ALIEN PREDATORS (1987) Bland American tourists traveling through the Spanish countryside are beset by parasitic alien beings that have taken over the minds of the locals and turned them into killers. It sounds like a rip-off of John McTiernan’s Predator, but this boring, low-tech creature feature was actually released first overseas as The Falling, a more appropriate name considering the title beasties don’t actually appear on-screen until the last five minutes. The three protagonists (Lynn-Holly Johnson, Dennis Christopher, and Martin Hewitt) are dull, there’s too many moments of misplaced humor, and the special FX leave a lot to be desired, although there are a couple of good (but brief) bits when the aliens burst out of their victims’ faces. According to Terror on Tape, this sat on the shelf for several years before being released in the States, direct-to-video, and it’s easy to see why. D+
THE BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA (1971) A killer uses a paralyzing agent to subdue his victims before carving them up with a steel blade in this slick Italian slasher. The giallo template is in play, with a gloved killer (although this time it’s transparent latex gloves) and a mystery/whodunit plot revolving around the brutal slayings of women in Rome, all of whom might have connections to a blackmail ring. The movie is very well acted – even the English dubbing is good – and directed by Paolo Cavara, with shades of inspiration emanating from Argento’s Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Unlike many gialli of the time, the killer’s identity is actually unpredictable, creating a nicely-crafted thriller. Ennio Morricone did the musical score. B
THE FOG (1980) Carpenter’s follow-up to Halloween was this effective ghost tale that employed many of the director’s strengths, which would come to make him one of the strongest genre filmmakers of the 1980s. On the eve of small coastal town, Antonio Bay’s, centennial, the specters of murdered lepers come back for revenge against the descendants of those who conspired to kill them, including the town’s priest (Hal Holbrook). An excellent cast (Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Janet Leigh), an eerie atmosphere enhanced by Carpenter’s terrific use of anamorphic widescreen framing, and a handful of good scares help make The Fog work extremely well, even when the plot doesn’t always make sense. Barbeau is a wonderful protagonist, but doesn’t get nearly enough to do. That’s a small price to pay for a classic movie. A–
THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE! (1972) Probably the most famous title in Staten Island filmmaker, Andy (The Ghastly Ones) Milligan’s, colorful repertoire, this period piece was filmed in the lush English countryside, but it’s nothing more than a bargain basement Dark Shadows rip-off. The movie features the temperamental Mooneys, an aristocratic family trying to maneuver around the upcoming marriage of its youngest daughter to a medical student – without revealing the family’s cursed secret of werewolfitis. This is overflowing with problems, the biggest being a lack of any sort of plot, with the flimsy story structure resting entirely on the werewolf secret, even though no one actually turns into a wolf until the last 10 minutes. Shot in 1969, the rats of the title were added years later to try and cash-in on the success of Willard. Bad lighting, dreadful sound, murky photography, and hilariously awful make-up effects rank this as one of the worst werewolf flicks of all time. Unfairly categorized alongside Herschell Gordon Lewis, Milligan had more in common with Ed Wood and his pretenses for creating “serious” films, ultimately Milligan’s curse. D–