Deep Rising (1998)

A group of heavily armed hijackers board a luxury ocean liner in the South Pacific Ocean to loot it, only to do battle with a series of large-sized, tentacled, man-eating sea creatures who have taken over the ship first. 

Deep Rising is a 1998 American action horror film directed by Stephen Sommers and starring Treat Williams, Famke Janssen and Anthony Heald.  It's silly, cliché-heavy, and utterly predictable.  I would consider this to be what I call a "popcorn movie".  It's mindless entertainment.  This movie is stupid as hell, but it knows it, and just wants to take us along on its stupid ride.

The movie has mercenaries that are on their way to a Titanic-like cruise ship called the Argonautica in order to steal and blow it up.  The thing they weren't counting on was a monster with snake tentacles that sucks humans dry.  It's basically a rip off of Alien where a monster traps everyone in a sealed off location and takes them out one by one.

This ain't no pleasure cruise

The monster is pretty well designed and cool looking and some of the deaths are pretty brutal.  Beyond that, the film fails on most other levels.  The comic relief is provided by the ship's engineer, who whines his way through the movie and spits out lame joke after lame joke.  In fact they all crack shitty one liners no matter how bad the situation.  There is practically no tension here because at no time can this film be taken seriously - whatsoever.

Women and children first. You're next.

 If you know the work of Sommers, then you will know what to expect from his movies, aside from the fact that they lessen in quality every time a new one is released.  He also did Van Helsing which was a tremendous box office bomb as was this film.  Although to his credit he did very well with The Mummy.

Admittedly you must like B-movie fluff to enjoy this but then it has no pretensions other than escapism.  There isn't really much else to say about this film. No great science here. No factual based story....just have fun, eat popcorn.

Now what?

 Trivia:

Famke Janssen's character Trillian is named after the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy character of the same name. Although here Trillian is her actual name, in Hitch-Hiker's it's short for Tricia McMillan. 

Claire Forlani was cast as Trillian St. James. She even started shooting, but walked out after just three days, due to creative differences with director Stephen Sommers. The part subsequently went to Famke Janssen.

The "Chinese M1 L1 triple-pulse assault rifles" used by the pirates are actually heavily modified Calico M-960 submachine guns fitted with 100-round magazines (as opposed to the "thousand-round capacity" mentioned by Hanover). Five non-functional rotating barrels were built around the actual barrel of each Calico and driven by a small electric motor connected to the trigger, so that whenever the gun was fired, it appeared to be firing out of the rotating barrels.

Captain Atherton, played by Derrick O'Connor, was named after cinematographer Howard Atherton.

Harrison Ford turned down the role of Finnegan. The production's budget was then downsized. 

They Seized The World's Richest Ship... But No One's On Board!

Famke Janssen was almost not cast in this movie because the producers felt she was too recognizable from GoldenEye (1995)

In the original script, John Finnegan's catchphrase was "what now?" In the film it was changed to "now what?"

One of the few films that has no heroes or heroines. Finnegan and his crew are hired for villainous reasons. Trillian is a thief. The mercenaries are simply mercenaries.

Stephen Sommers began writing the script, then called "Tentacle", when he worked at Hollywood Pictures in the mid-90s. 

The January 1st, 1996 revised draft of the screenplay lists Robert Mark Kamen as a co-writer.

In the initial scene of the Argonautica Casino there can be seen some old Italian banknotes probably used to portrait an exotic foreign currency; their size is 2000 lire and 1000 lire. These were the smallest banknote sizes at the time, roughly equivalent to 1$ and 50c of 2013 - in 1998 the price of an Italian newspaper was 1200 lire.

Full scream ahead.

Curse Of The Swamp Creature (1966)

Deep in the rural swamps of Texas the insane Dr. Simond Trent is conducting experiments on the local swamp people in an attempt to discover the secret of evolution. When a party of oil surveyors comes upon his isolated laboratory he decides to take the final step and turn one of them into a grotesque amphibious creature.

Curse of the Swamp Creature is a 1966 American film directed by Larry Buchanan.  It is a movie where Buchanan proved that he was a master of suspense and horror much like Hitchcock.  Naw...I'm just kidding.  This is one of the worst movies ever created.  The only reason to watch this movie is for the huge amount of laughs you will get.  Much like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" this film is so bad it's good. The performances are bad...alligators hanging out in swimming pools...people doing voodoo dances to curse the mad doctor....a deaf mute girl pushes a guy into the water and somehow it becomes quicksand.  I could go on and on.  Oh and the film also has John Agar...who obviously was intoxicated when he agreed to sign on for this film.

The only view you get of the creature until the final 3 minutes of the film.

The story is as follows.....a group heads into the swamp looking for oil.  They trek through deep marsh after the boat can no longer go on.  They eventually stumble on a mad doctor's house and he's experimenting with creating a man-phibian.  Somehow the doctor has a manicured lawn, swimming pools and a mansion deep in the swamp.  And he finally succeeds in creating his creature, who appears for a couple minutes to wrap up the film and jumps in the pool to get eaten by alligators.  True terror.  And somehow this goofy doctor has a smoking hot wife.  He must have a pecker the size of a large cucumber.

The face of horror

 This movie won't be for everybody.  In fact, it won't be for 95% of Earth's population.  But for those that love shitty movies that are so horrifically bad this is a gold mine.

Son, you're close to being alligator food.

Quotes:
Tom: Doctor, I was thinking... just the work that you've done with the crocodiles and taking them back along the evolutionary path and making them into fish would be enough to win you world acclaim.
Dr. Simond Trent: Yes, but acclaim... that's nothing. To create life, to move it up and down the evolutionary path... that's something. Something I don't you quite appreciate, Tom.

Dr. Simond Trent: You’re ready. Awake! The sound of my voice is your master!  Get up! Get up! The world awaits you as my first citizen!

Dr. Simond Trent:  Well, Tom – at last you’re going to make a contribution to science! Everyone has his place in the field of research. Tom? Tom, are you listening? Nod your head if you are! You'’e doing fine -–fine! You’re strong. You can stay under water indefinitely. You’re almost bulletproof! I’m envious of you, Tom! Hmm? Are you hungry? How clumsy of me! Let me get you a snack! [He hands ‘Tom’ a turtle] Here, boy! Here!

  

Dr. Simond Trent:  You’re ready to come off the preserver, and make your debut – my beautiful, indestructible fishman!

Scientist:  How can you look for oil without equipment – seismographs, drilling equipment?
Geologist:  Well – it’s not easy.

I can see everything clearly through these glasses.

The Blood Beast Terror (1968)

The Blood Beast Terror is a 1968 horror film from Tigon Bristish Film Productions.  If you look in the left hand corner of the above movie poster you will see Peter Cushing. (One of my favorite actors)  Cushing considered this the worst film he ever made. I concur. And by that I mean the worst film HE ever made. But it looks like Citizen Kane compared to Blackenstein.

There is a basic horror movie theme here.  Victims are discovered with their blood drained and a detective (Cushing) is on the hunt to discover the killer.  Cushing as always is fun to watch and I give a tip of my hat to the filmmakers for trying to bring a different type of monster to the big screen.  Despite being a slow movie, I was intrigued as to who or what the killer really was.  I hung around just to find out.  Spoiler coming:  It's a woman that turns into a moth.   That sets up an ending that makes you groan.  The moth dies because she sees the light from a fire and flies into it, thus burning to death.

Like a moth to the flame...

Despite terrible reviews from all around, the film is not that bad. It does have some misdirection that keeps you interested.  It also has some comic elements with Glynn Edwards (as Sergeant Allen) and Roy Hudd, as the morgue attendant who eats his frigging meals off the slabs in the morgue, complete with dead bodies.


It's obvious that this movie was shot on a shoestring budget. The movie has it's flaws such as hardly ever seeing monster and the poor ending.  The film didn't change the face of horror but it wasn't a complete disaster either.

You don't have to point shit out to Peter Cushing.  He sees all bumbling policeman.

Trivia:
Robert Flemyng replaced Basil Rathbone.

First film of Roy Hudd

Robert Flemyng reportedly hated working on the film.

Tarantula (1955)

A spider escapes from an isolated desert laboratory experimenting in giantism and grows to tremendous size as it wreaks havoc on the local inhabitants. 

Firstly....I'm not scared of Spiders.  I smash them with my shoe.  You can't do that with this big ass spider. Secondly....Not many women from the 50's can make my jaw drop.  This Mara Corday did just that. She's a fetching woman to say the least.  Now being the perverted male that I am, I will probably try and hunt down her Playboy from October of 1958.  On to the review.....

Mara Corday....fuck yeah

 Tarantula is a 1955 science fiction film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Leo G. Carroll, John Agar, and Mara Corday and it's damn good.  Dr. Gerald Deemer is experimenting with growth hormones to help with the storage of food that's sure to come with the growing population. He's testing on animals and things get out of hand when a tarantula escapes after having been injected with the serum.  There were quite a few giant insect movies in the 50's and this is probably the best of them.  The special effects were actually quite good for their day as a live tarantula was used and air jets did the trick to get him to move in whatever direction they needed.  There's also a scene that occurs in the lab and the enlarged animals look natural and normal.  You actually find yourself saying, "Fuck, that's a big ass guinea pig."

Run......that's not Charlotte.

 The Tarantula does terrorize everybody but let's be realistic...it has no shot living in a movie in which Clint Eastwood is leading the jet fighters into battle.  Clint begins his early movie career kicking ass right away.  "Dump em' all", says Clint.  Make my day punk ass spider.

You fee lucky punk....well, do you?

If you're a fan of 50's movies and classic sci-fi then this is right up your alley.  This is no "so-bad-its-good" movie here.  This is a legit decent popcorn fun film for a rainy afternoon.  If you have kids it's a great way to introduce them to giant monster movies.

Trivia:
Prof Deemer predicts that by the year 2000 the human population will be 3.6 billion. In fact it was almost double that.

Quotes:

Dr. Matt Hastings: But what if circumstances magnified one of them in size and strength, took it out of its primitive world, and turned it loose in ours?
Prof. Townsend: Then expect something that's fiercer, more cruel and deadly than anything that ever walked on earth!

Dr. Matt Hastings: I may be just a country doctor, but I know what I know. 

Stephanie 'Steve' Clayton: Science or no science, a girl's got to get her hair done.

"Fuck, that's a big ass guinea pig."