MOLD! (2012) Review

Directed by: Neil Meschino
Written by: Dave Fogerson, Meil Meschino
Starring: Lawrence George, Ardis Campbell, Chris Gentile, Rick Haymes, Mike Keller, Edward X. Young

"THIS ISN'T SCIENCE... IT'S MURDER!"

Earlier this week I reviewed a movie about killer worms, creatures which are right up there in the category of 'least threatening things to make a horror movie about ever'. Surprisingly I found it to be quite an effective and well made film and probably more terrifying than it should have been. But what about mold? Could the same green fuzzy stuff that grows on your old food be successfully utilized in a horror movie? Neil Meschino's appropriately titled MOLD! is here to answer that question.

It's 1984 and the US is at the height of the Reagan era war on drugs. Somewhere inside a secret research installation a group of scientists have been working hand in hand with the military to produce a new strain of super-mold, designed to wipe out Columbia's vast coca fields. The political and military big wigs have come by to witness a demonstration of the new biological weapon but of course something goes horribly wrong and the deadly mold is unleashed. Trapped inside the facility with the mold spreading, scientists Roger (Georgie), Julia (Campbell), Dave (Gentile) and Matthew (Haymes) along with an army Colonel (Young) and Sergeant (Keller) need to figure out how to prevent themselves from becoming the deadly growth's next victims.

MOLD! is a very low budget film and as such it takes place in a limited number of small rooms, in fact the majority of the film takes place in one such room. As you might expect it's quite heavy on the talking in-between characters but luckily there is some entertaining dialogue to keep things interesting. The Colonel is by far the most stand out character and despite the overacting he delivers some of the best lines in the film. My personal favorite occurs when his cigar smoking habit is questioned. His reply? "If I could survive a knife fight with a Cambodian mountain jaguar then this little cigar ain't got a chance!" Pure gold. He also makes a number of references to other films which range from cheesy to cringeworthy.

The effects are all practical which is great but I was a little disappointed with the low level of slime in the first hour or so of the movie. I was (perhaps unfairly) expecting some STREET TRASH lever slime and splatter but there's mostly mold-caked walls and a bit of green slime. But where the film really hits its stride is in the final half hour which is full of exploding faces and buckets of blood and goo all over.
MOLD! may not have a ground breaking new concept, it may not have top-tier acting or an excellent script but what it does have in spades is entertainment value, which in all honesty is even more important. If you're looking for a fun, low budget flick then give MOLD! a chance, it may just grow on you.

SQUIRM (1976) Review

Directed by: Jeff Lieberman
Written by: Jeff Lieberman
Starring: Don Scardino, Patricia Pearcy, R.A. Dow, Jean Sullivan, Peter MacLean

"AN AVALANCHE OF KILLER WORMS... WRITHING ACROSS THE LAND IN A TIDAL WAVE OF TERROR!"

Killer animal flicks were all the rage in the 70s and all of the more obvious dangerous creatures - sharks, bears, spiders and snakes and such - featured in their own films. But when filmmakers began to run out of these vicious predators they had to resort to far less threatening creatures and while not realistic or frightening, most of these movies at least turned out to be a real hoot. NIGHT OF THE LEPUS brought killer bunnies, SLUGS gave us killer... slugs, there was FROGS in '72 and of course there was SQUIRM which brought to life every person's worst nightmare; an army of killer worms!

"Late in the evening of September 29, 1975, a sudden electrical storm struck a rural sea coast area of Georgia. Power lines, felled by high winds, sent hundreds of thousands of volts surging into the muddy ground, cutting off all electricity to the small secluded town of Fly Creek. During the period that followed the storm, the citizens of Fly Creek experienced what scientists believe to be one of the most bizarre freaks of nature ever recorded. This is the story..."
SQUIRM begins with this scrolling paragraph explaining the setup for the film, then it goes on to show a storm, complete with high winds and downed power lines, rendering the previous paragraph pretty fucking redundant. On the plus side the opening scene is accompanied by a neat, creepy song.

Southern rose Geri (Pearcy) meets up with boyfriend Mick (Scardino) who has just managed to make his way into Fly Creek after the big storm hit. Flooded in and without electricity the pair decide to go meet up with a local antique dealer to check out some old junk he's selling, but when they arrive he's nowhere in sight and the only thing Geri and Mick can find is a skeleton lying out in the yard. After calling out the sheriff the skeleton mysteriously disappears. Other strange events begin to unfold; crates of worms turn up empty and Geri's neighbour Roger (Dow) is attacked by rabid worms while out fishing. More bodies turn up and Geri and Mick need to figure out what it is that's made the worms want to start snacking in the residents of this particular backwoods town.

As ridiculous as the premise may sound SQUIRM is a surprisingly effective movie that far surpassed whatever I had expected. First of all it's worth noting that the worms in the movie aren't your everyday earthworms, they're of the genus Glycer; commonly known as blood worms, and they do bite. So the notion of killer worms isn't quite as far-fetched as you might think (although it is still pretty fucking hard to imagine). One of the things SQUIRM does well is creating one of those bizarre 'small southern town' atmospheres with a cast of weird and wonderful characters. Worm farmer Roger is one of the more interesting and has some of the strangest lines in the film like the exquisite "You gonna be da worm face!"
Rick Baker's effects are impressively done as well especially 'ol wormface Roger after the little bastards have tunnelled into his skin. And considering that these are 'just worms' the climax is strangely terrifying. As far as killer animal flicks go SQUIRM is a cut above most and is refreshingly entertaining and surprisingly straight for a movie about killer worms. Plus it has just about one of the most rad posters I've ever seen.

EL MONSTRO DEL MAR (2010) Review

Directed by: Stuart Simpson
Written by: Stuart Simpson
Starring: Nelli Scarlet, Karli Madden, Kate Watts, Kyrie Capri, Norman Yemm

"THEY WERE TOLD NEVER TO GO INTO THE WATER. NOW THE SEA WILL RISE IN A TIDE OF BLOOD"

Sexy sirens face off against an ancient Lovecraftian sea beast!
It sounds almost too good to be true but EL MONSTRO DEL MAR is an Australian creature feature that pays homage to classic Meyer-esque exploitation and ye olde monster movies while simultaneously delivering buckets of blood and gore. Now that's a combo I can really fucking dig.

Beretta (Scarlet), Blondie (Madden) and Snowball (Watts) are three femme fatales on the run after some serious serious shit went down (it's never crystal clear exactly what happened) and a lot of blood was spilled. In a stark black and white scene reminiscent of Russ Meyer's classic FASTER PUSSYCAT the vixens wait by their broken down car until they see another vehicle coming their way. The vixens seduce the two men inside before slicing their throats and commandeering their car. Arriving at a shack by the ocean the three girls decide to lay low until the heat dies down. But if the old wheelchair-bound local Joseph (Yemm) is to be believed they might be safer trying the luck with the law. He warns them not to go in the water but they don't listen and soon they wake an ancient evil lurking deep beneath the waves. Together with 'ol Joseph and his granddaughter Hannah (Capri) the girls have to find a way to defeat the creature.

EL MONSTRO DEL MAR is a grindhouse collage constructed from bits and pieces of classic seedy Russ Meyer and 50s monster movies with a B-movie style that Roger Corman would be proud of. It's low budget and it does nothing to try and hide the fact. It's far from original but rather than holding the film back this familiarity is part of what makes it so entertaining. This isn't the kind of movie you watch for character development and intricate story arcs, this is the type of film you watch when you want to see sultry babes, low budget monsters and generous lashings of the red stuff. And it has plenty of that. Unfortunately what it also has is a lagging midsection which makes the relatively short running time (just over 70 minutes) seem a lot longer.

The movie starts off with a pretty rad introduction, some rocking music and a neat transition to color via a slit throat. It also has a nicely gory and action packed final act, but the middle waffles on for too long with unnecessary dialogue and it takes more time than it probably should before the sea beast makes an appearance. Thankfully at least a nice chunk of this slow middle is spent showing the attractive leading ladies swimming, drinking and partying, which is nice.
But apart from that there really isn't a lot to complain about. The performances aren't the greatest but then when does anybody actually care about stellar acting in a B-movie? And every now and then some of the monster's 'tentacles' may look suspiciously like sock puppets... but I found that funny rather than distracting.
It would have been nice if the girls' backstory was explained a little more (perhaps making use of that slow midsection) and there was a missed opportunity with a romance which ultimately goes nowhere, but as it stands EL MONSTRO DEL MAR is a really fun, really stylish flick. It has babes, blood and beasts and if that isn't an enjoyable combo then I don't know what is.