For today’s movie I came back to America for a staple of United States horror in the 1950s, the giant monster movie. I decided to pick one I hadn’t seen before but knew by reputation, The Giant Claw. I first became intrigued with the movie when I saw a poster for it. The poster I saw showed a giant bird-like creature, but it didn’t have a head. Did the monster actually look like that in the movie. It turns out, no, it doesn’t, but the mystery of the poster was explained by the fact that almost no one knew what the monster would look like until the movie was finished and screened for the first time. Why? Because the monster looks completely ridiculous.
The story of The Giant Claw is about as basic as it gets for this type of film. A test pilot sees something he can’t identify in the sky, and various planes begin to disappear. Turns out a giant bird is the culprit, and the plot involves the test pilot and a beautiful mathematician (who of course ends up being the test pilot’s love interest) trying to figure out how to kill the giant beast. Silly destruction ensues, and the story ends happily (except for the people who died). What makes The Giant Claw remarkable is the giant beast itself. Well, I say remarkable, but infamous might be a better word.
Apparently the director initially wanted stop-motion animation for his monster, but since the budget didn’t allow that, he had a puppet built instead. The actors filmed their parts not knowing how the monster would look, because all the monster carnage was done with effects and cutaways. The monster ended up looking like some giant, malformed buzzard that look more sad and goofy than in any way frightening. The bird creature ha been mocked repeatedly over the years, so I’m not really going to add to that. I’ll just say that it’s not so much the campy effects that hurt the beast, it’s the gloriously goofy design. It’ actually quite cute in a lot of ways. The thing is, the first third of the movie is nicely done (if somewhat formulaic), but the monster’s appearance completely undercuts any tension that was building up for its reveal.
Overall though, I enjoyed the movie fine. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen nearly this exact same plot play out numerous times, but I’m totally cool with that. The lead actor were fun to watch, and their struggles and triumphs were entertaining. I think if I watch The Giant Claw again I’ll have a better appreciation for it. That probably won’t happen for a long time, but as gar as American monster movies from the 1950s go, it’s fine.
For today’s movie I went into my digital library over on RiffTrax to see if there was anything I’d bought but hadn’t watched. It turns out I had started watching a movie titled Wonder Women, but I must’ve never finished it because I could not remember how it ended. Well, I’ve seen it all the way through now, and, as with most of the RiffTrax movies I’ve seen, it’s a lot of fun.
Wonder Women is an action movie from 1973 with a mad scientist/sci-fi undercurrent. Set in the Philippines, the diabolical Dr. Tsu (played by Nancy Kwan) has a business harvesting body parts from top athletes to transplant them onto old rich people so she can make tons and tons of money. Dr. Tsu has a small army of beautiful women who all know martial arts to do her bidding, and the first scenes we see are of her female army swarming and kidnapping a bunch of different people from sporting events. One of the athletes has a huge insurance policy though, so a private contractor, the womanizing Mike Harber (played by Ross Hagen), is called in by the insurance company to find out where he went. This is all just an elaborate excuse to have a bunch of fight and action scenes with pretty women, and for that, Wonder Woman absolutely delivers.
It’s cheap and cheesy, and it’s kind of sleazy sometimes as well, but its kind of a typical action exploitation movie that feels like a distant cousin of the James Bond brand of spy movies. The womanizing hero doesn’t necessarily have any fancy gadgets, but the villain is over-the-top with 1970s-futuristic science stuff stacked all around her domain. Also, Dr. Tsu’s henchman is the great Sid Haig, so yeah, there’s a lot of fun to be had here.
That said, Mike, Bill, and Kevin from RiffTrax absolutely make the experience much better. I would probably enjoy Wonder Women on its own, but the RiffTrax guys enhance everything they lend their voices to. If you’re going to check this movie out, I recommend watching the RiffTrax version. I bought the movie a while back, but it looks like it’s included in their $5.99 a month streaming offering they began fairly recently. So go do that.
Do you remember a few days ago when I wrote about Dead Space and said it’s a remake of a movie from 1982? Well, I said I would see that original movie pretty soon, and soon is now. Today’s movie of the day is Forbidden World, a sci-fi monster movie that borrows more than a little from Alien, yet feels original enough in its presentation and story that I won’t be talking about Alien for the rest of this journal entry (which is something I couldn’t avoid when writing about Dead Space). ForbiddenWorld is a campy sci-fi b-monster-movie with lots of action, tension, blood, gore, and beautiful women. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I might have a new film to add to my list of favorite movies about groups of people isolated with a murderous monster (yes, that is a list I have in my head).
If you read my journal entry about Dead Space, then you already know the plot of Forbidden World. It’s pretty much the same movie, only Forbidden World is far, far better. The basic plot is that a hot-shot space pilot answers a distress call at an isolated research facility on an alien world. The pilot, Mike Colby, journeys to the facility with his android companion, and they discover that a group of scientists have created something that has grown out of control. The creature they made begins to attack and kill the people at the facility one by one as it gets bigger, grosser, and more dangerous.
So yeah, the basic plot points are the same between Forbidden World and Dead Space, but there’s so much more depth in Forbidden World. Characters’ motivations make tons more sense, the creature is explained way better, and the special effects, though still low-budget and cheesy, look great. I’m glad I saw Dead Space first, because without knowing anything about either movie, I was able to enjoy Dead Space fine for what it is. Comparisons to Forbidden World would have been impossible to avoid had I seen it first, and that would have caused me to enjoy Dead Space less.
One of my favorite aspects of Forbidden World, besides the copious amount of blood and gooey alien monster fluids, is the presentation of the movie. For one, I just love the 70s/80s look and feel. It’s something that can be difficult to describe, but I know it when I see it. The costumes, the sets, the lighting, it all has that classic sci-fi feel of the era. But more than that, the way the movie is edited can be quite unique at times.
Starting very early in the movie, there are moments when we’ll see flashes of other scenes, often when music is playing. It feels almost like a dream sequence of sorts, but it’s not. They could be flashbacks or flashforwards depending on the scene, and when put together they give the whole movie a very fun vibe. I’m probably not explaining it well, but I suppose I’m just trying to say that the unique editing helped to evoke certain tones while I was watching. I liked it a lot, and it got me interested in the movie right away.
Forbidden World is definitely something that I’ll revisit at some point. I often get cravings for just this type of monster movie, and I’m very happy that I found another to add to my go-to list.
My recent viewing of Leviathan put me in a mood for similar sci-fi horror movies, so I searched around until I found something that stood out to me. I stopped searching once I came across Dead Space, a movie that looked like a super-cheap Alien rip-off from 1991 starring Bryan Cranston. Well, Bryan Cranston doesn’t star in the movie necessarily, I’d say he’s a co-star at best, but he is in it. Everything else I assumed about the Dead Space is accurate though. It is indeed a super-cheap Alien rip-off, and I had a lot of fun with it.
Apparently Dead Space is not only a rip-off of Alien, but it’s also a remake of a movie called Forbidden World from 1982. I haven’t seen Forbidden World yet, though I’m sure I will soon. Anyway, here’s the plot for Dead Space. In the future, a “space cowboy” by the name of Steve Krieger intercepts a distress call from a remote research station on an alien planet (the wiki page and IMDB both say the station is on Saturn, but it definitely is not). Krieger arrives to help out, but he finds that not everyone wants him there. Out of courtesy for his trouble, head scientists Emily Stote and Frank Darden (Cranston) inform him of their situation. The small science team at the station have been researching a virus which has mutated beyond their expectations. Stote and Darden think the situation is being handled just fine, but the scientist who sent the distress call, Marissa Salinger, thinks their situation is anything but under control. Krieger ends up staying for a while, and naturally the virus (which is actually an organism that can mutate and transit a virus) escapes and causes havoc. Then the rest of the movie is all about the small crew trying to survive and kill the virus monster before it murders them all.
Like Alien and a thousand other movies that came after Alien, Dead Space is full of dark, claustrophobic hallways being stalked by a creature that gets progressively bigger and more dangerous as the movie goes on. There is a chest bursting scene, multiple scenes with panicked crew members trying to find the tiny and quick monster in the room before it escapes into the air ducts, and even a scene where the monster turns into a Giger-esque creature that towers over the crew. The effects are laughable and fun in a goofy b-movie way, and the plot takes some head-shaking turns that I couldn’t help but smile at. Dead Space is not a good movie, but it is fun. If nothing else, Dead Space was a good late-night movie to go to sleep to, and it opened the door for me to watch some other related movies.
My only real complaint is that the cover art and title are completely misleading. Some of the cooler posters and VHS art for Dead Space show an skeleton in a torn-up astronaut suit floating in space. That never happens in the movie, and the bulk of the movie doesn’t even take place in space. I mean, the interiors the crew members are in are effectively just like any other outer-space horror movie, so maybe I’m getting hung up on a technicality. But if you promise me a skeleton in space, at least make a slight attempt to give me a skeleton in space.
Back in 1989, a cluster of underwater movies were released that would leave me with a life-long fascination with the deep sea. The Abyss is by far the most famous and successful of these water-logged sci-fi films, but it wasn’t the first of the bunch to be released. Presumably other filmmakers were aware of James Cameron’s underwater alien movie during its long production, and they probably figured they might as well try to capitalize on the growing hype for The Abyss. One of those movies that beat The Abyss to theaters is Leviathan, and that is today’s movie of the day.
I think I’ve seen Leviathan before, but it’s been decades, and I didn’t remember anything about. For years, I would confuse Leviathan with DeepStar Six, another similar movie that came out even earlier in 1989, but I think that’s just because I’ve seen DeepStar Six a few times over the years while I’ve only seen Leviathan maybe once. Well, now I’ve seen it twice, and Leviathan is now firmly planted in my brain as one of the better underwater sci-fi horror movies.
Leviathan features a setup that has been used in numerous underwater and outer-space movies. A crew of eccentric misfits is isolated in a vaguely near-futuristic facility where they are mining for natural resources The crew is led by Steven Beck (Peter Weller), a geologist who seems to have been wrangled into doing a job he doesn’t enjoy and isn’t even really qualified for. Beck does not have the respect of his crew as the movie begins, and that lack of respect is going to be tested when things get worse for everyone very soon. Beck’s crew includes a slightly elitist doctor who goes by “Doc” (Richard Crenna), a serious and disciplined athlete named Elizabeth “Willie” Williams (Amanda Pays), a skeptical and aggressive worker named Justin Jones (Ernie Hudson), the offensive and chauvinistic comic relief called “Sixpack” (Daniel Stern), and a few other crew members who don’t necessarily last long enough to make huge impressions. The cast is fantastic, and they do a great job making this very familiar-feeling movie even better than it might have been otherwise.
The story involves the crew discovering a sunken Russian ship, The Leviathan, and bringing some of the ship’s items back into their own facility. Beck and Doc are only starting to learn about what happened to the ship’s crew and why The Leviathan was apparently intentionally sunk when one of Beck’s crew begins to feel ill. That crew member doesn’t last long, and that begins a snowball effect that leads to a fight for survival that feels like a mash-up of John Carpenter’s The Thing and Ridley Scott’s Alien, only it’s happening underwater as opposed to in space or in the snow. Those are two great movies to emulate, and the quality of Leviathan helps it transcend what might otherwise just feel like a blatant rip-off.
Leviathan is directed by George Cosmatos who also directed Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra in the years prior to Leviathan. Rambo: First Blood Part II is one of the greatest action movies of all time, so Leviathan definitely has some great action scenes. The writers of Leviathan are Jeb Stuart (who previously wrote Die Hard) and David Webb Peoples (who previously wrote Blade Runner), Stan Winston studios did the special effects, and Jerry Goldsmith did the music. So yeah, the crew is just as fantastic as the cast.
Leviathan is essentially a straightforward genre movie, and for what it is I think it’s great. I don’t think it broke as much new ground as The Abyss as far as its concept and filmmaking techniques go, but Leviathan is an incredibly fun and well made horror movie. The two films can’t really be compared directly anywaysince their purposes and tones are so different, so I won’t even try. I’ll just say that I love them both.
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) – A Movie A Day 2021 #23
Bill & Ted Face the Music poster
One of the movies released last year that I was very disappointed I didn’t get to see in the theater was Bill & Ted Face the Music. I love the original two movies, I watched the Bill & Ted cartoon when I was a kid, I bought the comic books, and I even really tried to love the NES game (which I still play every once in a while). But with the lack of open movie theaters last year, Face the Music is one of those movies I never got a chance to see on a big screen. But I’ve now seen it on a relatively small screen, and even though it’s not the same experience it would have been, I still thoroughly enjoyed the movie.
So here’s a quick recap of the series for those unaware. The first movie, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, came out in 1989 and stars Alex Winter as Bill and Keanu Reeves as Ted. Bill and Ted travel through time in a phone booth to collect historical figures so they can pass their history class in order to continue their band, Wyld Stallyns, so they can write a song that will usher in an age of peace and prosperity across the world. The second movie, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, has evil robot versions of Bill and Ted from the future travel back in time to kill the real Bill and Ted before they can win a battle of the bands. Bill and Ted have to find a way back from the afterlife and win the battle of the bands so they can continue improving as musicians and create the music that will create a utopian society.
In Bill & Ted Face the Music, we join the eponymous duo in 2020, and they are still struggling to create the music that will unite the world. Bill and Ted are both married to the medieval princesses that they fell for in the first movie, but Bill and Ted’s abnormally close friendship is putting a strain on their marriages. With their home life in jeopardy and with their musical career going nowhere, Ted is beginning to lose faith in their own abilities to create the music they’re expected to. When things seem like they can’t get any worse, a visit from the future warns Bill and Ted of the imminent collapse of all of space and time if they don’t play the song that unites the world in just over an hour’s time. That sends Bill and Ted on a trip into their own futures to try to take the reality-saving song from their future selves since they don’t think they can write it themselves. Meanwhile, Bill and Ted’s daughters, Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) respectively, travel backward in time to collect a group of iconic historical musicians to perform as their fathers’ backing band. Hijinks ensue, and danger lurks as a confidence-lacking robot from the future is sent through time to kill Bill and Ted before they can complete their mission.
It’s a goofy concept, and I think it’s great. The stakes in the movie are increased from the previous two films with the entirety of life, the universe, and everything on the line, and the traveling through space and time is increased with journeys to the future, past, and even the afterlife all taking place, sometimes simultaneously. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter seem like they’re having a blast revisiting these characters after nearly three decades, and everyone else in the cast looks like they’re having just as much fun. The cast, by the way, is great. I loved seeing Reeves and Winter reunited with William Sadler (and with Hal Landon Jr. as Ted’s father), and everyone new to the series plays their roles fantastically. I especially enjoyed Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine as Bill and Ted’s daughters, and I quite enjoyed Anthony Carrigan (who I know best as Zsasz from the TV show Gotham) as the killer robot. Carrigan’s robot character caught me off-guard with some of his funny bits, and I ended up thoroughly enjoying his performance. Really though, the movie is an ensemble with Reeves and Winter leading a large group of very funny people.
I very much enjoyed the story as well. It’s silly like it’s supposed to be, and there’s a heart to it that I didn’t quite expect. Maybe because the main goal of the movie is to unite the world through music and I’m a sucker for musical performances in movies, but I was more moved than I thought I would be by the time the credits started to roll. Bill & Ted Face the Music is just has a joy about it in every single scene, and I loved every minute of it. I don’t think it’s my favorite of the series, that honor is still with the Excellent Adventure, but Face the Music is a smart continuation of the series that hits all the right notes. Reviving a series after nearly three decades can be tricky, but I think Face the Music did it right. It brought out enough new characters and new ideas for it to feel fresh, but there were loads of references to the first two movies to satisfy huge nerds like me who adore Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey. It’s campy, silly, funny, and fun. I’ll definitely be watching it again and again.
The King of Fighters (2010) – A Movie A Day 2021 #18
KOF DVD cover/poster
I love video games, but I’ve never really gotten into fighting games. I understand the appeal, and I’ve tried to get into certain fighting game franchises over the years, but at a certain point I always get bored and put the game away forever. Even the initial Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat crazes that happened when I was young couldn’t instill a love of fighting games within me. So for me, a movie based on a not-as-popular-but-still-probably-good fighting game franchise such as The King of Fighters holds no nostalgia value nor any particular affection for the characters. To me, The King of Fighters might as well be any other low budget martial arts/action movie, and as such, I think it’s pretty okay.
The thing that really drew me to want to watch The King of Fighters is the cast. Specifically, seeing Ray Park and Maggie Q on the cast list made this an easy decision for my daily movie. I’ve been a fan of Ray Park since he first appeared as Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, and I’ve been watching more and more Maggie Q movies over the past year as I become a bigger fan of hers as well. The rest of the cast is good and fine, but I’m glad Maggie Q and/or Ray Park were in nearly every scene.
As I understand it, the The King of Fighters game series is based on a fighting tournament. I’m sure the various characters each have their own background stories that play out as you, the player, progress through more and more fights, but at its core the game is about a tournament. That sounds like an easy enough premise for an action movie, but it’s also a premise that has been done countless times. I suppose the makers of the The King of Fighters movie wanted to add more originality to their story, so what we get instead of a tournament is a sci-fi/fantasy adventure with a man named Rugal (Ray Park) trying to take over the world. At least, I think that’s what he’s trying to do. Regardless, Rugal is bad and must be stopped.
Let me back up a bit though. The main character of the movie is Mai Shiranui (Maggie Q). When we first see Mai, she uses a Bluetooth-style headset to transport herself to another dimension where she fights some guy in some friendly competition (judging by their banter). This is the King of Fighters tournament. Mai wins the fight, and she touches a glowing orb which transports her back to our dimension where almost no time has passed. We don’t learn about the alternate dimension stuff right away, and the rules regarding traveling back and forth remain unclear for a very long time, but that’s what’s happening in that opening scene.
Mai’s first fight is technically the only tournament match we see in the entire movie. After that, Rugal steals some ancient artifacts which are tied to the alternate dimension, and he attempts to use the artifacts to summon Orochi, an ancient being of unlimited power represented on-screen by a floating ball of snakes. Rugal’s plan is put on hold when he realizes he lacks an artifact needed to take Orochi’s power. Rugal’s backup plan is to lure other tournament fighters into the alternate dimension so he can take over their minds and use them to help him get the final artifact. Meanwhile, Mai is also on the trail of the artifact, and that leads her to Kyo Kusanagi, the last in line in the legendary Kusanagi clan and the key to defeating Orochi.
That’s just about enough plot setup. I think you get the idea of where this is headed. Mai ends up assembling a group of people to fight Rugal, then they all end up battling in a climactic, multi-layered fight sequence. The big final battle is very entertaining in a lot of ways, but the trek to get there isn’t nearly as fun. Everything I explained above is only part of the complicated story that unfolds in the first hour of the movie. There’s a lot more going on, mostly interpersonally between Mai and her group, and a lot of it feels unnecessary. That feeling was confirmed for me when I ended up enjoying the final thirty minutes of The King of Fighters. What that tells me is there should have been less mystical mumbo jumbo and more punching and kicking.
To be fair, there are fight scenes sprinkled throughout the first hour of the movie, and they’re mostly a good time. Ray Park is fun as an over-the-top villain, and he can absolutely fight. There’s a lot of goofiness in Rugal’s personality, but that’s fine. As long as he beats people up and it looks cool, I’m fine with it. All that said, the action doesn’t really kick off until just past the hour mark. By then you might have given up on The King of Fighters, but if you’ve stuck around, then you’re in for a treat. Well, maybe not a treat, but you are in for a neat series of fights.
One thing I thought was kind of funny is just how much this movie feels like it should have been made in the nineties. And I’m not even talking about the special effects which are just okay. A lot of what I’m referring to has to do with the way nearly every scene was shot. I don’t know if the film crew lost their tripods or what, but it felt like there are almost no level shots in the movie (except near the end when they decided to mimic to look of two fighters squaring off in one of the games). The King of Fighters has Dutch angles for days, and you might find yourself tilting your head in response to the near-constant angling of the camera. And yeah, I know Dutch angles aren’t exclusive to the nineties, but those combined with the cheap effects and fast-motion pans just gave me that feeling.
But now I’m just looking for stuff to pick apart. Overall, The King of Fighters isn’t a great movie, but the final fights were fun. I don’t know how closely the movie sticks to its video game source material, so fans of the games may have a much more extreme reaction than I had to it. I understand that Kyo is quite popular and is one of the main characters from the games, but the way the movie is structured really made me feel like Mai was the main character. I guess Kyo had to be the one to rise up in the final battle and become the focus, but for me, not being a fan of the games, I felt a little cheated that Mai took somewhat of supporting role in the end. But that’s another nitpick. Maggie Q and Ray Park were good, so I was happy enough to watch the movie.
Wow. I did not know what I was in store for when I picked Future Fear for my daily movie. I expected a good amount of low-budget cheese since it’s a movie produced by Roger Corman and starring B-movie queen Maria Ford, but yeah, I got way more than I expected. And that’s definitely not a bad thing.
Future Fear is a sci-fi action movie starring the aforementioned Maria Ford as Anna, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Jeff Wincott as John, a geneticist who has been drawn into a nefarious scheme, and the always entertaining Stacy Keach as General Wallace, the brains behind the nefarious scheme. The main plot of the movie focuses on a slightly futuristic game of cat and mouse as Anna chases John into and through some sort of secret military installation. John is carrying something Anna wants (or more precisely, something General Wallace wants Anna to get for him), and she seems like she might just kill John to take it.
As the chase continues through the entire course of the movie, the background of the story is told through numerous flashbacks. We learn about how John was dragged into the nefarious scheme that General Wallace talks about to himself from time to time, we learn about the romantic history between Anna and John, and we learn about how Anna and John got to the point to where they’re (maybe) trying to kill each other. The background is pretty wild and involves a global pandemic, the origins of life, religion versus science, and the rise of a Fourth Reich. Bear in mind though, the majority of the movie more or less only involves the three characters I’ve already mentioned while they’re living and working in an underground bunker. So all of that grandiose background information? We learn about it through conversations primarily between Anna and John. We are told, not shown, that the planet is dying and Anna and John are fighting to save or destroy it.
The way the story is told is what really hooked me. At first the constant cutting back and forth from action to the dialogue-heavy flashbacks was a bit off-putting. I didn’t know if I was going to get into the movie, but by the end of the opening scene I was all in. The movie opens with Anna chasing John, both of them in helicopters armed with machine guns. While they continue the chase for what feels like a really long time, the flashbacks start with “one year earlier” flashing across the screen. We see uptight and disciplined Lieutenant Anna meeting laid-back and free-spirited John as Anna informs John that he’s going to be working for the military. John resists the demand, but he can’t resist Anna. Meanwhile, in the future (or the present depending on your perspective) Anna and John continue their helicopter chase. Then, slightly less than a year back in the past, Anna and John are having an Alice in Wonderland themed dinner complete with Alice and Mad Hatter cosplay for Anna and John. They get intimate on the table, but back in the future/present, the helicopter chase is coming to a dangerous end. Then the chase moves into the underground bunker. At this point, about fifteen or so minutes into the movie, I was hooked.
The flashbacks are full of fabulous melodrama. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that Anna and John’s relationship goes to some spectacularly awful places, and it’s mostly a lot of fun seeing what tragic misstep they’ll take next. Some of the scenarios get pretty dark, but it all works to show why Anna is so angry but still seems to have such a hard time killing John as she chases him. Oh, and the Alice in Wonderland (i.e. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) stuff continues throughout the entire movie. Alice metaphors have been utilized in countless movies and are really overdone, but the devotion to numerous and obvious Alice references in Future Fear is kind of endearing. John has an Alice in Wonderland obsession of sorts (with a bit of Humpty Dumpty thrown in), so Alice is a near-constant motif throughout the movie. John even starts dreaming about Alice in his recurring nightmares about his father. Oh yeah, John’s father was in the military and died, so John is traumatized by that, and that is also tied into everything else that’s going on. There’s a lot of stuff going on in Future Fear.
One person who didn’t have much going on when filming Future Fear was Stacy Keach. As General Wallace, Stacy Keach gives about 90% of his performances alone in a dark room. Wallace is in the movie quite a lot, but he’s often either talking on an intercom or just talking to himself. This is one of those instances where it seems like the biggest star in the movie was able to shoot nearly all of their scenes in one day in one location and be done with it. I’m not saying Stacy Keach is bad though. Quite the contrary. Wallace demands attention with his soliloquys even though no one is around, and his words build him up as the worst of the worst. Wallace is a Nazi-inspired, white supremacist, religious zealot who wants to use an alien virus to cleanse the planet. Did I mention the alien virus yet? Yeah, there’s an alien virus, and that’s what’s causing the global pandemic. See? Lots of stuff going on.
I don’t know if anything I just wrote makes sense, but really, Future Fear does make sense in it’s own way. Whether or not you as the viewer buy into the sense it makes is going to be an individual experience though. I enjoyed the movie for the over-the-top, melodramatic performances and the campy action told through an almost dream-like structure of flashbacks and dream sequences. It’s some high-concept stuff jammed into a low-budget movie, and it’s great to watch late at night when you’re already kind of tired and heading towards sleep. Will it put you to sleep? Maybe, but you just might enjoy it more than you expect. I know I sure did.
Like many other people around the world, I’m a big fan of The Mandalorian. I’m a fan not only because it’s a fantastic series that makes exceptional use of the larger Star Wars universe, but it also introduced me to Pedro Pascal. I know now that I’d seen Pascal in some of his previous roles including parts in Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Equalizer 2, but The Mandalorian was the first time his name and face (what little we see of it) really stuck with me. I’m at the point now where I will watch pretty much anything he’s in. So when I was cruising through Netflix and saw Pedro Pascal in a sci-fi movie, it was an easy decision to stop searching and end my usually-too-long Netflix browsing session.
The movie I stopped down on was Prospect. It’s a sci-fi thriller/drama from 2018 starring Pedro Pascal and Sophie Thatcher. The story takes place sometime in the future where Cee (Thatcher) travels to an alien moon with her father (played by Jay Duplass). Cee’s father, Damon, is a prospector, and he and Cee are on the alien moon to dig up enough valuable gems to set them up for life. Naturally though, a score as big as the one Damon describes to his daughter comes with a lot of dangers and drawbacks. Not only are the gems volatile and dangerous to acquire, but Damon was given the information by a group of ruthless mercenaries who are currently guarding the site. On top of that, Damon and Cee’s landing pod goes off course and breaks on its way down to the surface of the moon, the air on the moon is toxic, and Damon and Cee have a strict time limit or they’ll be abandoned when the main ship in orbit departs on a set schedule with or without them. So yeah, lots of problems. Also, there are bandits/people trying to survive in the moon’s forest, and that’s where we meet Ezra (played by Pedro Pascal).
I don’t really want to go into any more detail about the plot beyond the setup, because the twists and turns that the story takes are really well done and deserve to be experienced rather than explained. All I’ll really is is that what follows after the setup is a tense and dramatic story of survival, trust, and humanity. There is some action here and there, but for the most part the movie focuses on the tense relationships between the characters as they try to move forward in what sometimes feels like a hopeless situation.
Prospect is a very pretty movie. The jungle of the alien moon feels familiar in many ways, but it also always feels slightly alien as well. At times the overgrown vegetation is pleasing to look at, but when you look closer and see the plants overtaking a rotting spacesuit or the remains of a previous dig gone wrong, you start to get a sense of the dangers the plants might be hiding. Also, the air feels thick with all sorts of things floating around, and if you have pollen allergies like me, you can really start to feel it in your head and chest just watching the movie.
The acting in Prospect is great as well, and that’s probably the biggest reason why I enjoyed the movie so much. Thatcher and Pascal have great chemistry in their antagonistic relationship, and their performances help enhance the tension of every scene. Pascal in particular is wonderful. Without spoiling anything, there is one scene rather late in the movie where something gross and potentially traumatic has to happen. Rather than focus of the spectacle of the gross actions taking place though, the camera focuses on Pascal’s face as everything is happening just off screen. Pascal’s reactions tell you everything you need to know, and the range of emotions he conveys in that single shot are pretty amazing.
I would recommend Prospect to pretty much anyone who enjoys a good, tense thriller/drama. If you enjoy science fiction as well, then that’s a great bonus. There’s enough sci-fi jargon to scratch that sci-fi itch, but there’s not so much that it’s going to block people out who don’t care about spaceships and alien worlds. The focus of the movie is largely on building characters with a bit of action, so if that’s your thing, definitely check out Prospect.
Decoys 2: Alien Seduction (2007) – A Movie A Day 2021 #2
Decoys 2: The Second Seduction DVD case
Even in the world of online streaming everything, I’m still hooked on physical media. As part of my unfortunate addiction to outdated formats, I make regular trips to used movie stores like Movie Trading Company. On every visit I’ll be sure to check out the $0.99 DVD table, and almost every time I’m done pawing through the rows of forgotten and unwanted dics I’ll come away with a stack of cheap entertainment. It’s like a treasure hunt, though I admit I do have to be very generous with my definition of “treasure” in most cases. Still, over my years of bargain-bin shopping I’ve found some movies I love that I would probably have never given a chance otherwise.
For example, if I had seen Decoys 2: Alien Seduction on any of the streaming services I frequent, chances are I wouldn’t have clicked on it. It might have been added to one of my endless queues where it would have existed until it either got dropped from the service or I cancelled my account, but with so many choices available online there’s not a great chance that it would have piqued my interest enough to devote an evening to it. But, on a shopping trip yesterday, Decoys 2: Alien Seduction did pique my interest enough to pay ninety-nine cents plus tax for it, and it even topped the short stack of DVDs I arrived home with. There’s just something about having a physical disc in my hands that makes me feel almost obligated to watch it with undivided attention. So, long story long, last night I watched Decoys 2: Alien Seduction. So was it a successful treasure hunt? Do I love the movie? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Decoys 2: Alien Seduction (also known as Decoys 2: The Second Seduction according to the DVD I now proudly own) is a Canadian sci-fi monster comedy about a group of horny college guys who create a contest to sleep with the most women over a certain amount of time. I seem to remember the contest’s time frame being like two or three days, but I could be misremembering that, and it’s not important anyway. While the guys are preparing to prey on the hapless females of their university, there is a group of female aliens on campus who need to find virile men to seduce so they can impregnate the men with their alien spawn. Unfortunately for the guys, the process of impregnation involves a rapid bodily temperature drop that tends to kill the victim (hence the need for virility so they can survive the process). Why is there a temperature drop? It has something to do with the aliens being from a very cold planet. The aliens’ frigid planetary origins also explain their one major weakness: they’re allergic to heat. Oh yeah, and the aliens are all disguising themselves as beautiful women, and they can read minds and change their clothes to mimic any man’s fantasy. So with all of that in place, hilarity ensues. Well, something like hilarity ensues.
If I had to describe Decoys 2: Alien Seduction somewhat succinctly, the movie is an attempt at making an eighties sex comedy crossed with a late nineties sci-fi movie in the vein of Species, but filtered through the budget-conscious lens of an early Syfy Channel original movie (it’s not a Syfy movie, but it sure does feel a lot like one). Everything is done in an intentionally campy way, which, given the budget and the premise, was a wise decision. It’s a silly movie designed to get a few laughs, show a few breasts, and then roll the closing credits before it overstays its welcome. For what it set out to accomplish, I think Decoys 2: Alien Seduction did a fine job.
Though most of the comedy was just okay, I did smile a few times, and though they teased more nudity than they actually showed, I still found myself not regretting my decision to watch the movie. And I’m glad I stuck around until the end, because you do get to see the aliens in their true forms a lot more as the main group of guys (and one female friend who has of course been pining over the not-quite-so-scummy member of the group) hunts down the beings that have been killing their friends. I really enjoyed the designs of the monsters (again, think Species), and even though they didn’t have the budget to make the aliens very mobile in wider shots, the action was goofy and fun in a cheap sci-fi way. There were also some digital effects that looked okay for the era and budget, and overall the action/sci-fi portion of the movie was entertaining.
There is also a bit of star power in Decoys 2: Alien Seduction. Tobin Bell and Dina Meyer, both involved in the ongoing Saw series at the time this movie was released, make appearances as a professor and a doctor respectively. Tobin Bell looked like he might have been able to show up for one or two days to shoot out all of his scenes, but Dine Meyer played a fairly important role throughout the whole movie. She was even included in the climactic battle at the very end of everything.
And I suppose the only other thing that bears mentioning is the plot itself. I enjoyed the obvious role reversal of the predatory males being preyed upon by females who shove phallic alien tentacles into the guys’ bodies. It’s not super clever, but it doesn’t need to be. It works, and, as ridiculous as it is, it drives the plot forward. So yeah, I enjoyed Decoys 2: Alien Seduction enough to pay ninety-nine cents for it. Someday I might even watch the first Decoys… but only if I find it in a bargain bin somewhere.
