Given Area 51’s title and creative pedigree, there’s no question of if aliens will be seen, but how long, and will the wait be merited? The short answer is “no,” which you might have guessed to judge from the film’s six-year sit on the Paramount Pictures shelf. The sci-fi/horror hybrid marks one of the more significant sophomore slumps for a 21st-century director — in this case, Oren Peli, creator of the record-shattering smash Paranormal Activity. Even with audience expectations calibrated to realistic levels, Area 51 emerges as a close encounter of the worst kind.

The movie finds Peli again toiling in found footage (whose second wave he ushered in with his 2007 from-nowhere debut), as an otherwise seemingly intelligent young man named Reid (unknown Reid Warner) ropes in his two best buds to embark on a ridiculous quest to break into Nevada’s titular U.S. Air Force base, long rumored to house proof of extraterrestrial life. Exercising an unhealthy obsession with UFOs and their related government conspiracies, Reid is the kind of anomalistic kid who earns straight As in school, yet treats The X-Files as something of a documentary.

Peli does his follow-up film no favors by telling us right away that Reid has vanished; we guess his fate (correctly, because it’s the most obvious choice) nearly 90 minutes before Area 51 gets around to it — and with some laughably bad CGI effects that ruin any illusion of the subgenre’s authenticity. As in the creditless Paranormal Activity, Peli painstakingly goes for that facade, which is the only legitimate reason we’d willingly watch so much of a movie through the limited, circular frame of night-vision goggles.

The main reason Paranormal clicked, I think, is because Peli really dug into our universal vulnerability while in a state of sleep; even if you found them annoying, Katie and Micah could have been you or I. Area 51 has no such relatability; it clicks only when you turn it off. Its measure as a disappointment cannot be overstated, as the project not at all boldly goes where every alien-conspiracy picture (and TV series) has gone before. —Rod Lott

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Escape 2000 may be the “cooler” title, but Turkey Shoot is the most apt. This Thanksgiving, let’s give thanks this bird exists, no matter the moniker. It is one insane Aussie exploitation export.

In the near future — well, 1982’s idea of such — democracy is, like the careers of this film’s leads, a thing of the past. Any people “The Society” deems as being among “malcontents or deviants” (read: freethinkers) are thrown against their will into a concentration camp for “re-education and behavior modification” tantamount to torture.

One of these tight-ship facilities — Camp 47, to be precise — is where Paul (Steve Railsback, The Stunt Man) and Chris (Olivia Hussey, Stephen King’s It) find themselves dumped so unceremoniously at Turkey Shoot’s start. The place is lorded over by the unsubtly named Thatcher (Michael Craig, Mysterious Island), who relishes the chance to espouse Camp 47’s credo: “Freedom is obedience; obedience is work; work is life.” And life here is short!

Catching me off-guard (no pun intended), the movie undergoes quite a change at its midpoint; not unlike a caterpillar emerging from its butt-spun cocoon as a butterfly, Turkey Shoot becomes a The Most Dangerous Game redo, now with a special blend of Australian seasoning. Paul and Chris are part of a tiny group of campers chosen to take part in a “hunt,” with them being chased by Camp 47 guards and their rich, equally well-armed Society friends. Thatcher gives them a three-hour head start and a promise: Survive until sundown and freedom is theirs.

Then director Brian Trenchard-Smith (Leprechaun 3 and Leprechaun 4: In Space) makes things get weird.

For one thing, the Camp 47 hunters bring in a ringer: a hirsute, wolf-eared circus freak who eats human toes. He/it looks like something mail-ordered direct from The Island of Dr. Moreau. For another thing … hell, with that, who needs additional incentive? Not for nothing did Mark Hartley devote a significant amount of his 2008 Ozploitation documentary, Not Quite Hollywood, to fete Trenchard-Smith’s Turkey; it’s intentionally and outrageously over-the-top in its violence, yet too campy to approach being labeled nihilistic. As one of the snooty hunters quips correctly, “Beats the hell out of network television.” —Rod Lott

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Alien vs. Predator comes off as high art next to the monster mash-up Lake Placid vs. Anaconda, a melding of two franchises I’d bet the average moviegoer doesn’t realize were franchises; with the exception of the 2004 flop Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, all six sequels bypassed theaters. That includes this one, the not-so-fab fifth chapter for each.

Its setup is highly labored, with a scientist delivering much fact-filled exposition in a valiant attempt at justifying the flick’s joint meeting of creature features. But really, all you need to know are these three sentences:
1. There’s a giant crocodile.
2. There’s a giant anaconda.
3. They get loose.

Representing Team Placid is feisty Sheriff Reba (Witchblade’s Yancy Butler, from 2010’s Lake Placid 3 and 2012’s Lake Placid: The Final Chapter, which obviously flat-out lied). To combat the critters run amok here, she joins forces with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warden (Corin Nemec, Mansquito) and, reluctantly, an opportunistic local guide (Robert Englund, ditching his Freddy Krueger gloves for an eyepatch and peg leg to reprise his Final Chapter role) who knows his way around the woods.

As luck would have it (for any teen boys watching, that is), Delta Phi Beta sorority girls specializing in vocal fry and petty bitchiness are on hand to haze pledges at the beach where the croc and snake lurk. You will root for the species other than human. Mmm-mmm, snacks!

First-time director A.B. Stone (*sniff sniff* — I smell pseudonym) and screenwriter Berkeley Anderson (Robocroc, and I swear that’s real) play the lax proceedings for a big joke, perhaps hoping to latch onto this country’s inexplicable love for all things Sharknado. Like those movies, the gags aren’t funny. The only laughs Lake Placid vs. Anaconda earns are not the ones it intended, as the CGI effects are third-rate on a scale with only two levels. Neither the anaconda nor the Lake Placid crocodile looks any better than what free iPhone apps can create, and your time is better served playing around with those. —Rod Lott

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Ed Wood didn’t direct The Bride and the Beast; he “only” wrote it. One really can’t tell the difference, as the film is stamped with the Plan 9 auteur’s brand of incompetence all around.

The bride of the title is Laura (Charlotte Austin, Gorilla at Large), newly married to Dan (Lance Fuller, This Island Earth). However, her hubby is not the beast … but he does keep it caged in his basement! And by “it,” we mean his gorilla. (Yes, gorilla.) It is named Spanky. (Yes, Spanky.)

Captured as a baby, the now fully grown Spanky is due to be shipped to the zoo in a week’s time. Wasting no precious moments, the big ape goes so agog at the sight of lovely Laura, he bends the bars of his cage! The fascination is mutual, as Laura — sleeping in her twin bed, separate from Dan — dreams of having her nightgown ripped off by Spanky. Even awake, she can’t quite contain her obsession, which stems — as hypnosis reveals — from the suppressed fact that she used to be gorilla herself in a previous life.

Ah, but of course! The way it’s written, it makes perfect sense … if your name were Ed Wood. The way it plays out onscreen, guided by The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand serial producer Adrian Weiss in his only feature gig as director, it makes zero sense, which is the only reason The Bride and the Beast didn’t disappear into mere memories. The pic is Woodsian through and through, as exemplified by:
• obvious day-for-night shots, made all the more jarring by a storm that’s supposed to be taking place;
• a variety of mismatched stock footage for the second half’s jungle scenes, some of which are negatively exposed;
• the man-vs.-tiger wrestling match, in which the cat clearly is a stuffed animal; and
• suspect science, including Dan’s outright untruth that the tarantula is “as deadly as the lion’s fang and the elephant’s foot.”

We also can’t discount the howler of an ending, which finds newlywed Dan suddenly back to bachelorhood as Laura rejoins the apes as their rightful queen. To think of the activities that await her and Spanky in private is … is … well, it’s an image I don’t want seared in my brain. Moviegoers who paid good money in 1958 to catch The Bride and the Beast in theaters must have found it a safari on the regret level of Cecil the Lion. —Rod Lott

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Look, up in the sky! It’s a turd! It’s a shame! It’s Supersonic Man!

And it’s a must-watch for those who enjoy a foreign-born larceny of an American blockbuster, with this bane-from-Spain import courtesy of Pod People progenitor Juan Piquer Simón. His Supersonic Man wouldn’t exist without 1978’s Superman, the iconic sci-fi fantasy that made us believe a man could fly. By contrast, Supersonic Man reinstills all doubt. ¡Viva España!

To save the planet Earth, aliens send one of their own, in the “almost invincible” human form of Paul (Antonio Cantafora, Demons 2), a reporter with a pornstache and a nifty watch. Whenever Paul presses it — the watch, just to clarify — and speaks the magical phrase, “May the force of the galaxies go with you,” two things happen:
1. Shazam!-style, he instantly turns into the superhero named Supersonic (no “Man,” thank you), noticeably buffer and vibrantly costumed, including a blue tint on what little of his face remains exposed.
2. Viewers realize Simón was not content cashing in on Superman, so he went for Star Wars, too.

Supersonic’s Lex Luthor is Dr. Gulik (Cameron Mitchell, Night Train to Terror), a madman who wants nothing more than to get his evil hands on a formula that will transform lasers into death rays. As it just so happens, Professor Morgan (José María Caffarel of Simón’s Jules Verne adaptation, The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth) is close to completing said formula, so Gulik commands his minions in color-coded jumpsuits and one boxy, slow-moving robot to kidnap the friendly scientist and hold him ransom for the Dr. Evil-esque sum of $5,000!

Meanwhile, this turn of events puts Morgan’s single and sexually available daughter, Patricia (Diana Polakov, The People Who Own the Dark), in danger, so Paul inserts himself into the picture in order to protect her. Initially, she resists, because she doesn’t talk to strangers. “Stranger? I’m Paul!” he responds, as if that says everything. “I’m no stranger!” He’s also the one and only Supersonic, so Patricia unknowingly gets the best of both worlds: free dinner at a French restaurant, and being saved from a head-on collision with a steamroller.

When Paul becomes his alter ego (portrayed by José Luis Ayestarán, star of a couple of unofficial Tarzan pics), Supersonic Man naturally stands at its shoddiest and most stirring. Although the likes of corrosive gases and hot lava prove no match, he is felled by a pool cue to the noggin. When Supersonic is put through a ringer of challenges as he attempts infiltration of his archenemy’s lair, Dr. Gulik manically claps and laughs like the half-senile idiot he fully resembles. You very well may do the same — if not then, perhaps during the chase scene involving a Volkswagen Bug, the appearance of a killer shark for no good reason, a recurring gag with an alcoholic bum, any of many green-screen depictions of flight or … hell, the film’s entirety. For sheer entertainment, it beats the $225-million Man of Steel any day. —Rod Lott

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