Eight Legged Freaks: The best radioactive bug attack movie ever!

Click to enlarge Creepy, crawly, radioactive fun!

With Halloween approaching, it is my duty to remind you to keep the fun apace with the frightful for those movie marathons countless of us will indulge in. I can appreciate a good scare, but I need a good laugh along with it, because after all, I am The Queen Of Cheese. I need giggles. I need cheese. I need plots lifted from old black and white sci-fi thrillers that were funny mostly because they were so cornball bad. I need Eight Legged Freaks, and so do you.

We have the small, isolated town of Prosperity where the most popular jock tries to get in the pants of the lady sheriff's hot daughter, young kids ride their bikes everywhere without much concern from their parents, local kooks collect spiders, and trucks drive through with radioactive waste. There's also a mayor trying to revitalize the town after the mining has died by building an eyesore of a mall with the theory that people will just gravitate towards it like a moth to a flame. Reenter the long lost son of one of the mine workers who left over a girl (naturally), who is now the hot lady sheriff. We get painful attempts at him romancing her, lots of scenes with the young son trying to warn the town that spiders are coming to get them, all punctuated by the mildly delusional narrations of the town's only apparent radio broadcaster.

The plot isn't important, and the writers knew it. Instead they focus on the colorful characters populating the town (and soon the cocoons of one ton spiders). They also pay a lighthearted tribute to small town life against the backdrop of wonderfully CGI-ed spiders leaping through the air, skittering after their prey, lunging from trapdoors in the sand, or just lumbering through main street because they're the big bad tarantula that can. The fact the spiders occasionally roar like a lion, mutter obscenities, and giggle fiendishly is all just icing on the cake.

Even if you're afraid of spiders, you need to give this movie a chance. David Arquette (Scream) fits perfectly in his "lovable loser trying to win the girl of his dreams that he lost by punching out her jerk of a boyfriend back in high school and that's why he left without a word and now has a lot of explaining to do" character. His aunt Gladys is divinely played by Eileen Ryan, right down to the cigarette habit that helps save the day. Kari Wuhrer is recovering from Sliders by playing a tough, beautiful, believably intelligent lady raising her two precocious kids single handed, while juggling her career as sheriff. Her eldest daughter is a barely recognizable Scarlett Johansson (before the bleach blond hair and what I think is some cosmetic work) who does a good job being a snotty teenager who still loves her mom, no matter how much she resents still living in this little town. Scott Terra is the little brother obsessed with sci fi movies, and who naturally no one believes because he's a kid who's obsessed with sci fi movies. Rounding out the main characters is Harlan, our conspiracy theory radio broadcaster, played by Doug E. Doug.

Whoever did the casting on this film did it with care and made sure the chemistry fit. This wasn't designed to be a blockbuster, by any means (especially since it was up against Spiderman of all things), so they didn't try to get a "name" to sell it. As a result the large cast all meshed together to form a believable community of small town folk just trying to jab a pitchfork in the belly of that spider trying to get in through the mall door.

The graphics on the spiders are a huge selling point for me, as well as the acting and the writing. Someone did a lot of research to get the variety of spiders right, and tended to the project with the love it deserves. Little things like spraying perfume at a giant spider demands that you see the mandibles frantically waving the offending scent away, or else why bother?

Eight Legged Freaks is one of my 'go to' movies when I need a good laugh. The fact this movie embraces the cheese and giggle factor make me love it all the more. I have pushed this on to friends and coworkers to initiate them into the world of cheese with good results. I now insist those of you who have not experienced this wonderfully cheesy movie treat yourselves now that the Halloween sales are on! For those who already know and love this movie, do as I will, and pull out your copy for a Halloween (or any time) viewing, and giggle away!

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: Yes, it's as bad as the name would have you believe!

Giggles galore!

As soon as I saw the title Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, I knew this movie was meant for me. I laughed my way through the wooden acting, and the frugally dispersed CGI of a cool looking Mega Shark and Giant Octopus. I even went so far as to watch the "special features", and those were even funnier. The "outtakes" give one actor about five minutes more screen time than the two minutes he actually had, because he couldn't get one of his three lines right. Listening to the four main actors discuss the movie is almost painful to endure. They try to talk it up, but look in their eyes. They're dying inside as they do so. Three of the four don't even get enough courtesy to have their interview conducted inside a nice, quiet room where you can even hear them. But that's okay. For Debra Gibson's segment I was too distracted by the guy working behind her who kept showing butt crack every time he bent over. The funniest extra was the short clip with the "cinematographer", especially as he tries to get the poor camera person to help him demonstrate a cheap, but effective, technique to mimic a submarine being thrashed around.

But the special features weren't what drew me in. It was the ridiculous plot, passable (I'm being generous) acting, and whiplash-inducing blips of CGI. C'mon, people, a giant shark takes out a passenger jet in mid-air! And attacks the Golden Gate Bridge! Show me that in the previews and you know I'm going to be salivating to watch the rest of what passes for the movie.

Sadly the previews give away the best parts, but this is such a train wreck I will be buying myself a copy when I see it cheap enough. $19.99 definitely is not cheap enough, but get down to the $7.99 range, and I'll be reminding people about it at Xmas time.

So what's all the hub bub about? Debra Gibson is an ocean scientist who is exploring underwater. She notices whales going nuts and crashing themselves into icebergs. This in turn knocks away enough ice for her to catch a glimpse of two prehistoric creatures locked in mortal combat, just before they come back to life and zip away into the murky depths. Giant sized incidents occur around the globe, including an attack on an oil rig, and our fun little plane munch. Governments naturally get involved, and our lovely scientist finds herself caught up in it, along with her former professor, and a forced love interest in the guise of a fellow scientist from Japan. After some lame science, an even lamer excuse for the main characters to have sex, and an even lamer resulting hypothesis about pheromones as a result of that sex, we're off on a monster hunt.

Really, don't bother trying to figure out the plot. It's the same old stuff with government conspiracies, scientists saving the day, and narrow escapes thrown in. This is a low budget (comparatively) movie, and it shows in the small cast and limited sets. I'm actually pretty impressed with how much bang for their buck Asylum gets for their bad movies, and don't mind how much they recycle things between them. I'm watching for giggle factor and cheese, and Asylum delivers at least one time out of five.

For the beleaguered cast I have to give props for at least having fun with the movie. Yes, in their little interviews they may be taking it a little too seriously, but at least that didn't filter too much into the actual movie. There's a lot of tongue in cheek delivery of lines, and I get the feeling that they were trying not to roll their eyes as they said most of them. Debra Gibson isn't the best little actress in the world, but she's definitely not as bad as some I've seen. She holds her own against poor bastard Lorenzo Lamas, who sounded like he really wanted them to kill off his character so he wouldn't have to risk a sequel. Her professor, played by Sean Lawlor, is the believable mentor. The love interest, played by Vic Chao, plays his role a little too "this will get me an Oscar, right?", but he's still very likable, and has decent chemistry with Gibson.

All in all, Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus is a giant waste of time. However, it's a funny-groaningly-bad-leave-you-giggling-and-feeling-slightly-guilty-about-finding-it-so-funny, giant waste of time. And for the Queen Of Cheese, that's good enough!

Blue Demon: The most terrifying floating plastic triangles you'll ever see!

Look out! It

Blue Demon is yet another entry into the "demonized shark" movie category. A secret lab funded by the government is researching ways to control sharks to do their bidding. The scientists believe they are doing work to benefit mankind, but unbeknownst to them the government has other plans. Plus, there's someone hijacking their project with deadly results. dun, dun, dun, dun!

That's about as serious as the movie gets, and I was so very happy to sit and waste an hour and a half of my time on it. It has a lot of goofy extras to it to provide much needed humor, and doesn't go for the gore factor. This is a funny, good time movie with a decent cast to back it up.

I've made it clear that I think Dedee Pfeiffer is very difficult to tolerate onscreen for more than a few minutes at a time. She's twitchy. She's fidgety. I think they keep messing with her dosage. But in the very cheesy, gloriously ludicrous Blue Demon, she fits wonderfully! Her cutesy act isn't nauseating. Her overly-caffeinated persona makes sense as a quirky scientist who's just a bit too smart to speak with us 'regular people', let alone have more than basic social skills. Plus, she's balanced out very nicely by her co-star, Randall Batinkoff, who plays her long suffering, potentially ex-husband. He's the anchor that lets your eyes focus while she vibrates and hums herself practically into another dimension.

The rest of the cast all fit this odd little movie just perfectly. We have Josh Hammond playing a weird little lab assistant named Avery that you keep expecting to start talking about surfing, but plays with the computers instead. There's also Danny Woodburn who plays the uptight, possibly corrupt, boss to our lab gurus, Lawrence Van Allen. He easily steals every scene he is in, and it's not because he can't help but stand out because he's so much shorter. He's got remarkable screen presence, and makes his character the most believable of the lot as he yanks food out of their hands because they're not paying attention to him, and alternates between making the lab gurus lives hell, and needing an antacid to deal with them.

Then there's our big, bad, evil military character, played by Jeff Fahey. He plays a character named, of all things, General Remora. Right there you know for a fact this movie is not taking itself seriously, which is why I love it so morbidly. Jeff Fahey plays it to the hilt, clenching cigars, spitting out orders, seething with righteous indignation when he's questioned. He's out to create a military weapon, gosh darn it, not out for a day at the beach!

But the cast is just the icing on the cake of Blue Demon. The "short bus" special effects are a riot, and almost painfully bad. I swear to god the shark fins in the water scenes are just waterproof cardboard cutouts painted black and on the slowest motor they could find. When people are frantically trying to get out of their way, I checked my watch several times just to make sure I hadn't fallen into some kind of slow moving time warp. In all of those scenes I could have gotten up and microwaved another bag of popcorn and not missed a thing.

The little bit of CGI they went for is actually pretty good. They give the sharks expressions, and have them zip back and forth (not unlike the frenetic pace of Ms. Pfeiffer). Yes, it's so obviously blue screen out of the water it's laughable, but it just adds to the cheese factor, so I forgive.

If you're tired of shark movies that flash way too much chomped flesh at you, Blue Demon will be a pleasant respite. If you're also tired of movies taking themselves too seriously, especially when they should know better, this will be a breath of fresh air. And if you've been given a headache trying to keep up with Dedee in other movies, I think you'll be as shocked as I was at how tolerable, and even likable, she is in Blue Demon.

With Discovery Channel airing Shark Week, Blue Demon should be on your watch list to help get over all that darn reality and education they insist on adding to their quest for ratings. It also has the added bonus of plenty of giggle factor! This is a Queen Of Cheese "must see", or at least "must watch once, and wonder what the heck is wrong with that Queen Of Cheese to think this is watchable...". Enjoy!

Meteor: Sean Connery battles Karl Malden, The Russians, Politics, & A Five Mile Wide Rock

Cheesy effects and great actors. What a combo!

Sweet, mad as a hatter Sean Connery is the only reason I sat down to watch the classic train wreck that is Meteor. Already old enough to feel he needed to wear a toupee, but still exuding that Connery charisma, he holds his own against other stellar actors who got suckered into this thing.

Meteor was plagued by all sorts of problems, mostly due to the folks behind it having grandiose dreams of a blockbuster, but not enough resources or people skills to pull it all together. Sadly for them, this was a flop back in 1979, but for the Queen Of Cheese sitting down to watch it finally in 2009, I loved it.

Meteor has all the elements that make a great B-movie disaster/science fiction flick. We have astronauts all the way out in a spaceship near Jupiter and Saturn. We get to see them converse with space command back on Earth, with absolutely no delay. Spiffy technology since there's at least a few seconds delay just between Earth's orbit and the ground! The acting aboard the space craft as a deadly meteor heads their way is awesome, too, especially with the cheesy lighting effects to simulate combustion. We get more questionable science as a comet zips through an asteroid belt and drags some big rocks with it, and one at least five miles wide ends up on a direct course with Earth, along with some baby meteors just big enough to cause lots and lots of damage, including destroying a ski resort, causing a tidal wave, and other general mayhem.

Even more ludicrous is the science behind how the meteor is going to be stopped. The U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. both have secret, illegal space weapons with nuclear missiles, originally pointed at each other. The plan is to cut through some political b.s., provide some political posturing, but ultimately aim those missiles at the meteor instead, coordinate a launch that will divert the giant mass away from the planet, yet not just break it up into smaller, just as deadly pieces that will hit us anyway.

Really, it's not the bad science or laughable attempts at a political or military drama that will keep you watching this thing. It's the heavy, ominous music that sounds every time the meteor is seen rolling slowly, inexorably on it's path of doom. It's the long, drawn out sequences as the missiles are readied for launch, again with overbearing, giggle inducing music throbbing away, making sure we know this is a serious moment we should all take pride in as citizens of the Earth. Or something.

The acting of the main cast is definitely more than this film deserved. Sean Connery is the bitter scientist sucked back in to save the day. Karl Malden is his friend and liaison who does his best to stand between him and the paranoid military man played by Martin Landau. Brian Keith plays a very convincing native Russian scientist, delivering his lines in an accent that makes you forget all about that diabetes-inducing show, Family Affair. Natalie Wood is beautiful and smart as his English translator, and Sean Connery's tepid love interest. Henry Fonda takes a brief turn at being President of the United States, naturally being more noble of character than any real politician would be under those circumstances. The tons of secondary characters are all top notch, adding alternate touches of humor and melodrama. Even some of the silent, just in the background characters are a riot, including a duo of ladies in a caved-in subway scene who are doing their nails with looks of ultimate boredom as they await rescue.

There have been lots of disaster movies before Meteor and tons after, and arguably Meteor is not well done. However, there's a certain charm to it with it's over the top music, above average acting, and laughable premise of how the world would be saved from a crisis like this, not to mention the overtly phallic symbolism in all those nuclear rockets (which the movie lingers on for several minutes longer than necessary to simply say it's 'dramatic'). It's got the 70's hair, the 70's wardrobe, the 70's attitude about politics, the military, and science, and an awkward, unrequited romance between a young Russian translator and an 'old enough to be her grandfather' American scientist. It all adds up for a popcorn-munching couple of hours. In the end, if the looming meteor rolling towards you doesn't make you giggle a bit, you're not watching this for any of the right reasons!

Star Runners: A waste of a good "Heroes" actor

Gather round! You can watch your career nosedive with this flick!

I wanted to love Star Runners. It has a lot of potential to be a wonderful, riotous good time. It obviously took its inspiration from Firefly/Serenity, Starship Troopers, and even a little The Fifth Element. Problem is it didn't run with the blatant ripoffs, and tried to pretend it had an original idea. That only works when you have an original idea. When someone can point at the screen and dissect the movie into categories based on what film it was ripping off, you don't have an original idea.

What frustrates the holy heck out of me is Star Runners could still have been saved. If they'd embraced the cheese factor (which was evident in the movies that obviously inspired it) and went for laughs, I would have been a happy camper. Instead the writers got all serious with political intrigue and character self-sacrifices and genocidal atrocities. Even that would have been alright if they'd not taken so much time to setup this up as a 'buddy' movie, promising a rollicking good time as the main characters get captured by the government, and then sent on a covert mission to retrieve a mysterious crate. Naturally they open the crate to find a frozen, naked, woman inside who wakes up with no memory. We've been introduced to a couple of interesting secondary characters in the middle of a space bar that is blatantly a pale ripoff of Star Wars' Mos Eisley. We should be in for a ton of fun as the trio of characters make a run for it.

Nope. It gets all serious after that with just a few one liners here and there to break up the monotony. And it is monotonous. We get a space pursuit through a wormhole into uncharted space, a crash landing, tiresome arguments among the survivors, a mysterious abandoned base that the survivors realize was populated by their kind, and then bugs. Lots of giant bugs. While interesting on the surface, as the movie progresses it's all 'by the numbers' and I kept checking how much time was left in the movie.

One thing that wasn't wrong with this movie was the acting talent. We have Connor Trinneer playing the would-be swashbuckling captain, Ty. He waffles between playing by the rules, breaking them as is convenient. He's charming and likable, which is good since he's the main character. Then we get a horribly wasted James Kyson Lee from Heroes fame. He's the sidekick, basically, and is portrayed as a smart guy, but with a few gaps in the common sense area. He's the funny guy who points out the obvious. There's also relative newcomers, Aja Evans and Toni Trucks. Aja Evans plays the tough girl who is stuck with our wayward gaggle of people after they crash land. She has more to her than meets the eye, and when we learn her real role, it's one of the few interesting twists in the whole affair. Toni Trucks plays the 'Leeloo'/'River' sort of character, the gal who was frozen, wakes up with no memory, but oh, she's really special, and not just because our heroes see her naked. Toni does alright with this character, but a better actress could have made her shine despite this script. The rest of the supporting cast at least add positives to this mess, but it's just not enough to save it for me. Not even my favorite bit actor, Todd Jensen, lifted my spirits enough to say 'Well, maybe it's not that bad...', because, well, it was that bad.

For a throwaway movie this is at least watchable, especially if you go into it knowing it's going to be a mish mosh of other movies you've watched, and probably loved. But when it's all over, you're going to feel a strong urge to watch some quality sci fi, maybe pulling out Star Wars or even Spaceballs, because Star Runners is a train wreck that will linger in your consciousness, and make you doubt that good sci fi ever existed.