The Modern American Giant Monster Movie
Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 2:48 pmMonster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only
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The Modern American Giant Monster Movie
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Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 2:48 pmPosted: Sat May 07, 2011 3:49 pmPosted: Mon May 09, 2011 1:32 pmSharktopus is a fun ride.
Posted: Mon May 09, 2011 1:56 pmIf you want a few really well made and/or just really fun ones you need to get "Outlander", "Infestation", and "Sharktopus". I hear "Behemoth", "2010: Moby Dick" and "Wyvern" were really good too. IMO "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus" and "Mega-Piranha" were fun although I have yet to see the sequel "Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus". "Attack Of The Giant Leeches"[2009/remake], "Mammoth" and "Basilisk" were pretty cool too.
Posted: Thu May 12, 2011 11:08 amPosted: Mon May 16, 2011 4:48 pmJust found another one to add: Dinoshark! It looks terrible, but so much fun!
Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 5:02 pmIf Bigfoot fits this category then...
http://www.amazon.com/Abominable-Jeffre ... =8-2-spell
Abominable...pretty darned fun movie if I might say so and easily one of the best in quality that Sci Fi has ever released
http://www.amazon.com/Abominable-Jeffre ... =8-2-spell
Abominable...pretty darned fun movie if I might say so and easily one of the best in quality that Sci Fi has ever released
Posted: Sat May 21, 2011 6:52 pmOkay, so I went out this week and picked up a few of the movies on my list: Dinoshark, Sharktopus, Mega Piranha, and Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. First up: Sharktopus!
*Watches*
Wow. That was bad. REAL bad. Luckily, my friends and I had a great time giving it the MST3K treatment, so it's all good. ^_^
The monster itself was pretty cool, and some of the FX shots were decent (the bungee jumper scene, the attack on the yacht, a few others), but IMO it was poorly utilized. The writing was lazy, the characters almost universally unlikeable, and the acting bad - but, based on the trailer included on the DVD, I'm left to assume that most of that was intentional. The movie seems to relish in its crappiness, which makes it worth watching at least to make fun of it.
*Watches*
Wow. That was bad. REAL bad. Luckily, my friends and I had a great time giving it the MST3K treatment, so it's all good. ^_^
The monster itself was pretty cool, and some of the FX shots were decent (the bungee jumper scene, the attack on the yacht, a few others), but IMO it was poorly utilized. The writing was lazy, the characters almost universally unlikeable, and the acting bad - but, based on the trailer included on the DVD, I'm left to assume that most of that was intentional. The movie seems to relish in its crappiness, which makes it worth watching at least to make fun of it.
Posted: Sat May 21, 2011 7:27 pmI can't wait for you to get to Megashark vs. Giant Octopus... that movie is all kinds of awesome 
Posted: Sat May 21, 2011 8:46 pmPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 1:20 pmIt's been a good six months, about time I bump this and update on my progress!
Sharktopus - As mentioned earlier, it's BAD. However, as I've thought about it more, it occurs to me I that the movie is a straight-up parody of these B Monster flicks...I was probably never meant to give it a serious look in the first place! Probably wasn't the best choice to start out with. ^_^()
[Insert Summer-long hiatus here.]
100 Million BC - A pretty good and surprisingly well-written idea, HORRIBLY executed. The idea was clever (the Philadelphia Experiment resulted in a time travel breakthrough, a team was lost in the '40s and now a Navy SEALs team is being sent back to dinosaur times to rescue them), but the only characters worth caring about were Michael Gross and Greg Evigan's characters (the Scientist and his time-lost brother). The SPFX were really terrible, but I give them kudos for an original design for our star monster, the T-Rex "Big Red", who for once didn't look like a Jurassic Park rip-off! Instead, he sort of reminded me of Diablo from Primal Rage, which I always thought was an awesome design. ^_^
Unfortunately, whatever fun I had in the first two acts falls apart in the third. A friend who I watched it with described the problem as: "This film needed to either get really intimate or really grand in scope at this point. It did neither." The movie literally stops when Big Red finally starts his "rampage", with an extended sequence of the characters "looking" for him in helicopters followed by them "chasing" him on foot (you almost never seeing him during any of this). The resolution was clever, but it took WAY too long getting to that. I want to like this one, but it was pretty disappointing.
Mega Piranha - Wow! This one was awesome! The writing and acting was decent enough, it clearly had some budget, and there's a whole lot of fun to be had. Unlike 100 Million BC, this film doesn't waffle at any point on whether or not to let the scale grow - it starts very small, but by the end it turns EPIC in scale! Our hero is a low-rent Jack Bauer, but that's fine and it works. The villain, a Venezuelan army colonel, is delightfully dastardly in his dogged attempts to both stop the monsters AND our heroes. The SPFX range from hilariously poor to pretty effective, but become awesomely fun as the piranhas reach kaiju size and start causing real mayhem. It was almost as if the filmmakers were reading my mind, 'cause they kept doing exactly what I wanted when I wanted it!
There are a couple of downsides. The Director is trying WAY too hard to mimic Ridley Scott...to the point that the camera NEVER STOPS MOVING. At first it's annoying, but after a while it became somewhat charming...but, if you hate shaky cam, you're not going to like it. Another issue is the finale. The movie does a great job building up in scale, from opening with a couple swimmers getting eaten in a remote Venezuelan river to by the ending all of Southern Florida under siege. Unfortunately, it drops the ball on the military response...for whatever reason, they decided having our hero join Navy SEAL scuba divers swim around and shoot machine guns under water at giant piranhas was a good idea...it just kinda slows the film down right at the moment it should've been the most exciting. The ride up until then is so much fun, though, I can easily overlook that. ^_^
So far, I'd say this is the movie that comes the closest to capturing the spirit of old school Giant Monster films. I honestly wouldn't mind popping it in again to watch right now, which simply cannot be said for either Sharktopus or 100 Million BC.
Dinocroc vs. Supergator - I had hoped to watch Dinocroc and Supergator before this one, considering it's part 3 in the series, but oh well. This one was also a lot of fun, and thanks to David Caradine easily provides the best performances of the four films I've watched so far. I liked that this one immediately cut to the chase and shoved both monsters on screen within the first 5 minutes, full-on rampaging with screaming crowds fleeing from them. Unfortunately, we don't get as much of that as we should, but whenever either monster is on screen it's a lot of fun.
The plot for this one also makes the most sense of the four, it's pretty simple and straightforward: evil CEO takes his lucrative GM food program and tries to apply it to animals, hoping to find military applications, and things go wrong. As with Sharktopus, however, our main characters are pretty annoying: a secret agent for the Department of Agriculture (my God, he's the lamest spy EVER) and a fairly useless Fish & Game officer. The only heroes I liked were the supporting ones, the local Sheriff (Fish & Game lady's dad) and a Cajun Gator hunter brought in by Caradine to clean up the mess (after a team of mercenaries fails). There's also an evil British henchwoman for Caradine who gets offed in...perhaps the most sensible non-eaten way possible, surprising for a movie like this.
To my delight, the fight between the two monsters lasts a few minutes (I honestly expected seconds), with the two utilizing some interesting moves, though the fight still feels held back due to budget concerns. It also ends rather...abruptly. I also don't like how they off the victor, it just feels kind of like a let down. The whole ending seems pretty abrupt: fight ends, get rid of remaining characters, END!
Overall, though, I enjoyed this one. I definitely want to pick up at least Dinocroc, then I'll probably give this another shot.
Rankings Thus Far:
1. Mega Piranha
2. Dinocroc vs. Supergator
3. Sharktopus
4. 100 Million BC
UP NEXT: Dinoshark, Megashark vs. Giant Octopus, and Megashark vs. Crocosaurus
Sharktopus - As mentioned earlier, it's BAD. However, as I've thought about it more, it occurs to me I that the movie is a straight-up parody of these B Monster flicks...I was probably never meant to give it a serious look in the first place! Probably wasn't the best choice to start out with. ^_^()
[Insert Summer-long hiatus here.]
100 Million BC - A pretty good and surprisingly well-written idea, HORRIBLY executed. The idea was clever (the Philadelphia Experiment resulted in a time travel breakthrough, a team was lost in the '40s and now a Navy SEALs team is being sent back to dinosaur times to rescue them), but the only characters worth caring about were Michael Gross and Greg Evigan's characters (the Scientist and his time-lost brother). The SPFX were really terrible, but I give them kudos for an original design for our star monster, the T-Rex "Big Red", who for once didn't look like a Jurassic Park rip-off! Instead, he sort of reminded me of Diablo from Primal Rage, which I always thought was an awesome design. ^_^
Unfortunately, whatever fun I had in the first two acts falls apart in the third. A friend who I watched it with described the problem as: "This film needed to either get really intimate or really grand in scope at this point. It did neither." The movie literally stops when Big Red finally starts his "rampage", with an extended sequence of the characters "looking" for him in helicopters followed by them "chasing" him on foot (you almost never seeing him during any of this). The resolution was clever, but it took WAY too long getting to that. I want to like this one, but it was pretty disappointing.
Mega Piranha - Wow! This one was awesome! The writing and acting was decent enough, it clearly had some budget, and there's a whole lot of fun to be had. Unlike 100 Million BC, this film doesn't waffle at any point on whether or not to let the scale grow - it starts very small, but by the end it turns EPIC in scale! Our hero is a low-rent Jack Bauer, but that's fine and it works. The villain, a Venezuelan army colonel, is delightfully dastardly in his dogged attempts to both stop the monsters AND our heroes. The SPFX range from hilariously poor to pretty effective, but become awesomely fun as the piranhas reach kaiju size and start causing real mayhem. It was almost as if the filmmakers were reading my mind, 'cause they kept doing exactly what I wanted when I wanted it!
There are a couple of downsides. The Director is trying WAY too hard to mimic Ridley Scott...to the point that the camera NEVER STOPS MOVING. At first it's annoying, but after a while it became somewhat charming...but, if you hate shaky cam, you're not going to like it. Another issue is the finale. The movie does a great job building up in scale, from opening with a couple swimmers getting eaten in a remote Venezuelan river to by the ending all of Southern Florida under siege. Unfortunately, it drops the ball on the military response...for whatever reason, they decided having our hero join Navy SEAL scuba divers swim around and shoot machine guns under water at giant piranhas was a good idea...it just kinda slows the film down right at the moment it should've been the most exciting. The ride up until then is so much fun, though, I can easily overlook that. ^_^
So far, I'd say this is the movie that comes the closest to capturing the spirit of old school Giant Monster films. I honestly wouldn't mind popping it in again to watch right now, which simply cannot be said for either Sharktopus or 100 Million BC.
Dinocroc vs. Supergator - I had hoped to watch Dinocroc and Supergator before this one, considering it's part 3 in the series, but oh well. This one was also a lot of fun, and thanks to David Caradine easily provides the best performances of the four films I've watched so far. I liked that this one immediately cut to the chase and shoved both monsters on screen within the first 5 minutes, full-on rampaging with screaming crowds fleeing from them. Unfortunately, we don't get as much of that as we should, but whenever either monster is on screen it's a lot of fun.
The plot for this one also makes the most sense of the four, it's pretty simple and straightforward: evil CEO takes his lucrative GM food program and tries to apply it to animals, hoping to find military applications, and things go wrong. As with Sharktopus, however, our main characters are pretty annoying: a secret agent for the Department of Agriculture (my God, he's the lamest spy EVER) and a fairly useless Fish & Game officer. The only heroes I liked were the supporting ones, the local Sheriff (Fish & Game lady's dad) and a Cajun Gator hunter brought in by Caradine to clean up the mess (after a team of mercenaries fails). There's also an evil British henchwoman for Caradine who gets offed in...perhaps the most sensible non-eaten way possible, surprising for a movie like this.
To my delight, the fight between the two monsters lasts a few minutes (I honestly expected seconds), with the two utilizing some interesting moves, though the fight still feels held back due to budget concerns. It also ends rather...abruptly. I also don't like how they off the victor, it just feels kind of like a let down. The whole ending seems pretty abrupt: fight ends, get rid of remaining characters, END!
Overall, though, I enjoyed this one. I definitely want to pick up at least Dinocroc, then I'll probably give this another shot.
Rankings Thus Far:
1. Mega Piranha
2. Dinocroc vs. Supergator
3. Sharktopus
4. 100 Million BC
UP NEXT: Dinoshark, Megashark vs. Giant Octopus, and Megashark vs. Crocosaurus
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2011 12:59 amPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2011 1:51 amPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2011 3:53 amPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 3:29 pmI watched two more, here are my thoughts:
Dinoshark - SO DULL! Nothing happens in this movie! It tries to be a Jaws rip-off, minus the interesting characters or any tension. This is a case where the cast was decent, the SPFX okay (though generally subpar), but the writing just...not so much bad as taking itself too seriously. The film seems far more interested in its two main characters (a fishing boat captain and a science teacher) than the Pilosaur wreaking havoc off the Mexican coast. The scenes with the monster are too quick, show too little, and have no tension. The scenes with the characters are drawn out, dull, and take themselves too seriously. I'm shocked anyone watches all the way to the third act, when the hero FINALLY decides to go after the monster, and even that flops. Compared to just Sharktopus, it has none of the action or scale to at least be fun, let alone anything approaching acceptable. If given the chance, skip it.
Journey to the Center of the Earth - This came with 100 Million BC, but I put off watching it until now. A really fun movie! An attempt to teleport all-girl Special Forces team from America to Germany fails, dropping them in a prehistoric wilderness 600 km below the Earth. As the soldiers battle dinosaurs and giant spiders, a couple of scientists board an experimental capsule and try to drill to their rescue! The FX were surprisingly good, the cast generally likeable, and there were a few moments I thought were pretty badass. Definitely ranks high compared to the rest of what I've seen!
Rankings thus far:
1. Mega Piranha
2. Journey to the Center of the Earth
3. Dinocroc vs. Supergator
4. Sharktopus
5. Dinoshark
6. 100 Million BC
Dinoshark - SO DULL! Nothing happens in this movie! It tries to be a Jaws rip-off, minus the interesting characters or any tension. This is a case where the cast was decent, the SPFX okay (though generally subpar), but the writing just...not so much bad as taking itself too seriously. The film seems far more interested in its two main characters (a fishing boat captain and a science teacher) than the Pilosaur wreaking havoc off the Mexican coast. The scenes with the monster are too quick, show too little, and have no tension. The scenes with the characters are drawn out, dull, and take themselves too seriously. I'm shocked anyone watches all the way to the third act, when the hero FINALLY decides to go after the monster, and even that flops. Compared to just Sharktopus, it has none of the action or scale to at least be fun, let alone anything approaching acceptable. If given the chance, skip it.
Journey to the Center of the Earth - This came with 100 Million BC, but I put off watching it until now. A really fun movie! An attempt to teleport all-girl Special Forces team from America to Germany fails, dropping them in a prehistoric wilderness 600 km below the Earth. As the soldiers battle dinosaurs and giant spiders, a couple of scientists board an experimental capsule and try to drill to their rescue! The FX were surprisingly good, the cast generally likeable, and there were a few moments I thought were pretty badass. Definitely ranks high compared to the rest of what I've seen!
Rankings thus far:
1. Mega Piranha
2. Journey to the Center of the Earth
3. Dinocroc vs. Supergator
4. Sharktopus
5. Dinoshark
6. 100 Million BC
Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2012 7:51 pmAfter a good six months, I decided to return to my quest!
Dinocroc - SIGNIFICANTLY better than all of the other modern monster flicks I've watched! Decent writing, decent special effects, decent acting and - most surprising of all - good cinematography really bring this one all together. The Dinocroc itself is an awesome monster who gets plenty of chances to show off how cool he is, and man did I love when he was on screen! The characters here aren't the idiots I've come to expect, the dialogue sounds and feels natural, and the situation doesn't come across as forced. It also seems like it had a bigger budget than the other ones - you don't get the made-for-TV feel, instead it's just low budget. Really, this is just an all-around GOOD B-movie. I can definitely see why Roger Corman wanted to make sequels, 'cause this bad boy certainly had (has?) potential. Definitely recommended!
As much as I enjoyed Dinocroc vs. Supergator, that movie was really a serious step down. DvS copied a lot of its scenario and characters from Dinocroc (the corporate experiment escaping, the evil CEO, the Animal Control officer and her dad the Sheriff, the Croc hunter with the funny accent...), but didn't execute them anywhere near as well as it was done here.
Rankings thus far:
1. Dinocroc
2. Mega Piranha
3. Journey to the Center of the Earth
4. Dinocroc vs. Supergator
5. Sharktopus
6. Dinoshark
7. 100 Million BC
Up Next: Megashark vs. Giant Octopus, Megashark vs. Crocosaurus
Dinocroc - SIGNIFICANTLY better than all of the other modern monster flicks I've watched! Decent writing, decent special effects, decent acting and - most surprising of all - good cinematography really bring this one all together. The Dinocroc itself is an awesome monster who gets plenty of chances to show off how cool he is, and man did I love when he was on screen! The characters here aren't the idiots I've come to expect, the dialogue sounds and feels natural, and the situation doesn't come across as forced. It also seems like it had a bigger budget than the other ones - you don't get the made-for-TV feel, instead it's just low budget. Really, this is just an all-around GOOD B-movie. I can definitely see why Roger Corman wanted to make sequels, 'cause this bad boy certainly had (has?) potential. Definitely recommended!
As much as I enjoyed Dinocroc vs. Supergator, that movie was really a serious step down. DvS copied a lot of its scenario and characters from Dinocroc (the corporate experiment escaping, the evil CEO, the Animal Control officer and her dad the Sheriff, the Croc hunter with the funny accent...), but didn't execute them anywhere near as well as it was done here.
Rankings thus far:
1. Dinocroc
2. Mega Piranha
3. Journey to the Center of the Earth
4. Dinocroc vs. Supergator
5. Sharktopus
6. Dinoshark
7. 100 Million BC
Up Next: Megashark vs. Giant Octopus, Megashark vs. Crocosaurus
Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:34 amI've been looking around for Supergator and, well, as far as I can tell an NTSC US DVD copy doesn't exist. Anywhere. I've looked on Amazon, I've looked on eBay...hell, I've even looked around at a few torrent sites! There are NO NTSC copies anywhere! O_O The movie's not that old, I didn't think it would be this hard to find a copy of it! ^_^()
In the meantime, I guess I'll look around and see what else I can get. 2010: Moby Dick, maybe?
In the meantime, I guess I'll look around and see what else I can get. 2010: Moby Dick, maybe?
Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:50 am2010 Moby Dick is pretty awful, but it has some moments that are so bad you can't believe they exist (the whale walking around and hiding behind a mountain for example 
)
Did you watch Piranhaconda last night?
)
Did you watch Piranhaconda last night?
Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:55 pmPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 11:09 amAlrighty, this week I watched two more:
2010: Moby Dick - To my surprise, especially after what MFW said, I actually liked this one quite a bit. Ignoring that this is supposed to be a Moby Dick adaptation, the basic premise is actually pretty good for a giant monster movie: a nuclear submarine captain snaps and goes AWOL with his sub to get revenge on a giant monster that sunk a ship he served on 40 years earlier, all while the Navy hunts him assuming all the destruction the monster is causing was the work of the rogue sub.
Not bad, plus we get a couple of fun underwater sub vs. monster whale sequences! The SPFX are low budget but not straight-up bad - it helps that so many of the FX shots are underwater, so the cheapness is masked a bit by darkness. While the acting is generally hit and miss, the guy playing Captain Ahab puts in a delightfully insane performance. Really, the worst part about the movie was the insistence to tie into Moby Dick: the character names (especially the monster's) are distracting. Plus, if you know the ending to Moby Dick, the movie has a fairly unsatisfying conclusion for a monster movie.
Overall, not bad. Sure, there's some really wacky stuff going on, but I've seen FAR worse. I'm kinda embarrassed how high on my list this ended up ranking.
Bugs - This movie is the first half of Rodan, expanded into a full 90 minutes and mixed with the plot of Aliens. A competent movie competently produced and acted. I liked how matter of fact the characters took the situation: the CDC Doctor comes to the conclusion giant bugs are responsible quickly but accepts it, the FBI Agent seems incredulous but decides "better be safe than sorry" and goes with it, and the SWAT team's thinks the whole idea is ridiculous but shrugs it off and does their job. Really, the only one who calls them out on how absurd this is is the villain, and he comes across like a greedy idiot for doing so.
The monsters are pretty cool looking scorpion-like things and their queen is a giant killer dragonfly. Whoever wrote this movie and designed these monsters has definitely seen Rodan. ^_^
Rankings thus far:
1. Dinocroc
2. 2010: Moby Dick
3. Mega Piranha
4. Bugs
5. Journey to the Center of the Earth
6. Dinocroc vs. Supergator
7. Sharktopus
8. Dinoshark
9. 100 Million BC
Up Next: Pterodactyl, War Birds, Megashark vs. Giant Octopus, Megashark vs Crocosaurus
2010: Moby Dick - To my surprise, especially after what MFW said, I actually liked this one quite a bit. Ignoring that this is supposed to be a Moby Dick adaptation, the basic premise is actually pretty good for a giant monster movie: a nuclear submarine captain snaps and goes AWOL with his sub to get revenge on a giant monster that sunk a ship he served on 40 years earlier, all while the Navy hunts him assuming all the destruction the monster is causing was the work of the rogue sub.
Not bad, plus we get a couple of fun underwater sub vs. monster whale sequences! The SPFX are low budget but not straight-up bad - it helps that so many of the FX shots are underwater, so the cheapness is masked a bit by darkness. While the acting is generally hit and miss, the guy playing Captain Ahab puts in a delightfully insane performance. Really, the worst part about the movie was the insistence to tie into Moby Dick: the character names (especially the monster's) are distracting. Plus, if you know the ending to Moby Dick, the movie has a fairly unsatisfying conclusion for a monster movie.
Overall, not bad. Sure, there's some really wacky stuff going on, but I've seen FAR worse. I'm kinda embarrassed how high on my list this ended up ranking.
Bugs - This movie is the first half of Rodan, expanded into a full 90 minutes and mixed with the plot of Aliens. A competent movie competently produced and acted. I liked how matter of fact the characters took the situation: the CDC Doctor comes to the conclusion giant bugs are responsible quickly but accepts it, the FBI Agent seems incredulous but decides "better be safe than sorry" and goes with it, and the SWAT team's thinks the whole idea is ridiculous but shrugs it off and does their job. Really, the only one who calls them out on how absurd this is is the villain, and he comes across like a greedy idiot for doing so.
The monsters are pretty cool looking scorpion-like things and their queen is a giant killer dragonfly. Whoever wrote this movie and designed these monsters has definitely seen Rodan. ^_^
Rankings thus far:
1. Dinocroc
2. 2010: Moby Dick
3. Mega Piranha
4. Bugs
5. Journey to the Center of the Earth
6. Dinocroc vs. Supergator
7. Sharktopus
8. Dinoshark
9. 100 Million BC
Up Next: Pterodactyl, War Birds, Megashark vs. Giant Octopus, Megashark vs Crocosaurus
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 1:11 amI just watched Two Headed Shark Attack the other night. I thought it was hilarious. It doesn't dethrone Mega Piranha as my favorite Asylum film but it comes close.
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 1:24 amPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 1:34 amPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 8:17 amPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 11:19 am