Spiders: New York Overrun

New York’s subway rats have finally met their match.  That is a bad thing.  When mutant spiders crash to Earth with some old space junk, they take roost throughout the lower Manhattan tunnel system in Tibor Takacs’s creature feature Spiders (trailer here), which opens in California theaters this Friday.

Who knew downtown stations still took tokens?  Probably not for long, though.  They are about to be renovated the hard way. Jason Cole is just starting his shift at the transit command center, when the “Noble Street” stop is rocked by the remains of a Soviet space station that somehow carefully threaded its way through the surrounding buildings, into a perfect man-made lair.  Since the spiders are not viral, initial tests give Cole the go ahead to re-open the station.  However, when waves of rats start freaking out and dying, even the MTA (or NYT as they are called here) can tell they have a problem on their hands.

It turns out the Soviet-era brain-trust spliced some ancient alien DNA together with some spiders because that seemed to be the thing to do at the time.  The resulting mutants cast some wicked webs that supposedly have all kinds of military applications.  That is why the American armed forces have set up shop somewhere just north of Battery Park City with the original scientist who masterminded the Soviet experiments.

Spiders indulges in the annoying fantasy a former Soviet scientist has the standing to give a high ranking American military officer a lecture on morality.  Indeed, the clichéd villainy of Col. Jenkins is a real buzzkill in what could have been a perfectly pleasant exercise in campy bug-hunting.  Let’s be honest, if mutant spiders really do start falling from the sky, we’ll be praying to see the American troops arrive.

Not surprisingly, Spiders works best during its most Cormanesque moments.  The special effects are a decidedly mixed bag, but the creepy way their legs move looks good on camera and jut out well for 3D presentations.  For the most part though, it is glaringly obvious this is a B-movie, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Starship Troopers’ Patrick Muldoon, who previously co-starred in Takacs’s Sci-Fi Channel movie Ice Spiders, is pretty credible as a transit bureaucrat under extreme stress.  By now, he and Takacs must be real experts on surviving a mutant spider attack.  Christa Campbell also shows some screen presence amid the bedlam as his ex-wife Rachel, a researcher with the city health department.  As one would expect, Spiders follows in the long genre tradition of couple’s therapy through monster rampage.  British actors William Hope and Pete Lee-Wilson largely embrace their characters’ stereotypes, chewing a fair amount of scenery as Col. Jenkins and Dr. Darnoff, respectively.

While watching Spiders, it is hard not to think of Rick’s line in Casablanca: “there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn’t advise you try to invade.”  Sure, the mutant spiders terrorize lower downtown, but if they tried coming uptown we’d see who’d be crying then.  Spiders should have been a lot more fun, but the anti-military bias is just a tired bummer.  For giant mutant genre diehards, it opens this Friday (2/8) in the Golden State, including the Burbank Town Center 8 and the AMC Atlantic Times Square in Monterey Park.

The Bay: Barry Levinson Finds Some Eco-Terror Footage

Evidently, chicken and seafood are not such a good mix after all.  It seems the local poultry processing plant has been dumping the cluckers’ waste and entrails into the Chesapeake Bay.  All the hormones and genetic boosters mixed with a little radiation have had a nasty effect on the isopods.  The resulting bio-scare is documented by a rookie reporter and scads of random handheld devices in Barry Levinson’s massively disappointing The Bay (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

In her online introduction, former journalism intern Donna Thompson ominously explains to the audience they are about to see the truth the government tried to cover up.  Fortunately, the g-men never ran a simple web search, which would have brought up a good chunk of the film we are about to sit through.  It is the Fourth of July in Claridge, Maryland, but all is not well.  Large schools of fish have washed up dead.  Then humans start showing alarming symptoms.

With a good part of his town breaking out in boils and coughing up stomach lining, Mayor Stockman reacts by going into full stonewalling mode.  We know he must be a bad guy, because he has nice things to say about business.  His name is Stock Man, that says it all, doesn’t?  However, the overworked emergency room doctor duly notifies Homeland Security, who spring into action half a day later.  Okay, that part we can buy into.

The found footage genre usually has weak characterization, because the conceit does not allow for much getting-to-you development, but The Bay hits a new low.  As much as we are supposed to hiss at Mayor Stockman, he is the film’s most distinctive personality.  Aside from some rueful self-deprecating remarks, the audience gets absolutely no sense of Thompson as an individual.  Yet, though she seems to be the protagonist, she hardly figures in any of the action.

It is a problem when a film’s climax sneaks past you, but that is exactly what happens in The Bay when the credits start to role after a brief voiceover attempts to tie up the rat’s nest of loose ends.  In contrast, anyone seeing North By Northwest for the first time will realize it is do or die time when Cary Grant is hanging off Mount Rushmore.  Of course, Hitchcock’s film is a classic and Levinson’s genre outing is a didactic snooze.

Anything can be forgiven in an effective creature feature, but The Bay hardly has any narrative arc to it, whatsoever, and no real suspense to speak of.  It is truly surprising a consistently commercial director like Levinson (Bugsy, Diner, Good Morning Vietnam) could helm such an inert, lifeless film, but here it is.  A dud on every level, The Bay is not recommended at all when it opens this Friday (11/2) in New York at the IFC Center.

DWF ’12: Attack of the Bat Monsters

Technically, there is only one bat monster in Francis Gordon’s latest B-movie, but it would hardly be the first time the zero-budget mogul delivered slightly less than promised.  It will certainly attack though, rest assured.  By hook or by crook, his cast and crew will pound out his next drive-in programmer in Attack of the Bats (trailer here), Graham Kelly Greene’s affectionate love letter to campy late 1950’s and early 1960’s monster movie-making, an alumni selection returning to officially open the 2012 Dances with Films this Thursday.

Attack is not about Roger Corman per se, but it would not have been made without his example.  Gordon is definitely a grindhouse showman in the Corman mold.  He is convinced he can fix anything in the editing room as long as they follow his cardinal rule: “when the monster’s dead, the movie is over.”  Paralleling the genesis of Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors, Gordon wrapped production on his latest film early, but he still has three paid-up days in the southern California rock quarry he does not intend to waste. 

Suddenly, AD Chuck Grayson is rushing about lining up a screenwriter (the least important part), a pseudo-star, and a new monster (that would be the biggie).  The beatnik poet Bobby Barnstone and his Barnstone method of Benzedrine-fueled stream-of-consciousness screenwriting looks like the best bet for generating fast pages.  They don’t have to be good after all.  Larry “The Cat Creature” Meeker, Jr. seems to have fallen on hard enough times he would consider a Francis Gordon movie and a former creature making colleague has just been fired by a major studio.  However, he still harbors bad feelings over The Snake Woman, a Gordon production so notorious, the mere mention of the title sucks the air out of rooms.

All the Corman motifs are present and accounted for, including spaced-out beatniks, a jazzy soundtrack, and a ridiculously cheesy monster.  What sets Attack apart from thematically similar B-movie pastiches is Greene’s confidence in the behind-the-scenes story.  There will be no real life monsters or aliens invading their set, just the union goon extras from a studio gladiator movie sent to run the crew out of the quarry ahead of schedule.

Attack had its world premiere at DWF back in 2000.  Frankly, the fact that the film has yet to develop its own cult following is downright mystifying, because it really delivers the goods.  Greene knows the Corman lore inside-out and his cast of not exactly household names is way funnier than you would expect.  There is also a real edge to his dialogue, as when Gordon indignantly defends his honor by declaring he always pays his taxes and pays-off his unions.  Indeed, what more could one ask of a good Hollywood citizen?

There are some hilarious supporting assists here, particularly Robert Bassetti as Barnstone and Douglas Taylor as Meeker, Jr.  Fred Ballard is also pitch-perfect as the prickly Gordon, while Michael Dalmon gamely holds the madness together as the put-upon Grayson.

Without question, Attack is generously stocked with goofy humor, but it can also be quite sly.  Yet, there is a real heart beneath the bedlam that cares about its characters, precisely because on some level they also care about the B-movies they are churning out, despite being fully aware of their schlockiness.  A completely satisfying, all-around good show, Attack of the Bat Monsters is ripe for re/discovery when it opens this year’s Dances with Films this coming Thursday night (5/31) in Hollywood, USA.

Creature Feature: Monsters

Suddenly, that border wall looks like a heck of a good idea. While that probably is not the sentiment enterprising indie filmmaker Gareth Edwards was going for with his zero budget creature feature, it is a logical enough response when otherworldly cephalopods turn half of Mexico into an “infected zone” in the prosaically titled Monsters (trailer here), opening this Friday in New York.

Shortly after a NASA probe crashed in Mexico, the monsters appeared. The American and Mexican militaries have joined forces to contain those creatures in the so-called infected zone. The border is completely sealed off, which should be reassuring, unless you happen to be a couple of clueless gringos who somehow lost their passports south of the border. They would be Andrew Kaulder and Sam Wyden.

Kaulder is a jaded news photographer assigned to escort home Wyden, the do-gooder daughter of his Rupert Murdoch-like publisher. Basically, it is his fault they find themselves in such a fix. As a result, they will have to cross the fortified border the hard way, while hoping they do not run into any rampaging behemoths.

Using straight off the shelf commercial software, Edwards’ monster special effects look surprisingly good. Shrewdly we first see them on the big screen within the small screen of cable television news reports, giving us a general idea of what we are dealing with, but not showing them in the slimy, tactile flesh until the final reel. Roger Corman should definitely approve. However, Edwards’ most effective visuals are the surreal burned-out, monster-scarred landscapes he creates, outdoing all prior post-apocalyptic wastelands previously seen on film.

Unfortunately, the whole notion of Kaulder and Wyden struggling to cross the border is obviously intended to carry heavy political significance, but really just falls flat. Still, their bickering, bantering chemistry somewhat exceeds the industry standard for micro-produced horror movies. Indeed, Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able are not bad as the cocky photographer and resentful daughter of privilege, respectively. Still, the real attraction to the film is the hyper-real vibe Edwards successfully crafts.

Fortunately, the veneer of “relevance” is thin enough that Monsters can be enjoyed simply as a low budget genre flick that made good. Costing about as much as a cocktail in some midtown bars, Edwards’ effects look good enough to cover the price of a middling steak dinner as well. Recommended for us genre geeks, Monsters opens this Friday (10/29) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Bong at BAM: The Host

Unlike Japan, Korea is not used to being terrorized by large rampaging monsters. While this scaly mutant might not be Godzilla or Mothra sized, it is quick as a cat and reportedly carries a deadly virus, so it definitely a big time threat to Korean homeland security. Yet for one family, fighting the creature gets desperately personal in Bong Joon-ho’s international breakout hit The Host (trailer here), which screens next week during Monsters and Murderers, BAM Cinematek’s Bong retrospective.

It had already been a disappointing day at Park Gang-du’s family snack shack, even before an amphibious monster jumps out of the Han River. They had watched on television as his sister Nam-joo lost her archery competition because she did not release her final shot in time (a little foreshadowing maybe?). It gets far worse when Park’s daughter Hyun-seo is presumed dead in the aftermath of the creature’s first rampage. However, she has actually been more-or-less safely regurgitated back at the monster’s hidden lair and is able to make a brief cell call to her grieving father.

Since the clueless authorities are completely disinterested in the Parks’ possible lead on the monster’s location, they set off to rescue Hyun-seo themselves. To do so, they will have to sneak through various quarantines, because the monster is also the host for a lethally contagious virus, except not really. It turns out that is just one of many deceptions perpetrated by the U.S. military for mysteriously perverse reasons.

How did the monster come into being? Actually, it was all America’s fault, or more specifically the fault of an American military doctor, who had countless bottles of formaldehyde poured down the drain, simply because he is a creep. Indeed, such persistent anti-Americanism is a frequent distraction in The Host and one reason why the film is not nearly as much fun as it ought to be.

Bong is a filmmaker with a tragic sensibility, but it does not lend itself as readily to the monster movie genre, as compared to his dark crime dramas. Still, one of the cool things about The Host is that a major character could conceivably die at any time, so the stakes are always high. Indeed, Bong is not one to compulsively tie his films up with neat happy endings. While this leads to a compellingly ambiguous effect in his previous film, Memories of Murder, it is basically a downer here.

While the monster effects are in fact quite well produced, frankly that is the least important aspect of a good creature feature. Host might have been billed by critics as good clean monster movie fun, but it is actually quite dour and angst-ridden. Its unflattering take on Americans, particularly the military, is not exactly subtle either. In reality, should a giant mutant ever crawl out of the Han River, one would bet Bong would be decidedly relieved to see a company of Yanks show up to engage the beast. Host is the film that made Bong’s name in America though, so one would expect BAM to screen it during their retrospective. However, Bong’s latest, Mother, represents a definite return to form for the director. It is an excellent film that will be reviewed here in conjunction with its March 12th theatrical release. Mother has one special sneak peak screening at BAM on Friday (2/26) and The Host screens the following day, with Bong present for Q&A both evenings.