Starring Shinichi Fukazawa, Masaaki Kai and Asako Nosaka. Written, directed and produced by Shinichi Fukazawa.
Love this poster!
Naoto (Fukazawa) is asked by his ex- girlfriend, Mika (Nosaka), to take her to the haunted house that Naoto has inherited from his deceased dad. They are accompanied by a psychic (Kai), who is able to pick up on an ominous presence in the building. Later, the face of Naoto’s dead father (also played by Fukazawa) appears on a TV screen to warn his son that the psychic is possessed by the ghost of his murdered lover, who has the power to prevent them from leaving the house… and Naoto is informed that the only way to deal with the psychic is to hack him to bits!
Low budget gory things occur throughout the film
This very low budget film from Japan, also known as THE JAPANESE EVIL DEAD, looks really grainy (it was shot on Super 8) and manages to make Sam Raimi’s 1981 movie look like a big budget IMAX production in comparison! Shinichi Fukazawa filmed most of this flick in 1995, but it wasn’t released on DVD in Japan until 2012. It received an official international release in the UK by Terracotta Distribution in 2017, and since then Visual Vengeance has released the film on Blu-ray in America.
Artwork for the Visual Vengeance release
There are lots of lo-fi FX to keep you watching BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL, such as when the ghost drops a pendant into the psychic’s mouth, after which the pendant slithers from the victim’s mouth via jerky stop-motion effects, then bores through his eye, into his head! We also get to see a knife rammed through a head, skewering an eyeball on the blade’s tip. Some of the visual gore gags are fun, like when Naoto uses his chest expander as a kind of catapult to fire an iron bar through a zombie’s head. These effects are far from realistic, but I guess it’s the willingness of Fukazawa to try and put this stuff onscreen not matter what that counts.
Ouch!
As much as Fukazawa tries to emulate Sam Raimi’s first two EVIL DEAD movies (at one point the lead character even says “Groovy”), there’s a lack of real verve and bravura camera techniques compared to Raimi’s productions. The location lacks atmosphere too, with everything shot in close-up. But perhaps it’s churlish to be too critical about the film’s shortcomings, as there’s an I’m-doing-the-best-I-can determination to the proceedings, with Fukazawa trying to get as much up on screen as his budget (and his skills) will allow. Thus we get a severed head zipping about on a severed hand, more cheap and cheerful stop-motion footage, and a sequence where the dead girl uses body parts and blood to regrow herself à la a bargain basement version of what happens in HELLRAISER (1987).
Above: four shots from the movie
The film ends with shots of a decomposing zombie body, again accomplished by stop-motion and amateur gore effects, that apes the finale of THE EVIL DEAD (1981), though it’s all done in a far less accomplished way, of course.
Lo-fi gore FX!
If you’re partial to do-it-yourself horror productions and you’re happy to ignore the many shortcomings, the non-existent budget, and a lack of professional technique, then this short, inexpertly-made, unpretentious homage to Sam Raimi’s classics just might be your cup of (tarnished) tea.
Jason Statham versus megalodons and other aquatic monsters! Yay!
Starring Jason Statham, Wu Jing, Shuya Sophia Cai, Cliff Curtis, Page Kennedy, Sergio Peris-Mencheta and Skyler Samuels. Written by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber and Dean Georgaris. Directed by Ben Wheatley. Apelles Entertainment/China Media Capital/Flagship Entertainment Group/Gravity Pictures
Jonas and his daughter, Meiying
Jonas Taylor (Statham), when he’s not doing eco-warrior stuff like exposing illegal radioactive waste dumping, is a committed single parent dad, who tells his daughter Meiying (Cai) that she can’t go on the upcoming submersible exploration of the prehistoric world that exists at the bottom of the nearby deep sea trench. Meiying stows away on one of the two mini subs anyway, so Jonas must do his best to keep her alive after their submersibles are put out of action by explosions triggered by an illegal mining operation overseen by a villain called Montes (Peris-Mencheta).
Wu Jing plays Zhang, Jonas’ brother-in-law
Jonas, his brother-in-law Zhang (played in a no-nonsense manner by Wu Jing), Meiying and the other sub survivors must now leave their wrecked craft and trudge across the ocean floor to seek a means of escape within the mining operation’s undersea base. This portion of the film is really enjoyable, with the scriptwriters throwing a lot of obstacles in the way of the characters, forcing them to exit their smashed-up subs after it’s disclosed that their backup rescue sub has been sabotaged by unknown betrayers, leaving them with no option but to don reinforced diving suits and start walking through a bioluminescent zone in the hope that the brightness will hide their helmet beams from the enormous megalodons swimming above them. After encountering a toothy eel/lamprey and other denizens of the deep, they find themselves having to take a risky shortcut through a dark valley as their air runs perilously low.
A megalodon fights a kraken!
It’s then a race against time to get inside the secret base before prehistoric sharks or some equally prehistoric, toothy amphibious beasties get them! Even inside this base the threats continue, as Jonas has to battle the vicious Montes, water starts pouring into the place, and a supposedly friendly workmate at HQ jettisons escape capsules before the protagonists can use them to get to the surface. At one point Jonas even swims outside the base without a suit! One of the characters explains how it is possible for Jonas to do this (he has to expel all the air from his nostrils, etc), but I think the main reason Jonas can survive the powerful pressures at the bottom of the trench is because of one very important factor: he’s played by hardman Jason frickin’ Statham!
At one point Statham kicks a giant shark in the face! Yes!
As the story unfolds, MEG 2: THE TRENCH presents us with giant prehistoric sharks and other critters escaping into the upper ocean after explosions cause a breach in the cold water barrier that usually seals off the undersea lost world. The movie also mixes in armed merc bad guys, a semi-trained captive megalodon, and underhand characters who’re willing to kill their colleagues to cover up the fact they’re running a rare minerals mining set-up in the trench.
Toothsome amphibious salamander-critters are encountered in the trench, and they later reach the surface
Many critics and viewers have mercilessly ripped into this movie, but I think it’s a really enjoyable, fun creature flick! Any movie that begins with a prologue set in the Cretaceous Period, showing a huge Tyrannosaurus Rex getting munched by a megalodon (okay, I know megalodons didn’t exist during the age of the dinosaurs, but so what?) is obviously letting viewers know that they need to sit back and enjoy the monster antics coming up!
The movie starts off in the Cretaceous Period, and why not?
Director Ben Wheatley, better known for off-kilter, sometimes quirky, sometimes psychedelic low budget horror pics like KILL LIST (2011), SIGHTSEERS (2012), A FIELD IN ENGLAND (2013), and IN THE EARTH (2021), here goes into full blockbuster mode, presenting us with a mega-enjoyable third act that sees the tourists at the holiday resort of Fun Island getting attacked by super-sized sharks, a huge octopus, and swarms of smaller amphibious predators! There’s a fun shot seen from the inside of a megalodon’s mouth as it chows down on hapless swimmers, and there’s a gag where a tentacle disrupts a waterside wedding!
Statham on a jet ski, chased by monster sharks!
As the likeable main characters deal with gun-toting killers as well as the berserk beasts, lots are exciting (sometimes verging on silly) incidents are thrown at the screen: Statham hurling homemade spear-bombs at the monsters as he pilots a jet ski! A megalodon-vs-kraken fight! Undulating tentacles assaulting a helicopter! And, best of all, Statham using a broken helicopter rotor blade to skewer a megalodon through its open maw! Sweet!
Jonas lifts up a broken rotor blade…
…and he rams it through a megalodon’s head! Sweet!
Don’t listen to the naysayers: just get a beer (or two), switch off your brain, and enjoy the on-screen antics! Colossal prehistoric sharks, a killer kraken, Statham being Statham, hordes of salamander monsters, and generous doses of action: what’s not to like?!
This film boasts a pretty kinetic nighttime sword sword fight in the rain!
Starring Xie Miao, Hong Jianing, Xiang Hao, Zhang Haosen and Wang Yukai. Written by Yang Bingjia and directed by Liu Wenpu. Beijing Bona Film & Television Culture Co.
The Great Eunuch orders the large-scale hunting of tigers after being informed that the big cats can be used to create Tiger Golden Elixir, which will increase his ‘yang energy’ (this elixir is extracted from tigers after they’ve been scorched with an ancient form of flamethrower!) Liang City, situated near the southwest border, behind Thousand Mile Tiger Ridge, is used as the HQ (referred to as the Eastern Depot) for this tiger-hunting operation. But one of the captive tigers escapes, transmits ‘plague’ to the wild tiger population, and eventually the area is besieged by killer felines! Meanwhile, Zhang (Miao), new to the Imperial Guard, balks at being ordered to kill a rebel’s daughter, and he takes out the other guards instead, in a snazzily-shot sword skirmish during a nighttime downpour. He then heads for the Eastern Depot to look for his brother Liuping, a tiger hunter, and Zhang soon finds himself caught up in the tiger attacks.
Xie Miao is really quite good as the hero, Zhang
In due course Zhang discovers that the Eunuch’s warlock has infected the tigers with a rabies-like distemper to create the Tiger Golden Elixir. These tigers, just like dogs with rabies, fear water, which Zhang intends to use to his advantage, to help save a group of survivors trapped in an inn.
Smirk-faced killer tiger!
The CGI tigers ain’t all that, but the action in general, choreographed by action director Qin Pengfei, is good, and viewers are not shortchanged with regard to the amount of onscreen monster mayhem. Xie Miao, as Zhang, carries the movie with a committed performance, exuding a distinctive Ti Lung vibe throughout. This dude is pretty good.
There’s a full-on tiger attack on the walled settlement of Liang City, with lots of folks falling victim to the scabrous beasts (every tiger in the world must be here, I reckon, based on the sheer number of striped felines shown in these scenes!) Though they’re far from the best CGI critters ever committed to film, an occasional close-up of a tiger does look pretty sweet, with these killer cats possessing a semi-smirking expression on their faces.
Cool poster
MUTANT TIGER, aka MUTANT TIGER CHRONICLES, is a decent period-set creatures-attack adventure romp that does kill off characters I was sure would survive, including three lacy robes-clad fighting femmes. In recent Chinese films you can never be certain if the hero will make it to the end, and here Zhang has a last stand confrontation on a rope bridge, which is a nicely handled sequence, showing him fighting off tigers and one of the imperial villains, who has swallowed the coveted Tiger Golden Elixir pill and has become a zombie-like, white-eyed, black-toothed, rabid dude who can command the cats! A mid-credits scene, however, does offer hope for Zhang’s chances of surviving the tiger invasion…
IMAGINATOR ISSUE 10 boasts loads of new, mouth-watering, marvellous Godzilla-related contents! Plus – there are excellent features that originally appeared in issue 2 of Film Frenzy magazine – so, if you missed that publication, you can enjoy reading some of those awesome articles now in this new issue!
Imaginator #10’s look at the King of the Kaiju is a MASSIVE, MULTI-PAGE TRIBUTE…
DESTROY ALL MONSTERS An adoring look back at the incredibly colourful 1968 creature-fest: this film features SO MANY monsters! It’s Kaiju-fan heaven!
THE MISSING MONSTER FROM GODZILLA VS KONG Hollywood creature designer Ken Barthelmey (Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs Kong, The Tomorrow War) shares the incredible monster designs he did for a truly cool-looking Hollow Earth creature that didn’t make it into GODZILLA VS KONG (2021)!
GODZILLA – KING OF THE KAIJU A huge 16-page overview of ALL of Godzilla’s feature length films!
FAVOURITE ZILLA MOVIES Directors, artists and writers talk about their favourite Big G movies! Find out which Godzilla flicks are liked by folks including: director Raimund Huber (Bangkok Adrenaline, Kill ‘Em All), director Mark Duffield (Demon, Ghost of Mae Nak), director Hans Kaufmann (The Working Man), publisher & writer Ricky Baker (Eastern Heroes, The New Essential Guide to Hong Kong Movies), editor Allan Bryce (The Dark Side), author and scriptwriter William Martell (Steel Sharks, Black Thunder), actor Russell Shaw (Witch, Bone Keeper), special FX artist Joe Castro (Terror Toons, Blood Feast 2), FX expert and actor David Fitzgerald (Squeak and I’ll Run to You), and comic book artist Russell Fox (Angela and the Dark, Vampirella vs Purgatori)!
GODZILLA POSTER GALLERY Check out a bunch of sumptuous-looking Godzilla movie posters!
GODZILLA TOP FIVE! Cult filmmaker Jörg Buttgereit (Nekromatik, Schramm, Nekromantik 2) is a Godzilla super-fan! He selects his top five favourite Big G movies and tells us why they’re so good!
Jörg Buttgereit with Godzilla!
GODZILLA VS AVENGERS A review of the mighty Marvel crossover comic, which includes guest appearances from Jet Jaguar… and Marvel’s very own kaiju: Fin Fang Foom!
GODZILLA BLU-RAY REVIEWS Johnny Burnett, the YouTube reviewer known as the Fanatical Dragon, checks out some Godzilla Blu-ray releases!
GODZILLA VS THOR A look at the awesome Marvel comic that pits the King of the Kaiju against the God of Thunder! It’s a brilliant issue!
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
SHOGUN ASSASSIN – A CELEBRATION This is a 40-page celebration of the gory, extremely enjoyable cult classic SHOGUN ASSASSIN!
The magazine’s many SHOGUN ASSASSIN features include:
VOICE OF THE WOLF CUB An interview with Gibran Evans, who provided the voice of Daigorō!
MASTER OF POSTERS A chat with poster artist superstar Jim Evans, who talks about creating the SHOGUN ASSASSIN poster!
CLASSIC MANGA The lowdown on the totally brilliant LONE WOLF AND CUB comics!
SHOGUN ASSASSIN OVERVIEW A look at what makes the film so bloody good!
LIGHTNING DISCS OF DEATH! SHOGUN ASSASSIN and LONE WOLF AND CUB Blu-rays, DVDs and boxsets are reviewed and rated by Johnny Burnett!
OTHER ISSUE 10 CONTENTS INCLUDE:
MOVIE REVIEWS Reviews of films including: RIVER OF BLOOD (2024), THE LAST SACRIFICE (2024), MONSTER ISLAND (2024), LA SOMBRA PROHIBIDA (2010), THUNDERBOLTS* (2025), DEATH OF A UNICORN (2025), and MONSTER SHARK (1984)! Guest reviews from top horror novelist Ramsey Campbell and screenwriter William Martell!
SUPER-COOL COMIC ART A look at some of the superb illustrations created by comic book artist Russell Fox!
Starring Luo Liqun, Cheng Qimeng, Li Bairong and Yang Ming. Directed by Lu Lei, written by Chen Chong and Lu Lei. Produced by Runze Guo and Hui Qian.
Fog envelopes the city
During the Tang Dynasty a mysterious fog envelopes the city of Chang’an… and within the mists looms a gigantic Lovecraftian monstrosity. And there are other, smaller beasts lurking inside the fog too! The Crown Prince (Qimeng) and his loyal protector, Xiao (Liqun), who are walking the city streets at the time, escape the spike-tipped tentacles that start lunging from the foggy skies by hiding out in the Chang’an Guesthouse, where others are also trapped, including a stern swordswoman, an old hunter, and a courtesan.
The massive main monster looms above the city of Chang’an
Some of the people within the guesthouse decide to sneak out to get weapons from a nearby blacksmith, and as they make their way along the deserted streets they can hear the grumbling, growling sounds of the mega-monster, noises that issue from all around them in the fog. But the group is assaulted by the mist monsters, the mission to the blacksmith is aborted, and the survivors are forced to continue to hunker down inside the guesthouse.
A spiked tentacle strikes!
The giant fog monster possesses thicker tentacles that are equipped with mouthparts capable of swallowing victims whole
The plot includes a backstory concerning an ethnic group, referred to as Inhumans, who were blamed for an assassination attempt on the Emperor years ago, and are now seething with hate for the rulers. There are other characters who have varying views concerning the royal family too, both positive and negative, which the undercover Crown Prince finds fascinating.
The situation becomes very tense within the guesthouse
Monster-wise, as well as the gargantuan central beast that looms above the streets, the movie includes lumpy-skinned, long-tailed, leopard-sized reptile creatures that can eject organic spine-projectiles.
Above: two shots of the reptile critters
There are also small, bat-winged critters with heads that can completely peel back, enabling them to envelope the faces of victims. The courtesan suffers such a fate, and she kills herself afterwards, rather than live with a ruined face.
A winged mini-monster’s face peels open in a squid-like manner…
…and the flying bat-beastie then mangles the face of a hapless courtesan!
Just like the Chinese monster flick MUTANT TIGER (2022), this production is a mainland Chinese period-set creature feature that offsets its nothing-special CGI with decent production values, a stoic, solid lead performance, and a simple but interesting horror-fantasy plot. There are some interesting touches here and there, such as the nicely-handled sequence showing the courtesan doing a dance performance, which prompts Xiao to recall walking through the city before the fog came, passing by characters who will end up trapped in the guesthouse with him. The film’s quite brief running time still allows some space for a few dramatic showdowns, including the moment a vengeance-seeking Inhuman gangster releases a powerful incense designed to attract the ferocious foggy fiends to them, resulting, he hopes, in the Prince getting killed. When a boatman, a guesthouse attendant, and the steely swordswoman all die as they protect the Crown Prince from the attacking creatures, this deeply moves the Prince, and he vows to live on so that he can right all the wrongs of his royal predecessors and hopefully bring peace to the nation.
One of the smaller mist monsters is killed
A detachment of golden-armoured royal warriors eventually arrive in the nick of time, dispensing stuff that, somehow, wards off the creatures. The humongous main monster, which has a bulky, blobby body held aloft by multiple tentacle-legs, retreats through the fog, away from the city. This movie, also known as CHANG’AN FOG MONSTER, is a contained monster-horror-fantasy yarn for the most part, set almost entirely inside the guesthouse, with the gigantic, spike-tentacled, mainly unseen boss beast treated both as a real threat and also as a kind of otherworldly symbol of the anger that has been inflamed by the perceived injustices perpetrated by those in power.
Starring Yee Tung-Shing, Cherie Chung, Ku Kuan-Chung, Lung Tien-Hsiang and Ai Fei. Directed by Chu Yuan. Produced by Mona Fong for Shaw Brothers.
He’s got superpowers!
Shue Sang is found as a baby in an ice cave and later discovers that he is actually Yuen Ying (Yee Tung-Shing), a being from the Da Lor fairyland, a place situated between the spiritual and physical worlds. Imbued with special powers, he falls in love with a princess (Cherie Chung) and battles an evil villain, also originating from Da Lor fairyland, who has reincarnated on Earth.
Don’t point that sword at Yuen Ying!
There are the usual spacious Shaw Brothers sets on view in this fu flick, but these don’t really make up for the shoddy direction and lacklustre action choreography. Some of the effects are pretty poor too, including store-bought dolls on wires used to represent transcendence!
This is a Shaw Brothers film, so there are many, many fights!
Even so, there’s stuff that keeps you watching, like the unexpected, ghoulish introduction of the Intelligent Kingdom, where young children on conveyer belts are checked over and, if it’s deemed their brains are too small, are nonchalantly tossed away into a furnace!
The bad guy leader of the Intelligent Kingdom decides this child is not intelligent enough… so a guard hurls the youngster into a flaming furnace! Yikes!
Plus there’s Yuen Ying’s bizarre selection of powers to look out for: he can fly, of course, he has the ability to turn into a giant pair of scissors, can duplicate himself, and he even transforms into a large axe to chop down the villain, who, during one fight, becomes a monster tree! Wild!
The villain splits into two versions of himself, then turns into this tree…
…and the villainous tree attacks the hero…
…so the hero transforms into a large axe and chops the tree in two… and then the tree and the axe catch fire!?
There’s also the novelty of seeing a Chinese mythological riff on the Superman/Clark Kent/Lois Lane story, complete with a clumsy alter-ego for the hero and his own version of the Fortress of Solitude.
The princess looks on
There are loads of shots of people flying around in this movie, plus we see lots of power-beams being fired from the hands of characters!
If nothing else, DESCENDANT OF THE SUN really pulls out all the stops for an ending chock-full of cell-animated hand beams, flame-breathing, flying, stormy winds, and an attack by ghostly corpses that chew on the golden-garbed hero. This finale is not quite well enough done but, damn it, the result overflows with a crazed energy that manages to make it entertaining to watch anyway, especially when Yuen Ying makes all the zombie-ghosts explode!
Starring Toby Poser, John Adams and Anders Hove. Written by John Adams, Lulu Adams and Toby Poser. Directed by John Adams and Toby Poser. Produced by Matt Manjourides and Justin A. Martell.
‘A hole new kind of hell’
Tentacles erupt from the water!
This flick begins with a large tentacle extending from a Napoleonic soldier’s arse! And why not, eh?! Jumping to the present, a Napoleonic soldier’s (still-living) body is pulled from a fleshy cocoon in the muddy soil near a fracking operation, and a killer parasite begins to infect one victim after another.
Oh no! An arse-tentacle!
We learn that the parasite-mollusc always chooses male victims because their sperm is needed to fertilise the egg of this creature, and little nuggets of extra information regarding the mollusc-thingy are revealed, keeping the plot kinda interesting, but the narrative drive is continually stalled by the filmmakers’ decision to constantly halt proceedings for yet another scene of characters standing around, chatting.
Yikes! It’s a tentacled monster!
The creature’s host-hopping activities lack the variety and impact of THE THING (1982), but the effects turned out to be more impressive than I imagined; I’d assumed various tentacle shots were CGI, but they were achieved via stop-motion animation on green screen, then motion-tracked into live action plates. Wow! These tentacle shots are supplemented by quick cuts to a practical creature model. The critter itself, when it is seen clearly at the end, is a novel little squid-beast with an eye encircled by protruding teeth.
Small tentacles sometimes poke from a victim’s mouth…
…and we get to see a mini-tentacle slither from someone’s eye…
…and sometimes tentacles protrude from various facial exit-points at the same time!
HELL HOLE, made by the Adams Family – father John Adams, mother Toby Poser, and daughter Lulu Adams – is definitely a watchable film that really could’ve been better with a less repetitive plot.
Watch out for the squid-thingy!
But, hey, the movie earns a thumbs-up because it does include folks exploding and, of course, it features arse-tentacles too!
Do not trust the royal family of the kingdom of Aurea…
Starring Millie Bobby Brown, Ray Winstone, Angela Bassett, Brooke Carter, Nick Robinson, Robin Wright and Milo Twomey. Written by Dan Mazeau, directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, and produced by Jeff Kirschenbaum, Chris Castaldi, Jonathan Loughran, Morgan Bushe and Emily Wolfe. Netflix, PCMA Management and Productions, Roth/Kirschenbaum Films
Elodie and her family should have stayed at home…
Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown), one of the daughters of Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone), becomes betrothed to Henry (Nick Robinson), the prince of the wealthy island kingdom of Aurea. Elodie agrees to the marriage initially because the riches being paid for this union will mean much needed money going to her father’s poor, needy land, but then Elodie finds herself actually starting to like Prince Henry, and it all seems too good to be true… and that’s because it is too good to be true! Henry’s elite royal family, headed by the imperious Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright), intends to feed Elodie to a grudge-bearing dragon!
Prince Henry seems like such a nice chap…
…but when Henry and the royal court dress up like this, then you know it ain’t going to end well…
Millie Bobby Brown is okay in the earlier scenes, which boast some luscious fantasy visuals of mountains, knights, royal courts and castles, but she gets far better, I think, once her character is put under duress in the subterranean cavern that Prince Henry has thrown her into.
This is a damn cool-looking fantasy film image!
The film as a whole becomes more immersive once we find ourselves in the cave system with Elodie, who must keep her wits about her as she attempts to stay out of the grasp of the dragon. The script benefits from an efficient forward momentum, with new plot developments keeping the story interesting, like the inclusion of the helpful messages (written by a previous sacrificial princess) that Elodie finds and uses to evade the fire-breathing beast. A cool touch is the discovery of glowing grubs, which are a neat way to provide the heroine (and us) with a light source. These grubs also have healing properties, which prove to be useful later in the tale. To keep the location from becoming samey, the cavern is subdivided into different zones, like a vertical tunnel lined with sharp crystals, a cave filled with stalactites & stalagmites, and so on.
A bioluminescent cave-grub creature!
A vertical cave shaft that is lined with sharp crystals
There are a number of striking visual sequences in the movie, including a flock of burning birds seen whirring through the cavern, a shot of ice melting as dragon-breath blasts it from above, and a later shot of flames lighting up the sky over the dragon’s mountain domain, which looks especially fantastical.
Dragon flames illuminate the night sky…
The female dragon is a pretty fine creation. She has a sleek build, with a solidly-built, ridged neck. Her throat glows before she breaths lava-like flames, and she possesses a long, prehensile tail, a spike-festooned head, a neck covered in spines, and large wings. This dragon has a characterful face, looking a little bit like Draco from DRAGONHEART, and, just like Draco, she can speak. I am not usually a big fan of talking movie dragons, but the way this one speaks, with a female voice courtesy of Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, it works quite effectively. The dragon also has a legitimate reason to want revenge on humans…
A damsel-versus-dragon face-off!The dragon’s body-structure gives her something of a stylised, heraldic look
DAMSEL’s plot machinations sees Elodie’s younger sister Floria being chucked into the dragon’s lair (because Queen Isabelle realises Elodie has evaded the dragon), and it all becomes really quite thrilling as Elodie goes back into the danger zone to save her sis! Elodie finally tips the balance in her favour after she finds the chance to explain to the dragon that the vengeful beast has been lied to over the years with regard to the identities of the sacrificial princesses.
Many of the caves are large enough for the dragon to fly around in
The dragon’s flame-breath has a lava-like quality to it
Robin Wright is sufficiently dastardly as the queen of the island kingdom, Ray Winstone is all right as the father who finally attempts to do the right thing, Angela Bassett is good as the stepmother who smells a rat, and Millie Bobby Brown just gets better and better as the film progresses. She looks very striking as the burnt, bruised, ragged, dirty heroine who eventually finds a way to exact revenge on Queen Isabelle and her sneaky, ruthless clan…
Elodie becomes more battered and bruised as the story progresses, but she will get her revenge!
There is SO MUCH monster-tastic wonderfulness enclosed in this issue!
Imaginator magazine’s CREATURE FEATURE SPECIAL EDITION is available all over the world (UK, US, Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, etc) via Amazon and other fine retailers!
PREDATOR Award-winning creature designer/creator STEVE WANG talks about designing and building one of the most iconic alien characters ever created for the screen… the original PREDATOR!
DRAGONSLAYER Special effects & make-up effects titan CHRIS WALAS recounts what it was like helping to bring to life the greatest-looking movie dragon: Vermithrax Pejorative!
ALIEN Actress VERONICA CARTWRIGHT is interviewed about working on the classic genre movies ALIEN, INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS and THE BIRDS! She describes the day they shot the bloody Chestburster scene!
WEREWOLVES A look at the awesome practical creature FX used in WEREWOLVES (2024)! One of the actor-producers tells us what it was like to work with Frank freakin’ Grillo!
ELDRITCH ENCOUNTERS Horror fiction author, editor and critic RAMSEY CAMPBELL reviews two films made by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society!
CREATURE FEATURE REVIEWS Noah Kneal, Simon Pritchard and Ramsey Campbell review a bunch of monster movies! Titles include BOGIEVILLE and ALIEN FROM THE ABYSS!
THE DEADLY SPAWN JOHN DODS chats about making the gorgeously gooey, triple-headed monster star of THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983), plus he covers other pivotal moments in his career, including building creatures for SPOOKIES (1986) and NIGHTBEAST (1982)!
INTO THE DEEP 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the release of JAWS… and it is also the year that Richard (Hooper) Dreyfuss is unleashed upon the world in a brand new shark movie: INTO THE DEEP! Action director CHRISTIAN SESMA tells us all about it!
BEASTS OF BLOOD ISLAND A dive back into the lurid, tropical, colourful world of Eddie Romero’s Filipino fright flicks!
SQUIRM Director JEFF LIEBERMAN reminisces about his incredibly enjoyable killer bloodworms opus SQUIRM!
HORROR QUEEN Exploitation movie star GERETTA GERETTA chats about starring in RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR (1984) and the insanely kinetic DEMONS (1985) – plus she even reveals what the recipe is for making demonic movie drool!
MONSTROUSLY TALENTED This interview with KEN BARTHELMEY, a mega-gifted concept designer and illustrator who focuses on Creature & Character Design work for big Hollywood movies, includes lots of very impressive concept artworks for such films as THE TOMORROW WAR, GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS and GODZILLA VS. KONG!
SHE’LL BLEED YOU DRY MADALINA BELLARIU ION stars as a sultry and sometimes savage vampire in the impressive UK horror movie DRAINED! Here she chats about playing a vampire and playing a werewolf, and also fills us in on what it was like co-starring with Scott Adkins in a recent action flick!
NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE The supremely talented Creature Designer KEITH THOMPSON discusses how he conceptualised the surreal and wonderfully macabre god-monster that appears in the memorable finale of NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE (2021), the movie adaptation of the Adam Nevill novel!
THE FLY Oscar-winning creature-creator CHRIS WALAS returns with a second interview this issue! Here he talks about the amazing work he did creating Brundlefly for David Cronenberg’s utterly wonderful THE FLY!
A VVITCH – GRAPHIC NOVEL UPDATE Artist and writer Russell Fox treats us to another sneak peek at more sumptuous-looking illustrations that’ll be appearing in his upcoming folk horror graphic novel A VVITCH! (More of his work can be viewed in issue 8 of Imaginator)
BONE KEEPER This is a new movie, which has recently finished principal photography, about a group of friends being hunted by a malevolent monster in a cave. Director HOWARD J. FORD and creature effects VFX supervisor GIORDANO AITA talk about working together on BONE KEEPER, and they share with us some ace images of the development of the cave creature!
THE MAN WHO WAS MOLASAR Actor Michael Carter is asked what it was like to wear the incredibly distinctive and damn cool Molasar muscle suit in THE KEEP. He also speaks about the makeup application process he underwent to become Bib Fortuna in RETURN OF THE JEDI, and he chats about playing a memorable London subway victim in the all-time 80s horror film classic AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON!
RADIOACTIVE REVIEWS To finish off this issue there are a couple of non-monster movie reviews, including one for the Italian Mad Max ripoff 2020 TEXAS GLADIATORS!
Wow! So much lovely stuff is jammed inside this single issue!
LIMITED EDITION PRINTS You can buy two Limited Edition Creature Feature Prints, signed and numbered by Imaginator’s cover artist ZillaMan, via this LINK!
Starring Jack Kesy, Jefferson White, Adeline Rudolph, Leah McNamara, Suzanne Bertish, Joseph Marcell and Martin Bassindale. Written by Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola and Brian Taylor Directed by Brian Taylor. Produced by Jeffrey Greenstein, Yariv Lerner, Mike Richardson, Sam Schulte, Les Weldon and Jonathan Yunger. Campbell Grobman Films/Dark Horse Entertainment/Millennium Media
Tom Ferrell, Bobbie Jo Song and Hellboy
In 1959 Hellboy, who is accompanied by BPRD agent Bobbie Jo Song, has an occult adventure in the witch-filled woods of the Appalachians, where he teams-up with the stoic hillbilly hero Tom Ferrell and encounters the hellish Crooked Man, whilst also hunting down an escaped funnel-web spider that houses a demonic entity.
The demon-possessed funnel-web spider is capable of growing to giant size! Yikes!
This is an engaging, more compact instalment of the Hellboy saga, underlining the horror aspects of the comic book source material and deftly maintaining a folksy supernatural tone throughout.
This insect is actually a witch’s familiar
Jefferson White is particularly good as Tom, a character inspired by Manly Wade Wellman’s pulp horror protagonist Silver John, Adeline Rudolph plays special agent Bobbie Jo Song nicely as someone who views all the supernatural occurrences and practices from a very scientific perspective, and Jack Kesy is actually a really good Hellboy.
Hellboy and Tom Ferrell
The Crooked Man himself (played by Martin Bassindale) is an interesting screen bogieman, though he did look scarier, I think, in the comic book version, as illustrated by the late, great Richard Corben.
A page from the comic book, written by Mike Mignola and drawn by Richard Corben
There’s a lot of cool, interesting content and imagery in the movie: a witch refills her skin-suit by crawling back into it whilst in the form of a raccoon, and a supernatural black snake slithers from between a character’s legs and slides down her throat in a continuous cycle – and there’s other memorable stuff, including the lowdown on how to make witchballs.
HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN is not as big scale or glossy as its predecessors, but this works to its advantage, helping the film to come across as more faithful to the vibe (and often more modest scope ) of many of Hellboy creator Mike Mignola’s original yarns.
I really enjoyed this flick, and I would definitely like to see more Hellboy films told in this style!
A gigantic arachnid – woot!
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 