Tag Archives: sci-fi

Dealt an Evil Hand! The Dark Dealer review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

dark-dealer

Whacked Movies are back again with another release distributed by MVD. You might remember the last release I reviewed a little over a month ago called Repligator – a pure gem and the epitome of movie making let me tell you – but don’t let Repligator ruin your appetite for Whacked Movies as the company wants to bring you outrageous, ridiculous, out of this world flicks you might have not known existed. This time Whacked Movies travel back in time returning to the 1990s and dig up a horror anthology entitled The Dark Dealer which feels like Schindler’s List in comparison to Repligator.

The Dark Dealer involves a game of chance; a game surrounded by death and to damn your soul to hell for all eternity. Three lives are at stake, three souls doomed, and a win at the game of Black Jack is all that stands in their way for salvation or a tomb of torture. Three souls with three different horrifying stories to tell while their fate lies within the hands of the Dark Dealer.

The creation of Satan

The creation of Satan


Talk about straight out of the nineties! The mullets, the jean jackets, the high top sneakers, the prosthetic horror effects! The Dark Dealer meshes campiness and horror really well while providing some really neat and effective special effects. The names Tom Alexander, Wynn Winberg, and Bob Trevino won’t turn heads or raise any eyebrows, but these unknown creators are the crew behind The Dark Dealer – Tom Alexander and Wynn Winberg are the directors and Bob Trevino supervised special effects. Trevino has had a decent resume with Machete and Predators under. Virtually the cast and the crew are a bunch of unknowns and that doesn’t hurt my viewing experience one bit because being so enthralled with effects that could compare to Hellraiser or From Beyond and just as fun I had no problem looking back the faces of unknown actors and actresses.

The talent behind the camera can’t go ignored either as the cinematography is the other half of why The Dark Dealer should receive more appreciation. You can’t make a puppet look like a puppet. There needs to be life behind the monster. I’m surprised none of these people have ever gone to do bigger and better projects, but I guess that is life in Hollywood.

Each story is of course it’s own entity. First story involves Satan. Second story haunts. While the third story explores more the sci-fi side of horror. I can’t divulge anymore in the detail because I don’t spoil a potential diamond in the rough movie. Not a bad score for Whacked Movies as this is only their second movie to be picked up. You should check out the trailer below, check out Whacked Pictures simplistic website, and purchase The Dark Dealer from my friends over at MVD website.

Evil Arachnids from Space! Spiders review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Spiders creep me the hell out. Eight legs, hairy, lots of black eyes, fangs – Spiders are frightening creatures of nature especially if you’re an insect. Spiders can hunt probably better than any human can as they can spin a web to capture their pray, dig holes to create traps for passing by prey, and can inject poison to paralyze their soon to be meal. I’m so fascinated (and frightened) of spiders that I had to review a copy of Tibor Takacs film simply
entitled Spiders.
SPIDERS
A disabled Soviet Union space station once harvested alien DNA that would only combine with the genes of spiders. The station was abandoned and 20 years later, the station orbits earth until a crumbling meteor slams into the station breaking off portion and sending the space junk into the atmosphere and crash landing into New York City’s metro underground. The mutated spiders lay eggs inside their prey and grow six inches every hour. A massive military cover up exposes the greed behind a rogue colonel’s intentions and its up to a metro controller and his estranged ex-wife, a city health inspector, to bring the surface the truth of the colonel malicious reign and to stop the mutant spiders from taking over the city.
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Director Takacs isn’t new the giant spider genre as he directed the 2007 TV movie Ice Spiders which didn’t fair too well with audiences, but who doesn’t love man-eating monstrous spiders? 2013’s Spider’s feels like David Arquette starred Eight Legged Freaks with the terror among the community in an old fashion creature feature, but Spiders does stand on it’s own eight legs by making the spiders alien in origin. Adding the once softcore porn actress Christa Campbell doesn’t hurt either. Campbell is accompanied by Patrick Muldoon who might remember from another arachnid type sci-fi movie Starship Troopers as the fleet pilot Zander. Muldoon also appeared in Ice Spiders – the guy has a thing for spiders.
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Takacs surprises me with the quality of Spiders and his other recent work. The story and the effects are okay and passable, but not as creatively outstanding as 1987’s The Gate – the film that had boosted his career as well as Stephen Doriff’s. These computer generated spiders are awkward when crawling and their razor-teeth filled mouths are even more awkward when stretched out to devour the next victim. However, Takacs knows how to keep an adventure and the action going and continuous, but seems to lack character motivation at times. I struggle to comprehend and begin to question our hero’s (Muldoon) and heroine’s (Campbell) choices in handling the spider chaos and the military’s cover-up. Also, I’m finding difficulty understanding that Muldoon’s character can outwit a giant Queen spider which is three stories tall while an entire military force can’t even handle the baby 4 foot tall male spiders.

With Spiders you will have to stretch your imagination beyond the limits of logical thinking, but with most creature features, you kind of need to and with that said, Spiders fairs well among the latest in the monster spider genre which has been severely neglected over the last five years. Spiders is also available in 3D if you have the capabilities! Thank you Millennium Films and Nu Image productions for a terrifying arachnophobia experience.

Store Your Evil! Storage 24 Review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

storage24magnetFinally! Storage 24 is a sci-fi creature feature that lives and breathes to impress and to entertain! I hadn’t had this much fun with a monster movie since Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield back in theaters of 2008. Both works have a simple premise, a cast of favorable characters, and deadly results for them by a vicious, out of this world thing that just wants to rip anything and everything to shreds without reason. Of course, Storage 24’s smaller setting confines itself to a sole storage unit instead of the broad city landscape that is New York, but Storage 24 builds to be, and develops really well into, a bigger than expected movie.

A military plane crashes in the middle of London. The event seems small enough until the military quarantine the area. Exes Charlie and Shelley are trapped in their powerless storage unit facility during their clean out their belongings with the help of their friends. Lurking in the building with them is the contents that were on that military plane – an 9 foot alien with a killer instinct.

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The alien portrayed had me thrilled with the movements and the special effects. The mandibles were a big plus with me as I am a huge Predator fanatic (Sorry Xenomorph fans, but Predator has the bugs beat!). The creature performs in almost stop motion which gave it a more unearthly feel and the way it mangled people lives up to a killer animal on the loose – think Ghost in the Darkness. Unlike Predator, the alien seemed to be more mobile and more crafty by being able to move and hide in the rafters of the storage facility. I know that sounds like an aspect of Predator, but this alien did more with ease and without being bulky about doing it. Less human and more alien – if we knew how aliens existed I’m sure Storage 24 captured the perceptual concept.

I love the films misdirection as you’re sucked into hating one set of characters and sympathizing with the other set during the first part of the film. Suddenly, just before the shit hits the extraterrestrial fan, you’re now rooting for the asshole and the slut who cheated. The laws of a horror movie are null and void at this point.

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I’m not completely satisfied on why Storage 24 is being wrongly shunned on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes with both sites sporting around a meager 40% freshness. Perhaps the dorky comedy at the first half of the film is too blame? Maybe the dialogue tracks could have been louder and the actors could have their pronunciation cleaned up a bit? Who knows and who cares? All I can tell you about Storage 24 is how much fun I had and that’s what matters the most about b-movies, right? You can buy your copy of Storage 24 here!

Storage 24 Trailer

Evil Nymphomaniac Alligator Women! Repligator!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

repligator

Tired of trying to comprehend a director’s secretive meaning behind his scenes? Tired of trying to solve the mysterious puzzle that opens the life or death box? Tired of the reverse scenes that attempt to tell the story without having to be linear? Sometimes these filmmaking artistic techniques become too tiresome leaving you weary eyed and frustrated. Sometimes scenes just need to be clear cut, plain-jane simple, and meticulously mindless. You’re in luck because Repligator is just that – no hidden meanings, no twisted edited, and no problem solving that requires a T-Model calculator.

A classified military experiment, involving the idea of a G.I soldier being replicated to double the military infantry numbers without recruitment, has gone array as the replicator turns the strong, gun-ho male privates into brain-washed nymphomaniac women who much rather expose their privates. Also, when these women experience the slightest orgasm, they transform into scaly, mutant alligators and once bitten by one of these alligator women, their victims turn into homosexual zombies! Wait…what?

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Yeah, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the premise of this erotica laden, senseless film (if you want to call it that) by budget director Bret McCormick. I had pre-determined that Repligator had a simple plot – military experience turns women into alligators – but I was incorrect. And just for the record, the alligators are more like rejected raptor prop heads from Jurassic Park resembling nothing like an alligator. The writing is so over the board that I’m pretty sure the amped up hyper Richard Simmons wrote the script.

I’m still trying to comprehend the gay zombies; at least I’m pretty sure the gator-bitten victims were turned into gay zombies as they ignored the advances, and pretty much everything else, of the half naked women and not the male leads. Speaking on the subject of half naked women, the legs with breast weren’t too shabby for this mid-90s late night creature feature that might have once been given a showing or two on the Syfy channel.

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I shouldn’t pass on discussing Gunnar Hansen’s role in Repligator; Hansen may headline the movie, but his role is minimal as scientists telling a story of how everything went wrong. He isn’t wielding any Texas Chainsaws here even though there was a little homage for him in the opening credits. Scream queen Brinke Stevens also didn’t have much of a starring role. Stevens scene was rather pointless toward the whole of the plot, but I’m not surprised considering the film is called Repligator.

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Plain and simple, Repligator bares nothing special, yet somehow manages to bare all at the same time. You won’t have to think too hard to get the concept, yet you’ll be confused at the end. This enigmatic movie challenges all the laws of physics without even spitting out a correct mathematical formula. See what I’m talking about by purchasing your copy today at MVD Entertainment Group!