Film Review: HARBINGER DOWN (2015)

Special effects and creature creator Alec Gillis takes to directing with his debut feature Harbinger Down (2015).  Having worked on such creature features as Alien Nation, Leviathan, Evolution, and the Tremors and Alien franchises, Gillis is no stranger to monsters of which Harbinger Down has an interesting one.  

 

Graff (Lance Henricksen), captain of a crabbing boat takes his daughter and her group of student researchers into the Bering Sea to study the effects of global warming on a pod of Belugas.  When they come across the wreckage of a Soviet space ship, which until recently had been buried in the ice, greed sets in because of salvage rights but that will be the least of their worries as the Soviets were experimenting in deep space and the organism that they created has thawed out and seeks blood.  Now everyone on Graff’s ship is in danger especially considering that the creature is constantly mutating and getting stronger and smarter as time goes on.  

If you’re looking for originality, then this film is not for you as this film has borrowed from many other films that came before it but there is no denying that the film is very well done and anchored by Henricksen’s always dependable performance as he gives 110% even on the lowest budget of film.  The film is also given better than expected SFX for the monster and the film is never boring as Gillis (who also wrote the screenplay) has learned a lot from all the directors he has worked with over his long career.  This may be his first film but he is definitely not a first time filmmaker as this film is very polished and looks great.

A lot can be said for a monster film that delivers on all that it promises and what is expected by audiences.  Gillis knows what horror fans expect and isn’t afraid to deliver the goods.

Film Review: SUMMER SCHOOL (2006)

Anthology films are very hit or miss, but more often than not they are miss.  The same can be said for the film Summer School (2006) which suffers from being an anthology with a unique premise that is destroyed by subpar acting and production values and weak and uninspired direction (from all the directors).

It’s the first day of summer school and Charles (Simon Wallace) just wants to get through the day without any problems because he just spent last night watching a lot of B-level horror films.  Today will be anything but normal as Charles soon discovers that he is living a nightmare within a nightmare of different style horror films.  The only way of escape is when he dies at the end of the nightmare and wakes up but what is a nightmare and what is the real world?

The film has a great concept behind it as the short films contained within are from different genres from a vampire film to a mutant infestation film to a hillbilly “Wrong Turn” like film to more.  This is an excellent idea for a horror film but the overall film is hampered by a weak lead in with Wallace who cannot carry the film and seems out of place in many of the shorts (his performance is very inconsistent).  His co-stars all seem to be having more fun as each short has the same actors portraying different characters from one story to the next.

Most of the direction is pedestrian and lacks imagination and causes the film to drag especially when you’re stuck in scenes with just Wallace.  The low budget (or no budget as it looks) aesthetics of the film hamper it at every turn leaving nothing in the film to actually enjoy.  This is a shame since the film’s concept is its driving force and allure.  This is one of those independent films that could do with a remake that had a budget to do the story justice.

Film Review: ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATION (1991)

Giant and mutated monsters have been around for as long as the Atomic bomb of Gojira (1954) signaled a cultural change for an entire nation.  Then of course came Them (1954), Food of the Gods (1976), and Tarantula (1955), to name a few but when people tired of the giant monster craze it faded into obscurity and became nothing more than cannon fodder but then writer John Sayles and director Lewis Teague unleashed Alligator (1980) upon an unsuspecting audience and became a huge hit as it took an urban myth and turned it into an urban nightmare.  It was a little more than a decade when the sequel Alligator II: The Mutation (1991) saw the light of day and was also a film that had a lot more to say than just being a giant alligator on the loose film. 

The plot of this film is very similar to the original as people start to disappear in a small city whose lake is connected to the sewer system.  A lone cop David Hodges (Joseph Bologna) is the only one who believes that the deaths of some homeless people and some minority fisherman are linked and that the city may be facing a bigger and more aggressive alligator than anyone has ever seen.  Add to the fact that local land developer Vinnie Brown (Steve Railsback) is holding a fair that will put their city on the map as long as there are no problems and Hodges has more problems than he really needs.  There are also shades of government corruption and manipulation and minority race relations thrown in to add more political intrigue to the story but the real star of this film is the giant mutated alligator that has been exposed to radioactive waste and really just wants to eat everything in its sight.

The Mutation may seem like a pale comparison to the original but there is a lot going for this film as Bologna proves time and time again that he is an actor that can be both serious and funny when he needs to be as there are many funny moments in the film especially with his interactions with his wife Christine (Dee Wallace) and his rookie partner Harmon (Woody Brown).  There is also the “great alligator hunter” in the form of Richard Lynch (always a pleasure to behold) and you throw them all together and you have one hell of an entertaining film that’s quite  engaging considering the retread of a plot from the original (and various other giant monster films out there).

Written by Curt Allen and directed by John Hess The Mutation is a nice companion film to the first film that fans of that film will enjoy.