All posts by Rod Lott

Horror

Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002)

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sharkattack3Without question, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is the funniest of the trilogy. Shark Attack 2 director David Worth returns, this time shifting the action from South America to Mexico (although, strangely, 95 percent of the names in the credits are Eastern European).

In this unrelated installment, a resort security patrolman (John Barrowman, TV’s Torchwood) and a natural history museum researcher (Jennifer McShane, playing a different character than she did in 1999’s original Shark Attack, yet still looking as if her plastic surgeon beat her cheeks with a ball-peen hammer) team up to rid the Mexican shores of a (fictional) Megalodon shark and its 60-foot mother. The sharks, which growl, change shape constantly, depending on whether you’re seeing live-action footage, noticeably grainier stock footage or cheap CGI.

sharkattack31You get to see a guy get an arm and a leg bit off, as well as a shark swallowing a boat or two whole. There’s a drunk couple who waterslides right into the shark’s mouth, and that would’ve been the best scene, if not for the one where Barrowman hits the shark repeatedly with a baseball bat. Or the skinny-dipping duo that nearly becomes lunch while screwing underwater. Or when the evil communications mogul Jet Skis directly into the belly of the beast. Or when said mogul’s partner-in-slime steals a life jacket from his own girlfriend and jumps from a boat right into Meg’s open jaws. That was pretty cool.

I’ve never experienced a Kirk Cameron vehicle, so this is the only movie I’ve ever seen where the protagonists pray in church before the final showdown. While the sentiment is appreciated, its awkward uniqueness just makes the movie goofier. This is also the only movie I’ve ever seen where the male lead is able to coax his female counterpart into bed with the misogynist (and now-famous) line, “What do you say I take you home and eat your pussy?” But again, I admit to my deficiency of the Kirk Cameron filmography.

And speaking of quips, before blowing the smaller shark to smithereens, McShane says, “You’re extinct, motherfucker!,” but the final shot predictably screams Shark Attack 4 (supposedly made as 2003’s Shark Zone). Just before that, having bested the oversized creature with a torpedo and a mini-sub, Barrowman gets all cocky: “Megalo-who?” he asks with a smile … but, sigh, not with a wink. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Antiviral (2012)

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antiviralWith Antiviral, Brandon Cronenberg — spawn of David — makes his feature-film debut as both writer and director. The result? Well, like father, like son! That’s only a bad thing if Papa Cronenberg’s works of body horror give you the Shivers.

In a near-future world where celebrity obsession has grown to become unhealthy in the literal sense, The Lucas Clinic makes a mint by bringing its patients closer to their paparazzi-chased idols. For big bucks, its reps inject clients with viruses taken directly from the celebs. That way, you, too, not only can contract herpes simplex like the gorgeous Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon, Cosmopolis), but get it as if she gave it to you herself! Swoon!

antiviral1It is the job of clinic rep Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones, The Last Exorcism) to administer these injections (the needles penetrating flesh shown in unflinching close-ups, of course). So lucrative is his gig that he dabbles in freelance, swiping inventory to sell on the black market, including to a butcher shop that grows meat from the stars’ muscle cells. March is good as what he does; unfortunately, he becomes the victim of his own sales pitch.

To that end, Jones’ appearance as a pale, emaciated Macaulay Culkin benefits the movie as his body deteriorates, in some of the gnarliest-looking ways imaginable. No doubt Dad is proud of Brandon keeping the family business going. In terms of a debut, Antiviral is more accomplished and assured than his father’s, yet it wouldn’t exist had the elder Cronenberg not spent the majority of his career exploring the ways in which our organs revolt (in both meanings of the word) against us, played out and splayed out against a sterile backdrop.

Antiviral becomes less aggressive in its second half — call it the Malcolm McDowell Effect — but at least it’s about something. —Rod Lott

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Comedy

Modern Vampires (1998)

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modernvampiresRules of garlic and sunlight rules still apply, but Modern Vampires, from Forbidden Zone director Richard Elfman, is an unconventional vampire film, both fresh and funny.

Here, the bloodsuckers take residence in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel and visit a nightclub where humans are kept in cages until feeding time. Looking like he finally comprehends the words in a script, Starship Troopers‘ Casper Van Dien stars as Dallas, a cigar-smoking vampire who takes a trailer-trash vamp (Natasha Gregson Wagner, Urban Legend) under his, um, wing.

modernvampires1But the subplot is what really makes this comedy fly: Vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing (a crazed Rod Steiger, Mars Attacks!) comes to L.A. and is forced to take out an ad to find an assistant. The only applicant is gang member Time Bomb (Gabriel Casseus, Black Dog), a Crip who is at first reluctant to complete the duties of his job: namely, driving a stake through a vampire’s heart. “Man, I’m on probation!” he protests. “I don’t wanna fuck that up!”

Count Dracula himself is played by Robert Pastorelli (TV’s Murphy Brown), while other creatures of the night are Udo Kier and Kim Cattrall. Yep, she’s slutty in this one, too, and when she’s raped by gang members, they turn into the world’s first black vampires — a distinction of which they’re awfully proud. This humorous take on the vampire legend was written by the talented Matthew Bright, who infused equal amounts of humor and horror into his wicked Little Red Riding Hood update, 1996’s Freeway. —Rod Lott

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Action

Malibu Express (1985)

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malibuexpressAs the first to arrive in Andy Sidaris’ dirty dozen of independently produced films, Malibu Express stands as one of his most entertaining works, beginning right with the opening credits, typed directly onto a Commodore 64-esque computer monitor by some woman with extra-long fingernails and who licks her lips suggestively. The next 90 minutes are like the best-ever Magnum P.I. episode, but with the added value of bare breasts.

Darby Hinton (Firecracker) stars as Cody Abilene, a rock-dumb, affable private investigator who’s a poor shot with his gun, but a bullseye with the ladies. I can’t even begin to tell you what the convoluted plot is all about, but I can tell you it involves all of the following:
• a shapely race car driver named June Khnockers (Lynda Wiesmeier, Avenging Angel), who gets horny at 180 mph;
• a drag queen who performs at a club called the Screaming Cockatoo;
• a ditzy housekeeper named Maid Marian (Robyn Hilton, Blazing Saddles);
malibuexpress1• a trio of thugs christened with the biblical monikers of Matthew, Mark and Luke;
• cornpone Hee Haw humor;
• horrible country music that makes the series’ later Cynthia Brimhall pop ballads seem like Andrew Lloyd Webber by comparison;
• heavy doses of blackmail and murder;
• heavier doses of good ol’ T&A;
• a not-like-Hitchcock cameo by Sidaris himself;
• and a special appearance by Regis and Joy Philbin, playing themselves!

Howling II‘s Sybil Danning has an all-too-brief nude scene as a European contessa whose costumes barely conceal her shapely bosoms, and Playboy Playmates Kimberly McArthur and Barbara Edwards make equally eye-popping appearances — the latter serving coffee while topless to Cody. (Note to self: Start drinking coffee.) —Rod Lott

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Horror

Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981)

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piranhaIIPerhaps James Cameron shouldn’t be so quick to disown Piranha Part Two: The Spawning, his directorial debut, because with the exception of all things technical, it’s better than Avatar. Oh, it’s super-cheesy, all right, but so was Avatar with its blue cat-people and their sex tails and Leona Lewis ballads.

Related only in name to the Roger Corman-produced, Joe Dante-directed Piranha of three years prior, this Italian-financed, Jamaican-shot sequel takes place at the Caribbean island resort Club Elysium. Former marine biologist Anne Kimbrough (Tricia O’Neil, The Gumball Rally) lives and works there as a diving instructor, taking hotel guests down into the deep blue sea. Making her job difficult, if not endangered, is the sudden appearance of the title’s school of killer fish.

piranhaII1Its mistakes number into the double digits, but where Piranha Part Two errs primarily is in failing to include what made the original flick work: self-parody, not to mention humor in general. As if to compensate, Cameron’s sequel takes a page from innovations in feminine hygiene products and fits his fish with wings. This mutant breed of piranha flies. While in flight, they tweet like canaries. This makes the attack scenes sillier than usual, whether the toothy swimmers are making lunch meat out of a morgue nurse, two sailing Penthouse Pets or any of the guests engaged in some stupid beach ritual that requires them to carry torches as they walk toward the shoreline and chant, “We want fish! We want fish! We want fish!”

They get fish. In the face.

Practically matching the kills scene for scene are instances of T&A, beginning with the scuba-sex prologue. Nudity is fairly rare in Cameron’s world, and never this gratuitous, but even if Lance Henriksen weren’t onboard playing a boat-driving police chief, you can draw a direct line from several Piranha Part Two shots to Cameron’s The Abyss, Titanic and Aliens. —Rod Lott

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