89) Creature (1985) - A Nostalgic Horror Rental

"Whatever's in here, it's liable to be very pissed and hungry."

Director

William Malone

Cast

Stan Ivar - Capt. Mike Davison

Wendy Schaal - Beth Sladen

Lyman Ward - David Perkins

Diane Salinger - Melanie Bryce

Annette McCarthy - Dr. Wendy Oliver

Marie Laurin - Susan Delambre

Klaus Kinski - Hans Hofner

Also known as The Titan Find, the1985 science fiction horror movie Creature is a movie I've stumbled upon so many times since my days of perusing VHS covers during at the movie rental store back in the 1990s.

While some movies, perhaps too many of them, have stupid endings, Creature has a stupid beginning.

It begins with two dopey (unintentionally dopey of course, but when is dopiness intentional?) geological researchers, working for the American Multinational Corp., also know as NTI, are sniffing around an ancient alien laboratory somewhere on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

While meandering around and looking like they're actually doing something important, they find a pod with an alien egg inside. And inside the egg, much to their surprise, is an alien. 

While sticking their helmeted faces right up to the pod window, one of these researchers sees the creature move.  

Though it naturally freaks him out, the other researcher blows off any potential threat so he can get a picture of this pod with the other researcher in the shot for the sake of size ratio. 

After the researcher notices a small crack in the egg, the other guy asks him to sit on top of the pod because...just for fun, I guess.

He's even more hesitant to do something that stupid and completely predictable for the audience. Regardless, he sits on the egg pod. 

What happens next shouldn't surprise anyone, nor even be called a "spoiler." The alien breaks out of the shell and  kills them both. The Marx brothers could have pulled off a better and more realistic opening scene. 

By the way, there's a sex scene in less than 15 minutes from the start. It's random, so I'll mention it just as randomly as it appears. 

After several months pass from the death of those two researchers, NTI sends out another ship over to Titan called the Shenandoah. The crew consists of a captain who's played by the guy who played John Carter on Little House on the Prairie (Stan Ivar), Simone from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (Diane Salinger), Ferris Bueller's dad from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Lyman Ward), this one lady who appeared on Night Court once (no, not Markie Post. I'm talking about Annette McCarthy), and Marie Laurin who previously played "Denise" on the Three's Company episode "Upstairs, Downstairs, Upstairs." It's a stellar cast! 

Actually, it was pretty cool to see Diane Salinger in something other than Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. 

Flying out in space, they all realize that it's much more than a hunch that this group must somehow form a family... LOL. No, seriously, while orbiting, they pick up a distress signal from the moon. 

They determine it's coming from a West German multinational corporation called Richter Dynamics. 

So, they land on an unstable area. The ground underneath caves in and the ship and crew fall into a cavern underground. 

This team of TV and movie has-beens attempts to contact anyone for help but find their radio doesn't work.

The next step is to send out a search party for these Germans and their ship which they eventually find. On board, the rescue party finds the bodies of the German crew. 

Suddenly, the alien creature kills one of the rescuers - Susan Delambre (Marie Laurin) - as she failed to catch up with the others who ran back to their ship.

When they get back to the Shenandoah, shocked and not sure what to do next, they find one of the Germans, Hans Hofner (Klaus Kinski) has snuck aboard.

Hofner explains how his crew was killed by these aliens, which he says were buried along with other life-forms from around space as part of some weird intergalactic exhibition. 

Since no one else is sure about what to do, Hofner says there's explosives back on his ship. He suggests they go back and attempt to retrieve them. But no one else is up to it. 

Soon, the bodies of the alien's victims start returning under the control of parasites.

One of the crew members, Jon Fennel (Robert Jaffe) sees Delambre alive outside the ship.

When he rushes out to retrieve her, she takes all of her clothes off and stands there naked in front of him.

She then removes his helmet which kills him. After that, she puts an alien parasite on his head. 

As the crew heads over to the Richter, they find Fennel onboard bandaged up and alive. Capt. Davison (Stan Ivar) is insistent Fennel be taken to see Dr. Oliver (Annette McCarthy) for a medical examination.

Fennel goes, only to accompany Dr. Oliver to the engineering part of the ship to feed her to the creature.

Davison and Perkins, for some reason, go check on Fennel. The scene they find is horrific. Sadly, it's too late to save Dr. Oliver, but Perkin's shoots Fennel and blows his head off. 

Basically, everyone runs around trying not to be the next meal for the alien, which we barely get to see, while wondering who is or isn't under its parasitic control. 

Creature is an Alien knock-off that meets John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing. This movie feels long, drawn out, and pretentious. 

Ferris Bueller's dad becomes the creature's meal in Creature.

The alien remains illusive from the audience. We barely get to see it. It's either too quick, obscured by shadow and darkness, or just hidden out of sight. I don't mind a little build up to bolster and audience's apprehension and fear. But it can be overdone, as it is in Creature. Just show us the alien!

Before I got to the end of the movie, I was certain that Salinger's character would reveal herself as a robot just as Ian Holm's character, Ash, did in Alien. Her performance is nothing short of robotic. 

I found out after watching this movie, that the film's writer, Neil Gaiman told "Imagine Magazine" (July, 1985-issue #28) that Creature is a rip-off of Alien. Despite this admission, (spoiler) she's not a robot.

Even before I found this out, it was completely obvious Creature pulls so much influence from Alien.

Director William Malone has made some horror movies that are mediocre at best such as Scared to Death, the Tales from the Crypt episode "Only Skin Deep," FeardotCom (that movie is less than mediocre),  and the 1999 remake House on Haunted Hill - a movie that makes up for its lack of scares with unsettling and gross images. Creature definitely falls to the bottom of his list of already average titles. Unlike House on Haunted Hill, the gore and attempt at inciting fear don't help his movie, Creature. 

I was bored by this dry and stale movie. Throughout the film, I waited for either the alien or the end to show up. I knew one of them had to come around eventually.

88) Parents (1989) - A Nostalgic Horror Rental

"You can sit down with us an eat, or you could run outside and shout your little secret to the world."

Director

Bob Balaban

Cast

Randy Quaid - Nick Laemle

Mary Beth Hurt - Lily Laemle

Bryan Madorsky - Michael Laemle

Sandy Dennis - Millie Dew

Juno Mills-Cockell - Sheila Zellner

Nearing the BIG & bloody100

My 1,000 days of watching horror movies you forgot about, wanted to forget about, or just haven't heard of...yet...is creeping up to my one-hundredth movie.

I personally consider that an accomplishment considering I've persevered through some creepy, disgusting, and truly forgettable stuff, as well as some newly found horror favorites since 2018.

Anyone familiar with my reviews and comments here, and especially over at my non-horror blog dontfastforward.blogspot.com probably knows I have a penchant for video rental stores and VHS tapes. It's pure nostalgia.

Anyways, over on DontFastForward, I have a list going for films I'm familiar with thanks to the old video rental store, California Video, I grew up near back in the late 1980s into the mid to late 1990s. I call that list Video Rental Chicken Fat.

For the next 13 movies until my one-hundredth review, I'm going to do the same kind of thing here. I'm going to check out some horror movies that I either haven't seen since renting them from the video store, or check out movies with box covers I remember seeing in the horror aisle of California Video. I'll call these reviews simply, "Nostalgic Horror Rentals."  And I'm starting with this cult classic - Parents. 

~ The Review ~

For reasons I can't remember, I rented this movie in my early teenage years, or perhaps before then, when my interest in horror movies was developing just like a lot of other things were back then. How I managed to talk my mom into renting this movie for me to watch is a feat to say the least. 

It didn't make any kind of sense to me. That much I remember. But despite it flying way over my young mind, I haven't forgotten this movie.  

Now, watching it through my adult eyes, thankfully Parents makes more sense.

The story takes place in 1950s suburban Massachusetts as 10-year old Michael Laemle (Bryan Madorsky) along with his parents, Nick (Randy Quaid) and Lily (Mary Beth Hurt) have just moved into their new neighborhood. 

Michael is a shy, socially awkward kid with an active imagination. He suffers from strange dreams and the images they leave in his head stem from suspicions about what his parents are doing after he goes to bed. The move to a new neighborhood is also a heavy weight for Michael. 

At his new school, his somber demeanor, comments, and artwork reflect what's going on inside. 

He's able to make one friend - Sheila Zellner. She's also new to the school, and has suspicions of her own about her own parents. 

One night, Michael wakes up and catches his parents in the living room having sex on the floor. This traumatizes him, and adds to the psychology turmoil he's enduring. Why they picked the living room to get it on doesn't make sense. But often kinkiness is born in bad decisions.

Anyways, his father works as a scientist and medical examiner for a company called Toxico. The company is developing a chemical defoliant for jungles. Nick examines human cadavers to see if the chemicals from Toxico have any role in their deaths. 

He takes his son to work with him one afternoon, where Michael learns what his dad does for a living.

Shortly after, Michael begins suspecting his parents are cannibals. 

He has a dream one night were human body parts are hanging on meat hooks in the basement. Or, was it a dream?

He takes his suspicions to his school counselor, Millie Dew (Sandy Dennis). 

Unbelieving, she tries working with Michael to get to the core of his social anxieties. 

Dew finally visits his home, when the unthinkable occurs leaving Michael with a decision no child should have.

Labeled a "black comedy horror," Parents isn't the kind of dark comedy that'll get laughs like, say, Beetlejuice or Army of Darkness. 

Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt in Parents

This kind of comedy makes light of a dark and horrific subject matter. It's also a bit satirical as it takes place in the golden era of 20th Century America - the 1950s. It does get a little convoluted in regards to just what it wants to be - satirical or dark comedy. But regardless, I can see why this movie has a cult following. 

Watching it again, my first impression was that it's like A Christmas Story (minus the Christmas) meets The Shining. 

Styles reminiscent of both movies are present in Parents. 

The low camera angles, extended shots, cold atmosphere (emotionally speaking), and the symbolic scenes displaying Michael's descent into fear and maybe madness, particularly through his dreams, remind me a lot of Kubrick's The Shining as well as A Clockwork Orange. 

Michael has one particular dream where, in slow motion, he jumps into his clean bed. But his bed then slowly falls into a deep pool of blood where he's completely submerged in.

The child's dreams play an important part in Michael's perception and developing fear of his parents is similar to that of Danny Torrance's mental images caused by his "shining." While Michael doesn't have this extrasensory perception, dreams are much more sensible.

Like Kubrick, Director Bob Balaban really utilizes the key to good storytelling - show, don't tell. The composition of some scenes truly depict how the characters are feeling. For instance, there's one scene setup with Michael in profile sitting in the living room distant from his parents, not speaking or looking at them, while his parents are at the dining table - Nick standing over his wife from behind her like he's speaking into her ear - in the background engaged with each other and then looking up at Michael.

It seems everything in this story is carefully setup and composed. The effort is clear and worthy of appreciation.

Some scene transitions convey what's going on as Michael begins suspecting his parents.

One such transition takes place when a scene inside the medical examiner's room shifts to the next scene of Lily preparing meat in the kitchen. It might come across as a little too obvious but it grabs the audience's attention.

The setting has a tinge of satire towards fallen human nature, and how low man can fall, covered by the squeaky clean façade of post-war America reminds me of the humor found in Jean Shepherd's writings, and his film A Christmas Story which takes place in 1940s Indiana rather than in the late-1950s Massachusetts suburbs. Only, in Parents the humor is a lot darker. 

I'm glad I haven't forgotten this movie despite how high if flew over the head of my much younger self. I certainly appreciate it much more, and find myself still thinking about it days after watching it. 

I found an inexpensive copy packaged as a double-feature with another horror movie called Fear starring Ally Sheedy, and I'm glad I bought it. I've added Parents to my mental list of favorite horror films.

The acting is decent enough with Randy Quaid playing the quintessential father-knows-best type of dad. It mixes well with Mary Beth Hurt as Lily - a standard 1950s mom who spends her time in the kitchen, has her hair done perfect, and keeps a clean and white smile on her face at all times to hide any and all dirty laundry within. Hurt has a way of letting her dark secrets show through small facial features and expressions as she tries to keep up her appearances. 

Despite a bit of confusion as to what kind of film Parents is trying to be, I still found it gripping and entertaining. 

Bryan Madorsky in Parents

87) The Stuff (1985)

"Are you eating the stuff, or is it eating you?"

Director

Larry Cohen

Cast

Michael Moriarty - David "Mo" Rutherford

Andrea Marcovicci - Nicole

Garrett Morris- Charles "Chocolate Chip Charlie" Hobbs

Scott Bloom - Jason

Paul Sorvino - Col. Malcolm Grommett Spears

Danny Aiello - Mr. Vickers 

What do you do... no, what does an entire nation do when some random blue collar worker finds white goop bubbling out of the ground, tastes it, and discovers it's delicious. Well, that nation markets it as a dessert! And that's the plot of the 1985 satirical horror movie The Stuff - a jab at American consumerism and self-indulgence. 

Directed by Larry Cohen, who also sat in the director's chair for other classic horror movies such as It's Alive (1974) and  Full Moon High (1981), the movie starts with a railroad worker stumbling upon a substance that resembles melted vanilla ice cream gurgling out of the ground.

Curious, he scoops a bit up with his finger, smells it, and then tastes it to see if he can figure out what it is. He mutters how good it tastes, and goes for more.

Some coworkers approach asking what he's up to. He tells them to taste his discovery. To them, it's sweet and delicious. 

The scene cuts directly to this substance packaged and available on store shelves ready for consumers. Labeled "The Stuff", it's packaged in cartons like ice cream. 

The advertisements claim it has no calories, tastes great, and doesn't fill you up. 

The Stuff is in immediate high-demand across the country.

Executives and CEOs of various ice cream and other junk-food companies collectively hire former FBI agent turned corporate saboteur, David "Mo" Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) to investigate the ingredients in the Stuff so they can come up with a similar product for the sake of competition. 

During his investigation, Rutherford is joined by a famed junk-food personage, Charles "Chocolate Chip Charlie" Hobbs (Garrett Morris - Saturday Night Live) who's also suffering financially thanks to the Stuff. 

People at random start falling under the control of this tasty alien sludge. Yet, consumers still can't get enough of it.

Meanwhile, a young boy named Jason (Scott Bloom) heads down to the kitchen late one night for a snack. When he opens the fridge, he finds the Stuff out of its container and moving around in the fridge on its own. 

His dad catches him standing in front of the open fridge, and is upset he woke him up so early in the morning.

Jason tries to tell his dad that he saw the Stuff moving outside of its carton. When his dad goes to see for himself, the Stuff is back in the carton as though nothing happened. 

His father acts irrationally angry. Soon, Jason realizes his family is acting strange which he rightly attributes to their addictive consumption of the dreaded Stuff. 

Jason's fear drives him to visit the local grocery store with a baseball bat and destroy all displays and inventory of the Stuff that's for sale. 

His stunt makes the news, which grabs the attention of skeptical Rutherford. 

Jason's family tries forcing him to eat the Stuff. He takes a container to his room and says he'll eat it there. 

However, he sneaks into the bathroom, dumps it out, and replaces it with shaving cream. 

Heading back downstairs, Jason starts reluctantly eating the shaving cream in front of his family to fool them.

It doesn't take long before they catch on to his lie. His parents try physically forcing him to eat it, but he runs out of the house.

Just in time, Rutherford pulls up and tells Jason to get in. He does, and they head out to ultimately destroy the ground well where the Stuff is oozing out of.

Rutherford enlists the help of U.S. Army Col. Malcolm Grommett Spears (Paul Sorvino) who has a small but effective Army of his own.

And their mission now becomes one to save the world from the evil Stuff. 

I don't think this movie is as obscure as other horror movies I've reviewed. But I'm sure there's a lot of people who aren't familiar with it. 

As far as satirical horror movies, I'd place The Stuff on the same shelf as movies like They Live (1988). And for its gorey elements, it's a few notches below one of my favorite comedy horror movies Cabin in the Woods (2012) and a few notches above Gremlins (1984). 

It's pure schlock - a film not meant to be taken with any degree of seriousness. Just watch it, chow a bucket of popcorn, and whatever you get out of it (laughs, cringes, eye-rolls) is what you get out of it.

Yes, there are a ton of "why would they do that moments" starting with the first character that appears on screen tasting an unknow substance spewing out of the ground at a railroad yard to the sudden shift of the entire United States putting that same crap on the market. 

But despite the terribly scripted dialogue, atrocious acting, barely passable to just plain laughable special effects, some of the actors really seemed to be enjoying their parts, especially Garrett Morris as "Chocolate Chip" Charlie. In fact, aside from a few of scenes where the Stuff devours people from the inside out and dead people are suddenly alive again, Morris, a veteran comedian from Saturday Night Live is the most entertaining actor of the movie. He has a lot of energy, charm, and personality. 

Morris is an underrated comedian, actor, and singer. He has an impressive list of films and is fun to watch in The Stuff.

Michael Moriarty plays his serious business role a little over the top. I'm sure he meant to be so which is fine for a movie like this. 

Clara Peller and Abe Vigoda in The Stuff.

But the story execution is a little too easy. For instance, in the scene where Jason runs out of his house away from his family, Rutherford just picks him up and takes him along to destroy the Stuff. It's a sudden rescue attempt with no care on Jason's part about getting in a car with a complete stranger. No questions. No concerns. 

One notable scene is a commercial parody of the famous "Where's the beef?" catchphrase that was popular back in the 1980s thanks to the Wendy's commercial. 

This spoof features Clara Peller, the actress who originally uttered the catchphrase, this time stating "Where's the Stuff?"

It also has a very, very brief cameo from none other than Abe Vigoda. It also dates the movie.  

The story and stereotypical characters are what makes this satirical comedy. And that much, it does well enough. It's a popcorn classic for sure.