Trash as trash can be - 3 monster B-movies tested

It was a quiet afternoon when I thought "Let's go and watch some obviously bad movies". I looked around between DVDs and found 3 B-monster movies that looked exactly like what I was searching for. I grabbed "Bug" (1975) "Angiralus - It rips you in pieces" (aka "Razortooth")(2006) and "Mammoth" (also 2006). The last two promissed to be full of B - 3D effects and B - action which was what I wanted to see that afternoon.

I started up with "Mammoth".

Here's the story: Some scientists found a frozen mammoth. When they try to analyze what it died at and so on, they somehow touch an alien activating spot (?) and some meteor crashes down, reviving the frozen thing. From that second on an alien invaded zombie mammoth hunts people to pump off their life energy.

It sounds crappy already and hell yea, it is! I laughed my ass off when some scientist shouted "What a wooly beauty" and the cam turns, you see that bad animated zombie thing and guess what, it doesnt have a hair on his body, due to the bad animation! Also a running around human zombie hand is involved in this movie and yes it is quite fun to watch if you don't try to take it serious and just see it as some kind of comedy trash!

On a trash entertainment scale from 1 to 10 I shall give "Mammoth" a 7!

The second one I watched was "Angiralus".

Somewhere down in the swamp lands a scientist is breeding mutated eals. Last time he checked, his specimen was 2 months old and 2 meters long and of course they are hungry. That was two months ago and you guess it, the thing is now 4 meters long and hunting humans. And it is diabetic.

Well, I must say, the story is kinda nice but the animation at some points reaches a critical trash level. The eal looks like a huge eal and those half eaten people look a bit creepy (even if that repeats itself a bit often - eal attacks, half eats someone and the other half is layin around still shouting or walkin ...) but the eal changes its colour within the movie scenes. Nearly black, dark green, brown ... choose your favorite.

I give it 6.5 for the horror factor and the kept promisse "It rips you in pieces".

The last one was "Bug" which is completely different from the other movie same title, I reviewed earlier.

"Bug" is about some bugs comin out of some vulcanic fault. They are intelligent and still learning but also a bit dumb because they just explode from time to time. They kill their prey by burning it, nice trick and not so uncommon in today's fauna.

The funny fact in this movie is, that the bugs in the movie are supposed to be "special" but someone just took some hissing cockroaches, a nice pet by the way, and didnt even mind that they were snarling around the whole movie. If they wouldnt glow from time to time you wouldnt really get the point what shall make them dangerous but hey for a 70s movie it isnt soooo bad.

Anyway I just give it a 5 for the idea that cockroaches can form letters at the wall.

I must confess I loooove trash movies because you dont have to think so much about the story. You just lean back and expect the best you can get in a B- or C-movie! If you like them, too, you probably shouldnt miss those 3 films!

Tremors 3 & 4 - Back in time and in storyboard

Time moved on and "Perfection" made his money based on the underground "worms" even though they are history. Burt Gummer, the weaponary freak who still waits for world war the 3rd went famous by showing the tv how to hunt graboids and theire mutations but when he comes back to visit his town after eleven years he has to face others made much more money out of nothing. Business guy Jack opened his safari tour, showing tourists around between faked special effects pretending to be hunted by the original worms. But Burt brings some graboids unwanted back on his track and once again "Perfection" is under attack - and that last time their enemies are able to fly!

Part 3 of "Tremors" wasn't as good as the first ones, somehow the laughs got lost on the way and except for Michael Gross (Burt Gummer) there is a new cast and the characters just seem to be less likeable. It was worth a try but from my point of view, part 2 should have skipped directly to part 4.

Part 4 takes us back in time. In 1889 the small village "Rejection" makes its fortune on silver mines. Some workers get killed while digging at the mines and so the village has to shut them down and wait for help. It is not really help what they get when Hiram Gummer, a man of the mining company, comes to look for what stopped the digging and so they have to hire the gunman "Black Hand Kelly" to get rid of the mini worms.

What a nice idea. Part 4 explains how Burt's ancestor came to like (lets say "love") guns & rifles, how "Rejection" became "Perfection" and all in all it's a Western ... Action ... Comedy movie par excellence! You meet relatives of the nowadays citizens of the small town and get to understand why they stick to the place that much - played by the same old cast!
And to me as good old special actors' fan this movie has a great bonus: Mr. Billy Drago as Black Hand Kelly! You don't wanna miss that, believe me! What part 3 missed is doubled at part 4, a great ending of the "Tremors" era.

So what is left to say about "Tremors". From 1990 to 2004 "Tremors" was a really entertaining piece of work with various cast but the same topic. You should think it'd get boring to watch ppl hunting underground monsters after the first movie already but since the directors and writers always came up with new mutations and ideas you get the feeling to have watched one really good movie in the end.

Millions of people bought and watched the 4 single masterpieces (okay 3, you know part 3 and so on ...) and I am one of them. Hopefully you are soon, too - really a good gimmick for 1, 2 film evenings with friends, nachos and soda. Enjoy!

Tremors & Tremors 2 - Please do not feed!

"Perfection" could be a silent little Western village with trailerparks and Chang's market as the center of everything happening around. It could. If not something would have lately attracted some monsters that no man has ever seen before. And why were they not seen? Right, because they are subterranian what basically means they live under your feet. The casual workers Val & Earl decide to fight against them, rather than running away and succeed. They soon find themselfs facing huge worms that move highspeed underground and pull down everything into the ground, they catch.

One who didn't watch those great film series yet may now think "Ok monsters ... that live in the ground? Wth wasn't Godzilla unrealistic enough?" but no, no, no there's an explanation for everything - coming in part 2-4.

Part 2 begins where part 1 ends. Logically. Somewhere in Mexico the monsters have been showing up - and this time they are prepared to change their look for the faster, smaller and breed themselfs in a minute. Now they are not huge worms anymore you can blow up easylie but fast, little, things that use infrared to catch their prey - which of course are the workers at the oil field and Earl who needs the money he'll get if he blows them up.

You are here looking at a classic! In 1990 when "Tremors" was released it was quite fresh and it came as a likeable funny and entertaining adventure movie with an unknown kind of monsters. This breed wasn't "evil", it was just ... hungry and learning! Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon make it a really watchable thing, you shouldn't miss.

Just one question remains unanswered even after 4 parts - why does the worm on the cinema posters and dvd covers always have teeth when he doesn't in the movie?

(Hold on for the rev of part 3 & 4 coming soon)

Bug - High level paranoia

Are you a fan of confusing movies, filled up with paranoia and disturbance? Then you shall love "Bug".

The story goes something like this. Agnes lifes in a small, dirty motel, far away from any city. She spends her lonely days drinking and doing drugs, going out in the evening with her friend or just stand around doing nothing.
One evening her friend brings a guy with her, she met at the local club before. He just wants to stay a night but Agnes is too happy that in the end she found a man and wants him to stay. Then her ex comes outta jail, beats her up, and again Agnes finds it useful to have a man around who can kick him out. But in a while the new visitor gets strange, talks about insects who are taking over the world and starts cutting them off himself.

Maybe not the best paranoia movie ever shot, this trophy definitly goes to "Paranoia 1.0" aka "One point zero" but its a serious candidate.

But dont search for prominent cast, this movie is still a kind of B-movie, shot by William Friedkin, even though you may forget that after a while because it will definitly catch you!

Primeval - Mammoths as pets

An impressive collection of absurd thoughts

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When I first heard about the ITV series "Primeval" my little paleozoologist-heart made a big jump like "Cool, they made a series just for me! Jurassic park on weekly episodes!" but I was so wrong about it.

The story behind "Primeval" is that time teleports bring "monsters" of all time eras to the present time and a team of evolutionary scientists has to bring them back through the "anomalies" and find out what causes them. It might actually be a great thing for a series for unfortunaly the fun is kind of disturbed by amateur animations and a strange confusing story that wraps it all up.

The first season ended in kind of a total mess and every single fan will have thought "How do they wanna fix that again?". The answer was easy, "Primeval" left the screen and went back to the papers of the producers. They worked on it a while and when it came back it was like it had never disappeared. They even brought the character back in that had disappeared at the end of the first season, just as someone else. But for the ones who thought, it would come back better than before it must have been a shock when they saw the even worse animated "monsters" of the new season. While season one tried to stay realistic, season two turned out to be full of maneating mean animals from past and future and some that actually never existed as shown.

It was really kinda disappointing. I do still watch it and wait for the third season because it is still the only good thing for a dino nerd to watch but for real, it could have been done better!

"Primeval" brings us great actors ( Douglas Henshall, Hannah Spearritt, James Murray, Andrew-Lee Potts and a few more) , nice made up characters, a creative story and long gone animals back to screen but it became more like a scifi series than one based on actual time eras.

Open questions: Why do all the anomalies appear in London? Why are all the characters sporty when they are actually scientists who are supposed to sit in labs? How did they get the mammoth in the second season into the research building?