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.