GeekVault Reviews: Slugs

Slugs

Actual Movie:

Rating:  

So-Bad-It’s-Good-Rating:

Rating:  

Directed By: Juan Piquer Simón

Starring: Michael Garfield

Plot Synopsis:

A rural town becomes prey to a strain of Black Slugs spawned from toxic waste dumping and it’s up to the local health inspector to stop them.

Review:

I really don’t know where to start with my review of Slugs.  OK.  It’s a bad movie.  A horrible movie.  A “shit-tastic” movie.  The acting is horrible and the plot is ridiculous (they’re SLUGS! Mutant Slugs, but still they’re slow and they can be squished).  However, the precedings are so laughable and ridiculous, and the acting so bad, it’s endearing.  All this is highlighted by some of the grossest, sickest, nonsensical gore you’ll ever see in a movie.

Read more →

GeekVault Reviews: Enemy Mine

Enemy Mine

Rating:  

Directed By: Wolfgang Petersen

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Louis Gossett Jr.

Plot Synopsis:

Two Warriors engaged  in a savage, futuristic war between Earth and the planet Dracon, crash-land on a desolate, fiery planet.  At first, the human (Dennis Quaid) and his reptilian, alien opponent (Louis Gossett Jr.) are intent on destroying each other.  But after battling the elements and each other, the two stranded pilots gradually realize that the only way either of them will survive is to overcome their undying hatred.

Review:

Enemy Mine is one of those movies that slipped by me during childhood.  I always would see the VHS box in the video section whenever I’d be browsing the Science Fiction section, but I never gave it a chance.  If I would have been introduced to it then, I probably would have been bored by it, to be honest.  I was too busy watching and re-watching Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Explorers that year.  Enemy Mine would have been over my head.

However, I can now say that Enemy Mine was probably ahead of it’s time both thematically and stylistically.  This was the Art House Science Fiction film of 1985, and I’m surprised a studio backed a film like this.  Even today, a science fiction film with only 2 characters on screen for an hour and 15 minutes wouldn’t be interesting to a major studio.  Look at movies like Sunshine, The Fountain, Solaris and Moon.  Not viewed by the mass movie-going public as popular films.  However, to film geeks like myself those all are masterpieces that should be more profitable than they were.  Enemy Mine is a thought provoking, slow build of a movie that has huge ideas and heart behind it.

Read more →

geekVault Reviews: Demons

Demons

Rating:  

Directed By: Lamberto Bava

Screenplay By: Dario Argento

Starring: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey

Plot Synopsis:

A group of people are trapped in a large West Berlin movie theater infected by ravenous demons whom proceed to kill and posses the humans one-by-one thereby multiplying their numbers,

Review:

Demons is one of those movies I would always see on the back Horror shelf of the video store as a kid.  I remember looking through all the vhs boxes imagining what these movies were like.  In the process, I would freak myself out and most likely have a nightmare that night.  Finally, 20 years later I’m catching up on all the great horror flicks of the 80s, and the Italian gore-fest Demons is 80s mayhem at it’s best.

Read more →

geekVault Reviews: Maniac Cop

Maniac Cop

Rating:  

Directed By: William Lustig

Starring: Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon, Robert Z’Dar

Plot Synopsis:

In New York, a man in a cop’s uniform starts killing people for no apparent reason. (IMDB)

Review:

The tag line (“You have the right to remain silent.  Forever!”) pretty much sums up Maniac Cop.  There are no suprises or twists here.  We have a maniac cop murdering innocent people for no reason.  And it’s up to Tom Atkins (Night of the Creeps) and Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead) to stop him!

Read more →