Gonji: Dark Ventures

April 19, 2021 Ken Miller 3 Comments

Okay, time for a book review! I know this blog focuses primarily on movie & TV monsters, but literary beasties can also receive some love on this blog from time to time…. and this particular book is FULL of weird critters!

GONJI: DARK VENTURES is written by T.C. Rypel and comprises two tales featuring the heroic fantasy character Gonji Sabatake, a wandering samurai with Nordic heritage.

First, a bit of background on the Gonji character…
T.C. (Ted) Rypel created this half Scandinavian/half Japanese samurai character in the 1980s, placing him in an alternate reality version of 16th century Europe, where firearms & gunpowder mix with swordplay, sorcery and supernatural beasts. Previous Gonji books include DEATHWIND OF VEDUN and FORTRESS OF LOST WORLDS. Here’s a painting by Joe Rutt, depicting a wyvern-battle scene from the Gonji novel RED BLADE FROM THE EAST…

A painting of a scene from Red Blade From The East — Now this is something I’d love to see depicted on the big screen!

And here’s a painting of the carnivorous Cave Worm from THE SOUL WITHIN THE STEEL…

Cave Worm painting by Woody Welch — Painting by Woody Welch

Anyway, let’s get back to GONJI: DARK VENTURES. The first story is the novelette ‘Reflections in Ice’, which is linked to a previously published Gonji novel and features a cool encounter with cannibal trolls. The yarn has the hero pursued by otherworldly foes and is basically a revised and expanded version of the opening chapter from the novel FORTRESS OF LOST WORLDS.

The second story, the novella ‘Dark Venture’, is the real reason you should seek out this book. It is an action-packed tale that follows Gonji and a disparate group of pirates as they become trapped in a truly weird ship’s graveyard zone.

Here's the GONJI: DARK VENTURES book cover in full — Here’s the GONJI: DARK VENTURES book cover in full

This place is filled with all kinds of dangers and horrors!

Instead of the ocean, this zone has a massive, white mass of sentient, evil-controlled, protoplasmic gloop that ensnares vessels. This gloop is able to form semi-transparent, pseudopod-like tentacles that swallow victims whole and digest them very, very slowly.

Gonji and his companions must also ward off ape-hound hybrids, dodge attacks from flying, razor-faced manta ray creatures, wriggling worm-lampreys, floating killer bubbles, rogue black hole discs (?!) and loads of shambling protoplasm-zombies. But that’s not all! Other dangers include blue lightning charges that can burn victims to a crisp, a wretched, multi-limbed being created by sorcery and a daemon that becomes a massive spectral cobra. Of these monsters I have to say the flying manta rays are my favourite critters.

Whilst reading this story it occurred to me that I could imagine Robert E Howard and William Hope Hodgson getting together to rewrite the script for THE LOST CONTINENT (1968) – and this would’ve been the result. Now believe me: that is a massive compliment!

THE LOST CONTINENT poster — Poster for Hammer’s THE LOST CONTINENT

That Hammer film told the story of a tramp steamer ending up in a Sargasso Sea full of killer seaweed and giant crustaceans. It’s certainly a colourful, sweaty, bizarre treat, but GONJI: DARK VENTURES is about a thousand times more outlandish and incident-filled!

Hermit crab monster from The Lost Continent — A giant hermit crab attacks in THE LOST CONTINENT

Writer Ted Rypel (a member of Monster Zone’s Facebook group) has told me that he is ‘a sucker for “Sargasso Sea”-type terrors’ and with this Gonji story, set in a twilight zone of corrupted magic, he has produced a very colourful, violent, acid-trip-mad, monster-filled, thrilling read set in a ghastly blob-sea!

Finally, here’s the GONJI: DARK VENTURES book cover illustration without the blurb. It depicts Gorgulho, who is revealed later in the story to have been made from the sewn-together limbs, torso and features of various men. It was painted by Larry Blamire, the writer/director/actor of such wonderful sf spoofs as THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA (2001) and DARK AND STORMY NIGHT (2009)…

Gonji: Dark Ventures book cover without blurb

Captain Sindbad (1963)

April 18, 2021 Ken Miller Leave a comment

The villainous El Kerim (Pedro Armendáriz) uses magic and brute force to take control of the kingdom of Baristan. Hearing that Sindbad (Guy Williams) is sailing there to see his girlfriend, the Princess Jana (Heidi Brühl), El Kerim decides to rid himself of this potential thorn in his side by sending rocs to destroy the adventurer’s ship. Sindbad, however, is not going to be stopped so easily, but El Kerim will be hard to beat as he cannot be killed with normal weapons… because his heart has been magically removed from his body and is protected at the top of a seemingly unassailable tower.

Produced by the King Brothers, who also made GORGO (1961), and directed by Byron (WAR OF THE WORLDS) Haskin, this fantasy adventure was shot at the Bavaria Film Studios in Germany. Maybe being filmed in Munich is what gives this Arabian fantasy yarn the hint of a quirky European fairy tale vibe: the invincible villain keeping his heart guarded in a tall tower certainly has a Grimm’s fairy tale feel to it, as do moments like the belching wizard magically stretching his arm super-long in an attempt to steal the villain’s ring, and that same ring being used by El Kerim to comically twist the wizard’s head 360°!

The monster special effects aren’t a patch on what you’d see in a Ray Harryhausen Sinbad film, so CAPTAIN SINDBAD is always compared unfavourably to Harryhausen’s Dynamation adventures. It is definitely frustrating when, for instance, the rocs are shown flying high in the sky and it is obviously just some stock footage of seabirds, but where this production does score well is in its use of large sets with lots of extras. The movie features little location photography, with most of the film shot in colourful sound stages, helping to heighten the theatricality of the whole thing.

Some of the quirkier visuals, like the bumbling good wizard creating an indoor rain cloud to water a plant, also help to give this movie its own distinctive feel.

Monsters and creatures featured in this film include rocs (well, just close-ups of model bird legs holding boulders), a Firebird (a myna bird with a small crest added), an invisible arena monster and a multi-headed dragon-beast.

Hydra creature — C’mon, you gotta love this monster just a little bit, right?!

The arena scene is a good example, actually, of the pros and cons of this film compared to Harryhausen’s trilogy of Sinbad films. Where Harryhausen’s movies would’ve focused on a well-realised, well-designed stop-motion creature that is on screen for a decent amount of time, CAPTAIN SINDBAD features an invisible beast (so that it merely has to show big footprints in the sandy ground), but this film DOES boast a very impressive-looking arena set with a large amount of extras: something seldom seen in Harryhausen’s productions.

My favourite sequence in CAPTAIN SINDBAD involves Sindbad and his men making their way through a walled zone that surrounds the tower housing the villain’s heart: here they trudge through cool swamp & volcanic rock sets, encounter strangling vines, a killer sinkhole, (model) crocodiles and a (rather oddball but somehow still memorable) many-headed monster. I really like this glowing-eyed, hydra-type beast: sure, it has rubbery necks and you can see the wires holding up the heads, but it is a goofy-looking, fun critter that sticks in the mind (and clips of this creature were used years later in NATURAL BORN KILLERS).

Watch out for the volcanic pools of boiling water…

In the centre of this walled zone Sindbad has to climb a giant bell rope to reach the detached heart… which is guarded by a giant glove! This whole sequence is really well done, with the interior of the base of the tower proving to be another nicely art directed set.

With an acrobatic spiderweb ballet dance, the princess threatened with a death-by-elephant-foot execution, a smoke-burping wizard, Guy Williams as the sword-wielding hero, a disembodied heart that is so stylised it looks about as real as a party balloon, and a mishmash of different costumes (at one point the villain seems to be dressed like a Cossack), this is a very entertaining film.

An escapist, quirky, colourful action-adventure tale: give it a go!

Matango, Fungus of Terror (1963)

April 17, 2021 Ken Miller Leave a comment

Crop of poster — Don’t eat the mushrooms…

Also known as ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE or simply MATANGO, Ishiro (GOJIRA) Honda’s horror film is partly based on the short story ‘The Voice in the Night’ by William Hope Hodgson.

The movie starts in a Tokyo hospital, where a man (Akira Kubo) recounts events that have led to him residing in a barred hospital room. The story then jumps back in time to tell the tale of a group of characters, including professor Kenji Murai, who are on a yacht that ultimately sails into a storm.

After the yacht almost capsizes, it drifts to a island where Murai and the others go ashore and begin to explore it. They find a dense forest and masses of mushrooms. A wrecked ship is discovered, food supplies are found, then begin to dwindle, there are conflicts as characters try to take control, and hungry members of the group decide to eat the mushrooms…

This movie is wonderful to look at, oozing atmosphere, with swirling island fog, a moody-looking shipwreck with ripped, decayed sails and misty, rain-soaked forest sets festooned with fungi. The art direction for the ship sets is top-notch: the various cabins are grungy and dirty, initially coated with a layer of fungus.

There’s also an abandoned lab in the wreck, which adds to the mood and mystery too, as do shots of rapidly-growing groves of mushrooms in the wet forest, with the sound of ghostly, girlish, echoing laughter playing on the soundtrack.

The effects of the mushrooms on the various people depends on exposure to the fungi: so we get to see characters mentally influenced after eating them, through to people with deformed, infected faces, and finally victims who have basically become human-sized perambulating mushrooms!

I was lucky enough to see a pristine new print of this film several years ago, when it was screened in a double bill with KING KONG VERSUS GODZILLA at the Prince Charles cinema in London. Joy!

This is what I call an awesome double bill!

If you haven’t seen MATANGO please seek it out and give it a go. If you accept the slow-burn pace of the movie at the start and soak up the eerie atmosphere you won’t be disappointed. It is a disorientating film, which initially has some jarring shifts in tone between comedic scenes, drama, a couple of musical numbers (!), mystery & horror. The way characters become deformed after ingesting the fungi adds the theme of body horror to the mix and, well, who can resist a film that boasts mushroom-headed fungi-beings shambling around a drenched island forest?!

Love and Monsters (2020)

April 16, 2021 Ken Miller Leave a comment

The chemical fallout from hundreds of rockets used to destroy an asteroid on a collision course with Earth causes all cold-blooded creatures to mutate into monsters of varying sizes. A large percentage of the human population is wiped out and survivors now live in isolated groups in underground colonies. Joel Dawson (Dylan O’Brien) is one of these survivors and, though he tends to freeze in tense situations, he decides to leave the bunker he has lived in for seven years to go on a trek to another colony where his girlfriend Aimee (Jessica Henwick) lives.

This movie is a lot of fun. The tone is light (my wife, who really dislikes monster films, even enjoyed it!), the characters are likeable and the various monsters are interesting and look good onscreen.

The first creature we are introduced to is a giant ‘ant’-monster that has managed to get into Joel’s bunker. Joel freezes when he encounters the beast, but he’s saved by his comrades.

Once Joel starts his quest above ground we are shown the sunny, rewilded world with lots of hints of how the place has changed (clusters of eggs attached to trees, etc). This landscape is nicely realised, I think, and it’s fun to see hive-caves in cliffs, areas of webbing, the carcass of a huge, dead arthropod in the distance and so on: these are all cool details that add to the enjoyment of the film.

When Joel enters some overgrown suburbs he’s assailed by a multi-eyed, toad-like monster that emerges from a stagnant garden pond. He survives the amphibious, long-tongued nightmare with the help of his new companion – a dog named Boy. And I just need to point this out: that dog is a good actor!

Joel, still rather clumsy and inept, next topples into a hole that’s actually a nest of worm creatures called Sand-Gobblers. This time he’s saved by two roaming survivors: tough guy Clyde Dutton (Michael Rooker) and equally tough little girl Minnow.

Joel travels with the pair for a while (they are heading to a mountain range where the colder weather and higher elevation supposedly will mean fewer monsters) and he learns useful survival skills and knowledge. For instance, he is told that Boulder Snails aren’t dangerous (“You can always tell in their eyes”).

Joel finally splits from Minnow & Clyde (because he’s still intent on finding Aimee) and finally becomes a bonafide monster-killer when he has to confront a nasty, long-bodied centipede monster that is intent on eating his dog Boy.

I thought this critter was especially creepy and cool-looking!

After encountering a friendly robot and some floating, glowing plankton-like organisms that light up the night sky, Joel finds himself in danger again the next day when he’s attacked by a Queen Sand-Gobbler.

These glowing, floating organisms make for a nice light show

Joel deals with this subterranean menace but has to immediately swim across a river that Boy has entered… and he gets covered in small, lamprey-mouthed leech-things that cause him to hallucinate. Luckily Joel remembers there’s a plant that can offset the effects of the leech venom.

Joel eventually reaches Aimee’s colony, where he has to come to terms with the fact that Aimee has moved on emotionally. We get a fun finale with some devious survivors and a massive crab, then Joel decides to head back to his own bunker, realising that the people there are his real friends.

LOVE AND MONSTERS is a feel-good creature feature that is reminiscent of a monster apocalypse version of the undead comedy flick ZOMBIELAND (2009). There’s lots to like, including the way Joel continually jots down notes and drawings of each monster he encounters so that he can create a survival guide.

All the monsters were well envisaged and I especially liked the look of the centipede monster and the sucker-tongued toad critter! The way the Queen Sand-Gobbler rockets beneath the dirt (with a shark-esque ‘fin’ poking above the surface) was nicely done too.

I think there’s a lot of scope for another romp through this monster world, so here’s hoping there’s going to be a sequel. Please!

The Poster Art of Enzo Sciotti

April 13, 2021 Ken Miller Leave a comment

The Italian artist Enzo Sciotti, who passed away on 11th April 2021, was well known to genre movie fans for his many amazing movie posters.

Born in 1944 in Rome, Sciotti had a very long career, but his eye-catching style is most closely associated with the 1980s and early 90s, when he was the artist behind posters and VHS covers for horror, sword and sorcery, Mad Max knockoffs and assorted war & action movies.

He produced the movie poster art for famous Italian horror directors Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lamberto Bava, Joe D’Amato and Lucio Fulci. He also illustrated the Italian posters for American movies like NEAR DARK, THE THING, CRITTERS, BEETLEJUICE, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE and CUJO.

His in-your-face, detailed, colourful style almost compelled you to watch the movies, regardless of how good some of these films were, because his posters were so goddamn striking! He somehow managed to balance making the characters depicted in his posters resemble the actors involved in the movies whilst also retaining a very dynamic, painterly style.

Some of his work was more lurid than others, but it was all professionally crafted, impactful and hard to ignore: the perfect combination for a movie poster or VHS cover!

He produced work for Italian horror comics too, including Terror.

Enzo was a very talented artist: here are just a few more of the posters he illustrated…

Beastmaster poster art — This is actually the poster for YELLOWBEARD and not THE BEASTMASTER!

The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

April 11, 2021 Ken Miller 3 Comments

Hammer's only werewolf movie! — Hammer’s only werewolf movie!

Don't get locked in the same cell as a werewolf! — Don’t get locked in the same jail cell as a werewolf!

Set in Spain 200 years ago, the story begins with a beggar (Richard Wordsworth of THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT fame) displeasing a spiteful, cruel marquess, who has the homeless man thrown into his dungeon, where he is forgotten.

Years later the mute daughter of the dungeon’s jailer (Yvonne Romain) rejects the advances of the now-decrepit (and scabby) Marquess and she too is tossed into the dungeon, where the mad beggar rapes her. After being freed from the dungeon she kills the Marquess, flees the mansion and is taken in by a kindly scholar, Don Alfredo Corledo. Here she dies as she gives birth to a son on Christmas Day (which is considered extremely unlucky).

The boy is named Leon and he is raised by Don Corledo. As he grows older it becomes apparent that the child is affected by the full moon. Sheep are savaged, but Don Corledo manages to keep the boy’s traits a secret, with a local dog being blamed for the killings.

Years pass, he reaches manhood and Leon (Reed) begins transforming into a werewolf again, with only the love of Cristina, a rich vintner’s daughter, able to suppress his primal imperative to become a man-wolf during the full moon. Unfortunately, Leon is separated from Cristina and jailed, where he transforms once more, goes on a rampage and is hunted by townsfolk across rooftops, until he finally meets his fate at the hands of a loved one.

As you can see by this plot overview, the movie really delves deeply into what it takes for Leon to become a werwolf: being conceived by a mute woman who was raped by an animal-like madman, being born of Christmas Day, being separated from the one true love who can stop him from transforming, etc. Unfortunately, this means that the movie takes a very long time before we reach the point where we see Reed become a slavering lycanthrope…

It is worth the wait, though, as Hammer Films’ only werewolf movie stands out primarily because of Oliver Reed’s central performance: his eyes, even under the makeup, exude menace. Roy Ashton’s werewolf design is striking, using Reed’s masculinity and solid frame to make the grey-furred, red-eyed, sharp-toothed wolf man a physically impressive presence.

Ultimately, the overly prolonged origin section of the tale does lesson the impact of the film (which wasn’t as successful as Hammer’s previous horror films when it was released), but it still has much to recommend it, including the art direction and the seriousness with which Hammer treats the subject matter.

Here’s a cool piece of art inspired by the film by Rick Melton…

The Yinyang Master (2021)

April 9, 2021 Ken Miller Leave a comment

The giant monster hand from the Yinyang Master

This big scale Chinese fantasy movie is based on a game called Onmyoji, which was itself based on the Onmyoji series of novels by Japanese author Baku Yumemakura.

Main character Qing Ming is a part-human, part-demon officer (of the Yinyang Bureau) and his duty is to guard demon/monster souls and keep the powerful, supernatural Scale Stone out of the hands of evildoers. He is accused of a crime he didn’t commit, is disgraced and so decides to start a new life in a zone where the monsters & demons live.

Qing Ming surrounds himself with friendly monsters who become his familiars, including Kappa-type turtle creatures and ferrets that can group together to operate a multi-armed costume!

Qing Ming is eventually aided by Boya who is, himself, aided by the Red Ghost: a kind of mini Hellboy that grows in size when he is punched. Everything really kicks off when the real villain is revealed, bad monsters & beings go on the march, and a showdown takes place on the bridge linking the worlds of human and monster.

This film is dripping in tons of CGI (some of which is more effective than others), which some viewers may find excessive, but I think it all adds to the fantastical tone of this colourful production.

The similar YIN-YANG MASTER: DREAM OF ETERNITY (2020) managed to add more depth and emotion to the main characters’ relationships, but this movie boasts a far less convoluted plot and really ramps up the fantasy elements with lots of creatures and vistas.

The Red Ghost was too cartoony (in an attempt to make him cute) for my tastes, but I REALLY liked the monstrous, dark-skinned giant hand that the villain rides around on: with spiked tentacles writhing from its wrist stump, red eyes, long nails and weird mouth parts, this huge hand-thing is an extremely novel creation. Loved it!

Give the film a go: it’s a visual feast.

Which of Legendary’s MonsterVerse movies do you think is the best?

April 8, 2021 Ken Miller Leave a comment

Well, the poll is closed now, and the winner is…

The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity (2020)

April 6, 2021 Ken Miller Leave a comment

This Chinese fantasy flick has a story involving a giant evil snake demon, four masters sent to the Imperial City to awaken stone statue guardians, a killer Hair Demon, an immortal princess, characters becoming almost super powered, and magic spells that are similar to the magic portals used in DOCTOR STRANGE.

The film, as you can probably guess from the above summary, has an overly convoluted plot. And yet… the film kept me interested, thanks to the evolving, touching friendship between main characters Qing Ming & Bo Ya, plus it also boasts a decent score.

There was, of course, scenes of a giant (and I mean GIANT) snake on the rampage to keep me interested too!

A bit of background info… the source material is Onmyōji: a Japanese novel (and short story series) by Baku Yumemakura. Since 1986 it has been adapted as a manga and video game, and was made into two films, ONMYOJI (2001) and ONMYOJI 2 (2003), which were both directed by Yōjirō Takita.

THE YIN-YANG MASTER: DREAM OF ETERNITY, on the other hand, is a 2020 Chinese movie that is based on the novel.

Running across the back of the giant snake

Another note: there is now ANOTHER film, THE YINYANG MASTER (2021), which has no connection to this 2020 film, other than it has links to the source novel (and it’s actually quite good too!)

Godzilla vs Kong (2021)

April 6, 2021 Ken Miller Leave a comment

Fight!!!

In the United States and Canada the film achieved the best opening day figure of the pandemic, so there seems to be a lot of interest in the movie, but how does it compare to the previous MonsterVerse movies from Legendary, which have all been leading up to this moment?

GODZILLA VS KONG is certainly a big punch ’em up production, crammed with a neon-lit deluge of eye candy monster effects. It delivers on the promise of its title, with the titular creatures duking it out with themselves and others. From a plot perspective it certainly doesn’t attempt to inject the serious tone of 2014’s GODZILLA and is much more aligned with GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (2019), where the focus was on creating set-ups to allow for a series a kaiju battles. That said, the 2019 film still attempted to balance the human drama with the scenes of spectacle more evenly than GODZILLA VS KONG, which definitely puts the emphasis on the grand FX moments.

The fantastical elements, like the trip to the Hollow Earth and Kong utilising a powered-up giant axe, are dealt with pretty briskly in this film, and perhaps this is the best way to handle such things – so viewers aren’t given too much time to ponder the logic of it all!

The Hollow Earth sequences offer cool vistas and the opportunity to introduce some secondary creatures, though I wasn’t quite sure why the reverse gravitational effect seemed to make entering the Hollow Earth a much more dangerous manoeuvre compared to exiting the zone.

The final smackdown battle takes place in Hong Kong, allowing for gorgeous-looking neon vistas that make the night time action easy to follow and see. I have to say I do wonder what the bodycount must have been for this fight as a LOT of skyscrapers get demolished! Maybe aware of this, the film never features any characters commenting on casualties.

Ultimately, if you go into this just for the spectacle there’s lots to like, including an updated version of the Kong airlift featured in Toho’s KING KONG VS GODZILLA, but there are quite a few things you can pick apart with GVK and I, personally, much prefer KONG: SKULL ISLAND, which was a more pleasing mix of pulp action and monster madness.

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.