When I said that there was a chance that the B.I.G man, Bert I. Gordon, might make another appearance on The Bigger & Badder Halloween Top 13, you probably didn't think it would be the next day, but that is exactly what is happening. I could have honestly almost filled up this list with great giant creature features from Mr. Gordon such as The Amazing Colossal Man, Earth vs. The Spider, The Cyclops, and King Dinosaur. However, I kept my choices down to two such films (though Empire of the Ants also made a strong case for inclusion), and after the tremendous teens of Village of the Giants, I had to follow it up with what probably is Gordon’s best known film, Food of the Gods. Both Village and Food are both loosely based on the H.G. Wells novelFood of the Gods, and when I say loosely, I mean I don't think that Wells included either The Beau Brummells or a former child evangelist in his novel. The main thing that both movies share is the conceit of an edible that makes the ingestee grows to tremendous proportions. While Village casts the greedy eaters as rowdy teens out for a thrill, Food of the Gods takes the path of the wrath of nature with wasps, chickens, maggots, and rats filling out the cast of overly large animals. So sit back, grab a snack, and come with me as I cut off a slice of Food of the Gods.
People love to go to lakes. Personally, I can't stand them. I'm not much of a swimmer anyhow, but offer me up a brackish pool of murky water where I don't know what could be lurking down there, and I'm going to pass. I've seen way too many Friday the 13th movies, and there could be a chained up maniac waiting down there for me to swim by so he can grab my leg. Paranoid? Perhaps, but I've gotten this far without it happening so I'm sticking to it. The reason I bring up Friday the 13th and lakes is that both have something to do with today's creature feature on the Bigger and Badder Halloween Top 13. Coming in at number 10, the last of the double digits, it's the late 90s horror-comedy Lake Placid. Featuring some of my favorite actors, some genuinely funny dialog, and Betty White cursing up a storm before casting Ms. White in anything was cool, Lake Placid scores across the board for me. Add in the involvement of Steve Minor, director of Friday the 13th Part 2 and 3, and a giant killer crocodile, and you've got me hooked for sure. So come along as I take a little trip to Black Lake, Maine and take a bite out of Lake Placid.
Many people would say that rabbits are not vicious creatures. Instead, they think them merely herbivores who are fluffy, hop along, and wiggle their little cotton ball tail. First off all, ask any hunter with a speech impediment, and they will tell you that rabbits are rascally or, to be accurate, wascally. However, I think that the best source of information about the species can be found from your friendly local enchanter. Mine happens to be a fellow called Tim. You may have seen him in a movie once. Well he told me that, “That’s the most foul, cruel, bad tempered rodent you will ever see in your life.” Naturally I scoffed at that because seriously who is named Tim the Enchanter anyway. Though, when I watched today’s film, Night of the Lepus, his words sprang, or should I say hopped, right into my mind. As I sat there watching Janet Leigh, DeForest Kelley, and Stuart Whitman fight off an onslaught of enormous rabbits, the words of Time rang in my ears, “death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth.”
The day has finally arrived. With only 13 days until the biggest holiday of the year (for me, at least), I've been looking forward since last year to penning this list of giant monsters, colossal critters, and enormous animals. Today, I kick off the countdown with a film that is near and dear to my heart. Way back in 1997 I watched today's flick in the theater, and instantly I knew two things, the special effects would be out of date by next week and I had just witnessed what should have become one of the new cult classics. Unfortunately, time has not been on my side of the latter argument. While I'm sure the film has found more than a few admirers, perhaps few have realized it's full potential as one of the best party movies ever made. From the insanely inspired performances to the laughable twist on Moby Dick, there's really nothing here for a cult film fan not to like. So join me, along with a rapper, an American Idol judge, a guy whose had the same haircut for 20 plus years, Angelina's dad, and Danny Trejo for a ride on the Amazon in a little something that I like to call Anaconda.
Just yesterday, June 20th, marked the 37th year since the release of Stephen Spielberg’s Jaws into the movie theaters, and so some might say I missed the anniversary. However, what I want to talk about is something that’s a bit off, or should I say took a bite off of, Jaws. Like so many trends in cinema, once the Italians got a hold of it, they took it to as many places as you could imagine. Today, I’m going to take a look at three of the many, many giant water based creature films that invaded Italian cinemas for two decades following Hollywood‘s most famous shark. Each is the effort of a different directors and features a different kind of creature, and with a wide margin of success and failure, all of them intended to imitate what the Spielberg had put on the screen. So join me as Sergio Martino, Lamberto Bava, and Fabrizio De Angelis take their shot at aquatic glory.
There are many things I’m afraid of. To begin the list you could start with snakes or spiders, but coming in at a close third you could put bees. I have no idea why I’m so scared of bees, but if I see one at a distance, I’ll immediately start planning on how to get away from it. My wife always tells me to keep still and they’ll ignore me, but to hell with that, I’m going to be out of there like The Roadrunner leaving only a smoky outline of myself. So the idea behind tonight’s film, The Swarm, is terrifying to me. An invasion of killer bees would rank up there with my worst nightmares, and some people warned me that the film itself might be pretty nightmarish. Still, I decided I should face my fear and the film that so many people had warned me about.
TheSwarm was directed by the disaster movie impresario Irwin Allen who produced and co-directed the films The Towering Inferno (1974) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972). (His credit on IMDB for Inferno and Poseidon lists him as directing the action scenes, and, presumably, the other director handled the drama.)After the success of those two films, Allen was ready to have the canvas director’s chair all to himself, and so he chose to direct The Swarm without a partner. Like his other disaster epics, he assembled a deep cast of actors, Michael Caine, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, and Henry Fonda just to name a few. He even secured powerhouse composer Jerry Goldsmith and veteran cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp for the film. Everything seemed set for a repeat of his previous efforts, but little did Allen know that if you mess with The Swarm, you’re bound to get stung.
The film starts in the aftermath of a disaster at an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Silo where nearly everyone has been killed. When General Slater (Richard Widmark) and his men arrive at the silo, they find few survivors, but they also find entomologist Brad Crane (Michael Caine) lurking about. Much to the General’s chagrin, the culprit for the deaths seem to be a swarm of killer African bees, and the President personally puts Crane in charge of defeating the menace before they overrun the sleepy Texas town of Maryville. Crane calls in his scientist pals Dr. Hubbard (Chamberlain) and Dr. Krim (Fonda) to help him find a way to defeat the bees, but their efforts seem fruitless and the bees nearly level the small town before making their way to Houston.
That synopsis doesn’t even begin to cover the plot threads running though this film. I didn’t even get a chance to bring up Katherine Ross as Helena, Brad Crane’s love interest, or the elderly love triangle between Fred MacMurray, Ben Johnson, and Olivia de Havilland. The latter of these two storylines was the most forced, and the conclusion of that thread is spectacularly unsatisfying for how much time was spent on it. Now when I started watching the film (via Netflix instant view), I had the IMDB up as usual and saw it had a nearly two hour running time. After an hour and half, I started wondering how they were going to wrap this up and I checked where I was in the picture only to find I had another hour to go. The version I was lucky enough to see was the extended cut of TheSwarm that runs nearly a half hour longer. Why or how this version happened (I assume it can’t be a director’s cut as Allen wouldn’t even talk about this film after it flopped), but I can assure you that you have no reason to track it down.
While I enjoyed a few of the performances, for the most part this movie is full of painful acting and more painful dialog. Michael Caine is saddled with lines like, ‘The bees have always been our friends.”, and by the second half of the film Richard Widmark’s General drops gems like “Will history blame me or the bees?”. It should also be noted that Widmark’s General spends the second half of the film dropping part of his foe’s name. While he starts off wanting to fight the “African killer bees“, by the end of the film he’s down to simply “the Africans”. The script was written by Stirling Silliphant (based on a book by Arthur Herzog Jr.) who is usually fairly dependable. Not only did he write Allen’s previous disaster epics, he also penned classics like Village of the Damned, In the Heat of the Night, and Circle of Iron. Again, it’s a mystery as to how such a stalwart writer penned such a travesty, but I suppose when you’re writing disaster one’s bound to happen to you eventually.
While overall the film was way to long, way to boring, and way too meandering, there was something about it I rather liked. It had this unintentional silliness that made it nearly come off as a parody of the ‘70’s disaster trend. It was also cool to see all those famous faces share the screen. I mean when the fate of the world is in the hands of Allen Quartermain, Jack Carter, and Abraham Lincoln you have to feel pretty safe. Also, for me at least, it contained some horrifying footage of bee attacks. I don’t care of they looked a little cheesy; they were harrowing to watch. I do have to say that the giant bee hallucinations that some people had after being stung were less cringe inducing and more laugh producing. Overall, TheSwarm is not a movie I can’t with a clear conscience encourage people to watch, but I kind of had a good time watching it. Although I might have had a better time if it had been the regular version and not super sized. So if bees bug you or if you’re a big fan of any of the famous names involved, then check it out. Otherwise, I think you can buzz right by this one.
