Swamp Thing (1982)

Directed by: Wes Craven
Runtime: 88 minutes

This movie is weird fiction, comic book super heroes, light touch of horror, and stupid fun all mashed into one strange and fun movie. The movie is based on the DC comics written by Len Wein. His comic run deals Doctor Alec Holland, a scientist who is making a formula to get plants to grow anywhere but agents of evil want this formula and Dr Holland ends up covered in burning chemicals and jumping into the swamp. This accident turns the doctor into the Swamp Thing, a human plant elemental being. Enough with the background and on to the movie.

Deep in the swamps of South Carolina, the U.S. department of Agriculture is running a secret black operation. So secret that they required to id badges at all times so that no one knows that there is a secret government black operation being carried out in the swamp. The reason for all this security is that Arcane may or may not be alive and after the research they are doing there. Who is Arcane? Why does Arcane want the research data?  These questions will never be answered.

Cable (Adrienne Barbeau) is brought in to replace another security tech who just can't stand being in the swamp. She will be one of three people who can open the lab that is home to brother and sister Doctors Linda and Alec Holland. Cable meets the doctors and Alec immediately realizes that Cable is meant to be his love interest. So Alec and Cable have a romantic trip in the swamp to check a security pod sensor thing.

Back at the lab, Linda has created the formula and shares the good news with her brother when he and Cable return. However, Arcane's men attacked the compound and are hiding the bodies when Cable leaves the lab to tell her boss that the doctors had succeeded in making the formula.  But Arcane's men find her, make her open the door to the lab, and knock her out. In a surprise twist Arcane reveals himself to the doctors. He had been masquerading as the head of security to keep an eye on the progress of the formula. This leads to all hell breaking loose as Linda tries to run of with the lab notes and gets killed, Alec pours the formula on himself and sets himself on fire, and Cable wakes up in time to steal the notes with how the formula is made.

The majority of the second act of this movie is the same thing happening over and over again with the plot sort of advancing after every cycle. It happens like this, Cable wanders around and finds a plot point, Arcane's men show up, Cable is forced to run, and the Swamp Thing shows up to save the day. To make it more entertaining you could speed up most of the second act footage, replaced the audio with Yakety Sax (that song from Benny Hill), and it would be much more watchable. Arcane read ahead in the script and finds a way to capture Cable, Swamp Thing, and the missing formula notes.

This leads to Arcane holding a formal dinner victory party with strippers in the background. Apparently Arcane wants this formula because it can be used  to transform people into a creature based on the character of the person of question. In Arcane's case he turn into the picture below.

While Arcane is turning into a crime against nature, the Swamp Thing has gotten over being caught by Arcane and has freed himself and Cable. Which means that the third act final fight is about to happen. To sum up quickly, Swamp Thing wins the battle and kills Arcane. Then leaves Cable because she is safe and it is time for him to wander the swamp until someone needs him.

The tone of this movie is all over the place. It tries for a horror feel for the first ten minutes or so and then the movie gives up, grabs a bottle of whiskey, and goes all over the place. The best example of this is at the start of the film Arcane's men use a poisonous to kill one of the government agents and laugh as he staggers away dying. These same men later on behave like Keystone cops with military weapons and force the audience to marvel at the fact that they haven't shot each other yet. Despite all that, it is a fun film and if it shows up on cable or a streaming service it is worth a watch that way.

MVT: A tie between the actor who played Jude and the cinematography. Reggie Batts was hired as a local actor and is one of the best characters in the movie but is a minor character which is why I am talking about him now. There are a lot of beautiful shots of the swamp in this film.

Make or Break: The Cable character goes from being able to look out for herself to tripping every chance she can get in the hope that a six foot tall swamp human hybrid thing will be there to save her. I know this is a thirty plus year old film but it is kind of jarring.

Score: 5.25 out of 10

Warlords Of Atlantis (1978)

Why is it that ship’s captains are almost always portrayed as grizzled?  Okay, that’s not quite fair.  Many are depicted as being very clean-cut and rule-conscious, but they’re usually captains of a cruise liner that’s about to hit a tidal wave or in the military.  Whenever a captain owns their own vessel or if that vessel is a working craft (freighters and such), they are always scruffy and look like they stink worse than their cargo.  They weren’t always this way (oh, sure, there were always slovenly seamen, but they couldn’t be trusted, regardless).  In King Kong (1933), Captain Englehorn was a very strait-laced yet agreeable fellow.  The same goes for Commander Carl Nelson (a military man) in King Kong Escapes (1967) and Captain Ross in the 1976 Kong remake.  Yet in Peter Jackson’s 2005 version of the story, Englehorn, while still a principled man, is now much more of a hands-on, working sailor (note his rumpled clothing and five o’clock shadow).  

I think the gruff stereotype for sailors was cemented in the public conscience with Robert Shaw’s portrayal of Quint in 1975’s Jaws.  Like the proverbial hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, Quint was colorful (just ask Chief Brody) and cantankerous, yet somehow also sincere and magnetic.  Henceforth, we don’t think of crisply-dressed men in starched uniforms when we think of captains.  No, we think of a person like Phil Harris from Deadliest Catch.  I’m not impugning that man’s character, but he fits the bill for the mental image of a modern sea captain handily, you must agree.  But you don’t have to.

The Texas Rose, a fairly nice-sized ship, approaches the Bermuda Triangle.  Aboard are her small crew, captained by Captain Daniels (Shane Rimmer), and the Aitken Expedition, led by Professor Aitken (Donald Bisset) and his son Charles (Peter Gilmore).  They are accompanied by engineer and all-around he-man Greg (Doug McClure) who  designed and built the new, open-bottomed diving bell that they will use on their deep sea exploration.  Greg and Charles descend into the abyss and come upon a large gold statue (and a dinosaur) which they haul back to the surface (the statue, not the dinosaur).  But before the crew can mount a full-on mutiny for the filthy lucre, a giant octopus rises from the briny deep and snatches the ship’s crew up, whisking them away to the fabled nation of Atlantis.  But will they be met with open arms or closed fists?  Or neither?

After finding some success with the trifecta of films inspired by/adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs (The Land That Time Forgot, At The Earth’s Core, and The People That Time Forgot), director Kevin Connor and lucky charm star McClure made Warlords Of Atlantis (aka Warlords Of The Deep).  However, unlike the former three films, this one had no attachment to the influential pulp author Burroughs, and by all indications, its script was original.  Seeing as how all four films essentially share the same basic plot, though, “original” is actually a very subjective term.  Still, Connor and company learned a thing or two from their previous outings, and certainly knew how to throw together a pulp-y adventure film.  When the film succeeds, it is highly enjoyable, but when it doesn’t, it really isn’t.  Large sections of this film are loaded with inactivity and go nowhere, and it’s these sequences (which feel more like padding than anything else) which prevent this (and, admittedly, the other aforementioned films) from being a favorite, at least from a story perspective.  The action sequences almost make up for the inaction sequences, but it truly is an uphill battle to regain an audience’s attention once it has been lost.

Like so very many films focusing on the lost continent, this one deals with Atlantis as a mystical, spiritual place (as was the popular take of the time).  The mind is more important than the body in Atlantis.  In the fifth city (of seven), where the elite Atlanteans carouse, the surroundings are immaculate, and most of the architecture is pyramidal, playing on not only the notion of pyramids as structures of power but also on the concept that the ancient Atlanteans were instrumental in helping shape the course of civilization on Earth.  This provides a link to Egypt, considered by many to be the “Cradle Of Civilization,” and we all know what we think of when we think of Egypt:  Mummies.  Okay, and pyramids.  

The other cities are closer in look and function to decrepit castles and fiefdoms.  Here is where the workers (read: slaves) toil their lives away, because of course, you may be able to construct a sewage system for your society with the power of your mind, but you’d most likely rather leave the job to menial laborers, being a not very glamorous undertaking.  The slaves are kept in line by hulking warriors, and importantly, we never see any of their faces.  They wear reflective helmets with smooth, curved surfaces.  They are Atlantean only in point of origin (and the implication is that they are created rather than birthed), because they are not true citizens but dogs serving their masters.  They have no faces, because they have no identity.  They are a pack of fighters and fodder, period.

This plays into the titular Warlords of the film.  These elite want to control the path of man’s destiny, and they mean to do so by creating ever-more destructive weaponry (they claim to want “neutron power”).  However, if past actions are any indications, the only thing they truly want is domination, and they’re not above employing violence to achieve it.  There is a rather on-the-nose line drawn between the Atlanteans and the Nazis in the film, but it’s an intriguing idea all the same.  They want to rule the world, and they certainly have the ability to do so.  So, my question is, why don’t they?  They say that they need Charles’s intellect to help them along, but considering what they’ve achieved, is this one man’s mind truly going to help them over hurdles they apparently surmounted eons prior?  And here’s another beef I have with the film:  It’s very idea-oriented, and many of the ideas proffered are fascinating (at least in a drunken brainstorming sort of way).  Sadly, they’re also left hanging out in the wind so that the filmmakers could finish up their plot, which is simply a set of arbitrary motions.  There is no real resolution, and the film doesn’t have a true ending; it just sort of stops.  Whether this was done to leave the door open for future films, I cannot say (and I would suggest that this movies’ spiritual successor is Ruggero Deodato’s Raiders Of Atlantis).  What I can say is that by being so open-ended with just about every aspect of this film, it effectively leaves the viewer with nothing to do but sigh rather than cheer.

MVT:  The sense of wonder and adventure in the film is infectious, and it is this which does the heavy lifting of the picture.  That it is left without solid footing to support it, is lamentable.

Make Or Break:  The giant octopus attack scenes make this film.  The practical effects (many of which appear to be full-sized, and if they weren’t are even more impressive to me) will make Monster Kids the world over happy.  The other creatures in the movie are equally delightful, and the often-wonky puppetry is charming as all hell.  

Score:  6.5/10

Eegah (1962)

Directed by Arch Hall Sr.

Runtime: 90 minutes.

"To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems." Homer Simpson.

Hello, I am Brett Ridley and I am addicted to collecting public domain dvd collections. This is why I am reviewing Eegah and sharing the pain of this film. The too long; can't be bothered to read version of this review is watch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode where they make fun of this movie.

The movie opens on the whitest town in California were Roxie (played by Marilyn Manning) leaves the all night women's clothes store and goes to visit Tom (played by Arch Hall Jr.) at the gas station where he works. There is an exposition dump from Tom about Roxie and her father Robert (played by Arch Hall Sr.).

Roxie takes off for the country club and nearly runs over the title character Eegah (played by Richard Kiel). Instead of driving off and ending this nightmare movie, Roxie decides to stop get a better look at Eegah and then faint. She is save from being kidnapped by Tom driving up and honking his horn. At the country club Roxie retells how she fainted at the sight of a giant. Her father not believing the story but insulted that their guest (who name I can be bothered to look up) decides to go to the site where Roxie saw this giant.

The next day Roxie, Tom and Robert go back to the desert road where Roxie had seen the giant. Finding proof to Roxie's story, her father gets a helicopter ride into the desert to find this giant. So armed with an overnight bag, a camera, binoculars and no water Robert takes off into the desert. After some stock animal footage and a few minutes of walking he meets Eegah. Robert tries to take a picture of Eegah but Eegah is protective of his image and how it is used. So Eegah uses his club to explain this to Robert. Robert's mind is so blown by a caveman giant that is protective of his image rights that he trips and falls.

We cut to the country club where Tom and his band playing some song about a girl and Roxie swimming in the pool near by. After Tom's musical number Roxie gets a phone call from her father's helicopter pilot. The helicopter was having the gasket changed and would be unable to pick up Robert. This calls for Tom and Roxie to breakout the custom p.o.s. dune buggie.

What follows is five minutes of these two twits driving pointlessly around the desert to pad the run time. At some point they remember why they are there in the first place and they go to meet the father. Finding that Robert is nowhere to be found they set up camp for the night and crack out the guitar and Chekhov's transistor radio. Tom sing yet another song and then the two of them sleep for the night. Eegah uses his mad giant ninja caveman skills to sneak up on the two of them but the Chekhov radio goes off at random and scares Eegah away.

The day for night filter rises and our heroic couple decide to split up because nothing bad ever happens in movies when people do this. Eegah uses his ninja skills and sneaks up on Roxie again. This time their are not radios to save Roxie, so she defaults to her survival skills. By survival skills I mean faint at the worst time and get kidnapped by Eegah. Meanwhile Tom and some stock animal footage fail at finding where Roxie and Eegah have disappeared to.

Elsewhere in this horrible movie, Eegah reunites Roxie with her father. Eegah also shows Roxie and Robert the mummified remains of his ancestors. Eegah also grunts at them as though they were still alive and can talk back to him. At this point Robert gets the brilliant to have Roxie shave him because his clavicle is broken and he has to look his best to happy hour at the country club later that night. This is Robert's cunning plan to distract Eegah long enough for the two of them to escape. The plan half works, Eegah wants to thank Roxie in private for the shave by ripping her cloths off. So Robert makes his escape and Roxie screams a lot and eventually works out running away is a good idea.

Tom is trying to form a new band with the stock footage animals when he hears the screaming and remembers that he is the heroic lead in the film. First he runs to see if Robert is the one screaming but Robert points him in the right direction. He catches up to Roxie and Eegah thanks to Roxie fainting again. Tom tried to shoot Eegah with the rifle but Eegah just takes and bend the rifle. So Tom is forced to throw rock at Eegah until he passes out from laughing.

The heroic trio are reunited and make their way back to the dune buggie. But Eegah recovers and uses his ninja ability to teleport to the cliffs where he can menace them as they escape the desert and retreat to the country club. Meanwhile, Eegah has returned to his cave and is grunting out with the benefits of stalking Roxie with his mummified. I have no idea what is said as all of Eegah's dialog is grunt and nonsense so I am assuming they told Eegah that he was better for Roxie than Tom. So Eegah takes off and ventures into amazingly generic California town to find Roxie.

Due to Eegah's ninja training he is able to get to town quickly and go unnoticed as a seven foot giant in a loin cloth. After some wacky comedy with a drunk, Eegah goes to a motel to show off some more of his mad ninja skills. However the police have been called so Eegah goes to the country club.

At the country club Tom is singing again. Eegah gets there and starts busting up the place. Roxie is unsure if she should get a restraining order against Eegah or if she loves him. Robert leaves the scene for a bit to get a martini. Eegah crashes the party where Tom and Roxie are and the police show up to kill Eegah. The end.

MVT: Richard Kiel. It is clear how he managed to have a career after this.

Make or Break: Make is Richard Kiel again and Evan Williams Honey Whiskey. Break, the movie minus Richard Kiel.

Score: 0.25 of 10