Entries Tagged 'animals run amok' ↓
Day 24 – "Mother of God…they’ll kill all of us!"
October 24th, 2023 — animals run amok, cockroaches who can fart fire, From The Feeds, Reviews, SHOCKtober 2023
SHOCKtober Day 6
October 6th, 2022 — animals run amok, From The Feeds, SHOCKtober 2022
Everybody knows that animals run amok and disaster movies are two chaotic tastes that taste *chef's kiss* perfect together, and no single movie demonstrates this quite like The Swarm. It's absolutely everything I could want in a disaster epic of any ilk, never mind one about killer bees!
It's director/producer/disaster king Irwin Allen going way too far, creating a bloated messterpiece that pushes the boundaries of common sense in every respect. The endurance test of a run time is a whopping 157 minutes but it feels more like a good three weeks or so. Romantic subplots are so ill-fitting that they come off as crammed into the proceedings with a crowbar. Terrific character actors (Ben Johnson, Richard Widmark, Fred MacMurray) and trash cinema icons (Cameron Mitchell) go toe to toe to toe with enough Oscar-winning actors to fill the entire Shrine Auditorium several times over. Lee Grant, Patty Duke, Henry Fonda, José Ferrer, Michael Caine, Olivia goddamn de Havilland...all of the scream, yell, and/or worry about bees and I could not be happier about it.
Children die! Elders die! A (model) train rolls down a hillside and explodes! The Gulf of Mexico is set on fire!
Characters say things like "Houston on fire...will history blame me? Or the BEES?"
With all of the too too way too much-ness in The Swarm, how am I to choose only one favorite character? Hell, the whole movie could be my favorite character!
But after I calmed down a little bit, the answer became obvious, and so today's spotlight rains down upon...
THE GIANT BEE HALLUCINATION IN THE SWARM (1978)
The Swarm is a movie overstuffed with patent absurdity, but still the big bee stands hovers alone in ridiculous. You see, the bees in The Swarm are a mutant strain of Africanized killer bees, which--along with the Bermuda Triangle and quicksand--were a very big worry back in the day. The Swarm does its best to play into the public's fear (and mild xenophobia) over these bees and so unlike their real-life counterparts, these movie bees are super deadly. You probably got that thanks to the "killer" right there in the name!
4-5 stings will take you right the fuck out (to Heaven), but if you only get stung a little bit, you'll get sick and...hallucinate giant bees. Thank you, The Swarm, for this. It is so stupid. Thank you.
MAN, I LOVE THE SWARM!
“The birds…they’re acting funny.”
April 14th, 2010 — animals run amok, From The Feeds, Operation: 101010, Reviews, the parade festival, VHS rules
Ohhhhhh how I want to punch Halloween: Resurrection in its stupid Michael Myers Dot Com face despite the Katee Sackhoff and Busta Rhymes-ness of it.
Sorry, it's just that Resurrection is one of those movies that makes my blood pressure rise. For the good of both my health and staying on topic, I should really start talking about The Birds II.

Brad Johnson stars as Ted, patriarch of what is surely the most irritating family ever to walk the Earth. His wife May (Chelsea Field) is alternately angry and insipid. Their daughters Something Starts With 'J' #1 and Something Starts With 'J' #2 are straight-up brats. They fight, call each other names, and bitch about having to spend time at an old house on the beach at Land's End. Even the dog in this family is annoying. Really, Ted is the only one who's fairly tolerable, and that's because he spends most of his time quietly moping about their son who died five years ago. At any rate, they're all at Land's End on some sort of "work vacation" for mom and dad. The "How was your day?" questions and the incessant whining of the girls were a constant reminder that family life is a fucking drag.


In typical politician in an animals run amok movie fashion, the Mayor learns too late that the threat is REAL- like, he finally gets it when hundreds of birds take on hundreds of people near the marina. He tries to assemble a shotgun-wielding posse, but it's an idea that was doomed from the start. The Ted Family takes a little boat in an attempt to get back to the mainland, but then the birds take off and try to beat them to it. The (abrupt) end.
Now, I realize I haven't made the best case for The Birds II: Land's End here. Surely Rick Rosenthal's use of "Alan Smithee" doesn't make a good case for it, and neither do the ubiquitous reviews that give it 1.5 stars at most. I got it expressly because I thought it was going to be terrible, and yet...I did not find it to be terrible. Why is this? Hmm. It's a question I've been pondering since I rewound the tape. Earlier that that, perhaps, for even as the birds were doing their thing, I found myself shocked at the fact that what I was watching wasn't making me laugh or want to kill myself.
Is it because mere days ago I saw Birdemic: Shock and Terror, surely the worst movie ever created, and now I've gone numb? This may be a part of it, especially considering the fact that both movies are about [SPOILER ALERT] birds.
Aside: I'm going to write about Birdemic, but I'm not sure exactly what yet, nor am I sure where the writing will end up. I will say this much: if it ends up at a theater near you, GO. You think Troll 2 is the worst movie ever? Think again. You know how I've thought for YEARS that Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is as amazingly good as bad movies get? I WAS WRONG. There's a new King.
Aside Over: On the other hand, there's no denying that The Birds II isn't actually much good. There's far more melodrama and talk than action, but still- I found that enjoyable in a made-for-TV sort of way. I was most pleased at the fact that the birds were not made out of computer. Imagine that! Animals run amok movies may be more popular than ever thanks to the schlock churned out by the SyFy Channel, but I get tired of the CGI-ness of it all. These were real honest-to-goodness birds a-peckin' and a-flappin', and I was thankful for it.
Because I am really in the minority regarding the merits of The Birds II, I can't really recommend it: after all, your brain not be as soft as mine apparently is right now. Honestly, I hope Birdemic has ruined all moviekind for me, raising my tolerance for crap to the point where everything is shrugged off with a casual "Well, it wasn't as bad as Birdemic..." I don't know, I might be way too forgiving of animals run amok movies for a time. We'll just have to wait and see. I know enough, however, to say that I realize The Birds II isn't good, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it...and that's okay. A dollar well spent, I say!
The Year in Horror: 1977
February 1st, 2010 — 1977, animals run amok, From The Feeds, stinkfingers

Okay, so I made that up. But really, doesn't the world need more Lisa Lisa jokes? Yes...yes, it does. Some of you may be more familiar with Lisa, Lisa under its video release title: Axe. I've never seen it, but it's one of those movies that's simmering in my brain. I'm not sure if it's good sleaze or bad sleaze, so I never make the move to bring Axe home with me. Good sleaze is great fun and all, but a night with bad sleaze can leave you infected. Not that I know, of course- I am just saying.
The point is, I came across this ad for the drive-in and my first thought was something decidedly old person-ish; you know, "Golly, those were the days!" or "Gee, my old LaSalle ran great!" or "I hate the young!" or something. Then I looked up Lisa, Lisa because, truth be told, I had no idea what it was. Then I discovered it was released in 1977. Then I ate a sandwich while thinking about how 1977 was a fucking great year for horror (yes, much like 1981). Then I started this post...and that gets you pretty much caught up with my day so far.
Oh yes, my friends, 1977 was awesome. Let's take a look, shall we? Come, let's venture back to a time when John Carpenter's Halloween was still a year away!
What the masters of horror were up to:
- Dario Argento began his "Three Mothers" trilogy with the candy-colored witches in ballet school masterpiece Suspiria.

- Wes Craven traveled into cannibal country with The Hills Have Eyes.
- George Romero released Martin, his non-traditional vampire flick. I want to like Martin more than I actually do.
- Tobe Hooper brought us Eaten Alive, a bizarre, ugly film that made for a strange follow-up to his classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Eaten Alive is perhaps most notable because it features The Man Who Would Be Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund...or maybe because of the giant crocagator.
- Mario Bava's last film, Shock, was released in the U.S. as Beyond the Door II despite the fact that it's not a sequel- both films simply feature child actor David Colin Jr. Using this logic, I've decided to start calling Christmas with the Kranks "Terror Train 2".
- David Lynch began his career in mindfuckery in earnest with Eraserhead.
- Young Cathy was cursed in...Cathy's Curse. You know, I think Cathy's Curse is a film like Rumplestiltskin for me. You know, I've talked about that phenomenon, how Rumplestiltskin is terrible while I'm watching it, but when I'm thinking about it later I remember it being awesome and I want to watch it again...only when I succumb to the urge, I remember that it's terrible, and so on and so on in an endless cycle of pain and happiness. I just read my review of Cathy's Curse and it looks so good I want to pop it in when I'm done writing this, but I know that I probably shouldn't- "probably" being the operative word.

- In The Child, Rosalie somehow controls a little zombie army. They do her bidding, killing her enemies and finishing her math homework. Okay, so they just kill people. It's a weird movie that's frustrating at times, thanks largely to awful dubbing, bad sound editing, and a grating soundtrack. Despite its shortcomings, The Child is The Awesome.
- Audrey Rose, a tale of reincarnation, wasn't nearly the epic horror film I'd built it up to be in my mind in the years before I saw it. I'll admit: this MAY be a problem with me, not the movie.
- The late writer/director William Girdler graced the world with Day of the Animals, featuring a topless Leslie Nielsen wrasslin' a bear in the rain.
- Joan Collins battled giant ants in Empire of the Ants. Somehow, it turned out not to be the greatest film of all time: another of life's mysteries.
- There are so many things to love about Kingdom of the Spiders, if I were to list them all I'd be here forever and frankly I just don't have that kind of time. Therefore, I'll just mention the best thing about it: The Cow Who Can Act.

1977, The Year That Keeps on Giving:
- Nazi zombies ahoy in Shock Waves!
- Exorcist II: The Heretic, or as it was known upon its re-release years later, Exorcist II: What the Hell Were They Thinking?
- Warning: The Sentinel is a film that shows things you can't un-see. It may, however, be worth the risk.
- The Haunting of Julia really needs a DVD release, dammit.
- Less deserving, perhaps, is The Town That Dreaded Sundown, a quasi-slasher flick based on a true story. I like it, though I'm not entirely sure why.
- Julie Christie gets it on with a computer in Demon Seed.
- Haunts is an obscure sleaze-fest featuring scissor murders, sexual hangups, Aldo Ray, Cameron Mitchell, and an ending that makes the whole thing worthwhile. I watched it with the intent to review it here, but then I never did. Maybe I should do it...although I kind of just gave a one-sentence review, didn't I? What more do you want from me??
- Honk...honkhonkhonnnnnk! The Car vroomed out of Hell and into our hearts.

See? I wouldn't lie to you...1977 was fucking awesome. Some of horror's greatest filmmakers were making great films, and there was a little something out there for everyone. Whether you're into killer cars, killer kids, or killer killers, you can travel back to that magical year and have your thrills. I'm gonna go give 1977 a hug, and resist the urge to watch Cathy's Curse.
Edited for bonusosity! Here's some stuff I missed, as pointed out in the comments...
- David Cronenberg brought porn star Marilyn Chambers into the seedy world of mainstream horror cinema in Rabid.
- Bo Svenson stars as Gar, a faded-from-glory Olympic skier who faces off against a rampaging Snowbeast in...umm...Snowbeast.
Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus vs Final Girl
May 19th, 2009 — animals run amok, awesomeness, From The Feeds, metaphorical boners, Reviews
The fact that MS vs GO comes from The Asylum is either a cause for alarm or for celebration, depending on your tastes. The Asylum, see, is the Designer Imposter Fragrances of the movie world: they're the ones responsible for Snakes on a Train. When The Day the Earth Stood Still hit theaters, The Asylum rushed to release The Day the Earth Stopped. Michael Bay's Transformers, meet The Asylum's Transmorphers...and so on and so on. They're shameless, and I kinda dig that. However, my grudging admiration doesn't mean their films are actually any good; rather they're an orgy of awful: bad acting, bad CGI, bad green screen, and bad writing combine to form a sweaty miasma of- you guessed it- bad movie awesomeness. Suffice it to say, Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus had a lot to live up to.
If there's one thing I learned from my beloved Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (and believe me, I've learned way more than one mere thing!), it's that nothing gets the blood pumping like hot, hot underwater mini-sub throttle action. Right off the bat, MS vs GO doesn't disappoint: Deborah Gibson and a pal are tooling around in a mini-sub, looking for...stuff...and there's plenty of button-pushing and throttle throttling to satisfy even the most cynical movie fan.


Some Army dudes or something or other drop some sonar something something...eh, it didn't make much sense. Just know this: the mega-shark and the giant octopus were frozen in place as they were grappling (presumably) to the death (the Ice Age came on fuckin' fast, y'all), but now they're free! Free to grapple! Free to fight! Free to
And kill they do, sort of. Frankly, the trailer shows all the best bits, like when the mega-shark takes down the Golden Gate Bridge...


These positively mysterious deaths cause Deborah Gibson and her cronies to DO SOME SCIENCE. Apparently they work at the Kool-Aid Institute for Underwater Studies, as their "research" involves pouring one colored liquid into a container of another colored liquid, then frowning at the results.




After she has sex with a co-worker in the employee breakroom, Deborah Gibson has an idea: they should use pheromones to lure the mega-shark and the giant octopus into some kinda traps! It's a foolproof plan, I tells ya! Lorenzo Lamas shows up as some sort of...err, Army guy, I guess, whose job it is to have a ponytail and to glower.
I'll admit, Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus was a somewhat rollicking good time up until this point; then everyone piled into a submarine and the proceedings came to a big, fat, grinding halt as there was about a half an hour of this:

Eventually, the mega-shark and the giant octopus resume their battle, and I have to wonder what happened between them that caused them to hold a grudge for millions of years. I bet it involved infidelity. Somehow, in my dreams, a weave is also involved.

early bird
March 10th, 2009 — amc, animals run amok, cockroaches who can fart fire, Comics, From The Feeds, oh my god i love Killer Workout, wendy torrance 4-eva
In related news: who's going to see Last House?

In other related news, posting is going to be light this week because...well, because I'm busy. Maybe even biz-zay. But what's taking me away from movie watching and the such is actually stuff that I can share with you down the road, so it'll all work out in the end. You know that I do everything for you...but I won't do that! Or something.
In other other related news, I'm glad to see that the results of my Wendy Torrance poll are currently in her favor. It's good to see her get some love!

In other other other related news, Toosday Toons is up. Dare you step inside...The Last House on the Right?
In other other other other related news, here's a scene from Bug. I know you gaze lovingly at that little photo in my sidebar where the woman's hair is on fire...now you can watch the movie magic happen right before your very eyes!
If there's one day I don't want my hair to catch on fire, it's my birthday. Yes, that's the set from The Brady Bunch. I'd also like to point out that she decides to make "chicken mousse", which contains "jellied chicken". I'm sure there's something out there that's more repulsive than jellied chicken and chicken mousse, but whatever it is I'd rather not know about it. Let's distract ourselves from such grossness by re-reading my review of Bug. Sweet relief!
Film Club: The Food of the Gods
September 8th, 2008 — animals run amok, eeeevil, Final Girl FIlm Club, From The Feeds, Marjoe fucking Gortner, Reviews, the history of ever
I know, I know, I KNOW! Please don't get all "up in my grill", LOL, but I've done it again. I went and jumped in whole hog (does that make sense? LOL) before I knew what I was getting myself into and now I'm sitting here nursing a cup of coffee and a broken heart!!!1!! I should know better and you're probably rolling your eyes and being all "I told you so" because we can count the number of times this has happened to me on 24859 hands. But how does that saying go? Better to have loved and lost than something something something, right? Right! But let me tell you about my night and what happened. Oh, and I need to write down that "easy layered tomato dip" from the back of the Wheat Thins box before I forget! Note to self:
Anyway. Okay, so, I remember the first time I heard about Food of the Gods (1976) and I got sooo excited! I think I was at a party or something, or maybe somebody said something? Anyway (again, LOL), but seriously, I was like "Giant animals running amok? Ida Lupino? Marjoe fucking Gortner?" I think I'm in love!", like I was crushing soooo hard. Then I saw FotG in the store and I read the DVD case and I was crushing even harder, so I was like, why don't we move in together?
See? I know what you're thinking. Why do I go so fast? Why not wait it out with a rental or a Netflix or something, why am I just, like, automatically pledging myself forever and making a move-in commitment right off the bat when it so rarely works out? Does nothing ever go right for me? I feel so Cathy, LOL!

See, there was this island where Mr and Mrs Skinner found this porridge-fall in the woods, right? And they were such








I swear, it was like Food of the Gods had turned into Ted Bundy or something! Like, how can someone so charming and attractive turn out to be so eeeevil? I felt duped, and I was like, "I don't even know who you are anymore, FotG," and I mean I really said that. You should be proud of me, diary! I said, why not shoot fake rats? And Food was like "I dunno", like it couldn't even come up with an excuse. So I said, maybe we shouldn't live together anymore, and then Food was like "Wait wait wait, what about this?" and then Ida Lupino had a fight to the death with a giant fake rat and they die together like this:

8 oz cream cheese spread
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 small tomatoes, chopped
1/3 cup green onions (*note: maybe substitute regular onions?)
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
some WHEAT THINS
MIX cream cheese and garlic
SPREAD onto plate
TOP with onions, tomatoes, cheese
SERVE as dip with CRACKERS
Hugz-n-stuff,
FG
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Film Club Coolies, y'all!
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Freddy in Space
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Bloody Good Horror
Horror Film Magazine
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