What monster movie are you currently watching?

[MaxRebo320]

Curse of the Dog God/Inugami no Tatari (1977) - To call this a "monster" movie is probably a bit of a stretch, but a really solid kaidan by director Junya Ito (of Female Prisoner Scorpion fame). A slow-burn, but one that always keeps you invested with a lingering sense of doom throughout. Some fairly-standard, but effective enough messages against industrialization, in this case uranium mining, where bad luck is bound to happen. As with the Scorpion films, some excellent lighting and set design throughout. There are a few plot elements that come out of nowhere and wind up adding little (Including one involving uranium poisoning a village's well with a twist), but a lesser-known genre film that's well-worth seeking out. Shunsuke Kikuchi's score is seriously amazing, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKhtr9rw5qE

[Al Diplodocus]

Not quite a monster movie, but...

Silent Predators (1999) - I'm guessing that this was the first spawn of Anaconda's unexpected success. This is a TV movie starring Harry Hamlin (of the original Clash of the Titans). He's the new fire chief in a small Southern California town that is beset by unusually-aggressive rattlesnakes, the hybrid of the Western Diamondback variety and a deadlier Central American species. Standing in his way is a greedy land developer and the town mayor. The story feels like a combination of both Jaws and Arachnophobia. Thankfully, real snakes are used instead of CGI. Nothing great, but a pleasant diversion for a snake lover like myself.

Fun fact, John Carpenter of all people wrote it. Given that it was in 1999 and isn't discussed much, i'd say this was Ghost of Mars Carpenter instead of Halloween Carpenter.

[H-Man]

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968, dir: Hajime Sato) - One of the few horror/sci-fi films produced by Shochiku studios. This was brought to you by Hajime Sato, who also directed the loopy Golden Bat and The Terror Beneath the Sea. This one has a fairly basic premise: an airplane carrying some of the most unlikeable characters committed to film crashes after having a close encounter with a UFO. About nine or ten people survive; one of the survivors is a political assassin who tries to escape the wreckage, only for his body to get taken over by the blob-like inhabitants of flying saucer. He becomes a space vampire and preys on the survivors one by one. This is one of the absolute bleakest and spiritually-oppressive sci-fi films of the 50s-60s era, suggesting that mankind was far too divided to ever stand up to an alien invasion. Imagine if it happened today. It is a far cry from the hopeful sci-fi invasion films--The Mysterians and Battle in Outer Space--that Ishiro Honda directed for Toho. Apparently Hajime Sato was influenced by Mario Bava and it shows in this film, which looks great.

[Terasawa]

Can't say it's a favorite of mine, but personally, it was a pivotal film in my appreciation of Japanese genre filmmaking. It was the first such movie I saw that actually scared me (I was probably eight or nine, lol); up to this point I hadn't really seen much besides kaiju and kaiju-adjacent films (like The Mysterians and Warning from Space), so this was responsible for making me aware that sci-fi from Japan wasn't always going to play like a Godzilla movie.

And it boasts a great Hong Kong dub.



>> "some of the most unlikable characters committed to film"

That's true, but they were upstaged by the characters in Genocide just a few months later!

[H-Man]

>> "some of the most unlikable characters committed to film"

That's true, but they were upstaged by the characters in Genocide just a few months later!

Oh jeez, there are worse than that? And to think that watching both Goke and Jigoku yesterday had given me my fill of the great rat-bastards in film!

[Terasawa]

>> "some of the most unlikable characters committed to film"

That's true, but they were upstaged by the characters in Genocide just a few months later!

Oh jeez, there are worse than that? And to think that watching both Goke and Jigoku yesterday had given me my fill of the great rat-bastards in film!

Genocide is an immensely unpleasant movie that makes Goke look cheerful by comparison.

[H-Man]

Behemoth (2011) - A Sy-Fy original that is basically Dante's Peak, but replace the "big eruption" with the emergence of a ginormous, primordial monster. Obviously, being what it is, you have a smaller cast of Canadian unknowns, limited monster footage, and a insultingly-easy way to defeat the monster, but I didn't think it was all that horrible. The CGI monster was pretty good (both in design and execution), even if the CGI rocks weren't. Not great, but better than a lot of Asylum opuses (or opera).

[edgaguirus]

I watched House of Frankenstein. Too bad the mummy couldn't be slipped in there, and then it would have been the ultimate monster mashup. It's a fun film, and Boris Karloff gave a good performance as the mad doctor.

[H-Man]

Halloween week (revisionist) vampire double feature:

Blood of Dracula (1957) - A troubled girl is sent to a all-girls school while her dad schmoozes it up with his new wife-a mere six weeks after his first wife's passing. No wonder the poor creature is troubled! Anyway, she falls into the clutches of a feminist chemistry teacher who uses a mystical amulet to hypnotize her in order to release the inner destroyer within--there's actually an interesting, if warped, reason for this experiment. The inner destroyer manifests itself as a vampire.

The Vampire (1957) - A doctor unwittingly takes a pill developed by a scientist meant to regress human instincts to something more primal. It changes him into a blood-drinking monster. While the mechanics of the medicine are a little suspect, the film is fascinating as it deals with themes of drug addiction and how it destroys the individual and puts those around him at risk, too. The tragedy of the film is that the addiction came about as an honest mistake from two completely innocent people. Recommended for the general story and acting.

[edgaguirus]

I also recommend The Vampire.

I viewed Horror Express last night. It's a favorite movie of mine.

[Spuro]

Just finished introducing some friends to one of my favorite horror films: Evil Dead 2.

I forgot how crazy the cinematography gets.

[Tyrant_Lizard_King]

Finally watched Love and Monsters over the weekend. Fun movie full of likeable characters. Kinda like a cross between Zombieland and Evolution. Expected Michael Rooker to have a much larger role though.

[H-Man]

I saw the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead the other night. Not bad, but the original was a lot scarier.

[mikelcho]

Halloween week (revisionist) vampire double feature:

Blood of Dracula (1957) - A troubled girl is sent to a all-girls school while her dad schmoozes it up with his new wife-a mere six weeks after his first wife's passing. No wonder the poor creature is troubled! Anyway, she falls into the clutches of a feminist chemistry teacher who uses a mystical amulet to hypnotize her in order to release the inner destroyer within--there's actually an interesting, if warped, reason for this experiment. The inner destroyer manifests itself as a vampire.

The Vampire (1957) - A doctor unwittingly takes a pill developed by a scientist meant to regress human instincts to something more primal. It changes him into a blood-drinking monster. While the mechanics of the medicine are a little suspect, the film is fascinating as it deals with themes of drug addiction and how it destroys the individual and puts those around him at risk, too. The tragedy of the film is that the addiction came about as an honest mistake from two completely innocent people. Recommended for the general story and acting.

I read a 1976 history-of-horror book called Living in Fear (I can't remember who wrote it, though) that said that a better title for Blood of Dracula would've been I Was a Teenage Vampire and Donald F. Glut's The Dracula Book (also 1976, I think) said the film had nothing to do with either Dracula or his blood.

[edgaguirus]

I suppose Blood of Dracula sounded like a catchier title.

I watched The Giant Behemoth. The stop motion doesn't look as good as it does in BF20000F, but it's a good monster movie. As I watched the film, I did a kill count. According to what I could see (and hear) on screen, the body count was 55+. I thought about trying this on Beast, but the film gives no indication as to how many people were sickened by the Rhedosaurus.

[Major sssspielberg!]

Currently in the midst of the Tobe Hooper Invaders from Mars. Pretty cool thusfar. Kinda like a kid-friendly version of Society.

The kid in this looks like Al from Tool Time anytime they cut to him at a distance. I mean like a grown man who pays taxes and shit.

[edgaguirus]

I saw War of the Colossal Beast. I prefer Sven's version to the MST3K one as it leaves in the flashback sequence, even though it adds little to the story. It also strikes me as one of those movies where the "monster" is more victim than monster. He was hijacking trucks for food, but he was happy in Mexico, away from a society that viewed him as a freak and/or threat. It would have made sense for the U.S to leave him there and air drop food to him, but then Gordon wouldn't have a monster on the loose story to tell.

[Al Diplodocus]

I watched Thunder of Gigantic Serpent, a 1984Taiwanese-Hong Kong film about a giant snake mutated from a girl's pet. Refreshingly, its treated positively by her in a kitten or puppy-style, rather then scary (though don't actually treat snakes like this). I was interested to see how it went, especially as a snake lover myself


But it turned out to be pretty substandard. The dubbing is annoying and dumb, ruining any drama at the end, the tone keeps jumping back and forth between profane action thriller and ET-style Boy and his X movie, and the puppet used for the snake flops around so much its almost hilarious, not helped by the monkeu-esque screeches it makes early on. I didn't like it, point is.

[edgaguirus]

I watched The Haunted Strangler. I'd never seen this period piece, but it was good. Karloff gave an excellent performance, but his physical transformation was the best part. Amazingly, it was very simple- He removed his dentures and curled his lip upwards.

[GiveBackTheSun22]

I've been watching the Hammer Dracula/Vampire films for the first time. They are excellent thus far. I just finished Prince of Darkness and enjoyed it despite it being the weakest entry so far.