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Day of the Animals (1977)

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A recent internet discussion has been whether or not a woman should choose a man or a bear to be alone with in the forst.  There is a scene in Day of the Animals that makes that choice rather obvious, although it's pretty atypical as the animals seem to be attacking indiscriminately.  William Girdler, hot off of the big success of Grizzly the year before, gathered some of the stars - and the bear - from that movie for another film about animals attacking, one that has garnered a bit of a cult status by being weird, campy, ridiculous and somewhat effective all at the same time. Steve Buckner (Christoper George) is about to take a group of hikers up a mountain for a two-week hike back to the town of Murphy.  Along with him is a Native American guide named Daniel Santee (Michael Ansara), a reporter named Terry (Lynda Day George) and a number of others.  Both Buckner and Santee feel that something is off, and it turns out they are right.  A weakening in the Earth's...
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Grizzly (1976)

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I can almost hear the pitch for a number of movies in the mid-1970s.  "It's like Jaws , but with..."  As in, with piranha, a killer whale, a pack of dogs, a giant squid, killer bees or, in this case, a bear.  Not just any bear, but one waying over a ton and standing 18 feet in height, said by one character to be a throwback to the bears that roamed during the ice age.   The reason all these and more got made?  They made money.  Grizzly , despite a number of dull sequences and a not-so-convincing mechanical bear standing in whenever the real one couldn't be used, was the highest grossing independent movie until Halloween came around two years later.  It also has some interesting tales of theft, deceit and general wrongdoing behind it that are more interesting than the movie or its spiritual sequel, Day of the Animals .  The tourist season is wrapping up, but there are still a number of backpackers in a stretch of national forest land that for...
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The Substance (2024)

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When one sees a tagline that a movie is "absolutely insane," whether or not it includes modification from the universal adjective, one has to take it with a grain of salt.  What mainstream critics and studios consider insane is usually something that those of us who enjoy the fringes of cinema are familiar with.  It is familiar territory for writer and director Coralie Fargeat who has an unquestionable knowledge of horror.  This was obvious in Revenge , which took inspiration from past exploitation films such as I Spit on Your Grave , but put an angry feminist spin on it.  The Substance finds Fargeat doing the same for body horror.  The obvious go-to on this is David Cronenberg, and the influence is there, particularly from The Fly .  What The Substance most resembles, however, is Brian Yuzna's cult favorite Society .  Her movie   is full of practical effects that recall those of Screaming Mad George.  It also has that same satire of a specif...
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Tremors (1990)

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Tremors is truly an odd duck of a movie.  Made on a low budget with a reluctant Kevin Bacon, who thought the movie was going to kill his career, it initially had a tepid box office run despite some good reviews from critics.  Where it flourished was on the rental market as audiences soon discovered that director and writer Ron Underwood had delivered a fun tongue-in-cheek monster movie with some impressive-looking creatures.  Despite Bacon's reluctance it also has one of his best performances. What is most surprising is that this movie that pretty much no one expected much of has spawned numerous sequels and a television show without the usual sinking quality of other franchises.  Not that the movies it has spawned are fantastic.  It is just that they are not the usual abysmal fare that something like the Hellraiser franchise has become.  At the heart of it, of course, is this film. Val (Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward) are a pair of ne'er-do-well friends living...
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Lake Placid (1999)

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I know that the reason there aren't more giant monster movies these days is that most of them aren't that good.  In fact, Lake Placid itself had a series of made-for-television sequels that just got worse and worse, to the point that the crocodile was starting to get "versus" movies.  That's Asylum territory, and that's never a good thing.   Still, the original movie, despite being panned by critics, managed to become a hit.  Although it doesn't show up much until the end the crocodile, an animatronic occasionally enhanced by CGI when needed, was designed by Stan Winston and is pretty good looking.  The movie also features a number of name actors as well as Steve Miner, a veteran horror director, behind the camera.  It's not a serious film, but there is no reason it has to be.  When a diver with the Maine Game and Fish is bitten in half by something in a lake, Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson) teams up with game warden Jack Wells (Bill Pullman...
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Christmas on Mars (2008)

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It seems like the more creative and experimental the band the more likely they are to want to expand beyond doing music.  The big issue is budget.  While KISS or Spice Girls may have the chart success for someone to ask them to make a movie, someone like the Flaming Lips, despite having a hardcore fan base, is not exactly bleeding money.   Still, director and Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne persisted over a period eight years, creating sets in his back yard, filming when he could around touring and recording new material.  If anything that is probably what finally gave the movie its push.  Over two decades into the band's existence they finally had that one big hit, "Do You Realize??", from their 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots .  It helped sell quite a number of copies of the album and the song was used in at least two advertising campaigns that I can think of, which probably made Coyne more coin than CD sales at the time.   ...
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Black Swan (2010)

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Only Darren Aronofsky could get me watching a movie about ballet.  It's not specifically about ballet, although it does take Swan Lake, the production in which our protagonist wins the lead role as Swan Queen, as inspiration, but also the Japanese animated thriller Perfect Blue .  It introduces us to the crumbling mental state of a frightened and abused woman trying to reach in her mind what she sees as perfection.   Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is one of the most popular performers in a New York ballet company run by Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel).  He wants to do a new version of Swan Lake where the dancer who plays the Swan Queen also plays her rival, the Black Swan, and while he is confident in Nina's ability to play the traditional lead he thinks that she is too restrained to play her opposite.  His views change after she violently revokes a sexual advance, but the going is rough as he can't seem to get her to show the emotion and sexuality needed for ...
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