Star Quest (1995) – I can only assume that the logline was “Alien (1979) without the alien.” A deep space crew on the way to a colony world is awakened from cryosleep to find mysterious messages left for them in the computer, as well as a murderer among them. Also, there may be an android.
It’s an all-star cast, at least for Roger Corman’s Concorde Pictures: Steven Bauer, Emma Samms, Brenda Bakke (my favorite beauty who never hit the big time), Cliff de Young, Ming-Na Wen, Alan Rachins, and Lisa Boyle’s breasts.
It’s a so-so exercise in filmmaking; the ending tries to pull a sucker-punch but it’s hampered by woefully inadequate FX, leaving everything on a sour note.
(No trailer, sorry.)
Lake Placid (1999) – In the overstuffed ecosystem of CG animal attack movies, what makes this one remarkable? Aside from the much-ballyhooed inclusion of Betty White as a supporting character with a delightful mean streak, this movie’s true gleaming facet is its sarcasm. Every character is sarcastic, and every other character reacts accordingly. A further lampshade is hung on this in the opening scene, where one character asks another if he’s being sarcastic. And yeah, giant crocodile, blah blah blah… but nobody loves this movie for the crocodile.
Van Helsing (2004) – Two hours and eleven minutes of mechanically crafted Hollywood entertainment product unencumbered by human creativity. Included:
- A main character based on what the average man on the street would know about Van Helsing (“He was, like, a vampire hunter, right?”)
- A scene very clearly “homaging” James Bond, in which Van Helsing first gets dressed down by his superior and then goes to get his new gadgets (the rest of the movie would have been better if the whole thing had been an urban-fantasy redress of the generic James Bond plot)
- a 19th-century kick-ass woman wearing a corset and pants, with hair flying free
- both vampires and werewolves (plus the Frankenstein monster and, in a bit role, Jeckyl and Hyde) bound into their cinematic cliches and then some
- CG that doesn’t even bother to look convincing in its movements, leading to every main character taking about twenty times the concussive injury it would take to lead to brain death, but they just mostly walk it off
- an obligatory but lazily sketched-in connection between the hero and villain, which of course you just gotta have
Blech.
Abandoned movies:
Killing Hasselhoff (2017) – Given the premise — a desperate man keeps trying (and failing) to kill David Hasselhoff to win the pot in a celebrity dead pool — I really wanted to like this, but neither the script nor “comedian” star Ken Jeong are remotely funny.
Kung Fu Traveler (2017) – I know that people like watching YouTube videos of other people watching video games, but the appeal completely eludes me. Those people would probably like this movie.
“Terminal Voyage” had a limited theatrical release in 1994 and showed up on TV as “Star Quest” or “Starquest” in 1996. Three titles and limited theater, then TV usually spells crap, but contemporary TV reviews were not overly harsh. There is no plot connection to Dean R. Koontz’s first novel “Star Quest”.
Playing with my video recorder, I paired the intro of “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers” TV show (senior citizens prank unsuspecting youngsters) with the scene where croc hunters observe Delores (Betty White) feed a cow to the giant croc. “Lake Placid” is good if you are in the lowered expectations mode.
“Van Helsing” I only cared to see once.