Film Review: KILLER MOUNTAIN (2011)

Monsters have become a mainstay in low budget horror film arena.  Ever since Alien (1979) became a Box Office and audience hit film makers have been trying to create the next big monster film franchise (of which only the Predator films seem to have done).   This is the sub-genre of horror of which the film Killer Mountain (2011) belongs.

When the team of mountain climbers lead by Kate Donovan (Emmanuelle Vaugier) go missing during a snow storm, her husband Ward (Aaron Douglas) is hired to mount a rescue team.  As Ward and his team quickly ascend the mountain they learn that the previous team had a previous agenda on the mountain and that this agenda led to them encountering an unknown creature that uses the mountain to hunt and kill its prey.  Now time is running out for Ward as he tries to find and save Kate while also trying to find a way to keep his team alive when the mountain just wants all of them dead.

Having the film take place on a mountain is a welcomed change in location from the typical horror film and despite the usual low budget CGI the monsters in this film are not half that bad.  Vaugier, as usual, does a good job of keeping the film more on the serious side rather than the comedy-horror route that most other horror films have taken.    She has been a horror genre icon in such films as Saw II (2005) and Saw IV (2007), Mirrors 2 (2010), Hysteria (2010), Dolan’s Cadillac (2009), Unearthed (2007), Cerberus (2005), and House of the Dead 2 (2005), to name a few.  She has a great rapport with co-star Douglas and both keep the film moving along even when the film gets convoluted in the third act.

The film is never dull and there is enough to be had in the film to appease both the horror and sci-fi fans.

Film Review: TERROR TRAP (2010)

It is no secret that the horror industry relies on the popularity of its cult actors to help promote and guide the production of low budget horror films.  Actors such as Michael Madsen – starring in Piranhaconda (2012), Highway to Hell (2012), The Tomb (2009) and The Bleeding (2009), to name a few, and Jeff Fahey – starring in Tornado Warning (2012), Locusts: The 8^th Plague (2005), The Sacred (2012), and Sushi Girl (2012), to name a few, have been the only reason why some films have ever been made much less watched by an audience.  Madsen and Fahey are just two of these cult icons which also includes the names of Lance Henricksen, Tony Todd, C. Thomas Howell, William Forsythe, Vinnie Jones, Marc Singer, and Danny Trejo, to name a few.  In Terror Trap (2010) we get two cult icons for the price of one with Madsen and Fahey chewing up scenery.

Dan (David James Elliott) and his wife Nancy (Heather Marie Marsden) are having relationship problems and driving home through the country side when they are forced off the road by another car.  Stranded, Dan and Nancy call for help which arrives in the form of country police office Cleveland (Fahey) who takes the couple to a nearby motel until their car can be towed the next morning.  Unbeknownst to Dan and Nancy they are about to become part of an elaborate stalk and kill game in which they will be hunted by a gang of masked assailants for the pleasure of a watching audience.

If you’ve seen the film Vacancy (2007) then there is nothing new here that you haven’t already seen before because this is a low budget version of that film but with unlikeable characters and horrible acting and characters doing dumb things because they are dumb characters that have nothing else to do.  Fahey chews scenery like no one else and seems to be having a good time at it but Madsen is his usual stoic self and adds nothing to the film.  If you enjoy these two actors then this film will at least be a curiosity but other than that this is a film not worth even checking out.  Just watch Vacancy again.

Film Review: ASSAULT OF THE SASQUATCH (2009)

I don’t like to bash any movie…at least not too much but Assault of the Sasquatch (2009) is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen.  Not only is the screenplay by John Doolan horrible, but the acting is beyond amateur and the directing is all over the place in this film that doesn’t know if it wants to be funny or be an action film but you can never take anything in the film seriously and the film has some of the worst monster make up effects that I’ve seen in some time as if the film was made by a first time film maker.  In fact, director Andrew Gernhard is a first timer and it shows in this film.

A poacher accidentally captures a Sasquatch and holds it captive in his trailer but not before it kills the rest of his team members.  The poacher is then captured by the police who impound the trailer and take him in.  Unsuspecting of what is in the trailer the police take it into the city where the Sasquatch escapes and wreaks havoc on the city streets.  The police become stranded in the police station as the Sasquatch picks them off one by one. 

What makes this one of the worst films out there is the fact that the Sasquatch abandons the police station for much of the first part of the film to explore the city before heading back to the police station for no reason to continue to hound the people left alive.  Supposedly the Sasquatch is also known to be overly intelligent which is how it has survived for so long and that it hides the body of the people it kills so that others are not aware of its existence.  While the Sasquatch is so smart (?) everyone else in the film is too dumb.  These must be the worst cops ever because as the streets are being terrorized by the Sasquatch they all hide away in the police station completely aware of the danger.  Also, the so-called Sasquatch experts, who are shooting a video of the Sasquatch siting, are so annoying that after the first time they are on screen I wanted them to become Sasquatch food yet they continue to annoy through most of the rest of the film.  Characters do dumb things because they have nothing else to do and the backstory to the tortured main cop is so unbelievable cliché rendering everything he does in the film as overly comical.

A lot of people do die and there is some gore in the film but there is no getting passed “amateur hour” with this film which no one will enjoy except the people in the film (and maybe not them either).

Film Review: DINOCROC (2004)

The sci-fi horror genre is plagued with bad mutated monsters and thus far hidden creatures of lore that have finally surfaced to wreak havoc on a group of unsuspecting individuals.  Dinocroc (2004) is one of these films as well as the debut film of director Kevin O’Neill who has made a career in the visual effects field on such films as Spiders (2000), Feast (2005), Pulse (2006) and Piranha (2010), to name a few.

Written by Dan Acre with Francis Doel and John Huckert this film tells of a corporation who discovers the DNA of an dinosaur ancestor of the Africa crocodile.  They use the DNA to resurrect the dinocroc and it escapes the lab wreaking havoc on the nearby community.  County dog catcher Diane Harper (Jane Longenecker) and Tom Banning (Matthew Borlenghi) get entangled in the search for the escaped creature when Tom’s brother goes missing and now he must try to find his brother before it is too late.  In order to safeguard their experiment  the scientists who created the creature send in a crocodile expert by the name of Dick Sydney (Costas Mandylor).

The film has a few choice moments and is entertaining in parts but like most films of this kind it offers little new and feels like a retread of better films.  At least Longenecker and Borlenghi have a good enough rapport with one another to keep the romantic sub plot moving forward and Mandylor adds a welcomed dose of comedy just when needed.  As is par for the course the CGI is barely manageable but there are enough kills in the film to at least keep the body count high enough for entertainment value.

This is a film that only the diehard lovers of low budget sci-fi horror will bother to enjoy.

Film Review: CROCZILLA (2012)

The Chinese have now entered the giant killer monster race with Croczilla (2012), the latest in giant crocodile films.  What makes this film different is that the said crocodile is giant because natural causes instead of biological weapons or toxic spills or something similar.  The giant crocodile is named Amao who has lived its life relatively uninterrupted in a zoo that is slowly going out of business.  The only person who sees Amao as an animal to behold is a small boy by the name of Xiao who has just learned that Amao and the rest of the crocodiles at the zoo have been sold to a ruthless gangster who plans on serving up the crocodiles as a meal to his high priced clients but Amao escapes captivity and wanders throughout countryside.

Amao makes small meals out of the random people who come across his path but he also makes a meal out of one woman’s purse containing $1 million and when word gets out that there is a dangerous animal out there worth a million dollar some people flee while others go on a search and destroy mission.  Now Xiao and his father must find Amao before the whole countryside is thrown into chaos.

This may all sound like the makings of a good giant killer animal film but it really isn’t.  The film is badly written with a tone that borders on slapstick from the awkward scenes with naked young boys skinny dipping to the woman with $1 million verses giant crocodile antics.  There is also no logic to why Amao kills some people while leaving others alone and the gangster that plans to feed Amao to his high paying clients is among the most ridiculous ever portrayed.  The film has very little going for it and comes off as a subpar sci-fi disaster.  This is one of those films that you can completely pass up.