The Geek Address

If you’re anything like me (read: uberawesome science fiction fan) then you’re probably looking forward to Season 4 of Doctor Who. The publicity campaign has been awesome so far. The BBC has just released the so-called ‘Campfire Trailer’ which features the Doctor’s new companion, Donna Noble, talking about The Doctor around a campfire: “There are things waiting in the darkness. Creatures of metal, fire and blood. But he’s out there…burning through time, facing a thousand dangers across the stars and never giving up. He looks like a man but he’s a legend. And his name…is The Doctor.” Shivers. Can’t wait.

Airwolf

Airwolf was a short-lived 1980s television program which is best described as the bastard offspring of Knight Rider and The A Team. I’m sure there was some outstanding characterisation and riveting story arcs but the most appealing aspect of the program from the perspective of a six-year-old boy was the kick ass futuristic helicopter, Airwolf, which was capable of achieving incredible speed. The helicopter was invented by Dr Moffet who stole the machine during its test flight.

Anduril (Nasil)

During the Siege of Baradur, the shards of a broken Anduril were used to cut the ring of power from Sauron’s hand. It was reforged during the War of the Ring and Aragorn carries it into battle against the forces of darkness. Apparently, in early versions of the novel, JRR Tolkien described the orcs wetting their pants and screaming like little sissy girls when they saw Anduril. Of course, the cave trolls didn’t look twice until Aragorn went all Obi Wan on their asses.

Boomstick

When Ash travels back in time and discovers himself in the middle ages, he delivers one of the best monologues in horror history: “Alright you primitive screw-heads, listen up. See this? This is my boomstick! It’s a 12-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart’s top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That’s right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan; retails for about one hundred nine, ninety-five. It’s got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That’s right, shop smart, shop S-Mart!” A reference to this weapon is made in the title of the Evil Dead video game, A Fistful of Boomstick.

Chainsaw Hand

In Evil Dead II, after Ash is forced to cut off his possessed hand, he attaches a chainsaw to the stump which allows him to cause all manner of bloody havoc. The chainsaw also come in handy in the second film when he’s transported back in time and has to face the deadites once again.

Borg Cube

The Borg Cube is a massive spacecraft that the Borg Collective uses to spread throughout the galaxy, assimilating all cultures that they encounter. One of the more memorable ships in the Star Trek universe, the ominous structure is several kilometres across. Its most impressive appearance was in Star Trek First Contact when The Borg lay siege to Earth. 

Caterpillar P-5000 Powered Work Loader

The Caterpillar P-5000 Powered Work Loader was used aboard the Sulaco in Aliens. Although the marines greeted Lieutenant Ellen Ripley with  distrust, she quickly ingratiated herself to them through her skilled use of the loader. Powered by hydrogen fuel cells and sporting two enormous hydraulic arms, Ripley used the loader to annihilate an alien queen that managed to board the Sulaco. Cheering is mandatory when Ripley emerges from the pneumatic doors and yells, “Get away from her, you BITCH!”

The Dalek

The Dalek is without question the most relentless and deadly robot in the universe - until, that is, it encounters stairs. The penultimate Dalek episode was Genesis of the Daleks. The Doctor and his companions travel back in time to Skaro where they attempt to prevent the development of the Daleks. Created by the psychotic scientist Davros, the Daleks were machines to protect an accelerated evolutionary form of the Kaleds who were locked in a seemingly perpetual nuclear war with the Thals. Daleks have an eyestalk and a devastatingly powerful death ray protruding from its protective casing. In Remembrance of the Daleks Ace manages to incapacitate a Dalek by destroying its eyestalk with a baseball bat. At the end of Genesis of the Daleks, the Doctor has the opportunity to destroy the Daleks forever but chooses not to, explaining: “‘I know that although the Daleks will create havoc and destruction for millions of years. I know also, that out of their evil, must come something good.’ 

The Death Star

The Death Star has the ability to destroy entire planets with a blast from its superlaser (no, I’m not kidding, it’s actually called a ’superlaser’). According to Wikipedia, the first Death Star had “27,048 officers, 774,576 crew including troopers, pilots and crewers, 400,000 support workers and over 25,000 Imperial stormtroopers .” Although the surface of the Death Star has 2,500 laser cannons and 2,500 ion cannons, it was unable to withstand an attack by several dozen rebel starfighters during the Battle of Yavin.

Sex Machine’s Dick Gun

Legendary makeup artist Tom Savini who did the makeup for most of George A Romero’s zombie films, is probably most recognisable as Sex Machine in From Dusk til Dawn. In a story that boasts a lot of insanely cool improvised weapons, Sex Machine’s Dick Gun is so damn cool that it incites envy in everyone who watches the flick.

Doc Oc’s Arms

Otto Octavius was a brilliant nuclear physicist and academic before a freak accident resulted in four artificially intelligent robotic arms becoming fused to his spinal column. As noted at Wikipedia: ‚ÄúHis harness is attached to four mentally controlled, prehensile metallic appendages. These arms are capable of lifting huge weights, provided at least one arm is used to support his body. The reaction time and agility of his mechanical appendages is enhanced far beyond the range attainable for normal human musculature. The arms allow Octavius to move rapidly over any terrain and to scale vertical surfaces and ceilings. He has developed his concentration and control to the point that he can engage a single opponent, like Spider-Man, or multiple opponents with the arms while performing a completely separate task, such as drinking a cup of coffee or constructing a machine.” Apparently suffering brain damage from the accident, Octavius became a criminal mastermind and mortal enemy of Spiderman. His robotic arms were so deadly he almost caused Spiderman hang up the spandex until convinced otherwise by the Human Torch.

Enforcement Droid 209

ED209 was Robocop’s adversary in Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 film. The robot was designed to be completely bad-ass. Craig Davies was responsible for designing the machine which was animated by Phil Tippet. Fitted with three enormous 20mm machine guns and several rocket launchers, ED209 proved to be a formidable adversary for the cybernetic police officer. Craig Davies noted of the design: “He wanted something really hard and mean. Verhoeven had a really severe vision in mind for this thing. I myself already had a pretty strong idea of what a giant robot should look like, especially when it was a product of modern American design. To begin, I thought it wouldn’t be designed to be wholly functional. First they’d design it to look neat and then they’d worry about making it work. In other words, these futuristic designers would pay a lot of attention to the cosmetics of it in an attempt to market the thing on looks alone -just like an American car.”

Femmebots

Femmebots featured prominently in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. You might be surprised to learn that Femmebots first appeared in The Bionic Woman. Femmebots are artificially intelligent cyborgs designed to resemble women for all manner of subterfuge and nefarious deception. Unfortunately a significant design flaw results in the faceplate falling off when the femmebot is struck, revealing the inner workings of the robot.

Freddy Kruger’s Glove

Freddy Kruger’s glove is one of the most terrifying and iconic weapons in the history of horror cinema. Created by Jim Doyle, the glove is made from copper, rivets, blades from steak knives and a work glove, materials that Freddy Kruger would have access to when he was alive. The glove takes on particular significance in Freddy vs. Jason when you it being crafted. The glove makes a cameo in Evil Dead 2, hanging above the doorway to a toolshed.

Gogo Yubari’s Chain Mace

Kill Bill will be remembered as one of Quentin Tarantino’s finest films. Apart from the Hatari Hanzo sword, the coolest weapon to feature in the film was Gogo Yubari’s Chain Mace. The duel between Yubari and The Bride is unquestionably gruelling, laying waste to solid wooden posts. In the screenplay, the weapon makes a modest appearance: “Go Go steps forward and removes her weapon, it’s not a samurai sword. It’s a heavy metal ball at the end of a long chain. She begins TWIRLING it above her head. Each rotation makes a WHOOSH sound in the air.” Surely such an instrument of death deserves to have the words ‘cool’ and ‘ass’ attached to it.

Hibben Jackal

Unless you‚’re one of those extremely disturbing people who are into knives, you‚Äôre probably not going to recognise the Hibben Jackal by name. If you’re a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you’ll remember that it was the knife given to Faith by Mayor Wilkins (if you’re not a fan of the series and you DON’T recognise this weapon, then you deserve to meet one of the aforementioned knife nuts in a dark alley).  The knife was also used by Praetor Shinzon in Star Trek Nemesis.

Hatori Hanzo Sword

In Kill Bill, the Hatori Hanzo made the finest samurai swords in the world, each one a work of art. As Budd notes in Kill Bill Vol. 2: “If you’re gonna compare a Hanzo sword, you compare it to every other sword ever made… that wasn’t made by Hattori Hanzo.” There is a sense of nobility in Hanzo who swore an oath to God that he would never make another sword again. He reluctantly comes out of retirement to create a sword for The Bride to wreak her revenge on the sadistic and violent Bill.

Mr Pointy

Mr Pointy was Kendra the Vampire Slayer’s favourite stake, bequeathed to Buffy in the episode ‘Becoming’. There are references to Mr Pointy throughout the series: “Well, I think Mr Pointy’ll have something to say about that.” And, of course, everyone’s favourite Buffy quote: “I’ve seen too much. I know what goes bump in the night. Not being able to fight it… What if I just hide under my bed, all scared and helpless? Or what if I just become pathetic? Hanging out at the old Slayer’s home, talking people’s ears off about my glory days, showing them Mr. Pointy, the stake I had bronzed.”

Marion’s Triple Barrelled Shotgun

When Marion, the paranoid and violent alien abductee in The Spierig Brothers’ seminal Australian zombie flick Undead first appears, he’s toting a bad-ass triple barrelled shotgun which makes short work of one of the zombies, splitting him in half and sending his torso flying. This is my boomstick!

Strange meteorites hurtle through the atmosphere and slam into a small Australian town, flattening a senior citizen and ripping a hole through a drunken cricketer. Much to their dismay, the residents of Berkley find themselves besieged by flesh eating zombies. Undead is a fun, tongue-in-cheek blood spattered zombie epic. At the beginning of the film, we"re fleetingly introduced to the characters: a beauty queen leaving for the city because she's inherited her parents" debt; the newly appointed constable at the local police station contending with the anger management issues of her superior officer; and the local gun nut who claims the zombies are part of an alien conspiracy.

It doesn't take long for the blood to start flowing. "Bugger me," one of the cricketers exclaims as his teammate rises from the dead and promptly decapitates him. This film has everything. Zombies. Blood. Decapitation, Dismemberment. Zombies. The female lead even finds a lame-ass excuse to get her gear off. Something to do with acid rain, apparently.

The Spierig Brothers are fans of the genre. Their intention was simple: make a bloody, low-budget zombie film that fans would enjoy. Undead definitely succeeds on that count. While making the movie, the Brothers Spierig were inspired by the ingenuity of filmmakers like Peter Jackson and Robert Rodriguez: The budget was very low for this film.  There were definitely some El Mariachi techniques used to complete the picture. Thankfully  we have computer technology that has really helped expand the scope. We were able to build  sections of a set and extend it later in CG, something those other films did not do. Most  of the money came out of our own pockets. The CGI is difficult to work with only  because we are rendering at high definition on fairly domestic machines. The computers  crash a lot. But the freedom it gives you to expand the scope of your story to a level  that only a couple of years ago would have been impossible is just fantastic. Almost all  the make-up effects are on-set appliances. There are a few shots that use CG to enhance  something that make-up just could not do." 

One of the coolest scenes in the film occurs in an abandoned grocery store when the characters are inundated by a horde of marauding zombies. Marion shakes up a can of softdrink and slams it into a zombie's mouth, detonating the sugary grenade with a pen. Another character wreaks bloody havoc on her zombie assailants, slicing them up with a makeshift weapon. Undead takes zombie violence to new levels of absurdity. Loads of gory fun.

Undead is the ultimate pizza and popcorn horror flick. Check it out.

Best line: "When I was a kid, we fuckin' respected our parents, we didn't fuckin' eat "em!"

Before he became a legitimate director with films like “A Simple Plan” and “Spiderman”, Sam Raimi was the master of B-Grade schlock. His Evil Dead trilogy spawned an enormous cult following for its ingenuity, gore and humour. Evil Dead 2 is a masterful film. If you haven’t experienced the movie, prepare yourself for some quirky and genuinely scary blood-letting. Sam Raimi began making films when he was a teenager, armed with his silent 8mm camera. “At that stage, it wasn’t even about making bad movies - we were making movies nobody could understand,” Raimi said. The movies had to improve, just so people could understand what we were trying to tell them.” When he was at high school, he met Bruce Campbell and formed a friendship that has lasted to this day. The two collaborated on numerous short films, ultimately teaming up to make Evil Dead in 1981. The film was an instant classic and spawned another two films, the most interesting of which was Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn.

People who saw the first film were probably a little bit confused when they sat down to watch the sequel. In the original film, five friends stay overnight in a dilapidated farmhouse where they discover The Book of the Dead and a tape recorder which contains translated passages from the demonic text. When some buffoon hits the play button, demonic hilarity ensues. Ashly “Ash” Williams - played by Bruce Campbell - is the only survivor. Upon viewing the sequel, you”re probably going to feel an odd sense of deja vu. In the first five minutes of the film, you get a condensed version of the original movie: Ash arrives at the cabin, discovers the book, turns on the tape recorder, all manner of satanic kookiness occurs and his girlfriend is decapitated with a shovel. What the…? Because Raimi was unable to secure the rights to Evil Dead in order to show flashbacks, be decided to compress the events of that movie into the first five minutes of Evil Dead 2. Makes sense, hey? Evil Dead 2 is more a parody than anything else so it doesn’t really matter.

Sam Raimi has frequently expressed his admiration of The Three Stooges. Evil Dead 2 has more than its share of Moe, Larry and Curly, particularly when Ash runs around the house with his girlfriend’s decapitated head attached to his hand. Raimi also manages to throw a few good scares into the mix. The decomposing woman that attacks Ash in the fruit cellar is particularly memorable. For fans of retro special effects, you”ll also be treated to some outstanding stop motion animation. 

Raimi, an unrepentant film geek, pays tribute to Alfred Hitchcock a couple of times throughout the film: the woman in the fruit cellar and the cow skull in the work shed which is illuminated by the swinging, blood-drenched light bulb are both references to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

The conclusion to the film, which seems a little inevitable, is nonetheless satisfying/

Best line: Swallow this. 

Worst line: Hey, what do you say we have some champagne, huh, baby? After all, I”m a man and you”re a woman… at least last time I checked.

Day of the Dead is a dark and disturbing horror film, an appropriately depressing conclusion to George Romero’s zombie trilogy. A small group of soldiers and scientist are holed up in a bunker while zombies wreak havoc on the world above. There are three words that warrant this films” inclusion in the top horror films of all time: “Banned in Queensland”. Although the film isn’t remarkable, it does have some memorable scenes. The film opens with Sarah (Lori Cardille) asleep in a spartan room. She wakes up and approaches a calendar on the wall, running her fingers across the idyllic picture of an open field. Hundreds of zombie arms burst through the brick wall…she wakes up inside a helicopter which is flying over a deserted city in Florida. In a search for survivors, the helicopter sets down. Seeing a city overrun with zombies is one of the most satisfying and memorable scenes in the film. While they call for survivors, Romero gives us a glimpse of the devastation that has befallen the city: a rotting corpse, money strewn across the sidewalk, a newspaper with the headline The Dead Walk” and an alligator sitting serenely in the street after evidently gorging itself on the remains. Slowly, a zombie shuffles into frame, saliva dripping from its mutilated maw. Tom Savini. Give the man a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. The make-up is light-years away from the pasty-faced zombies of Dawn of the Dead. The rotting flesh and bloody wounds are shown in gory detail. In one of the film’s most chilling scenes, zombies slowly begin to emerge from the abandoned buildings. Hundreds of zombies fill the streets and begin shuffling towards our protagonists. Apparently, the extras received very little for their performances: a badge which read “I Played A Zombie In “Day of the Dead”, a copy of the newspaper shown blowing through the street and a dollar. Worthy payment for appearing in one of the most brilliant horror trilogies of our time.

Most of the soldiers are extremely stupid and irritating characters. Fortunately, the radio officer and helicopter pilot give the audience someone to identify with.  Their performances are memorable because they represent the last shred of a humanity in a military unit falling apart at the seams. 

The film centres around Doctor Logan’s attempts to condition the zombies not to crave human flesh. He spends most of his time mutilating corpses and spouting pseudo-science that most forth graders would find errant. Early in the film, when he’s explaining the biology of zombies, one of his mutilated experiments attempts to lift itself from the operating table. It reaches for Sarah, spilling its internal organs across the floor. Logan stops it by jamming a drill into its skull. Like I said: “Banned in Queensland”. But the gore doesn’t stop there. When zombies finally overrun the underground base, most of the surviving soldiers are ripped apart and eaten alive by the hordes of zombies. Charming stuff.

Ironically, one of the most endearing characters is Bub - the one zombie that Doctor Frankenstein manages to domesticate.

Worst line: “You”re incapable of exciting me, Steele. Except as an anthropological curiosity.”

Best line: “We don’t have enough ammunition to shoot them all in the head. The time to have done that would have been in the beginning. No, we let them overrun us. We are in the minority now, something like 400,000 to one by my calculation.”

The Silence of the Lambs is a brilliant and horrific film that introduced the world to one of the creepiest characters ever to grace the big screen.  A great deal of the film’s atmosphere can be attributed to the cinematography of Tak Fujimoto. Although the audience doesn’t witness the crimes being committed, the results of the bloody murders are evident from the outset of the film, when Clarice Starling waits in Jack Crawford’s office, surrounded by crime scene photographs depicting the brutal treatment of Buffalo Bill’s victims.  The Silence of the Lambs was one of the first films to dwell on the psychology of serial killers, a preoccupation that Hollywood has continued until this day. Starling’s first encounter with Hannibal Lector is chilling to say the least. Before she reaches the guard station, Doctor Chilton shows her a photograph of the last person who came into contact with Lector: “I am going to show you why we insist on such precautions. On the evening of July 8th, 1981, he complained of chest pains and was taken to the dispensary. His mouthpiece and restraints were removed for an EKG. When the nurse leaned over him, he did this to her. The doctors managed to reset her jaw more or less. Saved one of her eyes. His pulse never got above eighty-five, even when he ate her tongue.” During this monologue, Chilton is cast in a harsh red light which contributes significantly to the palpable sense of dread. When Starling enters the guard station, there is a sustained point-of-view shot as she looks around. Howard Shore’s atmospheric and creepy soundtrack adds significantly to the tension which continues as she approaches Lector’s cell. Anthony Hopkins delivers a chilling and iconic performance as the psychopathic cannibal. The intensity of these scenes is achieved largely through very imposing close-ups. It’s Lector’s lack of emotion that’s particularly disturbing. 

Aside from the conversations between Lector and Starling - which were the most engaging parts of Thomas Harris” novel - the film boasts some very atmospheric and disturbing set pieces. Most notable among these is when Starling explores the self-storage container early in the film. The use of lighting, music and sound is truly masterful. Fortunately, Starling is not one to lose her head.

One of the most chilling moments in the film is when Lector’s finger brushes against Starling’s hand. Sir Anthony Hopkins should have received an Academy Award for Best Performance from An Index Finger in a Motion Picture. Who would have thought that a digit could be so ominous? His eventual escape is executed with Hitchcockian grandeur. The editing towards the climax of the film is also particularly impressive. Demme manages to throw the audience a cinematic red herring. The film deservingly won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. Despite the passage of time, The Silence of the Lambs remains an extremely terrifying horror film.

Best line: “You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition has given you some length of bone, but you”re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you”ve tried so desperately to shed? Pure West Virginia. What’s your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you. All those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars, while you could only dream of getting out, getting anywhere, getting all the way to the FBI.”

Worst line: We need an address and a physical description.

When Stephen Sommers was given the opportunity to remake Universal’s classic horror movie, The Mummy, he completely disregarded the original film and produced one of the most enjoyable horror movies in recent years. Although the film has strong elements of adventure and comedy, it also has the ability to make your skin crawl. The opening sequence is brilliantly executed. One of the most grueling sequences in the film is when Imhotep has his tongue removed and is buried alive with hundreds of scarab beetles. What makes The Mummy such a successful film is Sommer’s ability to combine spine tingling horror with humour. When The Mummy was first released, casting Brendan  Fraser as Rick O”Connell seemed like an odd choice. After all, wasn’t he that kooky guy from George of the Jungle and Encino Man? Fortunately, Fraser manages to bring a great deal of charisma to the lead role, forging a character just as memorable as Indiana Jones. Indeed, the casting of the entire film was good: John Hannah is brilliant as the foppish brother of O”Connell’s love interest Evelyn Carnahan, played by the irrepressibly sassy Rachel Weisz.

Casting aside, what makes The Mummy a brilliant horror film? When the rival archaeologists start investigating the ruins at Hamanaptra - dark, claustrophobic tunnels filled with booby traps and flesh eating scarab beetles - the atmosphere is truly creepy. I can remember giving a shudder of revulsion when the diggers are sandblasted by the pressurized salt acid. Watching the Warden run through the tunnels screaming as a scarab beetle burrows into his flesh is simultaneously disturbing and hilarious. This is definitely one of those film that you have to see with a girl who’s easily scared by horror movies. It’s not going to completely freak her out - thus implying that you”re a sick, twisted bastard - but it’s just scary enough to make her clutch your arm during the scary parts. Or so I’ve been told.

The success of a creature feature can often be gauged by the realism of its boogyman. This is where The Mummy excels. Gone are the bandages that we normally associate with mummies. Imhotep is a sticky, gooey, decomposing corpse that feeds off living flesh and gradually becomes more complete as the movie progresses. O”Connell’s initial reaction to The Mummy is a brilliant feat of comic timing. When the Mummy escapes its tomb, Sommer’s vision of the apocalypse is particularly chilling: fire fills the sky, water runs red with blood and hordes of plague victims roam the streets.

The Mummy is a fun and scary contemporary reworking of the traditional mummy story. Who would have thought that archaeology could be so much fun?

Best line: Hey, Beni! Looks to me like you”re on the wrong side of the river. 

Tremors features one of the most hideous creatures ever captured on celluloid, a behemoth so utterly terrifying you”ll soil your underpants just looking at the cover. But that’s enough about Kevin Bacon…I think you”ll agree that the monsters in Tremors are pretty damn terrifying too. Graboids are enormous, subterranean worms that live beneath the scorched sand of America’s deserts, occasionally coming to the surface to feed, ensnaring their victims with serpentine tongues and dragging them to a hideous death. One hapless victim attempts to take refuge in her car only to have the entire vehicle dragged beneath the sand. Graboids are big, strong and ugly as all hell. During the movie, our heroes - slack-jawed, salt-of-the-earth laborers Valentine McKee and Earl Bassett - manage to inadvertently kill one of the wily suckers. Kudos to Alec Gillis for the stomach churning slime and orange blood. And you thought graboids were only ugly on the outside…

Creature features aren’t all that effective if you don’t give a damn about the folks being eaten alive. Fortunately, the film boasts an endearing and eclectic bunch of characters. Kevin Bacon is brilliant as rough diamond Valentine McKee whose ends up falling for beautiful geologist Rhonda LeBeck. Nothing like a brush with giant, bloodthirsty worms to incite passion, hey. Burt and Heather Gummer a couple of survivalist whose cache of weapons would make most third world dictatorships feel inadequate - also make the film worthwhile. One of the most memorable scenes is when a graboid bursts into their basement. After dispatching the creature, Burt quips, “Guess you broke into the wrong God damn rec room, didn’t ya!”

There are more than a few memorable scenes in the film, however, the film’s finest moment occurs when the characters blow up one of the creatures. Their jubilation is short  lived as they”re showered in orange blood and chunks of flesh. Also of note is the climax. This was one of those scenes that I remember vividly from my childhood (almost on par with Doctor Emmett Brown trying to reconnect the power cable before the lightning struck and Marty hit eighty-eight miles per hour). Tremors is one of those rare feel good movies where you know that a whole bunch of people are going to die horribly but you”ll be out of your seat cheering when the last ugly, sonofabitch monster is reduced to a gooey pile of mush. I can think of a dozen films that would be improved by the presence of graboids. Gigli, for instance. Just imagine one of these nasty critters emerging from the soil to consume Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez at a critical moment in the film. Then again, not even the presence of giant flesh eating worms could improve that film.

Although the film spawned a number of sequels, none of them lived up to the sheer brilliance of the original movie. Tremors is, without question, penultimate schlock. 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which was released in 1956, embodies the deep and pervasive sense of paranoia that gripped the United States during the Cold War. The film is often interpreted as an allegory about the threat of communism.  After all, if there’s one thing worse than being invaded by aliens, it’s being invaded by evil bastard communist aliens intent of destroying democracy. Some critics that this interpretation of the film is too simplistic, nevertheless, the atmosphere of paranoia that pervades the film is startling similar to widespread Cold War concern about communists.  At the beginning of the film, small town doctor Miles Bennell is being held by the authorities: distressed, upset and desperately insisting that he’s not insane. When someone willing to hear his tale arrives, Miles begins to recount the story. After returning home from a medical conference, he slowly begins to realise that a malevolent force has taken over his town. “At first glance, everything looked the same,” he recalls. “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.”

If the aliens were hideous, green blobs with tentacles and Communist Party stick pins asking for directions to Washington DC, they”d be easy to identify: unfortunately, apart from their detachment and lack of emotion, the aliens in Invasion of the Body Snatchers are just like regular people. 

For this reason, Invasion of the Body Snatchers will leave you feeling uneasy: the aliens are among us and they could be anyone. In a chilling monologue, one of the characters explains what happens when you become assimilated: “Less than a month ago, Santa Mira was like any other town. People with nothing but problems. Then, out of the sky came a solution. Seeds drifting through space for years took root in a farmer’s field. From the seeds came pods which had the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life. Your new bodies are growing in there. They”re taking you over cell for cell, atom for atom. There is no pain. Suddenly, while you”re asleep, they”ll absorb your minds, your memories and you”re reborn into an untroubled world. Tomorrow you”ll be one of us. There’s no need for love. Love. Desire. Ambition. Faith. Without them, life is so simple, believe me.” 

Perhaps one of the most disturbing scenes is when Bennell is forced to destroy several pod people - who have taken the likeness of himself and his girlfriend - with a pitchfork. Another scene that never fails to give me the creeps is when hundreds of the aliens emerge from the street and silently congregate to distribute pods throughout the country. Although fears that one morning you could  awake in a world where “everyone is the same” doesn’t strike a note of panic with contemporary audiences, Invasion of the Body Snatchers remains a chilling exercise in horror.

Best line: “Look, you fools. You”re in danger. Can’t you see? They”re after you. They”re after all of us. Our wives, our children, everyone. They”re here already. YOU”RE NEXT!”

There are two reasons why Creature from the Black Lagoon will go down in history as a brilliant horror film. First, it has a scary-ass monster: a hideous, amphibious reptile that shambles after its victims and squeezes the life from them with its webbed hands. The creature, which was designed by Millicent Patrick, is one of the most terrifying monsters to emerge from the classic Universal horror flicks. The second reason that Creature from the Black Lagoon deserves a mention in the annals of horror history is undisputedly the babelicious Julie Adams. Deep in the Amazon jungle, a group of scientist uncover the fossilised arm of a mysterious creature. Little do they know that a descendent of the clawed beast lurks within the nearby lagoon. Naturally, the creature is upset by the arrival of loud-mouthed Americans. Before he can pack his bag and mutter something about neighbourhood going to hell, he falls madly in love with the devastatingly beautiful . 

Of course…the relationship was doomed from the beginning. Any daytime talk show host worth a dime could tell you that. If they”d been dating these days, the relationship would have ended up on Jerry Springer. “It started off so well, Jerry. He was kind, caring, sensitive…the three second attention span didn’t bother me in the beginning. That was before I knew he drank like a fish. I couldn’t believe it when I found strange scales lodged in his gills.”

Ben Chapman, the actor/stuntman who portrayed the creature, is a hit at conventions where he’s worshipped by middle-aged guys whose teenage fantasies no doubt involved skinny dipping with Julie Adams. Despite its age, the film still invites an impressive following. Why the longevity? It’s the same reason that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was such a popular and long-running program. Being a teenager (in the case of Buffy, at least) is quite literally hell. There are times when everyone feels like they”ve got scales and claws. It’s not easy getting a date when you have gills. Perhaps that’s the reason why Creature from the Black Lagoon is still popular. At some point, everyone has been misunderstood or felt a sense of alienation.

Creature from the Black Lagoon is one of the most memorable monster flicks you”ll ever see. Best of all, it’s completely dolphin safe…