TITANS AND GIANTS AND MONSTERS – OH MY!!

 

Publicity posters for The Titan, Village of the Giants, and The Food of the Gods (© Lennart Ruff/Voltage Pictures/42/Automatik Entertainment/The Amel Company/Motion Picture Capital/Nostromo Pictures/The Post Republic/Signature Entertainment/Netflix / © Sean S. Cunningham/Carolco Pictures/Tri-Star Pictures / © Bert I. Gordon/Berkeley Productions/Embassy Pictures – all three posters reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 Time for another six of the best(?) and the rest(!) movies watched recently by me, drawn forth from the cinematic genres of science fiction and fantasy to be mini-reviewed here for your merriment and mirth during this festive season!

 

 

Publicity poster for The Titan (© Lennart Ruff/Voltage Pictures/42/Automatik Entertainment/The Amel Company/Motion Picture Capital/Nostromo Pictures/The Post Republic/Signature Entertainment/Netflix – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE TITAN

On 16 November 2023, I watched the futuristic sci fi movie The Titan. Directed by Lennart Ruff, and released in 2018 by Netflix, The Titan is set in the year 2048 with Earth vastly overpopulated and doomed to ecological destruction very soon. Sam Worthington plays US fighter pilot Rick Janssen, one of a team of volunteers submitting to a make-or-break radical, highly controversial scientific program of genetic manipulation to transform them into humanoids capable of surviving on Saturn's giant moon Titan. For if successful, it is envisaged that humanity will then migrate there and establish a new life and civilisation on this new world. Although interesting overall, I found this movie's plot oddly unengaging, probably because the entire movie concentrates upon the program to create these new humanoids, with its actual, ultimate success story, Rick, only seen in his new, flying form on Titan for all of a minute at the very end of the film. Much more of it should have been devoted to the end result, I feel, rather than to the build-up, which drags on, and on, and on... Please click here to view an official trailer for The Titan on YouTube, or click here to view the entire movie while it is free to do so on YouTube.

 

 

Publicity poster for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (© Wes Anderson/Indian Paintbrush/American Empirical Pictures/Netflix – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR

On 6 November 2023, I watched the new Netflix mini-movie The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Directed by Wes Anderson, and released in 2023 by Netflix, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is based upon a Roald Dahl short story of the same title, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular character, with Ralph Fiennes as author Roald Dahl. Henry is an inveterate gambler who has no problem with cheating if it means winning, and who learns indirectly from a mystic (Ben Kingsley) how to see without using his eyes, thereby enabling him to win every game – only to discover, however, that without the risk of ever losing now, there is no longer any thrill to gambling, So instead, he puts his ill-gotten gains to philanthropic use. Also starring Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade, and just 40 minutes long, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is visually sumptuous, a gorgeous palette of pastoral multicolour, and scenery that changes on-screen in the manner of a theatre stage production, but hampered imho by a purposefully stilted dialogue presentation that resembles someone reading in a gabbled monotone manner from a book, which grates after a while. Please click here to view an official trailer for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar on YouTube.

 

 

Publicity poster for Pixels (© Chris Columbus/Columbia Pictures/Happy Madison Productions/1492 Pictures/LStar Capital/China Film Co Ltd/Film Croppers Entertainment/Sony Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

PIXELS

On 8 November 2023, my movie watch was the very funny sci fi/fantasy-themed comedy film Pixels. Directed by Chris Columbus, and released in 2015 by Sony Pictures, Pixels stars Adam Sandler as a jaded, drifting, all-grown-up video-game arcader named Sam Brenner whose skills in and knowledge of 1980s classics like Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and Centipede become invaluable to the US President (who just so happens to be Sam's best buddy from childhood – what are the chances??) when Earth is challenged by real-life Space Invaders – a race of aliens who threaten to destroy our planet if Earth's representatives cannot beat them in a series of real-life, full-sized, full-power versions of these vintage games. The special effects are incredible, the story itself is thrilling, the characters mostly likeable (Peter Dinklage's gaming cheat Eddie – Sam's mean rival back in the day – is somewhat less so). Never having been a gamer, however, I probably missed a fair few in-jokes along the way, but I still enjoyed it very much, so I feel sure that avowed gamers would love it! Please click here to view an official trailer for Pixels on YouTube.

 

 

Publicity poster for DeepStar Six (© Sean S. Cunningham/Carolco Pictures/Tri-Star Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

DEEPSTAR SIX

On 9 April 2023, I watched on the UK's retro horror/sci fi channel Legend TV the 1980s underwater sci-ft/monster movie DeepStar Six, which I'd been wanting to watch for some time. Directed by Sean S. Cunningham, and released in 1989 by Tri-Star Pictures, DeepStar Six takes its title from the name of a deepwater US Naval facility that blows up a cavern on the ocean bottom. This in turn causes a huge sea monster to be released through the resulting fissure that destroys the facility and relentlessly pursues the survivors as they desperately attempt to escape to the surface in their vessel. The most recognisable star in this movie is Greg Evigan, previously of BJ and the Bear TV fame, who plays its hero – submarine pilot McBride. As for the monster: although often described in reviews of this film as a gigantic prehistoric sea scorpion or eurypterid, it actually looks nothing like one, at least as far as fossil evidence of such creatures' appearance is concerned. DeepStar Six is a very formulaic 'painting-by-numbers' monster movie, but is entertaining nonetheless, though it takes a heck of a while before we finally get a good look at the monster. Please click here to view an official trailer for Deepstar Six on YouTube.

 

 

Publicity poster for The Food of the Gods (© Bert I. Gordon/American International Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE FOOD OF THE GODS

My film watch on 9 September 2023 was the 1970s monster movie The Food of the Gods, as shown on the retro UK TV channel Talking Pictures. Directed, co-produced, and written by Bert I. Gordon, and released by American International Pictures in 1976 in the USA, in 1977 everywhere else, The Food of the Gods is based in only the most tenuous way upon the eponymous sci fi novel by H.G. Wells. Apart from featuring a mysterious substance that causes animals who consume it to grow to enormous size, the movie and novel have entirely different storylines. The movie is set in North America, not England, and focuses upon a group of people cut off from civilisation on a small island where the said Food of the Gods has oozed out of the ground, creating colossal highly-venomous wasps, gigantic carnivorous chickens, huge flesh-biting maggots, and hordes of murderous bloodthirsty mega-rats, most of which seem hell-bent upon targeting the elderly Mrs Skinner, played by veteran actress Ida Lupino in her penultimate big-screen role. Sadly, most of the special effects are risible, especially the close-ups of the rats attacking and killing their human victims, which also go on for far too long imho. My biggest disappointment, however, was discovering that this monster movie didn't feature Joan Collins, whom I'd been looking forward to seeing in it – only for me to remember somewhat later that it was Empire of the Ants that she'd appeared in! Doh! Please click here to view an official trailer for The Food of the Gods on YouTube.

 

 

Full cover from the official Region 1 DVD of Village of the Giants (© Bert I. Gordon/Berkeley Productions/Embassy Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS

Speaking of The Food of the Gods: on 9 December 2023, my birthday movie watch was a truly strange flick from the mid-1960s entitled Village of the Giants. As with the previous movie mini-reviewed by me here today, it was (very) loosely inspired by the H.G. Wells novel The Food of the Gods, but that is not the only similarity shared by these two films. Like the previous movie here, this one was also directed, co-produced, and written by the selfsame Bert I. Gordon, but was released in 1965, by Embassy Pictures. In Village of the Giants, a gang of unruly teenagers led by the obnoxious Fred (Beau Bridges, in one of his earliest movie roles) ingest a goo created by a child prodigy aptly nicknamed Genius (a very young Ron Howard), grow to ginormous proportions, and terrorise a small American town, until local hero Mike (Tommy Kirk) and friends come to the rescue. This movie suffers from a serious identity crisis, inasmuch as it seems to have no idea what it is meant to be, switching between such normally discrete cinematic genres as screwball comedy, Swinging Sixties musical, sci fi, thriller, and even mild teenage sexploitation flick – unfortunately, however, it doesn't succeed as any of them. Indeed, whenever they are reminded of this movie, its nowadays most famous stars apparently squirm with embarrassment, and I can well understand why! Please click here if you would like to view Village of the Giants in its entirety and free of charge on YouTube, or click here to view an official trailer for it on YouTube.

Finally: 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.

 

A surprise surfacing by the giant deepwater sea monster from DeepStar Six (© Sean S. Cunningham/Carolco Pictures/Tri-Star Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

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.