Starring Sallie Harmsen, Alexandre Willaume, Anneke Blok, Fred Goessens, Noor van der Velden and Markoesa Hamer. Written by Nico van den Brink and Daan Bakker. Directed by Nico van den Brink. Produced by Sabine Brian and Dennis Cornelisse. NL Film/Vrijzinnig Protestantse Radio Omroep (VPRO)
Betriek (Sallie Harmsen) and her mother become embroiled in supernatural events
Betriek (Harmsen) lives in an area close to the edge of ancient bogland. Her family has suffered from a history of tragedies, and Betriek starts to suspect that the deaths of her relatives are somehow linked to the local legend concerning a wronged servant called Feike who made a pact with the demon Moloch – or maybe the preserved female corpses recently discovered in the nearby peat deposits are part of the puzzle…
One of the cadavers found in the bog
This Dutch movie uses its often foggy and gloomy swampy locations effectively, and employs the archeological dig aspects of the plotline to inject extra mystery into the story.
Another one of the bog bodies
Matters become more intriguing once various normal people are somehow compelled to become would-be killers, attacking Betriek and her mother in trance-like states.
Betriek’s mother is attacked by a possessed person
Creepy!
With mask-wearing cultists lurking about, and the spirits of murdered women emerging from the misty peat bog, the answer to the movie’s central enigma is finally revealed, and – even though it doesn’t properly explain the behaviours of the possessed would-be assassins or clarify if there is a causal link between the supernatural plot elements and the local pagan folks – the finale does give viewers a suitably striking set piece ending to remember.
Above: three shots from the film
The acting is fine, the cinematography is good, the local cultists in their bull masks look cool, and the slit-throated sacrificial bog bodies provide the movie with some memorable imagery.
Above: two shots showing the atmospheric photography of the house in the film
You know, the more I think about it, the more I come to believe that any film featuring bog bodies is worth a watch!
Starring Juliet Mills, Richard Joseph Paul, Leon Russom, Walker Brandt, Tai Thai and Eric Steinberg. Written by David Allen and Randall William Cook. Directed by David Allen. Produced by Charles Band, Vlad Paunescu, Debra Dion, Albert Band, Danny Draven and Wendy Grossberg. Full Moon Features and Castel Film Romania.
After the body of a huge yeti is discovered and displayed at a university, a small team of scientists head to Nepal to learn more about this amazing creature. With the help of grizzled adventurer Rondo Montana, the group makes its way into an isolated, hidden, forested valley that is kept free of snow thanks to the ancient machinery of an alien race. Soon the protagonists discover that these aliens still exist…
The yeti’s body is displayed at a university
I can’t believe THE PRIMEVALS has finally seen the light of day! This is a film project I have read about and followed the progress of for decades! It seemed destined to be one of those legendary projects that never got made.
Alien lizard-men fight a giant yeti in an arena! Woot!
Back in the late 1960s David Allen (stop-motion animator on THE DAY TIME ENDED, THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER, Q: THE WINGED SERPENT and more) developed a fantasy film treatment called RAIDERS OF THE STONE RING. Hammer Films eventually got to hear about it (at the time Jim Danforth and David Allen were working on WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH), the idea momentarily morphed into a concept called ZEPPELIN VS PTERODACTYLS (now that’s a title!), and Hammer put out a ‘coming soon’ ad for the project that boasted a striking illustration by top Hammer artist Tom Chantrell. But funding wasn’t found and the project stalled.
Hammer Films promo art rocked. Fact!
David Allen continued to return to the project, hoping to expand on the treatment, and he finally co-wrote a screenplay with Mark McGee. The concept’s title continued to fluctuate, with it being called THE GLACIAL EMPIRE and, later on, PRIMORDIUM: THE ARCTIC WORLD. A new outline was written in the mid-70s by Allen, who now called it THE PRIMEVALS. Allen would then go on to write a script with Randall William Cook, who had a potential financial backer, but, yet again, the funding disappeared. The script for THE PRIMEVALS would continue to be tweaked, altered and updated over time, and it finally became the foundation for the film that was eventually made.
The explorers approach a skull-faced cave entrance in THE PRIMEVALS
Producer-director Charles Band was shown a promotional reel for the film that David had shot and he agreed to fund the production through Charles Band Productions. But, once more, THE PRIMEVALS project ground to a halt after just a few months of preproduction. Then, in the early 1980s, the project was heavily advertised as part of Charles Band’s Empire Pictures slate of upcoming movies… but (you guessed it) THE PRIMEVALS failed to go beyond the preproduction stage at the studio. Damn it!
A stop-motion alien lizard-man with a ray gun, as seen in the finished film. What’s not to like?!
THE PRIMEVALS concept was revived again when Charles Band started Full Moon Entertainment. This time the project did move past the preproduction stage! In 1994 much of the principal photography was shot in Romania. Other footage was filmed in the Dolomites mountain range in Italy. But then (there always seems to be another ‘but’ in this story!)… Full Moon got into financial difficulties, which interfered with the completion of the production, though Allen did continue, between other projects, to work on the film at irregular intervals.
David Allen and Chris Endicott pose with stop-motion puppets
Then the ultimate tragedy occurred… when David Allen passed away, aged just 54, in 1999.
David Allen had left the film elements, stop motion puppets, the storyboards, and all of his equipment in the care of his colleague Chris Endicott. Finally, in 2018, Charles Band launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to obtain completion funds for THE PRIMEVALS, and this resulted in enough money being raised to allow Chris Endicott to team-up with stop-motion animator Kent Burton and other talented visual effects artists to work on getting David Allen’s passion project finally finished. In 2023 the completed film was premiered at the Fantasia festival and it is now available for us to watch.
A crowd of reptile-aliens sit above the arena, watching the combat below
I must say I was over the moon when I eventually got to view THE PRIMEVALS and discovered I was about to be immediately treated to an opening mountain fight scene between sherpas and a big yeti. This is such a great stop-motion set piece! Honestly, this is as good as the creature sequences in Ray Harryhausen’s fantasy films. The yeti hominid creature is definitely a wonderful creation: it looks so good! In fact, this marvellous, massive yeti is so fine, the creature is a joy to look at even when it is displayed as an unmoving exhibit during the scenes at the university.
The amazing yeti roping scene that occurs at the start of the film!
The film moves into explorers-on-a-quest mode next, as the protagonists trudge through cave systems and discover a lost valley. THE PRIMEVALS really exudes an old school adventure-fantasy vibe here, reminiscent of such productions as THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD (1974) and JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH (1959).
I love scenes where characters explore caverns!
Once in the valley, through which a river runs, the group run across primitive hominid humans (actors in man-ape costumes) living in nicely-designed huts that are held aloft by stilt-like arrangements of branches. The scientists concur that the future-tech towers they’ve encountered must be part of a warming system that allows this hidden world to remain free of snow and harsh Himalayan weather.
The group approaches one of the alien towers
Soon our heroes discover a parked flying saucer, and this leads them to an encounter with alien reptile-people who live in a barbaric domain within the valley! The explorers are taken prisoner and placed in an arena, where they witness crowds of reptilian beings cheering on as a yeti is goaded (via fiendish implants) until it fights captured hominids! Can our heroes escape their predicament?!
A lizard-dude gunner zaps the yeti to make the creature fight in the arena
This film, for me, is like the cinematic equivalent of a well-made dish of comfort food: it has all the ingredients I adore, including characters journeying into a lost world, nice-looking stop-motion critters, a rousing orchestral score (by Richard Band), and a no-nonsense, pulpy adventure plot.
Another shot of the yeti on display in the university
I would’ve liked to have seen at least one more stop-motion sequence in the mid-section of the film, but I understand that the filmmakers were constrained, needing to build on what was already shot and what they could achieve with the crowdfunding budget and the time that was available. There is one scene in the movie where characters talk about creatures they’ve spotted in the valley that are not normally-evolved animals, but we never see these beasts. So I assume this dialogue relates to scenes that were never completed. I remember seeing a concept drawing of a massive, horned River Lizard attacking a raft in an old issue of the magazine Cinefantastique, and this was definitely going to feature in the film, but, alas, the filmmakers were not able to complete the stop-motion for this part of the film. However, on the ‘David Allen Version’ disc (which is part of THE PRIMEVALS 3 Blu-ray Collection) the River Lizard sequence is presented with animatics based on Ron Lizorty’s design. (There’s more info on the River Lizard in a feature at the end of this review…)
The issue of Cinefantasique that featured the river lizard preproduction drawing
But, hey, I’m not here to quibble. I appreciate what everyone (including those who contributed to earlier iterations of the project) did to help get this David Allen love letter to fantasy-pulp-adventure yarns onto the screen.
One of the protagonists, Matt Connor (played by Richard Joseph Paul), is held prisoner by the alien reptile folk
The main selling point of THE PRIMEVALS is obviously the effects: the stop-motion animation, plus the miniatures, the optical effects, the props, the makeup effects, the hominid body suits and the matte paintings. They all help make this such an entertaining film. The creative people (who toiled on the final revival production and others who were part of the 1978 crew) include David Allen (of course), Chris Endicott, Kent Burton, Kim Blanchette, Mark Sullivan, Trey Thomas, Wes Caefer, Ken Ralston, Paul Mandell, Dave Carson, Jena Holman, Brett White, Dennis Gordon, Phil Tippett, Randy Cook, Jim Danforth (who was a VFX production consultant), Kevin O’Neill, Doug Beswick, Andrea Von Sholly, Peter Kermode, Steve Neill, Dave Matherly and many more talented folks. Thank you all!
An angry lizard alien
The stop-motion animation in THE PRIMEVALS is such a delight!
The long-armed lizard-men aliens are varied in their looks, wearing different bits of clothing, headgear and armour – and all of them have big-eyed, mean, scowling expressions. Their animation is wonderfully smooth, and the puppets are exquisitely detailed. They’re meant to be the cruel, savage descendants of the original reptile alien visitors, and the animators manage to convey the leering lizard-folks’ spiteful natures well.
The reptile-men always look a bit pissed off!
The yetis are simply awesome. I presume the same puppet was used for the different yetis, and it is a stunning model. The yetis in THE PRIMEVALS are so fine-looking and impressive they will definitely become top fan-favourites with many stop-motion animation aficionados.
I love the yetis!
The cast, including Juliet Mills, is good, though Richard Joseph Paul, playing Matt Connor (the student who predicted the existence of yetis), tends to have an open-mouthed expression that unfortunately makes him look a little vacant some of the time! Leon Russom, however, is great as the magnificently-named Rondo Montana, contributing an old school, manly presence to the movie.
Leon Russom plays Rondo Montana
But as I’ve said already, I’m not here to complain: if you want to watch a movie with they-don’t-make-them-like-that-anymore vibes, that boasts extremely professional stop-motion animation, apemen suits, skull-faced cave entrances, retro sci-fi tech, stone arenas and medieval weaponry… then this is definitely the film for you!
‘A civilization lost in time… invaded one million years ago.’
THE RIVER LIZARD
Ron Lizorty, Production Designer on THE PRIMEVALS, put lots of work into redesigning the original River Lizard, because David Allen had never cared for some of the anatomy choices on the earlier, original version of the reptile (made for RAIDERS OF THE STONE RING). Lizorty co-designed the armature with Allen, did most of the armature tooling, then did the build-up of the beast with a detailed skin he sculpted and stretched over the muscles, using a puppet-building approach similar to the techniques sculptor and model-maker Marcel (KING KONG) Delgado utilised on his films. Lizorty’s model was truly magnificent-looking, and it would’ve been an astounding stop-motion addition to the movie, that is for sure.
The wonderful River Lizard stop-motion puppet!
Chris Endicott confirmed that this horned lizard was definitely intended to be in David’s finished film, but, for various reasons (the original camera negative for most of that sequence was lost by Full Moon, and Full Moon was never prepared to allocate the money nor the time to complete the film entirely, and so compromises had to be made), the reptile wasn’t included in the released movie. However, because Full Moon had created all the promotional artwork for THE PRIMEVALS long before the film was released, the River Lizard does feature in much of the promo art…
Details from two promo illustrations, showing the horned River Lizard, even though the beautiful brute never made it into the film. Shame!
…including a scene where an evil spell-caster scoops a bowlful of blood from an urn that’s full of dead babies, viscera, and fluids!
Starring Ai Fei, Huang Chin-Shen, Lily Chan Lee-Lee, Fanny, and Hussein Hassan. Written by Sze-To On. Directed by Kuei Chih-Hung. Produced by Mona Fong. A Shaw Brothers production.
Cool poster!
A possessed nurse!
Stephen Lam (Fei) is arrested for the murder of his daughter, admits to driving a nine-inch nail through her head, is found guilty, and afterwards asks Bobby (Chin-Shen), the policeman overseeing the case, to listen to his story, swearing that it was Thai witchcraft that compelled him to do what he did. Intrigued, Bobby looks into these claims and is soon the target of black magic rituals himself.
Above: five shots from the film
An extended flashback reveals how Stephen went on holiday to Thailand, had relations with a local woman called Bon Brown (Lee-Lee), returned to Hong Kong and promptly disregarded his promise to return to her, prompting the woman to seek supernatural revenge via Magusu, an evil spell-caster (Hassan).
At one point green fluid spurts from evil Magusu’s face
We’re soon witnessing various rituals, including a ceremony invoking a Vegetable Basket Spirit, which is enacted in silence and stillness, helping the scene to stand out when compared to the usual hectic, noisy rituals seen in most Hong Kong horror films. There’s also a grisly sequence in a temple mortuary, where the chanting Magusu sticks a spike into the foot of a dead pregnant woman to make her sit up, then uses a candle to make oil drip from the fake-but-grotesque corpse’s nostrils. Yet another novel instance of weird witchcraft involves the dark sorcerer burying a needle-transfixed lemon under the tarmac of a street: every time a pedestrian steps on the buried object it triggers stabbing pains in Bobby’s chest!
Magusu burns the face of a dead pregnant corpse so that dark oil will drip from the corpse’s nostrils
The standout supernatural sequence, however, is the remotely-fought confrontation between Magusu and a Buddhist monk. Director Chi-Hung nicely contrasts the bright, clean, expansive look of the monk’s Thai temple with the sorcerer’s dimly-lit, shuttered shrine room, as the two men utilise different arcane methods to counteract each other’s mystical might. With Magusu’s veins filling with green gunk, the black magician prays to a bat effigy on the wall, which becomes a ‘real’ bat creature that flies off and kamikazes into the monk’s ceremonial fan to wreck his ritual! This whole duel of mystic men is really well-handled.
The moving bat sculpture, before it becomes a ‘real’ bat!
A close-up of the glowing-eyed bat ornament that somehow comes alive
When the film’s finale comes, it is reliant on the sudden, handy intervention of the monk at an airport. The monk causes Magusu to become all slimy and develop blisters, which inflate like balloons and pop…
Above: three shots of Magusu falling victim to a monk, who makes the evil magician’s skin blister and melt!
…and then, somehow, the monk makes Magusu transform into an old woman…
Magusu, for some reason, turns into an old hag!
…and then… a bat-creature puppet crawls from the old crone’s mouth!
The bat-thing pushes itself out of the hag’s mouth!
The monk proceeds to pick up the (rather sweet-looking) bat and slip the lil’ critter into his pocket. End of story! This is a brilliantly bizarre finish to the film, utilising garishly fun, lo-fi effects, that drives home the fact that BEWITCHED is a continually diverting, enjoyable, and colourful Shaw Brothers horror yarn.
Starring Gayathri Shanker, Bala Saravanan, Dev Ramnath and Preethi Nedumaran. Written and directed by B. Ramachandran. Produced by Gokul Benoy and Shaik Mujeeb. Verus Productions & Veyilon Entertainment.
Run away!
A guide (Bala Saravanan) warns a group of trekkers not to venture into an area of the Kolli Hills forest that is shunned by the local villagers because it is associated with the spirit of a witch called Pechi, but the tourists ignore his advice…
The trekkers really shouldn’t go past this gate…
This Indian film boasts attractively-shot footage of various forest landscapes, and it features such folk horror trappings as hanging effigies, a straw voodoo doll, and arcane symbols that fill a derelict woodland building.
Folk horror decorations
Pechi herself is a short, wizened, wild-haired witch-hag who lurks about amongst the trees, gripping a club-like wooden staff, regularly turning herself into doppelgängers of the various characters stupid enough to trespass into her domain.
Pechi the undead witch!
Above: two shots of Pechi as seen in an extended flashback
This production is a lightweight, rather gore-free Tamil-language film that remains watchable throughout, despite the fact it includes rather too many scenes of characters wandering off into the forest alone.
There are lots of shots of people peering around tree trunks
The movie has a fairly elaborate backstory for the witch (who is taking the lives of her victims to extend her own lifespan), ends with a final revelation that is a bit rushed and not particularly convincing, and features a weird, bandaged-up, black-haired, fanged wooden doll in several scenes. Actually, this doll is a memorable prop that I think should’ve been used more in the film.
Above: two shots of the weird wooden doll (that was used as the receptacle to house the spirit of Pechi)
Okay, let’s have one final look at Pechi the undead witch hag…
A character thinks he has his arm around an injured friend… but it’s actually Pechi!
Starring Basima Hajjar, Ashraf Barhoum, Fatima Al Taei, Yagoub Alfarhan and Haifa Al-Agha. Written and directed by Shahad Ameen. Produced by R. Paul Miller, Stephen Strachan and Rula Nasser.
Basima Hajjar plays Hayat
The people of a small coastal settlement sacrifice some of their daughters to unseen sea creatures (we only get a brief glimpse of a clawed, webbed, gill-man-style hand) and, in return, the village’s fisherman are able to hunt for Sea Maidens, which are the main food source for the population.
A Sea Maiden that Hayat has dragged to the village
One of the hunters dies from a wound suffered during a fishing trip: it can be dangerous capturing Sea Maidens
Plot-wise, we never discover how the life cycle of the mermaids & mer-creatures actually works. The teenage girls given to the sea in the nighttime ceremonies somehow become the fish-tailed Sea Maidens that are hunted, but just how the female humans mutate into mermaids isn’t explained. Just what is it that the gill-men want: does the transformation of the girls form part of the clawed gill-men creatures’ elaborate reproductive process, perhaps?
A Sea Maiden is caught and dragged onto a fishing boat, where she starts to crawl along the deck…
A close-up shot of the sand-speckled face of the captured Sea Maiden
The main character, an outsider girl called Hayat (Hajjar), has fish scales growing on her left foot – and, when it is her time to be sacrificed to the sea-gods – she survives the ordeal and returns to the village the following morning, dragging a dead Sea Maiden with her. Had Hayat maybe come into contact with a gill-man at a young age, and she’d somehow been turned into a human with slight Sea Maiden qualities? Who knows? The details surrounding the whole ecology of these strange sea beings isn’t gone into by writer-director Shahad Ameen, as already stated, because, for Ameen, this isn’t her main concern. Instead, this wonderful-looking b&w film (a Saudi Arabian/UAE/Jordanian/Iraqi production), filmed around Musandam in Oman, plays out more like an allegory or fable, focusing on how Hayat is instrumental in changing a society’s dark, age-old traditions and practices. The film can definitely be seen as a look at how a determined female character navigates her way through a patriarchal social structure.
Hayat’s left foot has fish scales growing on it
Poster
Of the actors, Ashraf Barhoum stands out the most, playing lead fisherman Amer, who starts to see something special in Hayat. Along with lovely landscape photography, the film boasts several memorable moments, including the scene in which the tide withdraws completely, leaving nothing but the dry, cracked seabed.
Ashraf Barhoum, as Amer, imbues his character with thoughtfulness and toughness
A dead mermaid is found on the dry, cracked seabed
The stranded Sea Maiden corpse is buried by Hayat and her father Muthana (played by Yagoub Alfarhan)
(Shahad Ameen also made the 2013 short film EYE & MERMAID, another production that tells a mermaid-focused tale)
Starring Felicity Kyle Napuli, Angeli Bayani, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, James Mavie Estrella, Beauty Gonzalez and Shion Hayakawa. Written and directed by Kenneth Dagatan. Produced by Bianca Balbuena, Stefano Centini and Junxiang Huang Epicmedia.
Do not trust this ‘fairy’!
During the Second World War in the Japanese-occupied Philippines, a well-off merchant, who is accused of hiding a stash of gold, decides to seek help, leaving his wife, daughter and son to fend for themselves in their large, isolated home. The daughter, Tala (Felicity Kyle Napuli), encounters a ‘cicada fairy’ (Jasmine Curtis-Smith) dwelling in a derelict, chapel-like jungle shack. This fairy persuades Tala to allow a cicada to crawl into her ill mother’s mouth, which seems to heal her at first, but a large, fleshy cyst develops on the mother’s back… and soon she begins to lose her humanity, eats the pet dog, and pleads to be locked up so that she can’t harm her children. Tala realises that the seemingly friendly fairy can not be trusted, but when her brother, Bayani (James Mavie Estrella), then accidentally shoots himself in the stomach, she’s forced to return to the fairy’s hut-chapel to plead for help again…
A cyst develops on the mother’s back
The ‘fairy’ is rockin’ a pretty cool headdress!
IN MY MOTHER’S SKIN, a Philippines/Singapore/Taiwan production, has a persuasive aura of doom, which is accentuated by the movie’s score. Catholic imagery abounds, with the family home full of statues and other Christian iconography. The ‘fairy’ character, interestingly, resembles a fantastical parody of the Catholic concept of the Virgin Mary. Her striking, gilded costume has a headdress resembling a fan of sparkly insect wings, and she at first comes across as benign and helpful when Tala meets her in the wooden shack in the forest, which has stained glass windows featuring images of ‘angels’ with insect wings.
Tala bows before the ‘cicada fairy’ in her chapel-like shack in the jungle
The film is like a Filipino Guillermo del Toro production, mixing fantasy folktale elements with horror. The horrific aspects of the film include the mother becoming a veiny-faced cannibal with an extendable tongue. Tala uses her animalistic mother to deal with a violent would-be robber at one point, telling the man he can find the hidden, stolen gold in her mom’s bedroom. This crook, of course, gets killed and munched on by the mother. A fantastical component of the tale involves a golden, glowing fruit that the ‘friendly’ fairy instructs Tala to eat. Tala refuses to do this, and horror comes to the fore again as soon as Tala returns to her home, finding Bayani’s severed head lying on the floor and her long-tongued mother waiting to attack her.
Poster
Memorable moments include the fairy biting off the head of a bird, and glimpses of the youthful-looking fairy’s true, wizened visage.
Tala’s mother becomes a long-tongued killer
It all ends depressingly, with the newly returned father hugging his son’s severed head and crying, as the movie strives to appear deeper and more meaningful that it actually is, though IN MY MOTHER’S SKIN definitely possesses some rather striking imagery, with the ‘fairy’ character proving to be, without a doubt, the film’s most interesting element.
Starring Cui Erkang, Zhang Ruiyao, Su Suxia, Cheng Qi, Zhang Ying and Yin Shaosheng. Written by Liu Jiahong and Wang Runz. Directed by Ji Zhizhong and Tony Wei. Tencent Penguin Pictures
One of the hydra-creature’s toothy heads
A dying general transfers the power of the Cyan Dragon into the body of Xiang, a lowly footsoldier, who must learn to harness the energy to defeat an enemy nation led by a villain capable of beckoning a massive, multi-headed monster. The general’s sister, Ling, tutors Xiang on how to use his powers while they head for the frontline of the war, but Xiang must contend with his instincts to avoid the oncoming danger… and he also starts to fall in love with Ling.
Xiang and Ling
THE CYAN DRAGON is a Chinese-made flick that starts with acrobatic 300-style war scenes, set within green screen-type virtual vistas, that are very cool and exciting to watch, with lots of wirework and characters utilising different powers.
Soldiers are routed by the villain’s multi-headed serpent beast!
This is where we’re first introduced to a group of masked bad guys who look great on-screen. They each have their own supernatural skills: one killer leaves a smoke-like black trail as he swiftly moves about, another has a hand that transforms into a swollen lava-fist, and the chief villain is able to summon a hydra-creature from beneath the earth.
This dude can turn his hand into a big lava-fist!The masked bad dudes and their hydra-monster!
During this opening skirmish we also get to see how the power of the Cyan Dragon can be used, as the doomed heroic general restructures the material of his sword, causing it to become super-extended, so that he can skewer many adversaries onto his blade at the same time. This battle set piece is great fun and thrilling to watch, so it’s a pity that it is the only such large scale fight featured in the movie.
The lead villains all wear masks
With Xiang becoming the host to the Cyan Dragon energy, the plot takes time to show us how the protagonist is initially rather unheroic, needing warrior woman Ling to keep him on track. Xiang, Ling and a couple of escorts set off on their mission, where they are stalked by the masked dudes, who use a kind of floating, brass spying drone-device to track them.
Ling is the stern, fighting-femme heroine
The ending sees Xiang and Ling fighting the remaining chief villain in a snowy landscape, trying to survive as the baddie briefly subdivides into three different warriors and then expands in size to become a giant fighter with a fiery halo.
The main antagonist becomes extra-evil!
When Ling is killed by the villain, Xiang screams in anger and sadness, zooms upwards through the clouds, out of Earth’s atmosphere, entering the void of space! Then he powers back down to Earth, now dressed as the fully-armoured fighter Cyan Dragon!
Our hero slams back down to Earth and says… “My name is Cyan Dragon!”
Cyan Dragon mauls the masked chief, but the villain has one ace left up his sleeve, as he summons the many-headed super-beast once again!
The return of the hydra-critter!For a while the villain becomes part of the gigantic monster itself, by melding with its throbbing innards
This finale, with the totally CGI Cyan Dragon warrior battling the CGI hydra monster in a CGI landscape, is little more than glorified computer game footage, but it’s fun to watch nonetheless.
When Xiang becomes encased in his armour he does look very CGI, there’s no doubt about that, but the action’s enjoyable to watch anyway
The movie is entertaining and thrilling in places, with lots of wirework and too-cool-for-school villains. It’s a shame, then, that the film is so short. It would’ve been more satisfying to see Xiang spend time to fully explore the growth of his powers, and the notion that his energy can be personified and interacted with (it leaves his body a couple of times and takes on the form of a small dragon-creature) should really have been dwelt on longer.
Above: three shots from a scene where Xiang chats with a tiny dragon, which is the embodiment of the energy now inside him
The movie is also known by the title BLUE DRAGON OF ALIEN BATTLEGEAR.
The armoured Cyan Dragon warrior versus the huge hydra-monster!
Starring Forrest Tucker, Gaby André, Martin Benson, Alec Mango, Wyndham Goldie, Dandy Nichols and Richard Warner. Screenplay by Paul Ryder, based on the book by Rene Ray (which was a novelisation of the 6-part television series also written by Rene Ray). Directed by Gilbert Gunn and produced by George Maynard.
‘Every second your pulse pounds they grow foot by incredible foot!’
Also known as COSMIC MONSTERS and THE STRANGE WORLD, this b&w British science fiction horror movie tells the story of experiments with magnetism that unleash cosmic rays that turn a hobo into a burnt-faced strangler and enlarges all the local bugs.
Attack of the giant cockroach!
This modest production meanders at an unhurried pace to start with, though it’s interesting to check out the mixed acting styles on show here, with Forrest Tucker, as scientist hero Gil Graham, delivering a dependable performance, whilst most of the Brit actors surrounding him come across as really quite stilted. French actress Gaby André, playing fellow scientist Michele Dupont, injects a little Gallic exoticness to the mix, and Martin Benson adds a smidgen of mystery to proceedings as the visitor ‘Smith’, who turns out to be a Klaatu-like alien on a mission to warn Graham and the others that their meddling with Earth’s magnetic field will have deadly consequences.
Michele Dupont (André) and Gil Graham (Tucker) are work colleagues who become fond of each other
After rather too many scenes set in the local pub, the plot thankfully kicks into gear, once all the cosmic ray-affected insects, grubs, millipedes, spiders and even a newt become monster-sized and do battle with soldiers in the woods next to the lab. Woot!
There are several pub scenes in this movie
Huge insect alert!
Michele realises that this is a giant insect egg!
The filmmakers certainly include a diverse bunch of critters in this flick, that’s for sure, including a larval dragonfly and cockroaches. Les Bowie, who supplied the special effects (lots of magnified close-ups of creepy crawlies, etc), does a quite decent job, especially if you consider what little time or money he must have had to bring his low budget wonders to the screen.
Watch out! It’s a big larval dragonfly!
The best moment comes when a huge spider fights with a giant cockroach, as the heroine, trapped in the spider’s web, looks on in fear. This sequence is achieved using rear projection, and it looks pretty cool, with tree branches and white strands of prop spider web strung over the rear projection screen, adding a sense of depth and dimension to the visuals. But, when Gil runs up to save Michele, the rear projection image (of the spider) is turned off for some reason, so that the blank rear projection screen can be clearly seen beneath the prop webbing. But, hey, it’s a memorable creature-tastic sequence all the same!
Michele, stuck in the web, watches as the enlarged spider attacks the giant cockroach
Publicity still
THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X is definitely a cheap and threadbare production, but Tucker brings some much-needed verve to his role, thus preventing the film from becoming too stilted as we wait for the monsters to show up. Along with this production, Tucker also added his gruff, American vigour to the UK-made sci-fi-horror films THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (1957) and THE TROLLENBERG TERROR (1958). The fact that he was in these three flicks means that I can’t help but rate Tucker highly! What a dude!
Tucker as scientist Gil Graham in THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X
Ultimately, this movie is worth a watch, as it also features a wobbly flying saucer saving the day by blasting the (model) science lab to bits, and the film includes a brief, surprising moment of gore too, as we see a soldier getting his face eaten by a killer bug!
UFO!
A bug eats a soldier’s face!
Here are some lobby cards…
Above: three lovely lobby cards!
Here’s a US poster for the flick…
The poster claims ‘this ravaging death overruns the earth…’ but the whole story is actually set in a small UK village!
Finally, this is a COSMIC MONSTERS promotional sheet that used to form part of a Seven Arts Associated binder. Seven Arts Associated was a television syndication distributor and they published a yearly binder in the 1960s, which showed the films that would be available for television airing/syndication. These binders were sent to the television stations. Anyway, I like the COSMIC MONSTERS artwork used for this promo sheet…
Starring Ian (ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST) McCulloch, Louise (BLACK MIRROR) Marleau, Siegfried (THE URANIUM CONSPIRACY) Rauch, Marino (TENEBRAE) Masé, Gisela (DEVIL HUNTER) Hahn and Carlo (THE SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS) Monni. Written by Luigi (STARCRASH) Cozzi and Erich (BLOODY MOON) Tomek, directed by Luigi (THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULES) Cozzi, produced by Claudio (THE WITCHES’ SABBATH) Mancini. Special effects by Giovanni (ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS) Corridori.
Ian McCulloch as the alcoholic ex-astronaut HubbardGreen slime and red blood!
Large, green, alien eggs are discovered in a cargo ship and their presence on Earth is linked to a recent space expedition to Mars. One of the astronauts from this martian mission, Commander Hubbard (McCulloch), teams-up with Colonel Stella Holmes (Marleau) to investigate the appearance of these deadly eggs, which burst open when they are disturbed, spraying a sticky fluid that causes victims to explode if it lands on their bodies!
Torso eruptions! There are lots of these gut-plosions!
Hubbard, Holmes and New York police detective Tony Aris (Masé) eventually find themselves in a South American plantation, where a big, cyclopean alien (which had been brought to Earth from Mars as a seed) is using mind control powers to oversee a plan to stockpile vast quantities of the killer green eggs!
The yellow-eyed cyclops alien!Martian tunnel seen in a flashback
Also known as ALIEN CONTAMINATION and TOXIC SPAWN, this Italian-German schlocker is a mishmash of sci-fi, splatter and spy story, with a very nifty music score by the group Goblin that really enhances the viewing pleasure of this fun flick.
Above: two shots of the green, slimy alien eggs
Somehow CONTAMINATION, which is too cheesy and absurd to be taken seriously, found itself on the United Kingdom’s infamous DPP list of ‘video nasties’ in 1984, no doubt because it featured all those shots of people bloodily exploding their intestines and innards everywhere after getting splashed by the goo from the green eggs. These erupting body scenes, obviously inspired by the chestburster incident in ALIEN (1979), are the standout moments in the film, along with the finale, where we’re introduced to the (rather immobile) one-eyed alien. This critter is a pretty cool creation: it has a single, luminous eye, a face that narrows in the middle, and it has several mouths, one of which is on the end of a slimy appendage. The manner in which the alien gobbles up its victims is simultaneously comical and rather revolting. The extraterrestrial beast is well-lit in all its scenes and it makes up for its lack of movement by possessing the psychic ability to FORCE its victims to willingly walk up to it and wait to be eaten!
The appendage-mouth gets ready to start munching a victim!
Nom, nom, nom…
The silly, ridiculous plot exists purely to give the filmmakers an excuse to include the scenes of bodies detonating in slow motion (plus the lingering shots of the aftermath of these body-eruptions), the shootouts that boast multiple bloody gunshot squibs, the cyclops-alien climax, and the various shots of noisy, glowing eggs.
Above: some of the many splattery moments from the movie
There’s one scene with Stella trapped in a bathroom with an about-to-explode glowing & moaning egg that seems to go on forever: it’s an awesome sequence!
The egg in the bathroom!
Is this movie (directed by Luigi Cozzi going by the Anglicised name Lewis Coates) a sci-fi-horror classic? Well, it obviously isn’t, but the film IS a slimy, gloopy, gory, gonzo B-movie that is a joy to the eyes and ears, especially if you’re a fan of 80s-era Italian exploitation cinema. Oh, and there’s an exploding rat to look out for too!
Starring Jeffrey Combs, Tony Azito, Juan Fernández, Brian Yuzna, Bruce Payne, Belinda Bauer, David Warner, Bess Meyer, Signy Coleman, Obba Babatundé and Richard Lynch. Written by Brent V. Friedman, Christophe Gans, Kazunori Itô and Brian Yuzna. Directed by Christophe (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) Gans, Shûsuke (GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE) Kaneko and Brian (SOCIETY) Yuzna.
Poster
This Lovecraftian horror anthology movie features three segments (‘The Drowned’, ‘The Cold’ and ‘Whispers’) and a wraparound tale (‘The Library’) that has Jeffrey Combs playing H. P. Lovecraft himself, hunting down the Necronomicon in a library.
Ouch!
Of the stories, ‘The Drowned’ and ‘Whispers’ are the best of the bunch. ‘The Drowned’, for instance, boasts a fair amount of tentacles, including a massive, cyclopean tentacle-critter, which, of course, is something you definitely want to see in a Lovecraft movie!
A huge, one-eyed tentacle-monster rises!
But it’s the 3rd story, ‘Whispers’, that is the standout tale for me. This segment just gradually gets more and more gory, outlandish and batshit crazy as it progresses.
Signy Coleman plays a cop who finds herself in a cavern of horrors
‘Whispers’ features a cavern inhabited by otherworldly winged creatures that need human victims to enable them to reproduce, so be prepared for gonzo prosthetics, body parts, blood and bat-critters that have their mouths in their bellies!
Lots of human body parts!A bat-thing in the cavern
NECRONOMICON: BOOK OF THE DEAD isn’t big budget, the acting is variable, and I think the production would’ve been better if Brian Yuzna had directed all the segments – but the film certainly pulls out all the stops to offer us loads of old-school practical FX, gore, slime & blood, courtesy of a bunch of special makeup and animatronic effects artists that includes the talented likes of John Carl Buechler, Screaming Mad George, Steve Johnson, Todd Masters and Tom Savini.
Above: various shots from the movie
Finally, let’s take another look at the gill-man critter that features in ‘The Drowned’ story…
Yikes!
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 