Directed and written by Brett Piper, starring Michelle Simone Miller, Kathryn Metz, Richard Lounello, A.J. DeLucia, Steve Diasparra, Danielle Donahue and Ken Van Sant.
Michelle Simone Miller
A massive crustacean on the rampage!
A girl rears a giant crab as her pet in a local pond, feeding it special food linked to her scientist father’s growth experiments, but, years later, the time comes for the crustacean to spawn and its existence can no longer be kept a secret…
Our young heroine feeds the crab special grapes
The girl bonds with the fresh water crustacean
Nothing to see here, just the heroine riding around on the back of her giant pet crab…
Brett Piper, the king of low budget stop-motion monster FX, is the man behind this production, which is maybe too talky at the start, requiring some filler scenes to pad out the running time, but the flick does boast a very fine-looking crab creature!
I’m not anti-CGI, okay, but I just love the look of a nicely-animated stop-motion monster – and this killer crab looks pretty damn great.
Richard Lounello is attacked by Queen Crab!
Here comes the big pinch!
Along with the huge queen crab we get a bunch of baby monster crabs too. The stop-motion shots of these crab offspring were achieved by utilising the same stop-motion model used for the momma crab.
A smaller but just as nasty crab!
There’s a scene with baby crabs being run over by a car. These splatting crab shots were achieved by Brett using models, about a foot across the back of the shell, made of plaster and filled with pudding. They go splat real nice in the film!
A baby crab skitters across the road
I enjoyed the movie and, as I probably always say when reviewing a Brett Piper film, though this production is really super low budget, you do get a lot of lovingly-animated creature hijinks as compensation.
Here’s a shot of Michelle Simone Miller and the stop-motion crab…
…and here’s another shot of the killer crab…
…and here’s yet another pic of the stop-motion crab because, well, why not?
Also known as CLAWS, this flick, which is full of barely passable performances, multiple stop-motion scenes, pincer attacks and a shoot-out near the huge crustacean’s pond, is a crab-tastic viewing experience best enjoyed with your brain switched off and a beer in your hand.
In the UK the film is known as CLAWS
Finally, here’s a behind the scenes shot of the stop-motion crab puppet and a nicely-detailed miniature wrecked building that features in the film…
Brett Piper’s sweet-lookin’ ruined building scale model
Directed by Brett Piper, starring Matthew Crawley, Steve Diasparra, Richard Lounello, Ken Van Sant and Erin Waterhouse.
‘Hideous mutant giant rules a lost world!’
A creature in a cavern!
A low budget homage to 1950s creature features, this is the fun tale of a crater in the USA that is crammed with creatures and plants mutated by a glowing meteor in a cavern.
Killer plant!
A nice shot of a stop-motion horn-nosed creature
The film features a large variety of bug-beasts, a horned reptile monster and the titular three-eyed giant (who seems to be inspired by the big mutant dude from Bert I. Gordon’s 1957 movie THE CYCLOPS). The Triclops is played by a guy in makeup but most of the other monsters, including a cool giant scorpion, are stop-motion.
Being chased by the giant Triclops!
Triclops gets the girl!
Who’s a pretty boy then?
The animated critters are the creations of director-animator Brett Piper, who has almost singlehandedly been keeping the art of live action stop-motion filmmaking alive with such productions as A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL (1990), ARACHNIA (2003) and QUEEN CRAB (2015).
Bug-beast!
The horned creature!
A bug-faced beast bursts from a dirt bank!
Monster fight!
Brett produces his movies on tight budgets, so don’t go expecting a multimillion dollar epic with famous actors, but, if you’re a stop-motion monster fan, this is going to be a diverting, critter-tastic way to spend 80 minutes. And the film also features some lava, which, in my opinion, all lost world-type movies must have!
Bug-beast alert!
Finally, here’s an illustration by Jamie Chase, inspired by this movie…
Starring Liang Hsiu-Shen, Richard Kiel and Betty Pei Ti. Directed by Sadamasa Arikawa and Chang Mei-Chun for 21st Century Film Corporation.
Our hero dangles from the friendly phoenix’s claws
Also known as THE PHOENIX, this Taiwanese production, detailing the discovery of a magic ‘vessel of plenty’ in old China, is theatrical and pantomime-like, with brightly coloured sets, cell-animation magic FX and a multi-coloured puppet phoenix.
Nice artwork
Art by the great Boris Vallejo
The movie starts slowly, but the finale is an enjoyably silly spectacle, as Ty, the hero, rides the phoenix, which is a stiff-winged cross between a stuffed peacock and THE GIANT CLAW, to the island retreat of the evil sorceress Flower Fox. Here the silver-caped, sword-wielding do-gooder confronts a giant, goofy-headed rock monster! A Toho-esque battle ensues between the man-in-a-boulder-suit thingy and the big peacock-on-a-wire, which only ends when the rock-man has his head blown off by our hero’s magic sword! But, even then, the headless rock-man keeps pacing towards Ty, so Ty zaps the creature with his sun-powered, heat ray-projecting mystical sword, finally totally obliterating the ol’ boulder beast in a big explosion!
Close-up of the boulder-dude’s head
The phoenix swoops in to battle the rockpile-man!
Ty fires a heat ray that blows up the boulder man’s head…
…but the headless rock-creature keeps standing!
After beating big Richard Kiel (who would go on to appear in the Hong Kong action-comedy MAD MISSION 3: OUR MAN FROM BOND STREET), Ty has to fight ghostly replicas of himself generated by the vessel of plenty. This involves some less than top-notch optical effects, you’ll be surprised to learn.
The villainess can breath fire (don’t they always in this kind of movie?!)
Tidal wave miniature effects and a paper fan that can create powerful gusts of wind also find their way into this movie, but these cool elements aren’t enough to outweigh the rather prosaic direction, bargain basement effects (despite the fact Arikawa used to be the special effects supervisor on many Godzilla movies) and flat lighting.
Apart from the phoenix, I don’t think this artwork is that accurate with regard to what’s actually featured in the movie…
The stiff-winged puppet, er, I mean the giant majestic phoenix, flies over the island
Starring Yuen Biao, Gloria Yip, Loletta Lee, Shintaro Katsu, Hiroshi Abe and Ngai Suet. Directed by Lam Nai-Choi and Lau Sze-Yue. Action by Yuen Bing. A Golden Harvest production.
Some nifty, colourful artwork
This not-so-hot sequel to PEACOCK KING (1988) has Ashura (Yip), aka Hell’s Virgin, walking the earth, while Peacock (Biao) gets frozen in a block of ice in Hell.
Green flames!
Things to look out for in this movie include some (iffy) Buddhist lion statues that come to life, a Mogwai-like imp (which farts yellow gas), a matter transportation device and a huge gargoyle.
Nice poster
The imp-thingy
The imp picks its teeth after scoffing all the food
For much of the movie the imp creature is merely a rubber, hand-operated model, but, thankfully, in later scenes an animated, more effective version of the critter is used.
I’m not sure you should kiss that thing, you don’t know where it’s been
The gargoyle that Hell Concubine (Suet) transforms into is actually quite an off-the-wall, full-scale model creation. This big beastie has wings, an external ribcage, a glowing eyeball in its abdomen and Hell Concubine’s face situated in its forehead!
The gargoyle’s glowing green abdomen-eye opens
The gargoyle swoops after our heroes
All in all, the action and effects in the original film were better than what is on show here. Oh well.
It’s a shame this sequel seems so rushed, lacking the cool fights and superior creature effects seen in the first flick
Directed by Kevin Connor, produced by John Dark, Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky, starring Doug McClure, John McEnery, Susan Penhaligon, Keith Barron, Anthony Ainley, Godfrey James, Declan Mulholland and Bobby Parr. Made by Amicus Productions.
Watch out for the Tylosaurus! This is one of my favourite creatures in the movie
Nom, nom, nom…
In World War I the survivors of a torpedoed ship manage to take control of the German U-boat that sank their vessel. After finding themselves stranded on the prehistoric continent of Caprona, the two opposing groups form an uneasy alliance to survive in this dinosaur-filled land.
Checking out the lost world…
A brief battle between a Ceratosaurus and a Triceratops…
…and the Triceratops (guarding its eggs) wins!
Okay, let’s get the dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles out of the way first: yes, they’re obviously not as good as stop-motion Harryhausen-style beasties, but Roger Dicken’s rod puppet creations are preferable to real-lizards-with-frills or men-in-dino-suits. They at least resemble dinosaurs and are pretty nice to look at.
A toothy Allosaurus or two
Styracosaurus
I was lucky enough to see a couple of these dinosaur puppets when Roger Dicken attended a film festival I co-hosted at London’s legendary Scala Cinema in the early 90s. These lovingly-detailed movie monster models looked really impressive up-close!
Watch out!
The scenes of the puppet critters are augmented with shots of full-scale models, including a plesiosaur (its head and neck) and a pterosaur that glides away with a friendly caveman!
Low-flying pterosaur!
The full-scale Plesiosaurus prop
A life-size Tylosaurus model head in action
I think the movie’s script, written by Michael Moorcock & James Cawthorn, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel, is intriguing: the various creatures (including primitive types of human and even bacteria) living in Caprona are continually evolving as they move northwards in this lost world. In the novel (and its sequels) Burroughs included prehistoric mammals like Mammoths (showing them being preyed upon by carnivorous dinos, etc) to illustrate how creatures from different time periods all dwell on the same subcontinent. The movie, maybe due to budgetary reasons, doesn’t include any mammalian beasties, but it does feature tribes of early humans at different stages of sophistication, to visually highlight the concept of evolution advancing as individuals migrate towards Caprona’s northern regions.
A more advanced tribe of early humans
Loads of fights with cavemen, shootouts with dinos, some neat Derek Meddings model submarine work, a volcanic eruption, decent acting and a pretty downbeat finale keep this flick interesting.
An aquatic reptile roars as the volcanic eruption starts to heat-up the river water
And, of course, the film stars Doug frickin’ McClure, who would go on to fight more monsters in the movies AT THE EARTH’S CORE (1976), THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (1977) and WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (1978), which were all directed by Kevin Connor, and then Doug took on more monsters in HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP (1980). What a dude!
Shoot that Plesiosaurus in the face, Doug!
Doug, you can’t win a race with a swooping pterosaur!
Let’s check out some posters for the movie…
Japanese poster
UK quad poster
US poster. It’s interesting that the American poster includes a laser beam-firing manta ray, a giant octopus, a diving bell and a cool-looking sub with windows (none of which feature in the movie)!
Romanian poster
Italian poster
Thai poster: look at Doug’s dark, lustrous hair!
Spanish poster
Finally, here’s the cover of the film tie-in rerelease of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel, featuring the likenesses of Doug McClure and Susan Penhaligon. Doug is shown punching a caveman in the face!
We never get a proper intro to most of these dudes
Directed and written by Jianhua Chi, starring Yuetao Liu, Xu Shaoqiang and Jinqiang Wang.
Promotional image for HOPELESS SITUATION. Surely a better movie title could’ve been dreamed up!
A band of warriors do their best to stop Japanese occupying forces from stealing ancient Chinese relics, leading to them exploring ancient tombs, being attacked by a giant lizard, a long-haired apeman and the reanimated corpse of a concubine. They also fight each other over the treasure they discover and must deal with ancient boobytraps too.
Giant lizard!
Fighting the cave-ape!
Killer concubine!
HOPELESS SITUATION is lumbered with a lame title and very artificial-looking digital effects. It also doesn’t help that the main group of characters (including a rifleman, a female fighter and a hunchback dude with an eyepatch) are not properly introduced to the viewer, so you’re not particularly invested in their plight.
An example of the film’s less than photorealistic landscape special effects
The obstacles these protagonists must face include ninjas, Japanese military bad guys and the aforementioned monsters…
The origin of the huge lizard isn’t explained: it’s just some big beast that lives in the mountain trails near Craggy Ridge. There are a couple of battles with this (sub-par) CGI reptile, which likes to fling people about, allowing for some kinetic-but-shoddy wirework stunts.
The big lizard sneaks up behind the one-eyed, hunchback warrior
Let’s be honest: these CGI effects are not up to snuff
Once the Chinese adventurers reach caverns they are set upon by a shaggy, acrobatic ape-humanoid with a strange face. This white-furred wild man, portrayed by a stuntman in a creature costume, bounds around the cave walls and beats up some of the people, before he’s blown up with dynamite. This is a pretty decent sequence.
The simian-dude agilely leaps about the rocky walls
The apeman’s face is quite nicely designed
The preserved body of a long-dead emperor’s concubine is the third otherworldly obstacle. She becomes a threat once someone foolishly takes a magic sphere from her mouth. She comes back to ‘life’, her face goes zombie-like, her eyes glow and she zips around the tomb, biting the throats of her victims.
Look into my eyes…
Once the survivors escape the killer-concubine, they find themselves in grassland beyond the mountains, facing off against the Japanese villains… and then the huge lizard returns for a final fight!
Return of the reptile!
Japanese troopers vs large lizard!
Roar!
With lots of action, decent comic book-like period costumes and a plot that includes betrayals and riddle-solving, it’s a shame that the special effects are just not good enough and the dialogue is too expository, preventing this Chinese action-fantasy flick from becoming the diverting adventure romp it had the potential of being.
Directed by Ken (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD II) Wiederhorn, written by John Kent Harrison and Ken Wiederhorn, starring Brooke (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) Adams, Luke (ISLAND OF THE LOST) Halpin, Peter (THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) Cushing, John (THE HOWLING) Carradine, Fred Buch and Don Stout.
Just lurkin’ around
A bunch of people find themselves stranded on an island, where they are stalked and killed by undead nazi super-soldiers who wear goggles, can breath underwater and prefer to march about the isle in an unhurried fashion.
Now, if only the zombie-troopers were giant-sized! How cool would that be?!
SHOCK WAVES, also known as ALMOST HUMAN, starts in a less than pacy manner, taking its time before the aqua-nazis finally make a proper appearance. John Carradine, as the grizzled boat captain, has a decent amount of screen time earlier in the film, before being bumped off, then horror icon Peter Cushing makes his appearance once the small group of crew members and tourists reach the big, empty house on the island. As the scar-faced ex-SS Commander, Cushing is the character who reveals the origin of the Death Corps troopers, but he’s not really given much else to do. He basically wanders around for a while, until he’s pulled beneath the water by a nazi zombie.
The mysterious owner of the island (Peter Cushing)
There’s a scene where the ship’s cook is attacked by an undead trooper and falls face-first into a bunch of spiky sea urchins, but the film is not gory or bloody, with most victims simply getting dragged underwater to drown.
Rose (Brooke Adams) encounters the cook’s corpse, which is covered in sea urchin spines
Now then, with all this criticism you might think that I didn’t enjoy SHOCK WAVES… but I did! And why do I like this flick, do you think? Yes! It’s because of the nazi water-zombies!
They’re coming to get you!
‘The deep end of horror!’
These Third Reich undead dudes just look damn cool! They all sport short, white-blond haircuts, SS trooper uniforms, goggles and decent-looking corpse-esque makeup courtesy of Alan Ormsby. There’s not a whole army of them, unfortunately, just a half dozen or so of the aqua-ghouls, but they simply look really good as they slowly rise from the sea or a lake or a swimming pool. They also prefer to lurk in the distance, posing, letting the victims see them, taking their time to stalk their prey before killing them.
Victims are picked off one by one
The Death Corps troopers are surfacing!
There’s not much plot, but Brooke Adams is a fetching final girl, Luke Halpin (who was one of the stars of the FLIPPER television show and resembles a 70s version of a young Boyd Holbrook here) is an acceptable male lead and, well, who cares too much if there’s not a lot of story so long as we get to see those amphibious zomboid troopers?!
Submerged super-soldier zombie
Goggle ghoul
Here are two posters to drool over…
Italian poster
UK quad poster
Switch off your brain, grab a beer and give this a watch…
Starring Danny (THE SUPER INFRAMAN) Lee, Evelyne (LADY DRACULA) Kraft, Ku (THE WEB OF DEATH) Feng and Lin Wei-Tu, directed by Ho (THE OILY MANIAC) Meng-Hua for Shaw Brothers.
Evelyne Kraft and Danny Lee
Smash!
An expedition brings back a gigantic ape-man to Hong Kong, where he (surprise) runs amok. His jungle girl companion (Kraft) tries to help the hairy vandal, but it all ends in tears.
He ain’t gonna stay captive for long
C’mon, these Tonka Toys will be no match for our hairy hero!
The Peking Man romps around downtown Hong Kong
Gotcha!
Shaw Brothers released this fantasy flick, also known as GOLIATHON, in the wake of 1976’s KING KONG remake and did rather a good job. Though the special effects have been ridiculed in such publications as The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, I found the sets and model work to be on par with similar scenes in Toho’s Godzilla movies. The Hong Kong city set is pretty large and decently detailed, with the usual pyrotechnical destruction occurring at the movie’s climax.
Sizeable miniature sets
Wreckin’ stuff!
Smashin’ more stuff!
Though the titular Peking Man is obviously a man in a costume, of a standard far below that of Rick Baker’s simian creation seen in the ‘76 KING KONG, the model face used for close-ups of Peking Man’s visage is up to snuff.
Beauty and the beast
Okay, sometimes the ape-man does look a little goofy
Peking Man plays peeping tom…
One of the movie’s plus points is Evelyne Kraft who, as the loincloth-wearing amazon, is a fetching addition to the cast. Other ingredients include an elephant stampede and a man who has his leg bitten off by a tiger!
The jungle girl…
…who likes playing with her leopard!
Surprisingly, a certain amount of pathos can be found in Peking Man’s plight because, generally, the ape-man is shown to be friendly, at least in the company of Kraft, thus adding to the tragedy of the finale, as the furry fury and his diminutive dame companion come under fire from buzzing helicopters.
Scream!
Here are some posters…
Japanese poster
Also known as GOLIATHON
Turkish poster
German poster
US one sheet re-release poster
Here’s a final shot: the jungle gal sitting in the Peking Man’s hairy paw…
This supernatural dude can turn into a cell-animated panther
Starring Chow Yun-Fat, Emily Chu, Yammie Lam Kit-Ying and Dick Wei. Directed by Ching Siu-Tung, with action choreography by Ching Siu-Tung and Alan Hsu.
Korean poster
Whilst in Nepal, Joe (Yun-Fat) meets a mysterious girl who follows him back to Hong Kong. He discovers that he now has supernatural powers and, after the death of the attractive witch, has to combat an evil warrior (Wei) who wants the glowing pendant that Joe wears around his neck.
So passionate!
Featuring the blue-lit photography, slow motion and romantic atmosphere found in the best Hong Kong fantasies, this film, also known as The Nepal Affair and A Touch of Love, is for much of its running time simply a tale of a ménage à trois spiced up with some telekinesis and other minor feats of magic. But the film shifts gears towards the end as Joe, his girlfriend and some children are trapped in a graveyard by zombies who’ve just crawled out of the mud. A section of railings then bends towards a car and flies into the side of the vehicle like a series of iron spears!
Be careful in this graveyard!
Joe and the bad dude, who growls like a panther, have a final fight, which sees them knocking each other through buildings, culminating with the villain getting speared on a ceremonial dagger, causing his teeth and eyes to plop out and his skin to fly off his skull!
Thai poster
Chow gets angry
A decent modern-day Hong Kong whimsy, it is a shame that the evil character’s ability to transform into a cell-animated panther, shown at the very start of the film, isn’t reintroduced during the latter stages of the tale – and the scene where Joe makes sparking electricity cables draw two hearts in the night sky for his love is far, far too twee!
You need to hold your breath if you want to ‘hide’ from a vampire!
Starring Lam Ching-Ying, Ricky Hui, Chin Siu-Ho, Sandra Ng, Suki Kwan, Billy Lau and Tsui Man-Wah. Directed by Ricky Lau, written by Lo Wing-Keung.
Poster
Lam Ching-Ying returns as… Master Lam Ching-Ying, an expert in vampirism looking into an outbreak of the undead in an area overseen by a General (Lau), who is married to Lam’s former love.
Male and female hopping vampires
Lam and his two assistants (Hui & Siu-Ho) really have their hands full, however, because they also need to deal with an evil servant’s plot to grow the spirit of an angry aborted child in the belly of the General’s pregnant wife. Running out of options, they call on exorcist Birdie (Ng) to help out, and she’s more than happy to aid them, since she really has the hots for Lam!
Child spirits, who like to be offered eggs to eat
MR. VAMPIRE 1992 uses the notion that the spirits of aborted children remain in the form of kids as a major supernatural element to the story, with certain child-spirits becoming frustrated and dangerous due to the fact their mothers had several abortions, thwarting any chance of the spirits getting reincarnated. But this interesting concept is not really explored and is shoved aside in favour of scatological humour and general silliness.
Lam uses his powers to draw the evil child-spirit from his former lover’s belly
At one point the blue-faced child-spirit’s visage is superimposed over the pregnant woman’s face
A mid-point sequence in a village entirely overrun by hopping vampires looks like more effort was made to ensure that it was well-lit and atmospheric, plus there’s a slo-mo parade of spirits in the woods that is nicely-handled.
This is the leader of the hopping vampires that infest the village
Billy Lau enjoys himself playing the vamp-infected General who can’t stop doing little vampire-hops every now and then, Sandra Ng is amusing as the Lam-obsessed Birdie, all the stuff about having to grind down vampire teeth to make a curative powder is fun, and the final-reel showdown, where Lam and co. battle an electrically-powered, bald, veiny demon-child, the acrobatic, tough-fighting maidservant and another bunch of hopping vampires, is diverting and decently-done.
Master Lam Ching-Ying files down the fangs of the General’s father, who has become a vampire
The spirit of an angry, aborted child zaps the heroes
The evil maidservant eventually explodes!
The above scenes manage to compensate, to a certain degree, for the parts of the film that are flatly-lit, pointless or tiresomely obsessed with pissing and shitting jokes.
He’s a very angry spirit-youngster!
Basically, the film needed more action and less middling filler material.
The bit where Ricky Hui and Chin Siu-Ho disguise themselves as the undead to infiltrate the vampire-infested village is definitely the best part of the film
Devoted to every kind of movie and TV monster, from King Kong to Godzilla, from the Blob to Alien. Plus monsters from other media too, including books and comics.
Monster Zone 