Welcome back readers if I have any
left after Missile to the Moon. Hahahahaha!!! I'm kidding. I
would think the rape revenge and women in prison movies would have
cost me readers instead of 50's B-movie nonsense. Well I sense from
the overall vibe that many felt that yesterday's creature feature was
simply not enough creature, in spite of rock monsters and giant
spider puppet. Seriously, my mom is terrified of spiders and all
that damn thing would have done is made her snort and belly laugh.
So today we forge ahead to the far away time of 2004, where a contest
to party in the Bermuda Triangle courtesy of MTV. This is Monster
Island.
 |
| Obligatory cheesecake shot! |
Our story follows Josh (Daniel
Letterie of Camp, Debating Robert Lee, Law & Order: Special
Victims Unit and The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green),
a teen with his head in the clouds and slacker by nature is off to
the Bermuda Triangle to party his time away, gathered with friends to
rock out with special guest star hostess of this event, Carmen
Electra. So yeah the kid is stoked, obviously to those around him.
Of course things can always go bad as the dreaded Nick Carter of the
Backdoor Boys is also in this event. Yeah and um giant fauna due to
atomic mutations and genetic manipulation. Still Nick Carter?
Chilling.
 |
| Yup the acid kicked in already. |
With backstage passes to hang with
Carmen, Josh is eyeballed by her security guard/ bodyguard Eightball
(C. Ernst Harth of Thir13en
Ghosts, Capote, Dead Rising, Scammerhead, Almost Human and Joe Finds
Grace). Yup that is his name. No he is not black so
that joke is lost. Guessing he is a speed freak perhaps and has a
real Bulk of Bulk and Skull via Power Rangers look about him.
Jinkies it turns out Carmen has thoughts, opinions and is like a real
person. Hey give the lad a break, he's barely 20 or so. He was
probably too gobsmack at her looks to kick his brain into high gear.
With freak weather happening a giant stop animation bug causes havoc
and scoops up Carmen carting her to places unknown.
With partakers fleeing left and right
heading for the boats for safety, Josh and a group of devoted Electra
fans journey into the unknown jungles to save her. Our party
consisting of Maddy (Elizabeth Winstead of Sky High, Final
Destination 3, Black Christmas, Death Proof, Live Free or Die Hard,
The Thing, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Mercy Street)
the gutsy brunette and ex-girlfriend of Josh, Jen C. (Chelan
Simmons of It, Special Unit 2, Carrie, Snakehead Terror, Smallville,
Chupacabra Terror, Supernatural, Final Destination 3, John Tucker
Must Die and Love Under the Stars) the dingy but hopeful
aspiring actress/musician, nerdy Andy (Cascy Beddow of
Jeremiah, Carrie, The Mall Man, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed,
Life As We Know It, Blade: Trinity and Colony), jock ass and
self-centered Chase (Chris Harrison of Smallville, Black Sash,
11:11 and Monster Island)
 |
| K, we'll hang later. Peace. |
This movie dips back into the 1950s
grab bag of effects with scale model miniatures, large scale pneumatic
armatures and stop motion capture effects of flying creatures. The
film tries to play the tongue in cheek jobs with as much seriousness
as allowed. Making their way to the caverns or in this case
probably lava tubes, the lot encounters Doctor Harryhausen (the
late, great Adam West of Batman, The Adventures of Batman and Robin,
Superfriends, Zombie Nightmare, Return Fire, Night of the
Kickfighters, Mad About You, Black Scorpion, Johnny Bravo, XIII, The
Batman, Family Guy and Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders)
a mad scientist responsible for most of the gigantic fauna roaming
this island paradise and yes a nod to stop animation/visual effects
creator Ray Harryhausen (The Animal World, Earth vs.the
Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Strange World of
Planet X, The 7th Voyage of
Sinbad, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, Jason and the
Argonauts, First Men in the Moon, One Million Years B.C., The Valley
of Gwangi and Clash of the Titans).
The script is corny and it's meant to
be. Giving love to those old Drive-In movies of the 1950s using the
fades and dissolves to models scaled that were super imposed. Almost
similar to Mysterious Island in its design.
You get the general vibe that all
actors and performers in on this are there for a good time and a
paycheck and well it seems just that. Carmen gets to embrace
creature feature scream queen status akin to Fay Wray of King Kong or
Joan Weldon of Them. It's campy, quirky, sarcastic and overall just
damn odd. So naturally I felt a connection to it. Yup beat you all
to the punchline, bitches!
Stop-motion animator David Bowes
really captures the painstaking effect to make these beasties
move along with life-size ant puppeteer George Groove making
the ant rigs stomp their way through the kegger.
Yes it is once again
slacker/outcast/rebel finds a cause, fights for it risking life and
limb and may even get the girl.
Also I am so old I had to look up
actress/producer/writer La La Anthony (Gun,
Think Like a Man, 1982, Think Like a Man Too, Chi-Raq, Unforgettable
and Power) and then
it clicked with Unforgettable...but previously I forgot. False
advertise, TV series!
 |
| Gahh! You don't get my whimsy, childish behavior, girl!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment