Frightday Night Film Recommendations: Under The Radar Monster Movies…WTF Was That? Edition.

It’s Friday…

Ahem…I mean Frightday…

And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…

Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…

Under The Radar Monster Movies…WTF Was That? Edition.

 

The year was 1976…

Dan O’Bannon had just visited the Paris set of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune…

He was inspired by the beautifully disturbing work of artist, H. R. Giger…

So he sat down and wrote a script about what he referred to as…”A Giger Monster”…

 

Less than three years later…

 

He and director Ridley Scott walked through the metallic maze of corroded corridors and plunged head first into the swirling, black abyss of Giger’s mind…

They gave Giger the artistic freedom to create every aspect of my first experience with a movie monster that made me say…

 

WTF was that?

 

Whether it’s a Giger Monster as O’Bannon called it…

 

Or a Xenomorph as Lieutenant Gorman dubbed the monster in the 1986 film, Aliens…

 

Either way…

 

This Frightday…

I present to you a list of film recommendations…

That will hopefully inspire you to say…

 

WTF was that?

 

 

So, let’s take a chronological look at the strangest, freakiest, and possibly even unknown to you, WTF Was That? – Under The Radar Monster Movies…In the years following Alien. 

 

Humanoids From The Deep (1980) – When I was a kid…I snuck into the White River Drive-In to watch a double feature…Once there, I discovered a pair of gruesome, sexually charged exploitation horror films…The first film they played was Galaxy of Terror…And the second was this one…A crazy-as-hell movie about an attack on the fishing village of Noyo, California…Both films were executive produced by Roger Corman…And both films are smothered and covered in his signature cult-classic schlock…This one has some surprisingly good performances…Especially from Doug McClure and Vic Morrow…It’s kind of the signature Corman move…You take a cheesy B-movie concept…Create from that concept, a decent script…Score a handful of talented and believable actors…Throw in some kick-ass monster effects…And…Blammo! You got yourself a cult-classic!  I have always, and will always love both of these films because of the visceral memory that was burned into my synapses…On that fateful night in White River Junction, Vermont.

 

Basket Case (1982) – Before bringing us the wonderfully twisted film Brain Damage, in 1988…Director Frank Henenlotter hatched a feature film debut like none other…It’s a murky, murderous low-budget horror movie…And tells the tale of two brothers…Duane Bradley…A seemingly normal young man who moves to New York City with a locked basket under his arm…And his brother Belial…A separated siamese twin who resides in the aforementioned basket…This film delights in its shlocky sleaziness…And you know what? I delight in it too! Upon first viewing I remember saying to my friend Dave…”I have never seen anything like this.” Looking back…Anytime that I have uttered that phrase…The film becomes an instant classic that will forever remain on both the shelves of my video library and the dusty, cobweb covered shelves that exist in my mind.

 

Pumpkinhead (1986) – Special effects uber-guru, Stan Winston made his directorial debut with this creepy as hell tale of redneck lore…Loss…Revenge…And ultimately…Regret…Lance Henriksen stars as Ed Harley…A simple country store owner, and single father…One day while delivering an order to a customer…A group of teens led by a righteous dickhead named Joel are involved in a tragic accident…An accident that sends Ed into a downward spiral of Podunk vengeance and good old-fashioned witchcraft…The results of his sadistic sojourn is a creature, with an origin, and appearance unlike anything that I’ve ever seen before…The effects in this film are incredible…No surprise there, with Stan at the helm…And, Henriksen is amazing as a grief-stricken man who has become punch-drunk with anger…All in all…And I’m surprised to say this, after thirty years…But this one actually stands the test of time.

 

Feast (2005) – Here’s a Project Greenlight film directed by first time director, John Gulager…And the devilishly fun, wild ride of a script is from the twisted minds of Marcus Dunstan, and Patrick Melton…They are the two cats responsible for The Collector and The Collection…The story they created in this one is a combination of dark comedy, and a greasy, gooey, gore-splattered monster movie…As the aptly named characters are revealed, they receive show-stopping individual title sequences, taking momentary pauses in a movie that flies along at a breakneck pace…When we meet Hero played by Eric Dane (The Last Ship), he enters the dingy roadside bar where the film takes place, and informs the patrons within of the carnage-laden shit-show that is rapidly approaching…Within a few minutes of his arrival, we the audience realize that we have just been buckled in, and are apparently about to take a ride on the world’s funniest and bloodiest amusement park rides.

 

Reeker (2005) – Now here’s a film that, pardon the pun, reeks with self-awareness…It knows that it is 100% straight-up slasher style B-movie cheese…It knows that the cornball antics of drug-fueled, sex-crazed kids is a necessary element…It knows that the kills must be gory, original, and if at all possible, be created by using practical effects…But they also knew that in order to stand out…To really be different…Their slasher would need to be completely unique…And let me tell ya…It sure the hell is…There’s no way I’m going to spoil even one second of what goes down…Because this film lures you into comfortable territory with its B-movie tropes…But once you begin following…The events take a serious left turn and leave you in a place that you never planned on finding.

 

Mulberry Street (2006) – I adored this rarely seen, barely talked about film…A film, that had I not been a fan of Nick Damici, and Jim Mickle…I may not have even known existed…Those two men are behind two of my favorite horror films of recent years, Stake Land, and We Are What We Are…They also brought to life two stories from Joe R. Lansdale, one of my favorite authors…The taut thriller, Cold In July…And the downright kick-ass television series, Hap and Leonard…This smart and fast-moving film feels like a straight-up zombie outbreak film…But this film separates itself from the rest of the pack, and becomes something different…Now, there definitely is an outbreak…And ground zero is Mulberry St. in downtown Manhattan…But those infected are neither the not-so-zombies seen in 28 Days Later, nor are they the croak and come back sort of zombies…They are…Um…Well, like the theme of today’s list says…I don’t know WTF they are…But I dug the story…I dug Damici as Clutch, the film’s resident bad-ass…I dug the original spin on some fairly well-trodden territory…Yep…I just plain dug it.

 

Splice (2009) – From the director of Cube, Vincenzo Natali…Comes a genuinely twisted tale of science gone horribly wrong…Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play genetic engineers who together create the first human-animal hybrid…Forbidden to do so by their employers, the two hide their experiment in a rural farmhouse, so they may secretly continue their research…As this specimen matures there are certain biological and physiological functions that begin to come into play…Some of them are totally natural…Like when a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis with newly formed colorful wings…Others are totally unnatural…Like when a farmer responds to an impulse to take a sheep’s temperature with his all-meat thermometer…The more this specimen, that these two incredibly intelligent idiots have created, evolves…The scarier and more disturbing this film becomes.

 

Super 8 (2011) – Okay…So technically this monster movie wasn’t all that “under the radar”…But, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this film upon my completion of the Netflix series, Stranger Things…Now as far as throwback stories about suburban youths riding around on bikes avoiding monsters and authority figures go…Nobody beats The Duffer Brothers and the enveloping world they created for that series…But you know who comes really close? J.J. Abrams…That’s who…In this one, it’s 1979 and a group of friends are helping their burgeoning filmmaker friend, Charles with his low-budget zombie movie…While at the train depot filming a scene…The friends witness, and capture on film, their biology teacher purposely ramming into an oncoming train, and causing a massive derailment…In the days following the crash…The arrival of a whole host of bizarre events lead these friends on not only the path towards understanding what is happening to their quiet suburb…But much like with Stranger Things…Leads them on the path towards understanding the importance of those unbreakable bonds that can exist between both friends and family alike.

 

Spring (2014) – When I saw the film, Resolution from the creative team of  Justin Benson, and Aaron Moorhead…I found their style to be unique…Refreshing…And totally compelling…In this their sophomore film the two apply their fresh perspective to an entirely new and less claustrophobic setting…In this one…A man named Evan, played by Lou Taylor Pucci (Carriers, Evil Dead)…In one fell swoop loses both his mother and his job…A friend, played by director Jeremy Gardner (The Battery), advises him to do a little travelling to help clear his mind…Evan reluctantly agrees…In Italy, he meets Louise, played by German actress, Nadia Hilker…He is instantly smitten with this flirtatious mystery woman…And the two embark on a very beautiful and believable love story…Evan slowly begins to unravel her mystery…Taking the audience on a pulse-pounding, mind-bending, and heart-warming journey towards the truth…This film artfully balances the horror and the romance…A tightrope walk very few filmmakers have ever dared to attempt.

 

The Hallow (2015) – In this combined British and Irish production…First time director, Corin Hardy (His next project is the reboot of The Crow) created this creepy flick that starts out as a family drama of sorts…But that changes rather quickly, as this idyllic little family is rocked by the constant nagging from the locals about staying out of the mysterious woods that surround this quaint Irish village…Adam, played by Joseph Mawle (AKA Benjen Stark) is a conservationist who not only insists upon travelling into this dark, dank, and dense forest that he was warned about…But he also does it with his teensy-weensy infant Finn, strapped to his back like a student’s knapsack…His wife isn’t a huge fan of this…Gee, can’t imagine why? She is played by Bojana Novakovic (Devil) and is forced to try and protect her baby from what she soon realizes is a very real danger…One that her single-minded skeptic of a husband…May not come to understand until it is too late…Guess he’s one of those guys who cannot see the forest for the trees…Sorry, folks…I really couldn’t help that one…I just had to do it.

 

Okay…

So, I get a lot of feedback about why certain films are left off the list…

 

Films are omitted for two reasons…

 

Either they are so popular, so well-known, that it almost seems pointless to recommend them…

 

Or it’s because I’ve already recommended them…

 

So to minimize the confusion…

Here are some films that fit this list…

But can be found on another…

 

The Stuff (1985)

Brain Damage (1988)

Tremors (1990)

Mimic (1997)

The Descent (2005)

The Host (2006)

Splinter (2008)

Monsters (2010)

The Babadook (2014)