Alligator (1980)

Remember the urban legend about alligators running loose in the sewers? The legend goes that gators were taken home by overeager kids wanted them as pets, only to be flushed down the toilet when they became problematic. The gators ended up in the sewers, eating stray pets, bums and the occasional kid and causing general hysteria.

The 1980 film Alligator follows this same premise, but also throws in some nefarious corporation illegally doing cruel experiments on animals and dumping their growth-hormone packed corpses into the sewers. Well, this is all well and good for Mr. Gator (whose real name is Ramon) since he has a steady diet of pumped up puppies that cause him to reach 30 – 40 feet in length! Still, the hormones cause him to have an insatiable appetite, so soon he is roaming the streets of Chicago, looking for his next bite! Who is gonna stop him? How ‘bout a misogynistic cop with a receding hair line (Robert Forster) and a gator scientist (Robin Riker) who happens to be the same kid whose daddy ended up flushing the alligator all those years ago!

This entry into the “animals attack” subgenre is pretty entertaining, but it has some awful characters…they are so bad, in fact, that I was rooting for the alligator the whole time! First, it appears that EVERYONE in the film is misogynistic…NO ONE believes a woman can be…GASP!…SMART or a SCIENTIST! Every male character talks down to the lone female character (the alligator scientist) and she pretty much just takes it. The receding-hairline cop even tells her he isn’t gonna take her to dinner unless it’s guaranteed that she is gonna bone him…and when they finally gets to dinner he is a major ass (as if he wasn’t enough of one to begin with). The misogyny in this film is so annoying it pretty much becomes amusing after a while…and it’s just begging to have a drinking game created for every offensive remark made!

On the plus side, the film has an interesting anti-animal cruelty/anti-animal testing perspective. The corporation, CEO and flunky “scientist” that are abusing and killing animals in lab tests are looked upon as the villains (as they should be). I found it interesting that the film had such a strong animal rights message considering that the alligator is blown to smithereens at the end. However, I’ll take animal welfare messages where I can get them, and it appears that Alligator at least has some good points about the cruelty of animal testing as well as showing how unnecessary it is in most cases (in most cases, I’m not saying all, as this is a very sticky subject).

Also, I found it interesting that I was cheering for the alligator the whole way through. “Ramon” kinda became like a superhero during the film as he took down the bad guys (most satisfying scene: seeing the CEO of the corporation get smooshed!). I didn’t care about our supposed “hero”, the cop, or even the woman gator scientist. No, I just wanted to see Ramon slither away and live another day to take a bite out of crime! Sadly, he doesn’t survive…

For an “animals attack” film, I sure don’t recall that much blood…there’s one memorable scene at the beginning where an alligator wrangler (you know, those guys in the swamp who put on shows for crowds, opening gators’ mouths, wrestling them, etc.) gets his leg bitten off, but from there the gator manglings all kinda blur together. Even the satisfying scene where the CEO gets his due isn’t all that bloody. However, I will say that the alligator looks great! Or maybe I was too distracted by the misogynistic cracks to notice…Anywho, director Lewis Teague used both an animatronic, mechanical alligator (which often malfunctioned) as well as a regular sized alligator in miniature sets. Though sometimes it was obvious, I think it still looked great nonetheless!

Alligator is a pretty decent “animals attack” horror film. If you can get past the annoying characters, misogyny and lack of gore, definitely check it out. If you don’t think you’ll like it, check it out anyway and just make a drinking game out of all the misogyny that occurs!

Salud!

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Long Weekend (1978)

Earlier this year I watched the disappointing Nature’s Grave, which I found out was actually a remake of the 1978 Australian film Long Weekend. As I dug a little deeper I discovered that many people held Long Weekend in high regard and it had been called one of the greatest nature-run-amuck films ever made. So after watching the unremarkable remake, which was supposedly shot-for-shot of the original, I felt it was only fair to go back to the source and watch Long Weekend.

Long Weekend isn’t your standard nature’s revenge flick – it is far more subtle, and is more of a psychological struggle between a bickering city couple and the unfamiliar outdoors they’ve chosen as a vacation spot. Some could argue that there is a supernatural element to the proceedings, but everything that happens also has a perfectly logical, natural explanation as well…it just seems supernatural because the city slickers aren’t familiar with nature and definitely don’t respect it.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me give a brief synopsis of Long Weekend:

Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets) are a married couple who are obviously having some issues. To hopefully patch up their marriage they head out to a deserted beach for a long weekend. Peter brings his dog, Cricket, and his trusty rifle to shoot at random stuff as he drinks beer, leaving a trail of litter in his wake. Marcia does nothing but complain that they are far away from her friends and how she would much rather spend a nice weekend at a luxury hotel, all the while burning a hole in the ozone layer as she constantly hoses down the campsite with bug spray. The couple continues to have a flippant disregard for the environment – Marcia flicks cigarette butts everywhere, Peter throws beer bottles into the brush and kills innocent animals (he runs over a kangaroo, kills a mama duck with an errant bullet and shoots a sea cow repeatedly). Soon, the laws of nature come into play and Peter and Marcia face the harsh justice of the jungle.

Long Weekend is a gorgeous film, with wide panning shots of the crystal-clear surf and white sand beach. The pristine environment makes the destruction Peter and Marcia cause that much more ugly and harsh. It’s a very sharp contrast between the food wrappers, cigarette butts, bottles of beer and the once pure coastline. Yet, in the finale when Peter stumbles upon another abandoned campsite we see how humans may come and go but Mother Nature seems to bounce back from any blight humans mar her with. Director Colin Eggleston definitely crafted a socially conscious and stunning film that was way ahead of its time.

As for the story, writer Everett De Roche really involves the audience in his cautionary tale. As mentioned earlier, it has a bit of a supernatural feel to it, but you could also look at it from a very rational point of view as well. It’s all in how you perceive the film, and I like how De Roche left it ambiguous for the audience. I also like how the characters were so unlikable, yet you were still interested to see what would happen to them and even a bit concerned for their safety (even though they brought their misfortune on themselves). All their trouble basically stemmed from poor decisions they made and their unfamiliarity with the outdoors. I mean, who really steals an eagle egg, smashes it and doesn’t expect the bird to come after them or approaches a possum and doesn’t expect to get bitten? Though the two leads make poor decisions, there is a part of you wishing they get out alive and perhaps learn a lesson not to mess with nature. Kudos to De Roche for making us care about such unlikable characters.

Both Briony Behets and John Hargreaves must also be commended for their strong performances in Long Weekend. They are basically the only two characters in the film, plus they are rotten individuals (she is always nagging while he is just an asshole, plus they have their own nasty secrets that come out as the film progresses), and yet we cannot take our eyes away from them. I think the biggest problem with the remake, Nature’s Grave, was the acting. In the remake the two leads didn’t have the fiery chemistry that Behets and Hargreaves possess, nor did they play it as realistically. Hargreaves and Behets really sell the characters and really involve us in the story, making us want to see and learn more about their vile characters.

There is also a lot to discover within the story itself, as the secrets of the secluded beach reveal themselves. The film is slow-paced, but that doesn’t make it bad by any means! Instead, it spends time building the tension and is punctuated by several shocking scenes (Peter’s crossbow accidentally going off and almost hitting Marcia, an aerial attack by an eagle, a menacing shape in the water while Peter is out swimming, Peter’s exploration of an overgrown campsite, and so on). The atmosphere of slowly-building dread is nicely accompanied by a beautiful score that helps accentuate the eeriness and tension of the film.

If you happen to come across Nature’s Grave, I recommend skipping it and renting the far superior original, Long Weekend. Though this is not your typical “animals-run-amuck” revenge film, it is still a breathtaking and tension-filled film that deserves to be seen by those that like their slowly-creeping horror!

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Nature's Grave (2009)

Australia has always captivated me. “The land down under” just seems so wild, untamed and dangerous, featuring some of the world’s most venomous/poisonous animals, insects, reptiles and plants known to man. I’ve always wanted to visit there, but the thought of adding to the destruction of its unique ecosystem just turns my stomach. I don’t want to be just another one of those disrespectful tourists that go tramping through nature, spoiling the region’s natural beauty and tranquility! Not to mention that I might come face to face with some of its more deadly inhabitants!

So, when I received the film Nature’s Grave (releasing August 4th, 2009 from Screen Media Films), which just so happens to be set in breathtaking Australia and shows how Mother Nature can strike back against careless humans, I was eager to check it out! The film opens right away on some jaw-droppingly beautiful shots of Australia’s north coast before cutting to bickering couple Peter (James Caviezel) and Carla (Claudia Karvan), who are taking a long weekend and leaving on a camping trip to try to patch up their disintegrating marriage. Of course, some stormy weather keeps them on the road longer than they expected, so they don’t arrive to the isolated, hidden beach they are planning to camp on until very late at night. Right away Carla gets a strange feeling about the place, but stubborn Peter seems more interested in getting drunk, going surfing and spending time with his dog, Cricket, than working through any of their problems (one of which is that he is a selfish prick).

The couple is supposed to meet some friends there, but they never show. As Peter kills and terrorizes the local wildlife, throws beer bottles into the ocean, hacks away at trees and Carla sprays bug spray over everything and tries to spend most of the time as far away from nature as possible, the surrounding wilderness takes on an ominous feeling. It seems that Mother Nature isn’t taking too kindly to their intrusion. They hear strange crying noises at night, Peter is attacked by an eagle, animals break into their food and something very large lurks in the water just off shore. Carla insists they leave, but Peter can’t be bothered by her warnings and just wants to stick it out.

When they realize just how much danger they are in, it’s already too late and it’s time for Mother Nature to get even…

I wasn’t aware of this before watching Nature’s Grave, but it is actually a remake of a 1978 Australian film titled Long Weekend. From what I hear it has a bit of a cult following and is definitely worth a look. As for Nature’s Grave…eh, not so much, I’m afraid. It is supposedly a shot-for-shot remake of Long Weekend, but I’m guessing it is missing A LOT of the previous film’s subtleties and nuances.

Nature’s Grave is directed by Jamie Blank, who directed the awful Storm Warning and the mediocre Valentine and Urban Legend. Often times the film feels flat, and feels like it’s missing any kind of emotional connection with the audience. There are some beautiful shots of the Australian wilderness and wildlife, but at times it just didn’t feel like there was enough. I also thought the film’s creepy moments lacked punch and could have used with a few more scares.

The story, written by Everett De Roche (he also wrote the original Long Weekend), moves at a slow-but-sure pace, and I actually enjoyed the slowly-building dread. However, the characters are highly unlikable, with an over-the-top performance by Caviezel that feels like he’s never taking his character seriously to Karvan’s strangely reserved character that doesn’t even fight back when her husband tells her to “go fuck yourself”. Neither character is interesting and you don’t want to root for either, which kills any kind of tension that De Roche tried to build in his story. Without anyone to root for to survive, I found myself waiting for Mother Nature to extract her revenge on these two characters.

Though there are a few creepy scenes – one where something is lurking in the ocean’s crystal blue waters, another where a dead animal is seemingly moving of its own accord and, towards the end, another where Peter finds some other “campers”, most of the “revenge” that happens occurs because of the two characters’ doing. In the end, it’s really their own stupidity that catches up with them as opposed to Mother Nature. This really is a pity, because I was really hoping to see the characters ripped apart by animals or plants after how disrespectfully they treated nature.

Nature’s Grave isn’t that memorable of an affair. Though it has a few spooky scenes, the performances of the two actors and the way their characters are written are just grating and make the film hard to sit through. And when their final curtain finally comes, it just doesn’t feel vicious enough for what you’ve had to put up with the last hour and a half. My advice? Seek the original Long Weekend out…it has to be infinitely better than its remake, Nature’s Grave.

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Book Review: Meat by Joseph D'Lacey

Everyone has their different viewpoints on eating meat and vegetarianism. Some people can’t imagine living without eating tasty, tasty meat while some people can’t imagine eating meat from such cute wittle animals! It’s true that some slaughterhouses have appalling conditions for the animals that become many people’s dinners and most people don’t even know how their meat is really prepared or what additives are put in it.

Do you know exactly what is in your “meat” that you buy at the grocery store? Where did it come from and how did it get there? These terrifying questions are examined in Joseph D’Lacey’s debut novel, Meat. Like a hammer to the back of a cow’s head, Meat will stun you. It’ll open your eyes and just might jolt you from complacency to action. One thing is definitely for certain, you’ll never look at a piece of meat the same again.

The decaying and desolate town of Abyrne sits in the middle of a vast wasteland. As far as the townsfolk are concerned, there is nothing beyond its borders. Abyrne was build upon the promise that their god would provide them with meat from The Chosen, cattle sacrificed especially for the religious people of Abyrne as long as they followed the religious teachings of the Gut Psalter and The Book of Giving texts. Something is going wrong in Abryne, though. People are beginning to get sick. And certain man named John Collins has been leading a resistance on the outskirts of town, proclaiming that meat is not necessary for survival.

In the eyes of the Grand Bishop and the Meat Baron, Collins’ words are blasphemy. Yet to others, others who see a frightening resemblance in themselves and the Chosen, Collins makes sense. One who comes to believe Collins is Richard Shanti, the Meat Baron’s top slaughterer of Chosen.

Those who don’t follow the religious teachings and don’t eat meat are stripped of their status…or stripped of their own skin. As both the Grand Bishop and the Meat Baron hunt for “blasphemer” John Collins, Richard Shanti’s world becomes more perilous as well. Can Shanti continue his job killing the Chosen and therefore continue living a lie? Will the Meat Baron discover his secret? What is his special connection to the Chosen and to John Collins?

Joseph D’Lacey has crafted a fine page-turner that, to loosely paraphrase former U.S. president Teddy Roosevelt, speaks softly but carries a large stun gun. His prose is so eloquent, so well-written, that when the blood really starts to flow you are left stunned and shaken. And this is coming from a life-time horror fan!
From the first paragraph I was hooked, as D’Lacey crafts both sympathetic and horrendous characters, ones we come to both love and loathe. The characters of John Collins and Richard Shanti are well-developed, with many layers to both men. The Meat Baron and the Grand Bishop are also humanized instead of just being caricatures of “Evil” with a capital E. In the end, you may even be sympathetic towards them because they can’t “see the light.” Even the voiceless Chosen are characters we care deeply about.

The feelings we develop for the characters make the horrors contained within all that more terrifying. There is plenty of sadistic torture that is sure to make even the most hardened of horror fiction fans squirm in their seats. For example, the Meat Baron makes sure his enemies and any of his employees that misbehave suffer a very painful, very prolonged death. The torture first begins with puncturing the vocal cords so the person cannot even scream as their bodies are methodically broken down. The torture scenes are pretty graphic and will cause you to recoil in your seat! D’Lacey also writes very vivid imagery of the slaughterhouses themselves. I have watched some devastating real-life slaughterhouse videos, but D’Lacey’s graphic descriptions were almost worse because of the emotion he added.

Even though Meat may sound like a novel that tries to shove vegetarianism and/or veganism down your throat, that isn’t the case at all. In fact, there are so many layers to the book that you can choose to read it for its many subtexts and social commentary (on everything from big corporations, religion, mass consumerism, conformity, etc.) or just read it for pure, bloody entertainment. Still, you cannot read this book without being disgusted and appalled at the slaughterhouse and meat plant conditions contained herein. I’m not a vegetarian, but after reading Meat I’m seriously tempted to become one. That alone speaks volumes about the power of this book.

[Update: Editor and founder Sarah "Fatally Yours" Jahier in fact went vegan and credits Meat to making her more aware of the cruelties of animal agriculture as well as making her more aware of what she puts inside her body.] 

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Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

What better way to spend a chilly Saturday night than to have some friends over for pizza, Pacifico and a viewing of Cannibal Holocaust? There is no better way, believe you me...

The movie begins with a report on an intrepid documentary film crew who entered the Amazonian jungle in search of cannibals. No one has heard from them in more than two months so noted anthropologist Professor Harold Monroe is sent to look for them. He finds them alright, mounted on some kind of altar with their camera equipment and their bones picked clean! He also finds two warring cannibal tribes, but succeeds in getting along with both, thus avoiding becoming dinner.

After he obtains the film crew's film footage, he hightails it back to New York City where he is invited to show his findings on television, because the public has a right to know what happened, dammit! From that point on, we are treated to the documentary crew's film footage (a la Blair Witch Project) and it ain't pretty. It seems the film crew would do anything to garner fame and success, even terrorizing peaceful Amazonian tribes to get dramatic footage. They stage some pretty grisly scenes for their precious documentary, blaming it on rival tribes in the footage. In the end though, the tribes show their stuff to prove you don't mess with cannibals!

This was definitely a brutal movie, more brutal than Cannibal Ferox. There are numerous animal deaths, including the stabbing of a muskrat, the shooting of a pig, and the chopping up and general disassembly of a turtle. These are all real, mind you, and not for the squeamish. The animal deaths are much more violent and explicit than in Ferox. Ye be warned...

Holocaust also has much more violence towards women. In a ritualistic tribal punishment, a woman is taken far from the village by one man, then raped, then raped with a sharp knife, then raped with a torture device that can be compared with a softball studded with nails. She is then bludgeoned to death. In another scene, the males of the film crew take turns raping a native while the others hold her down. Then, in perhaps the most iconic scene of this film, the woman is shoved onto a pole so that the pole extends out of her mouth.

The members of the film crew finally get their just desserts when they are surrounded by the cannibalistic tribe. One guy gets severely beaten, strung up, has his genitals chopped off, then gets hacked to bits. The lone woman of the crew is beaten and viciously raped by several members of the tribe. The rest of the crew is finished off in a spectacular bloodbath.

The end of the film leaves us with a question - who are the real savages here? The cannibals and their primitive way of life or the film crew and Western civilization? There is some social commentary here, and it does make one think...which is a good thing, darlings!

The film was directed by Ruggero Deodato and came out in 1980, a year before Cannibal Ferox appeared. It is an intense, grueling, disturbing film that feels very real at times. I highly recommend it to those that like to watch very controversial films, films with lots of "ewwwwww" moments, gorehounds and, of course, those that hold a special place in their hearts for cannibals.

Please be warned, though...it is an extremely graphic and serious film.

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Cannibal Ferox (1981)

On the recommendation of Warren over at 150 Days of Sodom (check his site out if you haven't already; it's great!), I decided to view the infamous Cannibal Ferox.

I had always thought of Cannibal Ferox as the ultimate in gore and torture, so I shied away from it for so many years...until now! I could not be held back any longer from its grisly allure.

Does Cannibal Ferox live up to the hype? For me, a first-time watcher of these exploitative cannibal movies, it certainly did. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, perhaps because of my low expectations going into it. Nonetheless, I thought it was a well made and entertaining film.

The story is simple...in New York City, both the mob and police are out to find a couple of guys (Mike and Joe) who have skipped off with a considerable amount of the mob's dough. Meanwhile, three college kids (siblings Rudy and Gloria and their friend Pat) are in the Amazon, trying to disprove that cannibalism exists for Gloria's thesis. They venture deep into the Amazon jungle to try to find a small village no one has heard of but could prove their theory.

They run into Mike and Joe deep in the heart of the jungle, who tell them they have been attacked by cannibals. Joe has been injured and their guides have been killed. After deciding to stick together, the group stumbles upon the village and the carnage left there. It seems the only villagers left are the old people and the younger children. The group decides to take refuge in the village's huts to try to care for Joe, who is now dying. Joe tells Gloria and Rudy that Mike has lied to them about being attacked by cannibals. The truth is, Mike and Joe were after precious emeralds that the villagers possessed. When they wouldn't hand the emeralds over, Mike tortured and killed some villagers while most of the male villagers were on a fishing expedition. Now, the male villagers could return at any time!

After learning this information, Gloria and Rudy try to get Pat to get out, but find that she has left with Mike. They flee, but are soon captured by the returning male villagers. Now, the villagers seek retribution for what was done to them and to their village...

This is an exploitation gem! Yes, it is extremely violent and some parts are difficult to watch. There is mutilation, castration, decapitation, humiliation, cannibalism, shots of real animals being killed (something I DO NOT condone but is still shocking and disturbing) and so on. The animal deaths were very difficult to watch, just because I knew they were real. Even for standards nowadays, this film is still pretty brutal - just watch for the castration scene(s) and the scene where Pat is hung on meat hooks by her breasts.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie. It really kept up the tension, even though it did switch back from the Amazonian jungle to New York City every few scenes. I was very impressed with this film, and wouldn't mind adding it to my DVD collection.

If you haven't checked this film out yet and can handle excessive torture and real animal deaths (even I had to cover my eyes a bit), then get this movie! It's worth it...

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