Arañas Infernales [Hellish Spiders]

Hellish Spiders

Original title: Arañas Infernales

Directed by Federico Curiel

Mexico 1968

Lucha libre / Horror, 85 min

Of all the antagonists the legendary Blue Demon faced, the question is if the giant brain eating alien spiders of Arañas Infernales don't take the price for being the most surreal! The second of his solo movies, the last of the black and white Blue Demon films, and also the final collaboration between producer/writer Luis Enrique Vergara and Blue Demon, Arañas Infernales was for decades considered to be one of the “Lost” Blue Demon films. But in 1999 a print turned up on Mexican television and later it was released domestically on DVD. So there’s no time for sad faces, as Arañas Infernales has returned from the vaults of the lost, and now can be enjoyed as the delightful cocktail of multiple sub-genres in one supersonic death ray that it is!

Starting off with a wonderful scene of a spaceship shooting laser beams at stuff off screen and then hovering down over earth, whilst the voice over establishes the threat of the alien invaders from the galaxy of Arachnea, the whole thing is cross cut with our hero, Blue Demon in the mandatory opening wrestling match. As you see this is a movie  that catches fans of pscyhotronica, sci-fi or even Lucha libre from the word go.

Blue walks away from the opening fight victorious of course, and as he and his mate drive home their car strangely breaks down, a buzzing light is seen on the horizon and they find a car on the side of the road with a smoking skeleton slumped over the steering wheel. A hot space alien, Queen Arianec [Martha Elena Cervantes], semi hiding in the shadows, hypnotizes some dopey blokes and tells them about the space spider plan to steal humans and feed off their brains. The goons reveal the sign of the spider at the back of their necks (used to reveal who’s bad and not every time the camera zooms in on their spider marks through out the flick) and stumble off to carry out the fiendish plan… the plot thickens, but first another fight, this time a tag team match, and Blue wins this one too.

A poor couple are jumped in a dark alley, he knocked out, and she kidnapped and fed to a giant spider that lurks in a giant web out in the woods. Blue Demon and mates take a trip out to the spot where they saw the strange stuff the previous night, only to be attacked buy the alien queen, stunning rays of audio and caped goons… a fight breaks out and Blue does his thing! Queen Arianec sends her goons off to fight Blue who starts to put one and one together, realizing that there’s something off on the go… something to do with that spaceship he saw earlier on. Struggle, struggle, struggle, plot, plot, plot, busted by Blue, busted by Blue, busted by Blue and so on with a few unfortunate victims falling prey to the giant spider (which you may have figured out is Arianec already), and a sturdy chug forth to a final climactic battle between Blue Demon and Prince Arac [Fernando Osés] who’s come to help Arianec drain the world of human brains.

Turning it up to eleven for the final act, the aliens infiltrate Blue’s next big bash in the ring arming his opponent, the sardonic Prince Arac with a deadly weapon! For each blow Blue serves up, Prince Arac slowly transforms into a spider handed fiend! You have to see it to believe it… or just check out the awesome Ricardo Sáinz special effect below, but if nothing else, this is some fantastically trippy stuff and I love every minute of it!  A classic set up if there ever was one follows as Blue’s mates Joseph [Virel Sergio] and Hilda [Blanca Sánchez] are kidnapped during one the climax of Prince Arac and Blue Demon’s fight – and you know what happens when Blue’s mates get kidnapped, it’s shit kickin’ time, even if it means Blue Demon has to fight off giant spiders, wrestle space aliens and

Show stopping highlights in this wonderfully weird flick are a dog being shot by the space aliens and becoming a smouldering heap of bones (yes, think Mars Attacks), a wicked scene where Queen Aracnia space rays a goon to keep him from revealing them (think Dalek death rays), Prince Arc entering the ring and his opponents laughing at him before he beats them silly with just a few power punches and needless to say the fantasticly goofy giant spider!

Supposedly the scenes of flying saucer scenes where lifted from (yes, as in nicked) from Ed D. Wood Jr’s Plan 9 from Outer Space and Tom Graeff’s Teenagers from Out of Space, but who cares, this is super schlocky sci-fi, Lucha libre fun, a must see for fans of Blue Demon and cheap space invasion flicks. With that said, it’s time to right a wrong, as Gustavo Caésar Carrión at times get’s credit for the eerie space age soundtrack, although this is unfortunately not right. The composer on Arañas Infernales was Jorge Perez Herrera, and quite a lot of the warbly sci-fi schlock comes right off the legendary Dick Jacobs and His Orchestra Themes from Horror Movies LP from 1959.

Following this delicious black and white battle against spider aliens from outer space, Blue Demon returned in the colourful and lush Blue Demon vs. las Diabólicas (Blue Demon vs. the Diabolical Women) in 1966.

Viva Blue Demon!

Pacific Rim

One of my sons asked if he could write a Pacific Rim piece after we saw it at the opening night last Friday (2 Aug Swedish premiere)… so here’s Viggo's take on THE coolest flicks this summer.

Guillermo Del Toro kicks ass - AGAIN!

Pacific Rim

Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro

USA, 2013

Kaiju, 131min

Pacific Rim takes place in year 202 and the world is being attacked by Kaijus (the Japanese word for giant monsters, kind of like Godzilla). The defence build robots, Jaegers to fight the Kaijus. Two pilots get in the robot, connect themselves together and control the robot with one half of the brain each.

But it goes wrong and one of the pilots dies. The other, Raleigh, is brutally injured. Five years later the robot project is cancelled. But the boss of the project won’t give in that easy and he tracks down the final Mark 3 pilot, Raleigh. Raleighs second pilot is Miss Mako Mori.

Scientist Newton Geiszler discovers that he can become stronger if he connects a Kaiju brain with a humans brain. Without right sto exist the secret project starts up at the same time that there’s a double attack outside of Hong-Kong, just as the scientists predicted. They send out two robots to fight and one to guard the coastline. There’s a real fight, robot parts fly and Kaiju blood is spilled everywhere. Two of the robots are broken and the Jaeger on guard goes into action, but is knocked out as one of the Kaiju has an attack that can knock out all electricity. Then there’s the last of the Mark 3 robots: Gypsy Danger, fuelled by nuclear powered, who get’s into the battle. They win and go back to base.

At the same time Hannibal Chau from the black market turns up at the giant corpse to steal it’s brain and other parts, because he can sell any part of a Kaiju. Turns out that the Kaiju was pregnant. The Kaiju baby tears its way out and strangles and eats Hannibal Chau and then gets strangled on its umbilical cord.

But danger returns as a level 5 Kaiju – the biggest so far – turns up.

The film is an exciting idea of the future and a lot of Kaoiju action! It was a really great film and I like Del Toro’s style of filmmaking. I really liked the way the Kaiju baby slithered and how the robots ejected chainsaws, plasma canons and missiles from their arms. Pacific Rim is one of the best films I've seen. It looked really good and I can’t wait for it to come out on dvd/bluray. This is the kind of movie I want to see over and over again.

Viggo M.

And now in Swedish…

Pacific Rim utspelas år 2020 och världen blir attackerad av Kaijus (Japanska ordet för jättestora monster, typ Godzilla). Då bygger försvaret robotar, Jägers, som ska bekämpa Kaijus. Två piloter sätter sig i roboten, kopplar in sig och på det viset styr de roboten med varsin hjärnhalva.

Men det går lite fel, den ena piloten dör och den andra, Raleigh, blir brutalt skadad. Fem år senare så läggs projektet med robotarna ner. Men chefen för projektet ger sig inte så lätt, han letar upp den sista piloten (Raleigh) till robot typen mark 3. Raleighs andrepilot blir Miss Mako Mori

Forskaren Newton Geiszler kommer på att man kanske kan bli starkare om man kopplar ihop en Kaijuhjärna med en människas. Utan rättigheter, startar det hemliga projektet upp när det sker en dubbel attack utanför Hong Kong, precis som projektets forskare förutspått. De skickar ut två robotar som ska slåss och en robot att vakta Det blev en riktig fajt, det flyger robot delar och Kaiju blod överallt. Två robotar går sönder och den vaktande Jägern rycker in, men en av Kaijusarna kan slå ut all elektricitet, och roboten går sönder. Men då finns ju mark 3 roboten Gipsy Danger som är kärnkraftsdriven och ger sig in i striden. De vinner och återvänder till basen. Samtidigt så kommer Hannibal Chau från svarta marknaden till liket av Kaijun för att hämta hjärnan och sådant, för man kan sälja allt från en Kaiju. Det visar sig att den är dräktig, Kaijubarnet sliter sig ut, äter upp Hannibal Chau och stryper sig på navel strängen.

Men faran kommer tillbaka när det kommer en Kaiju av grad 5- den störste hittills.

Filmen innehåller en spännande framtidsskildring och mycket Kaiju action! Det var en riktigt bra film och jag tycker ju om Del Toros stil att göra filmer. Jag gillade sättet Kaijubarnet slingrar sig och hur robotarna fäller fram motorsåg ur armarna, plasmakanon och missiler. Riktigt snyggt! Pacific Rim är en av de bästa filmer jag sett. Den är värd att se och jag längtar efter att den kommer på dvd/blu ray. Det här är en sådan film jag vill se om och om igen.

Viggo M.

Scanners

Scanners

Directed by: David Cronenberg

Horror/Sci-fi, 103min

Canada, 1981

Distributed by: SecondSight 

I really enjoy going back to movies that I haven’t seen in the region of twenty years. At one point in time David Cronenberg was making some immensely disturbing genre pieces, melding classic thriller structures with neo horror in his own realm of body horror. Cronenberg has since long back moved on to explore other areas, leaving body horror behind with the seminal work eXistenZ 1999 and dwelling into more psychological themes, but the good old gooey gore and shock films are still key movies and finally they are starting to hit BluRay releases, such as Scanners and it's two sequels.

Set in a possible future, this is the tale of war, psychic war between individuals with extreme mental powers. It’s also the tale of cooperation’s trying to control these individuals and the struggle against renegade fractions within that narrow circle of individuals with the powers. A renegade circle, with the intention of murdering all those who won’t join their cause. 

Scanners is a classic in all the right ways. A strict anti thesis to the horror films being made at the time it avoids the homicidal maniac lurking in the shadows, the teenagers rumbling around smoking pot and getting laid, the dorky dialogue and hip soundtrack. This is all, dark possible future, told through Cronenberg’s characteristic slow but progressive style of twisting and winding it’s way through the film with some serious moments of the grotesque. If you are amongst the few genre fans who never saw Scanners then you really need to add this one to your pre-book list as Scanners contains some of most amazing special effect work ever put on screen. Still not convinced? Try a head exploding into a thousand pieces with blood, brain matter and cranium pieces flying all over the place.

Scanners is a classic that deserves to be seen, and this BluRay presentation is fantastic. You can even see what LP’s the set designers placed on the shelves in an action scene that takes place in a record store – they must really have been into Frank Zappa’s Sheik Yherbouti!

Cronenberg sets the key ingredient of Scanners up with an effective initial attack, an initial attack that somewhat disorients the audience and creates a curiosity about character positioning. Cameron Vale is provoked by two women at the food court, tries to avoid it, but still torments one of the women, almost killing her with his psychic abilities. The trench coated men start to chase Vale through a fantastic looking mall before shooting him with a tranquilizer dart and taking him in to Dr. Ruth. So far we have learned that this is a movie with characters that possess psychic abilities, abilities that can be used in a negative way. We also understand that they are in some way persecuted, as that’s what the chase, tranquilizer dart and Vale being restrained to a bed and subjected to some for of experiment by Dr. Ruth. It’s easy to presume that Vale is the antagonist of the piece and we are lead on to think so for a while until the movie hits the ten minute mark and Michael Ironside’s Darryl Revok is introduced. The introduction of Revok also brings that iconic moment when he’s brought up on stage during a scientific display of “scanning abilities” and makes Louis Del Grande's head explode into a bloody

Revok is caught in a fashion similar to that of the initial attack with Vale, although he manages to use his psychic abilities to manipulate his way free and for a short while he almost comes across as a possible protagonist with all we have seen so far. Men in trench coats persecute the characters with psychic abilities, the Scanners. Exposition time, as the board of CONSYN discuss the violent events of the previous night. We learn that an underground network of Scanners are murdering all scanners not associated with them, that Dr. Ruth has one Scanner hidden away that the underground do not know of. Ruth also suggests that Vale be their assassin and terminate the leader of the underground, the immensely powerful scanner Darryl Revok.

It’s a great establishing of the ordinary world which Scanners will take place in. We now know that there are characters with psychic abilities, that there’s a cooperation involved, that there’s a lethal conflict between good and bad Scanners. Our two main characters have been explored and positioned at polarized ends of the spectrum and are now ready to be set against each other… David Cronenberg master at setting ends against each other and always hiding secrets within the narrative does precisely that with Scanners, where many surprise reveals are about to come forth.

This is where the investigation plot comes into play. Cameron Vale sets off on his mission to find the other Scanners and join forces with them in a struggle to stop Revok. It is an investigation plot as the search takes Vale through a series of encounters as he works his way forth. Each encounter leads to new knowledge and finally he stands face to face with Revok.

The last act presents an interresting rush of insight, where we learn how characters, the various drug corporations and lives all intertwine. Perhaps not a complete surprise with today’s standards, but at the time a neat one, which I guess nobody, saw coming. The final battle showcases those great special effects once again and culminates with classic Cronenbergian mind game imagery. Scanners is a great movie, one that sometimes becomes forgotten in-between the run of successfull of horror flicks that Cronenberg made at the time. Scanners has passed the test of time and still is a damned good movie. Early special effects and a great Howard Shore soundtrack (Shore who Cronenberg started working with on The Brood back in 1979, and still to this day still uses as composer on his soundtracks) make a great time document, as does that superb Mall interior during the first ten minutes of the film, but the story of Scanners still works and engages. I’m sure that any filmmaker today wanting to show “psychic forces” in play would also have used non-diegetic sound. It’s a fun detail.

Cronenberg has a great cast come together in Scanners. Stephen Lack, who’d later reunite with Cronenberg on Dead Ringers a few years later as lead Cameron Vale, Jennifer O’Neil as Kim Obrist, Patrick McGoohan as Dr. Paul Ruth and Michael Ironside as Darryl Revok. Vale, Obrist, Revok, all names that have that mysterious Cronenberg ring to them.

The upcoming Second Sight release of Scanners is a superb edition, and I question if the film has ever looked better. As usual the Second Sight edition is filled up with extras in the shape of interviews with cast and crewmembers. Scanners II: The New Order and Scanners III: The Takeover are also making their debut on BluRay simultaneously with the original.

David Cronenberg’s Cult classic and mind expanding shocker Scanners is available on BluRay from Second Sight on the 8th of April.

Grabbers

Grabbers

Directed by: Jon Wright

UK/Ireland, 2012

Horror/Comedy/Sci-Fi, 94min

Distributed by: Noble Entertainment

Tentacles are go! I love tentacle monster movies, and Grabbers is tentacles and aliens from another dimension galore. This is a real treat for fans of easy-going sci-fi with some laughs and sticky horror with a heart at the core.

On the remote Irish island, Erin Island, peace and calm is the way of the world. But then, and there’s always a but, something falls into the sea just off shore, something from another world. Three fishermen go missing when the unseen something attacks them from out of the water. A new day dawns, and Garda Lisa Nolan [Ruth Bradley] steps of the ferry to spend a two week vacation from her regular position as Garda in Dublin, only to be met by her, for a fortnight temporary colleague Garda Ciarán O’Shea [Richard Coyle]. O’Shea nursing a huge hangover as he’s a raging alcoholic takes her right out to the beach where a pod of stranded whales – with vicious lacerations – have been swept ashore. Marine Biologist Dr. Adam Smith [Russell Tovey] has no sane explanation for the lacerations or why the whales have died… but the audience has already started putting pieces together as they know from the initial attack that there’s something out there in the water. (But not for long!) Later that night drunken fisherman Paddy [Lalor Roddy] tells Shea of the strange beast he caught in his nets the night before, a monster that he has captive in his bathtub at home. Not much more need be said before Paddy get’s back to his home and is attacked by the beast. After stomping it to what he thinks is to its death, he takes it to Smith who calls in Nolan and Shea. When the creature comes back to life and starts lashing out at them, they know they have a problem on their hands… a problem with two dozen tentacles and an appetite for human blood!

Grabbers is a fine piece of sci-fi horror meshed with Saturday afternoon matinee a dash of comedy. It's not to scary, not too much sci-fi, not to schlocky and not to demanding of its audience. It’s an easy ride and gentle fare with some really outstanding special effects.

Playing by all the rules, the movie takes its time to set up the lead characters – even tossing in a red herring to explain certain of their traits, keeps the alien space monster off screen as long as possible and when it brings it on, oh my god what a beautiful sight! As far as CGI monsters go this one is a real delight, the design, the way it moves and the way it is used is top notch.

The comedy angle is subtle, and plays off prejudice that Irish are drunks. Well in this case it works to their benefit, as being drunk is what can save the inhabitants of the small island from being eaten by the alien. Interaction between locals is fun and despite all their flaws and motifs for animosity, there's a mutual respect and affection for everybody when push comes to shove.

There’s something of a classic rom-com subplot where Shea falls for Nolan more or less from square one, and talking about squares, his rival is found in stiff British marine biologist Dr. Smith. Obviously Nolan shines a keen eye to Smith and Shea finds himself in a position where he needs to develop as a character to gain her heart… which he does when he decides to quit his alcoholism in an act of nobility so that he can save his fellow villagers.

Richard Coyle is getting some interesting and cool parts these days after playing second fiddle for a long time. Central characters of versatility such as Wallace in Outpost: Black Sun, Frank in the Pusher remake, and Garda Clarán O’Shea in Grabbers. He’s come quite far since being the goofy welsh lad on Coupling, and hopefully we will get to see him progress with further great parts to come.

Grabbers, out on DVD from Noble Entertainment now, perfect for the weekend.