MINI-REVIEWING MONSTERS, MASTERS, MANDIBLES, AND MORE!

 

Publicity posters for The Mole People, Master of the World, and Monsters (© Virgil Vogel/Universal Pictures / © William Witney/American International Pictures / © Gareth Edwards/Vertigo Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Time to present another melange of mini-reviews, and this time, albeit for no particular reason, all of the movies featured are ones whose principal titles (i.e. excluding 'The') begin with the letter M.

 

 

My official UK DVD of Monsters (© Gareth Edwards/Vertigo Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

MONSTERS

A long-planned-to-watch movie duly watched recently (18 March 2022, to be precise) was this one – Monsters. Directed and written by Gareth Edwards (but not the legendary Welsh rugby player, I hasten to add!), and released by Vertigo Films in 2010, Monsters is all about 230-ft-tall tentacled aliens brought back to Earth from elsewhere in the Solar System as tiny samples that were inadvertently released when the NASA space probe carrying them crashed during its re-entry. Now they've bred, enlarged greatly, and have taken over northern Mexico, with the southern USA imminently in similar danger. Two brave souls – American photo-journalist Andrew Kaulder (played by Scoot McNairy) and his employer's young-adult daughter Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able) – are desperately striving to elude these mega-aliens' slimy clutches while making their way back home to the USA from Mexico. Monsters is very entertaining and engrossing, though the aliens, which can live both in water and on land, are scarcely seen until the second half of this movie. Also, once you reach what you assume to be its end, you then need to view the beginning again, closely, because that is actually the end of the movie, chronologically speaking, and it reveals the fate of the two lead characters (though obviously you won't have realised this when watching the movie the first time). In 2015, a sequel, Monsters: Dark Continent, was released, but it received less public praise than the original. Please click here to view an official Monsters trailer on YouTube.

 

 

Publicity poster for Master of the World (© William Witney/American International Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

MASTER OF THE WORLD

My movie watch on 19 February 2022 was Master of the World. Directed by William Witney, and released by American International Pictures in 1961, Master of the World stars Vincent Price as the memorable if tyrannical Jules Verne character Robur aka the self-proclaimed Master of the World, and combines plot elements from the two Verne novels in which this brilliant but deranged megalomaniacal inventor appeared (Robur the Conqueror, 1886, and Master of the World, 1904). It also includes a major additional plot element, in which Robur uses his superior flying machine to threaten the world's governments with annihilation unless they stop all warfare and destroy all weapons. Like that is ever going to happen! Also starring a young Charles Bronson in the hero role of US government agent John Strock who is intent upon halting Robur's mad machinations (and machinery!). Master of the World is gorgeously presented and very enjoyable throughout, containing plenty of wonderful steam-punk visuals, plus a couple of (melo)dramatic songs sung over the end-credits. A sequel, entitled Stratofin, was planned, but never made. Please click here to view an official Master of the World trailer on YouTube.

 

 

Publicity still of Dominique the giant fly in Mandibles (© Quentin Dupieux/Chi-Fou-Mi Productions/Memento Film Production/C8 Films/Artemis Productions/Memento Distribution/Magnolia Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

MANDIBLES

On 17 April 2022, my movie watch, on the UK TV channel Film On 4, was a truly bizarre French movie from 2020 entitled Mandibles, supplied with English subtitles. Directed by Quentin Dupieux (aka Mr Oizo in his parallel music career), who also wrote and edited it as well as taking charge of its cinematography, and released in 2020 by Memento Distribution in France, Magnolia Pictures overseas, Mandibles is all about two imbecilic friends – Jean-Gab (played by David Marsais) and Manu (Grégoire Ludig) – who discover that the boot (trunk) of the stolen car being driven by them contains a giant dog-sized fly, very much alive but of undetermined origin. They decide to train it (as you would do!), so that it can steal money from banks and bring it back to them (of course!), but en route to this highly implausible outcome they become embroiled in all manner of farcical disasters, not least of which is that Dominique (the name that Jean-Gab has given to the fly) eats their pet dog. (Clearly, no-one associated with this movie had ever examined the mouthparts and feeding capabilities of a genuine fly!) Mandibles is undeniably humorous if decidedly surreal, with all of the characters playing their absurd roles in a totally straight-faced manner, which only adds to the thoroughly yet deliberately ridiculous, hilarious nature of the entire movie. Please click here to view an official Mandibles trailer on YouTube.

 

 

My official UK DVD of The Mole People (© Virgil Vogel/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE MOLE PEOPLE

30 April 2022 was designated B-Movie Watch Night by me, in honour of which I viewed the classic(?) b/w sci fi film The Mole People. Directed by Virgil Vogel, released in 1956 by Universal Pictures, and featuring the Hollow Earth theory as its central premise, The Mole People focuses upon a team of archaeologists (no famous actor names playing them) who discover (as you do...) a lost but still very much alive Sumerian civilisation populated by Ishtar-worshipping albinos and enslaved mutant mushroom-gathering mole men with scaly skin and huge clawed hands living inside a hollow inner Earth deep below an Asian mountain. Originally believed to be heavenly messengers from the goddess Ishtar herself due to their light-producing flashlight (which is too powerful for the sensitive eyes of the Sumerians to bear after living underground for millennia), the two surviving archaeologists are eventually denounced as fakes, and are sent into the Fire of Ishtar to be burnt alive – only for them to discover that the 'Fire' is merely sunlight, shining through a crevice high above. To the Sumerians and their unpigmented albino skin, the sun's rays are indeed deadly, but not to the archaeologists, who duly survive, only for the entire civilisation to then face an unexpected, cataclysmic earthquake. It's all happening down in the depths! Be sure to click here to view an official trailer on YouTube for The Mole People – go on, you know you want to!

 

 

My official VHS video of Magical Mystery Tour (© The Beatles/Apple Corps/BBC/New Line Cinema/Apple Films/The Video Connection – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

After buying it for £1 two days earlier, on 8 March 2022 I watched my VHS video of the 1967 TV movie Magical Mystery Tour, directed by and starring The Beatles – that's £1 of my money and 54 minutes of my life I'll never get back! Words such as self-indulgent, pretentious, and tosh came readily to my mind when viewing it – what were The Beatles thinking of?? It was apparently heavily criticised as abjectly poor after making its TV debut on the BBC on Boxing Day 1967, with those fans of it who existed claiming that its problems arose from the BBC showing it in b/w when it was manifestly a colour movie. That won't have helped, certainly, but a far greater issue was that it is alternately too dull and too nonsensical to be even vaguely interesting, imho. What is it all about? Who knows? Something concerning four or five magicians in the sky adding magic and mystery into the journey of a coach tour and its party, as far as I can tell. Sadly, they fail - at least for me. Overall, it more closely resembles a series of quite decent music videos for various Beatles songs (especially the beautiful sunset scene encapsulating 'Fool on the Hill', and a Copacabana/Coconut Grove cabaret setting for 'Your Mother Should Know') but linked together by a trite, unfunny, and sometimes soporific coach-tour-themed scenario. Apparently much of this latter footage was unscripted and therefore wholly improvised, and it shows! I actually like a lot of the Beatles' output, I always have done, which is why this movie came as such an unexpected, bitter disappointment for me, after having wanted to see it for so long. My verdict on Magical Mystery Tour? Why it wasn't magical is a mystery, at least to me, so I'd be at the tour office bright and early the next morning, demanding a full refund! I plan on watching soon what has been described as The Monkees' answer to Magical Mystery Tour – Head. It's said to be even worse than MMT – can't wait… Meanwhile, here is an official trailer for the DVD release of Magical Mystery Tour on YouTube – you have been warned!

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 monsters from Monsters (© Gareth Edwards/Vertigo Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

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 MONSTER CLUB & DIE MONSTER DIE! - A HORROR MOVIE DOUBLE-BILL!

Publicity posters for The Monster Club and Die Monster Die! (© Roy Ward Baker/Chips Productions/Sword and Sorcery Productions/ITC / © Daniel Haller/Alta Vista Film Productions/Anglo-Amalgamated/American International Pictures - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On the hot, airless evening of 26 July 2019, it seemed an ideal time for a horror movie night, so I located and watched on YouTube two vintage cult-ish horror movies each of which I'd last seen in its entirety over 30 years ago.

One of these was The Monster Club, inspired by an anthology of short stories first published in 1975 and written by famous horror writer Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes. Released in 1981, it is directed by Roy Ward Baker, and stars (among others) Vincent Price as a suave vampire named Eramus who serves primarily as narrator and continuity presenter between the movie's otherwise-autonomous principal segments (see later), Donald Pleasence as a tenacious Van Helsing wannabe on a stake-out (literally!), Stuart Whitmore as a film-maker beset by flesh-eating ghouls in a remote mist-enshrouded English village, plus Anthony Valentine, Simon Ward, Patrick Magee, and a very demure Britt Ekland.

It also features John Carradine as Chetwyind-Hayes himself, who ends up being accepted as a member of the eponymous Monster Cub once Eramus reveals to the club's assemblage of vampires, werewolves, and other monsters that thanks to the vast number and diversity of evils conducted by members of our species upon other members of our species, Homo sapiens is unquestionably the greatest monster of them all - a nice touch.

The Monster Club consists primarily of three separate 25-minute segments interlinked by scenes at the club. Two of them are those noted above, respectively featuring Pleasance in the second segment and Whitman in the third. However, my favourite is the first segment, which centres upon a humanoid monster known as a shadmock.

Jiminy Cricket advised Pinocchio in the classic Disney animated movie to give a little whistle if he were ever in trouble, but that is the very last thing that you'd ever want a troubled shadmock to do! A memorable invention of Chetwynd-Hayes, this mysterious entity is a fictitious, complex human hybrid of vampire, werewolf, and ghoul whose piercing whistle, emitted only in times of severe distress, has truly devastating effects.

The shadmock segment in The Monster Club is rooted very much in the bittersweet Phantom of the Opera genre, its uneasy coalescence of pathos and terror playing out beautifully against Fauré's hauntingly melancholic 'Pavane' melody. Moreover, it features a very moving, finely-tuned performance by James Laurenson as Raven, the reclusive, ashen-faced, poignantly-naive but fatefully-betrayed shadmock in question.

Raven the shadmock, played by James Laurenson, from The Monster Club (© Roy Ward Baker/Chips Productions/Sword and Sorcery Productions/ITC - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

The second movie in my horror double-bill was Die Monster Die! (aka Monster of Terror), directed by Daniel Haller, and released in 1965. Adapted very freely from H.P. Lovecraft's classic 1927 sci fi story The Colour Out of Space, it stars Boris Karloff as Nahum Witley, a crazed scientist whose discovery of a huge green-glowing meteorite in the grounds of his mansion's estate has led to his wife, staff, and also various hothouse plants and caged animals being mutated into monsters by the meteorite's radiation.

Now, his daughter Susan (played by Suzan Farmer) and Stephen Reinhart (Nick Adams), her visiting American boyfriend, are forced to battle these and assorted other horrors in the hope of surviving long enough to escape the accursed mansion and its insane owner. Today, thanks to the visual wonders of CGI, such antiquated movies as these are quaint rather than frightening, although when I was a youngster they did give me the willies, lol. Worth noting, incidentally, is that this movie also features Patrick Magee, this time playing the taciturn local doctor, Dr Henderson.

For some considerable time, the shadmock segment from The Monster Club was readily accessible to watch for free on YouTube, but it was eventually deleted. However, if you click here, you can watch a truly fangtastic trailer to give you a taste of what to expect from this movie. Moreover, at least at the time of posting this review, by clicking here the entire film can be viewed free of charge on YT.

Similarly, be sure to click here in order to view an original, typically melodramatic 1960s trailer for Die Monster Die! And click here to watch the entire movie (albeit in very small screen-size) while it is still on YouTube and free on watch there..

And to view a complete 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! 

From Die Monster Die! are two stills revealing the monstrous but pitiful creatures mutated by the radiation emitted by fragments of the meteorite, and caged by Nahum Witley inside a room within his hothouse but what his daughter's boyfriend Stephen Reinhart aptly describes as "looking like a zoo in hell" (© Daniel Haller/Alta Vista Film Productions/Anglo-Amalgamated/American International Pictures - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)