Jarv’s Schlock Vault: DeepStar 6

Well, at least Snyder will get his name in the Guinness book of records. I mean, causing two nuclear explosions in one afternoon has to be some sort of record. 

I’m a big fan of monster films, and 1989 was a good year for them. With the advent of Cameron’s Aliens under the ocean fiesta The Abyss, two other studios rushed their films into production to try to latch on to the end  of all that lovely salty money. The first was Leviathan, which I reviewed here ages ago, and I still rate it as a cracking little film. The second, and the subject of today’s vault review is DeepStar 6. Both of these films have more in common with each other than they do with the Abyss, being as they are both about large and angry beasts eating stranded crew than the more benign and helpful underwater monsters in the Abyss. The threat in Cameron’s effort is very much from the humans on board, but here it’s all about the monsters picking off our hapless stereotypes one by one.

Angry sea monsters and spoilers lurk below the waterline

Down And Out In Beverly Hills (1986)

Director: Paul Mazursky

Starring: Nick Nolte, Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss

Release date: January 31 (US). This film replaced the unavailable Stammheim – which is on youtube but sadly without subtitles and I can’t speak German. Probably would’ve been easy found had it been French. May contain middle-class dysfunction and spoilers…

Phenomena (1985)

Director: Dario Argento

Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, Daria Nicolodi

Release date: January 31 (ITA). I’ve not watched an Italian horror show in years, quite pleased to see an Argento drop in. When I first saw this it was called Creepers and the garish poster art featured a screaming chimp wielding a sharp implement. That doesn’t even begin to tell thee what the craic is here. May contain extra-sensory perceptive insects and spoilers…

Jarv’s Birthday Series Redux: Post Grad (2009)

Due to a small balls up in Wikipedia, I had Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex marked in as my 2009 Birthday film. Unfortunately, I happened to see that in the UK in October of 2008, and the release that Wikipedia was referring to was a film festival in New York. This meant that my journey through the annals of film released on my Birthday is incomplete, and I have to pick another film released as near to 23rd August as possible in 2009. The Candidates were:

• Inglorious Basterds
• Post Grad
• Shorts
• World’s Greatest Dad

Now, none of these particularly filled me with joy. We’ve a long and documented hatred of Cokey McFrankensteinhead’s ode to self indulgence masquerading as a war film, and I’d rather not see it. Post Grad is, on paper, a hideous romantic comedy with one of the Gilmore Girls. World’s Greatest Dad stars walking bathroom rug Robin Williams, and is therefore to be avoided. Which left Shorts as last film standing, and I have never even heard of it. However, being me, I then completely forgot about redressing the balance. Until yesterday.

Sunday afternoons are made for mooching around and doing nothing in particular. I was sitting on the sofa flicking through channels when I blundered across Film4 advertising that the next film on was Post Grad. This rang a bell, and a cursory search of Imdb reminded me that this was one of the candidates. So, this seemed to me to be a god-given opportunity to clean up the list and put this notion to bed without putting in any effort at all.

This was a mistake.

Contains self-indulgence and Spoilers below.

Jarv’s Schlock Vault: 2019: After the Fall of New York

“Have them double the guard at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel and send six monk squads to comb the area between 34th and 48th street!”

The last time I wandered into the Vault it was to watch the flagrant 1970’s Italian rip off of Star Wars Starcrash. This time out, I’m watching the 1980’s flagrant Italian rip off of Escape From New York called 2019: After the Fall of New York. This, down to the brass tacks, is a cheeky, er, homage to Carpenter’s classic except far more twisted and far more insane. As such, it was almost guaranteed that I would want to watch this film. It is strange and surprising that Europe would look at a quintessentially American film such as Escape From New York and decide to copy it so blatantly, and even more surprising that they would intentionally set the Europeans as the main villains of the film. Still, Italians are crazy, so while I am surprised, I really shouldn’t be.

Contains massive amounts of cruelty to rats and Spoilers below.

Made in Britain: Severance (2006)

To take a small break from the relentless stream of low rent films that I’ve been sitting through, I’ve decided to review a British Horror film, of sorts, that came highly recommended by a variety of people. Unfortunately, I did bother doing a bit of research into it beforehand, although I really should not have done, because if I had not then I would not have noticed that Severance is directed by Christopher Smith, who made one of my most hated horror movies of the last decade in Creep, and that it stars Danny bloody Dyer again. Seriously, it feels like he’s in basically every single British movie of the last 5 years and I’m at a complete loss as to why.

Jarv’s Schlock Vault: Starcrash

Starcrash! YES! A 4th Dimensional attack!

This may possibly be the greatest film ever made. Seriously- Citizen Kane? Pah, boring nonsense about an old fart’s love for his sledge. Does Casablanca feature David Hasselhoff using a lightsaber to fight a sword-wielding stop motion robot? Well, you get the idea, because none of the alleged cinematic classics feature C3P0 with breasts! Honestly, your tiny little mind is not prepared for the sheer unmitigated awesomeness of Starcrash. The only question I have, is how had I never seen a film where a significant portion of it takes place on the planet of the space lesbians?

Just a warning, but I’ve gone completely picture happy in this review. Because I couldn’t work out which ones to discard, and they are all that funny.

Contains inexplicable Country and Western robots and spoilers below.

Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

Director: Woody Allen

Starring: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte

Release date: January 27 (US).1984, August. I went outside to watch the Perseid meteor shower; next day I had turned an odd shade of grey and couldn’t move. I was convinced it was an alien contagion; it was in fact ‘Indian’ flu. Took me out of circulation for a fortnight but at least my chest remained intact. Review may contain neuroses and spoilers…

The Cabin in the Woods (2012): A deconstruction of a deconstruction. SPOILER WARNING!!!

There has been much discussion and debate around the details of The Cabin in the Woods, and the film has been getting one of those distasteful tongue baths by thronging hoards of self-aggrandizing nerds everywhere. Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to talk about the film in any remotely interesting way without crossing the line into SPOILER territory. So, if you haven’t seen TCITW yet, and you care one jot about having the films secrets remain, well, secret, then I strongly advise you to stop reading here.

Just Pillow Talk v Marvel Comics 14: Howard the Duck

George Lucas, eh? Has one man sullied and defiled more childhood memories than Jabba the Neck himself? Remember that this is the genius that inserted the muppet band into Return of the Jedi, that produced Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, which took a massive dump on the characters from Raiders, and, worst of all, seems to be actively going out of his way to debase and demean his much beloved Star Wars characters? Darth Vader, one of the all-time great villains is now a mascara wearing goth douchebag, the Jedi themselves are clammy handed sexless cretins, Obi-Wan is a manipulative git, and Luke Skywalker has feelings in his naughty place for his own sister. Still, there’s one project out there that Lucas has had his claws into that still has a cult following- that film? Howard the Duck. Now, I remember this fondly, but I’m assured by everyone that it is actually a load of old cock, even if that isn’t worse than any other Marvel film out there. So let’s see what Just Pillow Talk thought of it…