THE LOST TREASURE OF THE GRAND CANYON -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on May 7, 2009

 

A Sci-Fi Channel original movie is like a box of chocolates--you never know what you're gonna get, or just how nutty it's gonna be. THE LOST TREASURE OF THE GRAND CANYON (2008) is not only nutty as hell, but it's so hard to swallow that Forrest Gump would've choked on it.

Shannen Doherty stars as a 19th-century archeologist named Susan Jordan (who is anachronistically referred to in the DVD's captions as "Ms. Jordan"). Susan is following in the footsteps of her father--literally, in fact, since he disappeared on an expedition in the American southwest and she's on the hunt for him. 

Dr. Jordan (Duncan Fraser) was searching for an Aztec pyramid that's supposed to be hidden out there somewhere, and Susan enlists the aid of her colleagues in her search. The trail leads them to a grand canyon, just like the title says, only it isn't THE Grand Canyon since this was filmed in British Columbia.

Finding a passageway into the hidden canyon, the group encounters a hostile tribe of Aztecs who seem to be constantly sacrificing people to appease their horrible flying serpent god. These Aztecs are a motley bunch with pallid skin, cottage cheese thighs, and big butts, and they wear the same kind of flip-flops that you get out of a bin at Wal-Mart, but Shannen and her pals have their hands full fighting them off while struggling through a series of low-grade cliffhanger perils. 

These include trying to get through a booby-trapped doorway without being decapitated by the spring-loaded axe, falling into a pit where they must avoid getting beaned by a spiked ball on a chain, and, in one of the lamest suspense scenes ever, attempting to pull two of their group out of a large puddle of quicksand by poking sticks at them.

Shannen Doherty is getting a bit long-in-the-tooth to be playing this sort of ingenue role, especially when we (along with the male leads) are supposed to be titillated by the sight of her sponging off in a creek. "Stargate SG-1" alumnus Michael Shanks fares a bit better as Shannen's secret admirer Jacob Thain, a hands-off archeologist who'd rather stay in his tent than pick up a shovel but who turns out to be quite courageous and resourceful when the chips are down. 

Another familiar face, JR Bourne, does well as the cowardly Langford. Heather Doerksen ("Stargate: Atlantis", THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL) plays one of those irritating frontier feminists whose character gets sillier as the movie goes on, along with the script.

LOST TREASURE wants to offer up the same excitement and thrills as an Indiana Jones or Ricochet O'Connell adventure, but it just doesn't have the budget or the talent to pull off anything that comes close. Sparse production values and really bad CGI conspire to give the film a consistently bargain-basement look (shots of the canyon's interior are particularly cheesy), which is compounded by slipshod direction from LAWNMOWER MAN 2's Farhad Mann and some of the worst handheld camerawork I've ever seen. And since it's a Sci-Fi Channel original, you just know there's going to be a CGI creature--in this case, the Aztec serpent god--that's considerably less than convincing.

The DVD's 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image and Dolby 5.1 sound are good. The sole bonus feature is a "making-of" short that lasts about twelve minutes and consists mainly of cast interviews.

I try not to judge low-budget made-for-TV flicks too harshly, especially if they have that elusive "so bad it's good" quality that can make a lesser effort fun to watch. However, THE LOST TREASURE OF THE GRAND CANYON is, for me, simply boring and a chore to endure. The cast is pretty game, but the filmmakers just don't seem to be trying any harder than they have to.

 

THE LOST TREASURE OF THE GRAND CANYON -- DVD Review by Porfle

SNOWMAGEDDON -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/7/12

 

There seems to be an entire category of movies on the SyFy Channel in which small Canadian towns double as small Northwestern towns in the USA which are menaced by some kind of supernatural (or super-natural) force, which resides or has its origin in a nearby mountain.  Bad CGI comes as a standard feature; giant tentacles are optional. 

One of the latest entries in this curious little sub-genre is SNOWMAGEDDON (2011), a movie whose title pretty much lets us know what kind of movie we're in for.  This time, a rustic burg in Alaska gets hammered by a series of unnatural disasters such as a storm cloud that shoots ice torpedoes which shatter into deadly shrapnel, gaping fissures bisecting city streets and gushing flames, and huge pointy things shooting up out of the ground to spear moving vehicles like shish-kabobs. 

The reason for all this is kept from us at first, lending the film an air of supernatural mystery that's mildly intriguing--until, that is, we find out that the secret behind it all is pretty freakin' dumb.  Suffice it to say that there's this kid named Rudy who plays a role-playing game about dragons and wizards, and he anonymously receives a strange snowglobe for Christmas with a tiny repica of the town in it, and whenever he winds it up, something bad happens.  Somehow, all of this is related to that RPG that he plays.  Why?  Don't ask me.

The destruction is depicted with some pretty good practical effects--the picturesque little town is trashed quite nicely--along with the usual fair-to-awful CGI.  Once the slush hits the fan, the action is split into different little suspense situations of varying interest, including two hapless shlubs trapped in a bus covered with downed power lines, stranded snowboarders who picked the wrong mountain to board, and a mother-daughter duo in a crashed helicopter. 

Good editing helps jazz things up a bit, but it's all just standard time-waster stuff that helps cheapo flicks like this fill in the space between the opening and closing credits. 

Once the kid finally convinces the grownups that his evil snowglobe is causing all the trouble--which, admittedly, might be a bit hard to swallow at first--they follow his sage advice on how to combat the supernatural menace.  Which means two things: one, they've really run out of ideas.  And two, his dad, John Miller (David Cubitt), must make a trek up the now-volcanic peak in order to do what the hero in the game does to stop the evil. 

The acting is about as good as you'd expect from this sort of thing, with Laura Harris (of the late, lamented "Defying Gravity") deserving better as Rudy's plucky mom, Beth.  The dialogue isn't any better or worse than required, save for the occasional eye-rolling exchange such as this:

LARRY: "That thing's straight from Hell itself."
FRED: "Calm down, Larry."
LARRY: "You calm down, Fred."

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  No extras.

Really, I can't add any more to this than you can already figure out from the title.  If the word SNOWMAGEDDON doesn't tell you exactly what this movie is all about and whether or not you'll enjoy it, nothing will.  Bottom line: it's a passable, tolerable time-waster.

SNOWMAGEDDON -- DVD Review by Porfle

BEYOND SHERWOOD FOREST -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

 

Originally posted on 2/13/10

 

 

After having recently watched the third season of the British TV series "Robin Hood", I found SyFy Channel's BEYOND SHERWOOD FOREST to be woefully bland and uninspired by comparison. Even the fact that it has a big, dumb bad-CGI dragon flying around doesn't help.

In a flashback, young Robin Hood watches as the dragon kills the Sheriff of Nottingham and is felled by arrows from his father and the Sheriff's successor, Malcolm (Julian Sands). Wounded, the creature reverts to its true form, that of a naked woman named Alina (Katharine Isabelle, GINGER SNAPS, FREDDY VS. JASON, CARRIE remake) with hyper regenerative powers. Malcolm wants to capture her in hopes that he can use her blood to give himself immortality, and when Robin's dad objects, Malcolm kills him.

Jump forward a couple of decades, and it's the old story of Robin stealing from the rich and giving to the poor while Malcolm, now the evil Sheriff of Nottingham, struggles endlessly to capture him and gain the favor of the equally-evil Prince John. He orders Alina, whose still-beating heart he holds hostage in a jar, to find Robin and his merry men and kill them. Robin, meanwhile, sets off on a quest to enter the mystical Dark Woods (from which Alina was banished as a child) and find the Keepers of the Trees, who possess a plant which can neutralize her dragon powers and make her mortal.

You're probably well aware that "Robin Hood" stories don't usually feature stuff like sorcerers and flying dragons, but this is SyFy and they have to squeeze some wince-inducing CGI in there somewhere. The idea that somewhere in Sherwood Forest there's this big floating doorway into the Dark Woods which has somehow escaped the notice of the general public for several years is equally farfetched, and the thought of Robin Hood and his small and lackluster band of Merry Men wandering around in there trying to locate the "Keepers of the Trees" struck me as a pretty non-thrilling quest.

Besides Little John and Will Scarlett running into some typically bad-CGI wolves along the way, their lengthy encounter with these robed bores is about as enchanting as a Rotary Club meeting. ("It is the law of the woods," their leader informs Robin at one point, to which he responds, "Where I come from, it is the men who make the laws...not the trees.") Later, they get captured by the Sheriff's men and, after the usual clever escape from jail, have it out with the bad guys as Robin and Malcolm go at it sword-to-sword in desultory fashion. To make things worse, our hero performs rather unheroically during this battle and comes off as a decidedly smaller-than-life character.

With his fussily-trimmed beard, costume-like clothing, and less than rugged demeanor, Robin Dunne makes one of the least impressive Robin Hoods ever. Mark Gibbon is a passable Little John (although both he and Katharine Isabelle currently fail to list this film on their IMDb pages), while Richard de Klerk's Will Scarlett reminds me of a belligerent Gilligan. Erica Durance makes a nice-looking Maid Marian, but since this is a "modern" retelling she is given the fighting skills of a warrior woman and further diminishes our hero by besting him with a staff.

As Prince John, David Richmond-Peck does a fairly good job although he resembles a grown-up version of Butch from "Our Gang" and falls far short of Toby Stephens' delightful interpretation of the character in the recent TV series. Julian Sands, of course, does his best as the Sheriff but can't manage to rise above the dull script (which boasts such anachronistic lines as "I've taken out an insurance policy") and murky, unappealing production values.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Surround 5.1, with English subtitles. A "making-of" featurette and a trailer are the extras.

Okay if there's nothing else to watch but hardly worth going out of your way to see, BEYOND SHERWOOD FOREST is a lackluster effort that may leave you pining for Errol Flynn, or even Kevin Costner.

BEYOND SHERWOOD FOREST -- DVD Review by Porfle

DINOSHARK -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/3/11

 

Compared to its follow-up, SHARKTOPUS, I found the highly-rated SyFy Channel fishfest DINOSHARK (2010) to be superior in just about every way.  Of course, that's like saying falling out of a two-storey window is superior to getting run over by a bus, but at least the first one is sort of exciting on the way down.

Eric Balfour, an actor I like for some reason after seeing him in Larry Bishop's bonehead biker flick HELL RIDE and the TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE remake, plays "Trace McGraw", who has returned to Puerto Vallarta to resume running a charter boat for tourists.  He meets a gorgeous blonde teacher named Carol Brubaker (Iva Hasperger), who joins him in the search when their mutual friend Rita goes missing.  Rita, of course, has been eaten by a dinoshark, and Trace and Carol end up going after the prehistoric beast themselves as it makes a beeline for its next beachfront buffet.

Lacking a big star like SHARKTOPUS' Eric Roberts, DINOSHARK benefits from the fact that some of the leads are actually pretty good actors (although Roger Corman is fortunate he didn't have to audition for his brief role as a fish expert).  And lucky for them, the script isn't nearly as dumb.  It does have its moments, though, as when Trace discusses his next course of action against the monster with friend Luis:

Trace: "So, what...we'll need explosives, right?"
Luis: "Yeah.  I'll try to get some from my friends at the army base."



Talk about convenient!  Nothing like having some pals at a nearby army base who don't mind lending you a few grenades and rocket launchers.  And then there's the helicopter scene, which is just plain goofy (but in a good way) and allows Balfour to intone a wry reference to JAWS.  Other echoes of the Spielberg classic abound, including a direct quote of its famous "DUN-dun DUN-dun" theme music as a hapless couple in a canoe try to outrun the toothy terror. 

The film is really pretty similar to a regular shark movie anyway--the Dinoshark isn't all that much bigger than Bruce, and it does pretty much the same things in the same way, aside from being able to leap out of the water to snag surfers and para-sailors in mid-air.  As co-producer (with his wife Julie) Roger Corman has said, you don't tease the viewer in a TV-movie the way you would for a theatrical film--you show the monster right away.  And sure enough, DINOSHARK isn't five minutes old before we get a gander at the head, the tail--the whole damn thing.  It isn't a bad-looking critter, really, resembling a cross between a shark and a big horned toad.

By being way less outlandish than its follow-up, this film's SPFX manage to be a bit more convincing even though they're still on the chintzy side.  The CGI guys aren't asked to overextend themselves as much, and manage to turn in some passable effects along with the more wince-inducing ones.  A big mock-up of the monster's head is used in several closeups of swimmers being chomped, but most of the attacks take place underwater and are digitally rendered.  The gore level is somewhat higher than in SHARKTOPUS, especially when Rita's leftovers are washed ashore.



Kevin O'Neill, whose only other director credit is this film's 2004 predecessor DINOCROC, is a visual effects veteran of films such as the FEAST and PULSE series and TV's "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys."  So in addition to being able to stage action scenes pretty well, he also knows where the SPFX are going to go later on.  The lush, scenic Puerto Vallarta locations are milked for all the added production values they can yield as the film breaks out into a festive travelogue montage at the drop of a hat.  The roving camera also manages to zero in on an abundance of frolicking bikini babes throughout the film. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Besides a trailer, there's a commentary track featuring Roger and Julie Corman and director O'Neill.

The finale is pretty lively as the finny fiend makes its way to a heavily-populated resort beach where a sailboat regatta and a women's water polo match are being held, complete with a wide array of human appetizers bobbing around.  Balfour gets a cool final confrontation with Kid Din-o-Shark (I keep imagining J.J. from "Good Times" doing the play-by-play) and Iva Hasperger delivers one of those badass action-movie one-liners to top things off.  All in all, DINOSHARK is a pretty fun movie to watch, and not just in a derisive-laughter kind of way. 

DINOSHARK -- DVD Review by Porfle

SHARKTOPUS -- DVD review by porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/3/11

 

"Dumb" has a new name, and that name is SHARKTOPUS (2010).  This highly-rated SyFy Original Movie, produced by legendary filmmaker Roger Corman and his wife Julie, will either make you giddy with bad-movie excitement or leave you utterly stupified.  Maybe even both.

After the success of DINOSHARK, SyFy contacted Corman about doing this film as a follow-up.  As he relates in the commentary, he initially turned it down because, while "dinosharks" might conceivably have existed in prehistoric times, the idea of a half-shark, half-octopus just seemed a little too farfetched.  (Unlike, say, giant crab monsters.)  He eventually gave in, on the condition that the creature be a product of genetic engineering rather than a freak of nature. 

Thus, we have scientist Nathan Sands (Eric Roberts) and his daughter Nicole (Sara Malakul Lane), whom he affectionately refers to as "Pumpkin", creating the dreaded Sharktopus for the military.  Pumpkin naively hopes Sharktopus will be used for good, but her sneaky dad has designed it to be a ruthless killing machine, which it demonstrates when its electronic restraints are damaged during a test and it starts eating people all up and down the coast of scenic Puerto Vallarta.  With the Navy breathing down his back, Sands hires fun-loving aquatic mercenary Andy Flynn (Kerem Bursin) to reel the big fish in and bring it back alive.
 


With this set-up quickly established, the film now treats us to an endless series of Sharktopus attacks with lots of tourists getting snared by the creature's tentacles right there on the shore and dragged into its toothy maw.  Several of these kills begin with an establishing montage of festive beach images and ample footage of bikini-clad babes cavorting around like monster appetizers.  When Sharktopus suddenly appears, the various bit players must then hop around screaming as the SPFX guys wrap bad-CGI tentacles around them and make with the spewing digital blood. 

The big, cartoony shark head which pops out of the water to chow down on them is highly effective--at generating laughs.  Seeing the entire mismatched monstrosity perched on a guardrail or the roof of a bamboo hut in all its writhing, snarling glory, treating the fleeing humans like a sushi buffet, is a sight you won't soon forget.  Special mention goes to the bunjee-jumping scene, which Corman tells us got the biggest response from audiences and is one of the movie's few genuinely effective moments.  (Roger and Julie's daughter guest-stars as the bouncing bait.)



With few exceptions, the performances range from awful to not-really-trying.  Mostly the actors just seem anxious to knock off their scenes and get back to partying in Puerta Vallarta.  Blake Lindsey isn't bad as Pez, a fisherman who leads TV newswoman Stacy Everheart (Liv Boughn) and her dopey cameraman Bones (Héctor Jiménez, who played Lonnie Donaho in GENTLEMEN BRONCOS) to wherever Sharktopus is likely to appear next.  As a pirate radio DJ, Ralph Garman of "The Joe Schmo Show" seems to be having fun.  Bursin and Lane make a dull main couple as Flynn and Pumpkin and could probably use a few more acting lessons. 

As for Eric Roberts, he's one of my favorite actors and I'd watch him in anything, which is fitting since these days it looks like he'll show up in anything.   Going from THE DARK KNIGHT to this must've been like falling out of a yacht into a swamp.  (Look for Roger Corman himself in a cameo as a beach bum.)



On a technical level, SHARKTOPUS is slapdash at best.  Things like camerawork, editing, and scene transitions are a dizzying jumble of ineptitude, while the subpar direction makes it hard to believe Declan O'Brien is the same guy who did such a solid job with WRONG TURN 3: LEFT FOR DEAD. 

The script, which seems to have been written on a Big Chief tablet, obviously doesn't take itself very seriously, as when Flynn offers this warning to the patrons of an open-air restaurant by the beach: "Excuse me, everyone.  There's a killer shark-octopus hybrid headed this way.  Please leave the marina in a timely fashion."  The thing is, movies like this are funnier when they aren't trying to be, so the scenes that actually mean to shock or excite us invariably provoke the most giggles. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  Extras include a commentary with Roger and Julie Corman plus the film's trailer. 

Any movie containing Eric Roberts, bikini babes, extras doing the imaginary-tentacle-tango, the guy who played Lonnie Donaho in GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, and one of the dumbest monsters in film history can't be all bad.  And SHARKTOPUS doesn't let up for a minute--it keeps assaulting us with undiluted stupid during its entire running time.  That's a claim some of this year's Best Picture nominees can't even make.

SHARKTOPUS -- DVD review by porfle

MEGA PYTHON VS. GATOROID -- DVD review by porfle

Originally posted on 6/17/11

 

Usually, a combination of the phrases "SyFy Original Movie" and "giant bad-CGI monsters" is enough to give me a severe case of the heebie-jeebies.  Especially if the movie they're referring to has a really dumb title.  Well, unbelievably enough, MEGA PYTHON VS. GATOROID (2011) is the rollicking, rip-roaring, and divinely ridiculous exception to that rule.   

The highlight is a blood-curdling death duel between two of the most horrifying monsters to ever walk the face of the earth.  I'm referring, of course, to 80s teen queens Tiffany and Debbie Gibson.  Debbie, who's gotten a bit wiry in her middle years but is still cute, plays eco-terrorist Nikki with loads of energy.  Tiffany, on the other hand, has filled out considerably since her younger days and, as Seminole State Park Chief Ranger Terry, marks off a few boxes on my fetish checklist with her generous figure, skimpy uniform, and sidearm.  (Sorry if that's too much information.)

When Nikki and her cohorts break into a lab and let loose a bunch of mutant pythons, they grow to gigantic proportions and start eating all the alligators, throwing the local gator hunters out of work.  This is fine with Nikki because she believes pythons belong at the top of the food chain, even if some of the lower links consist of bumbling park rangers, ill-fated fiancés, and comical rednecks.
 


Terry, meanwhile, has the bright idea of loading up a bunch of dead chickens with super-steroids and feeding them to the gators, thus bringing nature into balance again.  ("What's crazy about this--feeding steroids to gators?" she asks her partner, Angie.  "I mean, what could go wrong?")  The result is a horde of colossal alligator-monsters that feast on anything that moves.  Naturally, the pythons start eating their steroid-enhanced eggs and get even bigger, leading to mega-python vs. gatoroid pandemonium throughout the Everglades and eventually in the very streets of downtown Miami. 

Surprisingly, Roger Corman's name doesn't show up anywhere in the credits for this freaky flick.  Horror veteran Mary Lambert (PET SEMETARY, THE ATTIC) directs with a sure hand and keeps things moving at such a rapid clip that the story never has a chance to get boring.  The creature attacks are exciting, suspenseful, over the top, and even a bit nerve-wracking at times, despite the lighthearted tone and resolutely fake-looking CGI.




Willfully cheesy, this movie is positively frothy with deadpan comedy and campy dialogue.  Tiffany and Debbie get off to a good hostile start, nearly sideswiping each other on the road and growling "Bitch!" in unison.  Their environmentalist wacko vs. park ranger animosity is stoked throughout the film ("Looks like somebody had 'bitch' for breakfast!" Debbie taunts during their initial clash), building to the eventual catfight that pays off like a slot machine of fun.  When these legendary rivals go flying over a table during the fancy outdoor ball that Tiffany's throwing to raise money for the park, you can bet all those whipped cream-laden pies aren't just sitting there by accident. 

Another old fave, A Martinez (THE COWBOYS), plays Diego, a scientist who tries to convince the oblivious Terry that her park is becoming a human buffet for ravenous reptiles.  His skills as a pilot and demolitions expert will come in handy during the story's frantic climax, as Terry and Nikki join him in trying to lure the rampaging beasts out of the city and into a dynamite-laden deathtrap.  As Terry's elderly partner Angie, Kathryn Joosten has some of the best lines and delivers them with an exquisitely dry wit.  Ex-Monkee Micky Dolenz shows up at the fund-raising ball, upping the film's nostalgia value even more.



The DVD from Image Entertainment is in 1.78:1 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 surround sound.  No subtitles.  Extras consist of the film's trailer and a making-of featurette. 

Now, please don't take all of my giddy ravings as an indication that MEGA PYTHON VS. GATOROID is some kind of a great movie, because it isn't, of course.  But compared to all the other goofy "hybrid-creature" SyFy Channel flicks of its ilk that I've sat through recently, it's freaking CITIZEN KANE. 


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MEGA PYTHON VS. GATOROID -- DVD review by porfle