Night Claws (2013)

aka Apex Predator

Welcome to beautiful Mobile, Alabama. Mobile’s sheriff, Joe Kelly (Reb Brown), is having a tough time, because for some reason, a ten foot sasquatch has decided to make the woods around town its home, ripping people apart whenever it meets them.

Kelly’s not the only one interested in the murdering hairball. Government backed cryptozoologist Sarah Evans (Leilani Sarelle) comes to town to bag herself a sasquatch and disturb the romance between Kelly and his deputy Roberta (Sherrie Rose), and a crazy hunter (David Campbell) and his pair of goons wander through the woods. Then there’s a small group of people (among them Ted Prior) wandering through these very same woods on a survival training trip. Things will get very complicated and wood-wander-y before they get better for Mobile.

The advent of fully digital filmmaking has invited some of the elder statesmen of cheaply shot local productions back into the business of making things most people would barely interpret as movies, and putting the local colour where their younger peers only want the colour yellow. Among these happy few is house favourite David A. Prior, him of Sledgehammer and Action International films. Looking at the cast of Night Claws, Prior still has a degree of clout, so instead of the usual young people who can’t act you generally find in this sort of film, it features a lot of low budget veterans who sort of can. Unusually, these middle-aged and older veterans don’t just pop up in cameo appearances (that’s left for - I kid you not - Frank Stallone), but as the film’s actual leads, giving the proceedings slightly more dignity. And while the Reb Browns and David Campbells of this world won’t be my choice for Shakespeare, they do know how to look grumpy, deliver awkward dialogue lines with a degree of verve (and perhaps a little wink from time to time), and get by on some basic charisma.

Speaking of awkwardness, this is very much a typical David A. Prior film in its approach, which is to say, always entertaining, sometimes clever, and often just ever so slightly off. Even though nothing at all of import for plot and characters happens in a film’s middle part, as it does/doesn’t for Night Claws, Prior’s detours are generally fun to watch in that classic parallel dimension cinema way I love so dearly, where middle-aged romances still work like the ones in kindergarten did, plot twists seem to have been made up on the spot without even the tiniest thought for their sense in context of anything that came before them, and so on, and so forth.

In fact, and obviously, the whole of Night Claws carries that parallel dimension feel, presented with a bit more charm and self-consciousness than usual in this sort of affair, perhaps. The film’s final third, when the twists and turns of what we may as well call a plot become particularly random and weird (you didn’t think you’d get a Prior movie without any kind of conspiracy thriller elements, right?), is particularly lovely in that regard, with never a dull second between Prior chewing scenery, Brown being Brown, things that must surely be meant as jokes (but one can’t be sure) and Prior seemingly just putting up any old nonsense that comes to mind at the moment, as long as it’s fun. Which just made me incredibly happy while watching Night Claws.

As an added bonus – as if this were needed! -  the delighted audience (what do you mean, a 2.2 user rating average on the IMDB?) gets a smidgen of dumb gore, and a bit of shameless dubious monster costume action from a film that is as generous with its particular brand of thrills as its budget allows. In exchange, I offer up my honest enthusiasm for whatever the thing I just watched is.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,horror,david a. prior,reb brown,leilani sarelle,ted prior,sherrie rose,david campbell

Neon Maniacs (1986)

San Francisco during the 80s of the last century. Virginal high school girl Natalie (Leilani Sarelle) is the only survivor when a group of monsters, mutants or whatever they are supposed to be we must assume to be the "neon maniacs" of the film's title attack her nightly birthday night bash in Golden Gate Park. Since the bodies of her friends disappear - something the police only make sure of by an actual search the next morning - the cops don't believe a single word Natalie said about being attacked by monsters; clearly, it's all a high school prank. A prank that makes Natalie pretty unpopular with the relatives of her friends.

As if social ostracism weren't bad enough, the neon maniacs have developed a liking to Natalie, and begin to terrorize and try to kill her wherever she goes at night. Fortunately for her, Steve (Clyde Hayes), a guy who always had a crush on her, and horror loving kid Paula (Donna Locke), learn to believe in the neon maniacs too, and help her out. Eventually, Paula realizes that the monsters live inside the Golden Gate Bridge (one assumes the only feature of San Francisco writer Mark Patrick Carducci had heard of, seeing as he even misses out on including a cable car or a drag queen) and are lethally allergic to water. But will squirt guns be enough when the creatures attack our heroes' school's battle of the (horrible) bands?

I suspect that if you could distil the 80s teen horror movie to its purest form, Joseph Mangine's Neon Maniacs would be the result of your experiment. It's all teens (and "teens") in horrifying fashion, synth noodling on the soundtrack, light gore, dumb yet somewhat fun monsters and a plot that doesn't hold up even to the idea of logical scrutiny. It's also a fun enough film if you're in the mood for a horror movie that's as disposable as junk food.

Of course, the main reason to talk about a film like this is to wallow in its moments of perfect ridiculousness. Personally, I find it difficult not to be fond of a work that does make no attempt whatsoever to explain the existence of its monsters or give them any kind of motivation. Instead of that intellectual stuff Neon Maniacs puts the only bit of thought it is capable of into turning the (possibly) titular monsters into some sort of monster village people: one of them is dressed like a biker, another one like a surgeon; there are a soldier, an Indian and a monkey guy, too, of course, as well as a totally incongruous wee cyclops lizard thing. Other highlights include a police force so bad they don't even know that if you search a room full of vehicles, you need to search the inside of the vehicles themselves before you can declare the room monster free; let's not even talk about the whole "oh, somebody says half a dozen people have been murdered in the park, let's search it some time next morning after some useful rain will have washed away all clues except for some slime" business.

Then there's a trio of heroes who think it's a good idea to go to a battle of the bands while they are being hunted by monsters, as long as they provide as many people as possible with squirt guns, becoming responsible for the death of at least a dozen people in the process. Oops.

However, one thing about Neon Maniacs at least is utterly logical: the film's conviction that a horror movie loving kid is the most effective monster destroying force in the known universe. That this particular horror movie loving kid is a girl is worthy of a certain amount of praise, and comes as a bit of a surprise in a film as addle-brained as this one.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,joseph mangine,horror,clyde hayes,leilani sarelle,reviews