Big Ass Spider (2013)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: Epic Pictures Group

Runtime: 80 mins

Format: Itunes

Plot: A giant mutant spider escapes from a military lab and goes on a rampage through the city of Los Angeles. When a massive military strike fails, it is up to one clever exterminator to kill the creature before its eggs hatch and the city is overran with hundreds of mutant spiders.

Review: I'm a very vocal person when it comes to my annoyance with the overabundance of Shark movies in the B-Movie genre as of late. Surely the majority of them could have still essentially been the exact same movie with a different killer animal, so why not switch it up a bit and get some variety out there? That's why I've been doing my bit to help promote other corners of the killer animal B-Movie market that seem to have a shot at giving the sharks a run for their money. Dinosaur flicks have been putting up a good fight these last couple years with movies like Area 407, The Dinosaur Project, Jurassic Attack, Age of Dinosaurs, and the upcoming flicks Poseidon Rex, Jurassic Block, and the very long-awaited Raptor Ranch.

On the flip side, the other animal also doing it's part to dethrone the shark is the spider, with recent movies like Camel Spiders, Arachnoquake, Spiders 3D, Christopher R Mihm's 2013 movie The Giant Spider, and now this Tremors-esque monster comedy Big Ass Spider (previously known as Mega Spider), so when I had the opportunity recently to catch and review Big Ass Spider, of course I jumped at it (and not away from it, like I would a real big ass spider, hahaha).

Big Ass Spider has Matt Parkman from Heroes (I'm keeping the Heroes love alive!), or rather his real-world name of Greg Grunberg as everyone else not still-obsessed with keeping the Heroes love alive calls him, front and center as the main character that we follow around. He's an exterminator that specializes in spiders and after getting hurt doing a Pro Bono job on his day off, goes to the hospital where shortly after, a slightly larger-than-normal spider kills a patient and he offers to track it down and kill it in exchange for his ridiculously high medical bill to be wiped. Throughout the movie he battles not just this abnormally large arachnid, but also something just as difficult – woman troubles. The guy is as unlucky in love as they come, however it's not for lack of trying...almost too much...but always with the expected hilarious results.

Helping him to track down this spider, he teams up with a side-splittingly idiotic hospital security guard, Jose, who totally steals the movie every time he opens his mouth. The guy acts tough when he's not, repeats everything Greg Grunberg says, and makes sure to rudely include his 2 cents into every single conversation that happens around him, he never fails to elicit the intended laugh and the movie is easily raised up a few notches just for having this character in there, and played so perfectly by his relatively-unknown actor, Lombardo Boyar. Him and Greg Grunberg have such great chemistry together, it's easy to accept them as strangers-turned-friends during the events of this movie. Also joining them here is Ray Wise, who has been in just about everything ever made, as the stereotypical cliche thick-headed stubborn military general partially responsible for not only the spider's existence, but all the failed attempts to recapture or kill it after it's initial escape from the hospital due to ignoring any and all advice from the heroes, and playing one of his lead soldiers and one-of-many potential love interests for Greg Grunberg is the always-beautiful Clare Kramer, who most people will probably recognize as Glory from Buffy the Vampire Slayer but fellow B-Movie lovers like myself will also remember as the main character in the direct-to-video sequel, The Skulls 3.

This movie wastes none of its short 80-minute runtime, starting the plot off almost right away and making good headway even before the 20 minute mark. By half an hour in, the acid-spitting mutant spider has been chased around the inner ducts and dusty basements of the hospital, down through the sewers, and out into the middle of the city where it continues to grow immensely and snack down on the all-you-can-eat buffet that is a wide-open park during a hot summer afternoon. The rest of the movie is spent going back and forth between the military and Greg Grunberg trying to track the always-growing-larger spider down, leading them all to a massive showdown atop a skyscraper in the middle of the city. Along the way in there is even a nice little short scene for fans of Found Footage movies as a squad of soldiers with helmet-mounted video cameras go tracking the spider down in a forest. This movie has no shortage of awesome spider-carnage scenes, and while for the most part it tries to stay a bit family-friendly, there are a couple scenes with some decent gore in them, between skin melting from the spider's sprayed acid and some rather fun impalings, Warrior Arachnid-style.

The special effects are never shied away from, as the movie rarely goes more then five minutes without showing the mutant beastie, and while the average B-grade creature feature of modern day has, well, less-than-stellar effects that has people groaning or laughing at it as opposed to with it, this movie had surprisingly great CGI, especially as the spider continued to get bigger and bigger, a place where the CGI in the SyFy Channel Original Movies that I'm usually used to seem to degrade, but here they seem, if anything, to improve the bigger the spider got. The only times the CGI wavered a bit and were not quite up to par with the rest of the movie were a couple scenes of the military soldiers firing on the spider, and especially toward the end when a nest of baby mutant spiders were running around inside the skyscraper. Save for those two instances, the CGI was top-level stuff and far better than I was expecting out of this.

We also thankfully don't get a whole lot of overdone stereotypical exposition as to the military's creation of this thing. We simply get a really short answer of 'We created this thing as an experiment, this is why and how we created it, and due to an error on our behalf it's now loose' and that's literally it. Seeing as how these kinds of movies always have the same overly-drawn out exposition on the military's creation of whatever mutant animal monster said movie is focused on, I can really appreciate that this movie simply drops a few quick sentences on it and then moves on, leaving in the dust any complicated stereotypical subplot detour that would normally accompany such a movie and instead just uses that time for more fun and hilarity with the main leads of Greg Grunberg, the exterminator unlucky in love, and Jose, the hilariously idiotic-but-lovable hospital security guard.

As mentioned at the top of this review, when it comes to the movie's comedic side, the tone of Big Ass Spider is very nearly identical to that of other purposely-campy creature feature comedies such as Slither, 8 Legged Freaks, and the Tremors series. This thing is simply a laugh-riot from start to finish, with I don't think a single scene passing by that didn't have me in stitches at some point. Hell, you know right from the start that you're in for a hilariously campy fun hour and a half when the movie starts off with Greg Grunberg watching in slo-motion as a building-sized mega spider destroys the city around him to the beat of Storm Large's Where Is My Mind.

Big Ass Spider is one of those rare B-Movies that is several levels better then your average SyFy or Asylum-made production and is not just entertaining, but genuinely made so well that it probably could have had a legit wide theatrical release and been at least mildly successful. I can easily see this being the Arachnophobia and 8 Legged Freaks for this decade, and those who loved those movies should also love this one as well and those who hated those movies...well, find yourself a sense of humor for the lowest price that you can and then come back so you can strap on your exterminator gear and enjoy this laugh-riot killer spider comedy.

As for exactly how you can check this movie out? Well so far the home video release isn't slated until January 7th, 2014 but after recently playing at the Toronto International Film Festival you can now currently watch it via Video on Demand services or find it for digital download on sites like Amazon and Itunes, and you can make a safe bet that the day it does finally come out on DVD (and hopefully BluRay as well), I'll be at my local HMV first thing to nab myself a copy.

10/10  rooms in the Psych Ward

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Killer Mountain (2011)

REVIEW BY: Bobby Lepire

Company: Oracle Post

Runtime: 88 mins

Format: DVD

Plot: A rescue team is sent to find a missing expedition, which set out to recreate a 1954 lost mission on a forbidden mountain, only to cross paths with a ravenous creature, which is protecting something special.

Review: For some reason, it seems like lots of B-Movies open with pointless prologues, and 2011's Killer Mountain from the SyFy Channel is no different, and unfortunately things don’t much improve from there. Opening in 1954 Bhutan, a mountain expedition gets caught in a terrible snowstorm. One dumbass decides to go out into the storm, despite resistance from the others. We are not given any information about their expedition or how long they’ve been trekking, so Charles Wetherby, the aforementioned idiot, leaving in a terrible storm makes no sense to us as viewers. He then gets eaten by the creature of the movie, which is a sort of bug/worm/spider/wyvren thing. The CGI here, as throughout, is so bad that it’s astonishing that the SFX people, the director, the producers, and everyone else in-between saw them and said they were good to go. The other mountaineers then die of exposure and frostbite.

Cut to present, where the rest of the narrative takes place. The plot, when looked at objectively, is actually pretty fun - a rescue team is sent to save an expedition along that same 1954 path, with a secret mission. The creature is protecting what the expedition wants to find, and everyone is now in grave danger. Unfortunately, the greatest premise can still turn out awful if poorly executed. Here, the execution is amateurish at best, and entirely inept most of the time. For starters, most of the sets look and feel like artificial environments instead of authentic locations; I know the Millenium Falcon and Death Star aren’t real things, but the Star Wars movies made them feel real, and that is missing here. Early on, when we meet the leader of our rescue mission, Ward Donovan (Aaron Douglas from Battlestar Galactica fame), the forested area he’s teaching kids to climb in looks plastic and rubbery and not at all like any forest I have ever stepped into. When he almost falls, there’s a tree stump in the foreground that has a fresh coat of varnish on it. How did this get past everyone? How was this given the go-ahead? However, the least believable set is an ancient temple found atop the mountain. This thing looks like the set designer and laborers half finished it and walked away. It’s one thing to make something seem old, decrepit, and abandoned. It’s something else entirely to not even be able to finish the set, to make it look as such. The whole movie feels rushed and cheap, and it’s most obvious in the unconvincing sets.

The only thing worse than the set design is the CGI. While the practical snow effects look good (really, how hard is it to screw up snow?), all of the CGI is beyond terrible. The creature, while having a unique design and color palette meant to disguise it amongst the rocks, looks horrendous. It never has any weight, nor does it ever seem to occupy the same place as whatever it’s interacting with. When it nudges a crashed helicopter pilot to make sure he’s dead, it looks so unrealistic and unbelievable that it is actually painful. When it’s hiding on a cliff edge, it sticks out like a sore thumb. I am dumbfounded that the CGI is this bad when the movie is only two years old.

Director Sheldon Wilson also keeps things bland with a boring color scheme. Everything is white, grey, or black. It’s as if the cinematographer was a color blind narcoleptic. The few action scenes fail to generate any real tension or excitement, and all of these things lead to the greatest sin any B-Movie can commit: being ungodly boring. Boy, oh boy, is this movie dull. Thanks to the bland, unimaginative direction, a script written by people that must have never heard proper human speech before, and the worst CGI I have ever seen in a SyFy Channel movie, Killer Mountain fails to get the audience to invest in anything that's going on within it. With a plethora of pointless and frustrating subplots, the script is padded out like hell, and at less than an hour and a half, that is unacceptable. Had the film just stuck with the mysterious treasure plot, there could have been something interesting there, but there’s a million subplots: the “pretending to be a relief organization” plot, the “rescue mission” plot, the “ramifications of the 1954” prologue, and the “terrorists looking for the treasure” as well. Too much is going on, and none of it is engaging. It doesn’t help that, as stated above, the script never sounds believable or gets beyond the same tired old cliches and stereotypes.

Within this void of suckage though, there’s a sole silver lining. Excluding all the actors in the prologue, the acting across the board is excellent, with Aaron Douglas being the absolute best. He brings a lot of gravitas to an underwritten, uninspired role. As Kate Donovan, Emmanuelle Vaugier exudes confidence and can hold her own easily. Paul Campbell as the stereotypical jerk comes off as appropriately jerky and fun; You never totally hate him. Andrew Arlie as backer for the expedition brings a believable level of frustration and secrecy to the role. The rest of the cast do very well as well, and even if this were a higher budgeted, big theatrical release the acting here would be impressive, and far better than the movie deserves. It’s depressing though, because of how inept and dumb all the other choices here are. The good and striking acting is let down by everything else in the movie.

For a DTV movie, Killer Mountain has great acting, but it’s all for naught as at every possible turn ineptitude, stupidity, and boredom rear their ugly heads. On paper, this probably sounded great, but bland direction and terrible CGI hamper all the fun.

2/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Jack The Giant Killer (2013)

REVIEW BY: Bobby LePire

Company: The Asylum

Runtime: 90 mins

Format: BluRay

Plot: After climbing a giant beanstalk, Jack discovers a land in the clouds populated by evil beasts. When the beasts make their way down to Earth, he must figure out how to get back down and save everyone from the oncoming threat.

Review: Generally speaking, I am always stoked to see any film made by those maestros of mockbusting, The Asylum; this time around being no different. As they have done multiple times in the past, they have dipped into the fairy tale well, and Jack the Giant Killer (or simply just The Giant Killer in some parts of the world) is the result - their spin on the Jack And The Beanstalk tale - which was just in time to mockbust the big budget 'Jack The Giant Slayer'.

Whereas their theatrically released counterpoint was a medieval fantasy adventure, Asylum's movie is set in the United Kingdom, during an anachronistic pseudo-1950s, which adds a timelessness feel to the whole outing. Along those same lines would be the impressive locales and set design throughout, especially in the Cloud Realm; which is the land that the beanstalk leads to. The rather well rendered CGI'd flying castle, with its Victorian era steampunk outer aesthetic and hodgepodge of factory/sail boat inner aesthetic, contributes to that as well. The best here though is the stunning interior of the main villainess' palace. Combining ancient Greco-Roman statues and columns with 16th century European furnishings, with an early 20th century electric bent, and lots of long roaming tracking shots in there really do show it off. However, even the most amazing sets and production design wouldn't mean Jack (pun indented) if the story and characters weren't compelling or interesting. Luckily, The Asylum gives plenty of room for both an engaging fantasy-action plot and some solid characterizations. As discussed above, updating this from the original's medieval setting to a more modern one does help give it a unique look, but there are other fun twists on the old story that make this one of the Asylum's best movies, in my opinion.

The most interesting twist is that Jack's father, Newald, who has been trapped in the Cloud Realm since just before Jack was born, is the one that killed all of the original humanoid giants. Because of this, Jack has to contend with the beasts that those Giants had been keeping in check - giant dino-rhino-elephant-dog creatures that have six eyes, scales, thick hide, and a triceratops-esque skull (yes, as in no skin on it). I really enjoy the design here, looking simultaneously familiar and original. It helps that the CGI is above average, but I'll be getting to that momentarily. The next story element that got me really excited while watching is how time works in the Cloud Realm - One day there equals a year on Earth. This isn't just an allowance to cast Jack's dad younger (he's 29, which is only a few years older then Jack himself at this point), but becomes a pivotal plot point for the main Evil Queen Serena's arc. The implementation here works very well, as it's not just some throw away line, or forgotten subplot.

Another little interesting tidbit for this one is that there are three stalks featured: Two we see, the first being the one that whisks Jack away, with the second bringing his love interest/robot exoskeleton-building mate (yeah, that's as awesome as it sounds) to the fantasy land as well. The third, only mentioned, is the original stalk that brought Newald to the Cloud Realm. Having so many beanstalks adds depth to the world and its various rules, for instance each nightfall, on Earth, the stalks dissolve into harmless dust which adds some tension later on in addition to just giving things that little extra informative detail. The most intriguing rule though is that the only person who can travel a beanstalk is the one who planted it, and the vines of the beanstalk will attack anyone else that comes near it. This becomes grounds for some solid and intense action scenes throughout, filled with some of that previously-mentioned excellent CGI.

I know I just spent a long time talking about the world building here, and that's not only because there are lots of cool ideas at play, but because in a fantasy setting (and sci-fi for that matter, both of which this movie could fall under) it's important to have a fully believable world that seems to exist outside the confines of the movie you are watching. The Asylum, even in their worst movies, tend to make a pretty good go of this, which in my opinion is one of the reasons they are so popular. While I haven't seen every movie made by them, I have yet to see one that had as much care and thought put into their movie worlds as done here.

Now, as I stated above, the CGI here is, for the most part, very good. Lots of interesting designs, well-rendered, and some nice added small details here and there (such as the blinking of the individual six eyes on the giant beasts or the gears turning on the amazing flying castle - I really love this flying castle, guys!) The beanstalks look appropriately massive, and the practical vine effects don't look too rubbery or fake, with the stalks being integrated into the physical background environments fairly well, and in addition the giant creatures, minus a few scenes, seem to have some real weight to them and move rather realistically. Unfortunately, near the end during the big fight (maybe due to either budget or time constraints) the even-larger dino-dog creature leader starts to look a bit dodgy, even by Asylum standards, which sticks out all the more because of the better-than-average effects up until that point.

The acting from lead Jamie Atkins (no relation to writer/director/Asylum alum Mark Atkins), as Jack, is passable, and he does get better as the movie goes along; In the beginning he's too eager, like a puppy, and it comes across as a bit too hammy, but by the time we each the ending climatic battle though, he really delivers, especially in a somewhat heart-wrenching scene where he has to play both scared and brave at the same time. All in all, definitely not bad, especially when considering that this is the first movie I have seen him in. Playing alongside him is Vicki Glover as Lisa and she brings a lot of spunk and girl-next-door appeal to the role, which helps make you easily understand why Jack likes her. Jane March as Serena, the evil queen of the Cloud Realm, brings both an icy menace and a surprising amount of heart, especially in the second half where some excellent writing for the character turns her into a multifaceted one and ends her arc on a sweet note. Also I have to point out here that this isn't her first time playing an Evil Queen role for Asylum, having done it in Grimm's Snow White as well. On the flip-side from her, Tanya Windsor as Jack's mom may be serviceable, but she's also pretty forgettable. It doesn't help though that her character has very little to do other then just standing around.

For my money, though, it is Harry Dyer as Newald and Ben Cross as government liaison Hinton that steal the show. Dyer brings a Dr. Who-ish quality to Jack's dad, that makes him not only instantly likeable, but very sympathetic, and in just a few looks and some excellent delivery you feel bad for and forgive him for his various misdeeds, all at once. Cross' Hinton is the most serious of the bunch, and Cross imbues him with a nice sense of dutifulness and relatablity, so you can always understand his motivations.

This brings me to the few issues I have with the movie: Julian Boote just isn't that good as Nigel Mason, Jack's adoptive father. His line readings are stiff, and he looks uncomfortable the entire time, almost as if he didn't really want to be filming this movie. And as much as I enjoyed Vicki Glover as Jack's girlfriend, the character herself is written fairly one-dimensional. In addition, while a lot of the levity works and even adds to the unique feel of this movie, there is a subplot about a landlord trying to sell his property that just falls flat and I could have done without. Lastly is the score - overall it's pretty good and super effective, but in some sequences, especially during several dialog-heavy scenes, it is just too overbearing and drowns out the speech, making it hard to pick out what the characters are saying. While the story is simple enough to follow, that uneven sound mix can still be rather distracting and frustrating.

Moving back away from the few negatives though, longtime Asylum-collaborator Mark Atkins has made quite a few films for this company, but nothing would suggest the level of confidence he demonstrates with Jack the Giant Killer. With lots of long beautiful tracking shots and a nice focus on atmosphere, this is a very assured film with a clear vision from it's director. The fights are staged well and he keeps them moving at a nice pace, all the while keeping a good distance so we can see everything that is going on. Atkins keeps the twists and turns coming, but never spells too much out for the audience. Instead trusting them to be familiar enough with the old fairy tale, and classic movie tropes, to fill in the gaps.

Finally, I need to discuss the aforementioned robot exoskeleton. Looking a good deal like the load lifter from 'Aliens', but clunkier, and seemingly made from a tractor and sheer ingenuity, this thing kicks ass! Lisa and Jack are seen fiddling with it at the very beginning. and of course it comes back into play for the ending. And oh boy, when it does, it was definitely worth the wait - In order to save the day from the largest of the creatures, Jack puts it on and charges right to battle! It is a very heroic scene, and Jamie Atkins sells it perfectly. Seeing a red robot fight a fantastical creature is the exact reason I love these kinds of movies!

While not quite perfect, nor even the Asylum's best film (Age Of Dinosaurs is amazing, even when compared to big Hollywood blockbusters), the few flaws that it has doesn't strongly detract from all the things that Jack The Giant Killer does right. With an abundance of confidence and an intricately realized fictional world, this is worth the trip. Add to that two of my favorite Asylum performances so far, and you have a truly special film.

9/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Atlantic Rim/Attack From Beneath (2013)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: The Asylum

Runtime: 85 mins

Format: Screener

Plot: When monsters suddenly appear from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, a special team of military deep-sea pilots must take control of giant robots to combat the new threat.

Review: The Asylum is one of my favorite low budget production companies, as I've often said in plenty of my previous reviews. I had really high hopes for their line up of movies this year, especially after watching Age of Dinosaurs which I felt was their all-time best movie to date and can't gush about it enough. But then 100 Degrees Below Zero came around and I have to be honest in saying I really really did not care for that one much, and even though I had been anticipating AE: Apocalypse Earth quite a bit, that one too fell a bit short of expectations. It was still decent, but nowhere near as amazing as I had hoped it would be. 

Which brings me to Atlantic Rim, Asylum's upcoming mockbuster of Guillermo Del Toro's upcoming CGI slugfest Pacific Rim (admittedly, I believe Asylum is changing the name of their Atlantic Rim to Attack From Beneath, to avoid the usual legal troubles they find themselves in these days with their mockbusters. Also, it can currently be found on IMDB under the name of From The Sea). This was another one I've been highly anticipating, based off just the amazing trailer alone, and the one movie in the last few months I feel could potentially be just as good as Age of Dinosaurs. While Atlantic Rim (aka Attack From Beneath) isn't due out until July 9th, Asylum was kind enough to recently add me to their screener list and lo and behold, this was the first one sent my way to review! Suffice to say, I was so excited to check this one out that I canceled my plans for the rest of the night and within minutes of receiving it, I had it opened up and ready to be watched.

With this one, well, you can pretty much guess what the plot is just based off what movie it's mockbusting – giant monsters appear from under the ocean and the U.S. Military employs some giant robots piloted by trained solders to combat them as they come out of the ocean and start attacking cities. Now, what struck me almost right off the bat as a nice change of pace from the usual Asylum fare, was that this one had a rather large ensemble cast. Normally if we get four or five main main characters in one of these things, that's a good day, but in this one we have quite a few: Most notably we have the well-known rapper Treach playing as one of the Mech pilots. Alongside him we also have David Chokachi (from tons of SyFy Channel Original Movies and other Asylum flicks) as the leader of the Mech pilots and kind of a loose cannon, always getting himself in trouble with his superiors and kind of doing whatever he wants. He actually sort of reminded me a bit of a mix between Bug Hall from Arachnoquake and Robert Downey Jr. in his Iron Man role (for multiple reasons, one of which I'm sure anyone who has seen The Avengers will be able to pick up on during the climatic fight). Jackie Moore, who was also in another Asylum flick, the found footage horror movie 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck, plays his girlfriend that's also in the military alongside him and is the third of the Mech piloting trio. Her role, and the way she portrayed it, actually reminded me quite a bit of Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica – only thing missing was a scene of her smoking a cigar and beating up a superior officer, hahaha. All three of these people also had excellent on-screen chemistry with one another and you never doubt even once that these three are all best buds with one another.

Other then the Mech pilots themselves, there is also the always-entertaining Graham Green ( Jacob's father in the Twilight movies and one of John McClane's fellow cop co-workers in Die Hard with a Vengeance) and in this movie he plays the role of the leading Admiral in charge of everything and was, simply put, a total joy to watch. While everyone did excellent with their roles and the acting from everyone was pretty much above-average for what you would expect from an Asylum movie, it was Graham Green that had most of the best lines; it was always hilarious seeing him chew out his subordinates and having them have to reply simply with 'Yes sir'. Hell, every other line from his mouth was hilarious, especially with his total straight-faced delivery, and he owned every scene he was in, chewing the scenery and spitting it back out like it was stale tobacco. Sharing some of the screen time with him was also Nicole Alexandra Shipley (from Asylum's semi-recent 12/12/12) as one of the main computer techs that works in direct relation with the Mech pilots, and Nicole Dickson in her first acting role playing the part of a NASA scientist that works with the Admiral on the new Mech project (Actually, its called Project Armada in the movie, but for the sake of the review I'll just be referring to it as the Mech project). She was probably the weakest in the movie in terms of acting, but she was surprisingly still not too bad considering it was her first role ever. That about covers it for the main characters – like I said, a much larger cast then usual, plus there are also still quite a few smaller roles throughout, such as one played by regular Asylum director (including of this movie) Jared Cohn as a fighter jet pilot that leads a squadron of jets against the giant monster during one of the earlier action scenes when the monster first makes its appearance while it crawls out of the ocean and proceeds to wreck havoc on a city.

And wreck havoc it does! Quite a bit! Actually, between monster attacks on various cities, occasional mechanical issues with the giant Mechs, and of course the action-packed Mech vs Monster fights, there is pretty much almost always something good going on, action-wise, and when we do get a few minutes of downtime it's wisely used to help establish the characters with some good characterization moments, and then it's never too long before we're thrusted back into some awesome action stuff again. As a matter of fact, I was quite surprised with just how realistic some of the characterization and character-specific beats were such as one scene where, after first finding out about and fighting a monster, David Chokachi's character, when face to face with his friends again, excitably relayed what happened during the fight just like a little boy would when talking about the newest episode of whatever show he and his friends are into. Personally, For Little Jeffrey back in the day, that would have probably been either Gargoyles or Power Rangers.

And speaking of Power Rangers, another thing I loved about this movie is that for a couple scenes after the main Mech trio fought off a giant monster, they get out of their giant robot suits and go through areas of the partially destroyed city to help those trapped or injured in the rubble caused by their fight, and the character played by Treach goes off to help the Red Cross out with fixing up people badly injured and all the other stuff they then have to deal with... which is something the Power Rangers never once did, that I can recall. With them, they fought off a monster and then always left right away to celebrate, thus leaving the city officials on their own to deal with half their city being destroyed (and on a regular basis, at that) – for shame, Power Rangers, for shame! 

Actually, I mention Power Rangers in this review quite a bit because I was reminded of the show pretty often throughout the movie. Hell, each Mech had lights on the outside of them, as well as interior lighting in the cockpits, that were all a certain specific color to each Mech; One was Red-themed, one was Blue-themed, and the third was Green-themed, and to add on top of that each one had its own unique Mech-specific power weapon! With those color designations, combined with special power weapons, matched up with giant monster-fighting robots, I was actually expecting some Power Rangers references at some point, and I have to say I was a a bit sad that we didn't get one. Also, this movie would have been the perfect opportunity for Asylum to bring on an old Power Rangers alum into their ranks, like perhaps Jason David Frank (Tommy from the Mighty Morphin' days). Seriously, how friggin' awesome would it have been to see Jason David Frank, the original Green Ranger, piloting the green-themed Mech in this movie?

But I digress. Kind of went off on a side-tangent there, hahaha. Back to the character stuff: It was nice to get a military leader in one of these movies that's not just all gung-ho about nuking the enemy creature in question and is actually against such a plan. So many times movies like this end with the military guy in charge essentially saying 'screw it' and dropping a nuke on the creature as an easy out, but not here, my friends, not at all! He's not only 100% against such a plan, but he actually has to put in a good effort to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen. As a matter of fact, all the characterization in this movie was more attention to that then Asylum normally gives in their movies and it was all much appreciated. For instance, there was also a little love triangle subplot added in between the three Mech pilots. Seems not only are two of them dating, but the girl had actually cheated on him while drunk a few weeks back, with the other one. It was an interesting subplot that added a bit of tension between the characters for a while, however it ultimately ended up being a bit pointless since it doesn't ever really get resolved at all. They're in the middle of dealing with it when they get the alert that New York City is being attacked by the Mother of all Monsters essentially, and they have to leave to go partake in the big climatic battle, and the movie never returns to that subplot anymore after that. Would have been nice to get some form of conclusion to that, but oh well. Just a minor nitpick.

There's actually a couple of other nitpicks I have with this, that I may as well get out of the way now. The first of which is that I would have liked to see a scene or two of the Mech pilots learning to drive and control their giant undersea Mechs. There is a point later in the movie where their Mechs get an upgrade to their hardware and there is a quick re-training scene of them having to learn how to use this new technology, and I suppose by the point we meet everyone at the beginning of the movie they're already familiar with how to pilot and control these things (after all, the movie can only be so long so they can't really waste time with stuff like that), but it still would have been nice to see, but it's far from a deal breaker. As I said, it's only a minor personal nitpick.

The next issue though is slightly bigger then a nitpick, though again not quite a deal breaker. In the second half of the movie, when the much-larger second monster makes itself known and begins its assault on New York City, we only ever see that one monster yet all the characters keep referring to it as 'them'. Anytime anyone talks about that monster, they keep talking about it as if there are way more then just that one, yet we never once see any of the others, so I'm unsure if there were supposed to be tons of other battles happening across the city but just all off-screen, or if it was some kind of dialog error, or what the deal was but it made the last 20 minutes or so a bit confusing as to what was going on with the monster and if there were more or not.

Over all though, since I liked this one quite a bit, I don't really want to end my review off on a downer negative note, so I'll bring things back around to the positive side in mentioning the excellent CGI effects work here. Seriously, this movie had astounding CGI and way above-average for what we've come to expect from Asylum. Be it the wonderfully-designed killer monsters or the giant Mechs themselves, or especially the city-destroying CGI brawls between the two, everything in this movie in terms of the special effects looked excellent and everyone at Asylum should pat themselves on the back for a great job well done! 

Atlantic Rim (Sorry, I mean Attack From Beneath) would make a great summer double-bill with Age of Dinosaurs, as both movies encompass the best that Asylum has to offer and both have truly insanely chaotic, awesome, and fun third acts. I know Asylum doesn't really do sequels anymore, but out of all of their movies that deserve one, this is the one I want to see a sequel to most. In addition, I find most of their best movies are their mockbusters, so its sad that they seem to be doing them a lot less and less as time goes on. I wouldn't be surprised if in the next two years they stop doing these ones all together. I mean, I can't blame them seeing as how its just leading to legal issues after legal issues these days, but its still sad to see them declining, so it's all the more important you get out there and support these mockbuster titles. 

As mentioned at the top, Atlantic Rim, AKA Attack From Beneath gets released on July 9th, so be sure to pick up your DVD or BluRay copy that day and help support our favorite B-Movie company and make sure they know which kinds of movies we want to see most!

9/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Spiders (2013)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Nu Image

RUNTIME: 90 mins

FORMAT: BluRay

PLOT: After a Soviet space station crashes into a New York City subway tunnel, a new species of dangerous venomous spiders is discovered, and soon they start mutating to gigantic proportions and wreak havoc on the city.

REVIEW: When Spiders (Spiders 3D for its limited theatrical run) was first announced and we started getting news of it here and there, I was a bit confused as to what kind of movie it was - remake, sequel, or something original? See, back in 2000 and 2001 there were a couple SyFy Channel style B-Movies also titled Spiders and Spiders II: Breeding Grounds. Like this one, they also dealt with genetically-modified mutant killer spiders brought down on something crashing from space, and they too began growing to immense size during the films. I had no idea initially if this was supposed to be a new sequel to that series (with the 3 in 3D being the number of the movie), a remake to the first, or just a brand new movie with the same unimaginative title and an almost exact same plot. Well it turns out it's that last one, and while that was slightly disappointing to me at first, in the end I completely forgot all about any other similar movies because this one was just so damn good.

As far as expectations for low budget cheesy B-Movies go, this one surpassed them in pretty much every regard. The acting is actually pretty good from everyone, no matter how minor or major the role, and when you take into account just how many Unknowns and B-Movie actors are in this, that's quite the feat - even the child actor didn't bother me at all here and came across as very natural. Also, Patrick Muldoon (here playing subway tracks manager and loving father that has to find his family amidst the spider-caused chaos in the city) has clearly discovered the Fountain of Youth as he hasn't aged a single day since his time on the original Starship Troopers, and he's equally a joy to watch here as he was in that classic.

The special effects of the mutant spiders ranged from ok to great and were always well-above average for what you would expect from such a movie. From the normal-sized little critters that plagued the subway tracks and other dimly-lit locations, to the dog-sized buggers that ran up the sides of the buildings and chased people through warehouses, to the car-sized horrors that occupied the mostly-deserted streets and back alleys, to the gigantic building-sized monstrosity that created mass chaos and destruction across the city, they all looked pretty excellent and the CGI models for them interacted with the physical world almost flawlessly. As a hated of any kind of arachnids, I can assure you that the CGI models in this movie will be giving me nightmares for weeks to come. Likewise, the set designs were excellent as well and actually looked realistic. Even though the movie was filmed in Romania or Bucharest or some place like that, I never once questioned if this was actually NYC I was seeing as it looked pretty spot-on to me. If I hadn't read in another article where this movie had been filmed, I would have never guessed that it hadn't been in New York City.

It's also a nice added bonus that the majority of the movie takes place at night or in dimly-lit shadowed areas, which is something I miss from 80's and 90's B-Movies that seems to not happen much anymore, if at all - so many B-Movies today (especially SyFy Channel ones) take place entirely during the day, and they loose such great potential for atmosphere by doing that (not to mention it helps mask any terrible CGI a bit). Even having a couple night time attack scenes go a long way, so it was a nice surprise when this one was filled with them. Hell, even the main plot of the movie (that being the spiders coming down from space and infesting New York City) happens within the first 5-10 minutes, which was another welcomed change as so many of these kinds of movies take so long to get to the point, but here it starts almost right away and wastes no time.

However, where it does waste time, is with the Government Conspiracy subplot. See, there's this rather large section of the movie devoted to the Government evacuated the city and quarantining sections of it off, threatening those that try to cross by way of on-the-spot execution. In addition to this going on, the Government is also employing very Mission: Impossible style tactics to 'get rid of' (I.E. murder) anyone with real knowledge on the reason the city is being evacuated, that being due to giant mutating alien spiders. On paper I'm sure it looked great, and even in-action it's not the idea of it that I don't like, it's just that far too much time is spent on it, and spent on characters within it that have no bearing on anything else in the movie, and I feel it kind of takes you out of the main meat of fun far more often then not. It brings down an otherwise perfect flow to the movie and that whole subplot could easily have been shortened down or cut out all together and the movie would have been better off for it.

Along those lines there's an extension of that subplot, dealing with a Government scientist and the lead military general doing tests on a captured spider that involves some revelations, that while I didn't mind nearly as much as the previously-mentioned stuff, I still could have done without. I say it all too often, but that's only because these movies do it all too often, but I really hate it when killer animal B-movies feel the need to throw in human villains, as I find it takes some of the threat away from the killer animals, plus nobody tunes into a giant mutated killer alien spider movie to watch a couple questionable humans make some bad decisions and act all tough about it. Don't get me wrong, I liked having the military involved, especially for some of those awesome and fun military vs giant spiders action scenes, but it's just having the lead General and scientist kind of being the obligatory 'evil military general' and 'mad scientist' characters that I could have done without. However, it at least it gave us a couple more main characters to focus on, and they did impact other parts of the movie as well as interacted with our main leads on occasion, so at least they have a good reason to be here, unlike the whole Government cover-up stuff that I mentioned earlier.

Those quibbles aside, this is a near-perfect B-Movie and it's a hell of a lot of fun. I just wish they would have come up with a better, more interesting title then simply 'Spiders'. Especially since there's already an almost identical movie about mutated alien spiders getting loose after escaping a falling man-made outer space object and growing to giant size, ALSO with the exact same generic title of 'Spiders' that was released back in 2000. But whatevs. Nobody probably even remembers that movie other than me anyway.

As for this one, I have no idea why it never got a wider theatrical release then it did. As far as I'm concerned, the acting, CGI effects, and even the movie as a whole is at least on-par with, if not better than, Eight Legged Freaks which did get a theatrical release back in 2002, and in my opinion, this one deserved a far better release treatment then it ultimately got.

8/10  rooms in the Psych Ward

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Komodo vs Cobra (2005)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Cinetel Films

RUNTIME: 94 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: A genetically-engineered Komodo Dragon and King Cobra have become ginormous creatures hunting people on a remote tropical island. A small group of scientists must stop the creatures before they escape the island and destroy the rest of the world.

REVIEW: While Komodo vs Cobra seems to be advertised and constantly referred to as a sequel to Curse of the Komodo, it's actually more correct to look at it as a remake, despite being made not even a year later. It has the exact same plot, filmed in the exact same locations, complete with exact same military subplot with the exact same outcome of said subplot, beat-for-beat and pretty much word-for-word. If, like me, you've already seen Curse of the Komodo then you've already seen this movie, just replace some of the Komodo scenes with a Cobra.

There are only three differences - First, the group that happens upon the island in this one is a group of Environmental Activists instead of bank robbing fugitives. Second, the giant komodo dragon now has less screen time, as it's screen time is shared with a giant cobra as well. And third, the special effects aren't as good as they were in the first movie. Those three aspects aside, this is literally the exact same movie, even with cameos by some of the actors from the first movie, playing different roles this time around.

Also interesting to note, this movie stars Jeri from Season 2 of Survivor (and countless of the All-Star seasons), and she actually wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting her to be once I saw her pop on-screen. I think she needs to stop appearing one every other season of Survivor and get back into the B-movie game, cause she was quite the pleasant surprise here.

Despite being a direct clone of Curse of the Komodo, there's nothing especially bad in the movie, other then the CGI creature effects, and the only reason I don't like this is because I've just watched the other one and this is exactly the same movie. If it was the other way around and I had watched this one first, then I'd probably be preferring this movie to that one instead.


6/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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The Curse of the Komodo (2004)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Royal Oaks Entertainment

RUNTIME: 92 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: A genetically-engineered Komodo Dragon has become a ginormous creature hunting people on a remote tropical island. A small group of scientists must stop the dragon before it escapes the island and destroys the rest of the world.

REVIEW: After having watched some of his more recent work, I was in the mood to go back and watch one of Jim Wynorski's previous movies that I hadn't yet seen, and since I love creature features I figured Curse of the Komodo was a good one to start with.

Right off the bat I was pretty surprised that the military Special Ops team in the opening minutes were not the main characters like I had initially thought, and that the Doctor they were sent there to evacuate turned out to be the main character, and for once he was not evil, nor did he create the giant Komodo Dragon on purpose - It was a byproduct of his formula for growing larger super vegetables, funded by the military, and he's actually doing all he can to keep himself and his crew away from that thing (including a pretty cool Starship Troopers 2-style electric perimeter). A group of fugitives land on this island in the middle of the night, due to the severity of the storm keeping them from going any further, and I was once again left pretty surprised to see two of them being played by Paul Logan from his pre-Asylum days, and the main Chicky from Raptor, since I had no idea they were in this and I enjoy both of them (One for his acting, the other for her looks - ha).

The monster effects looked pretty decent, though I wish the creature had more to do other then just show up, stand there in one spot while they shoot at it some, then turn and leave - That's pretty much all it does for 90% of its scenes in the movie. Still, it looked cool all the same, and I actually like most of the human characters so I didn't mind spending some extra time with them. This movie also made me realize how much I really miss monster B-movies that take place at night and/or during massive rain storms. It adds a level of atmosphere that isn't there for daytime scenes, and most monster movies these days seem to take place entirely during bright day scenes.

This one was a definite surprise for me as I wasn't expecting much at all and ended up really enjoying my time spent watching it - only thing that could have made it better for me was some better Giant Komodo Dragon action.

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Piranhaconda (2012)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: New Horizons

RUNTIME: 84 mins

FORMAT: T.V.

PLOT: A low-budget horror movie crew, inept kidnappers, and a reptile expert battle a monstrous anaconda/piranha hybrid in the middle of the Amazon jungle. 

REVIEW: Piranhaconda premiered earlier this evening on the SyFy Channel as part of it's 'Most Dangerous Month on Television' campaign, and I wanted to rush and get this review written and posted while the movie was still fresh in my mind, and right off the bat I have to be honest here - I was not impressed with this one. It was nowhere near as entertaining as Sharktopus or as fun as Dinocroc vs Supergator had been, and it wasn't even as good as Camel Spiders was, all of which have also been made by the same crew of people.

A big problem with Piranhaconda is that there's no overlaying plot in the slightest until over halfway through the movie, so a good 70% of the movie is mostly just random generic scene after random generic scene that could  have easily been placed in any random order without changing the movie one iota, with an occasional misc death scene sprinkled in there. Then when they do finally put some form of plot in (I.E. the kidnappers attempting to put their plan in motion, and the film crew having to try to escape from them), it's mostly just boring, uninteresting and totally takes away from the rest of the movie and what people are actually watching a movie called Piranhaconda for - the damn Piranhaconda! They actually go almost half an hour without showing the creature at all, to focus on this uninteresting subplot of boring, terribly-acted human villains.

Adding to all of that, the title creature itself is very uninteresting as well. Giant snake with a piranha head? Other then visually, how is that any different at all then a regular giant snake? Change the visual model of the creature's head, and nothing else at all, and you could slap Anaconda 5 onto the title of this movie instead and have it fit perfectly. The creature doesn't even do any non-snakelike stuff - I was expecting some good water play or something else, but it mostly just slithers across the ground like normal and eats people like a normal giant snake would. They could have done so much more with the whole crossbreeding part in terms of cheesy scenes like Sharktopus did. Hell, they even say in the movie that it can burrow under the ground and come up to attack, which sounds friggin' awesome, but then they never actually have the Piranhaconda do that at all. It certainly didn't help that every single scene was shot in the exact same locations as Supergator, Dinocroc vs Supergator, and parts of Camel Spiders so with this being the 4th movie in the last couple years to use all these exact same locations, it's getting really rather boring now to watch different people run down the exact same paths and by the exact same factories, and get eaten in front of the exact same waterfalls. Roger Corman and Jim Wynorski are really going to have to step it up for their next release if they want to impress me, locale-wise.

On the plus side, I do like the twist of there actually being multiple creatures and not just the single one (though it was a total missed opportunity as well, seeing as how they do nothing at all with that really, but it's the idea of it that I like), and I thought the actual creatures themselves, in terms of the CGI graphics, actually looked pretty good and interacted with the physical objects realistically and quite well, which that alone can be a tough feat for these kinds of movies to overcome.

Also, those looking for a bloodbath will be kept mildly entertained as the red stuff hardly stops flowing, from gunshot wounds, to severed body limbs, to exploding people, there's enough in this one to keep your eyes on the screen during the action scenes. Sadly, while there is a nice bit of bloody deaths, there's not a whole lot of variety to them, as the majority of them are just the exact same kind of deaths over and over. Still, it's at least something, and something is always better then nothing in my books.

Other then those couple hings though, and a few funny lines of dialog, there really wasn't much in this one that I could find to like, sadly. Even the presence of Michael Madsen, an actor I tend to really enjoy (especially in movies like this), couldn't make this one worth it to me.

I had really been looking forward to Piranhaconda a lot as well, especially after the greatness of Sharktopus and Dinocroc vs Supergator, but this came nowhere even near as good as those movies had been.

4/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus (2010)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 90 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: After surviving the titan battle at the end of the first movie, the Megalodon is back and wrecking havoc in the ocean once again, but soon finds itself locked in battle with a new gargantuan foe.

REVIEW: Right off the bat, Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus starts on a slightly disappointing note. The end of the first movie set the stage for a sequel pretty well, but instead this movie decided to ignore that and go it's own route. Due to that, it lacks any returning characters from the first which means Lorenzo Lamas and Debbie Gibson, two of the better aspects of the first movie, are nowhere to be found and no explanation given as to their absence, which is weird considering their heavy involvement in the Mega Shark situation of the first movie. You'd think they would have been called back to action again here when the creature reappears.

In their place however is Jaleel White of Family Matters fame (Steve Urkel) and he plays a navy soldier on a U.S. battleship, having supposedly participated (off-screen) in the events of the first movie. He's some kind of shark expert and holds the conspiracy theory that the Megalodon is still alive and roaming the sea due to no carcass ever being recovered. When the beast proves him right by attacking the vessel he's currently serving on, his military girlfriend is killed and that makes everything personal for him from that point on. Much like Debbie Gibson in the first movie, he does as good as he can with what he's given to work with and comes out in top form, especially during a surprisingly emotional scene towards the end that he handled with perfection. Actually, most of the new main cast are all bright spots here, sticking out far above the main cast of the first movie. Joining Urkel, we get a John Roxton-style great white jungle hunter that's hired by a mining company to hunt down the newly-awakened Crocosaurus and this actor that plays that role, Gary Stretch, just completely steals every single scene he's in (which is almost all of them). Without a doubt, he's not only the best actor in the movie, but the most entertaining character to watch as well, though you have to wonder if the actor was drunk while filming some of these scenes because once in while he's hard to understand due to very slurred speech, and not just in the scenes where it shows him to be drinking. We also have a hard-as-nails female Government agent that links the two plots together as she hires both Gary Stretch and Urkel (each one an expert on one of the animals) to work together with herself for the U.S. Government in order to stop both monsters. What makes this group of ragtag experts even better and more realistic is that unlike the first movie, these guys aren’t friends and they don't always get along or see eye-to-eye which creates some very good tension and some entertaining scenes to pass away the time between animal attacks. Finally, we have Robert Ricardo from Star Trek Voyager playing the same basic role that Lorenzo Lamas did in the first movie; that is to say all he had to do was stand around in a control room and threateningly bark orders at everyone while every once in a while firing off a sarcastic wise crack. Not a whole lot to do, but he handled the role very well and dare I say, far better then Lorenzo Lamas did in the first movie. Right from the beginning, you can get behind these new characters and if we must leave out the characters from the first movie, these are damn good replacements. Actually, sorry to say, but I ended up liking all of these characters far more then the ones in the first movie.

But where this movie did better with the characters, it failed with the title creatures. The special effects for the Megalodon are of a far lesser quality then they were in the first movie, and the Crocosaurus just looks plain bad and kind of unfinished, coming across as if they ran out of time while creating it. Granted, there was one or two scenes were it did look pretty good, but they don't stand out in the memory much since every other scene of the animal looks really bad. Where we got an explanation in the first movie to the creatures being alive, however loose and unrealistic, no such explanation is given here for the gigantic prehistoric crocodile; the only explanation we get is that it was in an eon's-long slumber deep under the ground in the Congo jungle, when an illegal diamond mining operation accidentally wakes it up, with no explanation as to why it was asleep for so long nor how it could still be alive after being asleep for so long.

After my initial disappointment at seeing how crappy the effects were in this entry, and the fact that the introduction scenes of each creature were pretty lame, I pretty much lost all faith in future action scenes involving these creatures and was quite worried about my enjoyment in the movie. So it was then quite surprising to me that all the action scenes after the first 10 minutes were actually really well done and exciting. We don't get anything quite as memorable as some of the iconic cheese-fest scenes in the first movie, but we do get some very fun stuff all the same that works out to be bigger and better then most of the ones in the first movie. Some of the highlights would include an attack on the famous theme park Sea World by the Crocosaurus as it rampages through Orlando, Florida, while the Mega Shark deals with an attack from a submarine in a very humorous and entertaining way that I won't spoil here, as well as a fight to the death involving both animals while an underwater volcano spectacularly goes off around them. There were even a few action sequences, more-so towards the end, that almost seemed like they were inspired by some Michael Bay movies which was interesting to see.

Accompanying the awesome, more-longer, action scenes in this sequel is also an enjoyable fast-paced musical score that helps raise the excitement and urgency and was something I'm only realizing now that the first movie was lacking. Sure, that movie may have had generic action music, but it was boring and wasn't really noticeable. In this movie it's not only noticeable, but really adds to the action scenes, helping to elevate them above the action scenes of the first flick.

The script for this entry also seemed to be more competently-written, giving the characters actual real dialog to work with and creating a realistic and intelligent way of bringing the two creatures together for the promised water-based duel (which we actually get a few separate matches of this time). You see, after Gary Stretch manages to tranquilize the Crocosaurus in the jungle, he tries to transport her and her newly-laid eggs to the States, but while en-route over the ocean, the Mega Shark attacks the boat, only to have the Crocosaurus wake up and break free in order to fight the Mega Shark to protect her eggs. Things just proceed to get more and more out of control from there. While it may not be the best plot point ever, it's certainly better then the bullshit explanation we got in the first movie of 'They were programmed on a genetic level to hate each other and always fight when near one another'. Even the build-up to the climatic showdown in the back half of the movie was handled so much better then it was in the first movie. Not only was the main fight longer and more intense then the one in the first, but there were some nice little twists and surprises sprinkled throughout that I'm not going to spoil here that upped the ante, as well as being just an all around more action-packed fight.

After all is said and done, despite a few short comings with the special effects, this can be put down in the books as one of the rare cases of a sequel being better then the first, and it's now among my list of all-time personal favorite Asylum flicks. I find it surprising that the first got a nice BluRay treatment while this one was regulated to DVD-Only. Likewise, it also blows my mind that this one's not as well known as the original, despite clearly being much better, and many who saw the original didn't even know this one existed. Then again, I'm still shocked at how many people rent or buy a movie like this and then get upset that they're not watching something they can compare to Gone with the Wind. Like really...what were you seriously expecting with a title like Mega this vs Giant Whatever?

I'm really hoping for a third movie, and if that ever comes to light, I'd like to see these characters return – or possibly even the characters from the first movie team up with the characters from this movie. There's a short hidden teaser scene if you sit through all of the end credits that does set up quite well for a third movie, although it is basically a carbon copy of a line at the end of the first movie so who knows if the Godzilla-inspired nod will actually have anything to do with the next entry. However, the original idea for this one was going to be Mega Shark vs Giganotosaurus with a poster even done up showing the Megalodon fighting a giant Godzilla/Tyrannosaurus creature, so I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that they're instead going to use that idea for the third movie and hopefully the line of dialog during that hidden teaser scene really was setting that up instead of just being a throw-away line like the similar one in the first movie.

Here's to a Mega Shark 3.

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

UPDATE: You can now hear me discuss this movie as a guest host on the Saturday B-Movie Reel podcast.

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