Ultraman II

Director: Sidney L Caplan
Writers: Sidney L Caplan, Tom Weiner, Steve Kramer, Wally Soul
Producers: Noboru Tsuburaya, Sidney L Caplan
Cast: Barbara Goodson, Steve Kramer, Joe Perry
Country: Japan/USA
Year of release: 1983
Reviewed from: UK VHS

Isn’t it bloody typical? For years I search the video shops of this land for Ultraman tapes (or indeed any other Japanese superheroes). All I ever find is multiple copies of Ultraman: The Alien Invasion, a feature-length re-edit of the first few episodes of the Australian series Ultraman: Towards the Future. I’m not even sure that the second volume of that was released in the UK; I assume it must have been but I’ve never seen it.

So, in the summer of 2005 when I was writing about the character’s history in a feature on Ultraman: The Next for Neo magazine, I stated with some confidence that the Aussie series is the only one ever released in the UK. And while that issue was on sale - while it was on sale! - I came across this 1983 tape of the 1979 animated version, which was simply called The Ultraman. Bloody typical.

The on-screen title, clearly generated after the fact, is Ultraman 2: The Further Adventures of Ultraman which is all very odd because of the four episodes which make up this faux feature, the first is the series’ opener about the creation of 'the' Ultraman himself. So what, if anything, was in the first animated Ultraman ‘film’, if such a beast exists?

Okay, here’s the set-up. In response to some weird writing that appears in the sky, the Earth Defence Force (sometimes called the Earth Defence Organisation) establishes ‘Emergency Science and Defence Squads’ in every ‘zone’ on Earth. Captain Adam (sometimes called Captain Adams) is put in charge of the Eastern Zone ESDS. He agrees to the job provided that he can have at his disposal a super-amazing aircraft (and occasional submarine) called the Super Star (sometimes called the SS13 - as you can, see there’s not much consistency here).

He gathers around him a team of four people: fat comedy sidekick Marconi, tall engineering genius Glen (who is not mentioned by name until the second episode), beautiful Lieutenant Ann Johnson and enigmatic Commander Harris who has been serving aboard Earth Space Station 3. Piloting his one-man spaceship back to Earth, Harris goes through the usual Ultraman scenario: red light blah blah blah lose control blah blah blah giant figure blah blah blah. Ultraman (for it is he) tells Harris that he must go to Earth, using Harris’ body: “The survival of the whole universe, including Earth, depends on it.”

The story proper starts off with an iceberg that crosses the equator without melting and which eventually cracks open to reveal a giant bipedal dinosaur thing which somehow, shortly afterwards, turns into four identical giant bipedal dinosaur things. And let me tell you folks, with their little arms akimbo and mincing gait these are the campest monsters you ever saw. Nevertheless, the crew of the SS13 - which can launch smaller aircraft from itself - succeed in keeping a straight face long enough to defeat the beasties with the assistance of a mysterious giant stranger dressed in red and silver. (Harris has a green star which he places on his forehead to become Ultraman for a limited time. Of course, as is traditional, none of the others have a clue that their giant benefactor is actually their colleague.)

And so, 22 minutes in, we leap to a different episode which takes place just before Ann’s birthday. Marconi and Glen both have crushes on her, of course, but she is most interested in Harris. In this episode a tornado attacks a power station which derives energy from a giant whirlpool. Investigations reveal that at the centre of the tornado is a monster that looks like a five-tentacled heart. After some more flying around, Ultraman appears and gives it a good hiding.

The third story starts with the team enjoying a bit of a holiday but they are swiftly called back into service to investigate a giant red cloud. Glen manages to capture some of it in a bottle, takes it back to the lab and discovers that it coalesces into a living thing when it gets wet. Adams tells him this is very useful information but it’s not really because it has already started raining and the cloud has become a giant pink yeti. The SS13 battles the big beastie until Ultraman appears, dispels the rain clouds and causes the monster to revert to cloud form.

Probably the best of the four stories is the final one, not least because it has a vaguely decent monster, a sort of giant crocodile thing. We start with Marconi destroying this threat by himself using a hand-held rocket launcher at close range - which everyone agrees is very impressive. We then see something that must happen after most kaiju eiga but rarely gets shown: somebody clearing away the bloody great reptilian corpse. The guy supervising the crane and lorry involved turns out to be the Chief of the Space Biology Group who wants the body to study. Oh, and it’s not quite dead (sorry, Marconi). At the same time, a young boy discovers a baby version of the monster and adopts it as a secret pet, despite local warnings that the authorities are looking for a strange creature which could be dangerous. Of course, ‘Baby’ grows at an alarming rate and eventually becomes a full-grown crocodile-thing. Both plots in this episode show some promise and it’s just a shame that there is no apparent connection between them.

Oh, and there’s one really curious thing which I haven’t yet mentioned: the obligatory robot sidekick. In this case it’s a squat, crinkly, alien-looking blob named PDQ who carries a very tiny grey monkey on his shoulder. He makes no significant contribution to any of the stories, is absolutely never explained (nor is his monkey) and really only serves to raise the weirdness quotient of this otherwise distinctly lacklustre cartoon.

Even if you enjoy anime (and as I have observed elsewhere, I can’t stand the stuff) you have to be pretty tolerant to sit through Ultraman II. Stuff like Battle of the Planets may have been fun when we were kids but it doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of 21st century eyes and The Ultraman isn’t even up to Battle of the Planets standards. Frankly it’s barely up to Thunderbirds 2086 standards.

The characters are one-dimensional, the plots arbitrary - not nonsensical enough to be entertaining, just boring - and the animation is as simplistic and basic as the scripts. The music is derivative and obvious, the monsters for the most part are bollocks and Ultraman is hardly in it at all. This is definitely one for completists. I watched the tape once then gave it away for someone else to ‘enjoy.’

The Ultraman/Ultraman II has no connection with the rest of Ultraman continuity, kicking off with an origin story in a world where the Ultra Brothers are completely unknown (much like Ultraman: The Next, but there the similarities end!). In Japan this version of the character was apparently known as Ultraman Jonias or Ultraman Joe and featured in some stage shows as well as the cartoon. It took me a while to track down confirmation but apparently there was a previous western release of animated episodes which was called The Adventures of Ultraman. However, as this ‘sequel’ kicks off with episode one, it’s difficult to see what could have been on the first volume.

Despite the very obvious breaks between episodes, it’s clear from the linking narration that it was added after the shows were combined into this ersatz feature. The ‘film’ finishes with a series of still images which presumably were designed to play under the closing credits of the episodes if the show was broadcast. There was evidently a Region 1 DVD release of this a while back but that is now deleted.

The voice artists are Barbara Goodson (who was the voice of Rita Repulsa in the early series of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and both Power Rangers films, and also contributed voices to Akira, Vampire Hunter D, Robotech, Digimon, Cowboy Bebop and stacks of other interchangeable anime), Steve Kramer (who wrote the English script for Zeram), Tom Weiner (also credited as narrator) and Joe Perry. Director/writer/producer Sidney L Caplan apparently also produced Bert I Gordon’s Necromancy and Reginald Le Borg’s So Evil, My Sister. The film is presented as ‘produced by Tsuburaya Production Company Ltd and Associates Entertainment International’; Noboru Tsuburaya’s credit as producer is the only Japanese name to be seen.

MJS rating: C-

[Addendum: Would you Adam and Eve it? Less than a month later, I found a 1987 reissue of this film so it was actually released twice in this country. - MJS]

Ultraman: The Next

Director: Kazuya Konaka
Writer: Keiichi Hasegawa
Producer: Kiyoshi Suzuki
Cast: Tetsuya Bessho, Kenya Osumi, Kyoko Toyama
Country: Japan
Year of release: 2004
Reviewed from: screener DVD

Watching this latest incarnation of the long-running movie/TV series, I couldn't help thinking about the similarities between Ultraman and Doctor Who. Both franchises started in the 1960s ('63 for the Doctor, '66 for the big silver guy) and star an alien who comes to Earth where he befriends and protects humans, while also continuing his adventures in outer space. Both characters have 'superhuman' abilities of some sort and super-advanced technology without being conventional superheroes and can pass for human when necessary.

Both series have changed constantly over the years, including not only their lead actor but the nature and identity of the lead character, even though that lead character has in other ways remained constant (and both have experimented with teaming up different incarnations of the lead character in various combinations). Both are primarily TV franchises which have spun off into films, books, comics, stage shows and other media as well as inspiring plenty of toys and collectables. They are, on the one hand, children's series yet enjoyed by many adults - not merely for nostalgia value - and have attracted a cult following outside their country of origin where the subtleties and intentions of the stories can be widely mis- and re-interpreted.

On the negative side, Ultraman and Doctor Who have both become bogged down - the former with repetition and formula, the latter with continuity and back story. They limit themselves by catering increasingly for established fans at the expense of those coming to the franchises anew. And their effects, especially their monster effects, have become outdated and a little embarrassing - or at least, are viewed as such by many people who don't actually watch the series, which is almost as bad.

In 2005 Doctor Who returned after a 16-year-hiatus (the longest that Ultraman has ever been absent from the screen, I think, is four years) with Christopher Eccleston in the lead role. The new version skipped over a lot of the old continuity without contradicting it or throwing it out, leaving viewers pleasantly uncertain/unbothered about whether this was a sequel (effectively, a continuation of the old series) or a reinterpretation (basically starting from scratch again). The essential premise remained unchanged, successfully fulfilling both the concept of that premise as it existed in the wider cultural zeitgeist and the concept as understood by the hardcore fans. Sufficient iconography was there to please everyone, no matter how detailed or vague their memories - TARDIS, Daleks, sonic screwdriver - without getting in the way of those for whom the series was something completely new.

Around the same time, the character of Ultraman was similarly reinvented in this movie which hit Japanese cinemas in December 2004 - and with, in this reviewer's opinion, similar success. What do we know about the Doctor? He's an alien, a 'Time Lord', who travels in time and space using a spaceship that looks like a blue telephone box (called the TARDIS) which is bigger inside than out. He has a young female companion with him in a strictly platonic relationship, and of all the races he encounters the most deadly are his sworn enemies, the Daleks.

And what do we know about Ultraman? He is an alien who comes to Earth and somehow melds with a military or quasi-military individual. When danger threatens, usually personified by one or more giant monsters, that individual can transform into Ultraman who is a giant humanoid, clad in a silver and red outfit including a helmet with blank staring eyes. Ultraman is never seen without this outfit which may actually be part of him - is that really a helmet or is it his head? He is handy in a fight against any giant monster, whether grappling one-to-one or blasting off rays. But he can only exist for a short time and must return to human form when a light on his chest starts flashing to indicate that his strength is nearly exhausted.

The more recent series - Ultraman Tiga, Ultraman Dyna and Ultraman Gaia - sought to reinvent the franchise from scratch and although they were evidently more successful than the rather poor 1996 Doctor Who telemovie, nevertheless they may end up being viewed as some sort of 'alternative' franchise. On the other hand, the new TV series Ultraman Max (featuring episodes directed by Gamera helmer Shusuke Kaneko and Takashi Miike!) which is in production as I write this in mid-2005 apparently returns the character closer to his roots and it could be this movie which becomes the equivalent of the Paul McGann Who film.

So what is Ultraman: The Next all about? Tetsuya Bessho (Godzilla vs Mothra, Parasite Eve) plays air force pilot Lieutenant Shunichi Maki, who flies an F-15 Eagle and whose nearly-six-year-old son Keimu (Ryohei Hirota) suffers from a terminal blood disease that means he may not see his seventh birthday. Understandably wanting to spend more time with his little boy while he has the chance, Maki retires from the air force and takes a job piloting a light aircraft for private travellers, operating from a small local airport.

Just before Maki retires, he and his wingman Captain Kurashima are scrambled to intercept a mysterious radar blip travelling at incredible speed. Kurashima's instruments go haywire and force him to abort but Maki carries on and finds that the UFO is a glowing red light which envelopes his plane. He finds himself seeming to float in some sort of glowing tunnel where he can see a giant humanoid. (The tunnel effect is, by coincidence, basically the same as that used in the title sequence of Doctor Who!)

Maki's Eagle explodes and he is believed dead, but he later stumbles into a roadside diner, tattered and bruised but without any serious injuries, and with no idea how he survived.

Once into civvy street, Maki's life settles down until a passenger on one of his flights (who has been secretly following and photographing him) pulls a gun and forces him to divert to a nearby highway, which has been specially closed by the military in order for his plane to land. He is then driven to a top secret military base where he is interrogated about what really happened on that mysterious flight. Back at the airport, Keimu waits for his daddy with Maki's wife Yoko (Nae Yuki) and their joy when his plane lands turns to dismay when they find that the pilot is not Maki but Kurashima, accompanied by two soldiers. Kurashima can't tell them anything about where Maki is, but he can at least confirm that he is alive.

That female passenger who pulled a gun and is now interrogating Maki is a military scientist named Sara Mizuhara (Kyoko Toyama: An Obsession) who works for an anti-terrorist organisation called the BCST. She explains that a similar (but blue) light was reported in the seabed location of a downed UFO a few weeks earlier and had similarly affected the minisub pilot who was sent to investigate it: the sub was destroyed but he somehow survived. Archived security camera footage shows this poor soul, Takafumi Udo (Kenya Osumi), in a cell where he can be seen to be gradually mutating into some sort of reptilian beast. He later escaped, drawing to himself and absorbing hundreds of lizards which enabled him to grow and mutate, eventually blasting out of the base. We actually saw this in a dimly lit prologue, with Sara unable to fire at the monster as Udo's human face reappears briefly.

With the monster (codenamed 'The One', and still played by Osumi inside the costume; interestingly he is actually a professional dancer) now on the loose somewhere, the military are naturally keen to contain and study Maki as his development may give them some clue about how to defeat The One. He is codenamed 'The Next' - which explains the movie's apparently ungrammatical title - and held in a fortified underground cell. When The One comes calling, apparently attracted by some sort of psychic link with The Next, something takes over Maki and he is able to break out of his cell, then grows to about twenty feet tall and mutates into some sort of silver-clad alien being.

It's a measure of the maturity of the film-makers that we are nearly halfway through the film before we get our first sight of Ultraman (and that the character is never referred to by that name until right at the end of the film, when a news reporter comes up with it).

The two large (but interestingly, not giant) aliens fight as Sara looks on, incredulous. At one point, she is about to be thrown aside by The One's lengthy, powerful tail but The Next throws himself in the way. Eventually The One smashes its way out of the building, as a light on The Next's chest starts to flash and he collapses into a heap, morphing and shrinking back into the form of Maki.

There are further revelations between this point and the climactic return match, but they mostly concern the people, not the monsters. We never find out what The One and The Next actually are, or where they come from, or what sort of hold they may have over their respective hosts. We do later see Udo once again in human form, further cementing the similarities between the two aliens, although the alien-human connection seems to be different with Udo/The One. The implication is that two warring entities have come to Earth and are continuing an existing fight, with humanity now caught up in the middle. This gives the film a strong narrative thread which stands alone without requiring any foreknowledge of Ultraman's past.

Where the movie really scores is in exploring the way that all this impacts on the lives of Maki, Sara and everyone else who is directly or peripherally involved, which I have always held to be a large part of what good science fiction is about. Take your science fictional premise - whether it's aliens or artificial intelligence or time travel or nanotechnology or whatever - and show how that would affect people. (The new Doctor Who does this terrifically too. For the first time, we get to see how the sudden 'disappearance' of the Doctor's companion affects those closest to her.) We learn more about Sara and discover why she didn't kill Udo/The One when she had the chance, and there is redemption for Kurashima who feels guilty over his collusion with his friend's kidnappers. There are some great minor characters too, including the boss of the airport where Maki works and a junior military officer who challenges Sara over her actions which have resulted in the deaths of some of his men. When did you last see a monster movie where somebody was actually bothered that a squad of miltary grunts had been killed by the beastie?

Although the 'terminally ill son' subplot gets a wee bit soap opera-esque at times, it gives the character of Maki greater depth and clearly defined motivation, both in seeking normality and in resolving to accept the responsibility thrust on him to aid the military organisation which kidnapped him. But more than this we get some real insight into what it might be like to actually be Ultraman's host - a concept which of course implies that Ultraman himself is a form of parasite. Maki doesn't know that he is (or could be) the defender of mankind against alien attack. All he knows is that under certain circumstances he loses consciousness and/or control and something alien (in every sense) takes him over for its own ends. We do later see Ultraman save a mother and child from a collapsing building, but we are left to make up our own minds whether this is the action of a sympathetic human father (Maki is the first ever Ultraman host to have a wife and kid) or a philanthropic alien - or some melding of the two.

Ultraman/The Next may be a superhero (he isn't really one in this movie, except in the broadest possible sense, but he could become one) but Maki isn't any sort of hero at all, super or otherwise. He's just some poor guy who is being used by something beyond his, or anybody's, understanding - and also being used by the military. The great irony lies in the fact that Maki was a military man himself, a terrific Eagle pilot, but he tried to escape the responsibilities of that life, only to have something bigger and worse thrust upon him (and by proxy, upon his family) against his will. It's his acceptance of this, but only on his own terms as much as he can (for example, he briefly escapes his captors when he hears that his son is in hospital) which makes him an ersatz hero, not his uncontrollable ability to grow to 50 metres high and fire energy blasts from his forearms.

The difference between this version and previous incarnations is summed up perfectly in a line that a shaken, confused, possibly even terrified Maki says after that first big fight with The One: "I became a monster." In fact there are numerous dialogue references to Maki's new giant alter ego as a 'monster' - and none as a 'hero'.

And yes, Ultraman does grow to his traditional giant size before the final battle, to match the now-similarly enormous The One, although there is an unusual scene at one stage where the good guy, even at 20 feet or so, is dwarfed by the newly grown monster, something that has rarely if ever been seen before.

As well as a script which brings new depth and breadth to both plot and characterisation, Ultraman: The Next also benefits from good special effects, including a CGI Ultraman for the climactic flying sequences (these were directed by Ichiroh Itano whose anime credits include Urusei Yasura, Macross and Megazone 23). Those who consider anything less than state-of-the-Hollywood-art effects to be 'cheap' will no doubt bring their prejudices to bear and still mock, but this movie is a huge step up from 1970s/1980s series that many people in the West might recall. There are still limitations in the suitmation; for example The One has a quite long but completely rigid neck - the actor's head is between the costume's shoulders - which means that the monster often tends to not look at where it is going or what it is doing. This is a shame because the head itself is an excellent animatronic effect with moving jaw and eyes. If a flexible neck couldn't be achieved on the budget available, then the neck should have been shortened to almost nothing. It's a design problem rather than a construction one.

On the whole, however, The One is a terrific monster. There is a marvellous sequence towards the end of the film when he draws to himself, and absorbs, hundreds of crows. As with the lizards (and rats in another sequence) this causes him to grow and mutate, in this case sprouting a massive pair of wings in preparation for the climactic aerial showdown with The Next. In striking a heraldic pose, and in another shot when he bursts out of the ground, The One reminded me of the recent Thai monster flick Garuda, though this is probably just coincidence. The removal/destruction of these wings, incidentally, is arguably the highlight of the film, a pair of successive images which form a real 'double wow' moment.

Ultraman's own costume is fantastic. It looks enough like the (many) previous incarnations to be recognisable but has been given a 21st century make-over, resembling a suit of body armour or an android body. As mentioned above, I subscribe to the theory that what we see as a 'costume' is actually the being himself, and this stylish, effective design plays to that idea much more than the old silver ski-suits with their baggy wrinkles at hips and shoulders ever did. We do, incidentally, finally get to see the iconic crossed-arms pose but like so much else here a rationale has been found for this. It's a way for the character to steady his forearms and blast off his energy bolts accurately. He doesn't just stand like that because That's What Ultraman Does and the fanboys expect it. Similarly, the flashing light on the character's chest, which has always previously been an entirely gratuitous 'ticking clock' to add tension (and sometimes to keep effects sequences to an affordable length!) is finally given a genuine reason to exist in this movie.

Another interesting point of note is that there is very little miniature work on show. Two of the three main Ultraman-vs-monster fights (monster-vs-monster?) actually take place indoors and the third is mostly green-screened (very effectively, using low-angled shots) against real buildings, before shifting up into the sky. The camera is frequently positioned at human eye-level, looking up at the two giants, which works wonders. There is a tendency for effects unit directors on kaiju eiga to place their camera at the eye-level of their protagonists which often hinders the suspension of disbelief required to accept that these are giant beings, not just two men in costumes. Similarly, many effects directors on these pictures don't bother to overcrank the camera during action shots, which is essential to slow down the movement slightly and give these giant beings weight; it's done properly here. Ultraman: The Next is a film made by people who have looked at current and previous productions within this genre and learned from them, without ditching what made them great in the first place.

This is director Kazuya Konaka’s fourth Ultraman movie, following Ultraman Zearth 2, Ultraman Tiga and Ultraman Dyna and Ultraman Gaia: The Battle in Hyperspace (which was actually a three-way team-up between Messrs Gaia, Tiga and Dyna). He also directed the thoughtful sci-fi picture Dimension Travellers and ghost story Shigatsu Kaidan. Keiichi Hasegawa’s other scriptwork includes the aforementioned Gaia/Tiga/Dyna picture, various episodes of the Ultraman Tiga TV series and the Godzilla kaiju-fest GMK: All Monsters Attack. The cinematography is very dark but that is more likely a problem with the timecoded DVD-R screener that I watched rather than the work of DP Shinichi Ooka. Yuichi Kikuchi (GMK: All Monsters Attack, Godzilla X Mechagodzilla) is credited as special effects director.

I would love to see more Ultraman like this, although by all accounts Ultraman Max restores such temporarily absent elements as the character’s origins in Galaxy M-78 (and slightly baggy silver ski-suits). Maybe production company Tsuburuya have decided that pleasing the hardcore fans is the way to go. But given how many times the character has been reinvented over the years, I would like to think that there is sufficient room for both sorts of Ultraman.

Being picky, my biggest problem with the film is the music. I recall a meeting with the UK Sci-Fi Channel in the mid-1990s, trying to persuade them to show Ultraman and the biggest stumbling block (apart from the fact that the channel was only prepared to pay peanuts) was the martial, orchestral music, which the channel said would need to be replaced with something more techno. Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately) nothing ever came of that meeting. In this film, the music (credited to Tak Matsumoto aka 'B'z') is rockier and generally very good but unfortunately his 'Theme from Ultraman' which plays whenever the F-15s appear on screen (and that’s quite often during the first 20 minutes or so) is a stirring pastiche of the Top Gun theme which rapidly becomes as irritating as it is derivative.

That’s a shame, but not nearly enough to spoil a corking movie, and most of the other music is great. (The closing credits play under an English language song by Matsumoto's group TMG called 'Never Good-bye', written by bassist Jack Blades, formerly with Night Ranger and Damn Yankees, and sung by Eric Martin from Mr Big - who must be a kaiju fan because his 2003 solo album was called Destroy All Monsters.)

I can't claim complete familiarity with every incarnation of Ultraman - God knows there have been enough of them - but I really did enjoy Ultraman: The Next hugely. It works not just as a new version of a cinematic/televisual icon, and not just as a terrific sci-fi romp, but as one of the new breed of more sensible kaiju eiga. If you can accept the basics, not least that a fifty-metre tall humanoid could exist and move freely without collapsing under his own weight because of the vastly increased size-to-mass ratio, then what you will find here is a well-written, well-made, exciting, thought-provoking science fiction adventure which explores its premise and builds to a rip-roaring finale.

It's not your parents' Ultraman.

MJS rating: A

Princess from the Moon

Director: Kon Ichikawa
Writers: Shinya Hidaka, Mitsutoshi Ishigami, Ryuzo Kikushima
Producers: Hiroaki Fujii, Masaru Kakatani, Junichi Shinsaka
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Katsuo Nakamura
Year of release: 1987
Country: Japan
Reviewed from: UK DVD (Artsmagic)

In feudal Japan, poor bamboo weaver Taketori-no-Miyatsuko and his wife mourn the death (from illness) of their young daughter Kaya. One night, there is a massive light from the bamboo forest behind their house, and when Miyatsuko investigates he comes across a strange metal capsule, half-buried in the ground next to his daughter’s grave. A mysterious light flows between the two, then the capsule opens and out crawls a baby which grows, before his astonished eyes, into a little girl who is the double of Kaya.

Miyatsuko takes the girl home, where his overjoyed wife sees her as a gift from Heaven to replace their daughter. Meanwhile, other locals have discovered a huge, smoking pit in the middle of the forest. Miyatsuko sells a piece of the capsule and discovers that it is pure gold; shortly afterwards he and his wife return home to find that Kaya has grown into an elegant young woman.

Suddenly wealthy, the couple move from their shack to a huge house in the rich part of town, where all the men are bewitched by Kaya’s ethereal beauty. But the local Shogun hears tell of gold being traded in town and wonders where it has come from.

Kaya receives proposals of marriage from three suitors: two slimy old guys and a sincere young councillor. On the advice of a blind friend she sends the three men on impossible tasks. The two slimeballs apparently succeed but are shown to have cheated, while the youngest man, barely surviving his fruitless attempt, proves that his love for Kaya (or Kaguya as she has become known - meaning ‘shining lady’) is true.

But by this point, Kaya/Kaguya’s true origin has been discovered: she came from the Moon and must return at the next full moon. Squads of soldiers are posted around the family’s house but Kaguya is taken anyway, in a shaft of light, leaving behind her adopted parents, her blind friend and her suitor.

Princess from the Moon (Taketori Monogatari) looks fabulous, a terrific recreation of feudal Japan with amazing costumes (by Emi Wada: Ran, Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams) and great sets (by Shinobu Muraki: Ran and - blimey! - ESPY). Unfortunately it’s also very, very long and very, very slow. The Mona Lisa looks fabulous too - but you wouldn’t want to stare at it for 122 minutes. The great Toshira Mifune - looking a lot older than he did in Yojimbo! - is good as Miyatsuko, as are the rest of the cast. Miho Nakano, the girl who plays young Kaya - blank expression, pale blue contact lenses and all - is undoubtedly the creepiest child actor you’ll ever see. Adult Kaya/Kaguya is played by Yasuko Sawaguchi (Godzilla 1985, Godzilla Vs Biollante, Orochi the Eight-Headed Dragon).

There is one very brief sword-fight (not involving Mifune) and a fantastic giant sea-serpent which appears far too briefly - allegedly left over from the unmade Toho/Hammer co-production Nessie - but little else to get excited about for the first 100 minutes. (Special effects are by Teruyoshi Nakano, his last credit after a career at Toho which started with The Secret of the Telegian in 1960 and took in pretty much every SF, horror or monster movie after that, including Lake of Dracula, Evil of Dracula and 13 Godzilla films.) Princess from the Moon is a fairy tale, but is unfortunately presented as a soap opera with endless scenes of people talking - often in locked-off longshots which make it hard to tell, on the small screen, who is speaking at any given point.

Then in the last 20 minutes it turns into a full-blown special effects fantasia, with an alien spaceship straight out of Close Encounters accompanied by a faux John Williams score that also hints at Also Sprach Zarathustra! It’s a complete change (though still, it must be said, not terribly exciting) which sits oddly with all that has gone before. But there just seems to be no moral; there’s no sense of Kaya, in her short time on Earth, teaching people anything or learning anything about humanity. A fairy tale (a very long one) without a clear moral seems somewhat pointless, however beautifully designed and shot.

Also be warned that the end credits play under an unspeakably dire ballad (in English) by Peter Cetera.

Artsmagic’s anamorphic widescreen presentation, on their Shadow Warrior label, is a typically flawless transfer. Although there is a cast list - and biographical notes on Ichikawa (Seishun Kaidan, 47 Ronin etc) and Mifune (The Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress etc) - the disc lacks the cast portraits seen on some of the label’s other films, which is annoying as many of the characters are never actually named in the dialogue, rendering the cast list somewhat superfluous.

MJS rating: B-

Prey for the Beast

Director: Brett Kelly
Writer: Jeff O’Brien
Producer: Anne-Marie Frigon
Cast: Brett Kelly, Anastasia Kimmett, Amanda Leigh
Country: Canada
Year of release: 2008
Reviewed from: screener
Website: www.brettkelly.net

Prey for the Beast is equal parts formulaic Don’t Go In The Woods picture and good, old-fashioned monster movie of the sort that they don’t make them like any more. It is not overly burdened with characterisation or plot but makes up for this with decent acting, smart direction, a highly credible sound mix and a frankly terrific monster suit which is worth the price of admission on its own.

Four blokes go off into the woods for a weekend of male bonding to help one of their number get over his wife’s infidelity. I couldn’t actually tell you what any of their names are but there’s a tall one who is described as a ‘survivalist’ and has brought a pistol with him. Elsewhere in the woods are four young ladies (again, I couldn’t differentiate or name them although two are lesbians of course - it’s a tradition or an old charter or something). When these eight people discover each other’s existence and meet up, they also discover that there is a savage creature in the woods from which they must escape.

Actually before we get to any of this we have three earlier scenes. A pre-credits prologue has a couple (Kerri Draper and Dan Tait) in a tent getting amorous but disturbed by noises outside. She goes out to investigate then he goes to find out where she’s got to - and both meet an unpleasant end from something unseen.

After the credits there is a sequence with an old guy who is some sort of wildlife photographer (Lenard Blackburn) and the local guide (Kevin Preece) he has employed to show him the unnamed creature - which seems to be well-known, at least to the locals. Then we see the ‘survivalist’ guy and his missus (Thea Nikolic) discussing why he has to attend this jolly boys’ outing.

Thing is, the first prologue is entirely unnecessary, serving no real purpose except to boost the running time. Yes, it introduces us to the idea that there’s a nasty something in these woods, but so does the photographer/guide scene. And those two will later connect with our main characters and influence the plot whereas the couple in the tent are entirely unconnected to the main story. You don’t need two prologues; the second renders the first redundant.

Once the octet discover that there is a beastie in the woods the plot becomes a fairly simple progression as they are killed off one by one. Unfortunately this generally happens because someone decides to wander off away from the group for no apparent reason and without telling anyone where they’re going. Only towards the end, when the numbers have been radically reduced, do we get any sense that this monster is actually hunting and killing the humans, rather than just helping itself to victims who inexplicably choose to wander around the woods on their own.

The men arrived by boat, which they didn’t bother to tie up and which has subsequently floated off. However, the ladies (and the photographer and guide) ‘hiked in’ so there should be no problem in hiking right out again. Indeed, when the survivors make it to safety (I can’t give you any spoilers here because the characters are so interchangeable that I genuinely have no idea which ones they are) we find out that they weren’t anywhere terribly inaccessible after all. After what seems a fairly short hike - even allowing for editing, it’s plainly still the same afternoon - the survivors end up on a tarmac path which leads to a car park - and quite possibly some sort of picnic area and visitor centre. It’s not as bad as the Camp Blood films and their ‘isolated’ woodland locations that are about five minutes walk from a busy main road but it certainly deflates the threat in retrospect.

While I’m picking holes, the other two major problems are that neither group of ‘campers’ seems to have much camping equipment and the locations chosen are relatively sparsely vegetated for woodland. Small trees and saplings with few leaves mean that we can see a considerable distance into the woods from any location so it’s difficult to understand how the monster is able to creep up on anyone. A chipmunk would have difficult hiding in some of this foliage.

But let’s sing the praises of the monster because this is a belter of a suit and director Brett Kelly is spot on in balancing the early scenes when we see only a claw or a flash of fur and the later scenes when we get a good (if usually brief) look at the beast. Shaggy of main, large of claw and in desperate need of a good orthodontist, this is something inbetween a bear and warthog. Actually it’s curious that no-one ever wonders whether they are dealing with a bear, especially when characters have actually seen the thing so they know it’s about eight feet tall, covered in shaggy brown hair and bipedal.

“What is it, some kind of animal?” says one character, burdened with the movie’s worst (and funniest) line of dialogue.

Because of the large number of potential victims, Kelly adds something extra to the mix by giving the creature some sort of hallucinogen in its saliva (I think) so that one of the men who gets scratched on his hand starts hallucinating (he was the cuckolded guy and we get a flashback to the discovery of his wife’s betrayal). Unfortunately there seems to be either a continuity error or some post-production rejiggery of events because his hand is bandaged (by one of the women) for no apparent reason, then later we see him with an unbandaged hand and subsequently it’s bandaged again. Even when he has the bandage on, that hand is still strong enough to grip a decent-sized automatic pistol apparently.

The culmination of the creature’s pursuit of its victims happens in and around a small wooden shack which the ladies say they passed on the way in but which they neglected to mention prior to that point, even though it’s full of handy, heavy, sharp tools and should have been their first thought when people started dying. It is also surprising that, given that this group have one gun (with half a dozen bullets) and one bow (with a presumably small but never specified number of arrows), no-one bothers to improvise a weapon by, say, sharpening up the end of a handy branch.

Once the survivors are besieged in the shack the interest and excitement picks up considerably, especially as one of them is hallucinating. I would have liked to see much more of this and less of people walking through the pleasant and slightly leafy woodland, presumably along a well-trodden path as they make it to the car park quite easily without the benefit of a map or compass.

Running to 75 minutes, Prey for the Beast has about eight and a half minutes of glacially slow end credits, including a reprise of all the names of its fairly large cast and its principal crew who were all introduced individually in two and a half minutes of opening titles. I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again: we don’t know who these people are so we don’t need to be introduced to them one by one. Yes, it’s a thrill at the cast and crew screening but it’s a pain in the neck for the viewers. As for the Charlesband-ian creeping credits at the end, there is no point in watching them at all. If film-makers must drag out their end credit sequences at least put something under the words (or split screen or whatever) to justify our sitting through them. A few bloopers, in the Jackie Chan style, would suffice.

The four main male characters are played by Ray Besharah, Mark Courneyea, Jodi Pittman and Kelly himself. The female quartet are played by Anastasia Kimmett, Amanda Leigh, Lisa Aitken and Sonia Myers. Many of the cast have been in other Brett Kelly movies before or since but few if any of them have done anything else on screen. In the infidelity flashback Tara Lee Gerhard appears as the chap’s wife (she also handled make-up although her surname is spelled ‘Gerhards’ there; someone else provides the character’s voice on a phone in another scene) and Jody Haucke (a Kelly regular) is the other man.

Cinematographer Jera Kenez is aka Jeremy Kennedy and has lit several other Brett Kelly pictures as well as directing the almost wordless horror short Influence; Kelly and Kenez share the editing credit.

Brett Kelly has rather cheekily bolstered the film’s credits by putting a number of friends and associates in there as fake/spoof credits. How do I know this? Because I know Brett (through Fred Olen Ray’s Retromedia forums), because he has never mentioned that he knows anyone else named ‘MJ Simpson’ and because I’m pretty damn sure that I did not work on this film as an electrician... (I also spotted ‘materials consultant’ Lou Vockell.)

Unusually director Kelly (whose previous films include The Bonesetter and sequel, the remake of Kingdom of the Vampire and a version of The Tell-Tale Heart) and writer Jeff O’Brien (Insecticidal, Alien Incursion, Bone Dry) never met during production. Having become acquainted through the aforementioned Fred Olen Ray forum, they collaborated by e-mail with O’Brien getting screenplay credit and Kelly getting ‘story by’. Still, it’s very modern, isn’t it? Both parties are evidently pleased with their joint effort (as well they might be) as they subsequently set to work on a remake of - would you believe? - Attack of the Giant Leeches. Composer Christopher Nickel had previously worked with both gentlemen on separate projects.

But the biggest plaudits here go to the make-up and effects guys. Ralph Gethings was responsible for ‘special make-up FX’ and also gets a ‘second unit DOP’ credit. He also worked for Kelly on Kingdom of the Vampire and My Dead Girlfriend and directed the short film Reckoning and here he does sterling work on the various injuries and eviscerations.

And then there’s the creature suit itself, which is the creation of Matt Ficner. Or, as the end titles have it: ‘Bruno the Beast created by and appears courtesy of Matt Ficner Productions Inc, www.mfproductions.ca.’ Ficner has really gone above and beyond the call of duty here, designing and constructing a believable, scary and practical monster suit. Ficner is also the man behind a series of short films under the self-explanatory title The Creepy Puppet Project.

Prey for the Beast is an entertaining hour and a quarter of relatively likeable (if not especially interesting) people being stalked and killed by a natural (rather than supernatural) predator. It’s a fun way to pass the time and has been put together with the skill and talent that one expects from people as experienced as Jeff O’Brien and Brett Kelly. I think it could have been more than it was with a bit more characterisation but from an action/horror point of view this ticks all the boxes and is well worth your attention.

Now, bring on that Giant Leeches remake!

MJS rating: B+

Underground Lizard People

Director: Jared Cohn
Writers: Jared Cohn, Ed Erdelac
Producer: Joe Accardi
Cast: Caitlin Gold, Clint Byrne, Lauren Klemp
Year of release: 2011
Country: USA
Reviewed from: YouTube

Not quite an hour long, Underground Lizard People gives every impression of being a student film, and probably is, but it’s still worth a watch. It’s well-directed, well-acted, atmospheric, creepy and slickly professional. I mean, it’s not going to set the world alight, but there are worse things you can do with 55 minutes of your time.

Five New York students are going into a set of abandoned tunnels to film a documentary – and yes, that’s not the most original set-up, I’ll grant you. But these are generally sympathetic, rounded, believable characters, even if what they’re up to is a bit dumb. Jason (Clint Byrne) is the main protagonist, accompanied by camera-man Jack (Colin Walker) who fancies himself a ladies man but is really kind of a dick. Sound-girl Lynda (Lauren Klemp) is helping as a return favour for Jason’s help in editing her own student film. Cheryl (Courtney Hammond) is described as the ‘executive producer’ – she’s not part of the ‘Communication Arts’ department but is a member of some sort of student Fortean society which has bank-rolled the project (although it’s difficult to see what costs are involved). The final member of the quintet is Jason’s girlfriend Rachael (Caitlin Gold) who has no purpose on the team – she’s majoring in costume design.

The ‘Banning Tunnels’ are long-abandoned railway tunnels full of graffiti and homeless people. The gang use bolt-cutters to snap a chain on a gate but there must be some other way in that the bums are using. As they make their way down the tunnels, the students pause occasionally for Jason to do to-camera bits.

What’s not believable is the lack of preparation. No-one seems to have come dressed for urban exploring – Rachael is actually wearing pumps and a short, strapless dress, although at least she’s not in heels. Lynda – asthmatic, claustrophobic Lynda – is shocked at the idea that there might be rats around. Really? You’re going filming in an abandoned railway tunnel and you’ve only just realised there could be rats? That might work if she was an airhead bimbo but she’s not. Like the others, she’s presented as reasonably intelligent.

Jason doesn’t seem to have briefed his team at all and it’s only once they’re underground that he mentions the legends of lizard people, blamed by conspiracy theorists for the disappearance of a gang of surveyors 18 years earlier. Although we’re not actually very far underground at this point, reverse shots clearly showing the tunnel entrance about 20 feet away.

Taking a side-tunnel, the team explore further, getting more and more freaked out and splintering further as personal revelations come to light. The dialogue is good and the character conflict well-handled. This is not The Descent, I’ll give you that, but it’s a lot, lot better than The Blair Shit Project, for example.

Writer-director Jared Cohn plays a surprisingly well-spoken (and beard-free) bum whom they find reading a Lonesome Dove paperback by candle-light. An intriguingly ambiguous character, it’s really not clear how trustworthy he is – which is good.

About halfway through we get our first glimpse of a lizard person, or at least a lizard person’s arm. From then on the tension and horror gradually increases and we get more glimpses of the lizard people, who are effectively portrayed and photographed. They’re not reptilian monsters, more bums with dark green-brown, scaly skin, scary teeth and contacts, and animalistic tendencies. You know what, I think that, given the micro-budget, they actually work. Any more ambitious make-up would end up looking rubbish, but this has been judged just right.

Some parts of the film are seen through the lens of Jack’s camera, complete with little red ‘rec’ light, but this is far from being ‘found footage’. The whole thing is topped and tailed with some very effective talking heads of assorted witnesses and experts, including a former CIA guy shot in silhouette.

I enjoyed ULP which I picked pretty much at random off YouTube when I had some time to spare. Having watched the movie, I trotted over to IMDB to see if anyone involved had made anything else, and discovered that Jared Cohn has quite a CV, even though this was only made three years ago. ULP was actually his second feature after something called The Carpenter Part 1 – And So They Die. These two movies were enough to get him a gig with The Asylum, purveyors of finest DTV rubbish since 1997. For those guys he directed horrors Born Bad, Hold Your Breath and 12/12/12 (he also acted in the sequel 13/13/13!). Cohn helmed skinfick-comedy Bikini Spring Break for The Asylum as well as prison drama 17 and Life: Jailbait and even giant mecha-fest mockbuster Atlantic Rim (take that, Guillermo del Toro!). As an actor, you’ll find him in Alien Abduction, Bram Stoker’s Way of the Vampire, Legion of the Dead, Halloween Night, Blood Predator and a number of other pre-Lizard People titles. The IMDB reckons he’s attached to direct Zombienado!

Ed Erdelac, writer-director of horror western Meaner than Hell, shares script credit, from a story by exec-prod/co-prod Ron Dubey. Among the cast, all of whom acquit themselves well here, Gold has about two dozen credits including ‘pregnant zombie’ in something called Eat Me; Byrne went on to handle camera on Larry King Now; Klemp was in a short Twilight spoof; Walker seems to have mainly done stage work; and Hammond has done a couple of shorts.

Mike Bauman (Revenants) was the DP and does a good job of convincing us that this all happens underground, although realistically there was always going to be too much light, otherwise we would never see what was happening. The make-up was by Ingrid Okola whose credits include Devil’s Detail, The Blood Shed, David Gregory’s Plague Town, I Sell the Dead, ZombleBees(!), and Debbie Rochon’s Model Hunger.

Underground Lizard People turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a cheap and cheerful student film by a bunch of nobodies and found instead an enjoyable horror picture from the guy who made Atlantic Rim. A lucky dip indeed.

MJS rating: B+

The Naked Monster

Director: Ted Newsom, Wayne Berwick
Writer: Ted Newsom
Producer: Ted Newsom
Cast: Kenneth Tobey, Brinke Stevens and, well, everybody
Country: USA
Year of release: 2005
Reviewed from: screener disc

The Naked Monster is a film that took 21 years to make and cost almost as many dollars. It is both an homage to, and a spoof of, 1950s sci-fi and horror movies which goes beyond anything that could be called ‘affectionate’, stopping only slight short of stalkerdom. The film has been carefully constructed to give the impression that it has been cobbled together using two VHS machines, a stopwatch and the complete literary works of Bill Warren. But is it just an impression?

It’s not so much the story that matters here: the story is a by-the-numbers account of a giant ‘monstersaurus erectus’ terrorising California by stomping around goofily and occasionally treading on or eating people. The script of The Naked Monster is basically what you would get if you threw every monster movie plot filmed between 1955 and 1965 into a blender, then scooped out 90 minutes’ worth and baked at gas mark seven. No, what matters here is how the film has been made.

Like some mad DJ mixing and scratching old records, Ted Newsom has ‘sampled’ a pile of old movies to create something new. Then, in among the clips - all from trailers or public domain titles - he has woven a central storyline in which a local sheriff (RG Wilson), a federal agent (John Goodwin, also in Dr Horror’s Erotic House of Idiots and Tremors) and a paleo-ichthyologist with a talent for pouring great cups of coffee (Brinke Stevens: Hell Asylum, Invisible Mom, Witchouse 3 and, oh, everything pretty much) attempt to deal with the giant, three-eyed beastie of the title. They are assisted by receptionist Connie (Cathy Cahn: Dr Hackenstein) and by one of the few people on the planet with experience of defeating monsters, Colonel Patrick Hendry (the late great Kenneth Tobey, reprising his character from The Thing).

And therein lies the central conceit of Newsom’s hugely entertaining film. Anyone can edit together clips from old movies (though few would have the detailed knowledge, patient precision or lack of a social life required to do it as well as Ted manages) but that’s just an extended montage until you add actors. Not just any old actors, but the actors who were in those very films - as the characters they played, 40 or 50 years on.

Thus we have Robert Cornthwaite as Dr Carrington from The Thing, John Agar and Lori Nelson as Dr Clete Ferguson and Helen Dobson from Revenge of the Creature, Ann Robinson and Les Tremayne as Dr Sylvia Van Buren and General Mann from The War of the Worlds, Paul Marco as his Ed Wood character Kelton the Cop, Robert Clarke as Major Allison from Beyond the Time Barrier, Dragnet announcer George Fenneman (who was also in The Thing) as the narrator, and John Harmon and Jeanne Carmen from The Monster of Piedras Blancas.

In a cast which simply staggers belief, we also find cameos by the likes of Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, Gloria Talbott, Bob Burns (both in and out of his Tracy the Gorilla costume), Ron Ford (miming to ‘Fa-Ro-Lee, Fa-Ro-La’ from Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man!), producer JR Bookwalter (The Dead Next Door), screenwriters Sean O’Bannon (Hybrid, Final Examination) and Pete Atkins (Hellraiser II, III and IV), journalists Bill Warren and Stuart Galbraith IV, Simpsons writer Mike Reiss and the ubiquitous Forry Ackerman as ‘Flustered Man’, possibly his finest ever performance: “You should build a robot double of the monster, and it could perhaps do some sort of erotic dance...”.

Very few of the actors actually appear on screen with anyone else, but that’s part of the fun, resulting in a hilarious sequence where an appeal for help is put out on TV and a whole bunch of monster veterans telephone the Sheriff’s office to offer advice based on their own screen experience. And just in case you’re not sure who anyone is, there is usually a model, mask or poster in the background to clue you in.

Combining the main cast of Tobey, Stevens et al, the seemingly endless cameos and the innumerable film clips, Newsom has created a film which zings with corny gags like some sort of feature-length Goon Show. He knows that it’s not enough to have the clips, the old-time stars and an entirely gratuitous sequence of Brinke Stevens in the shower (which, with the addition of one line, is even more gratuitously repeated among the ‘deleted scenes’). Ted knows that you need a laff-a-minute script, careful direction and above all precise editing. Having written, directed and produced numerous horror movie documentaries including Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora and Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (Peter Cushing’s last ever work), Ted Newsom is well-placed to know what clips to use, where to find them and how to combine them for the best effect.

The Naked Monster is a sort of last hurrah in many ways. It was the last film role for Tobey who died in December 2002. Agar, Tremayne, Cornthwaite, Fenneman and Talbott also all died before the film was completed (and Marco has passed away in the year or so since then). This stands as a warm tribute to each and every one of them.

The DVD has a director’s commentary, several deleted scenes (including a lengthy spoof of Titanic which was, I think, wisely cut), a stills gallery and an archive interview with Kenneth Tobey.

MJS rating: A

review originally posted 31st August 2006

Monster from Bikini Beach

Director: Darin Wood
Writer: Darin Wood
Producer: Christy Savage, Amy Slockbower
Cast: Stephen Vargo, Galen Howard, Stephanie Hyden
Country: USA
Year of release: 2008
Reviewed from: screener
Website: www.trashfilmorgy.com

I’m not sure what I was expecting from this film. Something cheesy, something deliberately lo-fi, something silly. When a production company calls itself Trash Film Orgy, you don’t raise your hopes too high.

So I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this is a well-produced, professional-looking, enormously entertaining... cheesy, lo-fi, silly film. There’s nothing desperately new here; everything in Monster from Bikini Beach has been done before, sometimes better, often worse. Without ascribing specific influences, one can construct a melange such as this from easily available ingredients: a touch of Attack of the Giant Leeches here, a smidgeon of The Pink Chiquitas there...

But this isn’t a movie which claims to be the big new thing, it’s an hour and a half of fun: sexy chicks, surfin’ guitar sounds, narrating detectives and an impressive monster.

Stephen Vargo (The Final Job) stars as Sammy Payday, a bent cop with a loud shirt, a gammy knee and a 1966 Cadillac. His silent, also bent partner is Charlie Snaps (David Ainsworth, who also has several crew credits on the film) - the only man in Camaraville who owns a shirt and tie, apparently. Together they are on the trail of a supply of cocaine which has gone missing somewhere in the city, threatening an inter-gang turf war. When not running protection rackets or investigating disembowelled corpses, Payday likes to sit by the pool watching his bikini-clad squeeze Honey ‘Boom-Boom’ Stacks (Laura Stahl) go-go dancing.

In another, overlapping plot strand, there’s a love-hate relationship between two young journalists whose paths have diverged since college. Cool geek Archie ‘Scoop’ Barclay (Galen Howard: Homeworld, Canary) is a freelance photographer, making no money but determined to uncover the truth while well-preened Raquel Vanvanderzander (Stephanie Hyden: Sukeban: Octopus Pot) is an on-screen reporter for Channel 13, selling her independent spirit for local fame and a decent wage. Archie is convinced that a putative local serial killer is actually a monster but Raquel is more sceptical: Scully to his Mulder.

The other main characters are gun-toting local catfish-tickler Noodlin’ Stu (Keith Letl) and his dynamite-toting ‘niece’ Fanny Jo (Liesel Hanson), who together play the Bert Gummer role, plus goateed entrepreneur Lonny Valente (Adam Saake) who plans to launch his new beach-front nightclub with the first ever Camaraville Midnight Gogo-a-thon.

The monster itself is never fully explained. There is a suggestion that it’s a giant catfish mutated by toxic waste and there is also talk of it having been worshipped by Indians in the area for centuries. Basically it’s a ten-foot-tall, green mouth on legs, looking not unlike the thing from The Host only vastly cheaper and less Korean. Josh Lashells is inside the suit for most shots but occasionally it’s worn by Nick Roberts or the tireless David Ainsworth.

Some people get eaten, some people get killed and lots of hot chicks and crazy guys party the night away, oblivious to the terror in their midst. But what makes the movie really work is that it is played completely straight. There are no winks to camera, no cheesy grins. Sammy Payday is a corrupt and frankly quite unpleasant character, the two young journos are sincere, Noodlin’ Stu and Fanny Jo are downhome, honest folk. People question the existence of the monster, people scream when it appears - and people’s guts get ripped out in surprisingly good (but not gratuitously unpleasant) gore scenes. Of particular note is the way that the T&A is integrated into the movie and relevant to the plot rather than the film simply stopping dead every ten minutes for a cheesecake sequence. Many film-makers could learn from this.

With a coherent plot (which is a rarity nowadays), good acting, decent camera-work, clear sound and above-average production values, Monster from Bikini Beach is the sort of film that I thought they had stopped making. And the whole thing is back with the twanging guitars of some kicking surf bands. The credits list them as Necrobeach, the Hypnotic IV, the Pyronauts, blackbird RAUM and Danny Amis with Lost Acapulco and the Mexico City Brass. Phill Baldwin provides the score inbetween surf tracks.

This is the debut feature from writer-director Darin Wood, who shares editing duties with his wife Christy Savage, who was DP and one of two producers. The other producer, Amy Slockbower, also supervised special effects. These three are the main driving force behind Trash Film Orgy which is much more than just a B-movie production company.

Trash Film Orgy is a festival of alternative culture held annually in Sacramento since 2000, a mix of big-screen movies, stage shows, bands, audience participation and general good-natured, tacky mayhem. It sounds freaking brilliant. In 2005, Wood and co. produced Curse of the Golden Skull, a serial starring masked wrestler ‘El Tigre Diablo’ which was screened before the movies at that year’s TFO. Stephen Vargo was in the cast of that too. Now the TFO team have put all their knowledge and experience of ‘trash cinema’ towards the task of creating their own instant cult classic and by George, I believe they may have succeeded.

There is a tremendous sense of fun and joie de vivre in Monster from Bikini Beach. For example, not content with simply listing bit parts as ‘second beach girl’ or ‘man in bar’, every character has their own very groovy name: Desdemona Nova, Retro-Chic Monique, Pinky Moldanato and White Pants Dutch. Even among the crew, the fun continues. What other movie can boast such enviable jobs as ‘break-away bikini-top technicians’, ‘psychedelic naked girl painters’ or a ‘director of nonsense’?

Enormously entertaining but made with a professionalism that demonstrates a true understanding of what makes B-movies great, this is a film you shouldn’t miss.

MJS rating: A-

review originally posted 27th February 2009

Nazi Zombie Death Tales

Directors: James Eaves, Alan Ronald, Pat Higgins
Writers: James Eaves, Alan Ronald, Pat Higgins
Producers: James Eaves, Alan Ronald, Pat Higgins, Laura Tennant, Debbie Attwell
Cast: Tina Barnes, Lara Lemon, Jess-Luisa Flynn
Country: UK
Year of release: 2012
Reviewed from: unfinished screener (Safecracker Pictures)

[I have been asked by one of the film-makers to point out that this is (as usual) a detailed review which may contain spoilers. - MJS]

As I write this review, the web is full of negative comments about Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, released just a few days ago. Not because it’s bad, but because it doesn’t (and could never) live up to the ridiculously high expectations that people have built up for it.

My cinematic tastes and interests are, as you may have gathered if you’re a regular reader, somewhat different to most people’s. So although I’ll probably go and see Prometheus, I’m not really too arsed about it. On the other hand, I can sympathise with these people because I feel very much the same way about the motion picture formerly known as Battlefield Death Tales. If you were to stop me at random any time in the past few years and ask which films I was most looking forward to, high on my list would be (a) the next Jim Eaves movie, (b) the next Pat Higgins film, and (c) whatever the next thing is that escapes from inside Al Ronald’s mind.

These three gentlemen previously collaborated on Bordello Death Tales, one of the first in the current vogue for horror anthologies and a corking trilogy of tales which was even better than the sum of its parts. Separately, Jim made The Witches Hammer and Bane; Pat made TrashHouse, KillerKiller, HellBride and The Devil’s Music; and Al made Jesus vs the Messiah. Having enjoyed their initial collaboration, they decided to switch from the horrors of sex to the horrors of war and set to making three new half-hour shorts that could be bolted together. Unlike Bordello DT, there is no framing story, although there is a very brief narrative cross-over between Al’s tale and Pat’s. I like a framing story in an anthology personally, and one of the previous film’s strengths was that Madam Raven was actually relevant to all three tales rather than being just a detached narrator. But for Battlefield DT, each story is separate and complete and the only connection is a Second World War setting.

We kick off with Jim’s Medal of Horror, which starts with British Captain George (David Wayman: Death, The Dead Inside) in a bar watching burlesque fan-dancer Daisy (Jeanie Wishes). Clever editing moves the story forward through his seduction of the young woman and her receipt of a letter confirming Captain George’s death. Starting the film with a full five minutes of dialogue-free narrative is a brave move, rendered even braver by the subsequent scene of Captain George, very much alive, reporting to a US Army Major (Paul Kelleher: Spirits of the Fall, The Demon Within, Simon and Emily). What follows is ten minutes of two men in a room, one sitting, one standing, just talking. Some casual viewers might turn off after a while, wondering when we’ll get to any Nazi zombies, and I’m not sure that Medal of Horror wouldn’t be better as the middle segment.

The major does introduce the Z-word in an apparently unrelated anecdote about a dead US soldier who returned to base and took a great deal of effort to subdue. But mainly he is castigating George for being a shit by sending a fake condolence letter to Daisy, who turns out to be the Major’s daughter. And who has been captured, for no obvious reason, by the Germans. Specifically by “Hitler’s high priestess of the occult” Jezebel (Tina Barnes: A Day of Violence, Bane, F).

George sets off on what is effectively a suicide mission to rescue Daisy and on the way has some rather random encounters including a German soldier in a dark blue greatcoat who exemplifies one of the films’ main problems: costumes. With a big budget, a film can afford to hire lots of historically accurate WW2 uniforms and create/adapt any additional ones required. But when shooting on a shoestring, you take what you can get. I’m no military historian but none of the uniforms on show in any of the segments really convinced me. George’s greatcoat for example has no Captain’s pips. Jezebel, when we meet her, is wearing black leggings below her smart, black SS jacket. Some of the background British soldiers seem to be wearing outfits that are distinctly post-WW2. And this particular German soldier has a coat that might pass for a French uniform in World War 1 but doesn’t look like anything warn by any German troops ever.

This sort of historical inaccuracy takes one out of the film, as do a number of very obviously modern locations. But it really is all down to budget. At this level of film-making, beggars can’t be choosers and if you know someone with a military-looking outfit that might pass muster if the viewers don’t look to closely and have never seen Where Eagles Dare, or a hall big enough to film in that’s empty for a few days, you say thanks very much. Those of us who love B-movies have to rely on the energy, originality, enthusiasm, excitement and generally daft scary fun of the movie to gloss over such things, as they assuredly do. But it would be remiss of me not to note their existence.

Anyway, George’s most random encounter is with the zombified Red Baron. He comes across a crashed scarlet triplane in the woods; a frankly dodgy model shot to which, honestly, my initial reaction was: “What is a radio-controlled model aircraft doing in a 1940s-set story?” Once again we must asume/hope that the viewers have not even rudimentary knowledge of military history, because of course Manfred von Richtofen was not shot down in a wood, and both his plane and his body were recovered. However, in this alternate history, the bright red Fokker Dr.1 has somehow remained undiscovered, and in extremely good condition, for more than 20 years.

As George stares at this, the Red Baron himself (Eaves regular Sam Smith) leaps up from the ground, although it’s not clear whether he has just been hiding there or whether he too has lain undisturbed since the last war. Clad in a red flying outfit that matches his plane, even down to a red eye-patch, and bearing absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the real von Richtofen (or indeed any German pilot!), this is very much a cartoon character. We must regard him as a character called ‘the Red Baron’, inspired extremely loosely by the legend, rather than the actual Red Baron himself.

But because a cartoon zombie WW1 flying ace isn’t weird enough, a karate-kicking Japanese zombie then appears and fights the German zombie, with both seeking to attack George if the other will let them. Quite what a Japanese soldier, living or dead, is doing in Northern Europe defeats me. Although it is worth noting that if this zombie is also meant to be a WW1 veteran then his fight against the Kraut is valid because the Japanese were on the Allied side during the 1914-18 war. On the other hand, his headband suggests he perhaps is supposed to be a kamikaze pilot, which would make him a WW2 airman and hence part of the Axis forces. While the two colourful undead tussle among the ferns, George makes his getaway through the woods and this utterly random weirdness is left behind.

In a bunker, he finally locates Jezebel and a single extraordinary German robot soldier, plus Daisy herself. Tina Barnes hams it up in her SS uniform and clearly had an absolute blast filming her extended death scene, although I can’t honestly say that I was convinced by her accent, whch at times seemed closer to Melbourne than Munich.

Medal of Horror runs about 35 minutes and, like the two stories which follow it, seems somewhat constrained by the format. I don’t know if there’s a feature here but it just doesn’t seem to fit the half-hour(-ish) restriction, especially given how slow most of the first half is. It seems a curiously disjointed tale. Fun, undeniably, but not totally satisfying.

Alan Ronald has the ‘golfing story’ slot with his tongue-in-cheek Harriet’s War which is completely different to the announced story. When the three plot synopses were revealed in January 2012, Al’s tale was called Monsters of the 4th Reich and went like this:

“Harriet Price tracks down monsters for the British Government. Armed with an array of inventions and contraptions she deals with everything from ghosts, demons, werewolves, vampires and once, she claims, even Churchill's Black Dog. But, along with her newly assigned partner; the cross dressing gunslinger 'Trixie Antoinette', this latest investigation will bring her face to face with the greatest monster of all... Hitler himself.”

The title may have been changed to avoid confusion with forthcoming British Nazi-zombie film The 4th Reich, but that’s just cosmetic. In fact, all that remains of this synopsis is Harriet Price herself, beautifully played by Lara Lemon in a costume to die for. She was in Al’s as-yet unreleased second feature Chinese Burns, which was written by and stars Julian Lamoral-Roberts - who was in Al’s Bordello DT story Stitchgirl and here plays the local vicar. Cy Henty turns up as the befuddled local copper, wearing an extraordinary policeman’s helmet and an even more extraordinary moustache.

Harriet Price is some sort of Government operative who visits the cosy little village of Chapelton to investigate a mysterious death, reporting to her superiors via a glorious sort of steampunk dictaphone. A young man has been found, dead and with multiple swastikas carved into his skin, while his girlfriend has disappeared (but later turns up in a similar condition). We saw in a prologue that they were killed by an apparently supernatural, German soldier with similar scars and a swastika blindfold

This is probably the simplest and most coherent of the three tales, let down only by the revelation of what is really going on, when Harriet suddenly proclaims to the plod and the priest, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, the name of the only other significant character. Nevertheless, I think this is my favourite and it has that mannered surrealism that we have come to expect from Al’s work. Still, one can’t help wondering whatever happened to cross dressing gunslinger Trixie Antoinette...

Finally we have Pat’s tale Devils of the Blitz. This is the least comprehensible of the three stories and, truth be told, without having read the synopsis I don’t think I would have had a clue what was going on. Jess-Luisa Flynn (Adele in The Devil’s Music) plays the sister of a serving soldier with Liza Keast (The Witches Hammer) as her concerned mother and Geoffrey Sleight (also in The Devil’s Music) as her intolerant, rationalist grandfather. There are some sort of monsters in their house, grandly portrayed by rubbery puppet things instead of that modern CGI nonsense, and there is a subplot about the brother/son (Paul Cousins) being seriously injured which must have some connection to the main story but I couldn’t work out what.

As with Medal of Horror, this feels like it has been compressed to fit the format at the expense of explanation. It also suffers from being set during the Second World War’s quitest, gentlest air raid. Although we are told that the bombs are dropping outside, little can be heard and the house never shakes; a curious repetition of the silent off-screen gun-battle in HellBride.

Battlefield Death Tales is a fun little film but it’s not, in my opinion, as good as its predecessor. However, I’m in two minds about whether I’m being objective in this assessment (in a subjective way) or whether my disappointment is coloured by my high expectations. In one sense, I got exactly what I expected, because once again the segments are individualistic and identifiable. With a Jim Eaves film I expect action and startling imagery. In a Pat Higgins picture I expect strong characters and relationships. And when Al Ronald sits in the director’s chair I expect off-beat ideas and that thing I have mentioned before: mannered surrealism. And hey, I got all this from Battlefield DT. Never, in the field of indie horror movies, has so much scary fun been created by so few.

What I didn’t get was neat little vignettes of horror - and that’s what people expect in an anthology like this. Each of the tales in Bordello DT was ‘high concept’ but the stories here are more complex and none of them really succeed completely in what they set out to do.

There is also the question of the title. When the film was picked up for UK distribution by Safecracker, who had recently released Bordello DT, it was renamed Zombie Death Tales, with Amazon and other etailers mistaking promotional artwork for a finished DVD sleeve and listing it as The Red Baron in Zombie Death Tales. I can see that ‘zombie’ in a title has more marketing cachet than ‘battlefield’, and this matches the similar retitlng of US B-movie Horrors of War as Zombies of War by UK distributor Point Blank a couple of years ago. But of course, all zombie films are ‘death tales’ so that title didn’t really work and it was swiftly amended to Nazi Zombie Death Tales, which is what was on my screener. [The film was subsequently released in the USA as Angry Nazi Zombies and in Germany(!) as Nazi Zombie Battleground, meaning it now has more titles than the average Jess Franco flick. - MJS]

But here’s the problem. So far as I can tell, there are no Nazi zombies in this film. There are Nazis, and there are zombies, but no actual Nazi zombies. And truth be told, both Nazis and zombies are in short supply. Nazi-wise, there’s Tina Barnes as a sort of latter day Ilsa, there’s that briefly seen soldier in the blue coat, and there’s one more character who provides the explanation for the blindfold thing in Harriet’s War. There are no zombies at all in Al’s and Pat’s stories and although there is one zombie bite that sets up the climax of Medal of Horror, the only other possibly undead characters are those two bizarre figures who fight in the forest.

These two feature on Safecracker’s sleeve alongside the Nazi robot thing, and they have cheekily photoshopped a swastika badge onto the ribbon around the Red Baron’s neck. But in the film that ribbon supports an Iron Cross and the character is devoid of swastikas because of course he is a remnant from the First World War.

Nazi Zombie Death Tales isn’t really a zombie film, unless you’re ultra-completist. And while putting ‘zombie’ in the title may shift more units, I can’t help feeling it will shift them to people who will be pissed off when they find that they have bought a film with few if any zombies in it. Mind you, none of the stories are set on a battlefield either...

MJS rating: B+
review originally posted 7th August 2012

Postscript. I did go and see Prometheus. It was shit.