"Outpost Earth" - More Monsters from Brett Piper

"Outpost Earth" (2019) is an alien occupation movie with no shortage of monsters, laser blasts, giant robots or tremendous monstrosities.  The F/X are mostly old school and I'll skip right to the important bit, I LOVED it!

Cool poster, right?  And, amazingly enough, all of these elements are actually in the movie.  Not always the case with indie sci-fi.

At the opening of this film I was sure I wasn't going to like it.  It set up the story of Earth's fall with lots of composite F/X that used still photos mixed with CG (or were they models?) ships destroying famous landmarks across the globe.  It all looked very primitive, if not obviously done in a computer? Sort of had the same layering old Monty Python Flying Circus animations had.  Stacked 2D imagery with a very slight 3D effect.   I didn't realize at the time that this was setting the tone for F/X throughout the movie.  No scene would be too ambitious and it WOULD be accomplished through whatever means necessary.

Fortunately for me, this meant a lot of stop motion animation and practical F/X.  No CG aliens running around during this invasion.

And the animation was top notch.  There was some digital trickery to add blood and blur to movements, which I love seeing, because we were cheated out of this technique when it was new way back in the mid-90s.  While toying with the idea of stop motion dinosaurs for "Jurassic Park", the intent was to add blur to their movement using computer generated imagery.  "Outpost Earth" uses this technique a couple of times to varying effect.

The array of monsters is grand.  Man-sized aliens, "bugs", some kind of lizard-like hunting dog and a shape and size changing mutant all make appearances.

There's also no shortage of spaceships and even a couple of spaceship aerial battles.

Through the use of some great locations and creative costuming, the movie achieves an early "Planet of the Apes" like feel.  More the series than the movies, where the world is post-apocalyptic, but still recognizable as Earth. Maybe I just saw that likeness because the series recently showed up in syndication again.

There are a few rough patches, such as the science. The lead scientist is a genius in physics, but has a lot of theories about the biology of the aliens, etc.  I'm just not sure why his accomplishments in physics were constantly mentioned and an overall interest in science wasn't stressed more.  Or why his compatriot, whom he speaks to over a video link, isn't mentioned as a biologist and given more scenes theorizing on the aliens bodily functions.

There's also the comical quirk that alien technology is easier for humans to use when they're drunk.  Or is it just one human and does he just have a drinking problem?  Whatever, it's never really explained and the funny drunk guy routine wears out it's welcome well before it leaves.

Overall, the acting is solid with Erin Waterhouse really standing out as "Kay".  Her performance was believable and her character was strong.  She had good presence right from the beginning of the movie.

The second part of the opening, when we actually get to see human characters is another strong point.  No dialogue for a good couple of minutes, yet a lot goes on and we see enough to start piecing things together , which become major plot points later on.

 Did I mention giant, scorpion shaped robot tanks with laser cannon tails?  No?
Seriously, fans of the movies made by fans of Ray Harryhausen need to give this one a watch. It's the type of movie that fueled our imaginations as kids.
Watch the end for a nod to Might Joe Young.




                                  

And to witness my own stop motion "talents", dubious as they may, check out "All Wrapped Up"

All Wrapped Up

                                

"Queen Crab" - More Joe Young than Kong, but Super Fun!

"Queen Crab" kept popping up in my suggested movie list on Amazon Prime.  So did a much older giant crab creature feature, "Claws".  I have seen most of "Claws" (keep falling asleep on it), and was confusing it with "Queen Crab" for a long time.  So, I skipped the newer film.  Finally, I saw the art for both on my T.V. screen at the same time.  This was my big clue that they were different movies.  Still, I had little interest in seeing a giant CG crab eat up a small town.  Finally, reading the IMDB page, I found out the F/X were done with stop motion.  I decided to give it a watch and I'm so glad I did.

Let me get this out of the way right here.  If you are looking for cutting edge special F/X, Oscar worthy performances or a deeply emotional and heart wrenching story, keep scrolling your movie list.  This is a creature feature throwback with all of the flaws and fun that entails.

"Queen Crab" is one of those movies with a very uneven tone.  It opens like a kids' movie.  The music, the cute little crab, the dancing child, but this is all set-up for what's to come later.  Make it through that first act, much like sitting through the bartering session at the beginning of "Mighty Joe Young", and you'll be rewarded with a monster movie for the rest of the film.

Once Melissa Webber (played as an adult by Michelle Simone Miller) becomes orphaned, the movie's tone becomes the one we expect.  Strange deaths, a mysterious young hermit of a girl, bumbling local police and some monster fodder characters who are just there to be torn to pieces.

Director, Brett Piper, actually does an excellent job of creating sympathy for our rampaging titular creature.  And she does rampage.  There is some nicely done gore for fans of that sort thing, a tank, fighter jets and farmers with shotguns and other assorted weapons.  In fact, the poster above is pretty accurate in portraying what happens on screen.  It may be a bit more spectacular on the poster, but it's far less exaggerated than some monster movie posters, such as the Poster for 1958's "The Blob" when it was released in France a couple of years later.

The F/X are an old movie fan's dream.  There are, of course, some digital moments that are easy to spot, like a hole in the side of a barn that clearly wasn't actually destroyed, but the stop motion is very high quality for a film of this nature.  If you like the monster work in "The Black Scorpion", you'll like this.

Stop motion is a painstaking process.  I only use a few moments in films like, "Lumber vs Jack" and "Jack vs Lanterns" , but even I know it can take hours to get a few seconds of decent looking animation onto the screen.  Season 2 of "The Simplest Things" only has a couple of dinosaurs and I had to loop some shots as a time saving device.  For that reason, a lot of independent movies avoid stop motion, or when they do use it,  you don't get to see a lot of the creature.  I never felt cheated out of monster time while watching "Queen Crab" and every time she made an appearance I would giggle with delight. (Seriously, Chaya, my dog, was looking at me like I was nuts.  She watches all of these movies with me.) It was magical.

I mentioned the acting earlier.  It's the typical B movie standard.  Performances range from, "Hey, Bob wanted to be in the movie so we gave him some lines" to professional grade performances.  One farmer can barely hold back a smile as he describes his cow being eaten.  Overall though, the best performances were by the leading characters and so the story holds together and moves along.  There are human interactions to develop characters and keep the pace moving, including a very awkward fight scene or two.  A hint to low budget filmmaker from one indie to another, keep a really junky car around so you can have it parking lot scenes when there's a fight.  Talent holding back so they don't scratch another actor's car is kind, but with GRIM, the Jeep from the "Jack" movies, I never have to worry about that.  I have covered that thing with slime, hit it with branches and driven it over a pile of crusher run.  It's mine and I keep around to do all of the thankless work my life requires.

The relationship between Melissa and Goliath (as the crab becomes known) is a sweet one.  It's the not the romance from "King Kong", but closely resembles the friendship from "Mighty Joe Young".  If you're a fan of monster movies with sympathetic, nearly heroic monsters, give this one a watch.

Drainiac! and Bacterium

I'm reviewing these movies together because they're both from writer/director Brett Piper, both involve a group of young people stumbling into a house with something monstrous and both utilize similar practical F/X.  They're also both currently available on Amazon Prime.

Drainiac! was originally released in 2000, but the credits suggest that some improvements were made to the movie since then.  I'm not sure what those improvements are, but I really liked this movie, flaws and all.  Haunted pipes might sound corny (and it should), but once you embrace the concept, it's great fun.  The fun factor is mostly due to the retro approach to the F/X.  Much like my own Lumber vs Jack and Alien Vengeance: Bad Morning movies, this movie makes use of miniatures and tentacles and slime.  Piper, however, does a better job with the F/X than I ever did.  Even the "car eating scene" is pretty amazing, if only by 80s standards.  It takes awhile to get going and there are one or two weak performances, but overall the movie is either grossing you out, weirding you out or making you laugh.  So, entertaining once the plot is established.  Lots of monster action toward the end too, which is always a treat.

Bacterium uses the same premise of young adults in an abandoned space, but this one takes a more science fiction approach to the monsters.  If you like movies like "X: The Unknown" or old episodes of the original series of "Doctor Who" you'll get a kick out of Bacterium.  Some cool contamination suits, more practical F/X monsters, lots of ooey, gooey blobulous creatures and some very well placed jokes.  Also, if you enjoy the tentacle whipping in the "Alien Vengeance" series of movies, you'll be blown away by the F/X here. 

The IMDB trivia states that this was Alison Whitney's film debut.  She did an excellent job of leading a pretty strong core cast through this sci-fi horror comedy.  A few strong performances and none that stood out as truly weak.

The practical F/X don't let us down either.  One reviewer complained that the monsters were shown plodding around for too long, but I spent that whole time trying to figure out how they gave those little slime balls life.  Stunning retro F/X work. (I'm repeating myself.)

A.J. Khan makes a brief, but worthwhile appearance as her character adds some dry humor to a scene that's essentially a set up for a very odd action packed "finale".

There is a scene in the movie involving bikers and I think,  as I did in "Stopped Dead", actual motorcyclists were used as opposed to actors.  This is evident in one particular shot where a biker can be seen making "pow-pow" noises while pretending to fire a gun.  Or maybe that was characterization and I need know to the biker's backstory for it to work.

In conclusion, if you have Amazon Prime and wish they still "made 'em like they used to", then these two retro inspired monster movies are for you.  I would watch them in the order they were created as I feel like Bacterium is a slightly stronger movie.  Of course, that might just be because I enjoy science fiction more than ghostly influences.