The Forgotten Ones (2009) Horror Creature

The Forgotten Ones (2009) - aka "After Dusk They Come"  aka "Tribe" is a creature movie where a groups of wealthy people get shipwrecked on an island. The problem is there are creatures living on that island and soon the group is fighting for their lives. Well mostly they are looking around for the location of the sounds they are hearing, and oh yeah, dying. This was a straight to video feature that borrows some creature elements from the film The Descent (2006) while not capturing the interpersonal charisma of that movie.
  We open with a camp on an island decades (early 1900s maybe) before our story takes place. A man and woman are the last survivors of a group studying a before never discovered species of "ape" man. Unfortunately the creatures are aggressive lead by an alpha male and enjoy the taste of human flesh. So the tight scene where the final demise of the couple is well done and sets a foreshadowing for our main story.
  There is some initial character setup as a group of five set sail to deliver a sailboat to the wealthy owner. Liz (Jewel Staite) is the insecure in her relationship lead. She is the girlfriend of Peter (Justin Baldoni) an arrogant rich guy who is trying hard to leave his loose and carefree ways behind and get serious with Liz. She is reminded of his cheating not so subtle ways early in the film giving the couple some tension. In screenwriting conflict works better than happiness is giving characters depth and the writer / director of this film Jorg Ihle fills out the group with all kinds of interpersonal conflict. The first mate is Jake (Kellan Lutz), who was dumped by Lauren (Nikki Griffin) who is also friends with Liz but is there with her new boyfriend rich and obnoxious Ira (Marc Bacher). By casting we see Ihle wants to contrast attitude and looks where Jake is young and handsome but a working stiff and Ira is heavier and older but is said to have lots of money. Lauren is depicted as selfish and superficial. It seems more of a high school drama way of approaching it and really only succeeds to make the viewer dislike the characters.
  The setup of the plot is the group is going to sail the boat to another island and turn it over to the owner. We see early on though that the GPS is not working correctly but this malfunction is overlooked by Peter. When they get lost he still is a bit casual about the issue really only Liz is taking it seriously. Lauren and Ira are partying and sunbathing and Jake is staring at them jealously. It is only when in the night the boat hits some rocks and sinks does it become clear just how callus Peter was. They all manage to survive but are stranded on an island not quite sure where they are. Peter saved the radio and at least can call for a pick up, if they can be found. All and good as far as it goes but unknown to the group they have landed on that same island that we the audience saw in the opening. There are weird ape men living on the island and soon the movie become a fight for survival. But not until Peter proposes to Liz and the group celebrates.
  In the night Peter is dragged away apparently quietly by the creatures. Showing the two bottles of empty champagne suggests that everyone is sleeping heavy but come on two bottles between five people is not enough to sleep through being dragged off far into the forest. When Liz awakes she sees a lot of blood and no Peter. Having already had an encounter with something in the bushes, but not seeing it she is super concerned. Jake wants to go searching right away but Ira and Lauren being the great friends they are want to take the life raft and leave the island. The conflict between the group members is eventually settled after some annoying posturing and they all go looking for Peter. He wakes in the woods with a stick stuck in his leg. Not a life threatening injury mind you, not bad enough for the amount of blood we saw on the beach. He deals with it wraps a bandana and wanders trying to find his way back to the others. He never does with is a real flaw in the writing, in fact he stumbles around in the woods hearing sounds for the most part and then later is killed by a creature. He never sees the group again and the only reason I can see for his existence in the film is that Liz gets to find his body and is sad, which the  feeds her determination to live? It just feels like a dead end character that is underutilized.
  The group searching for him meets chaos fairly quickly, when Laura steps into a 80 something year old sneer and is pulled high into the trees. Jake climbing to loose her has to fight off the creatures who are just now starting to be shown. He is knocked from the tree and takes a painful tumble while Lauren is carried off by the creature across the treetops. Ira enraged chases after her on the ground. He is a goner as the ape men are onto him too. Liz and the amazingly not broken Jake find the camp from the opening scene. It is in amazingly good shape considering how old it is and Liz find the journal of the man and woman from the opening. It is a flashback giving detail on the creatures in the woods and his intention to capture one. The locals he says call them the "Forgotton Ones". Unfortunately for the survivors they are also being hunted, and after Jake meets his maker Liz is knock unconscious and taken.
  The third act is all about Liz her battle to survive in the caves of the Forgotten Ones and her escape. She wakes next to the dead Lauren and tries to make her way from the cave. The creatures for their part are semi blind ape men with long clawed fingers and gorilla fangs. Similar to the creatures in the  film The Descent they seem to make a clicking type noise to determine where prey is and follow that up with a good sense of small. Liz has to figure this out and when she learns that there is a tree slime that masks her scent she is clear to make a getaway. Of course though things are not that easy. When she reaches the beach the raft is gone taken back to the cave by the creatures. So she slimes up and heads back to the cave for the raft. Escaping is not quite as easy as she would wish but she gets back to the forest. The finale is her and the alpha male facing off in a battle that unnecessarily becomes a bit sexualized on the creatures part. Seeing as this is a final girl film we after some gnarly fighting get to see our conquoring hero get in the raft and paddle away from the island.
  This movie was a bit disappointing to me. Starting with some shitty characterizations for the sake of interpersonal tension meant that really only Liz was likable. Why she wanted to be around these horrible people is a "who knows"? As a viewer I had really no reason to pull for anyone but Liz the rest of the characters were fodder. The island story was all well and good if  seeming a bit derivative. I don't know if it was actually derivative this idea may have been kicking around in the writers head for years before the film was made. Once we started seeing the creatures which is nearly half way through the film they were decently presented and scary in their wildness. The third act is what it really is all about and it almost got me to a place of recommending this but just missed.

Forbidden World (1982) - Science Fiction Monster

Forbidden World (1982) - This Roger Corman produced science fiction film is really not all that bad. Mike Colby (Jesse Vint) is a problem solver and oh boy does the crew of the base on planet Xarbia have a problem to be solved. Lead by Dr. Gordon Hauser (Linden Chiles) the crew was developing a genetically altered bacteria as an endless food source, unfortunately Hauser crossed ethical lines and now has a very nasty growing and violent beast living in his incubator. Now Colby generally approaches things with the line, "if it moves and its not one of us, shoot it.". He should have taken care of the problem well before the movie got rolling but instead, even though the creature is in a cocoon and seemingly harmless, he is convince to wait a bit before killing it. This is a creature that killed every single test animal in the lab and moved itself into the incubator to change into something even more nasty, but these nimrods decide to wait to deal with the problem.
So we leave poor Jimmie Swift (Michael Bowen) to clean up the mess in the lab and to keep an eye on the cocoon. Why is it that we leave the janitor to watch the dangerous monster? Why is it that the incubator is just a glass door not really seal-able or air tight? Why does Jimmie stick his head in and look at the thing when it is clear glass and you can easily check it without ever opening the door? It is often a problem with these lower budget films that the characters have to do stupid things in order to move the story along. Jimmie does not let us down in this regard as he looks around and eventually takes the creature on the face like in the movie "The Blob". Then of course since Brian Beale (Raymond Oliver) the security person for the lab is watching and has to find some way to miss the attack on camera, he gets up right at that moment to get some food. Then the camera in the lab gets blood splashed on it and stops working. All too convenient if you ask me.
When Tracy Baxter (Dawn Dunlap) heads down to the lab and finds Jimmie she screams and since this is what she did for most of the film we will call her Screaming Tracy for the rest of this entry. I don't want to go too much more into the plot details because this is a movie even though pretty bad is entertaining and worth a look. Let me say though that there was this one thing that really got my goat. The first time the crew members are bring Colby into the lab they go through this big "to do" about how they are cleaned of all germs by the cool blue light. It is a way of securing the lab. No unwanted things get in and none get out. It is crucial in the conversation about waiting a day to kill thew creature that it can not get out of the secure lab. So imagine my surprise that after Jimmy is attacked the chief medical guy Dr. Cal Timbergen (Fox Harris [Hello J Frank Parnell in Repo Man] ) comes in and immediately removes the body from the room. There is never a discussion that Jimmie may be a carrier of the creature. There is no talk of any kind he just says I have to get him to the medical bay then opens the door and wheels the body out. Everybody else spends a good minute or two looking for the escaped creature and then agree that there is nothing else they can do that day and head off to bed. Yup that is what I said and lucky Mike Colby gets to sleep with the lovely and seductive Dr. Barbara Glaser (June Chadwick). There is some reasonably tasteful love making as well as the escape of the creature from Jimmie's now apparently melting body. So the rest of the story is set up to be an Alien style movie where the people try to find and kill the creature while they are picked off one by one.
Later they realize why the creature is not just killing them all off at once, it wants them alive while it tries to use them as a perfect renewable food source. It is wonderfully noted how ironic this development is. So since they know that it is an intelligent creature Barbara and Screaming Tracy decide it is probably best to go communicate with it. Since it is on the main computer Barbara figures it will be through the computer that they can have words. She asks "Can we co-exist?" It replies through the computer "Please Stand by" and then gives its answer. Screaming Tracy runs off doing what she was born to do. The remaining group figures out how to beat the creature and exact the plan.
Overall I was rather entertained by this simple event driven film by writer Tim Curnen and director Allan Holzman. Yes Tracy was annoying a good deal of the time. Yeah women were portrayed as fixtures and when they did come up with an idea it was a horrible one. Yes this film was about how our buddy and hero Mike Colby saves the day. Of course both women in this film get naked with Colby. Sure a whole lot of really stupid decisions had to be made to make the events of the plot progress. And Yes it is sort of a rip off of Alien but it was entertaining and so much better than the recent reviews on this blog that I am marginally passing this with a Rent it recommendation. The one black actor did not die right away, nor was he the janitor. The camera work and music were solid and not over done. With a million or so dollars in the budget the effect were alright, granted the creature itself was a bit corny, the effects on the melting people were exceptional and hey they had lasers.
Rating (5.0) 5.0 and up are recommended, Go out and rent this passable watch.

Swamp Thing (1982) Horror (ish)

Swamp Thing (1982) - It is 1982 I am sure I am in my Chinos and Members Only jacket, getting stoned and heading off with friends to the Neponset Drive-In for a fun double feature and one of the movies is Swamp Thing. As is often the case the blurred memories of the past and the present do not always smoothly fit together. This was my experience watching this movie. I am sure, in its time I thought this movie was fun. I have always had fond feeling for it. Now it could be as a senior in high school the small (and I mean small) glimpse of Adrienne Barbeau' s assets was enough to create such memories. It could be the combination of friends, the Drive In, Pot and alcohol created the right conditions for positive reflection. Whatever it was it is no longer present for me. This movie was soooooo.... hard to watch. Miss Barbeau plays Alice Cable a government scientist/agent checking up on Dr Alec Holland (Ray Wise) who is attempting to grow plants that will survive in the harshest of climates. Hidden in the swamps for some reason, in an underground bunker that looks like a shack from the outside, but has a bunker below it he works and quickly in the movie has a breakthrough. The tone is strange early in the movie with the introduction of villains, Dr. Arcane (Louis Jourdan) and his henchmen. They are very cartoon evil while Adrienne Barbeau and Ray Wise side seem to be playing things very straight. The bad guys evil for the sake of evil are looking a for Holland's breakthrough to exploit it. They take the notebooks detailing the experiments and Holland is covered in his formula and runs out on fire into the swamp to become the creature. Alice escapes with the final vital notebook and most of the rest of the movie is the absolutely silly soldier guys hunting for her in the swamps of South Carolina, while the swamp thing protects her. Eventually the monster is captured and his formula used by both Dr. Arcane and a henchman. Arcane becomes a hairy beast who has the final fight with Swamp Thing. In this there is a lot of explosions, capturing and loosing of Alice, a romance sort of between Swamp Thing and Alice, ridiculous looking stunts where you see the landing pads are pads, Swamp Thing healing ability, silly rubber suits for the monsters, and when it is all over a feeling of regret that I had such fond memories of this film. Director Wes Craven was in a very creative time for him, between the the late seventies, The Hills Have Eyes (1977), and just before the great A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), but he seems to have lost his way on this one. It is not a very good movie.

Rating (4.2)