Frankenstein vs Dracula (aka Assignment Terror) 1970 - Movie Review

There’s no way in hell I’m going to enjoy this movie to the point of singing its praises, or commending its production value, acting, makeup, f/x, plot, etc. There’s…just no fucking way.

Spoiler Alert I: I was right.

SPOILER ALERT II: I’m probably going to spoil plot lines and twists so if you haven’t seen it, stop reading, go watch the film, then come back.

Frankenstein vsDracula (aka Assignment Terror) is the most convoluted, ridiculous film I’ve watched in a while. Plot description on IMDB: After an alien convinces a werewolf, Dracula, Mummy, and Frankenstein’s monster (at least they got that right) to help him destroy the earth, all hell breaks loose.

And this is absolutely NOT the plot.

Well, it is and it isn’t. The basics are kinda there. What’s going on is a superior (in their minds) alien race is dying. They need to find a new planet. They decide on Earth but wouldn’t you know it, it’s filled with earthlings. So they plan to exploit mankind’s foolish superstitions and fears (you know, monsters and shit) in order to dominate them or destroy them completely.

Sure, they could blow up the entire human race with nukes, but they need the planet intact. Otherwise, they’ll have no place to colonize. Duh. And despite the fact they’ve already got a shit ton of agents and spies in place on Earth, the success of this particular mission will decide if they end up calling Earth home or they die out completely.

And you’re going with this whole scary monster thing, huh? Okay then…

The three main aliens working on this RIDICULOUS plan are Dr. Odo Warnoff (the most condescending of the trio), Dr. Maleva Kerstein, and Dr. Kerian. Because the aliens are soooo superior to humans, they don’t have to worry about becoming influenced by their puny fears and emotions. So the aliens are incarnated into existing human bodies. And since they know that beautiful women are like powerful magnets, they’ll use the buxom beauties to attract statesmen, scientists, and generals, then steal all their vital secrets.

I’m sure that’ll work out just great for you.

OMG! BTS is coming in concert next summer!

They find an actual vampire, werewolf, mummy, and Farancksalan’s monster (no, I’m not kidding). Their big plan is to use a mind control device on each one, turning them into willing slaves to the aliens, while the aliens use the monsters’ blood to create clones that will destroy mankind.

Fortunately for us Earthlings, the cops figure out what the hell is going on and thwart the alien takeover, after a few epic monster battles, of course. HUMANS: 1; ALIENS: 0

 

Normally I would delve into further details of the film, scene by scene. But honestly, I can’t be bothered. It’s not really worth anyone’s time to stare into the abysmal nature of this movie. But I can discuss a few elements.

1. I really enjoyed Paul Naschy, who played – you guessed it – his iconic role as the werewolf, Waldemar Daninsky. He was the only monster given a fully developed backstory, and the years of Naschy playing this exact character backs it up. He’s really one of the few characters that the viewer can get behind and root for. Any completist Naschy fans out there will probably want to watch this, just for Waldemar.
2. The makeup for the mummy is the best of all the monsters. Looks very realistic, and not just a bunch of latex and toilet paper mushed together to create the appearance of a desiccated corpse.
3. There was slight character development with Inspector Tobermann. He takes on the brunt of the investigation, falls in love, starts to get overstressed with monster hallucinations, and gets to have all the human-on-monster fights in the film. He also had some fun banter with his boss. I’m not saying I gave a shit about anything he did, but at least the writer tried. Guess who the writer was? Paul Naschy. Hmmm, that could explain why the werewolf got so much play…

 

Beyond these few things, the movie was a pile of nonsensical idiocy. We never come back to the idea of beautiful women stealing secrets from powerful men; aliens hammer on the idea of how superior they are but become susceptible to human emotion and fuck up their mission, in a completely surprising and not predictable in any way turn of events; the high mucky mucks in the police force immediately believe the story of aliens using monsters to destroy the world. Naschy missed a huge opportunity to explore that aspect to create tension.

The music never fit any scene it was used in. The editing was choppy at best, migraine inducing at worst, and made transitions so muddled that I couldn’t be sure we had moved on to a brand-new scene until 30 seconds after the cut. Most of the special effect makeup was terrible, particularly for Fetasalad’s monster. It looks like someone put a hat box on his head and painted over it.

Here, watch me do my Dirty Harry impression.

I did like that Waldemar’s character had the most backstory, but some of it seems rather convenient just to be able to give credence to monsterkind in general by explaining how a high-ranking judge crossed paths with the werewolf years earlier. With that, and more intricate coincidences, made the rest of the monsters shallow and unimportant. But again, Naschy wrote the story and the screenplay.

By the time we reach the conclusion, complete with alien lab explosion, and our cop hero philosophizing out loud for the benefit of us all, the story has become so convoluted and overflowing with minutia, the viewer feels dissatisfied, empty, and probably pissed at losing 90 minutes of their life they can never get back.

1 hatchet (out of 5)

P.S. I don’t know why this was ever titled Frankenstein vs Dracula because 1) Dracula isn’t the vampire in this movie; and 2) the werewolf and Frank keep duking it out, for reasons unexplained.

 

 

 

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Movie Review: Space Boobs in Space (2017)

I actually volunteered to review this. I just don’t know who I am anymore...

Space Boobs in Space begins with a blonde, busty, plastic-bustier wearing crew person, I guess, reviewing a missive from...wherever. The message is pretty clear: don’t watch the file we’ve included on this disc.

THEN WHY INCLUDE IT???

Anyway, she watches it. It’s basically a copy of an alien talk show, Space Talk, hosted by the green skinned Zee Zee Poof. This particular episode is all about the film, Space Boobs in Space, a collaboration between her species and Earthlings. But not just that! Included are a handful of short films, again made with the Earthlings, as well as interviews with cast and crew.

SBiS tells us the alien race is desperate for human breast milk because their own green titty drink makes them live longer with less fine lines and wrinkles. They’ve had to curb their sexual reproduction, for crying out loud! They lure Earthlings to their planet where they reap the benefits of Earth’s dirty pillows and in exchange, Earth gets the Irilidian green boobie juice and all its health benefits.

The short films in between the talk show’s interviews include: "Operate" (a woman hires a hooker to play the game, Operation, against her hoo-ha), "A Killer Deal" (real estate agent trying to sell some land to Jason Voorhees), "Horror Hands" (woman gets a call from a killer in her house then her hands create dramatic music with everything she touches), "Cheesecake" (woman eating cheesecake seductively in a bathtub shot exploitation style), "Horror of Sandy Creek" (guy filming a documentary about a mud monster), "Ghosted" (dead woman helps living woman NOT become a victim), and finally "Lapdance at the Gates of Hell" (stripper gives vampire a lapdance).

Then we return to the opening mammary madame, she finishes watching the file, grabs some kind of laser rifle, and walks off screen.

I, uh...yeah.

Oh, wait. Can't forget the final wrap up with Grand Dame Muff Tit (Ming Vase Dynasty) with 10 minutes of absolutely annoying, useless, rage-inducing filler of bullshit just so she can have more screen time (that's my guess anyway because there's nothing funny or entertaining about it at all).

The entire premise is completely ridiculous, silly, asinine, campy, tongue-in-cheek, satirical, and boobilicious. But there’s no nudity. If you’re looking for full-frontal, simulated sex, or anything above PG-13, you won’t find it here. I couldn’t find a lot of info on the cast of SBiS but I’m 98% sure they’re all Burlesque performers. It’s all about the tease and the titillation, not the reveal.

Starring actresses like Dee Flowered (also one of the writers), Pandora Disaster, Tittiana Sprinkles, and Cocquette De Jour, you just KNOW this is gonna be fun. Mostly, anyway.

While the acting is horrendous, especially from Ming Vase Dynasty (the lone drag queen as far as I could tell), the stories were mostly enjoyable. My favorite had to be "A Killer Deal". Best acting and probably the funniest premise of all the shorts. "Ghosted" was a little predictable and "Horror Hands" just made me shake my head. The rest were pretty good.

The overall film’s pace was decent but it did start to slow down around the Mud Monster vignette. I found myself getting a bit bored as the same style played out over and over in each section (short, major film, talk show). I mean it’s nice to have ice cream every night but what would be even better is to throw in a brownie or maybe some pie (heh) every now and again.

Overall, this was kind of fun to watch. The jokes were silly, the ideas playful, and the titties WERE glorious. 

2.5 hatchets (out of 5)

(Sorry - can't find a trailer anywhere for this. It's basically just on Amazon Prime.)

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Movie Review: The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951, Twentieth Century Fox)

The Day The Earth Stood Still (Twentieth Century Fox, 1951)

Directed by Robert Wise
Starring Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal and Hugh Marlowe
Run Time- 92 minunes
Rated-G

The term "Classic" gets thrown around quite a bit in the coarse of conversation, in regards to movies and film. And as any fan of film knows, the term is quite subjective. In the realm of the science fiction/alien invasion genre for instance, movies like The Thing From Another World, War of the Worlds and Invaders From Mars are almost always the first to be mentioned in this regard, and rightfully so. They are all magnificent examples of the "Cold War Era Mentality" that sci-fi film makers of the 50's were so heavily influenced by. All aliens from space were evil, they lusted for our resources, craved our blood or wanted to take over the bodies of our parents. They were to be destroyed at all cost, usually by a clever combination of military might and scientific know-how. That's just how we rolled back in the 50's. The first film to buck this trend (ironically, even before there was a trend), was Twentieth Century Fox's- The Day The Earth Stood Still.
An unknown object is discovered to be orbiting the Earth at 4000 miles per hour. Nations from around the globe are tracking it and radio stations reporting on its every movement. A quiet unease quickly turns to fear and panic as the object, a large flying disc, eventually makes its landing in a park in Washington D.C.

Movie Review: Battle Earth (2012, DVD)

Review By: Rob Sibley

Have you ever sat through a movie that's so boring that it makes you want to self harm? Well if you're suicidal then Battle Earth is your ticket to paradise. Just take a look at that cover art... looks fun right? Soldiers, a destroyed city, a helicopter and look an Independence Day style space ship! Oh yeah... besides the soldiers you don't get any space ships or burning city's. What you get is a group of Canadian's playing soldiers in the woods for an hour and a half. It sounds like I'm being harsh but seriously this film is fucking boring. If you looked up boring in the dictionary you'd find this film. Nothing happens until the final ten minutes and when the shit hits the fan... well it's disappointing... much like a Thai massage with no happy ending. No me love you long time here folks. Just blue balls and disappointment all around. Pardon the sexual puns, I had to entertain myself somehow.

Let's get the "Plot" out of the way first right? Sorry I faded away for a bit just thinking how this film felt longer then a fucking Leonard Cohen song.  Confirmation of extraterrestrial life appears on television screens across the world as a massive spacecraft breaks through the atmosphere on a crash course into the Atlantic Ocean. A young paramedic, Greg Baker, signs up to fight for his planet against the invaders. Baker joins Special Forces members as the squad medic as they escort a classified package by chopper over enemy territory. When their chopper is shot down they find themselves surrounded and outnumbered. Desperate to return to his wife's side and haunted by nightmares, Baker find that his role in the war has quickly become much larger than he could have ever imagined. The mysterious package may be the key to turning the tide of the war, and possibly to saving all of humanity, but Baker must decide whether to protect it or sacrifice it to ensure his own survival.

Movie Review: Ray Harryhausen Box Set (2005)

Before the advent of computers and CGI, movie makers used a variety of approaches to achieve animated special effects. One approach was stop-motion animation, a time consuming process where miniature models were filmed a single frame at a time with slight movements to the models in between the frame shots. It was pioneered by a man named Willis O'Brien and first used in the films The Lost World (1925) and the classic King Kong (1933).

Find Ray Harryhausen at Amazon.com

As he sat in a theater watching King Kong, a young boy named Ray Harryhausen was so amazed by the images he saw that he decided that he would dedicate his life to bringing this amazing art form to the silver screen. And the rest, as they say, is history. His list of credits include some of the most beloved sci-fi and fantasy films of all time, including Mighty Joe Young (1949), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Mysterious Island (1961), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), and the original Clash of the Titans (1981).

Movie Review: The Deadly Spawn (1983, Blu-ray)

I first discovered Douglas McKeown’s The Deadly Spawn more than two decades ago when I rented the Continental Video horror compilation VHS of Terror on Tape. The Deadly Spawn had several of its goriest scenes featured throughout the running time. It was love at first sight. Not long after I got a hold of the porn box VHS of the feature under the title Return of The Aliens: The Deadly Spawn. John Dods’ awesome gore FX and creature design and the playful schlockiness of the production delighted my wacky monster movie tastes. In 2004 Synapse Films re-mastered The Deadly Spawn and put together one of the best releases in their existence. Now it’s here, on Blu-ray from the folks at Elite Entertainment.

Buy The Deadly Spawn on Blu-ray or DVD