Ice Spiders

Vanessa Williams is in this movie.  But it's not the Vanessa Williams that I recognized.  Could there be two actresses named Vanessa Williams?  I guess anything is possible.  Just like splicing the DNA of a prehistoric spider with some modern day spiders to grow into several large super spiders.

A remote lab in the mountains of Utah, is experimenting with spiders.  But not just any old spiders that you find in the corners of where you live.  These are giants.  Probably six foot across.  At one point in the movie, a skier gets taken out when one of the large spiders grabs them in mid flight after a small jump.  It's about the best thing in this movie.  It's either that or when the ski coach jumps off the ski lift to shatter his leg.

The plan was to harvest a large amount of spider silk.  The silk could be fashioned into armor for military forces.  The properties of the silk make it stronger than steel and lighter then most composite materials.  Not a bad plan.  But to grow the spiders, steroids and other growth hormones were introduced into the spider food.  Those extra chemicals made the spiders aggressive and they began attacking the lab technicians and anybody in their path.

I was waiting for the solution of taking out the spiders to be some huge production.  But the producers must have spent a hunk of change on the digital spiders, which made the ending weak.  As with most other B movies, there are certain lines throughout the movie that are forgettable, but funny.  The hero of the day kills a spider with a mounted stag head and proclaims, "Hey, doc!  Nice rack."

Gore is at a minimum and zero over-the-top violence.  The "evil" professor who is heading up the spider research is not all that evil.  In fact, the one kid on the ski team who is supposed to be America's next great hope for an Olympic gold is probably more of a jerk than the professor.

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 school buses.

The Shaft or Down

Yet again on Medusa's Face, we have a movie with two titles.  The Shaft and Down.  I don't really care.  It's got some alumni from 5ive Girls, Mutant Chronicles, Reeker, and Maximum Velocity too.  But what does that mean?  All it means is that this movie is no double rainbow.

 

Lightning strikes the Millennium Building in New York and the elevator has come to life.  I'm laughing already.  Apparently, the electronics that control the elevators in the building have a bonus feature.  Bio-tissue microchips are helping the process.  The inventor of these chips used dolphin brains in the past, but I don't know what he is using now.

 

For most of the movie, people walk around and use the elevator.  Big deal, right.  Right.  It's an elevator people!  I guess for those people who have elevatorphobia, it's a big deal, but for the most part, it's just an elevator.  This elevator happens to decapitate someone and guide a blind man (and his dog) to their deaths, but other than that ....

 

I really can't say how hard it was to have en elevator as the villain for a premise.  It was too left field for me.  I try to give the writer the benefit of being able to come up with the concept, but it was just a little too far fetched for my tastes.  I much rather prefer a villain that is not stationary.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 broken flashlights.

Aaah! Zombies!! or Wasting Away

Yet again I have some across a movie that is known under two different titles.  You might find it listed as Aaah! Zombies!! or Wasting Away.  No matter which title you happen to see this movie listed under, it takes zombie movies and turns them on their collective ears.  This movie tells the story from the zombie point of view.  Rather clever.

 

A military experiment has gone wrong.  The subject is given a substance that kills him rather quickly and then transforms him into a zombie.  In an effort to cover up the mishap, all of the containers of the toxic liquid is being transported to a pristine lake for dumping.  But before the payload can be delivered, there is an accident and one of the barrels rolls all the way to a bowling alley.  There, the bio-hazard goo gets absorbed by the dairy containers and is made into ice cream, which four friends eat.  One of the friends is an alumni of Medusa's Face, previously seen in Bottom's Up.

 

They turn into zombies and are joined by another zombie that was a PFC at the military installation that was doing the testing.  While they think that everyone else is infected, it is this group of five that are the infected ones.  These five think that they are somehow "super soldiers" and can help change the world.  They don't seem to die and they have incredible strength.

 

It's a pretty good movie and I like the change of pace from some of the other zombie movies that I have seen.  I wanted a little more over the top senseless violence.  There was some, but I felt that this movie needed more of that.  Nothing too memorable, other than in order to translate zombie to human, either the zombie's brain waves need to be stimulated or the human needs to be drunk.  I thought that was a nice touch.

 

So remember kids, when drunk .. you might be able to understand zombies.

 

I give this movie 3 out of 5 bowling ball bags.

The Cave

The title on this movie is a little misleading.  Sure there is a cave involved, but there are also a lot of underwater scenes.  And don't forget about the host changing parasites that are in the cave.  I mean, those are important to the plot too.  So the title of this movie could have been something else.  Something like, "The Parasite That Lives in the Cave" or "Cave Dwelling Parasites".  What?  Too wordy?

 

Thirty years ago, a few men break into an old church to either rob it of artifacts or treasure.  They know about the lower belly of the church and proceed to blow a hole into the floor so that they can get into the cave.  But they used too much explosives, because not only do they blow too large of a whole, they also start an avalanche that destroys the church and covers the opening with rocks.

 

Fast forward to present day.  A group of scientists have made their way to the site of the church to do a little research of their own.  After noticing that parts of the cave are now underwater, a dive team is called in to help with mapping out the cave and provide additional information.  Everything seems to be going as planned, until the dive team members start becoming victims of these creatures that live in the cave.  The creatures have adapted to live without light and use sonar to locate their prey.

 

The leader of the dive team rallies the team to begin searching for a way out of the cave system.  They go under water, down waterfalls, up rock faces, and just about everywhere that you can go without double tracking on themselves when one person realizes that the leader is infected with a parasite.  He is changing.  Not rapidly, as some movies change their characters, but he is definitely changing.

 

Long story short, three people escape and one of the people that survived also has the parasite.  Like most of the other B movies reviewed on Medusa's Face, the ending is open ended in case they make enough money to make a sequel.  This one, I doubt.  A lot of recognizable and quality actors in this movie.  The creatures are added in rather well too.  Not too much to pan on the movie.  If I were to add anything different, I might add a little more gore in the fight scenes with the creatures.

 

And maybe the title, too.  How about, "Cave Creatures That Live in Caves!"  Okay.  Maybe not.

 

I give this movie 3 out of 5 re-breathers.

The Hive

What is worse than millions of ants that swarm together and are able to communicate and make their own little computer?  I'll tell you what's worse.  One that gets in the ear of Tom Wopat and drives him crazy.  That's what.

If you want a far fetched movie with wretched acting and a horrible ending, have I got a movie for you.

The ants on this island have begun terrorising the people.  Attacking their victims and reducing them to skeletons, in an effort to take over the island.  Due to the size of the swarms, a gallon on gasoline and a couple of matches is not going to be enough to take these ants out.  There are hundreds of millions of them.

Call in Team Thorax.  They are like the industrial insect killers of the world.  They have these real cool laser guns that destroy thousands of ants with each blast.  But the ants are clever and lay traps for the people with the guns.

The best part is when the Minister of the Island tells the people in the situation room, "We will not negotiate with ants."  I loved that line.  So profound.

Bottom line is this, the ants have become intelligent due to some alien ant.  They want the island as their own and even though Tom Wopat has an ant in his ear that is partially controlling his judgement, Tom Wopat uses some sort of bomb to kill the ants and send that alien ant packing.

This movie is so awful.  A great B movie by B movie standards, but just so hard to watch.  I know that you have to accept a lot of things when watching these types of movies, but to consider ants making a bio-network computer was one of the hardest to swallow.  Give me a break.

I give this movie 0 out of 5 plantations.

Fingerprints

Lou.  Diamond.  Phillips.  The three greatest words to return to Medusa's Face.  Again, ... still not entirely accurate.

Little Miss Rehab has returned to her family after getting off of the heroin.  While her dad and sister welcome her back with open arms, her over-the-top mother still thinks that she is on the smack.  Which could explain some of the visions that LMR is having.  But, she's not on the black tar.  She just is able to see the ghosts of the children who supposedly died in a bus crash with a train.  Sounds like she is still floating to me.

Things get wild and weird during the film and we have to wait a long time before the first COOL DEATH SCENE ALERT, but it finally comes.  First a boy gets a rail spike through his chest, then his girlfriend gets it through her neck.  Pretty awesome stuff.  But that is about the best kill scene in the whole movie.

The acting in this movie is bottom of the barrel.  I mean, really low.  I loved it.  And if you had a heart, you would love it too.  The story is okay.  Gore is at a minimum.  Acting is horrific.  If there would have been a little more unnecessary violence, I would have liked this movie more.

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 busted cell phones.

Maximum Velocity

You know that big red dot on Jupiter.  It is a hurricane.  A massive hurricane that has been roaming around for a long time.  And when a meteor comes too close to the Earth, it helps stir up a super storm that could possibly roam the waters of the Earth just like that storm.  Good thing we have this four billion dollar plane to help stop it.

Yet another weather changer movie.  This one is one of the worst yet.  Dr. Timothy Briggs was on a top secret weather project that claimed the life of his wife four years ago.  Since then, he has laid low at begun teaching at a community college.  But with the meteor skirting the atmosphere, it has drummed up a super storm that could annihilate the east coast of the United States.  The general who removed him from the project four years ago needs him again.

I will be brief, ... the new plane goes in the air and a lot of far fetched things happen and the crisis is averted.  This movie takes unbelievable and takes it to another level.  From refueling in the eyewall of the strongest storm in recorded history to dragging the hurricane towards cooler waters to help weaken it.

The villian here is a hurricane.  There are a few scenes with people evacuating, most of them running.  It's rather funny.  But no real gore or anything to get excited about.  One man gets lit on fire.  That's about it.  Most of the movie is either seizure cam from the bouncing around in the digital airplane or the digital airplane.

Not worth the effort to see this one.  Even with a Medusa's Face alumni from Copperhead.

I give this movie 0 out of 5 motorcycle wind suits.

Attack of the Sabretooth

When the first confirmed kill happens in this movie, I was thrilled.  Not because of the kill, but because it looked like this movie was going to go old school with the special effects.  Arms ripped off, blood spitting out like a bad fuel pump.  You know, the classics.  Too bad they didn't stick with it.

The owner of the Primal Park on this remote Fiji island has lured investors to view the beginnings of his dream.  a hotel, amusement park, and the main attraction - a zoo.  The zoo will house these sabretooth cats that man has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years.  He has brought two, ... no, three, to life via DNA research.  All of this sounds like a very familiar plot line, except on this island, we have five college kids who are on a scavenger hunt.  I am still trying to figure out how they got invited to the island.

One of the college guys, disables the security system so that they all can get into the restricted areas and hunt for their objects.  And while disabling the system, the idiot releases a virus.  Good job.  It's not enough that you are hacking into the security for your own little game, but now you have made it so the cats can roam around the island.

These are no ordinary sabretooth cats.  They are bulimic too.  So they kill to eat, but can't keep the food down and have to kill some more.  And one of the cats has trouble with its hind legs.

There are some COOL DEATH SCENE ALERTS with people being decapitated and guts being pulled out of people.  Pools of blood, and I mean pools of blood, pour out of several victims.  All of the things that work well in these types of B movies.  Gratuitous TV sex (lacks nudity) in the beginning as well.

The story could use a lot of work.  The characters are not memorable.  And they probably could have a little more over the top gore in the kill scenes.  But overall, ... not that bad of a bad movie.

I give this movie 2 out of 5 conch shells.

Open Graves

The beginning of this movie is rather bazaar.  It begins with a scene out of the Spanish Inquisition and someone is being tortured.  Fingernails are being ripped out.  Bodies are being stabbed.  A real gore fest, ... then ... surfing.  Don't ask me, I just watch them.

 

Present day Spain, a group of twenty somethings are surfing and partying.  One guy is a photographer, who shoots bikini models for calendars.  He has a friend that works with him on the shoots.  He is also dating one model as he bangs another.  Another buddy of his is in graduate school and all of them meet up with another girl who fits in somehow.

 

The blond guy is given this board game by a legless man.  The game has a legend behind it.  It was fashioned from the skin of a witch and inked with her blood and tears.  The rules of the game are simple.  You are not playing against one another, but rather against the game.  If you die in the game, you die in real life.  If you win the game, you get one wish granted to you.  SPOILER ALERT: The blond guy wins the game, but he doesn't word his wish well and everyone repeats their actions.

 

The players die in order of how early they left the game.  The first guy out, falls off of a cliff and then gets partially eaten by crabs.  The second guy gets bitten by snakes.  The third is a girl, who dies of rapid old age.  And so on.

 

Along the way, the survivors find the legless man now has legs, courtesy of the game.  It came at the cost of his brother's life, but he now has legs.  The cop who is assigned to the case is also interested in the game.  He wants to try and win back the lives of his wife and child.

 

The story is fair.  I thought that there could have been a little more back story to the game, but it is not totally necessary to the plot.  The gore was at a minimum and the digital effects were fine.  It was just hard to care for the characters.  The blond guy and the newly met surfer girl are the ones that are able to solve the game.  That's fine, ... but they have known each other less than a week and seem to be together a lot more than most new acquaintances.

 

It this movie worth a one-time viewing?  Sure.  Will it be enjoyable?  I can't really say.  About the only cool scene that I liked, was when the legless guy grew his legs back.  That is about the only scene that I would watch again.  That and the opening.  Everything else was a time filler to me.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 lumber yards.

Reeker

When I first read the title of this movie, I thought it was going to be about a bunch of college kids who locked themselves in a hotel room, drank a lot of beer, and farted all night.  Not really.  But I would bet that room would stink just as bad as this movie.

Trip scores some killer drugs that have serious hallucinogenic side effects.  He and a group pile into a car to go to Area 52, which is supposed to be the biggest rave on the West Coast.  People in the car on the trip: Trip the drug user, Gretchen the driver, Cookie the eye candy, Jack the blind guy, and Nelson.  I don't know how to describe Nelson.  He's just there.

They roll along and once Trip announces to the car that he has the pills, Gretchen wigs out and wants to drop him off right where she stopped the car.  Nelson talks her out of it and they proceed back to the diner that they just left to leave Trip there.  But once they get to the diner, Gretchen's car stalls and the strangely enough, there is nobody at the diner.  Nobody.  Nobody working.  Nobody eating.  Nobody.

It's getting late and next to the diner is a hotel.  Nobody at the hotel either.  Things start happening to them one by one and eventually people start dying.  But not too gruesome.  They have to fend off the grim reaper himself to survive.  Give me a break.  Shooting at Death, stabbing Death with a shovel, ... what is going on here?

I get how the movie ends, but for all of the set up that took place in the beginning of this movie, it sure fell apart at the end.  I guess the writer either didn't know how to end the movie or had this bazaar twist ready and didn't know how to tie it all together.  Either way, it was a bomb for me.

Suspense?  Maybe.  Horror?  No.  Worst acting for someone who is supposed to be blind?  Definitely.  For most of the film, Jack walks/stumbles around with his arms outstretched trying to feel his way about.  Only towards the end does he accept assistance from others by using their arm to follow behind them.  It just doesn't seem likely is all I am saying.

I give this movie 0 out of 5 outhouses.

Carny (2009)

Carnival people have to make a living too.  From the freaks who have tattoos everywhere to the people that pierce anything, these human oddities are paid to be different.  Unlike the people that work the late shift at Tower Records.  I know I am dating myself with that reference, but so be it.

 

I want to begin with the three best words in acting, "Lou", ... "Diamond", ... "Phillips."  Okay, probably not an accurate statement, but Lou Diamond Phillips is the sheriff of Reliance.  The carnival has come to town with all of their side show oddities, like the man with two heads (who later proclaims, "Ow, my two heads"), and in protest is the local preacher.  Pastor Owen believes that the carnival is evil and he is right.

 

Well, ... certain people of the carnival are evil.  Cap runs the show and he is just as sinister as they come.  He killed the man who delivered the newest addition to the carnival, the Jersey Devil.  The Jersey Devil is not a professional hockey player or someone who is a regular at tanning salons.  This creature is a four legged winged beast that has a taste for blood.  And the more blood it tastes, the more blood it wants.

 

Everyone in town goes to see the carnival and, guess what, ... the creature escapes.  The first victim is the pastor's son.  We needed a first victim and he was a bad apple anyway, so why not him.  The real fun comes when his friend gets it.  He is forcibly removed from his mom's car and then dropped onto the very same car.  His mom gets it too, but she doesn't die as cool as her son.  Other than this scene, the only other scene that has anything worth watching is when the pastor cuts out the tongue of the carnival owner.  "The devil speaks with a forked tongue!"  Well, not any more he doesn't.

 

Several times the creature could have been killed, but it takes LDP to take it our in the end, killing him along with it.  One thing that I could not figure out was why LDP was so concerned about the palm reader in the movie.  He met her for less than 5 minutes, but at the end of the movie, he is running around looking for her as if he had known her all his life.  Seemed rather dumb to me.

 

The digital creature wasn't totally wretched, but the acting trying to wave at it was.  There are no redeeming qualities to this movie and if you are up late enough, make sure you miss this one.  It's not worth the time.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 tranquilizer darts.

Roadkill (2011)

This group of friends are getting together in Ireland as a sort of reunion.  Touring the countryside, meeting some locals, and getting cursed by a gypsy.  All on the itinerary.

After the group of four guys and three girls get to Ireland, they board their rented RV and drive towards a campground outside of Dublin.  Along their journey, they stop for a bathroom break and one of the girls wants to purchase a trinket from a brick-a-brack shop.  The trinket is not for sale, but one of the guys steals it from the shop owner.  Making their get away, they smash into a woman and she puts a curse on them that a large bird would take them out one by one.

The first girl gets clawed at and then taken away by this enormous buzzard.  Then a guy gets the same treatment after he changes a flat on the RV.  As the group tries to protect themselves from the flying menace, they also have to dodge the shop owner and his band of gypsies who are trying to get the trinket back.  Somehow, this medallion protects you from the large bird that is attacking everyone.

But again, ... seizure cam is the main effect in all of the action.  The digital buzzard is pretty good and there is also a good use of latex gore on the actors.  With all of the digital effects out there, it's nice to see some old school special effects.

The story is solid, the acting par, and the digital bird is done well too.  The one person who I thought would be one of the "also appearing" was the one that makes it to the end.  And even the ending of this was questionable.  Bottom line, for a movie that did nearly everything right, they blew it at the end.

In summary, ... deaths throughout the movie by a large digital buzzard, dumb ending.

I give this movie 2 out of 5 Zippo lighters.

Ice Twisters

Much like The Storm, people are trying to control the weather.  We've seen it before, people.  To borrow a phrase from a commercial out of the '70s, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."  But hey, we have Medusa's Face alumni from The Sea Beast and Tucker & Dale vs. Evil in this movie, so it can't be all bad.

Sure it would be great to bring rain to areas that need it, but at what cost.  Apparently, the researchers and scientists in this movie didn't explore the side effects of their experiment.  A digital plane releases several digital drones that begin flying in a circle.  As they fly, they also release an agent to help create a cloud so it can be seeded to make rain.  That's all great, but after they get a successful test under their belt, they also happen to produce tornadoes that freeze everything in their path.  Spewing out deadly hail that can punch right through human torsos.

Luckily for the team creating the rain, there is a scientist turned science fiction author nearby who is asked to offer assistance.  He has plenty of suggestions, but since the team thinks that he is just an author spreading conspiracy theories, they don't give him much credit.  Don't worry.  They later take his advice to blow a hole in the ozone layer to help save Portland, OR.  Take THAT, environmentalists.

As far as the story goes, this is not that wretched of a plot.  What made it suffer for me was the addition of the author.  He just happens to know just as much about the situation as the people who have been working on this particular project for three years.  It's nonsense.  Not to say that he wasn't vital to the story, I just thought that he was added in rather oddly.  The wicked official from Washington D.C. wasn't totally necessary either.

I give this movie 1 out of 5 tornado thrown locomotives.

The Cursed

How did this movie get made?  Seriously.  You can't tell me that the producers were sober when this movie received the green light.

Way back during the Reconstruction Era of the South after this particular plantation owner freed his slaves, he decided to work his land by himself.  Of course he couldn't, so he bought some cattle to raise.  But the cattle died.  And like any sensible person, after cursing God, he turned to the devil to sell his soul and become a demon to roam the Earth for generations to kill people and livestock whenever he wanted.

Present day.

Enter in the great, great grandson of the plantation owner, Denny White.  He has come back to this small town in Tennessee to do some research in a book that he is writing and to meet up with an old friend.  But once he gets into town, people and livestock start dying and disappearing.

With the help of the town librarian, Denny is able to get some information about his family history and also speak to another person who had seen the demon and lived to tell about it.  Things go from bad to worse when the townspeople decide to go hunting for the demon and end up as victims themselves.

Denny and the sheriff figure out that they need to go to the old plantation to put this demon to rest.  Shots are fired, Molotov cocktails are thrown, and the demon burns to death.  But the catch is, whoever destroys the demon .. becomes the demon.  Ooohh!

The acting is weak, but it includes a couple of Medusa's Face alumni from Dinocroc and Sea Snakes (or Silent Venom).  The demon is part ghost, part solid.  So when they shoot at the demon, the only bullets that can kill it have to have a velocity of mach 20.  But after the demon has been shot, you can hit it with a board and set it on fire.  Really?  I mean, ... c'mon, ... really?

I found nothing redeeming about this movie.  Even the gratuitous sex scene was a time waster.  The story line was anemic.  And that is being kind.  The movie ended abruptly too.  For a demon that could change states from gas to solid, he was defeated rather easily and quickly.

I give this movie 0 out of 5 cow heads.

Copperhead

When I saw the premise behind this movie, I was thankful to see that instead of having one large digital snake eating up the population, there were several thousand digital snakes taking over the town.  SPOILER ALERT, there is a large digital snake that also makes a guest appearance.  Medusa's Face is no stranger to large digital snakes.  It also is no stranger to several other actors who have been reviewed in these other B epics: Alien Siege, Bats: Human Harvest, Star Runners, MegaSnake, S.S. Doomtrooper and something tells me many more that I have not watched yet.  It's nice to see so many familiar faces.

 

In the years of the wild west, "Wild" Bill Longley is passing through a town in New Mexico on his way to California and wanted to see a friend of his.  But the friend has been killed by the Jesse Evans Gang.  People in this town are fearful of Jesse, even the sheriff.  Heck, the sheriff is fearful of his own britches.  What Wild Bill knows that nobody else knows is that there is a heap of snakes coming for the town.  If he doesn't get revenge for his friend, Murphy, then the snakes will.

 

After a standoff with Jesse, Wild Bill rallies the town to a) get rid of Jesse's gang and b) put up a fight against the snakes.  Cue the western montage.  Ditches are dug, guns are loaded, a gatling gun, and for good measure - a flame thrower.  The first few hundred snakes do like they are supposed to and go down the center of the town and basically wait to be killed.  It's the other several thousand that come over buildings and begin taking on the town folk.

 

Solution: blow up the saloon where nearly all of the snakes have congregated.  Simple enough, right.  Wrong.  The dynamite is down the street and most of the people are in the saloon.  They figure out a way to blow up the snakes, but one person makes a keen observation.  These snakes are babies.  The momma shows up soon enough.  She is probably about 20 feet long.  Similar to the size of snake in MegaSnake.  Now they have to kill the largest copperhead in the history of copperheads.  Killing one massive snake proves a lot easier than killing several thousand of normal sized snakes, because they take out that large snake rather quickly.

 

The story is alright.  They don't really explain why several thousand snakes gathered together to begin roaming across the countryside.  No real good quality death scenes either.  The digital snakes look like digital snakes.  Not much to look forward to there.  One of the best exchanges in the movie, " Where is everybody?"  "Dead, remember."  Classic.

 

If you have the time and this movie happens to be showing, you might be able to sit through it.  I wouldn't make an effort to see it though.

 

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 fireplace pokers.

Kill Theory

Seven college aged kids just graduated and want to celebrate.  They go to a parents' lake house and unknowingly become part of a sadistic game of survival.  And it is not from all of the alcohol that they are drinking.

A climber killed his friends when the rope holding them was about to fray from the weight.  He decided to cut the trailing rope to kill his friends rather than have all of them perish together.  The psychiatrist that is evaluating him, wants to study him for another year before he is released back into society.  The events that take place next might be a year later or they might be the next day.  All I know is that this killer is not yet ready to be released.

The killer manages to follow these kids to the lake house and he performs his own experiment of survival on them.  After the first girl is killed, a video is played to explain the rules of the experiment.  If they all leave right then, they all will be killed.  If more than one person is alive at 6am, they all will be killed.  The object is to be the last one, and only one, alive at 6am.  He wants to see if their survival instincts surface.

One of the guys lets his emotions take over rather quickly after his best friend gets clamped by severe tire damage spikes.  He also kills his step sister after he determines that he wants to be the last one standing.  He dies along with the "fat" guy.  The remaining girls are pitted against one another because they both love the same boy, who also now happens to be the last boy standing.  Shots are fired, throats are strangled, abdomens are stabbed, and you have one survivor left at 6am.

It's a pretty good plot and I did like how there was not too much set up to the story.  I don't know what the story was lacking, but I felt that it lacked something.  Maybe more interaction with the killer, I don't know.  Just something.

Overall, this is not that bad of a movie.  And we also have a Medusa's Face alumni, from Weirdsville, Taryn Manning.  This movie still needed more gore or some gratuitous nudity.  Something.  This is going to kill me to try and figure out what this movie lacked.

I give this movie 1 out of 5 sunken boats.

The Bone Snatcher

Eland Mining Enterprises has a location in the Namib Desert in Africa and they are searching for diamonds.  In the desert.  I can't stress that enough.  And along with the compound in the desert, they also have a nest of ants.  Buy not just any ants.  These ants ... well, ... you have to see it to believe it.

 

Dr. Zack Straker (Scott Bairstow - also in Alien Apocolypse) is sent to the desert to help the mining company.  I forget why he is sent there.  First he is in Vancouver keeping a research facility from exploding and then in Africa.  I'll bet he racked up some serious frequent flyer miles though.  Anyway, .. he gets to the facility in Africa and becomes part of a rescue mission to find three prospectors who have not called in for a while.  The reason that they have not called in is because they are dead.  One of the guys opened up this ant nest and SPOILER ALERT all three were consumed by the ants.

 

But this is the kicker.  The ants don't just immediately rip the flesh from your bones.  They use your bones to make a large walking creature to move about the desert.  I am not sure how this behavior came into play, but then again, I am not an ant.  So the rescue team go out to look for the prospectors and while they are out, they need to be rescued when their truck has an electrical problem.  Sitting around their dead vehicle, they send out a distress call that gets an airplane fly over.  It will take at least two days for the next rescue mission to reach the first rescue mission.  "We have supplies.  They'll send a truck.  We'll get a tan.  Better than working."  Really?  Something tells me that they will get more than a tan.  And I am right.

 

They get attacked by the ant creature and foolishly go following it to try and kill it.  Shooting the ants has not proved a good solution and they can't really round them up in the open desert.  Conveniently, they come across an abandoned mine shaft where they use some nitro-glycerin to blow up the mine.  And even more conveniently, the queen is sitting in the open for them to stab.  Bravo.

 

I had a hard time wanting to finish this movie.  The story takes a long time to set up, but as soon as the story started to pick up, the movie ended.  I have no idea why they had to show the scene in Canada.  It had no relevance to the story whatsoever.  I might not ever say this again, but I was hoping to see more of the large ant creature in the movie.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 subterranean analyzers

Croc

A very large crocodile is taking out locals and tourists in a small town in Thailand.  And when I say large, I am talking twenty feet worth of large.  Michael Madsen (a.k.a. Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs) has come to help capture and kill the crocodile.  In this movie, Michael Madsen is Croc Hawkins, the croc hunter.

 

Jack McQuade runs an amusement park that showcases crocodiles and elephant soccer.  A contractor wants Jack's property and is trying everything to take the land from him.  He has tried all sorts of tactics to get the land, even buying a seat on the city council.  When reports start coming in about the crocodile murders, he frames Jack to try and get the land.

 

But the crocodile that is is eating the people is not from Jack's park.  It is a much larger one that Croc Hawkins has been tracking for some time.  It takes a long time to set up and lots of terrible shots of a normal sized crocodile before the crocodile is finally dealt with.

 

There are several silly moments in the movie worth mentioning.  A chase scene in the movie where a guy is trying to kill Jack's sister by running her down.  To prevent from being killed, Jack's sister and her companion fall to the ground and the SUV drives right over them.  Not to say that being hit by this SUV could not have accomplished the intended mission, but being able to clear the bodies would probably not be that effective.  Another silly moment involves the scene after the contractor is killed by the large croc in his own swimming pool.  It is not the scene of the body parts floating in the pool, but rather the scene with the contractors' wife.  Who not only doesn't seem to care that her husband has been killed, but almost smirks that he was killed.

 

Gore at a minimum, horrible acting, and some of the worst overlay video with a crocodile paired with some scuba divers.  This movie is not even good for a laugh.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 scooters.

Solar Attack

REPENT!!!

The sun is one fiery ball of anger and it is taking it out on Earth.  You can have all the digital sharks and digital demons you want.  Somehow, there is a way to defeat them.  Try taking on the sun.  Game over, man.  Game over.

Not really.

Looks like our friend Mark Dacascos is back on Medusa's Face again.  You may remember him from I Am Omega or Alien Agent.  This time, he is billionaire Dr. Lucas Foster, who has left the Solar and Near Earth Laboratory to begin Foster Industries.  Foster Industries is sending a man into the out limits of the atmosphere to study ozone depletion and collect data on harmful gases.  But because of a large amount of CME (Corona Mass Ejection) occurrences from the sun, his new $100 million dollar space plane is destroyed.

There are other CME activity that have taken out probes and satellites, along with several direct hits on the Earth.  Even scrambling fighter jets to shoot down the death projectiles is only a temporary solution.  New Zealand gets removed from the planet after getting hit with debris that engulfs the entire country in flames.  Pretty scary stuff, if you ask me.  But there is a solution.  Blow up the polar ice caps to push as much water vapor into the air as possible to keep the atmosphere from burning up.

This is comical to me.  It seems that the writers wanted to make a statement about how pollution is destroying the ozone layer and to combat this anomaly, the ice caps must be destroyed.  I love it.

No gore at all to speak of, and no real violence to speak of either.  The main villain is either the sun or every person who has ever contributed to the ozone depletion.  I don't know.  But I do know that this far fetched B movie plot is very silly.  There is not enough content to keep you watching and it ends with the three people that helped save the day wasting tax payer money to have lunch with the president.  At least the president is Louis Gossett Jr., so that is pretty cool.

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 Galileo space vehicles.

Cabin Fever

There is not too much normal on this vacation for these five college kids.  Sure they drink and have sex, that much is expected.  But I doubt that they expected to be consumed by a flesh eating virus.  Becuase who plans for that?

A camper kills a (very stiff) rabbit and brings it back to his tent to cook it up for him and his dog.  But his dog is dead and when the man investigates further, he has blood squirted on him from the dog.  I need to mention this, because that man is now the carrier of the flesh eating virus that will be critical to the story.

The five college kids head off to their cabin in the woods.  First stop is at the local store for supplies.  And they are greeted by a long haired boy biting one of the college guys.  Nice boy.  He's a good boy, ... sure.  The kids arrive at the cabin and tow of them immediately have sex.  The others go off for a swim and the big fellow, Bert, goes off to shoot some squirrels.  "Why would you want to kill squirrels?"  "Because they're gay."  "Don't be a retard."  "I'm kidding, I don't care if they are straight or gay."  That brilliant exchange is one of the few to look forward to in this movie.

The camper from earlier finds the kids and they see that he is sick.  After turning him away, for fear of catching what he has, they have to beat him with a baseball bat after he vomits blood inside their truck.  Then they set him on fire.  On fire, he runs to the lake and now his disease is in the water supply.  Now, not only are these college kids going to get sick, the whole town will too.

One by one, the kids get infected and it brings out the worst in each of them.  Karen, the first infected, just wants to leave and get help.  The others don't want to get infected and pretty much sign her death certificate.

Because the "killer" in this movie is a virus, it a) can't be seen when attacking its vicitm, b) is introduced to the victim at any time during the movie, and c) can be in varying degrees for each victim.  It just takes so long to set up this tragedy.  The ending is worth it.  Or at least, right before the ending.  Shovel to a head, shotgun blasts, screwdriver in the ear.  It's where all of the mayhem happens.  Oh, and I almost forgot about the guy getting a harmonica rammed down his throat.

This is an okay B movie.  Nothing to make me watch it again, but worth one veiwing.

I give this movie 1 out of 5 viles of fox urine.

Axe

I thought that the title of this movie was Axe, but it might be Greed.  I am not sure why this is listed under two different titles, but this is not the first time that this has occurred on Medusa's Face.  Luke Perry was in a movie called Silent Venom, which was also listed as Sea Snakes.  So what are we to do, right?

Okay, now that the title of this movie has been discussed, let us get to the meat of it.

Let me just say that this movie is one of those classic B movies that could have used a lot more of everything.  The basic plot of the movie is that an axe wielding maniac has escaped prison and is on the loose.  The sheriff and his deputies are trying to locate the former inmate to return him back to his prison cell.  The axe man is named Ivan and he is one tough cookie to bring down.

Meanwhile, the two main women of the movie are off having a little adventure of their own.  From rock climbing, to motorbike riding, to stealing money from a pack of thieves.  They are out there having their own brand of recklessness.  These two women steal the money and it seems that everyone in the area knows about the money and is trying to get it for themselves.

While everyone is going after the money, Ivan sits back and carves up everyone.  But the kill scenes are some of the weakest and most laughable.  Ivan pulls back the axe and then the next scene is someone with a gash across their chest.  Pathetic at best.

And speaking of pathetic, ....  And let me first say that if the actors would have taken my suggestion, the movie would have ended a lot sooner than it did.  But if you are able to pin the axe murderer against a wall with a truck and you have a gun pointed at him while you check his pockets for car keys, why not put a sunroof in his skull right there?  I mean, he is pinned up against a wall and you have the gun.  Even if you miss, you can shoot him again.

There are a few plot twists and a totally unnecessary sex scene between the sheriff and the doctor lady helping with the capture of Ivan.  And by the looks of this review, you might think that I would pan this movie.  But this is a classic.  Add in some extra gore or maybe have some gratuitous nudity added in there and you would have a must-see movie.

I give this movie 3 out of 5 pink motorbike helmets.

Beyond Sherwood Forest

As far as a story goes, this movie has a pretty good one.  Most people are familiar with Robin Hood, add in a beast that can also take on human form and Robin Hood's tale changes.  Robin Hood still robs the rich and gives to the poor, but he now he has a creature from an enchanted forest to figure out.

It is 1174 in England and three horse riders have come in contact with a winged beast.  After one of the men fall, the other two find a woman in the forest.  One man, Malcolm (Julian Sands - from Warlock), notices that the woman is injured and so he stabs her.  He must have some sort of intuition, because he recognizes her as the beast.  Only, she does not die from her wounds.  She bleeds but does not die.  He believes that this could be a great weapon and when the other man wants to seek the council of the king, Malcolm kills the other man.

Little did he know that the other man's son was watching what took place.

Fast forward about 15 years.  Robin Hood is stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.  Nothing out of the ordinary here.  The story lingers on for a bit and finally Robin Hood has to go to the Dark Forest to get advice from the Keepers of the Trees.

After that, the story moves along until Robin Hood faces off with Malcolm.  The winged creature doesn't play as big of a role in the ending as I had hoped, but she does rip a henchman in half.  That's about the only real violence (digital or otherwise) in the whole movie.  I was expecting more from the creature.

Overall, the story moved along rather nicely.  There was not a lot of jumping from scene to scene like so many other B movies that I have watched recently.  But for a movie that added in the digital creature to a pretty famous storyline, they didn't use it to their advantage.  The glowing grapes needed to kill the creature was real quick in coming out too.  Not to say that it was too quick, but attaining the grapes proved to be a little easier than I had anticipated.

I give this movie 1 1/2 out of 5 removed hearts.

The Storm

This plot is right out of Evil Villain 101, "Control the Weather, Control the World."  But the real reason I watched this movie is because it has two Medusa's Face alumni.  James Van Der Beek (Eye of the Beast) and Luke Perry (Sea Snakes).  Who wouldn't want to watch this one?  Okay, .. dumb question.

 

The Storm is such a long movie, that they had to make it into two parts.  Thankfully (or not), I was able to view this movie in its entirety.  They probably could have shortened the movie by taking out some of the personal story elements, but it gave this movie heart.  And if you had a heart, you would want those stories to be told.

 

Robert Terrell is partnered up with General Wilson Braxton for "Operation Rainbow".  Too bad it couldn't have been named "Operation Double Rainbow".  Anyhow, "Operation Rainbow" is a weather manipulator that can bring rain to deserts and warmth to frozen areas of the world.  It is still in the testing phase and Dr. Kirk (James Van Der Beek) notices that there is a problem.  Terrell wants the project to remain on course, but Kirk thinks that he should shut it down.  Kirk's morals win out and he quits.  The project goes on.  And with the help of Dr. Jack Hoffman, a hole is torn into the fabric of the atmosphere that causes severe weather all over the world.

 

Nearly every time that Dr. Jack tries to solve the problem, he creates a bigger hole that forms more severe weather.  It's not until Dr. Kirk is tricked by Stillman (Luke Perry) that the solution to the problem is conceived.  But Stillman works for Terrell and he only wanted the solution to save the government contract.  Dr. Kirk eventually saves the day with his solution and the people involved with "Operation Rainbow" are killed.

 

Bottom line: Don't bother.  I was hoping for more mayhem from the storms, but instead I got a lot of split screens for phone calls.  One of the funnier things about this movie was when a code 6047 was called into the ambulance.  A code 6047 is when a homeless man is stuck in a tree.  Those people must have a code for everything.

 

I give this movie 1/2 our of 5 electromagnetic wave pulses.

Rise of the Gargoyles

For a city with such history, you would think that Paris would want to preserve as many buildings as it could.  A religious building would probably be a no brainer, but the French are determined to tear down the Saint Jean Andre Church.  It turns out to be a poor decision because now, a gargoyle is unleashed on the city.

 

The mid-1800's church is being demolished.  Prior to the church being torn down, professor Jack Randall and his associate, Carol, go to observe some of the architecture of the building at night.  The facility is not protected at night after two workers were killed (by the gargoyle) and spooked the rest of laborers.  Pictures are not the only things taken at the site.  Video, which is damaged when Jack runs out of the catacombs below the church, along with some items taken by Carol.  Little did Carol know at the time, but she took a gargoyle egg.  HEY!  They have to reproduce somehow.

 

Don't worry, Carol is decapitated for taking the egg.  Now that you are at ease, and several buckets of fake blood thrown, the inspector who is covering the case believes that Jack is the real killer and that he is trying to cover it up.  Meanwhile, Jack goes to a television channel to try and see if they can recover the video.  Not exactly a reputable news station either.

 

The gargoyle who has been asleep for 1,000 years, has woken and has a craving for human flash.  I don't know the population of Paris, but thank goodness that the gargoyle decided to attack the people related to this movie.  From the crazed priest who is questionable with his practices to the thin solution to the gargoyle problem, you will wonder why you ever bothered to sit down and watch this movie.  Although, we do have at least one Medusa's Face alumni in this movie.  Eric Balfour from Dinoshark.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 gargoyle eggs.

Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy

I don't know if it is good or bad that I do not read the plot summary on these movies before I watch them.  By looking at the title, I would have thought that a group of hammerhead sharks got together and started terrorizing a group of college kids or something like that.  But, I would have been totally wrong.  This movie is about the genetic alteration of a man's genes spliced with the genes of a hammerhead shark to try to cure disease and put humans into the oceans.

 

Before I get started, let me just say, "Oh c'mon, man!"

 

The evil scientist who has enough money to buy an island, build a research facility there, and also able to employ several security personnel, is experimenting with the DNA of his son.  The scientist is mad at the owner of the research facility that he was fired from and has invited him and several other guests to come to the island to see the progress that he has made with his experiments.  So far, so good.

 

Things take a turn for the worst when the scientist decides to kill all of his guests and use them as food for the sharkman that he has created.  The guests escape via the convenience of the vent fan that happens to have a ladder next to it too.  Inevitably, the guests are killed off by the sharkman or otherwise.   Shocker there, I know.

 

The thing that killed me was the head of IT, Tom (played by William Forsythe).  For a guy who is in charge of the IT Department, he is not what you would expect.  He is a take charge kind of guy.  I suppose dating Hunter Tylo made him a little more aggressive.  However, any way that you slice it, this movie is a stinker.  Buckets of fake blood thrown against a tree do not count as a moment of fear.  The explosions at the end of the movie must have been the bulk of the budget.  Some explosions are real, some are digital.  It is just not enough "wow" factor for me.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 microscopes powerful enough to see the individual strands of DNA.

Beneath Still Waters

This movie is an adaptation from a novel.  It says so right in the beginning of the movie.  I'll never read the book after seeing this movie.

The story is not that bad.  In 1965, an evil man by the name of Mordecai Salas has learned black magic and has begun taking over the town of Marienbad, Spain.  In order to combat the evil that Salas is spreading, the town is flooded when a new dam is put into operation.  But before the town is flooded, two boys go playing in the town and one boy unknowingly sets Salas free.  And the boy pays with his life when Salas rips his head apart at the jaw.

Fast forward 40 years.

The town is going to celebrate the Debaria Dam and the mayor does not want anything to get in the way of the celebration.  So when a man drowns in the lake, it is deemed an accident.  But we know different.  There is a funny part of this scene when the blond (Susana) comes out of the water after a swim and has been entangled by some black seaweed, she immediately grabs her cigarettes.  I don't know why I thought that was funny, but I did.

A photojournalist, Dan Quarry, arrives into town.  Not to photograph the celebration, but to photograph the town that was flooded.  Some odd occurances happen and Dan is forced into helping with save the town.  And he does.  And everybody is happy.

The gore doesn't happen until very late in the movie when the town reverts back to its evil ways and a police officer performs some self mutilation.  As he hobbles along, he shouts, "You're under arrest!" to a woman trying to locate her daughter.  It's weak at best.

For the most part, I enjoyed the movie.  The story moved along well, but there were some scenes that could have been avoided.  The movie also could have used a bit more needless violence for my taste as well.  The nudity was at a minimum.  Susana is so broken up about her friend Antonio drowning, that she decides to get nude and have "one last swim together" with him.  He comes out of the water and chews through her neck.  Just like she wanted.

I give this movie 2 out of 5 Captain Lightning comic books.

Autopsy

There are several things that I liked about this movie.  The senseless, brutal, over-the-top violence is up there with some of the best B movies out there.  Add in the Terminator T-1000 (Patrick Harris) and Band of Brothers, Cpl. Joseph Liebgott (Ross McCall) to the mix and now we've got ourselves a movie.

Guess what, ... some college aged friends go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  I know.  I'm terrified too.  After they leave the French Quarter (drunk), they have a little car accident on state route 53 in "Somewhere in Louisiana".  The accident involves them running over a man and even though they conveniently have no cell phones that work, an ambulance arrives immediately to take them to Mercy Hospital.  According to the movie, Mercy has been closed for three years.

The kids have to wait their turn to be examined.  But it's less of an examination and more of an organ harvest.  You see, the doctor in charge is harvesting organs to attempt to keep his wife alive.  Predicably, a few of the friends get taken away and items get removed from thier bodies without anaesthetic.  What is not predictable is when a naked man jumps on one of the girls and expells all of his organ on her.  Then after getting up from that mess, she gets punched in the face.  Like I said earlier, brutal and over-the-top violence.

You have to wait a pretty long time before hearing, "Bleed out, bitch," from the main character, Emily.  It's lines like that one that makes my heart sing.  The ending is weak, but after having a meat cleaver put into the face of the doctor's dying wife, I guess you can give it a pass.

Buckets of blood, body parts everywhere, and a mentally disturbed man of medicine.  Everything you want or need for a classic B movie.  Except for the male nudity.  What was up with that?

I give this movie 3 1/2 out of 5 mechanical skull drills.

Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent‏

The best part of this movie, and believe me when I say best, is that it is a short film.  The producers may have been on a budget and couldn't afford too many special effects.  I don't know, but ... it is best that this movie is only 76 minutes long.

 

When you draw a picture with this special voodoo pen, what you draw becomes true.  But only circumstances involving revenge.  So when a young boy witnesses his dad being mean to his mom and then draws a picture of his dad being eaten by a half alligator/half snake, it actually happens.

 

In a similar instance, a Bronco full of college kids who want to get drunk at a camp, strike and kill a man's wife when the driver decides to look at the rump of his buddy's girl instead of watching the road.  Of course, the man draws a picture of the Bronco being eaten by the snake-gator, instead of calling any police or anything.

 

The digital snake-gator will continue to kill until the revenge is complete.  If there is one person drawn, one person killed.  And so forth.  But the voodoo pen, the paper, and the digital snake-gator are all intertwined.  To stop the killing, you must destroy the paper and the pen.  And the only way to destroy the pen and paper is to have the stomach acid of the digital snake-gator destroy it.

 

It's a bit weak, but what do you expect for 76 minutes of a movie?  Not enough gore.  Not enough action.  Not enough senseless violence.  I still can't get past the 76 minutes, sorry.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 lift kits on a Bronco.

Star Runners

Another actor with a return visit to Medusa's Face, Todd Jensen.  You may remember him from Bats: Human Harvest.  Something tells me that this will not be the last time that he visits 'the Face'.  Same goes for Velizar Binev.  They might not be household names in the world of trilogies or prequels, but in the B movie circle, they are probably well known.

 

In this yawner, two guys avoid going to jail by performing a task for the military of the United Planets.  They get the cargo, which is a girl, and take a transport to get back to the space fleet of the military.  Why they didn't just take their own ship, I don't know.  Seems like that would have been the better solution.  But they didn't, and the transport that they are on is in danger of being hijacked.  After a small skirmish and crash landing, everyone lands on a planet that has these large space termites.

 

After battling the space termites and learning that the cargo girl is some sort of super human, they get off the planet and deal with the military fleet.  It's all explained at the end about how the regular humans needed to kill off the super humans.  Something about keeping the peace.  I forget.  And you will too.

 

The digital space termites are terrible.  There is little to no action.  And of course they have the seizure cam when fighting the termites.  I really don't see the need to have the camera put on a trampoline when filming action sequences.

 

In short, skip this movie.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 plasma pistols.

Warbirds

"Justice has been done."  Words to describe the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  Terrorist leader of al Qaeda.  Not words to describe the people who put the green light to the movie Warbirds.

First of all, let me acknowledge that this is just a movie.  It is not to represent actual events that occurred during World War II.  Besides all of the insubordination given to the colonel by the crew, the secret mission that the colonel is taking is compromised when the B-29 skipper decides to find out, at gun point, the colonel's mission.  It's an atomic bomb by the way.

Long story short, the Japanese are on a remote island in the Pacific.  They find a cave/nest with some dinosaur eggs in it.  The flying dinosaurs hatch and begin attacking them.  Three months later, a storm forces the B-29 to land on the island and the crew have to battle the Japanese and the dinosaurs.  The story is weak.  The acting is weak.  The dialog is weak.  Unless you think that lines like, "You just got your ass kicked by a girl," count as dialog.

Nothing redeeming about this movie.  The digital effects are par, but nothing spectacular.  The skipper in charge of the flight crew attempts to be tough and smart, yet she immediately divulges information to the enemy.  And after she learns about the atomic bomb that she is transporting, her thoughts are for the (hundreds of) thousands of people that will be killed in the explosion.  It's a thoughtful sentiment, but ending WW II is much more important.  No offense lady, but bigger picture.

I give this movie 0 out of 5 flying dinosaurs shot with flare guns.

Alien Agent

Our friend from I Am Omega, Mark Dacascos, has made his way back to Medusa's Face with this movie.  And with him comes Billy Zane, from The Mad.  And I know what you are thinking, ... so what.  I don't know.  It's always nice to see some familiar faces.

 

Aliens need to destroy mankind so that they can inhabit Earth.  The alien planet that they currently live on is out of water.  So some rebels have made their way here and they will stop at nothing to be able to transport more aliens to Earth so that they can take over the world and bring all of the other aliens here.  Except for one thing.  Rykker, Mark Dacascos, is one of the good aliens and he has been sent here to stop the rebels.

 

Of course the rebels can care less about any humans in their way, so they go on a killing spree when they are out taking the materials that they need to create the portal.  Rykker is always hot on their trail and has these special bullets to use when he needs to kill one of his fellow aliens.  Oh, .. and the aliens are like some sort of parasite.  They can only be killed by the special bullets.

 

Just know this, ... the storyline is not that terrible and the only thing worth watching in the whole movie is when Rykker bursts through a wall and begins fighting the troops that are out to get him.  Other than that, it is pretty much B movie boredom.  The action is average, same for the acting.  Nothing to memorable about the movie.  Even the gratuitous nudity is not anything spectacular.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 prime rib dinners at Kelly's Diner.