Thirst (2015) – An alien space capsule bearing a ravenous beastie crash-lands right where one of those wilderness survival hikes for wayward youth is trekking. Munching ensues.
I started out with high(ish) hopes for this one as, despite the hokey B-movie premise, the acting and general production values seemed higher than the SyFy Original/The Asylum baseline. The script, however, didn’t show a similar upgrade. The beastie has a head full of imposing teeth, but only ever kills and feeds with a specialized organ which extends from its abdomen to suck its victim dry. It shows up out of nowhere like Jason Voorhees, picks someone off, and disappears until the next time it shows up right behind someone. And of course, the only time it DOESN’T immediately kill its victim is when it encounters the protagonist’s love interest; that time, it takes her back to its lair to feed to its young, giving the protagonist the opportunity for a heroic rescue not afforded in any other attack.
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) – Rich woman with a known drinking problem sees a UFO. Nobody believes her, so she hunts it down again. She gets irradiated and grows. Meanwhile, her husband chases nookie.
The best part of this is the poster. The special effects are extra-shoddy; the “UFO” is a balloon presented by the magic of double-exposure, the extra-sized “hand” sometimes entering the shot is a piece of rubber and paper mache that wouldn’t look out of place in a junior high production, and most of the shots of both the alien and the 50 foot woman are accomplished by that same double-exposure technique, which means the background is clearly visible through the supposedly solid person.
The script wants to be an early pseudo-feminist morality story, but it really doesn’t know where it’s supposed to go and what it’s supposed to do.
Beyond the Reach (2014) – Twentyish Ben (Jeremy Irvine), a hunting guide in the Mojave Desert, takes ultra-rich businessjerk Madec (Michael Douglas) out into “the Reach” to bag a bighorn. When Madec accidentally kills a mountain hermit and Ben refuses to cover it up, Madec forces him to strip down and wander the desert, waiting for the 120-degree sun to kill him.
This is a tight little thriller, relying on confident pacing and confident performances. Michael Douglas has never been squeamish about playing unsympathetic characters, and as the producer on this movie, you know it must have been his idea. And kudos to Irvine, who holds his own as he shares the screen with Douglas.
Abandoned movies:
Meteorites! (1998) – There’s only so long you can watch a movie while also shouting, “Meteors don’t work like that, none of it works like that…”
Imaginaerium (2012) – This movie, about an older man with dementia locked into his imagination as a young boy on a quest, should have hit my sweet spot. Don’t know why it left me cold, but…