Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back to the Sewer

In the realm of niche horror genres, the Jaws ripoff is one that I probably enjoy far more than I should. Sometimes, even more than actual Jaws movies (particularly if you're including the full gamut of animal attack flicks in that category). 

Quick Plot: We open in a shifty Florida reptile farm where out-of-towners watch alligators chew up a poorly trained employee. That doesn't deter a young girl from bringing home a baby from the gift shop, where she lovingly takes care of him in her Chicago dwelling. Dad gets mad one day and flushes the little guy down the toilet, unaware of the urban legends about the havoc such action could wreak. 

Twelve years later, detective David Madison (glorious Robert Forster) is investigating a series of murders as body parts wash up from the city sewers. He soon discovers a shady biological research company doing horrendous testing on puppies in order to make a growth serum for livestock. The failed subjects are tossed in the same sewer system where a certain pretten carnivor gets to devour them, fueling an unnatural growth resulting in a 36' long hungry hunter.

David soon teams up with leading herpetologist Marisa Kendell (Robin Riker), who reveals that she once had her own baby alligator that met a watery fate at the hands of her father. If you're wondering if this seemingly very intelligent scientist figures out or acknowledges that this city's blood is on her hands, the answer is no.

That's okay. Forster and Riker have their own unique, fun chemistry, so much so that this movie is what supposedly led Quentin Tarantino to cast Forster in Jackie Brown. With a script by eventual Oscar nominee John Sayles, Alligator is a smart movie playing dumb. It works.

Director Lewis Teague (of Cujo and more importantly, my beloved Cat's Eye) apparently set out to make a scary film but realized quickly that his effects weren't going to be up to the task. Instead, he decided to lean into the humor. Forster easily gets the tone, while Craig Huxley's synth-y score hilariously toes a line between Jaws and a lawsuit. 

High Points

Enough good can't be said about Robert Forster's approach to this movie

Low Points

For a film that's getting a lot of mileage out of comeuppance, it feels a tad icky that so many working people die violent deaths at the big wealthy wedding setpiece

Lessons Learned

You can always trust your first impression of what a man's apartment would look like

Even the most expensive limo is not alligator-proof

There's simply no such thing as an honest mayor in any town that has a water source

For the Ladies

I wish I kept count, but for whatever reason, Robert Forster is constantly topless in this movie. Teague's camera has more shirtless Forster shots than Rob Zombie has closeups of his wife's butt in The Devil's Rejects. 

Rent/Bury/Buy

This is a movie that has a little boy fall off his suburban diving board into the open mouth of a 36' long alligator. Obviously, it's a blast. Find it on Shudder and have a good time. 

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Lawn

Parody is easy to do, and very difficult to do well. Not every songwriter can be Weird Al, and not every The Fast & the Furious spoof can reach the glorious heights of Superfast!

Seriously, trust me on this one.

Today's film is an unusual entry in the '80s horror canon: a straight-out remake of Jaws by way of a golf course being terrorized by a lawn mower. No, it doesn't reach the heights of Eat It, but you know what? 

This is something special.

Quick Plot: Two horny teenagers sneak away from their friends' bonfire to make out in the fields of Tall Grass Country Club, only to discover there are things far scarier than STDs. Cue the credits as done in the POV style of Police Squad but as, you guessed it, a killer lawnmower. 

It's business as usual at Tall Grass, even after a dues-paying member is slaughtered in a similarly mysterious manner. Golf trainers Kelly and Roy (nothing coincidental about that name) are suspicious, especially after Mal the caddy also turns up in pieces. Still, there's a golf tournament to be played and the mayor--er, property owner--is not to be dissuaded. The show must go on. 

Blades is a silly, silly movie. Mal's widow shows up in full Mrs. Kintner drag to slap Roy. When a wayward lawnmower is discovered and thought to be the killer, there's a glorious shot of the proud hunters hanging the bag high and slicing it to reveal...leaves, nothing but leaves. Which means THE KILLER IS STILL OUT THERE.

And yes, the killer is a lawnmower. If Blades has a flaw, it's that we never really get much insight into just why such a machine would choose this moment to hack its way through this stuffy rich community, though the fact that our victims are mostly rich white jerks might in itself be a justifiable motivation. 

There is nothing overly grand about Blades. It's fully aware of its own stupidity and absolutely dedicated to being pure entertainment. Considering all of the unofficial Jaws knockoffs--everything from sue-able Orca to transferring the threat to Piranha--the fact that director Thomas R. Rondinella cleverly moved the formula to something as dumb, but genuinely violent as a sentient lawnmower is in itself something special. That his film is backed up by earnest performances and a true understanding of Jaws's key moments really lets this hit home. 

High Points

There's almost a Simpsons-esque aura around the idiotic townspeople who can't listen to a word of reason without breaking down into a violent mob. With our rightly leads playing their drama straight, the utter silliness of the supporting characters keeps Blades somehow perfectly balanced. And yes, I'm saying all of this about a Jaws parody starring a killer lawnmower

Low Points

It might be unfair to compare the then-novel Blades to another 40 years of Jaws parody, but it does feel a tad disappointing for a blatant parody to not always cash in on the best moments. Where's our chalkboard scrape, our singalong-gone-wrong? Picky, I know. But there are only so many Jaws parodies about killer lawnmowers, and I want each one to be all it can be

Lessons Learned

You know it's bad when the 19-year-old EMT says it's the worst he's ever seen

Being a caddy and naming your dog Caddy is a life choice rife for confusion

Once formed, bad habits are hard to break

Rent/Bury/Buy

Blades is good dumb fun, and perfect for the lighter summer season. Oddly enough, its current home is Peacock. Have a good time.

Nibble It, Just a Little Bit

In the realm of Jaws ripoffs, there exists one (actually two or four) that get a place right here at The Shortening. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the same man who brought us Gremlins and Small Soldiers started things off with a tale of tiny carnivorous fish with a controversially pronounced name. 

Quick Plot: A pair of skinny dipping teenagers sneaks into a seemingly abandoned military area with a conveniently empty pool, only to quickly be eaten by unseen critters that sound like miniature helicopters. Thankfully, a ditzy insurance investigator named Maggie comes to the small Texas town to investigate, wrangling a local bitter divorcee named Paul to help.

Despite Maggie being an idiot and Paul being a full-time drunk, the pair manage to track down that same mysterious government sector now hosting two nubile skeletons. In an attempt to flush out the water, Maggie unwittingly releases the source of that helicopter soundtrack onto the unsuspecting water lovers of southern USA.

On hand to explain all of this is Invasion of the Body Snatchers savior/UHF’s villain Kevin McCarthy playing a tortured scientist who shares some responsibility with genre queen Barbara Steele as the cause of this danger. See, back in the ‘70s, the U.S. government was experimenting with different ideas to win the Vietnam War, one of which being the badassedly named Operation Razor Tooth. As you might guess, badassedly named Operation Razor Tooth involves the cultivation of genetically mutated piranha that would devastate that region’s water system.

It didn’t work out.

Now loose on an unsuspecting swimming public, the hungry piranha are on a tear. If you are wondering what hungry genetically mutated piranha on a tear looks like, allow me to direct you to Babies ‘R Us, the nation’s leading retail chain specializing in infant goods. You know those elaborate nightlight contraptions with aquatic imagery that circles your sleeping toddler’s crib?

Yeah, that’s pretty much the main effect for Piranha. Add in several scenes that involve extras being sucked through their tubes and surrounded by red food coloring and you pretty much have yourself an enjoyable, if fairly uninspiring Jaws rip-off.

Produced by the godfather of B-movies Roger Corman, Piranha isn’t trying to win any Saturn Awards. What was obviously commissioned in the wake of Steven Spielberg’s juggernaut certainly does follow the same beats as all Jaws inspirees (expendable teenagers, reluctant hero, greedy town official putting lives in danger, frantically flailing young legs underwater), yet it’s mostly done with the kind of Dante wink that makes the rest of his work so special. 

Piranha, however much fun, is not a very good movie, primarily because it’s rather confused in finding its tone. Lead Bradford Dillman is working hard to create a layered and complicated hero, while his love interest Heather Menzies-Urich goes for daffy cute. The piranha effects are so silly that any actual horror is impossible, leading a few of the major attacks (say, on a group of kid campers) somewhat laughable, but not quite all the way. Thankfully, Dante has a secret weapon in his last act: all-star Dick Miller, basking in a Stetson and lending his signature wry charm.

In a way, Piranha is made of three films. There’s the earnest save-the-world antics of Paul and Maggie that are mostly played straight. A side story about summer camp that’s never quite as funny as it sometimes tries to be. Finally, there’s the slightly more self-aware part involving town and military politics. None every unite smoothly enough to make a good movie, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some fun along the way.

High Points

Where Piranha works is best are those little corners where director Joe Dante’s humor shines through: our heroine playing a Jaws arcade game, a sunbather reading Moby Dick on the beach, and Dick Miller embracing his inner Texas capitalist

Low Points

Going along with the aforementioned hit-and-miss tone is the ending, which suddenly goes to oddly dark and ambiguous places that don’t necessarily fit in with where you’d expect the film to land 

Lessons Learned

If and only if you are scientist, it is pronounced 'piranya'

When waterskiing, it's probably a good idea to have some sort of emergency signal to your boat drivers that doesn't require you to use your arms

A note to phone operators of the ‘70s: if you don’t have a requested phone number, try looking it up in that big yellow thing called the phone book

Rent/Bury/Buy

I watched Piranha because it seemed like a blind spot that needed unblinding. Eh. I could probably have grown into AARP discounts without having seen it, but the film wasn’t a waste of time. Joe Dante’s style and skill eke through enough to keep things entertaining, even if it never elevates the material into anything much more than a funner-than-average you-know-what ripoff.

Shortening Cred: C’mon. They’re piranYa.

Take a Dip...If You DARE

As someone whose karaoke repertoire includes a fully accented rendition of Under the Sea, I love me a good water-based monster as much as the next singing crab with a Caribbean accent. That's why I've assembled a hearty gang of bloggers to share their own underwater fears, be they theme park-hating sharks or urine-leaking children.

It’s all part of HeyNOTLP!, a new feature on Night of the Living Podcast’s busy bee blog where once a month, we copy the AV Club format take a horror-themed question and share our answers.  Head here for a salty read and remember to join in the action by tweeting us your own wonders with the hashtag #heyNOTLP.  

Hate reading? Can’t actually read? Have just discovered that you CAN read (since you read this) but don’t like it because you’d rather look at pretty pictures or listen to, well, five people discuss the wonders that is the 2006 slasher comedy Drive-Thru? We’ve all been there, and now you can return by downloading Night of the Living Podcast’s Episode 322, wherein I guest starred to discuss what happens when fast food mascots go bad, Gossip Girl refugees get dead, hobbits get stretched out to star in Citadel, and Irish people attempt to do anything that doesn’t involve Guinness.

Also for your ears: a new episode of The Feminine Critique, wherein my cohostess and I rev up our Game Genies to tackle 1989's Nintendo extravaganza The Wizard and the far more recent, less Clark Bar filled-Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Load up on the vegan meals and go get it!

Kingdom of the Shatner

Before it became a treasure chest of cleverly themed Law & Order: SVU marathons, the USA Network was a haven of sorts for random genre films. Chief among that rotation was today's short-astic AND Shat-astic creature feature, Kingdom of the Spiders.

Quick Plot: A quiet farm town in Arizona struggled through 50 weeks of the calendar in order to reap the benefits of the fortnight long country fair. Nothing can possibly stop this national attraction from bringing wealth to everyone, right?

Oh you silly post-Jaws movie characters. Haven't you learned anything?

As a local farmer's prized calf falls victim to mysteriously deadly spider venom, a no-nonsense entymologist is brought in to diagnose the problem. Keeping her comfortable is the town stud/veterinarian Rack, played by William Shatner as if he were trying to convince viewers that he is indeed William Shatner. The Shat is in his ladies' man prime here, giving us the kind of southwestern charm that would melt any female scientist's icy heart. Seriously, what woman could resist a line like "You're kind of pretty for a girl?" 

Apparently, negative amounts of women. Shat is so Shat that he has not one but TWO women pining for his affections, one being the aforementioned city gal scientist and the other, the wife of his late little brother. This leads to all sorts of weird sexual innuendos about how Shat would like to milk his brother's widow, though she only wants him to do so with war hands, but ACTUALLY he wants nothing sexy of her because she's his little brother's widow. I realize this sounds confusing, but I offer no apologies: how do you think I felt watching it?

Anyway, Shat gets a girl (or two) as the mysteriously venomous spiders start building terrifyingly giant hills and biting locals, be they the long-suffering farmers or a cocky crop-dusting pilot with the greatest girl scream in cinema history. At a certain point, the mayor doesn't even bother showing up to remind us that the film is retreading Jaws territory because EVERYONE IS BEING EATEN BY TARANTULAS.

It's kind of a thing of beauty.

For a girl.

Kingdom of the Spiders is one of the better known titles from that wonderfully rich subgenre of Nature Strikes Back. Like so many of those films, it crams in some social commentary about man's disruption of the animal world through pollution. The adorable thing about Kingdom of the Spiders, however, is just how quickly it abandons that theme when the spider action hits. A heated debate about spraying DDT ensues, but once the pilot administering it is (hilariously) killed, it's straight on to tarantula porn from that point on. Shat and his scientist girlfriend never offer any reasonable action towards eliminating the threat of man-eating tarantulas, and our final act is left to an alternatively funny/creepy siege as the arachnids pound on glass windows to eat our last heroes.

You think I'm kidding, but among the other things Kingdom of the Spiders taught me is the fact that a bunch of tarantulas sticking to a glass window will eventually cause it to shatter. My dream MythBusters experiment to test this theory would of course be to find as many of those suction cap handed Garfields as possible and see how long before they come to life, morph into one all-powerful Critters 2-like being, and eat people. 

That might be testing a different theory. 

High Points
Look, only the freakishly brave/possibly cyborg people are not disturbed by the fuzzy grandeur of tarantulas, and Kingdom of the Spiders utilizes this life fact to pretty skin-crawling degree

Low Points
Sadly, much of this was accomplished in the kind of pre-90s manner that killed a good deal of the stunt spiders used in filming

Lessons Learned
Shooting your hand off doesn’t hurt too much

In some parts of the country, a dog that is visibly breathing is considered dead

If it ain’t Arizona, it’s all the same

Just because it only takes a handful of abnormally venomous tarantulas to take down a cow does not mean it takes five times that amount to take down the Shat

It is impossible to dodge tarantulas without looking as though you are skipping down the Yellow Brick Road

This wouldn’t be the first horror film to teach it, but reinforcement is always educational: if planning on ever being stuck in your location as human-eating zombies/demons/spiders abound, always be sure to stock up on wooden furniture

Fun Fact
Ve Neill, best known to modern day audiences as the kickass judge of SyFy’s Face Off (and my dream aunt to drink mimosas with at family reunions) worked as a makeup artist for the film

Rent/Bury/Buy
Kingdom of the Spiders is a worthy cult classic that should certainly be seen by any genre fan. The recent special edition DVD release is loaded with goodies, including a commentary track and terrifying hands-on demonstration with a famed spider wrangler who knows no fear. So throw down a few bucks and get your own copy. Where else can you find so many musical cues borrowed directly from the Twilight Zone library? Where else can you find William Shatner heroically hurling his toddler niece only the hard wooden floor covered by toddler-eating tarantulas? What other films end on such glorious matte paintings? All of these things and more make Kingdom of the Spiders something truly special.

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Pair of Glasses

You know what's awesome? Sharks. You know what some moviegoers seem to think is really awesome? Paying $5 extra to wear glasses during a movie. 

Nerds.

Jaws 3D is about sharks (which is awesome) and was heavily touted as showing them in 3D (which some people think is awesome). 

Let us evaluate now.

Quick Plot: Mike Brody (Dennis Quaid), New England's favorite sheriff's eldest, works at SeaWorld with his biologist girlfriend Kathryn (played by My So-Called Life mom Bess Armstrong with intelligent pluck). Younger water-phobe bro Sean comes to visit/flirt with Lea Thompson's water skiing princess right about the same time a Great White sneaks his way into the theme park, much to the denial of Louis Gossett Jr.'s priority jumbled boss.

Directed by Jaws (and its first sequel)'s production designer Joe Alves, Jaws 3(D) is fairly infamous for its use and abuse of 3D, that oft-loved gimmick that was making its first big comeback in the early '80s. With a screenplay that had clearly seen its share of white-out and second drafts (including one that was penned by Richard Matheson), Jaws 3(D) was never going to be a boat-rocking classic like its original. Watching it 29 years after its fairly ill-fated premiere, the real question I had was if it fell into the sequel camp of 2's okay-ish blandness or 4's hilarious badness.

Not surprisingly, Jaws 3(D) falls somewhere in between. The cast, as you've probably realized, is loaded with before-they-were-semi-famous stars and all of them know how to sell a mediocre scene, even when the writing is duller than a Fisher Price knife. There's even some successful character-based humor in Sean's water fears and plenty of warmth in Kathryn's relationship with SeaWorld's stars of the '80s, Sandy & Cindy and--get THIS--SHAMOO!

At the same time, we're treated to about twenty three conversations between Kathryn and Mike where they worry about their future, since he's been offered a job in South America and she has six months left on her contract plus an opportunity to--

What, am I boring you? How do you think I felt? I'm the one who had to sit through that conversation. 90,000 times.

See, Jaws 3(D), like many a big budget summer blockbuster hopeful, is hampered by a lazy and probably very rushed screenplay. It's great to have a respectable romance at your center, but when every scene with your leads ends with a pro and con list about their career plans, you can't really expect the popcorn crowd to swoon.

That of course leaves the thrill of Jaws 3(D) in the busy hands of its technology, which next to the dolphins and Shamoo, is easily the most adorable aspect of the film. In the first of VERY FEW shark attacks, Jaws 3(D) almost fools you into thinking you're getting some actual suspense and scares, only to reward high ticket price payers with a gleefully hilarious in yo' FACE shot of a severed arm, menacingly floating towards your imaged red and black lenses. Other 3D shots include a syringe squirting at you, a statue that's, well, a statue, a head (yes, it belongs to the same torso as the aforementioned arm only it gets to surprise a gaggle of happy tourists) and a POV shot from inside the shark's throat. That one's more weird than cute, but I give the film credit for trying.

The most fascinating aspect of Jaws 3(D) comes from its apparent corporate sponsorship. SeaWorld was clearly heavily involved in the filming, supplying some mammal co-stars and its name brand. But consider this: the main plot of Jaws 3(D) hinges on the fact that a 35' long Great White is loose inside a theme park, the kind of theme park families pay hundreds of dollars to tour on vacation. What this means is that SeaWorld has incredibly questionable construction and safety. 

Which means SeaWorld put its name and face (and dolphins' faces) on a movie that might very well be the most damning ad campaign imaginable. The equivalent would be something like Roller Coaster taking place at Great Adventure or WestWorld being recast with Mickey Mouse in the Yul Brynner role. 

I know: I want that movie too.

High Points

Kudos to any blockbuster for including a smart, brave, and quick-thinking career-minded woman as its heroine

Low Points

The final body count, SPOILER ALERT, is an all-mighty but unlucky-in-Asia 4. Four. Quatro. FOUR. This displeases me, especially when you keep setting up mob scenes in the water as a 35 FOOT LONG SHARK SWIMS BY ON AN EMPTY STOMACH

Lessons Learned

Beware the fat man in the bumper boat

Dolphins are way smarter than mere humans, even PHDs with veterinary degrees

If you love someone, you will never, ever never, take them on vacation to SeaWorld

Stray Observatiuon

Bella Swan, eat my Neosporin! In terms of who the clumsiest character in cinema history might be, I'm giving the edge to the hilariously bull-in-china-shop-that-is-a-beach Mike Brody. The man almost makes me look graceful, and I once slipped on a banana peel and cut my finger on sour cream 

Rent/Bury/Buy

Well, Jaws 3(D) isn't actually close to being good, but it's enjoyable in a super '80s way that certainly has its charms. Think of it as a nice summer popsicle when you're not really hungry, but require mild nourishment.