Monster Movie of the Week: King Kong (1976)

It takes a set of Kong-sized nuts to bill your remake as "the most exciting original motion picture event of all time!"

King Kong (1976)

Director: John Guillermin

Genre: Monster on the loose

THE MOVIE

Blockbuster fever struck American movie goers in the mid seventies. After the runaway success of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in the summer of 1975, movie studios began clamoring for the next big event movie. What better event movie than a remake of a story that is synonymous with the word “big?”

The 1976 remake of King Kong is interesting to watch if only to see how it is different and similar from the other two major versions of the story. The ’76 Kong differs greatly from both the ’33 and ’05 movies. This version of the story is the least spectacular and the most sexually charged. This is also the least regarded of the Kong movies and is often thought of as a turkey or a bomb although it was actually a big hit upon its release but not in the ballpark of Jaws which is certainly what it was hyped for.

The movie follows the basic storyline of the original, although in this version the film crew is replaced by an oil expedition (remember this was during the first Energy Crisis) headed by a Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin,) a Nixonian paranoiac who has staked his reputation on finding oil beneath Skull Island. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) stows away on the boat. In this version, he is a primatologist who has heard stories of giant apes on Skull Island.

Once at sea, the crew finds Dwan (Jessica Lange) floating in a lifeboat. Dwan switched the middle two letters of her name so that it would be more memorable. Dwan is an actress who was aboard a luxury liner that exploded For Some Reason. Dwan is, as a friend of mine once succinctly put, "Actress-Crazy." This is very special combination of insecure, flightly, neurotic, self-absorbed and plain ole' nuts that only a working actress can really pull off (for a great example of Actress-Crazy see Terry Garr in Tootsie). Jessica Lange plays Dwan like she’s constantly horny or high (sometimes she combines them to mix it up.) Sometime between this movie and her appearance in (yes) Tootsie she became a very good actress but her performance in King Kong is total camp.

The other main departure from the classic story is that that this Skull Island is not inhabited by all of the dinosaurs and strange creatures that we have come to expect. It is inhabited by Kong and a large rubber snake and a bunch of Africans (despite the fact that it is in the South Pacific). So, some of the fun of the original and Peter Jackson version are lost here.

When they get to New York the story pretty much matches the other versions, only here Kong climbs the then newly-constructed World Trade Center Towers instead of the Empire State Building, as he does in the other versions. I always find World Trade Center scenes a little distracting in movies filmed before 9/11. Unfortunately, most movies filmed in New York from the 70’s through the 90’s feature the buildings prominently. King Kong features some gratuitous WTC action.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

This Kong is not realized with stop motion as the original was but with a mix of suitmation and animatronics and the final result looks strangely Fonzie-esque. While the animatronic masks are capable of a large range of movement and expression, the effect is usually just creepy, especially when Kong leers at Jessica Lange’s character constantly. Or the scene where he blows repeated on a wet Dwan, which is just wrong. Wrong and disturbing.

This has to be the perviest Kong yet. The sexual subtext of the original is here brought closer to the fore (“He tried to rape you!” says Charles Grodin’s character) and it loans the movie a lurid and unpleasant quality. The Peter Jackson version is smart enough to diffuse the sexual aspect all together and build a genuine connection between Anne and Kong. This one is not.

Squish.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

This is the only version of the story to depict Kong’s actual trip to New York. I've always wondered what that trip must have been like. I like the scenes where he is locked up in the bowels of an oil tanker pounding the hell out of it.

SEQUELS

King Kong Lives 1986

DVD AVAILABILITY

Widely available in a bare-bones DVD.

SEE ALSO

King Kong 1933 King Kong Escapes 1967 King Kong 2005

TRIVIA

This movie represents a slightly larger version of Kong than is usually depicted in the American movies. Here, he is described as being about 50 feet tall whereas normally he is about 25-30 feet tall.

The Japanese Kong is on a much larger scale allowing him to tangle with the likes of Godzilla.

Ex Games: My Lifelong Quest For The Perfect Star Wars Game

It was 1983. My downstairs neighbor had an Atari 2600 and I experienced my first Star Wars console video game: The Empire Strikes Back, which was based solely on The Battle of Hoth sequence from the movie of the same name. You got to control a little five pixel Snowspeeder in which you had to shoot a small flashing spot on the back of an ATAT until (47 shots later) it exploded. And then you got to do that again until you got bored. Hey, it was better than that E.T. game.

How we rolled in the '80's.

The video game market crashed shortly after that. And Star Wars didn't make another home video game appearance until the Nintendo Entertainment System. I missed it on the NES but in the early '90's, I got into Super Star Wars and it's sequels on the Super Nintendo. These games were a much more fully realized Star Wars experience. Like many SNES games, the Super Star Wars games had incredible stereo sound. Who can forget the first time hearing the opening Star Wars theme blaring out at your from a frakkin' video game.


The games were fun, although fiendishly difficult. And being video games, they stray from the plots of the movies to make them more action-packed. Who knew a giant lava monster lived inside the Jawa Sandcrawler?

From Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

In the mid 1990's Star Wars was gearing up for a major comeback with the re-release of the movies and the eventual start of the new trilogy. All of that began, however, with a major multimedia project called Shadows of the Empire, an interquel that took place between Empire and Return of the Jedi. While there was no Shadows of the Empire movie, there were action figures, a sound track, comics, a novel and a video game on Nintendo's snazzy new console, the Nintendo 64. Shadows promised the most immersive Star Wars video game experience to date, and it was the full reason I bought a Nintendo 64 console. And it was the first 3D video game that did not make me want to puke.

First Level of Shadow of the Empire.

Shadows of the Empire was primarily a 3rd person shooter that allowed you to run around and play in several famous Star Wars environments, such as Hoth's Echo Base. Dash Rendar? Is that your boy? No? Okay

You even had run ins with several infamous characters such as Boba Fett and IG-88, as well as Luke, Leia and Lando. The game also ,featured aerial and space battles that paved the way for games like the Rogue Squadron series and ultimately, the Battlefront games. In the late 90's and 2000's, Star Wars video games diversified into every imaginable genre: first-person shooters, role playing games, racing games, real time strategy games. There was even this thing:




But one thing was sorely missing: Jedi.

As much fun as it was to shoot Stormtroopers and fly around in ships and endlessly replay the Battle of Hoth in different games, the Holy Grail of the Star Wars gaming is to play as a Jedi. With the release of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace and its emphasis on the Jedi characters, more and more games tried to serve up an authentic Jedi experience. But most of these weren't very good. Jedi Power Battles for the Playstation was a fun adaptation of The Phantom Manace but it was very much a throwback to the side scrolling arcade-style games of the '80's.

Jedi Power Battles. Fun two-person co-op.

Star Wars: Obi Wan for the Xbox was a noble effort and let you swing your lightsaber around and use some force powers but ultimately was not a very good game. The really goofy Ewan MacGregor impression did not help either. See video below.



The Dark Forces I and Jedi Knight games evolved from the PC and made their way toe the Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube in 2001 in the form of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, arguably one of the greatest Star Wars games ever released. It has a great story, and gameplay that lets you use a whole suite of force powers as well as your trusty lightsaber. There is very little in this world that is more fun than force-pushing Stormtroopers off a ledge. It was followed by Jedi Academy which had a less satisfying single player game but robust multiplayer that allowed customization and play on Xbox Live.

Kyle Katarn in Jedi Outcast. I was happy to be able to play a character named Kyle in a game.

The ultimate Star Wars video game experience was released last year in the form of The Force Unleashed, which featured an amazing original Star Wars story set between the trilogies, fantastic graphics and fun gameplay. The protagonist, Starkiller, uses wildly over-the-top force powers in secret service to his master, Darth Vader.




The game is set to be rereleased on November 3rd, with bonus content such as a few continuity defying missions set in a Vader-less Star Wars and Empire timeframe.

Starkiller, fryin some suckas up in The Force Unleashed.

Monster Movie of the Week: Mothra (1961)

Warning: Staring at Japanese movie posters for extended periods may induce a seizure.

MOTHRA (1961)

Director: Ichiro Honda

Genre: Daikaiju eiga

THE MOVIE

Mothra ushered in a short-lived Golden Age of 1960’s kaiju filmmaking in which the norm became high production values and colorful visuals before the genre sank into camp and kiddie nonsense . Mothra is the best of the three non-Godzilla kaiju movies produced by Toho in the wake of Godzilla Raids Again and also introduced us to one of Toho’s most iconic and popular monsters. Mothra has been featured in more Toho movies than any other monster save the big guy himself and is even popular enough to have starred in her own trilogy of kids films in the 1990’s. Her popularity (particularly with the ladies) has caused her to be plugged into numerous Godzilla movies in which she was not originally slated to appear. She’s one of the few female Japanese giant monsters and one of the only ones that is consistently benevolent and she’s the only kaiju with a catchy theme song sung by a pair of mini-twins.

Mothra's story borrows heavily from King Kong and deals with a joint expedition between Japan and a fictitious country (that strongly resembles the U.S.) to the mysterious Infant Island that is home to a tribe of natives and also the site of atomic testing. Once on the island, one of the Japanese expedition members is saved by a pair of tiny singing twins. The twins are stolen from the island by an unscrupulous member of the foreign party and put in a musical revue a la Kong's Broadway show. My question is: how the hell are you supposed to see them from the audience? I don’t think a stage show is quite the right venue for six inch singing twins. And how did they get them to rehearse elaborate musical numbers?

Anyhoo, the twins launch into their chart-topper “Mo-su-ra” and a giant silkworm hatches from a pastel colored egg and swims towards Tokyo, impervious to all weapons. The larva climbs up Tokyo Tower and breaks it in half before spinning a silken cocoon. What hatches is perhaps the most improbable of a giant monster designs: a big pretty butterfly. Perhaps the Japanese Defense Force would have fared better against her if they had built a giant net. So, Mo-su-ra follows the twins to New Kirk City (NKC!) and eventually reclaims her twins (does she swallow them? I’m not clear on where they “boarded”) after blowing stuff around with her wings.

Why even have a Tokyo Tower?

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

It takes a real man to be a Mothra fan. Her femininity, her colorful appearance, her harmonizing sidekicks all elicit a derisive reaction from kaiju mandom. I mean, a guy can get away with wearing a Godzilla t-shirt, no problem but if you walk around with a Mothra shirt you better watch your back. If you are not entirely comfortable with your masculinity, the idea of a giant ass-kicking psychedelic butterfly nature goddess may be somewhat disturbing for you. Although the somewhat fecal appearance of the larva will be good for a chuckle from the guys.

The effects in Mothra are surprisingly good for the time and are certainly better than any of Toho’s prior kaiju movies. I am very surprised and happy to say that there is very little Rodanitis present in the flying sequences. Mothra’s wings move in a very realistic and even elegant way. The wirework and other mechanisms are for the most part well-concealed. I can only speculate that more of the budget was devoted to the flying sequences since there were only two creatures to design for this one.

MONSTERS PRESENT

Mothra in both her larval and adult form.

DVD AVAILABILITY

This one’s a little hard to get. I managed to buy a copy of the Japanese version from ultramanstuff.com. There’s not much else on the disc and the video is not excellent but at least it’s the Japanese version. As with the other disc I bought from them it took a long time and a couple of check up emails before I got my disc but I got it. I don’t know what changes or cuts were made to the American version.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

The larva’s attack on Tokyo Tower.

SEQUELS

Some say the world will end in fire others...by giant stuffed animals.

Mothra is featured in quite a few of the Godzilla movies but as far as I know the only true sequel is Godzilla X Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003) which directly refers to the original Mothra movie and even features one of the actors reprising his Mothra role some forty years later, which is kind of cool.

SEE ALSO

Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964) Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) Rebirth of Mothra I-III (1996) Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

Politics and the Prequels: Episode I

It’s hard to believe that Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released a decade ago and that the Prequel Trilogy concluded back in 2005. I have found a lot to enjoy in these movies despite their problems and often find myself defending them from “Star Wars Fundamentalists” who grew up on the original trilogy and who look at the more recent movies and see nothing but their flaws. George Lucas is a master storyteller-but only in the macro sense. When it comes to the broad strokes, the story told in the Prequel Trilogy is amazingly good and satisfying and far better than that of the Original Trilogy. If you were to tell someone the story of Anakin Skywalker and his tragic fall, and the way Palpatine slowly maneuvers and takes control of the Republic, it sounds like they would be much better movies than they actually are. It is when it comes to the specifics of story telling on film, such as writing dialogue and directing actors, Lucas often falls spectacularly flat.

Let's face it: the prequels are well-bashed. You can go anywhere and find out what doesn't work in these movies. Let's look at take a look at the thematic strengths of this trilogy and their achievements in storytelling and as political commentary.

When The Phantom Menace came out back in 1999 audiences were struck by how different this film was from the Original Trilogy from the 70's and 80's. Instead of military bases and hidden fortresses, these films are set in the heart of galactic society, in the halls of power. Much of the trilogy takes place on the capital world, Coruscant. Buried in the Prequel Trilogy is a more complex story with mature overtones that weren't found in the original movies. Story wise, the new movies are striking because of their political content. Whereas the original movies featured a simplistic tale of rebellion against an evil empire, these new films tell the story of how a democracy falls. There is an implicit political allegory here and Lucas has said many times that they story told in the prequels is one which he came up with during the Nixon years.

The Phantom Menace opens with a crawl that describes how the small planet of Naboo is being embargoed by a group called the Trade Federation, which we learn is some sort of commercial entity that is opposed to the stringent regulations imposed upon it by the Senate. Apparently, recent legislation in the Galactic Senate has caused the taxation of trade routes to come under dispute. So the first antagonists that we meet are a big corporation. The Trade Federation is headed by an alien called Nute Gunray, which is a play on the names of former conservative congressman Nute Gingrich and Ronald Reagan (who adopted "Star Wars" as the name for his space-based missile defense plan in the '80s, so fair is fair). We later learn that this organization has its own representation in the Galactic Senate. Think about that for a moment. Imagine Exxon or Microsoft sending senators to Washington.

It is important to note that these Trade Federation characters are not "evil" in the comic book sense of the word. They are a type easily recognizable to most people who follow the news: They are greedy CEOs. They are working with a shadowy figure called Darth Siddious, whom they only see via hologram. This is the titular Phantom Menace. Siddious is actually "evil." Here we have an evil man manipulating the greedy to achieve his own ends. He is a Sith, part of an ancient order opposed to the Jedi and thought to be extinct for a thousand years. He is also Palpatine, a Senator in the Galactic Senate. He has likely engineered the dispute that brought the blockade to his home planet, Naboo. Therefore the most evil man in the universe is also...a politician.

Constantly the government of the Galaxy is referred to as "corrupt," "squabbling," and "bureaucrats." These are phrases many would use to describe our own political representatives. The way the political system works in the Star Wars universe, one almost wants it to be wiped away and replaced with something else. This sets up very well some of the actions the characters take in later movies.


The Jedi themselves also have their internal politics which intersect with those of the Galaxy at large. The order is governed by a stuffy Council of Masters, who run the Jedi from a giant temple that looms over the capital. The Jedi seem to have assignments that are political in nature. At the movie's opening Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi are sent to Naboo on the Chancellor's orders to secretly negotiate the trade blockade.


When he is confronted with slavery on the underdeveloped desert world Tatooine, Qui-Gon states simply "we didn't come here to free slaves." This, from the most compassionate Jedi in the film. As we get to know them more, the Jedi seem strangely callous, even mean. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan practically bully poor Jar Jar into helping them on Naboo. Obi-Wan refers to other characters as "pathetic life-forms." These are not the kind-hearted zen warriors we were expecting. It seems that arrogance is a big part of the Jedi character, even for these more sympathetic Jedi.



With the exception of Qui Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi are all cool and inert. When Qui-Gon warns them that the Sith have returned, they all but roll their eyes at him. When he tells them that he has located young Anakin Skywalker, the prophesied "Chosen One" who "will bring balance to the force," they do not believe him and stubbornly refuse to have the boy trained. Qui-Gon, it seems, is a maverick and frequently at odds with the Jedi Council. He even threatens to train Anakin without the council's permission. Obi-Wan laments that Qui-Gon would be on the council himself if he would obey them but Jinn seems uninterested in this political wing of the Order.

The Jedi are presented as a complacent group that is resistant to change. One has to wonder if they had been more engaged with the world around them, they could have avoided the events that would occur in the following two movies. This is the mark of good tragedy, that you can pinpoint exact moments where choices made change the outcome of the story. As heroes the Jedi are ambivalent characters. They are not really likable. The Jedi Council in The Phantom Menace comes across as bureaucrats with light sabers. Are they even really "good?” Does bringing balance to the force mean that they as an entity must be eliminated?

In the Senate, the Naboo blockade has created a sympathy vote for Palpatine and he becomes the new Chancellor of the Republic. The first step of his plan to assume total power over the Republic and destroy the Jedi has been taken. By the end of the film, the wisest and most human of the Jedi, Qui-Gon Jinn, has been killed and Anakin is grudgingly turned over to Obi-Wan for training by a crusty Yoda, one of the de facto rulers of the Jedi Order.

One has to wonder how events would have worked out if Qui-Gon had survived his encounter with Darth Maul. With his more flexible attitude and his wisdom, would he have trained Anakin better than the uptight Obi-Wan and avoided the tragic events of the next two movies? Perhaps the greatest victory of the Sith is that they were able to eliminate the only Jedi who was not arrogant and complacent.

Bonus Monster Movie of the Week: King Kong (1933)

KING KONG (1933)
Director: Merian C. Cooper
Genre: Monster on the loose/Adventure/Lost World

THE MOVIE

King Kong is probably the most important in influential monster movie of all time. It spawned a whole genre of giant monster movies and a slew of imitators and copycats as well as one direct sequel, two official big-budget remakes and a short lived Japanese series from Toho studios. It was one of the first big “special effects” movies. Kong’s influence even reaches into far-flung and unexpected places. For example, King Kong was an obvious inspiration for the classic video game Donkey Kong which in turn spawned Super Mario Brothers and the whole series of classic video games that followed. In fact, Kong was so popular in Japan that he receives billing over Japan’s own signature monster in King Kong vs. Godzilla, not to mention that he is the ultimate victor at the end of the movie.

Although the story of Kong was created for the movies, its roots go far back to the “Lost World” stories that became popular in the Victorian era. These stories were created as a response to the discoveries of dinosaur fossils that captured the imagination of the world. It featured the requisite distant tropical island that was the last haven for a population of extinct animals such as dinosaurs and giant bugs. King Kong is also a spin on the beauty and the beast theme in which a beautiful woman is kept and grows an attachment to a monstrous male. These elements were mixed together and turned into something fresh for this (at the time) new medium.

King Kong actually started out as something closer to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Land that Time Forgot in which a ship is stranded on a prehistoric island. This film was to be called Creation and it was the brain child of special effects director Willis O’Brien. Creation was never finished but the special effects convinced Merian Cooper that this genre could be done well on film. In fact, many elements from Creation (and many of the dinosaur models) were later used for Kong.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

Kong is probably the most famous movie monster of all time and in his first appearance he is realized through stop-motion animation. One of the great successes of the movie is that Willis O’Brien manages to get a genuine performance out of his little articulated doll. Like any truly memorable screen monster, Kong is more than just an animal. In his first incarnation he begins the long trek towards becoming a truly tragic antihero that comes to fruition in Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake. Unfortunately, there is too much going on in the filmmaker’s 1933 point of view that keeps that from really happening here. This has primarily to do with an unpleasant racial subtext and silly ideas about gorilla behavior. This was a time when people still thought that gorillas were carnivorous and that they would kidnap and rape women, hence Kong’s creepy stripping of Anne’s dress in the movie.

The extent and use of effects in this movie are truly revolutionary and may not be apparent at first glance to a Twenty-First Century viewer. They go beyond simply the animation of the many creatures in the movie and many of them are “invisible” effects that serve to cleverly and seamless composite the animation and live action together. Many of the effects serve to expand and deepen the lush jungles on Skull Island. Unlike today, this was all done optically and in camera using matte paintings as backgrounds and several layers of paintings created on glass to give a sense of depth to the jungle environment. Again, we look at it now and don’t notice it because we take it for granted but the special effects in the original King Kong are incredibly sophisticated and the artists who worked on this movie deserve eternal respect for their contributions to movie making.

DVD AVAILABILITY

This movie is widely available in several versions but I strongly suggest getting a copy of the deluxe two-disc edition which is loaded with bonus material befitting this classic movie.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

My most memorable sequence is actually not in the move but in the extras. One of the nice things about the extras is that Peter Jackson is involved in some of the documentaries talking about his love for the original movie as he was in preproduction for his remake at the time. He even shows off some of his collection of Kong memorabilia such as one of the original stop motion models.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up. There is an infamous lost sequence from King Kong. When the sailors are shaken off the log the fall into a pit filled with giant spiders and other bugs. This sequence is referred to as the Lost Spider Pit Sequence and is analogous to the scene in Jackson’s remake. The scene was filmed for the original movie but cut at some point prior to the movie’s release either because it was too horrific or perhaps only for pacing reasons. All that exists from this scene are some still photos and the original models (some of which were featured in The Black Scorpion.)


So there is this very intriguing idea that somewhere in the world in some vault there may be a famous lost scene from King Kong. Or maybe it was tossed in the incinerator. Re-enter Peter Jackson, who has been semi-obsessed with this scene since he was a young man. What Jackson and his people at WETA did for this Kong DVD was to take all of the original designs that exist from the Spider Pit sequence and rebuild them, animate them and film them using 1933 technology to recreate what this lost sequence would have looked like to the best of their ability. It is not edited into the movie but is available as part of a documentary in the extras. This is just cool on so many levels.

SEQUELS

Son of Kong (1934)

MINORITY REPORT

Where to begin with what’s messed up with King Kong? A bunch of white Americans come on a boat to some island in the Pacific inexplicably filled with African “savages” who worship a giant horny gorilla that is obsessed with a blond white woman. This may be the origin of the term “jungle fever.” I guess the main thing is that the movie propagates a generic and Eurocentric idea about “primitive” people. What’s even worse is that most people who have seen the movie are so accustomed to these jungle stereotypes that they will not stop to think about how condescending and offensive they are. Africa (and other naturally rich but underdeveloped places) were often depicted in old movies as an exotic and dangerous background for an adventure story whose people happened to be servants or adversaries of the white protagonists. King Kong is a great movie but it is definitely a product of early Twentieth Century American thoughts and attitudes.

THE TRAILER:



SEE ALSO:

The remakes from 1976 and 2005.

Monster Movie of the Week: 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)

"Out-of-Space?" So, it's mad because it doesn't have enough closet space?

20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957)

Director: Nathan Juran

Genre: Monster on the loose

THE MOVIE:

Back in the day, moviemakers could get away with silly science fiction premises like “In the year 1974, man has colonized the sun….” The premise of the classic 20 Million Miles to Earth is that a manned expedition to the surface of Venus crash lands in the Mediterranean and looses a Venusian monster on Rome. In reality the surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead. Oh well, ignorance was bliss, or at least the fodder for fun movies like this one.

In the year 1957 man has secretly landed on Venus. The ship crashes to earth with only one human survivor. A canister containing a specimen of Venusian life looses itself from the ship and washes on to the Italian shore. A young boy finds it and sells it to a local zoologist. The little beast feeds off of sulfur and grows to enormous size. The zoologist attempts to take it to Rome but the beast escapes and goes on a mini rampage before it is recaptured. The creature again escapes and goes on a larger rampage in Rome, battling an elephant in the process.

This is another one of the movies worked on by the brilliant special effects master Ray Harrryhousen, the undisputed master of stop motion creature effects, having studied under the great King Kong special effects artist Willis O’Brian. His work on 20 Million Miles to Earth is among his best. It is also a great example of the monster-on-the-loose subgenre of movies which featured monsters running amok in urban settings, a favorite theme of the Harryhousen movies.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

The monster is known as the Ymir, although this term is never used in the movie. He grows to a height of about 25ft and is a bipedal reptile with a human like torso and a long tail. His face resembles that of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or, much later, the Cloverfield monster. Like the earlier Harryhousen film, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, this film is shot in glorious black and white and the lighting is again used here to give the Ymir a wonderful three-dimensionality and texture. Harryhousen animates the creature with great personality and realism, such as the scene early on when the miniature version of the Ymir is first exposed to light and covers its eyes in a way that is almost cute. Ultimately, this is a sympathetic creature that has been displaced from its own home and thrown into our world by human beings. There are some other nice allusions to King Kong throughout the movie, such as the building top climax, here taking place at the ruins of the Coliseum instead of the Empire State Building.

MONSTERS FEATURED

Only the Ymir.

Grandpa?

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

The monster rampaging through Rome with the Imperial Ruins as a backdrop.

Now in groovy vision!

DVD AVAILABILITY

The original version of the movie has long been available and includes a nice Harryhousen retrospective and a few other features.

Recently a special edition came available featuring a new colorized version of the movie supervised by Harryhousen himself (apparently they wanted to shoot in color but did not have the budget) as well as the original black and white version.

THE TRAILER:

SEE ALSO:

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) King Kong (1933)

Bonus Monster Movie of the Week: Alien (1979)

ALIEN (1979)

Director: Ridley Scott

Genre: Science Fiction/Survival/Body Horror

THE MOVIE:

Not do date myself too much but I remember a time before home video.  It was a time when the idea of "owning" a copy of a movie was pretty much unheard of.  It was before VCRs and even premium cable channels like HBO were a new thing.  Back in those days, if you wanted to watch a movie you saw it in the cinema or caught it on TV.  A network broadcast of a hit movie was a huge deal with a lot of fanfare and these broadcasts would gain enormous rating.  That's how I first saw Alien.  I was very young and happened to catch it on TV, perhaps on it's first broadcast in the early 1980's.  I don't remember if I saw the whole thing or even if it scared me but I know that I was completely fascinated by it.  I even begged my father to buy me a copy of the Giger Alien book that we saw in a used bookstore.  I've been a huge fan of the Alien  series since then.

Ridley Scott’s Alien is a milestone in monster and horror cinema and features what is arguably the greatest movie monster of all time: the Alien, designed by Swiss artist H. R. Giger. The movie has spawned three sequels (each helmed by a different gifted director with radically different takes on the material), two cross-over prequels with the Predator franchise, a semi prequel in the form of Ridley Scott's Prometheus and too many rip-offs to list here. It also helped to launch the careers of star Sigourney Weaver and Ridley Scott. In addition to all of this, Alien and its sequels have also inspired a flood of spin-off comics, novels and videogames. It was one of the first genre movies to feature a woman as a strong protagonist and the ultimate survivor (this is heightened in James Cameron’s 1986 sequel Aliens in which Ripley becomes a bonafide action heroine) and Alien features what Bravo TV deems the second scariest movie moment of all time: the infamous dinner scene, one of the most shocking and disturbing sequences in the history of the movies.

Alien was produced as part of the great late 70’s sci-fi boom in the wake of Star Wars but in many ways it is the polar opposite of George Lucas’ movie. Whereas Star Wars is an optimistic piece of bubblegum space opera, Alien is a dark and cynical horror tale that is thoroughly unromantic about the exploration of space and what we may find once we get there. While Luke Skywalker desperately dreams of adventures off his humdrum planet, Ripley and her crew would have been better off staying home. Ultimately, they are only in space to work, not to save the universe.

At its core, Alien is a throwback to the Sci-Fi horror films of the 1950’s such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space, in which a spaceship is menaced by an alien that hides in the shadows picking off the crew one by one. Alien does a better job of creating suspense and exploiting social tensions between the crew members. It shares with Star Wars a certain design aesthetic of a grungy “used universe,” unlike the sleek chrome rocket ships of classic Sci-Fi movies or the clinical whiteness of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The production design of Alien attempts to create a realistic utilitarian space in which a small crew lives in for long periods of time. The phase “truck drivers in space” was thrown around a lot during preproduction.


Ridley Scott’s film begins as the crew of the enormous interstellar shipping vessel Nostromo is awakened from an induced hibernation by a mysterious distress symbol. They receive instructions from their faceless employer (referred to throughout the film simply as “The Company”) to investigate this beacon. Once on the barren planet they discover a mysterious derelict space craft complete with a fossilized alien pilot and a cache of leathery eggs. When crewmember Kane examines an egg it hatches and a strange crablike creature attaches itself to his face. Kane ultimately ends up birthing the Alien which stalks the crew one by one until only Ripley is left.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:

The real star of the movie is Giger’s Alien. Without this extraordinary and nightmarish creature the movie would not be as effective as it is. H. R. Giger designed the Alien through its various life stages as well as the derelict ship and its interior. From the moment we see weird-looking ship on a grainy video feed from one of the crewmember’s exo-suits we know that we are in for something special.



The ship itself is actually alien-looking. This is in itself remarkable because as often as you see extraterrestrials and their technology in movies the designs rarely look alien. Giger’s ship is vaguely horseshoe shaped but also asymmetrical with a strange bioorganic appearance. The crew enters through a weird sphincter-like orifice and one can see in that one shot that they simply do not belong there. One of the underlying themes of the movie is the very Lovecraft derived idea, Men Do Not Belong in the Stars. This is powerfully reinforced in Giger’s design. The derelict ship is not made for men, it is the wrong scale, it is so alien as to be beyond human comprehension, the explorers stumble around it like children (not coincidentally children were used in these scenes so the sets could be constructed at half scale.)

The brilliance of the concept and design of Giger’s Alien is how it taps into people’s psychosexual fear and discomfort. The Alien itself is conceived in an act of oral rape, in which a creature attaches itself to Kane’s head and inserts a long tube down his throat with which it plants its seed. When we later see the underside of this “facehugger” we see organs that somehow manage to look like a penis and a vagina at the same time.


The infant alien later erupts from Kane in a bloody parody of childbirth. When we next see it, The Alien is spindly and asexual with a long phallic head. Novelist Anne Rice has speculated that movies like Alien and its imitators-in which sexualized or fetus-like Body Horrors exact their revenge on society-are exhibiting a kind of collective guilt over abortion.  Whatever the reason, the design in Alien is successful because it insidiously crawls into your unconscious an lurks there.

In terms of special effects, the creature is realized primarily through suitmation and clever editing that rarely lets you see the entire Alien. The impression from watching the movie is that you ever know exactly what the Alien looks like.

MONSTERS FEATURED:

1 Alien.
1 chestburster
1 facehugger

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:

I like the exploration of the derelict ship. It’s very creepy and overwhelmingly Gigeresque.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY:

Widely available on its own or in boxed sets. There two different DVD boxed sets the first of which features Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 or the superior Alien Quadrilogy, set which features theatrical and alternate cuts of all FOUR movies. The special features for Alien include deleted scenes as well as a documentary on the making of the film as well as the usual trailers and interviews, as well as the exhaustive special features from the old Alien laser disc.

The Alien Anthology Bluray set is truly beautiful thing, with all of the above features and plenty of Bluray exclusive content, and it offers a customizable way to watch the bonus features according to what you are interested in seeing.

Out of all the movies in the series, Alien, really shines in this HD format. One really begins to appreciate the abundance of detail in the sets and costumes. The Anthology set is a must for any fan of this movie.

SEQUELS:

James Cameron's Aliens (1986) is set some time after Alien  and continues Ripley's story as does Alien 3 (1992), which concludes it.  Alien Resurrection (1997) is set hundreds of years later and features a clone of Ripley.

Alien Vs. Predator (2004)  is a defacto prequel to Alien and is a contemporary tale set in the Antarctic and involves the creatures from Predator.  It is particularly interesting to fans of Alien as it makes use of some ideas discarded from Alien such as the abandoned temple that was cut from the movie.  Its own sequel is Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007).

In 2012 Ridley Scott returned to the Alien universe with Prometheus, set several decades before Alien an which deals with an expedition to make contact with the "Space Jockey" race glimpsed in the first movie and their connection to humanity.  It also has some Alien-y creatures in it.

There has been talk of a sequel to Prometheus.

THE TRAILER:



SEE ALSO:

The Thing (1982), It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958), Species (1995)


Patrick Garone is a writer, director, sketch comedian, and blogger. He is the author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. Follow him on Twitter for fun-sized ramblings on nerd culture and politics.

Monster Movie of the Week: The Host (2006)

THE HOST (2006)

Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: A label defying mix of monster-on-the-loose, family drama and comedy.

THE MOVIE:

The Host is a South Korean film about the ne’er-do-well Park family whose youngest member is abducted by a mutant sewer monster and their struggles to get her back. Not only do they have to contend with the monster itself but with government and international interference, incompetence and misinformation. During the course of the movie the family become bio-fugitives in order to track down their missing member from whom they receive a garbled cell phone call.

Elderly Hee-bong runs a snack shop on the banks of the Han River with his son Gang-du, a thirty-something slacker doofus with dyed blonde hair. Gang-du’s brother, Nam-il, is an embittered and chronically unemployed alcoholic. Only the family’s women seem to fare a little better: There’s Gang-du’s daughter, young Hyun-seo, who seems more mature and resourceful than any of her male relatives and Nam-Joo, a skilled archer who’s hesitation causes her to come home with a bronze medal. This dysfunctional family is at the core of The Host. It is the rare monster movie that takes the time to cultivate human character and relationships and good performances from its actors, who create multidimensional characters who are endearing despite their flaws. The movie is not about the unnamed monster but about how the monster affects this family.

The movie’s opening scene has an American doctor ordering his Korean lab assistant to dump dozens of bottles of formaldehyde down the drain and into the Han River, presumably causing to the mutation that creates the creature. Throughout the film, the Americans are depicted as either sinister autocrats, foolishly heroic, or the brains behind an elaborate disinformation campaign to cover up the creature’s origins. One leaves “The Host” wondering if they even knew what they were covering up or if governments just reflexively cover up anything that might potentially look bad. The South Korean government and media are painted as ineffective U.S. lapdogs that help spread the lie about a “virus.” This is part of the movie’s libertarian charm, which ironically looks back at SARS and birdflu and the inadequate government responses to those problems through the lens of a monster movie.

The Host is an all around class act. It is well written, nicely acted, thoughtfully directed and beautifully shot. It is one of the rare monster movies that can appeal to viewers outside of the fan base.



THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:

The monster effects are surprisingly good for a movie that only cost the equivalent of $10 million dollars to make. The filmmakers outsourced some work out to Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital and a U.S. company and the result is Hollywood-quality special effects.

The monster vaguely recalls the Kothoga monster from The Relic (1997) in size and body shape but also resembles a giant primitive amphibian that still maintains some fish-like characteristics. The monster moves a little awkwardly on land but gracefully swings, climbs, and flips using its large forelimbs and prehensile tail (featured on the poster) under bridges and on pipes.


MONSTERS FEATURED:

Just the one.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:

The creature’s first appearance as it rampages through the touristy riverside. Some shots recall classic Japanese kaiju movies.

DVD AVAILABILITY:

Widely available on DVD and Blu-Ray.

SEQUELS:

There have been rumors of sequel to The Host.

THE TRAILER



SEE ALSO:

The Relic (1997), The Fly (1986), Signs (2003)

Ex Games: Alien 3

As a teenager, I was ready to get back into video games after having been a big Nintendo fan as a kid. I had the choice between getting a Super Nintendo or a Sega Genesis. My friend Ian had convinced me that the Sega Genesis was cooler, better. Sonic the Hedgehog had some levels that were in 3D. Three D!! And then there were all these intriguing add-ons like the 32X and Sega CD drive. It could play actual CDs! I had never even used a CD before. But the clincher for me was Alien 3.

Alien 3 was a game that was very loosely adapted from the movie of the same name. It was more like the video game version of Aliens that we never got on the home consoles with lots of guns and violence and little of the existentialism of the David Fincher movie. According to my video game magazines at the time, it was going to be bad ass. And it was coming out for both systems. But it was coming out on the Genesis first. Sold!

So, I got my Genesis, I got my copy of Alien 3 and it was…okay. It was a little repetitive but the worst part was that there was no Queen at the end. Surely this had to have been some mistake. There was even a reference to the queen in the instruction manual. What the hell!

Later, I rented a Super Nintendo and a copy of Alien 3 for that system and I realized the great cost of my impatience. While the game play is very similar, comparing the two games, it is almost hard to believe that they are in the same software generation. The SNES version has vivid, eye-popping graphics and gorgeous stereo sound. How could I have been so stupid?

Years later, I bought a copy of some SNES games on eBay to use with my roommate’s old Super Nintendo. I bought Alien 3 and, surprisingly, it had not aged badly at all. I had some fun with it for a few hours, but not long enough to forget my ill-advised fling with the Sega Genesis.My copy of Alien 3 for the Super Nintendo is sitting in a drawer right now with a copy of Super Mario All Stars and an old Xbox controller.

For the Genesis:

For the SNES: