del Toro has long been a favorite director, so I thought it was time to go back and visit Mimic. The film has a bit of a sordid past, not the least of which is Weinstein’s involvement, who clashed constantly with del Toro. The director swore off the film, but was finally able to give…
Tag: monster movie
Underwater (2020) – William Eubank
Borrowing (very, Very, VERY) heavily both visually and story-wise from Alien (without the 70s cinema verite nods to overlapping dialogue) as well as having nods to The Abyss, Leviathan, DeepStar Six and even Lovecraft, Twentieth Century Fox invites you into the depths with its new release, Underwater. Kristen Stewart starts as Norah, a mechanical engineer…
Crawl (2019) – Blu-Ray Review
If your jonesing for a monster movie fix before heading out to Toronto After Dark this week, Paramount Canada has you covered with the creature feature thrill ride, Crawl. Running at a brisk 87 minutes, the film puts you in ht jaws of the beast, as what sounds like a very plausible horror (?) story…
The Meg (2018) – Blu-Ray Review
Going into this movie, I was reminded of a piece of dialogue from Back to the Future Part II – “Shark still looks fake.” But that doesn’t really hold Warner Brothers’ The Meg, which releases today on blu-ray and DVD from being a silly bit of cinematic confection. A Chinese-American co-pro, shot largely in New…
Rampage (2018) – Blu-Ray Review
Rampage, adapted from the video game from 1986, hits blu-ray today from Warner Brothers. Video game adaptions, as people know don’t always work so well. I for one though was quite happy to give this one a fair shake for two reasons, Dwayne Johnson and Weta Workshop. That being said there are things that I…
The Shape of Water (2017) – Guillermo del Toro
del Toro’s latest film, The Shape of Water is very much a fairy tale for adults, as well as sharing a kinship with the horror films of the 1950s, specifically, 1954’s The Creature From the Black Lagoon (as well as to Abe Sapien as seen in del Toro’s own Hellboy series). But in this film,…
Alien: Covenant (2017) – Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott returns to the science fiction genre again and retreads things that have gone before in Alien: Covenant. The latest film in the seemingly indefatigable series connects the previous film, the divisive Prometheus with the first film in the series, 1979 Alien, both directed by Scott. And while I didn’t hate it, the film…
The Relic (1997) – Peter Hyams
This one should have been a sure fire winner, a bestselling book, a family strong cast including Penelope Ann Miller and Tom Sizemore and a fun creature feature story, featuring work by Stan Winston and his team – so what went wrong? The Relic is my next stop in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book, as I…
Tremors (1990) – Ron Underwood
The work of producer Gale Anne Hurd is my next port of call in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book, I’ve previously covered her work with James Cameron, so that left some of her other films to take a look at, and I loved that I got to start with Tremors. This fun, creature feature that hearkens…
Spring (2014) – Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead
Available today from Anchor Bay is this unique film from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, their follow-up to the delightfully mind-bending Resolution. Available on DVD and Blu-Ray this is a gentle, and beautifully filmed concoction that marries the romance film with the monster movie. At the story’s heart is Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), whose…
The Mind Reels 