprised of sharks, which certainly seems promising in a stupid way. Alas, from what we saw of Sharknado, the tornado (more of a typhoon, if you're getting technical about it) is just a delivery system to drop sharks off where they couldn't normally go: flooded highways, city streets, etc. Only at the very beginning does it get even close to the promise of the poster, and even that is more or less sharks being dropped on a boat that's already in the middle of the ocean.

 We couldn't really judge the performances of Ian Ziering, John Heard, or Tara Reid, but let's assume they were terrible. I highly doubt folks will be contesting me on this one.

 Good for The Asylum and for Syfy for tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, even if its a part that none of us knew existed, and I hope that Ghost Shark or whatever it's called with Richard Moll goes as well for you. Surely it's working out better than Atlantic Rim, a movie I rejected from Summer Fest after ten minutes. And yes, the Cap'n changed tenses in the middle of this post, and just did it again. Thanks, Sharknado.

 If only you were called Shartnado - it's not something I'd be more likely to watch, but for some reason seems funnier to say.

Retro Review: Eight Legged Freaks

 Yeah. That's right. The summer of 2002 had a number of memorable films - Spider-Man, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Insomnia, Undercover Brother, The Bourne Identity, Scooby Doo, Lilo and Stitch, Minority Report, The Road to Perdition, The Kid Stays in the Picture, xXx, One Hour Photo, Signs, and uh, The Master of Disguise* - and I'm going to talk about a movie most of you forgot. Oh, who am I kidding, most of you never saw Eight Legged Freaks, so what you forgot is that a movie called Eight Legged Freaks ever existed. But it did, and among all of the other movies I saw in 2002, that was one of them.

 Actually, despite the fact that I haven't seen Eight Legged Freaks in, oh, six or seven years, it's still a better movie than anybody would have ever given it credit for. Think of it like 21 Jump Street - you know how all of a sudden your friends are raving about that movie even though when all of you saw the trailer you were like "eh?" Well, you aren't going to be as enthusiastic about Eight Legged Freaks but it is a movie that's much better than the trailer suggests.

 Here's the trailer, just in case you also wiped it from your memory:

  So yeah, the Men in Black-ish music, the dumb spider sound effects, and the presence of David Arquette is probably good reason to assume that Eight Legged Freaks would suck. I get that. But because this fell in a period where Cap'n Howdy still "watched everything," I went to see the movie with some friends, assuming at the very least we'd have some laughs and tear it a new one. Only that didn't really happen because behind the bland marketing is a well meaning throwback to schlocky giant monster movies from the 1950s.

 Yes, David Arquette is the star of the film, but it also has a respectable supporting cast that ranges from "wow, they were in that?" to "Wow! They were in a real movie?" For example, a post-Ghost World / pre-The Island Scarlett Johansson plays the daughter of Arquette's love interest, who is played by none other than Skinemax staple Kari Wuhrer (also in Hellraiser: Deader, Anaconda, Sliders and The Crossing Guard? Really??). Also appearing in Eight Legged Freaks is Doug E. Doug (Cool Runnings, Cosby, and Mo Better Blues?? Man, I have got to watch some of these movies again), just to remind you that in 2002 Doug E. Doug was still working. That's not meant to be a slight to Doug E. Doug, by the way, but I have a feeling more of you said "who?" than said "Wow! Doug E. Doug!"

 And look, I realize that this particular headlining cast (with the addition of a bunch of familiar character actors and Tom Noonan) isn't helping make my case but Eight Legged Freaks is actually a lot of fun. The cast is clearly having a good time while still taking the premise of giant spiders banding together to attack a small town seriously enough that the movie doesn't collapse on itself. Believe me, the idea that solitary creatures like spiders would wander around in packs (different arachnids, mind you, not even the same kinds of spiders) is enough to deep six something like Eight Legged Freaks, but the movie isn't trying to be anything other than a quasi-modern version of Them!.

 For some reason I don't see Eight Legged Freaks on television that much, which is weird because it wouldn't require much editing and it's the kind of movie that belongs on a Saturday afternoon matinee showcase on some channel... TNT maybe. I'd say Syfy but they're busy with their own crap like Camel Spiders (which borrows roughly the same formula of vaguely recognizable "stars" fighting a CGI monster menace). But that's just it: Eight Legged Freaks is better than Camel Spiders. You're going to enjoy Eight Legged Freaks more, and if you consider yourself a fan of Syfy Originals, there's no reason not to seek this movie out.

 Just don't seek to hard. I mean, it's not like it's going to be hard to find (check the bargain bins or markdown section at used DVD stores) and like I said, this isn't going to change your outlook on marketing in trailers or anything like that. Eight Legged Freaks is a enjoyable, if slight, movie that wants nothing more than to make you chuckle, and it mostly succeeds at that. Seriously, put down Camel Spiders and give this a shot. It's not like Camel Spiders or Arachnaconda won't be playing next week before the next Syfy Original airs.



 * Seriously, did you think I was going to say Halloween Resurrection?

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."