Wolf Creek [Unrated Cut] (2005) | 31 Days of Gore

The marketing for Wolf Creek looked like more of the same boring shit we were getting too much of in the early 2000s. I wrote it off, as I did most mainstream horror movies in that era. When I saw Grindhouse two years later, I took notice of the fact that one of the Death Proof cars careens through a marquee with Wolf Creek’s title on it. Was that a nod or a dunk? I wondered. Either way, the filmmakers had something to say about the movie so I made a mental note, right there in the theater, to check Wolf Creek out for myself sometime. Nineteen years later, here I am.

What’s immediately striking about Wolf Creek is how effortless it feels. Three twenty-somethings buy a beater station wagon and drive across the outback. The two girls are English tourists. The boy is Australian, born and raised. The girls think the boy is cute, but they take a moment to decide which one will hook up with him so they don’t sour their friendship. I actually liked this trio and the (presumably) improvisational filmmaking that made their dynamic feel grounded and real. I was frequently reminded of The Blair Witch Project, which employed similar acting techniques. In fact, I actually started to dread the inevitable moment when they would take a wrong turn into a horror movie—not because I cared about the characters, but because I tend to dislike this type of movie.

This is all to say I’m probably not the right person to review a Wolf Creek film.

The wrong turn comes halfway through the movie when they find their car won’t start after a hike. For some reason their watches stop working, too, but that detail is never mentioned again (I thought the movie was introducing some kind of environmental battery drain or something, but a couple scenes later they have perfectly functional flashlights so… WTF?). They accept a tow from a charismatic stranger by the name of Mick Taylor (a phenomenal John Jarratt). Mick is reminiscent of the old man in the first two Texas Chainsaw Massacre films as he quickly puts the kids’ suspicions at ease with his quick wit and folksy banter. He tows them miles away from their intended path and lets them set up camp in the abandoned mining town he’s made his home. When the kids wake up, they discover they’ve been drugged and bound in the middle of the night.

The torture begins, psychological as well as physical. One of the girls manages to free herself and get her hands on a rifle. What follows is one opportunity after another to escape or kill the antagonist, but she screws it up each time. And while that’s par for the course for many movies of its type, it’s especially frustrating here because this film demonstrated so much promise early on. Had the first half been shit, I wouldn’t have been so disappointed by the routine “I’m gonna catch ya” stuff. The moment these bright young women become helpless morons for the sake of the plot, I couldn’t wait for the whole thing to end… and at that point it had like forty minutes left.

I’m well aware I’m probably breaking rank with most horror fans on this one (I wasn’t a fan of The Descent, either, though I often hear it referred to as a classic). By comparison, I find The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original, not the aforementioned remake) to be a brutally thrilling film, but its first half is its weakness. This one follows an opposite curve, though it’s not the fault of the performers. They’re firing on all cylinders, especially in that superior first half, and I admire the director even though I disagree with where he ultimately goes. On the other hand, I enjoyed it more than literally any Saw film I’ve ever seen and I suppose I’m not entirely opposed to seeing the sequel someday. I just hope they go the TCM2 route and amp up the goofiness.

Underworld: The Extended Cut (1985) | 31 Days of Gore

Underworld, aka Transmutations, is the first feature length screenplay by Clive Barker, who reportedly hated the finished product. There’s no word on whether he has commented on (let alone seen) the version I’m reviewing today, which is the extended cut containing eleven minutes of footage not found in the poorly received theatrical version. Although I haven’t seen the film before, it’s immediately clear which bits have been spliced back in because they stick out like a sore thumb. The 35mm film from the theatrical version was scanned for the restoration, but all the extra stuff existed only on an old VHS. (Curiously, the same thing happened when Barker himself was involved with early restorations of Nightbreed.)

This patchwork of film and shitty VHS footage sounds more jarring than it actually is—and not only because the bitchin’ synth score ties it all altogether. The restored bits make Underworld more interesting from a technical point of view while slightly improving on the neo-noir mood the director was trying to establish. Above all, it’s an intimate look at what an editor actually does, showing how much freedom they have in shaping the final movie. We’re not talking about merely restoring some missing cutaways. There are entire conversations, scenes, and bits of character development restored here. Above all, the extended cut shows just how short-sighted the producers were to go through the trouble of hiring top-tier talent, just to turn around and attempt to normalize it for maximum profits. Worse, their edits were probably demanded for a shorter runtime, so I wonder: Why didn’t they cut the long bits where the hero plods through the least convincing sewer set in history?

All that meddling didn’t help. Though Clive Barker would work again with director George Pavlou on the superior Rawhead Rex, the experience ultimately led him to become a director himself with 1987’s Hellraiser. If anybody’s gonna screw up his work, it might as well be himself, right? Still, I think there’s just enough of Barker’s personality in Underworld to make it worthwhile for his completionists. Like too many supernatural detective films, this one is at its best before the mystery reveals itself disappointingly early on. Underworld’s noir elements are fine. Its horror elements are not.

The film opens with the kidnapping of a high class prostitute, which leads a rich business mogul to hire a private investigator to find her. It turns out that the detective is the prostitute’s old flame, which is hard to believe considering he’s so reluctant to take the job. Similarly, when the detective and his love interest reunite (the first time they share any screen time in the movie), their chemistry is anything but convincing. In fact, the hero has a stronger chemistry with another prostitute whose advances he keeps turning down.

The private eye, with his oddly streaked hair, bears some resemblance to David Vanian, frontman of The Damned, particularly during the group’s brief transmutation (see what I did there?) from punk to goth. No, he’s not a particularly strong actor, but he’s serviceable as a prototype for Clive Barker’s Harry D’Amour, the hard boiled detective played by Scott Bakula in Lord of Illusions. Another point in the film’s favor is that, even forty years ago, Barker was drawn to the denizens of his fictional underworlds. An early strand of Nightbreed’s DNA is woven throughout, particularly in the film’s dreamlike opening sequence and the comradery among subterranean freaks.

Among the supporting cast of character actors (Steven Berkoff, Art Malik, and Miranda Richardson) is Denholm Elliot. He’s easily the best actor in the film, but he’s reduced to playing a mad scientist who doesn’t gel with Barker’s more recognizable sensibilities. You’d expect themes of sadomasochism, bondage, and identity, not a routine villain with a grandiose plan to… well, what the hell is his plan? To get streetwalkers hooked on a drug that will ultimately deform them? That’s, uh… I fail to see the scientific merit in that, much less any kind of financial or power gain. Even so, the film’s goofy premise does explore something Barker is very much known for: body horror, but it just isn’t horrific enough to warrant interest.

Don’t let anyone tell you it’s an uninteresting movie. It’s not. Undercooked, perhaps, but it still offers a fascinating if not crude glimpse into Clive Barker’s psyche as a filmmaker. Check it out if you’re a fan of the writer’s early work. Skip it if you’re not.

Scanners (1981) | 31 Days of Gore

Ah, Scanners. You may look high and low for a bigger fan of this flick, but you may not find one. It’s not just the candy bar scenes that draw me into David Cronenberg’s first masterpiece of many. It’s the quiet moments in between. Few genre filmmakers were great at these stretches of relative silence (John Carpenter and George Romero come to mind). I would argue almost no one actively making films like this are even allowed to try today. How could they when the most common note from studio execs is now “Keep repeating the plot because most viewers are staring at their phones”?

Scanners, with its liminal spaces and flatly shot subjects, is clearly made in a bygone era, reveling in the fact it isn’t a Hollywood movie rather than trying to mimic one. Its machined plot feels influenced by The Terminator, though it predates that film by three years, and it’s photographed like a utilitarian art flick. There are moments of goofiness—wonderful goofiness—and Cronenberg embraces that stuff rather than acting like he’s above it. Look, it’s a story about people who control other people with their minds. There’s simply no way for a movie to look cool when its performers are emoting such things. Can you imagine how fucking dull this would be if it brought out the leather coats and slow motion?

For the opener, a young transient by the name of Cameron Vale is captured by ConSec, a private security company, after psychically attacking a terrible woman in a shopping mall’s food court. The suits inject Vale with a tranquilizer that subdue his powers and calm the voices in his head, which are the unfiltered thoughts of everyone around him. In the next scene, upper level personnel gather to watch a demonstration in ConSec’s headquarters. There a man reveals himself to be a scanner: one of 237 known people on the planet who possess psychic and telekinetic abilities. When he attempts to demonstrate his ability on a volunteer (Michael Ironside), it turns out the volunteer is a much more powerful scanner known as Darryl Revok. Revok, which is a fantastic name for a fantastic villain, overpowers ConSec’s scanner and makes his head explode.

This is by far the greatest head explosion in movie history, which is why the film automatically scores full points on the Gore Meter. When I was a kid, I read that the scene had been accomplished not with professional pyrotechnics, but by concealing an actual shotgun in the dummy’s torso. (Naturally, I asked my parents if I could have a shotgun because I, too, wanted to shoot a scene like that on the home camcorder. For some reason they declined my request.) Due to the obvious safety concerns, I would be extremely surprised if any film ever features a more gnarly and meaty head explosion in the future. It may be impossible to reproduce the effect with standard Hollywood pyrotechnics, which the sequels seemingly prove.

ConSec executives gather in a boardroom the next morning to discuss the implications of their security breach. When one of the board members suggests ending scanner research altogether, Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan) reminds them that they are in a cold war with Revok’s secret army of scanners whether they like it or not. Their only hope is to train a powerful scanner of their own, which they have recently acquired with their capture of Cameron Vale. Wisely, Cronenberg gives McGoohan, a classically trained character actor, the bulk of the film’s more outlandish exposition, which is at its most unbelievable when he explains that Vale can scan a computer as well as he can humans. The premise may have seemed plausible in 1981, but now, when literally everyone knows a computer does not have a nervous system analogous to humans, the explanation is the goofiest part of the entire picture.

What’s most interesting about the film is that Cronenberg chooses to depict his scanners as humans rather than superheroes. Most of the scanners had troubled childhoods. Almost none of them fit into society unless they learn to manipulate others at their will. Revok himself attempted to drill a hole in his own brain in an effort to quiet the relentless thoughts filling his head. Ironside lends a gravitas to the character that makes you believe he could genuinely become obsessed with a new world order, elevating what would have been a routine plot device into a solid character trait. So while its plot may sound like that of a generic genre film, it’s a very satisfying hybrid of wild fantasy and realism.

Scanners was a perfect primer for a memorable horror franchise. Indeed, it spawned four sequels, two of which I may have seen more than the original. That’s not to say they were any good, just that in the days before streaming movies, you kinda had to just live with whatever you taped off of Cinemax. I plan to feature a Scanners film each Friday this month so don’t miss out. At any rate, this is one of my favorite films of all time and it has never looked better on home video than it does right now.

The Pit and the Pendulum (1991) | 31 Days of Gore

Kicking off this year’s 31 Days of Gore is Stuart Gordon’s The Pit and the Pendulum, produced for Full Moon. Lance Henriksen plays the friar Torquemada, the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. I’m a little confused what Henriksen is going for here (certainly not historical accuracy). I get the feeling he wanted to create an intimidating impression of the torturer while Gordon pushed for a jovial atmosphere. The performance doesn’t really fit in Gordon’s universe, which is surprising because Henriksen is often the best part of films like this.

Gordon regulars stand out as Torquemada’s evil but gleefully stupid henchmen: Jeffrey “I gave him life!” Combs is the trusted scribe; Fortress’s Tom Towles portrays the chief enforcer; and Stephen Lee of Dolls fame plays the oaf who carts bodies out of the castle. One of the more interesting henchmen is Mendoza, played by Breaking Bad’s Mark Margolis. Unlike Henriksen, Margolis successfully finds a tone of seriousness that somehow works in the otherwise goofy picture. Unlike his peers, who only use religion as a loophole for torturin’, Mendoza is truly loyal to Torquemada’s plight to cleanse the earth of sinners. This despite the fact that Torquemada wrongfully accused Mendoza of crimes in the past, the punishment for which resulted in the partially healed stigmata bored through each of his hands.

Two young bread-makers, Antonio and Maria, are imprisoned when Torquemada accuses them of witchcraft. As is often the case in films like this, the woman whose beauty tempts self-righteous authority figures gets locked in the dungeon. Antonio makes a couple of impotent attempts to rescue her, only to find himself locked in another section of the dungeon, awaiting execution. Meanwhile, Maria meets an old hag played by horror’s favorite elder woman, Frances Bay. As it turns out, Bay’s character really is a witch who teaches Maria a few tricks, including astral projection, so that she can leave her body whenever the torture becomes too painful.

Oliver Reed adds weight as the cardinal who has been sent, on the pope’s orders, to bring Torquemada back to Rome. Torquemada refuses, choosing instead to seal the emissary in a void behind a wall. (It just occurred to me that Reed’s character should be alive at the end of the movie, after the bad guys are defeated, but none of the good guys think to release him. Oh well.) Although he ruthlessly projects authority, the cracks in Torquemada’s facade are spreading. He’s losing influence and he knows it. He invests too much energy in the titular pendulum which is saved—and underutilized—for the final act.

Producer Charles Band, the Roger Corman of the videocassette market, always struck me as someone who strove for consistency in his films by aiming at an easily achievable mark of quality. It was directors like Gordon who frequently raised the bar, but this isn’t Gordon’s best. In a 90s interview for Fangoria Magazine, Bruce Campbell lamented that the medieval setting in Army of Darkness stifled the improvisational creativity he and Sam Raimi enjoyed on earlier films; remote location shoots create restrictive schedules which don’t leave a lot of room for horsing around. I posit the same may have happened to Gordon here.

The film has an identity crisis, failing to gel its heavier elements (rape, torture, persecution) with its substandard swashbuckling and genuinely funny lines. At one point Combs says to the hag, “I’m sorry you couldn’t confess before we had to kill you.” To which she replies, “Oh, that’s quite alright.” That’s the playful Gordon we all know and love, but those moments are few and far between. If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you already know I would have preferred a funny horror film to a serious one, especially with this cast.

The Pit and the Pendulum is still a good time. More like a Dagon than a Re-Animator, I would rate it 2-1/2 Castle Freaks out of 4. I would have a hard time recommending it to casual moviegoers and I suspect those who would enjoy it half as much as I did have already seen it. I was late to the party on this one, but I’m glad I saw it. I’ll see much worse over the course of the next thirty days.

31 Days of Gore starts tomorrow!

With 31 Days of Gore returning this Thursday, I decided to take a look back at the films that scored full points on the Gore Meter. Surprisingly, there have only been a dozen since I started the feature back in 2015 (though it should be noted I didn’t do it every year because ~~I’m lazy~~ I put the tradition on hiatus from 2018 to 2024). Here are the twelve goriest movies so far:

Basket Case 3
Blood Diner
Blood Rage
Deathgasm
Demons
Evil Dead Trap 2
Hatchet 2
The Lords of Salem
The New York Ripper
Pieces
Slime City
Tokyo Gore Police

I would like to take this space to remind you that the gore rating isn’t always an indication of the film’s overall quality. Plenty of the best movies score lower on the meter. This makes the entire exercise kinda pointless, but that’s what we do here at this blog: nothing important!

I’m often asked why more obvious flicks like the Evil Dead films and Dead-Alive haven’t been featured on 31 Days of Gore. That’s because I kicked the end of my crib out watching those movies on repeat. I’ve decided to let my memory fade so I could watch them again relatively fresh one day. I’ll get to them eventually, some time before I die, but for now I’m hunting movies I either never saw or saw so long ago I don’t remember much about them. Besides, it’s a lot more fun writing about movies that haven’t been analyzed to death in horror circles.

31 Days of Gore is nigh… again

Rejoice, heathens! 31 Days of Gore returns October 1st! To all the authority figures who told me my love for horror movies would amount to nothing: Do you have a blog that nets tens of dozens of visitors every month? No? Didn’t think so, suckers!

As is customary, even I don’t know which movies I’ll feature until I actually watch ’em (making lists just feels like homework), but here are some of the traditions I developed over the years:

SOV (shot-on-video)
A melt movie
J-Horror
Italo-horror (my favorite)
Slasher films
Empire/Full Moon
An anthology film

You can also expect me to ~~suffer~~ work my way through a horror franchise and its sequels each Friday (I used to marathon-watch a series in a single day, but I’m in my 40s now so you can GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN). This year, I decided what the featured franchise will be, but beyond that, I have no idea what I’m doing… like ever. Be sure to subscribe and get ready for a gross ol’ time starting October 1st! In the meantime, click here to see all the past 31 Days of Gore entries!

PS: This is my 666th post!

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31 Days of Gore ’26

This post brought to you by Ephemoral. Are the unfiltered thoughts of others becoming overbearing? Do your psychic abilities get in the way of your day-to-day activities? Try Ephemoral today!

Dead End Drive-In (1986)

This one’s a curiosity. Why does the title lead you to believe it’s a horror movie when it’s more like Mad Max Lite? How have I never seen it before? Why don’t people talk about it these days? Why did they hyphenate “Drive-In” but not “Dead End?” I mean, I guess that’s correct, but it just looks weird?

Dead End Drive-In is not a post-apocalyptic flick. More like “mid-apocalypse.” A series of story cards open the film, foretelling believable events that will lead to the dystopian setting we’re about to see: a deadly riot, a nuclear accident, a genocide in Capetown, an economic crisis that ultimately leads to “the government” invoking emergency powers (The local government? The Australian government? The world government?). This film takes place in the future, but it’s the very near future, like mid- to late-90s. The filmmakers either thought this film would be completely forgotten in a few years or they truly believed that civilization was ending. I suspect it was the latter.

Tow truck drivers and lawless scavengers known as cowboys are at war in the streets, vying to be the first to reach the latest automobile accident. When the cowboys show up, brandishing shurikens and nunchucks, the corrupt police wipe their hands and leave the scene. The news crews get there before the ambulances, shoving bright lights and microphones in the dying people’s faces. Everything that isn’t bolted down in the world has already been scrapped. Everything that is bolted down is constantly being dismantled by hoodlums with grinders.

The main character, Crabs, takes his best girl to the drive-in movies in his older brother’s ’56 Chevy. The drive-in is located at the end of a three-kilometer road, which appears to be elevated over a large body of water. Now, as someone who has gone to the drive-in for as long as I can remember, I can tell you the first red flag that our teenage protagonists missed: the place is packed, but there wasn’t a long line to get in. While Crabs and his girl get frisky, someone steals the wheels off his Chevy. By the time he gets dressed, he discovers the thieves are a couple of policemen who are loading his wheels into the back of a paddy wagon. Rather than confront the cops themselves, Crabs and his girl go to the ticket booth to lodge a complaint. The manager isn’t particularly surprised by the news. When they ask to use his phone, he tells them they can’t. That’s against the rules.

The teens return to the car and camp through the night. When they wake up the next morning, they realize all the cars in the drive-in are in various levels of disrepair, likely disabled by the same policemen who disabled Crabs’s Chevy. The drive-in, as it turns out, is a concentration camp for the type of youths the government deems undesirable. It’s one of many drive-ins operating as such. Few of the teens who are trapped there want to leave. They get fed everyday. They get to watch bitchin’ movies every night. They get to live, rent-free, in graffiti-covered cars while throwing a never-ending party with all the drugs, booze, and sex they want, provided by the government. Eventually the government ships immigrants in, causing the drive-in’s denizens to devolve into white supremacy.

Whereas there were dozens of Mad Max and Road Warrior knock-offs in roughly the same era, most were routine carbon copies. Dead End Drive-In, also an Aussie production, takes only a kernel from George Miller’s franchise before running headlong into its own territory. You could even think of it as Mad Max adjacent, showing what might have taken place beyond the death roads. There aren’t a whole lot of car chases. There’s surprisingly little violence. There’s just a straight-laced teenager who’s surrounded by a commune of drug-abusing punks who alternatively want to beat him and get him to join them. It’s a lot of fun watching him plan his escape.

I’ve said this before in my review of Blood Rage: I can’t possibly remain impartial when a movie is set in a drive-in theater. Having said that, I don’t think you have to love the drive-in as much as I do to find enjoyment in this picture. It’s a solid film with a simple plot and a likeable hero. It’s got a nice wind-up to some decent action at the end. It’s not as thrilling as Mad Max or as irreverent as, say, Repo Man, but then again, what is?

Species II (1998)

The premise for Species II is inspired: an astronaut has been exposed to the same alien DNA that resulted in Sil’s creation in the first film. In order to hunt him down, the government commissions the use of a Sil clone named Eve. That simple little synopsis… doesn’t it just fill your head with exciting possibilities? They even bring back Michael Madsen and Marg Helgenberger in addition to Natasha Henstridge, reprising the role (kinda) that made her famous. I mention this because I had it in my head that this was a straight-to-video sequel, but in reality it was a late 90s theatrical release and I’m surprised I don’t remember seeing trailers for it or anything of the sort.

Despite sporting roughly the same budget as the first film, the opening shot of a Martian orbiter warns us that Species II is going to look a little cheaper. Not a lot cheaper, but noticeably so. In the first film, most of the boring backstory was only hinted at, allowing Sil’s introduction to take place mere minutes before she escaped, kicking off an entertaining pace. No such luck this time around. The unconvincing trip to Mars takes ten minutes to get out of the way. The introduction of Eve, the G-men antagonists, the infected astronaut’s plan—it all takes another twenty minutes to slog through. It’s not until the thirty-minute mark when Madsen, ostensibly the hero of the film, finally wanders into the picture. So why isn’t Eve the hero, á la Terminator 2? The decision to downgrade Henstridge’s role to a supporting character is baffling as she was far and away the best part of the first movie.

In the prolonged first act, we learn that Madsen and Helgenberger have split up while he chased private security work and she took over Fitch’s position as the lead scientist on the government’s alien experiments. That throwaway line in the first film, in which Helgenberger posited that Sil developed psychopathy from being raised in an all-male laboratory environment, has now been taken literally: all lab personnel who interact with Sil’s clone are women. Never mind the fact Eve is still a prisoner in this scenario, enduring cruel experiments that would make literally anyone a psychopath. The film’s biggest sin is that Eve is trapped in the lab for three-quarters of the runtime with nothing interesting to do until her safeguards are predictably deactivated. What a waste.

This time the villain is the extremely wooden astronaut who’s hoeing his way across the city, creating human-alien hybrids with every attractive woman he comes across (no pun intended). The human inside him is horrified by what happens to the female hosts so he blows his head off with a shotgun in a CGI shot that’s as ambitious as it is cartoonishly phony. When the alien DNA reassembles his head (complete with the same haircut and stubble growth), the human inside the character is officially gone. The first film succeeded because of Henstridge’s powerful screen presence as a villain. What we needed for this sequel was a T-1000. What we get isn’t even interesting enough to grace the pages of a K-mart circular. (Incidentally, the actor’s Wikipedia page lists an arrest for indecent exposure to children.)

They had all the elements of a great sequel here, but trip right out of the gate. The best films like this start as close to the end as possible, as evidenced by the original picture. And whereas the first film had a dynamite cast, this film casts a visibly bored James Cromwell, playing the astronaut’s senator father. That’s so it can waste the audience’s time explaining the astronaut’s political aspirations and strict PR training… but for what purpose? What the hell does that have to do with any of this shit? And the G-men are just here because movies like this always have G-men. They ultimately do nothing, flying away on a helicopter as soon as the climax begins.

Another reason Alien and the original Species succeeded is because, more often than not, males were the victims of the vaguely psychosexual violence, which tapped into fears men rarely had to think about before (rape, forced procreation, etc.). More than one woman in this film is subjected to horrifically accelerated labor which results in her abdomen exploding like the foil on a pan of Jiffy Pop. In another scene Eve is choked out by a phallic tentacle (no, I’m not reading too much into this: it’s literally supposed to be an alien penis), which feels less like harmless movie violence and more like it’s betraying some deep-seated shit the filmmakers had going on at the time. To be clear, I’m not offended by the content (see: the rest of the sleaze I feature on this blog). I’m offended because it’s missing the entire point of the original film.

Species (1995)

Ben Kingsley’s Fitch, the lead scientist on a top secret experiment, watches from a secure overlook as his lab workers pump cyanide into the containment chamber of a perfectly normal looking girl named Sil, played by a teenage Michelle Williams. Scared, Sil pleads with the scientist who merely mouths the words, “I’m sorry.” When the chamber fills with the deadly gas, she taps into superhuman strength and punches her way out of the lab’s heavy security.

As she attempts to disappear and blend into society, Fitch assembles a ragtag team of specialists to track her down: a freelance hit man (Michael Madsen), a pair of believable scientists (Alfred Molina and Marg Helgenberger), and an empathic government agent (Forest Whitaker) who’s probably my favorite character even though the script doesn’t do enough with his unexplained powers. Wouldn’t it have been great if the plot contrived for the empath and the monster to share a scene? As is, his supernatural abilities are mostly limited to assuring the audience that Sil is scared, which at times makes the hunt feel crueler than fun.

After killing a handsy hobo, the lab-grown girl steals a handful of cash, eats a million calories worth of junk food, and hibernates in a cocoon, metamorphosing into Natasha Henstridge in her very first role. Meanwhile, Fitch brings his team up to speed: some time ago SETI detected an alien signal which delivered an extraterrestrial DNA sequence along with the instructions for combining it with a human embryo. The result was Sil who is now hiding out in LA as she scours the city for an appropriate mate, which will ultimately lead to the end of humanity itself. “We decided to make it female so she would be more docile and controllable,” Fitch explains, to which Madsen responds, “Well, I guess you guys don’t get out much.”

At one point Helgenberger speculates that the aliens sent the DNA sequence as a form of pest control after determining humans would become a nuisance one day. In another scene, she posits that Sil’s psychopathy may be the result of being raised in a sterile environment without a mother figure. These scenes are few and far between, but touch upon slightly bigger ideas than you would expect from a science-action movie. Notably, Species released the year before Independence Day, which features a lot more technical mumbo jumbo even though it features a considerably dumber invasion plot.

Which isn’t to say Species doesn’t experience the frequent lapse of judgment. Early on, the team decides to create another Sil, minus the human DNA, “to see what we’re actually dealing with.” In reality, it’s a flimsy excuse for two of the characters to get trapped in a room with a hideous monster, which sports the worst practical effects in the entire movie. Later, Sil successfully throws the team off her trail, but then sets her sights on Madsen as her baby’s daddy, a plot point that’s forgotten immediately after it serves its purpose. What’s most disappointing is the kill scenes pale to Alien’s, and although Sil’s alien form is satisfyingly unique, the filmmakers give her a xenomorph tongue for penetrating human skulls.

This is my first viewing in thirty years. If you’re anything like me, Species is bigger and better looking than you remember. Out of literally hundreds of Alien knock-offs, it may be the best as it mostly limits itself to emulating the best parts instead of the easily reproducible stuff that B-movie filmmakers had been running into the ground for more than a decade. They even brought H.R. Giger in to add some truly perplexing images, such as a skull-faced nightmare train and extendable nipple-snakes. Even when the plot predictably devolves into flamethrowers and confined mechanical spaces, it’s still a cut above the rest of the clones, if only because it wraps up quickly thereafter.

Where it really punches above its weight is in the unusually likable cast, which balances the prerequisite technobabble with genuinely fun banter. Sure, you can talk yourself out of liking it if you just prod at the hokier elements (Sil’s motivation to mate, her alternating stupidity and brilliance, the fact that she uses a Jedi mind trick in precisely one scene and never again). Alternatively, I’d recommend accepting it for what it is: a better-than-average science fiction flick that gave the world Natasha Henstridge, who commands the screen as well as her seasoned costars.

Pumpkinhead (1988) | 31 Days of Gore

Pumpkinhead opens in a nondescript farm town in the 1950s. Hillbilly Clayton is being chased through the cornfields by something supernatural. He races to a cabin and pleads with a fellow farmer to let him in. The farmer shouts through the locked door, “I can’t risk my family for you, Clayton. Now get away before I have to shoot you!” When the monster attacks, we catch fleeting glimpses of a creature design that should have become a lot more iconic than it ultimately did.

Fast forward to the 80s and the farmer’s boy is all grown up. Played by Lance Henriksen, Ed Harley has a son of his own now. The two of them operate a small store on the side of the highway. When Harley leaves to run an errand, the boy is accidentally struck and killed by a dirt bike rider. Harley returns, finds his son’s dead body, and seeks out the witch who can awaken the titular monster.

Do I need to point out that the witch’s makeup and the creature effects are fantastic? Pumpkinhead is the directorial debut of Stan Winston, possibly the most recognizable name in special effects ever. Unlike so many other movies I originally saw on VHS, Pumpkinhead doesn’t look worse under the magnifying glass of high definition. In fact, it looks better than ever. Stan Winston clearly shot the creature for the big screen, not consumer televisions of the time. Perhaps there are directors who know more about getting better performances out of their actors, but how many know more about photographing slimy creatures?

Speaking of the performances, they’re uneven but not bad by low budget standards. Henriksen goes big and is absolutely convincing more often than not. Buck Flower, though playing a hillbilly, isn’t cast for his usual comic relief and rises to the occasion. Flower’s son, played by Brian Bremer, has unusually strong screen presence; I had forgotten most of the movie since my last viewing, but his face seemed as familiar to me as the monster’s.

Pumpkinhead is a very fun movie despite its heart-attack seriousness. The monster’s sole purpose is to torment his prey like a cat toying with an injured mouse. It actually makes sense when he drags victims around like dolls instead of killing them swiftly. And the resolution reveals the film had a moral before leaving us with one final reveal. It’s an awesome movie that has only gotten better with age.