HubrisWeen, Day 4: Dog Soldiers (2002)

As I have said previously: I love werewolves, but werewolf movies tend to be unforgivably terrible. Much like killer crocodile movies, I will watch them if given the opportunity, but I never expect anything good.

It's not, therefore, very hard for me to be pleasantly surprised when I end up liking a werewolf movie. It's not hard to be better than any of the sequels to The Howling, for instance. However, sometimes it's possible for me to encounter a werewolf movie that rocks my face off--and that is a joyous occasion indeed.

We open in the highlands of Scotland. A young couple, whose names I am not going to bother providing for reasons that should be immediately obvious, are out camping in celebration of the bloke's promotion or something. as the two sit around the campfire, his partner presents him with a decorative dagger and then she playfully admonishes him that, "It's solid silver, so don't lose it!"

He really ought to have listened to her, but when someone or something outside starts to unzip the door of their tent as they are in the process of getting hot and heavy--he reaches for a torch. (A flashlight to us Yanks, as I'm sure many of you might object that a flaming stick would make an excellent weapon) Well, illuminating the interloper just serves to insure that he gets a clear view of his partner being yanked out of the tent by her ankles before her blood splatters all over him. And then whatever dragged her to her doom comes back for him...

Meanwhile, in a completely different remote area of Wales, Private Cooper (Kevin McKidd), is fleeing from several armed pursuers and a dog. He almost escapes, particularly after taking out three of his pursuers with one torch--so I guess it does work as a weapon--but the dog is a bit better than he expected and he is soon surrounded. Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham--Davos Seaworth to you Game of Thrones fans) congratulates Cooper for his almost-successful escape, whilst holding a gun to his head. As it turns out, this was a test in order for Cooper to see if Cooper was worthy material for special forces unit.

Cooper almost passed as he evaded capture for close to 24 hours. However, Ryan has a task for Cooper that he must complete if he doesn't want to blow his chances of being accepted--Cooper must shoot the dog. Cooper objects that he will not kill a dog for no reason. Well, Ryan has no use for a softie on his team so he tells Cooper he has failed--and then Ryan shoots the dog himself. That Cooper then slugs Ryan on the jaw means he's definitely blown his chances and Ryan now just plain hates him.

Four weeks later, in the highlands of Scotland again. A squad of British Army soldiers is dropped off via helicopter for an exercise. The orange plastic on the barrels of their rifles indicates that they are toting blanks only. Among this squad, we recognize Cooper. In short order we are introduced to the troop's leader, Sergeant Harry G. Wells (Sean Pertwee); our comic relief, Private "Spoon" Witherspoon (Darren Morfitt); Private Terry Milburn (Leslie Simpson); Corporal Bruce Campbell (Thomas Lockyer); and the dour Private Joe Kirkley, who is very upset about missing a football game for this exercise. And yes, many of the character names are jokey references, but you won't notice in the film itself.

We quickly learn, via the bantering and bickering that sets the personalities of our characters, that the exercise is a competition against special forces. Obviously this is a bit of a sore spot for Cooper, and Wells gives his sympathy but at the same time can't help telling Cooper that he's glad to still have him in the unit. As the group makes their way through the woods, Cooper mentions he's heard stories about disappearances in these woods--like the couple from the beginning.

Little does the group realize they're being watched from afar. And look who it is on the other end of the binoculars: Cooper's old friend Ryan. Ryan radios someone else that the "flock are headed for the fold", so it's pretty clear that this is not as typical a training mission as the squad was led to believe.

That night, the squad warms themselves around a campfire at the base of a cliff. They exchange quips about what scares them, with Cooper joking that his fear is, "Spiders. And women. And spider-women." But it's Wells who brings the room down by telling them the story of what scared him during a tour in Kuwait. See, he knew a bloke who got a tattoo of the Devil and said that if he died his soul would go to heaven but the Devil could have his skin. Well, soon enough that bloke stepped on a land mine and was reduced to charred, unrecognizable chunks--except for the perfectly untouched tattoo of Old Scratch.

The mood manages to get even lower when a mutilated Highland cow plunges onto their campfire. Terry reacts by trying to kill a dead animal with an automatic rifle full off blanks. The group laughs about it once they calm down, but now they know something is amiss. In the morning they follow the trail of blood left by the cow--and discover the Special Forces camp. What's left of it, that is. There are blood and entrails strewn about and all the radio equipment is smashed. All the guns in the camp are fully loaded, so nobody got off a shot before they were ambushed. Even weirder, the camp is strewn with the sort of equipment you would use to trap a wild animal--like tranquilizer darts and nets.

However, Ryan suddenly jumps out of hiding, still alive. Mostly. His chest has been torn up by claws or teeth and all he can say is, "There was only supposed to be one," over and over as they bandage him up. Just then, Bruce discovers that their own radio, which can't get a signal, has a tracking device inside it. Spoon is the first to notice that dark is falling--and then the sound of unnatural howls reaches the squad's position.

All the real weapons are salvaged and the squad fall back in the direction of a road by pairs. Bruce takes the rear, but when a target appears his gun jams and in the process of fleeing he impales himself on a tree limb. Whatever was chasing him finishes the job. Wells finds Bruce's body, but then Bruce's killer finds him and Wells gets his gut slashed open. Cooper drives off Wells' attacker, shoves his commanding officer's guts back into his belly, and drags him away. Spoon manages to nearly get himself run over flagging down the only vehicle in the area, which is driven by Megan (Emma Cleasby). She's been looking for the squad because she heard gunfire the previous night.

They all pile into her car, but one of their attackers--by now clearly a werewolf--lands on the car and smashes an arm through the ceiling. One knife through the forearm later, it breaks off its attack and the group escape. Megan explains that she's a zoologist and fairly new to the area but she knows a safe place--a farm just up the road. She knows the family well. Except, when they get to the farmhouse it's deserted: save for the surprisingly non-creepy border collie that Cooper finds.

(Yes, I think border collies are creepy. It's that stare)

After helping themselves to the food--including something that looks like pork--the group pauses to count ammunition and Megan explains what they're dealing with. She had come to investigate the stories that Cooper related earlier, when people would go missing during full moons. A full moon like they're experiencing now. Yes, she does believe that their attackers are werewolves. No one really believes her, but that's of little consequence. They need to get Wells and Ryan medical attention and soon.

Cooper and Spoon go back out to check the car. Well, the car's engine has been torn to shreds. Worse, their attackers have followed them. Cooper and Spoon blow up the car to cover their retreat back into the house. Their attackers attempt to gain entrance, but the group manages to drive them off. Of course, it's quickly becoming apparent that their bullets are only driving their attackers away--so maybe Megan's story isn't so crazy.

The squad begins to barricade the windows and search for weapons, while Megan and Cooper tend to Wells. They may not have the means to stitch Wells up, but they do have whiskey and superglue--so Wells drinks himself into a stupor and then goads Cooper into punching him unconscious so that Cooper and Megan can stuff his organs back inside and glue him back together. Downstairs, Joe finds a wood axe and Spoon finds a broadsword, which ought to come in handy in close quarters.

As Wells sleeps off his wounds, the others prepare for another werewolf onslaught. They don't have to wait long. They manage to keep the werewolves out for the most part, but then one gets into the upstairs bedroom--where Wells is fast asleep. Cooper barely manages to come to his aid and wakes him up in  time for them both to pump one werewolf full of bullets until it falls out the window. Unfortunately, just when they all think they've driven the werewolves off again, one grabs Terry through an open window and carries him off.

Cooper decides it's time that Ryan, who is definitely seeming to have made an improvement, owes them some answers. Especially once the group subdue him and rips off his bandage, to find that his wounds have healed impossibly fast. They tie him up, intending to torture answers out of him, when another werewolf attack sidetracks their plans. It's then that Cooper realizes something--the family isn't gone because they were killed by the werewolves. They are the werewolves. They aren't going to leave because the soldiers are in their home.

Megan suggests that there is a Land Rover in the barn if someone can hotwire it. Joe can, but they need a distraction. "Something fast and loud," Cooper says. One by one all eyes turn to Spoon, who wasn't listening.

Spoon runs out of the house on one side with a flare and Joe runs out the other. Spoon is a perfect distraction, but once Joe hotwires the car he discovers one werewolf is still in the barn--chewing poor Terry's head from his shoulders. Joe quickly drives out of the barn to the front door, but as the others are gathering to join him he realizes that he is not alone in the car. He goes out fighting, but the others find a car full of blood and entrails and a pissed off werewolf waiting for them.

Back inside the survivors press Ryan for answers. He reveals that the whole point of this "training exercise" was to use Wells and his men as bait so they could capture a werewolf for special weapons division. The goal being to use werewolves the same way dolphins are used to plant bombs on ships. Wells, who is also beginning to feel better, angrily attacks Ryan--only for Ryan to turn into a werewolf. Luckily, Spoon still has that sword and rams it through Ryan. Shame the sword's not silver, though, and Ryan bashes through a window into the night.

So now Cooper, Spoon, Megan, and Wells are outnumbered and fast running out of ammunition. Dawn is a long way off and the werewolves aren't gonna give them a moment's peace. And Wells sure has recovered quickly for a man whose guts were in his hands a few hours ago. What if the threat isn't only from outside?

I was already pretty well predisposed to like Dog Soldiers the first time I saw it. Werewolves are, after all, my favorite monster and the DVD promised me the kind of upright werewolves that far too few movies outside of The Howling have ever delivered. Even better, as I would soon find out, the werewolves were actual practical effects. Puppets and men in suits wearing stilts will almost always be preferable to CGI on the sort of budget this film had going for it--aside from just also being awesome.

You get a decent look at the werewolves, too, and they still hold up really well. Mostly they're kept in shadow and mist, of course, as any good monster should be, but the film doesn't deny you the delight of such scenes as Spoon's climactic one-on-one fight with a werewolf.

The film is rather unique as werewolf films go. Usually werewolf films deal with someone struggling with their lycanthropy or in some way try to humanize their werewolves as people afflicted with a curse they never asked for--Dog Soldiers uses werewolves as the monsters in its Night of the Living Dead meets Aliens set-up. There are token attempts to humanize its werewolves--like Megan arguing that the werewolf family are "good people" or Cooper and Wells having an amusing argument about whether the ability to hold back turning into a werewolf is like needing to take a piss or needing to take a shit--but really they're just faceless monsters to be warded off.

And it's awesome.

Part of why the film works so well is that its characters are exactly as likable as they need to be. Of course we loathe Ryan from the start--having the guy introduced by needlessly shooting a dog isn't exactly subtle--but the rest, even as thinly sketched as they may be, are hugely enjoyable. A particular standout being Spoon. The comic relief character is an easy character to turn into an odious chore to experience, but through the script and Darren Morfitt's performance, he becomes one of the standout characters in the film.

Neil Marshall had never directed a feature before this film, and it was one hell of a debut. Indeed, I have yet to see a film from the man that wasn't enjoyable--even Doomsday, which I feel was his weakest film--and he hit the ground running with one of my absolute favorite werewolf movies. It moves at a great clip, particularly once the werewolves show up, and is filled with great set pieces and action. And its jokes actually mostly translate to a non-UK audience.

You could always say it was a howling good time.

"Don't shoot! I'm sorry I made a howling pun!"

So endeth day 4 of HubrisWeen. Check out what the other maniacs reviewed by clicking the banner above.

HubrisWeen, Day 3: Crocodile (1981)

Back when I reviewed Carnosaur 2, I mentioned a weird form of nostalgia wherein I felt a need to revisit things that I disliked when I was younger. Well, there is no better example of that than today's film. Though, it's slightly more complicated than that.

You see, it's not just that I disliked this particular film called Crocodile. No, it's that I had to at least partially convince myself that it actually existed and wasn't something I dreamed up. I mean, a Jaws rip-off where the monster is a giant crocodile whose size changes so constantly that it is hundreds of feet long or 20 feet long within the same scene? Surely no filmmaker is that relentlessly incompetent.

Well, no filmmaker prior to the advent of The Asylum, surely.

Oh, but you see Crocodile is all too real, and my fascination with it is entirely earned. For this is a singularly bad film and, in fact, even more nonsensical than my childhood memories had told me.

To begin with, I will be momentarily fair with Crocodile. The film hails from Thailand, and like many a foreign film imported for American audiences it was chopped to pieces to suit the needs of its distributor. Some of the nonsense within the film comes from it being torn up and stitched back together, with a few extraneous pieces added here and there. Set pieces that were originally one long sequence have been split in two, and a few scenes were no doubt placed out of order or removed entirely. I've even heard tell of an even more salacious and exploitative cut of the film that played the American drive-in circuit, but that cut is not what made it to VHS and later to DVD.

However, no amount of unwarranted tinkering by boorish American distributors can completely account for the fact that this film is a big ball of stupid and bonkers. This is not surprising when you consider that the film's director is one Sompote Sands, whose demented films are rather the stuff of legend and make this film look sane.

But no matter what country you're in, its poster art rocks.

After a title card for "Cobra Media", whose slogan is presumably "Good films are a disease. Meet the cure," we roll opening credits accompanied by a series of piano chords that are not at all reminiscent of a certain killer shark film. And then, the omnipotent narrator intones:

"From the very beginning, Man has been trying to destroy Nature. Perhaps one day he may succeed. But, then again, on that day Nature could rebel. And this could happen!"

Now, now, if Man just explained to Nature how destroying her will boost his corporate profits, I'm sure she would agree it's a grand idea!

At any rate, the "this" that "could happen" is a bunch of Thai extras running about screaming while miniature sets (admittedly, quite good ones) are destroyed by lightning, earthquakes, tidal waves, water spouts, and...colored lights. Clearly this footage of what will later be called a "hurricane" hails from an unrelated fantasy film. The only connection to this film is a few shots of agitated crocodiles (and alligators!), presumably one of which becomes our title beastie. The footage is so unrelated to our film that there is a completely jarring cut to an undestroyed major city, while a jaunty theme that sounds like it belongs to a 1970s cop show plays.

This is the beginning of our feature proper, as Angela Akom (Ni Tien, or "Tany Tim" in the US credits) and her sister, Linda (Angela Wells) are forced to amuse themselves while waiting for Angela's husband, Dr. Tony Akom (Nat Puvani) and Linda's fiance, Dr. John Stromm (Min Oo) to get home. Such is the life of a doctor's wife, Angela warns her sister. Linda goes to change so we can get a very brief bit of rear nudity--I see no other reason for that sequence--and then we cut to dinner with the two doctors and the women who love them.

Here we get the barest reference to the "hurricane" that "practically destroyed that island" and "just missed us." Linda asks if it's true it may have been caused by "that atomic explosion" (!) with Tony replying, "Anything's possible in this day and age." Angela suggests to Tony, who is busy reading a newspaper while smoking a pipe, that they should all go for a holiday at Pattaya before Linda and John's wedding. Tony thinks it's a swell idea. There's some joking about how married doctors are to their work that turns serious when the hospital calls and Tony must go. The scene ends with a truly bizarre zoom-in towards a ceramic duck centerpiece--

--which turns out to be an "auteur" move as we now cut to a flock of ducks on a body of water. The ducks are being watched by one of the most repeated shots of the film: a close-up of crocodile's eye as the nictitating membrane slides back.

"Okay, now which is better: 1 or 2? 1...or 2? Okay, now 3...or 4?"

I hope you like that shot, because I love crocodiles and even I get sick of it. Especially since, it leads to nothing in this sequence and we cut back to Tony and John assisting the wounded being trundled into the hospital while truly irritating sirens play over the scene. (Get used to that) Tony somehow finds time to talk to Angela on the phone and agree to the holiday at Pattaya.

Meanwhile, roving underwater POV footage set to a theme that sounds way too much like those Goddamn sirens stalks an old woman in a rowboat. Cue crocodile eye close-up! Via a series of weird cuts of what appears to be an actual crocodile eating a fish or bird, the woman is the first to be devoured by our crocodile.

"Okay, now tell me, can you see the number in the circle? What is it?"

In Pattaya, Linda plays with Angela and Tony's young daughter, Anne (no idea the actress, IMDb is no help here). When Tony arrives, Anne begs him for a new swimsuit. He agrees right before an uncomfortable sequence--for Western audiences, at least--where he undresses her for bed. Angela, Tony, Anne, Linda, and John go sailing the next day. Then they all take a group photo on the beach, which--as we all know-- can only mean tragedy is coming.

Eventually.

In the meantime, the group frolics in the surf and we discover that far scarier than giant crocodiles are the speedboaters in Thailand, as one drives past little Anne in her floatie with inches to spare. Oddly, nobody seems the least horrified by this--and indeed the same boater zooms past within inches of Linda as she begins drowning. Though, despite the close-up of a croc eye it turns out that Linda is just playing an incredibly unfunny joke that all the characters find hilarious. Wankers!

There's a bizarrely filmed shower sex scene between Tony and Angela before, finally, the travelogue portion of our film draws to a close and our "giant killer crocodile" portion finally gets going.

Linda goes out in the water to find Anne, who was apparently left to swim on her own (!), and poor Linda can't hear that damn siren-esque musical theme. However, when Anne's (oddly intact) floatie pops to the surface, she realizes something is amiss. Rather too slowly, however, as while she calls for Anne the underwater POV camera zooms straight into her crotch.

You thought I was kidding, didn't you?

Linda screams and goes under, but not until after putting up way more of a struggle than an average human should be capable of once grasped in the jaws of a crocodile that will turn out to be an average of about 50 feet in length. I can only assume that the crocodile is eating her toes first and moving its way up. At any rate, Angela rushes into the water to aid her sister--whereupon she is almost immediately yanked under. I guess the croc was tired of playing with its food by the time she showed up.

Luckily for Tony and John, they were not there so the film did not become a parade of characters diving into the ocean to be eaten by the crocodile. However, John and Tony find out what happened--and indeed, weirdly enough, there are apparently bodies for them to identify. John responds by crying against a post as reporters pester him with questions like, "Do you think your wife was eaten by a shark?" Tony eyes the fateful beach photograph and listens to a recording of Anne begging him for that new bathing suit, as he flashes back and then covers his ears and writhes on the floor.

Everyone grieves differently.

Tony resigns from his hospital because he has now entered the "Vengeance" stage of the grieving process, and indeed his letter of resignation states that he will, as offered by his former employers, "avail myself of the facilities of the hospital, by which means I pray I may stop the death and destruction being caused by the creature responsible for my family's death." Wow. No job I ever worked allowed me to use their facilities for monster hunting after I turned in my two weeks notice. Clearly, Thailand's job market is on a whole other level.

Tony starts by examining the remains of his family, in a sequence that looks rather like he is trying to put them back together! Alas, this film is not quite that weird. Although, it is not normal--as evidenced by the next scene where a group of fishermen discover their net is full of severed human arms. Just arms, by the way. I guess the croc is not a fan of finger food.

Damn, even the crickets booed that one.

Tony goes to see the optometrist (man, no wonder this film is obsessed with eyes), who advises he's probably just under a lot of strain from all the vengeance obsession. The optometrist helpfully asks him to read a newspaper article--that happens to be about a local fisherman, Tanaka (Kirk Warren), claiming he saw a giant crocodile in the sea.

You know what means it's time for!

"Now, you're gonna feel a slight puff of air..."

We cut to the crocodile as a monkey crawls onto its back to eat crabs off its tail. Now, unless the monkey and crabs are also giants, this scales the croc at 20 feet, tops. That will not be the case next time we see it. At any rate, giant crocodiles apparently dislike monkeys and the scene cuts back to Tony as the croc lunges at the monkey.

Having now being given a target for his Ahab complex, Tony is poring over every textbook on crocodiles he can find---a pastime I am happy to engage in without benefit of a dead wife and daughter to avenge--and playing around with crocodile skulls. It turns out the latter is to confirm that the wounds on his family's remains match the teeth of a crocodile. He goes to John with this, asking John to find Tanaka. Tony hopes that Tanaka will help them find the crocodile and destroy it. Meanwhile, Tony will visit an expert on reptiles.

Well, so he says. What actually happens is that Tony goes to visit a man sitting behind a desk with an ammonite fossil on it (!) and asks him, "Can a crocodile live in the sea?" The so-called expert replies with, "Hmm. That's a very interesting thought." End scene.

Presumably it was cut before the man behind the desk admitted he wasn't really a reptile expert, he just really likes sitting behind that desk.

The answer is not only a resounding, "Yes," but, "Of course, the Indopacific or Saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) spends as much or more of its life in the sea as it does in fresh water." Also, this is a basic fact that Tony would have gleaned from any one of those books he was supposedly reading.

Cut to two beautiful women going swimming at dusk in their bikinis--though apparently in one cut, they were skinny-dipping. Random people we've never met before in the water? Why, that can only mean...

"Okay, now read the letters on the lowest line you can see..."

The croc's attack this time is also heralded by two glowing lights in the water, reminiscent of the Nautilus in Disney's version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, but which are clearly meant to call to mind the reflection of light in a crocodile's eyes at night. One girl is yanked under, the other writhes around in the jaws of the croc--clearly indicating that the beast is now back to a minimum of 40 feet in length.

Cue those damn sirens as we cut to reporters are haranguing an Inspector about what or who is responsible for the series of killings. The scene, hilariously ends with the beleaguered Inspector hollering, "And put snipers on those cliffs!"

John and Tony discuss their plan to enlist Tanaka's help, the reptile expert apparently having finally admitted that a crocodile can live in the sea. Tony has a breakdown and cracks his new glasses as Anne's voice echoes in his head. He then calls a press conference, where he announces that he knows who the killer is: a giant crocodile. The press literally laughs this off and Tony throws them out. So...that was productive, I guess.

Tanaka finally comes over to visit Tony and John. Tanaka quickly agrees to assist them in hunting the crocodile, whereupon John excitedly exclaims, "We'll get that crocodile, if it's the last thing we do!"

Welp, I'm never inviting John along on my giant crocodile hunt.

Tanaka shows off the eagle Sharpied--er, tattooed on his chest and explains to the others that it is a sign of protection worn by his family for generations. It hails from an old legend, whereupon a monster will emerge from the sea and encounter the wings of an eagle. The legend, however, does not say that the eagle wins, so Tanaka ends his musing about the legend coming true by hoping it does not mean their deaths.

Okay, so John and Tanaka are not invited on my giant crocodile hunt.

Meanwhile, we cut to a coastal village where a crocodile farm is housed--and thus begins my least favorite portion of the film. Like many foreign films of this vintage, it was apparently decided that the film was incomplete without some animal cruelty. So we get to watch as a real, live crocodile is butchered. It adds nothing to the film other than a few extra minutes of run time and a lot of unpleasantness. Especially since, unlike some people, I like reptiles and do not enjoy seeing them harmed. Though perhaps it is there to make us root for:

"Okay, now: 5...or 6?"

The crocodile appearing in said village, creating whirlpools and waves with its tail. It also smashes buildings with its tail, which would make it approximately Godzilla sized. Once the water is filled with panicked villagers and tourists, the croc begins devouring them. In one memorable and tasteless shot, we see the croc's jaws in the background holding two severed legs--and then an amputee with fake flesh streamers attached to his stumps swims by in the foreground. Though, naturally, this means the croc has shrunk down to about 40 feet in the same sequence. That crocodile is fucking magic.

The croc swims off, leaving the village in flames and we cut to--more sirens. Oh, joy.

We leave the scene of chaos and ambulances, to John and Tony calmly walking along discussing how they're going to stop a crocodile big enough to destroy a whole village. Tony adds that the reptile expert has concluded that the crocodile is a mutant caused by all the atomic testing in our atmosphere. Well, naturally.

Back to the crocodile farm, where the Inspector tasks his underlings with capturing the croc. This they decide to do by setting a giant bear trap underwater. Unfortunately, their comically over-sized trap--attached to a floating barrel, naturally--is still too small for the job. The croc gets its tail caught in the trap, but quickly uproots the tree that the floating barrel is attached to, and swims off with the barrel dragging along the surface of the water, before the croc shakes the trap loose and sends it hurtling through the air--chopping a few palm trees in half.

Again, the croc must be at least a hundred feet long in this sequence.

Tony and John busy themselves by pouring red dye into a tank holding a small crocodile. I think they're testing poisons out on the poor creature, based on the dialogue, but they're having no success. I really don't think it's that hard to poison a crocodile, guys. You're just incompetent.

Speaking of which, our kaiju-sized croc goes for a swim. He then finds himself by where several young boys are skinny-dipping (and the Western audience is creeped out again!) and does his old standby.

"Do you ever wear your contacts to bed? Do you change them every day?"

Now, when the croc finally attacks the boys and grabs one, it is clearly only about 20 feet long again. And the truly curious part of this size-changing becomes plainly obvious here: it was not, as you would expect, merely a case of having a full-size prop and also using real crocs on miniature sets that accounts for the discrepancy in size. Yes, that does happen--but the croc that attacks the boys is a full-scale prop and only as big as a 20-foot croc. Yet the film also uses a full-size prop that indicates a 40-foot croc.

Basically, this film went out of its way to give a script girl fits.

Having eaten one of the kids, the croc now balloons back up to a hundred feet to pull the Godzilla act on another coastal village. Tail smashing, whirlpools, sinking severed arms (and again, only arms), flaming buildings--the works. Which means, MORE SIRENS! Aren't you just THRILLED?!

Did Sompote Sands have stock in an ambulance company or something?

John and Tony, for their part, have finally realized the crocodile attacks every three days. From this they also figure out where the crocodile will strike next: where the sea and the river meet. After Tanaka says goodbye to his wife and son, they get ready to set sail.

Meanwhile, the crocodile comes up on shore to attack a heard of water buffalo. This sequence features an impressive shot of the water buffalo walking next to a full-size, full-body prop crocodile--and, again, the thing appears to be at least fifty feet long. Of course, this is another excuse for animal cruelty as the full-size prop croc head chomps a buffalo to death and the filmmakers even include a shot of the dying animal urinating in fear.

There is a special place in hell waiting for the filmmakers.

We are now firmly in the "Orca" sequence of the film as John, Tony, and Tanaka take out Tanaka's boat and begin setting bait lines for the crocodile where the sea and river meet. Tanaka has already informed that he made some slight modifications--including adding a harpoon launcher and a machine gun, naturally. John tests the harpoon launcher by firing an explosive-tipped harpoon at a barrel. Which you wouldn't think you'd want to do if you're trying to lure an animal to that area, but whatever.

The three wait around, and the audience is forced to wait with them. While John and Tony worry that they were wrong and the croc isn't coming, they never stop to consider, "Hey, why are we hunting a 50 foot crocodile in a boat that's half its size?" Their monotony is interrupted when a speedboat approaches--which John almost blows up. Once they find out the boat's passenger is Peter (Robert Chan), a pushy news photographer, they probably wish they'd let John kill him. Oh, and during the whole sequence of Peter talking John into paying the boat driver, nobody thinks to warn the guy of the giant crocodile before they just send him on his way.

So I'm sure the smashed boat and chunks of human flesh they find shortly afterward are just a coincidence. Totally.

Peter proves so annoying and obtrusive that Tanaka smashes his own windshield to get the guy to move out of the way. Eventually, night falls with no other sign of the crocodile. So, finally, everyone goes to sleep (or passes out drunk) below decks and leaves Tanaka on deck, also asleep. And so, the crocodile strikes--by launching itself into the air and jumping over the boat!

You will believe a croc can fly!

John, Tony, and Peter are stuck below and unable to assist Tanaka as the crocodile finally swats him overboard with its tail. Tanaka almost makes it back aboard, but the croc grabs him and chomps him multiple times before leaving him with easily the goofiest death in the film, an image that stuck with me for years after but oddly goes unmentioned in most other reviews: the croc opens its mouth to show the camera a screaming, flailing Tanaka lodged in its throat.

Hmm. Inspiration for the poor bastard stuck in the shark's throat in Jaws 3-D, perhaps?

Tanaka thus disposed of, we cut to the next morning as the others have somehow gotten free and have resumed their hunt for the croc. John machine-guns a barrel of blood and then the croc attacks. A very weirdly editing sequence follows of John firing harpoons, Tony firing the machine gun, and Peter taking pictures as the crocodile roars at them. Eventually an explosion happens, and Tony declares, "You got him, John!"

The celebration is short-lived, as the croc rams the boat from beneath. Their attack only wounded it. John grabs a bundle of dynamite, but falls overboard when the croc rams them again. Tony tries to drive the croc away with machine gun fire as Peter tries to grab John, but it's no use. John is dragged under, which is delightfully rendered by giving a doll full of fake blood to a live crocodile in a tank, who shakes it around with gusto.

The boat begins to feel the stress of the various attacks and begins to sink. How much it has sunk depends on the shot--as the actual boat appears to be more or less level, while the miniature boat half-submerges at a 90-degree angle and then at a 45-degree angle. As Tony climbs the crow's nest with a bundle of dynamite, the model boat is again at a 90-degree angle and three-fourths submerged! Finally, the crow's nest tips over and Tony flings the (unlit?) dynamite at the croc.

And then the film takes a turn for the bizarre, as Peter reappears with a lit bundle of dynamite in one hand and several other bundles strapped to his body (!) before he dives into the water. Tony yells at him to stop, but our intrepid reporter swims right into the crocodile's mouth. The croc then swims over to the boat and--Ka-BOOM!

Did Tony survive the explosion, you ask? Hell if I know. The movie shows us a speedboat heading towards the wreckage of Tanaka's boat, but Peter is nowhere in sight--and then it cuts to a "The End" card, with the disclaimer that the film is fictitious and no identification with actual people should be inferred.

I'm sure you're stunned.

The story of how I finally got Crocodile on DVD again is almost as entertaining as the film itself, perhaps moreso. At the time, it was still in print but not on Netflix any longer (back when I still used it for physical discs) and I was not willing to spend the money to buy it at its current price. Well, my library at that time still had the budget to indulge my requests for them to add bizarre movies nobody else in their right mind would watch. So I requested Crocodile, making sure to specify that I wanted the film listed as 1981 on Amazon and not the 2000 film directed by Tobe Hooper.

They got me the Tobe Hooper version, and before I could put in a request again for the correct one, the DVD went out of print. Not even my library was willing to spend over $30 on this piece of shit. Thus it became a joke between Checkpoint Telstar and myself that the exchange between library employees about my request can be summarized as:

"Hey, this guy wants a killer crocodile movie."

"Which one?

"It doesn't matter, they all suck."

[And thus, I got the wrong one]

It's sadly true, of course. As with werewolf movies, I absolutely love the subject matter but the actual movies? Usually grade-A fertilizer. I can count the number of good killer crocodilian movies on one hand and have enough fingers left over to make rude gestures. And Crocodile does nothing to buck that trend.

Again, it's uncertain how much of the film's awfulness is a result of the hackjob it went through to get to the US market and how much of it was awful to start with. At least, I can't be certain because I have never encountered an uncut version of the film as it was intended. However, it's pretty clear to me that the film was awful from frame one.

Even if you were to remove the bizarre editing of the US cut--which, for instance, cuts the village attack sequence into two sequences and assumes you won't notice the re-used footage--you'd still have a monster that changes size dramatically from scene-to-scene and gratuitous animal cruelty.

That said, I do have to give props where they're due: the film's special effects are largely pretty damn good. While they're still stiff and inexpressive, the full-scale crocodile puppets are really well-done. Certainly more convincing than similar beasties in The Big Alligator River or Killer Crocodile (admittedly a low bar), and about as good as the title creature in Alligator. There's also some pretty great miniature work, almost on par with similar work you might see in a Toho studios production.

Like everything else in the film I can't praise the effects for consistency, of course, but when they're good they are good.

On the whole, I can't really recommend the film in good conscience, it is certainly an experience if you are a bad movie fan. It's a surreal and incompetent experience. And boy howdy, if you like crocodile eyes, this is the movie for you!

"Hmm, yes, I'm afraid you're going to need glasses. Also, please spit my receptionist back out. I need her."

Here we are at day 3 of 2014's HubrisWeen, where I and several of my b-movie comrades dive into 26 horror/sci-fi movies a day--one for each letter of the alphabet--culminating with the last film on Halloween. We're all just slavishly copying the pioneer of this madness, Checkpoint Telstar.

Click the banner to check out what the other maniacs chose, won't you?

HubrisWeen, Day 2: The Boogens (1981)

Peaking early is always a concern when it comes to story-telling, and especially when it comes to movies. After all, movies are usually meant to be watched in a single sitting, so if a movie gives its audience the best they can expect and then spends the rest of its running time failing to give them anything comparable, well, it will have engendered a lot of ill will by the time the credits roll.

A good example would be how Superman Returns gave its audience the amazing sequence of Superman saving a crashing plane, and then basically spent the rest of the film with him doing jack all.

Peaking early doesn't always have to be a bad thing, though. Pacific Rim's best sequence is undoubtedly the Hong Kong fight, yet I don't know anyone who wasn't still invested come the climactic battle at The Breach. If what follows the film's highlight is at least actually enjoyable, it's easier to forgive.

Yet neither of those examples peaked in the opening credits, which is exactly what The Boogens does. The question you must then ask is, "How can a movie peak in its credits?" Then follow it up with, "Is the rest of it a waste of time, then?"

To answer the second question will take the rest of this review. The first I will answer immediately.

The credits play over a montage of Old-Timey photographs and music, like a Ken Burns documentary, as a progressive series of headlines tell the story of Silver City, Colorado in 1888. A silver mine is opened, which produces a huge deposit of the precious metal and Silver City's population booms.

Then , in 1912, things take a turn for the worse. Multiple cave-ins are reported and then 27 miners are trapped in a cave-in. Worse, the next headline about these miners declares, "Miners Report Attacks In Mine." This is followed by "Mine Closed."

This is an amazing sequence, as it is marvelously creepy on its own terms and delivers a lot of exposition that could otherwise have killed the pace later on. So now we know that whatever was in that mine is bad news and we know that, given that horror movies hate shit-stirrers, somebody is going to make the mistake of opening it.

Sure enough, in present-day (or 1981) Silver City, business partners Brian (John Crawford) and Dan (Med Flory) break off the padlock on the mine entrance. Late to arrive to their new job site are Brian annd Dan's new employees, Roger (Jeff Harlan) and Mark (Fred McCarren), toting a generator. All Roger wants to talk about is how much sex he's going to have when his girlfriend, Jessica, arrives--while Mark wants to focus on the job, though he is at least amused at Roger's antics.

Dan, Roger, and Mark head into the mine to check what beams need to be replaced. Then Roger and Mark string lights and start the generator, as Roger tries to convince Mark that he's gonna like Jessica's friend, Trish--Mark is skeptical given Roger's history of set-ups. Finally, Dan and Brian use dynamite to open up the cave-in sealing the mine. Unbeknownst to the group, a haggard old man (Jon Lormer, better known as the soon-to-be vengeful zombie in the "Father's Day" sequence of Creepshow) is watching them from afar, most disapprovingly.

After the work day ends, Roger and Mark head to their hotel to get ready for moving into their rental house the next morning. That night, their landlord, Martha (Marcia Reider) heads over to warm up the house--but narrowly avoids a deer on the way and runs her car into a ditch. She gets to the house, starts up the power and phones her husband---all while the strange old man watches through the window. But even he flees when he sees her head into the basement to light the water heater. Despite some weird noises, she makes it out of the basement alive and gets into bed.

However, Martha hears the sound of the low-angle roving POV cam in the basement and goes to investigate in the kitchen. She grabs a knife, but unfortunately does not see the basement door open as she walks by it, so is thus completely caught off-guard by the creature that burst forth with a roar and drags her to her doom.

The next morning, Deputy Blanchard (Scott Wilkinson) pulls the unfortunate victim's car from a ditch. So there will be no warning for Jessica (Anne-Marie Martin) and Trish (Rebecca Balding) as they drive past on their way to the house. This also introduces Jessica's fluffy little dog, Tiger, who will prove to be a surprisingly sympathetic character given the usual prejudices against yap dogs--and one of the best dog actors in any horror film this side of John Carpenter's The Thing.

"So, I'm the hero, right? ...Right?!"

Back in the mine, the group clears the cave-in blocking a passage unmarked on Dan and Brian's map and discover a cavern with an underground pool. Roger is extremely wigged out from the get-go. The mysterious splashes in the water and the discovery of the bleached bones of close to 30 people do nothing to calm him, but Mark and Dan are unconcerned.

Jessica and Trish begin the process of moving in---which includes Jessica testing the bed for stability and Trish discovering that the cold shower she wanted to take is colder than she actually wanted. So Trish ventures into the basement, clad only in a robe. The POV cam watches her but does not strike--because it's only Tiger waiting to false scare her.

Poor Roger is tasked by Brian with going to Denver to pick up some updated maps, but told he doesn't have to go in until 3AM so as to at least give him the, uh, reunion with Jessica he won't stop talking about. He'll also be taking Brian's truck later that evening. (I'm sure this won't be relevant later)

Jessica and Roger's playful screaming causes Trish to exit her shower in a hurry, thinking that Jessica was in distress, so that she meets Mark by...literally showing her ass. Despite this, Trish and Mark hit it off while sitting and talking in the kitchen, where Mark demonstrates that Tiger actually listens to him. Seems years ago Mark made a dog electric chair as a means of showing Tiger he meant business.

During this, Tiger also demonstrates a simultaneous fear and curiosity about the basement. Then Deputy Blanchard comes by, looking for the late Martha--and thus being the interruptus to Roger's coitus. Since everyone's dressed, the reluctant Jessica and Trish are convinced to go out to dinner and leave Tiger alone in the house. Alone with the thing in the basement, which doesn't stay in the basement.

Roger collects the keys from Brian and heads home to get some sleep for the road as Jessica schools Dan at pool, and Mark flirts with Trish. Roger pulls Brian's truck into the house's garage, but the mess left by the creature chasing Tiger--which he erroneously assumes is Tiger's doing--delays his nap. The broken bed cancels it completely, so he heads out to garage...

...and promptly runs afoul of something with tentacles hiding under the truck. Those tentacles also have claws, as it turns out, and they know just how to slash open arteries. Exit Roger.

Mark and Trish are none the wiser when they get home, Jessica having stayed behind to school Brian and Dan at pool some more. The new couple make love in front of a roaring fire--only to be interrupted by Tiger. The next morning, however, Jessica can't find Tiger. Investigating the basement, Mark finds a vent in the basement that leads into the mine. Tiger turns up okay, but is visibly terrified.

Mark heads off to work and Trish heads into town for errands. At the mine, as Mark heads down with a light, the mysterious old man steals several sticks of dynamite from the back of Mark's truck and follows him in. Trish, meanwhile, is researching the old cave-ins at the local newspaper office.

Around the same time, Mark makes the observation that the bones in the mine shouldn't be in scattered piles if the men died of suffocation or starvation, Brian realizes Roger should have been back from Denver, and Jessica discovers that the truck is still in the garage. (How she fails to notice the blood and other signs of the struggles between Roger and the creature is beyond me) Trish goes to the mine to tell Mark about Roger's disappearance, and about the story she uncovered--a survivor of the cave-in who went crazy and claimed he was attacked by something in the mine.

Naturally, he wasn't crazy. And it's poor Tiger and Jessica who get to find that out. While Jessica takes a shower, the creature in the basement sends a couple tentacles up a vent in the bedroom--and Tiger gets too close to the vent when investigating. Exit Tiger.

Jessica hears Tiger's final yelp and goes to investigate, nearly losing an arm as a tentacle reaches out of the vent and grabs her. She breaks free and moves a dresser on top of the vent, but the creature is too string and tosses it out of the way and somehow emerges from the vent and gives chase. (When we see the creature later, it will definitely be hard to believe it fit through the vent--or at least as easily as it does here) Unfortunately, Jessica ends up cornered in a closet and, like her boyfriend before her, takes a claw to the throat.

Goodbye, Jessica. I liked you.

Speaking of Roger, he turns up back at the mine--or at least most of him. He's floating in the pool with half his face chewed off. The old man now makes himself known, holding the dynamite by a lighter. He explains to Dan, Brian, and Mark that his father was the survivor who "went crazy." So he grew up hearing tales about the "Boogens" and making sure that the tunnels to the houses were sealed--tunnels like the one in the basement. All of which have now been unsealed, thanks to our heroes. Mark realizes the threat and rushes to the house, calling the deputy on his way.

Unfortunately, he's too late because Trish has just arrived home and discovered the aftermath of Jessica's death. And she quickly runs afoul of the culprit:

"Rar! I am not remotely cute and cuddly! STOP MAKING KISSY FACES AT ME!"

As it turns out, Boogens are ferocious, voracious, and damn near impossible to kill. So if that mine isn't sealed up, Silver City is going to be a lovely shade of red instead.

The biggest hurdle most monster movies struggle with jumping over is the simple limitations of special effects on a small budget. You may want Stan Winston but you can barely afford Paul Blaisdell. There is one obvious way to overcome this, which is to hold off on showing your monster for as long as possible. And, indeed, The Boogens excels at this. We don't see anything of the creatures beyond tentacles until 87 minutes into a 95 minute movie.

Now, obviously, this means that any creature we actually see is going to end up disappointing compared to whatever we imagine while watching it. The upside is that, if the monster is disappointing, we don't spend the whole movie being expected to be frightened by it.

Of course, I happen to love the Boogens--which means I differ quite drastically from the opinion of the film's director. They look a bit like the hatchling version of Irys from Gamera 3 if you peeled its shell off, shortened its neck, and gave it a mouth full of teeth. Or, put another way, a frog that just went through the microwave given tentacles and fangs. The main downside is the damn things are way more adorable than frightening.

"Love me or die!"

The atmospheric touches are definitely the film's strength. As I already said, the opening titles are amazing--almost a separate horror film from the actual feature.

The funny thing about this film is that it sort of follows the pattern of a slasher film. The unseen assailant kills its victims one by one, until the final reveal when all the bodies begin showing up (and for creatures that eat people, their victims tend to be mostly intact) and then the killer won't stay dead. While, in this case, there are supposed to be multiple creatures--although only one puppet, of course--the first reveal still follows a pattern of the killer who won't stay dead.

Where it differs, of course, is that its characters are all adults (as opposed to adults playing teenagers) and while the sex-obsessed couple sure does get it, the more "innocent" couple we know to be our heroes are actually the ones who get the steamy sex scene. Hell, all of the film's nudity comes from Trish, not Jessica--so it's refreshingly a horror film that can't be read as punishing its characters for having sex. While those certainly exist, the usual exploitation model tends to forbid it because of the simple expedience of having your nudity and gore all in one easy package.

That's another way the film differs. While the film racks up a respectable body count, there's no one aside from Martha who exists solely to be introduced and then whacked in order to add to the kill count. The characters are treated like actual characters, not just fodder.

However, it still feels a bit hollow compared to that amazing opening. There's simply no way around that. Yet, I happen to really enjoy the film that follows--and I wouldn't trade that opening for anything.

Also, who doesn't want a pet Boogen?

Here we are at day 2 of 2014's HubrisWeen, where I and several of my b-movie comrades dive into 26 horror/sci-fi movies a day--one for each letter of the alphabet--culminating with the last film on Halloween. We're all just slavishly copying the pioneer of this madness, Checkpoint Telstar.

Click the link above to check out what the other maniacs chose, won't you?

HubrisWeen, Day 1: The Alligator People (1959)

I love crocodilians--alligators especially, but I have plenty of love for crocodiles, caimans, and gharials, too. I'm also rather a strange person. So it should come as no surprise that if someone told me, "I can cure you of [whatever ailment needs curing], but everyone who has taken this particular cure previously has turned into an alligator man," I would still enthusiastically agree to the procedure.

Therefore, I'd probably be a terrible victim of mad science--though perhaps a great superhero--as most people would consider turning into a were-gator a very bad thing. And they certainly wouldn't be very happy with their new spouse turning into one.

Which brings us to the case of one Nurse Jane Marvin (the incomparable Beverly Garland), who is currently assisting Dr. Wayne MacGregor (Douglas Kennedy) at a sanitarium. As Dr. MacGregor explains to a colleague he has invited over, Dr. Eric Lorimer (Bruce Bennett), when Nurse Marvin assisted him with a hypnosis experiment she spun a tale so unbelievable that he knew he had to have a second opinion on it.

Nurse Marvin again agrees to undergo hypnosis with Dr. Lorimer present. Quickly she reveals her name is actually Mrs. Joyce Webster, and she was married--or maybe, she still is. She was married to Paul Webster (Richard Crane), a pilot. The wedding almost didn't occur, as Paul was in a horrible crash and was more dead than alive--yet somehow they find themselves laughing about it as they sip champagne aboard the train to their honeymoon destination. Joyce just writes it off as a simple mistake by the doctors, but Paul is very serious when he says that he was as much a mass of human hamburger as they say. He's trying to explain how that could be, when the newlyweds are interrupted by the arrival of some telegrams.

Joyce receives some no doubt ribaldrous comments from her fellow nurses, but whatever it is that Paul receives shocks him so much that without a word of explanation he hops off the train when it stops briefly to pick up mail and he vanishes into the night.

Joyce spends months in a futile effort of tracking him down, until she finally uncovers the address of The Cypresses Plantation where Paul grew up when searching his school records. It's as likely a place as any to find him, so she makes her way to Bayou Landing, Louisiana. Hopping off the train, she finds a wooden crate on the platform marked "Radioactive Material: Cobalt 60." She somehow deduces that the crate is destined for The Cypresses and, apparently being a very lousy nurse, she sits right on the crate to wait for it to be picked up. I don't care if the box inside is lined with lead, I'm not sitting on radioactive isotopes willingly.

Well, thankfully for Joyce, a truck from The Cypresses arrives and out pops Manon (Lon Chaney Jr, who was really down on his luck at this point), a hook-handed Cajun whose largely non-existent accent comes and goes as frequently as his hook bends at the wrist. Manon agrees to give her a lift to the plantation. On the way in, Manon has to clear a branch out of the road--which allows Joyce to witness two guys having a ridiculously difficult time lassoing a lethargic six-foot alligator. This gives Manon a chance to tell Joyce all about the deadliness of the swamp and its quicksand, water moccasins, and gators--dirty, stinkin', slimy gators!

Manon doesn't like gators, in case that wasn't clear, and he further demonstrates by horrifying Joyce when he runs one over with the truck. It's unharmed, somehow--gators are tough, but against a truck from the mid-20th Century, I'd bet on the truck--and Manon pauses in his cackling to clarify that, yep, a gator took his left hand.

I can't imagine that will be important later, can you?

Joyce finds herself not exactly welcomed by the matron of The Cypresses, Lavinia Hawthorne (Frieda Inescort), who bristles at the mention of "Paul Webster", but otherwise acts as if Joyce is a horrible liar. Mrs. Hawthorne, or "Vinnie" as we'll come to know her, orders her thrown out, but Toby the butler (Vince Townsend, Jr) points out that the next train won't be until morning. So it is agreed that Joyce can stay, provided she never leaves her room.

At night, the household is disturbed by a drunken Manon firing a revolver at alligators in the swamp. It falls to poor Toby to go out and reason with the armed drunk. Joyce interrogates Louann the maid (Ruby Goodwin) when the woman comes to check on her, but Louann can only tell Joyce that the house is deeply troubled. Joyce manages to snatch her room key as Louann leaves so she snoop about later if she chooses.

Meanwhile, Vinnie goes to visit Dr. Mark Sinclair (George Macready) at his lab. Dr. Sinclair is busy helping to sedate someone in white robe, hood, and mask. Whoever they are, they are incapable of any vocalization beyond a guttural muttering, and Dr. Sinclair is deeply upset that one of his nurses knocks the person out with a punch to the jaw. After sedating the mysterious patient, Sinclair goes to meet with Vinnie. The two discuss how they overlooked the school records and now must deal with keeping Joyce in the dark. There is talk of the cobalt treatment, using the recently delivered isotopes--which Vinnie distressingly refers to as "the cobalt bomb" (!)--but Sinclair is not certain it will work, and it may make things worse.

Keeping Joyce in the dark soon becomes a moot point. A mysterious figure in a trench coat wanders into the house and begins playing the piano--as all mysterious figures do late at night when others are trying to sleep. Joyce hears something familiar in the music and goes to investigate: and promptly discovers the figure is Paul, whose skin now looks like an expensive wallet. She doesn't actually recognize her husband, but he recognizes her and flees back into the swamp--leaving inexplicably muddy footprints and water on the piano keys.

Paul finds Vinnie as she heads back to the house and, speaking with a decidedly croaky voice, he declares that Joyce must leave on the morning train.

The next morning, Dr. Sinclair arrives at the plantation house in his Swamp Buggy and introduces himself to Joyce. He makes idle chit-chat about the swamp being the cradle of life, but Joyce still tries to prod him for information. Sinclair is a better actor than, well, the actor playing him--but Joyce still sees through the act and Sinclair politely retreats to his lab. There he has one of his underlings handle the cobalt with ludicrously inadequate protective gear, while talking about how six seconds of exposure is lethal, and readies what appears to be a Death Ray projector.

Vinnie discovers that Joyce has not left on the train as planned and goes to confront Joyce. She promptly gives up on the whole "we have nothing to hide" facade when Joyce insinuates that something has been done to Paul, and reveals that she is in fact Paul's mother.

So, when Paul returns home at night to play piano, he is confronted by Joyce. He promptly flees into the swamp just as a storm picks up. Joyce gives chase, stumbling over obviously muzzled live alligators and one sorry animatronic crocodile before Manon rescues her from an angry boa constrictor pretending to be a cottonmouth (I'm guessing). Manon takes her back to his bungalow to get her warmed up. Unfortunately, Manon's insistence on Joyce removing her wet clothes turns out to have nothing to do with his concern for her health. Joyce screams when Manon attempts to force himself on her and the brute knocks her cold with a punch from his good arm.

Luckily, the scream was heard by Paul and he barges into the shack, brawls with Manon, and then carries Joyce away--leaving Manon to bellow my favorite line into the night, "I'll kill ya, alligator man! Just like I'd kill any four-legged gator!" When Paul brings the unconscious Joyce back home, Vinnie pressures him into agreeing to tell her the truth. It is agreed that in the morning, Dr. Sinclair will explain.

And so he does, after keeping Joyce waiting while he aims his cobalt-powered Death Ray at a live alligator as part of a test to see if say Ray will actually help Paul's condition. Then, knowing Joyce is a nurse, he goes about trying to explain exactly how he's been playing God with his alligator patients. You see, in advanced organisms like humans, body processes are controlled by the nervous system--in less-developed animals, they are governed by chemicals. Dr. Sinclair was specifically interested in the healing powers of one particular hormone--hydrocortisone.

Aw, yeah, that's the stuff.

Figuring that hydrocortisone would be much stronger in more primitive creatures who need chemicals to control their bodily functions, he began focusing on lizards and how certain lizards can detach and regenerate their tails. He claims that they are even some who can regenerate lost limbs. (There aren't) Naturally, he decided to devote his research towards finding a way to apply this regenerative capability to humans--by isolating a protein chemical from the pituitary gland of crocodilians. Specifically, a local variety.

"'Sup."

So, Dr. Sinclair injected this chemical into the veins of volunteers who had lost limbs, broken bones, and suffered other severe injuries. The worst of this was Paul, naturally, and every last volunteer recovered miraculously...until they began to change. Apparently, there was some kind of additional chemical in the mix that had a transformative effect. As Dr. Sinclair shows Joyce when he reveals a patient whose very brain has been affected, so that only a sun lamp will calm him down.

And I'm just gonna pause for a moment to bask as well--in the glorious rays of terrible movie science. First, you've probably noticed that the miracle regenerative treatment derived from reptiles that turns its patient into a reptile is the origin of Spider-Man's foe, The Lizard. But at least Marvel had the good sense to use, you know, lizards. If your goal was to isolate the hormone that allows lizards to regrow lost tails--which, I may add, is not ever a perfect regrowth--why would you choose to isolate hormones from alligators? Alligators, apart from being unable to regenerate anything, are not lizards. That's like discovering a hormone in bats can cure cancer, so you go about extracting hormones from orcas. If he needed an animal that generated lots of this hormone due to its size, he could have chosen monitor lizards to experiment on.

I guess "The Komodo People" just didn't have the same ring to it.

At any rate, Dr. Sinclair thinks he has a cure and Paul is determined to test it out that night---30 seconds of exposure to gamma radiation via the Death Ray. The trouble is that Dr. Sinclair has no idea if it will cure Paul, kill him, or accelerate the process.

Joyce demands to be present, and so shortly husband and wife are reunited before he goes under the beam. Joyce assures Paul she would have loved him anyways. Paul insists he thought he was doing the right thing and is adamant that the procedure take place at once. So Paul is strapped to a rotating table, the Death Ray sounds its piercing whine--

And then Manon barges in. For some reason, Manon's mere presence seems to cause the Death Ray equipment to go on the fritz, and that's before he starts punching everyone and barges into the room with the projector--only to discover that his quarry has changed into something straight out of his nightmares.

"Grr! Raarr! STOP LAUGHING!"

Manon's terrified flailing unfortunately allows him to discover just how good a conductor his hook is. Paulligator stumbles away from the Cajun-style Cajun, so he can cause his mother to faint and Joyce to scream before he tears off into the swamp. Joyce gives chase, which means she and Paulligator are the only ones clear of the blast radius when Dr. Sinclair's equipment goes nuclear.

"My God! We're gonna need 10 gallons of lotion!"

Paulligator, naturally, gets into a fight with an ordinary alligator. The fight ends in a draw, and then, as Joyce watches helplessly, Paulligator stumbles into quicksand and disappears from her view.

Back in the framing device, the psychiatrists are stumped. The polygraph shows that she wasn't lying--and indeed Dr. MacGregor did some research and concluded that there was a Paul Webster and a Dr. Mark Sinclair, both of whom's whereabouts are unknown. Both doctors agree that it would be best to not tell Nurse "Jane Marvin" about the tale she told them. If she buried it that deep, she clearly wouldn't handle having it brought back to the surface...

As a child, when I discovered science-fiction and horror films from the 1950s and 60s--and even the 30s and 40s--I immediately fell in love. I would pour through library books on the subject, especially Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Monsters, which at the time was insanely comprehensive and up-to-date. I don't recall if it was there or in another book that I first encountered a publicity still of the titular monster from this film, but naturally it made an impression.

Even as a kid, that monster mask looked pretty hokey, but as someone who loved crocodilians--even then they were my favorite animals--I could not resist the siren song of a movie about people who turn into alligators.

However, circumstances plugged my ears with candle wax. No video store or library near me had it, it never played on the whopping four channels I had regular access to, and neither was it ever available for sale. So I didn't see this until I bought it on VHS in high school. By that point my tastes had changed a fair amount, but my love for 1950s monster movies had never dimmed.

And it's a good thing, too. This film hits so many of the notes you'll find in 50s monster movies that it's practically a composite. You have an unnecessary framing device that makes the whole film a flashback, a scientist whose attempts to help people result in monsters, a disgruntled underling who exacerbates the monster problem, ludicrously inaccurate science, and a delightfully silly rubber monster.

Like many of its ilk, it takes a long time to get going. As with the previous year's The Fly (like this film, a 20th Century Fox production), we don't actually get to see our promised monster until the film is almost over. And while there is, technically, more than one alligator person in the film, you could still call its title misleading. So a modern audience might find the film boring, but I think I've summed up my disdain for modern audiences before.

What's really important is whether the characters we spend the film with before the monsters show up are enjoyable or not. It's true that Frieda Inescort and George Macready are terrible actors, but Beverly Garland is her usual awesome self and Richard Crane does a great job as the mutating Paul. The role that truly stands out, though, is Lon Chaney, Jr. as Manon. I've also been much more fond of Chaney than most classic horror fans, but he just fits the role of Manon--most likely because at the time of the film his poor life choices meant that he didn't really have to act to play a down on his luck, drunken slob. It almost borders on bad taste.

The Alligator People is no unsung classic, nor is it a lost epic of incompetence on the level of Ed Wood. It is, however, a fun time--both as a film on its own merits and as a goofy exercise in bad science. If that appeals to you on the level it appeals to me, well then you should check it out.

Just watch out for quicksand, moccasins...and dirty, stinkin' gators.

Thus begins day 1 of 2014's HubrisWeen, where I and several of my b-movie comrades dive into 26 horror/sci-fi movies a day--one for each letter of the alphabet--culminating with the last film on Halloween. We're all just slavishly copying the pioneer of this madness, Checkpoint Telstar.

Click on the banner above to check out what the other maniacs chose, won't you?

Announcing HubrisWeen 2014!

Starting on Monday, October 6th I will be participating in a form of insanity known as Hubrisween.

What is this HubrisWeen?

Last year, Checkpoint Telstar created HubrisWeen, as a means of reviewing one horror movie a day in October for every letter of the alphabet. That's 26 movies, culminating in Z on Halloween. I, being the equivalent of a brash young upstart, decided that this year I would follow suit. And I am not alone.

This year Checkpoint Telstar, Dr. FreeX, and myself shall tackle HubrisWeen together. If you click the banner above, it will take you to a central hub for all our reviews.

What movies will you maniacs be doing?

Now, now, that'd be giving away the game. However, I can give you a small preview of what you can expect to see on Monday:

Stay tuned for HubrisWeen!