31 Days of Horror: The Thing From Another World (1951)

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Friday night I realized my wife had never seen John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). She’s not really a horror fan, and I was afraid it might be too much for her, so I decided to give her an appetizer to help warm her up to the idea. That appetizer being the original film, The Thing From Another World. Officially Carpenter’s film is an adaptation of the novella “Who Goes There?” and not a sequel to the 1951 film, but Carpenter is clearly a fan of that film (it is the movie playing on the television in Carpenter’s Halloween (1978)).

Anyway, there is some dispute about who directed The Thing From Another World. Officially Christian Nyby gets the credit, but it is sometimes claimed that Howard Hawks took over most of the directorial duties as the film progressed. Hawks was a producer on the film, and he was clearly a guiding hand, but it is unclear if he did any actual directing or was just there to give Nyby a hand. It certainly does have Hawks’ stamp all over it.

This film and Carpenter’s share some basic plot elements, but they differ quite a bit as well. Some of this would be due to the Production Code at the time not allowing for certain elements, but a lot of it had to do with the limited budget of this production.

An unusual aircraft crashes in the North Pole. Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) is sent to investigate. Journalist Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer) tags along. At Polar Expedition Six, he meets a group of soldiers and scientists. They head out to the crash site and find a UFO buried beneath the ice. They use thermite to try and melt the ice, but it completely destroys the ship. Nearby they find a body frozen in ice. They chip it out but leave it inside a large block of ice.

Back at the base, Hendry denies Scott the opportunity to send out a story and lead scientist Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) the ability to study the creature. He sends a message to base, awaiting further orders. The men are ordered to guard it, but one of them gets scared of staring at the thing and covers it with an electric blanket. The ice melts, the alien comes to life, and it attacks everybody.

In the book and in the Carpenter film, the alien is a shape-shifter, but in this film they couldn’t afford that effect, and so the alien is just a tall dude with some prosthetics on his head and hands, or, as my wife stated, a “Frankenstein reject.” Whereas in the Carpenter film the main tension comes from never knowing who the alien has turned into, here the argument is over whether or not science should be able to study the creature, or the military should completely destroy it.

The film makes great use of its claustrophobic sets. It mostly takes place in cramped bunkers and long hallways filled with supplies. It is fascinating to compare it with Carpenter’s film, and I’m glad I finally watched them back to back. Both films are very much products of their time. Made in 1982, Carpenter’s film is filled with 1970s paranoia where nobody can be trusted. I love that his characters have clearly let the isolation of the Arctic setting get to them. They are haggard and worn out. Nobody seems to care. They smoke pot and get drunk, and it doesn’t feel like anyone is doing any actual work.

But this film is full of hardworking people doing their jobs the best that they can. The tension is between a scientist who sees a major discovery and a soldier who is willing to follow orders above all else. But there is also a bit of postwar paranoia. They’ve seen the horrors of World War II, and now live in the atomic age. Anything seems possible, and that’s terrifying.

Carpenter’s film is nothing but dudes, but this film gets a leading lady (Margaret Sheridan even gets top billing.) She plays Nikki Nicholson, who is the love interest, but she’s also a scientist, smart, and more than willing to get things done.

This film also spends a lot of time discussing what the alien is. The scientists do get some time to study the creature, or at least some pods it leaves behind, and we’re subjected to a lot of science-y nonsense. Whereas Carpenter’s film is more or less happy to just let the alien exist on its own accord.

I could go on, but I’ll stop here. The Thing is the superior film. Carpenter had a real budget, and it looks fantastic. It is incredibly tense, and filled with wonderful effects. The Thing From Another World had a tiny budget made at a time when films were only allowed to show so much, and all of that shows. But despite all of that, it is still a thoroughly enjoyable film. Highly recommended.

Sci-Fi In July: Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2009)

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My daughter has gotten into Manga and Anime in a big way, so I try to watch some of that with her. We’d both heard of the Evangelion series, but neither of us really knew anything about it. It is a confusing franchise as there are numerous series and movies, with reboots and rebuilds thrown into the mix.

We more or less randomly decided to start with this film, which is essentially a retelling of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series. That series isn’t available on our streaming services, but this film is on Crunchyroll, and since it basically retells the original story, we figured it was as good a place as any to start with.

Having now seen the film, I’m not so sure that was true. I found much of the story quite confusing, and it very much feels like I’m missing a large part of the lore.

The film drops you right into the middle of it, without explanation. Best I can figure is that sometime in the past, these giant Kaiju creatures known as Angels came to Earth, nearly destroying it. Humans have now built Mech-Warrior-type robots, called Evangelions, to fight back.

For reasons that are never really explained, the head leader dude taps his estranged 14-year-old son to pilot one of the Evangelion robot thingies. Though he is very young and has had zero training, they pop him into it and ask him to fight an incoming Angel.

He fumbles at first, nearly destroying the machine and killing himself, but miraculously, he recovers and destroys the angel. After some unspecified amount of time, another Angel arrives, and basically the same thing happens. Shinji is placed back into the Evangelion; he has no idea what he’s doing, but after taking some losses, he somehow finds a way to destroy the angel. Rinse, repeat.

In between these battles, he talks with his guardian Misato and becomes friends with Rei, another Evangelion pilot who was previously injured. Shinji only pilots his machine reluctantly, being essentially forced to do it, but Rei willingly takes it on with a sense of duty and honor.

It ends with a cliffhanger and some weirdness.

I seriously don’t know what to make of this film. I understood the basic plotlines, but so much of it was left unexplained. It felt very much like I was supposed to have watched the original series, even though this seems like it was designed as a straight retelling of it with updated animation.

There is a lot of mythology built into it that I simply don’t understand. I kind of hated it, but I also want to watch more. There is something about it that is truly interesting and I’d like to dig into that, but I’m not sure whether to watch the next movie or go back to the original series.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Sci-Fi In July Edition: Resident Evil (2002)

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I stopped playing video games after things advanced past the Super Nintendo System. Partially, this was because I’d gone to college and found more interesting things to take up my time. Partially, this was because I was now college-aged and expected to purchase things like gaming systems myself, and I had other things to spend my money on. But also, my friend had a Nintendo 64, and when I’d play games on it like GoldenEye, I found I got nauseated.

My brother had a PlayStation, and I believe he owned the first Resident Evil game. I remember playing it a time or two, but it never hooked me in. So when the movie came out, I was none too interested.

I thought I had watched it sometime previously to tonight, but I’ve not logged it in Letterboxd nor rated it on IMDB. Watching it, I found that I had no real memory of it. The opening scene did seem a little familiar, and I definitely knew about a scene where a laser beam cuts some soldiers into pieces. But maybe I saw that in a trailer, or some other clip. Or maybe I started the movie, got halfway through, and decided it was too stupid to finish. I dunno. As I get older, my memory of what I’ve seen and haven’t seen diminishes, and I’m left scratching my head over certain films.

Obviously, none of this matters to anyone, but this is my blog, and I can ramble if I want to.

But on to the actual film. Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up naked and alone in a shower. She seems to have fallen, pulling the shower curtain down with her (to strategically cover up her naked parts, yet reveal enough to get the horny boys most likely to see this movie all excited). She seems to have lost all memory of who she is and what she’s doing there. She sees a picture of herself with a man. They are dressed as if it is their wedding day. She notices a wedding ring on her finger.

Suddenly, a strange man tackles her just as a group of commandos busts into the mansion. The commandos have no time to explain, but take Alice and the man with them to an underground train. There, they find Spence (James Purefoy), the man in that wedding photo, who also says he has amnesia.

Riding the train deeper underground, the commando boss, James Shade (Colin Salmon), explains that they are entering The Hive, a top-secret genetic research facility owned by The Umbrella Corporation. Earlier that day, The Hive’s supercomputer, also known as The Red Queen, mysteriously killed all the people inside The Hive. The Commandos are there to find out why. Alice and Spence are employees of The Umbrella Corporation, tasked to guard the entrance of The Hive, and were only pretending to be married as some sort of cover.

For the first half of the film, our heroes do battle with The Red Queen. It is still on guard and has set deadly traps for anyone trying to get in. That’s where those laser beams come in, plus various other murderous traps.

Once they turn the computer off, they realize the reason it went haywire is that the T-Virus was unleashed, and The Hive had to be shut down lest it contaminate the outside world. The T-Virus turns humans into zombies.

Also, the crazy scientists in The Hive were experimenting with the T-Virus on various creatures, creating super monsters. The rest of our film finds our heroes battling them.

Paul W.S. Anderson directs (I seem to be having an Anderson weekend). Like all of his films that I’ve seen, he does a good enough job directing that I don’t hate what I’m watching, but a poor enough job to make me wonder why I kept with it. He’s competent enough to keep things interesting, but not enough of an artist to ever make me seek him out. Someone should tell him to lay off the CGI, though. It looks bad in all his films, but here especially, since most of the monsters are CGI and they are laughably bad.

He’s helped here by a script that kept the action coming at a steady pace. Jovovich is quite good as the lead; she’s starred in all of the Resident Evil films, and I imagine this is what she will be remembered for. She’s got quite a presence. As does Michelle Rodriguez as one of the commandos. This was just her fourth film, but she completely owns it. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag, ranging from pretty good to fairly terrible.

This is a film where, if I have actually seen it before, I can totally understand how I’d forgotten it. It isn’t all that bad, but neither is it particularly memorable. It is, however, just good enough to make me want to watch the sequel. Or maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment.

Sci-Fi In July: Alien vs Predator: Requiem (2007)

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I suppose every kid at one point or another has created their own crossover event. You got a big box of toys from a variety of different toy lines, so you mix and match. GI Joe Teams up with Thundercats. Superman and Wolverine battle Megatron and Darth Vader. Etc. Sometimes you wonder who would win in a fight: Spider-Man or a Mutant Turtle, Cobra Commander or Skeletor. Etc., again.

It makes sense that actual comic lines would take up this idea, and television and movies. The Avengers made it into a billion-dollar event.

I suppose, then, that an Alien vs Predator mashup was inevitable. I still think you could make a good movie out of that concept. In my mind, you have the Predators on some isolated, desolate planet, or maybe a big ship without much crew. They’ve got a bunch of Alien eggs on board, and then something goes wrong. The Aliens hatch and start picking off the Predators before they know what’s happening. Basically, you make a really good Alien movie but with Predators instead of humans.

There are bits of that idea inside of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, but they frak it up pretty quickly. The film starts immediately after the event of Alien vs. Predator, so spoilers for that film ahead.

The Predators win, because, of course, they do. The Xenomorphs are much cooler creatures, but they have no personality beyond kill, kill, kill. The last Predator actually dies at the end of the movie, and we see some other Predators fly down in their spaceship and pick his corpse up for a memorial. But just before the credits roll, we see a Chestburster bust out of the dead Predator.

So, the Aliens have a life cycle, part of which has them being hosted by another creature. In the films, that creature is usually a human. Apparently, it partially merges with its host’s DNA, picking up some of its characteristics. When its host is a Predator, what comes out is something called. Predalien (something I just now learned by reading the Wikipedia article).

The Predalien smashes up the Alien ship, causing it to crash back on Earth. It releases a bunch of Facehuggers, and quickly, Earth is being infested with Xenomorphs. Only one Predator survives, and it needs to kill all the Xenomorphs before they kill all the humans. I’m not sure why it cares other than it just really likes killing Aliens.

I’m down with all of that. I can totally get behind a lone Predator facing off against a bunch of Xenomorphs and a Predalien. Unfortunately, this is a Hollywood film, so it has to throw a bunch of dumb humans into the mix.

They are very dumb, completely unmemorable, and an utter waste of time. I watched the film last night and I couldn’t tell you a single human’s name and barely remember what any of them look like. There really isn’t a point in discussing them because, for the most part, they only exist to be killed by the Predalien or a Xenomorph.

Every now and again, the Predator will wipe out a Xenomorph, and once or twice that’s actually kind of cool. But mostly it is dumb humans getting massacred in completely boring ways. If you are waiting for an awesome showdown between the Predator and the Predalien, don’t hold your breath. They do have a fight, but it is not very interesting, and ultimately – spoiler for the ending – the humans drop an Atom bomb on the town, killing everybody but a few of our sort-of heroes.

I’ve now seen every film in both the Alien and Predator franchises. They are both a pretty mixed bag, with both very good and very stupid films existing in both. But I can see myself revisiting all of the films in the franchises except these. I never want to think about these two crossover films ever again.

Sci-Fi In July: Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

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Alien (1979) is one of the greatest science fiction/horror movies ever made. Predator (1987) is, well, it isn’t the greatest anything, but it is a ridiculous bit of 1980s sci-fi action elevated by some fine direction by John McTiernan and some charismatic performances by its stacked cast (including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, and Bill Duke).

Dark Horse Comics obtained the rights to both franchises and began releasing separate stories from them. In 1989, some genius decided to combine them and created the first Alien Versus Predator mashup. There are a lot of comics, and I’ve not read any of them, so I can’t comment intelligently. My understanding is that the Predators, at some point, found some Alien eggs and have been breeding them ever since. With the intent of periodically releasing them so that they can be hunted.

A quick primer if you’ve never seen any of the films. A Predator is a technologically advanced alien species that flies to various planets and hunts the native species for sport. The Aliens are Xenomorphs, incredibly dangerous, but not particularly advanced, creatures with acid for blood.

There are numerous films in both franchises, and two crossover movies. The crossovers got terrible reviews and are generally considered some of the worst films in either franchise, which is why I’ve avoided watching them for so long. I found a cool DVD boxed set at Goodwill the other day that contains the first four Alien films, two Predator movies, and both of the crossovers. And here we are.

For the first thirty minutes, Alien vs Predator creates a promising setup. Wealthy industrialist Charles Weyland (Lance Henriksen) (the Weyland-Yutani corporation features heavily in the Alien franchise) discovers a massive pyramid structure buried some 2,000 feet below the surface of a tiny island off the coast of Antarctica.

Weyland gathers a bunch of smart people, and they investigate. I love a good story where a group of specialists investigates something mysterious and discovers monsters, or ghosts, or aliens. I can completely get behind that in a film.

The difficulty of an Alien/Predator mashup is that they are both aliens. Big, scary monsters. The Xenomorphs are basically killer animals that can’t communicate in any real way. The Predators canonically speak a non-human language that is never translated (at least not in the films). Making an interesting story with just these two creatures would be difficult. One likes to be able to relate to at least one character in a story.

I really wish they’d make that film, though. They always add humans into the mix, and humans just muck up your Alien/Predator mash-up. They don’t get developed well, and for the most part, they just become cannon fodder for the monsters. I think you could make a really good AVP film without any humans at all.

Here’s where things get stupid. Our heroes (such as they are) come to the Antarctic island only to discover someone or something has already drilled a hole down to the pyramid. Naturally, it is the Predators who drilled the hole. Apparently, the pyramid is theirs. They keep a bunch of frozen Xenomorphs down there, and every hundred years, they come to Earth, unfreeze them, let them feed on humans to grow big and strong, then hunt them for fun.

We spend a little time watching the humans muck about in the pyramid. Then they unwittingly unleash some Facehuggers, and quick as you like, they burst out of their chests and become full-fledged Xenomorphs.

A few Predators, who have apparently been hanging out in Earth’s orbit waiting for this to happen, fly down for some (finally) Predator on Alien action. Most of the humans are dispatched pretty quickly, though a couple last a while, and there is at least one survivor (because, of course, there is).

It was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who helmed films like Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon, and several of the Resident Evil films. And like those films, his direction isn’t terrible, he’s not incompetent, but neither is it particularly memorable. He’s just good enough to keep you watching, but bad enough you wish you hadn’t.

That pretty much sums up my feelings on this film. It is better than I expected to be, but my expectations were incredibly low. I still think you can make a good Alien Vs. Predator movie, but this is definitely not it.

The Awesome ’80s In April: Innerspace (1987)

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Innerspace was the very first movie I ever saw in Letterboxd.

Quickly, for the few of you who may not know, letterbox is when they put those black bars on the tops and the bottom of the screen. They do that because movies are generally shot in a rectangular aspect ratio that fits the movie theater screen but does not fit the old square TV screens. To make it fit the square TV screen they had to cut off parts of the movie which is called Pan & Scan (pan is the cutting off of the sides, scanning is moving what you see within that cut image). Letterboxing added the black bars to make the image rectangular again thus allowing you to see everything the filmmakers wanted you to see.

I have a vivid memory of renting Innerspace and getting a little pre-movie title explaining what Letterboxing was. I did not understand it at all. I immediately noticed the black bars though. Me and mom complained about it heavily. But also, it did seem to make the movie look better somehow, more cinematic. Sometime later I watched The Empire Strikes Back in letterbox and I was hooked. I became a lifelong champion of the format. Nowadays pretty much everything is Letterboxd, even are TVs are formatted that way.

Anyway, when we plugged in Innerspace this past weekend that’s what I thought about.

Also, it is a pretty fun movie. It is some basic 1980s science fiction cheese but it has a good performance from Dennis Quaid and a hilarious one from Martin Short. And the special effects still hold up quite well.

Quaid plays Lt. Tuck Pendleton a great pilot whose also a bit of a hotshot and alcoholic. He volunteers for a special mission in which he’ll be shrunk down to the size of a pin head and injected into a rabbit. For science you understand.

Short plays Jack Putter a hypochondriac grocery store clerk. For *reasons* Tuck is injected into Putter’s body instead of the rabbit. Our heroes have to find a way of getting him out before his air runs out. Also, some bad guys want the machine Tuck uses to fly around inside Putter’s body.

The film is basically one long excuse to show off some cool effects of this little machine zooming around the inside of a body. Like I said they do hold up. I’m a sucker for classic practical effects. It also allows Short to show off his physical comedy. With the little ship zooming through is bloodstream and the like he has to make all kinds of animated reactions and he’s a master at that stuff.

The rest of the film is just silly 1980s action stuff and isn’t worth mentioning. Meg Ryan is always worth mentioning. She’s Tuck’s girlfriend but isn’t given much more to do than that.

I’ll always remember Innerspace for turning me onto the Letterbox format, but it is worth checking out all on its own.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Galaxy of Terror (1981)

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After the huge success of Alien (1979), a thousand ripoffs were churned out – some good, some not, some with big budgets, some with hardly a budget at all. Galaxy of Terror lies somewhere in between. It is decidedly low-budget, but Roger Corman’s production company New World Pictures knew how to stretch a dollar. It didn’t hurt that a young James Cameron was the production designer (more than a few fans have noticed similarities between this film and Cameron’s Aliens.

The film is better than it has any right to be and boasts an incredible cast of 1980s sort-of stars including Erin Moran (Joanie from Happy Days), a pre-Nightmare on Elm Street Robert Englund, Ray Walston, iconic exploitation maverick Sid Haig and Zalman King who is better known for directing erotica like Wild Orchid and Red Shoe Diaries.

The plot involves a group of people sent on a rescue mission to the planet Morganthus after receiving a distress call. They are sent by someone called the master who is so special his face is obscured by cosmic rays.

After crash landing on the planet (which does look a lot like the planet in Alien – good job James Cameron and crew) they encounter a series of monsters including a giant bug-looking thing that essentially rapes one of the women (bad job Roger Corman who insisted on the scene). But also Robert England fighting a clone of himself.

The plot is utter nonsense, especially the ending which indicates that everything they’ve encountered on that planet was a manifestation of their darkest fears – which upon scrutiny makes no sense whatsoever. The dialogue is bad. The acting is fine, these guys are all pros if not exactly amazing actors. What makes it worth watching is the effects work. The set designs really are quite fantastic for a low-budget picture, and there is lots of gruesome violence.

31 Days of Horror: Mimic (1997)

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There is a cockroach infestation in New York City. Well, I guess there has always been a cockroach infestation in New York City, but this time they are carrying with them some kind of terrible disease that’s killing children. Our hero, Dr. Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) is a bug scientist and she’s genetically mutated a superbug that’s a cross between a mantis and a termite that will eradicate the cockroach problem.

It has been engineered into sterility and thus it will die out in one generation and everything is groovy. Except, of course, it isn’t. The bugs don’t die out but rather breed at an exceptional rate, undergoing multiple mutations. Three years later they’ve turned into the kind of nightmare fuel only Guillermo del Toro could create.

There is nothing particularly new or inventive about Mimic, we’ve seen this type of film a thousand times from 1950s monster movies to Alien and its countless ripoffs. But del Toro is too good a director not to make it interesting. He’s such a wonderful visual stylist that he’s turned what could be another hacky, schlocky, forgettable b-picture into something really quite good.

Much of the film is set underground, in the bowels of the city’s sewers and forgotten subway systems. This gives the film a claustrophobic feeling, while also enabling the characters freedom to run. In a similar manner the film is often quite dark and full of shadows, but but he allows light to creep in through grates and lanterns so that you can always see what you need to see.

The creature designs are great and there is a lot of slimy, disgusting goop. The characters are pretty basic but well done and well acted. Charles S. Dutton plays a subway cop who gets to yell and scream about how crazy everything is. Josh Brolin is a goofy scientist guy and F. Murray Abraham shows up at some point as Dr. Tyler’s mentor.

It is a big, dumb horror film that knows it’s a big dumb horror film and doesn’t care. With del Torro at the helm, it becomes one of the best big dumb horror films I’ve seen in a while.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Phase IV (1974)

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Saul Bass was probably the only person to become famous for creating title sequences for movies. He did memorable title sequences for films such as The Man With The Golden Arm (1955), North By Northwest (1959), and Anatomy of a Murder (1959). His titles were innovative and beautiful, and they gave you a sense of the essence of the film you were about to see. The Criterion Channel once had a collection of films based on his title sequences alone. He also designed movie posters and was an award-winning graphic designer for commercial projects.

In 1974 he directed his first and only feature-length film. A science fiction/horror film about mutant ants that try and take over the world.

Phase IV is a meditative, art-house film tackling a subject that wouldn’t feel out of place amongst 1950s sci-fi b-movies such as The Blob, or The Fly, or The Brain Eaters.

It is full of extended, wordless scenes that concentrate on nature, or more often than not, insects – mainly ants. There are extreme close-ups of real-life ants, and beautifully rendered shots of hand-crafted miniatures.

There is some hard science fiction with scientists endlessly staring at computers and working with test tubes, and a lot of nonsense dialogue and character beats. It is incredible to me that Saul Bass chose this rather off-putting, strange little monster movie to be his directorial debut.

The story goes something like this. A strange cosmic event happens over Earth. Humans are all excited about it, but after a week with nothing extraordinary happening they all go about their lives. Except for one scientist, Ernest D. Hubbs (Nigel Davenport). He realizes that something strange is happening to the ants. They seem to be evolving – communicating with each other and working as one, towards some unknown goal.

The ants build these large monoliths in the Arizona desert. Hubbs convinces the government to build a science station next to them and recruits James R. Lesko (Michael Murphy) to help him. All nearby residents flee, leaving the scientists all alone. All residents except one small family.

Soon enough the family is attacked and killed by the ants. The only survivor is Kendra (Lynne Frederick) comes to stay with the scientists at the station.

The humans spray the ants with some kind of goo which deters them for a time, but soon enough the insects learn to cope. The humans destroy the monoliths. The insects build a reflective surface that sends the sun’s heat directly into the science station, drastically raising the temperature inside. The humans decipher some of the ant’s language. The ants infiltrate the station and start tearing up the machinery.

On and on it goes. Humans are against nature. It is an old story told in a beautiful, strange way. I don’t know how to explain this film, except that you should do yourself a favor and go watch it.

Sci-Fi In July: Lady Terminator (1989)

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The history of non-American countries ripping off Hollywood movies is long and weird. I’m not well versed enough in it to really discuss it here other than I am fascinated by it.

As you might guess Lady Terminator is a (sometimes shot by shot) Indonesian remake of the James Cameron classic The Terminator. As is their want it also throws some Asian mythology into the mix.

Sometime in the past, the Queen of the South Sea uses her sexy charms to seduce men. In the throws of passion, a snake that resides in her vagina bites the men’s penises off. One day some dude pulls out just in time and grabs the snake before it bites. It then turns into a dagger. The queen curses his would-be granddaughter and then dives into the sea.

All of this happens in just the first ten minutes!

Fast forward to the present and an anthropologist named Tania (Barbara Anne Constable) is researching the Queen of the South Sea for her university studies. She takes a boat out to where the Queen was supposed to have dived in all those years ago. She discovers the Queen’s resting place and is then tied to a bed while the snake enters her vagina turning her into the new Queen of the South Seas, or as we like to call her – Lady Terminator.

She then proceeds to have sex with a bunch of dudes, letting her vagina snake eat their cocks off. Sometimes she meditates while naked and listening to some jazzy New Wave music. But then she realizes some lady has an ancient piece of jewelry or something that she needs so she goes on a killing rampage (but with guns, not vagina snakes.)

At one point she utters the phrase “I’ll be back” and later she’ll walk into a police station and shoot the place up. There are lots of car chases and scenes where she fires hundreds of rounds into dudes crotches. She’s completely indestructible and we’ll be treated to numerous instances where she’s shot at, torched, and walks right through a dozen explosions.

The scrips is bad. A few choice bits of dialogue:

“I am not a lady, I’m an anthropologist.”

“We’ve seen more dead bodies than you’ve eaten hot dogs, so shut up and eat.”

The acting is wooden. The action scenes aren’t bad as long as you don’t compare it to the actual Terminator movie.

But it is so bizarre I just couldn’t look away. It is the very epitome of trash cinema. I kind of loved it. This is a film with a tag line that reads “She Mates and Then She Terminates.” How can you not have anything but love for something like that?