Nightbreed (1990)
[8] Nightbreed, directed by Clive Barker and based on his book Cabal, wants to be a sprawling horror-fantasy epic for the ages. But the multifaceted story is told so quickly and haphazardly in the studio's cut of the film, the…
Decoys (2004)
[3] While trying to lose their virginity, two college guys discover some of the girls on campus are actually terrifying creatures from outer space. You're either going to like that summary or you're not. Decoys is a low-budget flick with…
Godzilla (2014)
[7] I'm always on the lookout for a good monster movie, and Godzilla is one of the most legendary monsters in movie history, right? But he's still not a sure thing. We all remember the Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich…
Independence Day (1996)
[7] The Irwin Allen disaster epic is alive and well in this 1996 summer blockbuster in which evil aliens threaten to destroy Earth, leaving it up to a rag-tag team of politicians, soldiers, and scientists (plus a drunken crop-duster and…
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
[6] Gizmo the cute Mogwai is back, and he gets wet again -- this time in a New York City skyscraper run by a Donald Trump-like billionaire. Billy Peltzer and Kate Beringer (returning stars Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates) both…
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
[7]
I usually appreciate an interesting mess more than a tidy bore. So sue me: Yes, I like one of the most famous bad movies of the last few decades. You wanna fight about it?
Lake Placid (1999)
[7] Bridget Fonda and Bill Pullman star in this good old fashioned creature feature about a 30-foot crocodile that begins weeding out the population of a lakeside Maine community. The script is from TV titan David E. Kelly (Boston Legal,…
The Kindred (1987)
[4] Somehow, Oscar-winners Rod Steiger (In the Heat of the Night) and Kim Hunter (A Streetcar Named Desire) got swindled into starring in this sub-par creature feature about a scientist (Hunter) who performs Frankenstein-like genetic experiments in her basement. On…
Forbidden World (1982)
[5]
Somehow, Roger Corman’s rip-offs tend to be the best around. This one takes aim at Alien, centering around a team of scientists who accidentally breed a genetic mutant that escapes and starts eating them, all one by one. The dialogue is atrocious in a ‘so bad, it’s good’ kinda way and the special effects are hit-and-miss, but Tim Suhrstedt’s cinematography is far better than usual for B-movie’s of this sort. Since Corman’s involved, you also get a healthy dose of extraneous sex and boobage. Director Allan Holzman inter-cuts one of the sex scenes with a kill sequence to interesting effect, and you have to love it when dull exposition is delivered by two female scientists while they sponge-bathe each other in the shower.
Pacific Rim (2013)
[8]
Pacific Rim is good, dumb summer fun. It’s beautiful, sexy, exciting, funny, and it kinda made me feel like a kid again. The premise involves Kaiju and Jägers… scratch that. Let’s call it like it is: this movie is about big fucking robots fighting big fucking monsters. The monsters come from another dimension, entering our world from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The robots, each manned by two psychically linked people (often blood relatives), are humanity’s last hope for survival. The concept sounds like the germ of another big, loud, stupid summer movie — you know, the kind Michael Bay makes. But director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth) handily beats Bay at his own game with Pacific Rim, imbuing the film with more style and substance than any of Bay’s Transformers movies ever had.