"Strange Nature" - It has been Prophesied

In the very early 80s a young me saw the movie "Prophecy" on late night television and it shaped my idea of monster movies forever.  That big mutant monster, which had a real motivation and a terrifying backstory left an impression on me that may explain why lately I've been making (albeit goofier) monster movies that are environmentally driven, like "Jack vs Lanterns".

So, when "Strange Nature" showed  up in my suggested movie list I figured an environmental thriller monster movie was worth the watch.  And it was, eventually.

The film opens by introducing us to the lead characters, Kim Sweet (Lisa Sheridan) and her son, Brody (Jonah Beres) who are on their way to her old home town to spend time with Kim's father, Chuck (Bruce Bohne) to help him while he fights cancer.  The acting for this set-up was top notch and most of the cinematography made good use of the location to set the town up as a "character", but the chroma-key work in the car was 1990s sitcom quality and a bit distracting.  The opening music also annoyed me to the point of taking me out of the film. (A song with lyrics during a conversation has never seemed like a good idea to me.)

Once we're in town and the characters establish their backstories a bit, we find the deformed frogs.  News stories mention disappearances and we do get to sort of witness a monster attack when hiker and photographer Tina Stevens (Tiffany Shepis-Tretta) wanders into the woods alone.  I won't describe what happens in detail, but I will say that I wish Tina Stevens had a bit more set-up.  If she had not been played by a recognizable actress I wouldn't have had any reason to connect with the character before the action started.

Instead of becoming a full blown monster fest, the movie tries to work at some scientific exploration, with the local biology teacher explaining mutations in frogs and snails as things progress and with Kim trying to find out why this all going on near her sick Dad's property.  Is it the water, the local pesticide company (it's always those dang corporations like "Genbetter")and does the Mayor know or is he really concerned and trying to help solve the puzzle?  These mysteries seem to unfold, but not much comes of them.  The sad thing is, that's a pretty realistic reflection of how things like this pan out.  We don't get answers to questions like this in a few months.


At this point, not a lot of monster action happening.  Instead our conflict comes from roadblocks to Kim's investigation and a deformed father and daughter who live on the lake being accused of somehow poisoning the town's water supply.  I felt like I was watching "Erin Brockovich".  But, it kept my interest.  Also, the most awkward of romances tries to develop between Kim and the Biology teacher.

Then the disturbing scenes start happening. SPOILER: Highlight to read. Dog Lovers beware.  Things do not go well for the family pooch.  I had to fast forward a bit here.

Mutations move past forest life and start showing up in people and pets.  At this point we're still dealing with a psychological and environmental thriller, but by the end of the third act a full blown monster movie runs out of the woods and grabs you by the throat.  (Well, it grabs someone.) More blood, guts, screams and carnage happen in the following ten minutes than you can fire an untold number of bullets at.  If you're a practical F/X monster fan, this sequence makes the preceding movie worth watching.  It's a slow, methodical build to a lightning fast finale (before a 1970s style epilogue).  Would I have preferred more of this sort of monster action spread throughout?  Of course!  I love monsters.  But the slow, building pace makes the final confrontation all the more gripping (pun intended).

If you pay attention to the quiet times in the movie, you'll find that when the action comes, very little was wasted.  It's all leading to something and the payoff, in my eyes, is worth it.  "Strange Nature" does walk a lot of the same ground as movies that came before it, like "Prophecy", but it's different enough that fans of that movie can enjoy it as an addition to the environmental monster genre instead of just a remake.  And the "Erin Brockovick" moments aren't all that bad.

"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.