VIVARIUM

 

The official UK DVD of Vivarium (© Lorcan Finnegan/XYZ Films/Fantastic Films/Frakas Productions/PingPong Film/VOO/BeTV/Saban Films/Vertigo Releasing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Imagine a sci fi/horror movie based upon the classic cuckoo-themed concept of brood parasitism, in which an egg laid by a cuckoo in the nest of a pair of unsuspecting warblers or some other little songbird species hatches into a young cuckoo that is much larger than the birds' own fledglings, which it swiftly evicts by pushing them out of the nest, and thereafter demands loudly and persistently from its beleaguered foster parents constant attention and constant food until it has matured and flies away. That is the fascinating premise of Vivarium, a decidedly dark, sometimes chilling, but thoroughly engrossing film whose DVD I watched on 31 August 2021.

However, in this cleverly-structured movie, which was directed by Lorcan Finnegan, based upon a short story co-written by him, and released by Vertigo in 2019, the cuckoo's unwitting foster parents are a young couple of our very own species, Homo sapiens – namely, primary school teacher Gemma (played by Imogen Poots) and her handyman boyfriend Tom (Jesse Eisenberg). They are tricked into rearing something that looks outwardly human but whose rapid growth, bizarre mimicking behaviour, deafening shrieks when demanding food or attention, and unnatural lack of normal human emotions swiftly reveal it to something fundamentally alien – in every sense.

Leading up to this unnerving scenario is the sinister luring of unsuspecting Gemma and Tom by a decidedly creepy estate agent called Martin (a frighteningly memorable performance in every sense by Jonathan Aris as one of the aliens in human-facsimile form) into what looks ostensibly like a new housing estate, named Yonder, only for them to discover too late, and to their total horror, that Yonder is actually an immense inescapable labyrinth of identical houses. Moreover, these are all seemingly empty, except for the one that they now find themselves abandoned in by Martin, who surreptitiously disappears while they are looking around it.

It is not long before Gemma and Tom receive on their doorstep the first of what will prove to be a regular series of parcels (although they never succeed in glimpsing who or what is leaving them). These contain supplies of familiar-looking yet totally tasteless food and drink. Their physical appearance has been accurately copied from real human food and drink by the aliens but without their having any concept of how they should taste, nor of the nutrients that they should contain. This explains why Gemma and Tom become progressively weaker as the days, weeks, and months of their trapped existence drag remorselessly by.

They also receive via the same unseen agency a box containing a human-looking baby but which swiftly grows into an exceedingly weird 'boy' (Senan Jennings, in a very fine, skin-crawling performance redolent of the unearthly children in the classic 1960 sci fi movie Village of the Damned, based upon John Wyndham's famous novel The Midwich Cuckoos, also inspired by brood parasitism). Moreover, according to a message on its box, if Gemma and Tom rear it, they will be 'released' from what is evidently a meticulously manicured yet wholly fabricated, unending vista of alien vivaria, or human death cells in all but name – a grim fact that they ultimately become resigned to amid the malaise and madness that gradually consumes them after realising to their horror what their alien captors mean by the word 'release'. Welcome to the stark, surreal, psychological nightmare that is Vivarium.

Yes indeed – be warned, you should not expect any lightness to break through either the fake clouds in the fake sky over Yonder or the foreboding, all-pervading emotional darkness of this disturbing, macabre movie's claustrophobic substance. Nor will any explanation be forthcoming regarding the origin or precise nature of the alien cuckoos utilising captured humans to rear their offspring (only once is a faint clue as to their true physical form revealed, in a short but shocking scene that is quite terrifying in spite of its brevity).

All that you need to know, and keep in mind throughout it, and which is emphatically signposted at this movie's beginning via a foreshadowing scene featuring the original feathered variety of cuckoo at work, is that Nature can sometimes be cruel, very cruel, and ruthlessly single-minded – especially when a species' survival is at stake...

Click here to pay a visit to Vivarium by way of an official trailer for it on YouTube, and give thanks that unlike poor Gemma and Tom, you will be able to exit it without being 'released'…

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

FROM FALLING STARS TO UNDERSEA ALIENS - FLEXING A FURTHER SIX-PACK OF MINI-REVIEWS

 

The original soundtrack for The Congress, depicting a scene from this movie's surrealistic animated section (© Ari Folman/Pandora Filmproduktion/Drafthouse Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only

As noted elsewhere on Shuker In MovieLand, I've been watching a fair few movies lately (especially during the various Covid-incited lockdowns experienced spasmodically here in England since March 2020 to July 2021) – far too many, in truth, to be able to devote full-length reviews to all or even most of them. However, certain ones definitely deserve at least a mention by way of a mini-review, so here is a further six-pack of them, covering another diverse selection, and which I hope will do those movies justice, albeit of an abbreviated kind.

 

 

Official UK DVD of Stardust (© Matthew Vaughn/Marv Films/Ingenious Film Partners/Paramount Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

STARDUST

It's only taken me nine and a half years (I know, because its original shop receipt, dated 15 January 2012, was still inside its box), but on 11 July 2021 I finally watched my DVD of the fantasy movie Stardust. Directed, co-produced, and co-written by Matthew Vaughn, based upon fantasy author Neil Gaiman's eponymous 1999 novel, and released by Paramount Pictures in 2007, it stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert de Niro, Claire Danes, Sienna Miller, Ricky Gervais, and young Keanu Reeves-lookalike Charlie Cox among many others.

It's all about a young man named Tristan (Cox) who enters the magical kingdom of Stormhold in search of a fallen star to give to the feckless young woman Victoria (Miller) he loves in the hope that he will win her love in return, only to discover that the star is also a young woman (Danes), named Yvaine, whose heart is desired by an evil trio of witch sisters led by the aptly-named Lamia (Pfeiffer) as well as a devious, murderous prince. Also becoming involved in the proceedings are the secretive captain (de Niro) of a skyborne pirate ship who is not exactly what he is expected to be, and an insufferably garrulous fence (Gervais) from the criminal fraternity who receives a deliciously apt punishment from Lamia. Tangled times ahead!

Stardust is a thoroughly charming, engaging movie, very reminiscent in style of The Princess Bride, which can only be a good thing. So I'm glad to have seen it at long last – and it even features a unicorn! My cinematic cup runneth over, forsooth! Click here  to view a mind-blowing official Stardust trailer on YouTube!

 

 

Publicity poster for The Congress (© Ari Folman/Pandora Filmproduktion/Drafthouse Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE CONGRESS

On 10 July 2021, I watched The Congress, a 2013 live-action/animated hybrid movie directed by Ari Folman and starring American actress Robin Wright as a fictionalised version of herself.

The first half of this movie, which is live-action, does at least make sense, in which Robin signs a contract permitting a major film studio to create a computerised version of herself to act in all future movies while she retires with a hefty pay-off cheque to care for her ailing son. The second half, in which she enters an animated version of reality in order to attend a film congress but where everything is hallucinatory and illusory, makes little if any lasting sense at all, very trippy visually, but also very disjointed and at times totally unintelligible. Ralph Bakshi did this much more effectively many years earlier with Cool World, starring Brad Pitt.

The Congress is an unusual, undeniably distinctive movie, and once the animated half of the movie began it held my attention because of its fantastic, fascinating visuals, but plot-wise it was a mess. Overall, therefore, it is disappointing, at least in my opinion, but if you click here, you can watch an official trailer for it on YouTube and make up your own mind.

 

 

Publicity poster for The Abominable Dr Phibes (© Robert Fuest/American International Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES

My interest in the more unusual, little-known fantasy/sci-fi movies out there means that sometimes I've never got around to watching certain cult or classic examples from these film genres, but I am trying to make amends, one movie at a time. On 3 November 2020, for instance, I finally watched for the very first time the much-lauded UK comedy-horror movie The Abominable Dr Phibes, famously starring Vincent Price in the starring role.

Directed by Robert Guest, and released in 1971, its plot concerns the deadly revenge inspired by the 12 biblical plagues of Egypt that concert organist and theologian Dr Anton Phibes mercilessly exacts upon those surgeons and associated persons whom he blames for the death upon the operating theatre table of his beloved wife Victoria, following a terrible car crash that had left her severely injured and him hideously disfigured, unable to speak, and forced to wear a mask in order to conceal his fleshless skull-like face. Notwithstanding the horrific means by which Phibes's victims respectively meet their maker, this is a very tongue-in-cheek movie thanks as ever to Price's famously droll delivery, and is visually sumptuous – especially the scenes inside the bad doctor's mansion.

However, by the very nature of his character no longer possessing a recognisable face, only a virtually immobile mask, viewers are robbed of much of Price's characteristic and priceless facial expressions and mannerisms, especially when speaking (because his mask's lips do not move, his voice emerging from a tube in his neck instead), which normally so greatly enhance his films and augment his singularly distinctive, expressive voice.

Nevertheless, The Abominable Dr Phibes is still a very good if gory film, as silkily showcased with grand guignol glee in the official trailer that can be accessed here on YouTube.  I now need to watch its 1972 sequel, Dr Phibes Rises Again; and also Theatre of Blood, released in 1973, which is another Vincent Price horror movie featuring a vengeful lead character taking revenge upon his enemies in a melodramatically murderous manner. Incidentally, I love the black-comedy tagline used in posters and other publicity material for The Abominable Dr Phibes (being a merciless parody of the infamously slushy one used just a year earlier for the 1970 Ryan O'Neal/Ali MacGraw weepie Love Story): Love means never having to say you're ugly!

 

 

The full cover from the official USA DVD of Green Ice (© Ernest Day/ITC Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

GREEN ICE

30-odd years after taping it off the TV, on 14 August 2021 I finally got round to viewing the 1981 heist-themed movie Green Ice. Directed by Ernest Day, it stars Ryan O'Neal as American chancer Joseph Wiley who, as a result of giving attractive young woman Lilian (Anne Archer) a lift in his car while driving through Mexico, gets drawn into an exceedingly dangerous racket smuggling precious emeralds – the green ice of this movie's title – out of Colombia. Omar Sharif plays their inestimably wealthy gemmological nemesis Meno Argenti.

Green Ice is a somewhat disjointed movie inasmuch as it never seems sure about whether it is a comedy thriller or simply a thriller thriller – sadly, however, what I am sure about is that it is far from thrilling. Indeed, by the time that the climax to this movie's interminably drawn-out plot finally arrived, I had already lost all interest in discovering how it played out, though having spent more than 90 minutes waiting for it to arrive, I did watch it, if only so as not to have wasted all of that invested time.

But perhaps you may find it more captivating – so click here to watch its James Bondesque opening titles or here to watch the entire movie for free (albeit in less than ideal viewing quality) on YouTube, and see if it's your kind of movie.

 

 

Publicity poster for Aeon Flux (© Karyn Kusama/MTV Films/Lakeshore Entertainment/Valhalla Motion Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

AEON FLUX

My early evening movie watching on 26 May 2021 was the live-action film version of the cartoon franchise Aeon Flux. Directed by Karyn Kusama, and released by Valhalla Motion Pictures in 2005, it stars Charlize Theron in the title role as a warrior-type fighter trying to discover just what is truly happening in her hyper-secretive post-pandemic world in which only 1% of the former human population survived the pandemic 400 years ago, and they did only as a result of a cure finally being created. Everyone now lives inside an intensely-monitored walled city, the last city left on Earth, where people keep disappearing and everyone is suffering more and more with strange memories of things they've never done and people they've never met – or have they?

Moreover, the pandemic cure had a major side-effect ruthlessly concealed from public knowledge by the city's rulers, one of whom created the cure – it rendered everyone infertile. Consequently, women have been covertly implanted with embryos produced clandestinely by cloning in order to keep the population going. But what if all of this subterfuge should one day become public knowledge? Let's just say that there is a notable faction out there intent upon that radical possibility never happening, plus an opposing rebel faction fighting for liberty but without realising just what is really happening, not to mention some seriously serious fraternal rivalry.

In short, it's all very cloak-and-daggerish, augmented by some exquisitely beautiful CGI effects. This movie version of Aeon Flux is basically a sci fi comic rendered as live-action, but it is certainly no less spectacular - great fun! So be sure to check out an official trailer for this movie here on YouTube and view for yourself a selection of the visual dramas and delights that it holds in store.

 

 

The full cover of the official UK VHS video release for the Special Edition of The Abyss (© James Cameron/20^th Century Fox – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE ABYSS (Special Edition)

On 25 May 2021, I watched the Special Edition of the sci fi movie The Abyss, directed and also written by James Cameron, and released by 20th Century Fox in 1989, which contains more than 20 minutes of footage deleted from the cinema-release version.

This movie's storyline centres initially upon the desperate attempts of a US SEALS team, utilizing a requisitioned underwater drilling platform and its reluctantly-assisting crew, to retrieve a sunken US submarine from the sea bottom before approaching Soviet ships can seize it, but the team is severely hampered in their efforts by a hurricane. Moreover, this is not all that they face, when a hitherto-unsuspected but immensely-advanced alien civilization inhabiting the ocean depths makes contact with them.

A big chunk of the Special Edition's extra footage shows the drilling platform's foreman, Bud (played by Ed Harris), in the luminescent ocean-bottom city of the undersea aliens, where they are showing him film footage of our species' heinous reputation for wars, killing one another, atomic bombs, etc. This is followed by their own species sending a chilling message to ours on the surface in the form of mega-tsunamis rising up out of the oceans all over the world, poised to flood the land and sweep everything away. But instead of doing so, they fall back harmlessly into the oceans again. It was a warning sent by the aliens, a demonstration of what they could do if our species persists in its recklessness and wickedness.

Cameron should definitely have left this footage in the cinematic release of The Abyss, because it is just as valid today, more than 30 years later, as it was back then, and gives the movie additional purpose and gravitas. The Special Edition also contains more close-up footage of the aliens themselves, resembling angelic gelatinous beings with opalescent manta-like wings, which is absolutely beautiful and again totally deserving of inclusion in the cinema-release version. At least, however, all of this additional material was retained and incorporated in this aptly-named Special Edition – for it is indeed special, and should certainly be watched by everyone who enjoyed the original, edited release. Click here to view an official trailer for The Abyss on YouTube, and here to view a spectacular, revelatory excerpt from the additional material contained in the Special Edition.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Close-up of one of the undersea aliens from The Abyss (© James Cameron/20^th Century Fox – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960)

 

Publicity poster for The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), which made no mention of Jack Nicholson's appearance in it because back then he hadn't become famous – later publicity material for this movie, conversely, would very extensively promote his presence in it, as will be seen later here (© Roger Corman/The Filmgroup/Santa Clara Productions/American International Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 13 July 2021, I finally watched the original 1960 b/w version of The Little Shop of Horrors, which was famously directed by Roger Corman, released by American International Pictures, filmed in just two and a half days, and featured a young Jack Nicholson in an early but memorable movie role as a comically-masochistic pain-addicted dental patient named Wilbur Force.

However, this black comedy's principal storyline features an ineffectual florist assistant named Seymour Krelborn (played by Jonathan Haze) working in an impoverished skid row region of town who creates a bizarre but ever-growing talking plant hybrid (voiced by an uncredited Charles B. Griffth, who also played two other roles in the film as well as writing its screenplay).

 

My Audrey Jnr-lookalike figurine (photo © Dr Karl Shuker)

Named Audrey Jnr by Seymour in honour of his girlfriend Audrey Fulquard (Jackie Joseph), this peculiar plant attracts considerable public attention, not to mention the very sizeable increase in business that accompanies such attention, the latter outcome being greatly welcomed by the flower shop's scrooge-like owner Gravis Mushnick (Mel Welles).

Unbeknownst to its fascinated followers, however, but known only too well to an increasingly desperate Seymour, who is forced to pursue ever-more-nefarious ways of obtaining nutrition for it, his monstrous botanical creation possesses an insatiable taste for blood and flesh – human blood and flesh!

 

Publicity poster for Little Shop of Horrors, the 1986 movie musical version (© Frank Oz/The Geffen Company/Warner Bros – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

The musical movie version of The Little Shop of Horrors from 1986 (based upon a 1982 off-Broadway stage musical, in turn inspired by Corman's original film), which starred Rick Moranis as Seymour and Steve Martin as a sadistic dentist, is probably better known nowadays and in my view is far superior too. Nevertheless, it was very interesting to see how different – and darker – the plot in the Corman version (especially its shock ending) was from that of the musical. (Having said that, the original filmed ending for the musical movie version was just as shocking, so much so that preview audiences absolutely hated it, prompting the producers to replace it with the uplifting ending that we all know today – but the exceedingly dark original one can be watched here on YouTube.)

Incidentally, two different colorized versions of this movie have also been produced – one released in 1987 in VHS videocassette format (which I have now just watched and enjoyed), and a restored one released in 2006 by Legend in DVD format (which is apparently the superior colour version, but I have yet to view this in its entirety).

 

My decorative tin plate advertising the movie musical version of The Little Shop of Horrors  (© Frank Oz/The Geffen Company/Warner Bros – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Meanwhile, click here to watch in full for free on YouTube the original b/w version of this herbaceous horror movie.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

The official VHS video for the 1987 colorized version of The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), with Jack Nicholson's appearance in it now being very prominently promoted (© Roger Corman/The Filmgroup/Santa Clara Productions/American International Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)