Night of the Tentacles

David, a young, single graphic artist who lives in a flat surrounded by neighbours who fuck all hours of the day and night or spend all their time sat on the toilet as part of a liquid diet, gets a little over excited whilst listening to his heavily pregnant downstairs neighbour (Esther - the love interest) masturbate in her room and has a heart attack (well, when I say Alternative Film, I MEAN ...). Arriving home after a lengthy hospital stay, David meets with the Devil who offers him a new heart in exchange for his soul. The small print to this deal being that David must feed the heart (which is a one-eyed monster with razor sharp tentacles that lives in a box in David's closet) with fresh human meals. Thus begins Night of the Tentacles!

Described as a 'Faustian tale', this film smacks of poorly made 'Little Shop of Horrors' re-make (The heart even screams 'Feed Me!' Audrey II style) but without much of the humour or real horror of LSoH. Okay, I fully understand this film has its limits having only cost the makers $1500 to make, and the makers obviously had their tongues planted firmly in cheek, but the constant ludicrous gurning from David, added to some pretty questionable acting and large parts of the film so dark that my laptop brightness button gave up the ghost, then decorated with the cherry on top, the appalingly cheap and pointless heart-creature, leaves much to be desired.

As always, I feel I should find something good in even the worst of films, and I guess in this case it would be that there were a couple of scenes or throw-away lines that made me chuckle, but that's hardly a life-saver for this amateur crap. I did also like the Esther character (played by Nicole Gerity), she had something sweet and pleasing about her character which made me warm to her in an otherwise chilly environment.

My suggestion for you horror lovers out there is to give this one a wide berth, unless you're big into masturbating pregnant goths or remote controlled one-eyed boglins. Move along, nothing to see here.

Creepozoids

Straight out of the so-bad-it's-good (but actually really bad) bargain bin this week is the ridiculously titled Creepozoids. Set in the long distant future of 1998 (oh boy!), a nuclear war has ravaged the Earth as we know it, leaving small pockets of human life battling for survival against mutant beings. A rag-tag group of survivors (including perennial Scream Queen Linnea Quigley) fall out of the acid rain into a long abandoned building. They very quickly realise that all is not right with their safe-house as they are picked off, one by one, by a rubber-suited mutant baddie!

The odd thing that really stuck me about this film is the contrast in it's special FX. The scenes of the team members 'melting' are actually really rather well done for a B Movie schlock-fest, but unfortunately it seems like the movie then ran out of budget and rubber-suited monsters, giant cuddly toy rats and a modificated dolls seem to have been the only choice to finish getting this film made. The acting is, putting it mildly, appalling and the script is less coherent than Lindsay Lohan on her way out of an 'All you can Drink' cocktail bar. By far my favourite moment is when the hero stops his team from firing on the mutant exclaiming 'Don't shoot, I don't think he means us any harm' and no sooner has he finished the sentence than he is blasting away with the rest of them.

Of course, people will say 'But it's a B Movie, it's meant to be bad' to which I would counter with 'Really? You know you should never start a sentence with But ...' ... But seriously, yes, it is a B Movie, and yes, it is meant to be bad, and it is, very successfully I might add. There is, however, a distinct line between bad and BAD and Creepozoids very quickly meanders into the latter. The final battle is laugh-out-loud ludicrous and if you're expecting a Sixth Sense style twist ending, you're going to be very disappointed, the makers clearly just ran out of money, ideas and enthusiasm. Having said all that of course, I'd still rather watch this car-crash than Twilight any day of the week!!