B-Movie Overload: Beasts, Bugs, Breasts & Boll
Foywonder
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Sometimes I come across a whole bunch of B-movie news items that don’t always warrant their own individual stories for various reasons. Such is the case here with stuff involving a variety of news blurbs involving monster movies, Sci-Fi Channel movies, Jim Wynorski, and the almighty Uwe Boll. So I decided to consolidate all of these stories into one giant news update. Shall we dive in head first?
START!
“I don’t know what distributor is going to want to touch a film that has a rapist monster with a three-foot penis!”
That’s an actual quote from James Horan, star of the forthcoming horror flick Dying God, which, as you’ve no doubt already ascertained, involves a rapist monster with a three-foot penis. Spotlight Pictures is the company trying to parlay the distribution rights for such a film and having just watched the VERY NOT WORK SAFE trailer, which can be found in Video Dread, I say good luck getting this one picked up. Not because of the monster being a well-endowed sexual predator, but because the choppy trailer they’ve put together for it makes the film look really cheap and crappy. Whether or not this trailer is truly indicative of the actual quality of the movie itself, the fact remains that this trailer is not how you sell people on a motion picture.
Dying God, an English-language French-Argentine co-production, stars James Horan, an actor whose IMDB listing seems to indicate has spent more time of late doing voice acting for video games than appearing in actual movies. Erin Brown (the former Misty Mundae) and the venerable Lance Henriksen, who is anything but picky when it comes to choosing his film projects, co-star.
“In a dark and decadent city, Sean Fallon (James Horan) – a corrupt cop – will have to face his own demons to put an end to a series of brutal rapes and murders of the weirdest kind. With the help of the local pimps, headed by Chance (Lance Henriksen), Fallon will go [on] the hunt for the serial killer, that may in the end not be human!”
Not human indeed, and quite the rubbersuited monster creation I might add. Normally I would have no problem with a rubbersuited monster, but watching this trailer … There’s no denying the film does have a sleazy Euro shocker feel to it – the most naked breasts I’ve seen in a trailer in a long time – and that definitely has a certain appeal to it, but I’m just not getting good vibes from this creature feature. Besides, I’ve seen Split Second so I already feel like I’ve seen this before – minus the rape fetish aspect. Check out the official Dying God site for more….
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Please take a few moments to head over to Spotlight’s website and see for yourself the trailer they also have up now for Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent, AKA the DMX vs. a giant snake flick that is clearly going to go down as one of cinema’s all-time greats. Nothing else needs to be said about the plot other than it’s rapper DMX running around a sugar cane field with a rocket launcher trying to save scared white folks being terrorized by a giant serpent of supernatural origin. The trailer speaks for itself, and mostly it seems to be saying “Sci-Fi Channel, here we come!”
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Fans of creepy crawly creature features might want to tune in to the Sci-Fi Channel this Sunday night at 9/8 Central for the premiere of The Hive. Former “Dukes of Hazzard” star Tom Wopat plays a member of a high-tech group of insect specialists called Thorax Team that’s called in to deal with an island overrun by alien-controlled super ants. I swear I’m not making that plot up. I’m also not kidding when I tell you that the majority of the reviews appearing on IMDB – the film has already premiered internationally – hail the film as being ridiculous yet entertaining. You know I’ll be tuning in.
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B-movie makers love to make movies about ancient deities, especially the wrathful all-powerful kind. Egyptian gods, Greek gods, Cthulu, all manner of demonic forces: they’ve all gotten their own films where they unleashed their fury upon mankind. But what about Ba’al? Where’s Ba’al’s movie? Is this ancient Phoenician god so far down the totem pole of religious deities that it’s only worthy of making a few guest appearances on “Stargate SG-1”?
The Sci-Fi Channel, with help from Cinetel Films, has realized the error of this quasi-mythological oversight and commissioned a film showcasing the power of Ba’al, even going so far as to simply title the film Ba’al. Pretty clever, huh?
“Rogue Smithsonian archaeologist Dr. Owen Stanford, dying of cancer and heedless of his career, is prepared to stop at nothing to retrieve the ancient amulets of the storm god Ba’al in his efforts to discover the legendary kibdu, the portal between our world and the next that he hopes might cure his disease or make him a god…”
I just love the term “Rogue Smithsonian archaeologist”. It’s always those Smithsonian scientists that go rogue, isn’t it?
Coincidentally, I once went to a doctor named Stanford Owen. Didn’t see any ancient amulets that make him a god, but he did help cure a wicked adenoids infection I had.
Ba’al stars Jeremy London, one time co-star of Party of Five, last seen on the Sci-Fi Channel in their better-than-average original Basilisk: The Serpent King. Lexa Doig, the heroine of Jason X, co-stars.
Speaking of above average Sci-Fi Channel original movies, Ba’al was directed by Paul Ziller, the man at the helm of the more entertaining than it had any right to be creature feature Beyond Loch Ness. This gives me hope that Ba’al will also turn out well.
No airdate has been announced for the film. Most likely sometime later this year.
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When not making all manner of action and horror B-movies, Jim Wynorski is making quickie, cheapie, nudie comedies with cheeky titles like The Breastford Wives and The Witches of Breastwick. Now it looks like he’s going to tackle Cloverfield with a breast-centric spoof that is either going to be titled Chestyfield or Cleavagefield.
“A bunch of hot chicks are having a slumber party for their friend Tiffany, who’s off to Sweden to make a high end Triple X movie. The festivities are in high gear; but then a giant monster inexplicably invades Los Angeles. One girl videos everything as the babes make a run for it through the city. But there are more things to beware of beside the monster. According to some naked hotties seen in an alley way. the monster is covered with moth-mites that drop off its slimy body then attack unwary female victims, chewing off their clothes. It’s a harrowing night for all involved.”
What started as a joke on Fred Olen Ray’s Retromedia message board has apparently blossomed into an actual movie based on the silly synopsis that will get made that spoofs the found footage giant monster movie but with 100% more nudity. Two things are for certain: Wynorski’s film will boast 100% more nudity than Cloverfield and it’s already guaranteed to be a better film than The Asylum’s mockbuster Monster.
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Who cares if it’s not horror? Uwe Boll is a cinematic icon now and any time he makes a movie it’s newsworthy. And you people who send me an e-mail after every Boll-related story I write arguing that nobody should do it because Boll won’t go away until everyone stops writing about him. Poppycock! Balderdash, I say! People have already stopped going to see his movies and still he keeps on going. He’s not going anywhere – like the cockroaches after the apocalypse. He is unstoppa-boll.
We’ve seen what the man can do with subhuman creatures like zombies and vampires and wizards and monsters and Tara Reid; now Uwe Boll leaves behind the world of videogame inspired cinema and the horror/fantasy genre altogether for a more realistic war movie called Tunnel Rats about the tunnel rats of Vietnam. They were American special forces soldiers whose mission was to hunt and kill the Viet Cong in man-to-man combat within the endless tunnels dug out beneath the Vietnamese jungle. I think we’re long overdue for such a movie. The question remains as to whether or not the guy who gave us House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, and In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is the man to do it justice.
Bollbashers.com recently uploaded the trailer for Tunnel Rats provided to them by Boll’s production company. Having just watched it for myself, I can say that it looks like a competently made production; yet, there’s an unmistakable Cannon Films vibe emanating from it, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing unto itself. I also can’t help but notice that for a movie about guys who have to crawl around underground, much of what we see in the trailer takes place above ground. Check it out for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
Now you really didn’t think Uwe Boll could make a movie that doesn’t have a video game tie-in, did you? In a reversal of how Boll normally operates, a videogame based on Tunnel Rats is due later this fall to coincide with the movie’s release. That trailer has also been YouTubed by Bollbashers.
But wait, there’s more!
Having never actually played Far Cry, I cannot say how much liberty Uwe Boll appears to have taken with his feature film version, but having just watched the trailer for the film, I can say with 1000% percent certainty that Uwe Boll is clearly channeling Golan-Globus. I haven’t seen this much use of a dank industrial complex as the primary setting for an action flick since Cannon Films went kaput.
I’m still not entirely sure what the plot to Far Cry is, but apparently it has to do with Udo Kier as a mad scientist who has created a line of economically-priced Universal Soldiers, one of which, a bald guy who looks like he’s one steroid cycling and some better ring attire away from debuting in the wrestling entertainment, has gone haywire.
Ralf Moeller, AKA the bad guy from the equally underrated piece of cinematic kung fu cheese Best of the Best 2 and soon to be seen as the prison warden in Boll’s still-to-come slasher Seed, also collects a paycheck as one of the super soldiers that look like really mean personal trainers.
But most importantly, Far Cry marks the first English-language starring role for German action star Til Schweiger as the film’s hero, Jack Carver. He only speaks two or three lines in the whole trailer, but if the sounds of his phonetically-spoken dialogue are any indication, we may have ourselves a new marble-mouthed European B-movie action star in the making.
Also keep an eye out for appearances by veteran character actor Don S. Davis, sometimes actor Michael Pare, and current B-movie leading lady of the moment, Emmanuelle Vaugier (Unearthed), in a role that just screams “BIMBO LOVE INTEREST!” I bet you somewhere Jean-Claude Van Damme watches that “Is that your gun line?” and kicks himself for having never had one of his leading ladies use that line in one of his movies.
Enough with the hyperbole, I now command you to watch the trailer for Far Cry, courtesy of the fine folks at Twitch. I, for one, cannot wait for this to go straight-to-DVD. Sorry, Dr. Boll; I’m just not sold on this getting a theatrical release after In The Name of The King failed to even crack the top ten despite an all-star cast. But it looks schlocksational none the less. BOLL STAYS!
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Finally, a film that I received an e-mail about several days ago but chose to ignore after watching the trailer for myself and dismissing it as someone’s glorified home movie – Serpent Lake.
Look; it’s not that I have something against homegrown productions … Actually, I do have something against them. I didn’t used to but I’ve had to sit and review too many borderline amateur productions that really are one step above being a home movie and didn’t have a decent enough script to make up for the technical deficiencies. I’m all for encouraging small-time filmmakers, but I’ve just been burned now by too many bad microbudget efforts.
But since Fangoria and Arrow in the Head have given some pub to Joel Trujillo’s lower than low budget lake monster movie due in the summer of 2009, I figured I might as well do a little write-up of my own.
“Every 30 years, in the summer there is a mysterious unidentified creature claimed to inhabit Astaire’s freshwater lake in Minnesota…”
That’s probably as deep as the plot will ever get and the mock-up of the monster seen briefly in the trailer looks like it could have been the Loch Ness Horror‘s stand-in from over a quarter century ago.
I love me a good man-eating monster movie, especially a good lake monster movie, so I wish Mr. Trujillo luck with his pet project, but I’d be lying if I said I was at all taken with what I see. Maybe I’m just too bitter and cynical? Actually, I know I’m bitter and cynical. Sitting through Curse of Halloween could turn anyone against no-budget indie filmmakers. You can check out the trailer for Serpent Lake and read more about the film at Trujillo’s website and tell me afterwards whether I’m right in my thinking or being way too hard on it.
STOP!
I think that’s enough for one day. Don’t you?
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