Director: John Carl Buechler
Year: 1988
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Arriving at an isolated writers’ house, a woman looking to relaunch a famous comic book at the place meets the other cadre of artists there who all warn her away from the basement, but after going there realize that her drawings of a ravenous creature are coming to life and try to stop it.
Review:
This one here does have some good parts to it. Among the better features here is the fact that the film contains a rather unique and creative storyline taking the literal word of the comic books and turning them into actual scenes. The backstory here, involving the creation of the original comic that spawned the creature to life and the effects of it coming back to life, is quite nice making this one feel really clever and creative using a rather complicated but still understandable backstory goes a long way towards making this one fun. This is all enhanced by the idea of the creature getting reborn and recreated through her work renovating the basement and its cursed history involving how it gets brought back to life and the different rules surrounding how to fight it making for an overall fun time here.
The film also has a nice amount of cheese, which is really helpful and makes the film feel really good. The creature attacks in here aren’t that bad with the action also seen through the eyes of the comic scene that it’s emulating and they do result in some nice gore scenes as well. The opening attack that sets everything up has a lot to like taking place without much context but providing much of it for the rest of the film going forward, and the other attacks on snooping victims results in several deaths that are gory enough to satisfy. The last big plus is the monster in here which is a fantastically-designed creature, making it an imposing threat while also using its werewolf-ish look to be both unique and quite threatening. Combined, these here are the film’s good points.
This one does have a few flaws to it that are pretty hard to overcome. The main issue is that for as impressive as it looks the main creature itself also has a few flaws associated with it. The fact that it’s never explained how it manages to get around to delivering its kills when it's drawing powers from the animation, yet it does so by animating itself going after them instead with supernatural powers, is wholly confusing and doesn't make the least bit of sense especially since it does them even after it’s secret has been revealed. Then a later scene has it completely harmless when it lets a victim come back to rejoice with the heroine, then is talked down to and manages to let them celebrate, despite the evidence drawn in front of them which points elsewhere to other matters.
This is also part of the other issue here as there’s an unmistakable scent of the 80s, which gives it a cheap feeling and that enhances the cheese levels to a much greater emphasis. From the ability to find faults in the monster costume to the comic book-like scenes that play out in the middle in substitute for the actual action and some of the special effects here, it contains enough sequences in this style to make it apparent, and that can be something that few could avoid if not really interested in this sort of film. The short running time could also be seen as a weak flaw, barely getting over an hour, but compared to the one before it, it pales in comparison but still manages to knock it down a little.
Overview: ***.5/5
A remarkably fun creature feature, featuring enough cheese to make it fun while also having a couple of flaws that are pretty detrimental. Give it a shot if you're into this sort of film or have an urge to satisfy a harmless curiosity, while those that can't handle these would be advised to take caution.
Comments
Post a Comment