Boy God (Review)
Rocco, Ang Batang Bato
aka Boy God aka Stone Boy
1983
Story by Joeben Miraflor
Screenplay by Eliseo Corcuerra
Directed by J. Erastheo Navoa
 |
|
That vampire is paralyzed with shock at the idiocy he’s witnessing!
|
What a great movie for children! In the opening minute there is a woman being molested in her sleep by a spectral god, having an orgasm because, why not? Then her parents are gunned down less than two minutes later by a ruthless local warlord. An annoying fat kid then bloats up the running time until we finally get the werewolves, vampires, and monsters. Kids love violence and rape and annoying fat kids, and Boy God aka Stone Boy aka Rocco, Ang Batang Bato gives the children what they want!
If you aren’t familiar with Boy God, it’s a Filipino childrens’ film that was imported to the US and given an annoying dub and multiple titles. This lead to some confusion when attempting to track down rare films in the days before the internet. As far as I can tell, both titles are the exact same English dub and cut. I’ve not seen the original Filipino version, but the names in Tagalog do not seem to correspond at all with the English ones. I do want to see how the Filipino actor pretending to be the mad German scientist Dr. Mengele actually is supposed to be Dr. Mengele, and if he has a German accent. The gods all seem inspired from Clash of the Titans and similar films, as they are all Greek-looking. The vampires are more animalistic, like half-bat monsters, and Janice is dressed up as a Filipino komiks superheroine. So there is a healthy mixture of influences.
You can probably tell from my tone that I don’t really care for this film that much. The kid is among the most annoying I’ve seen in film, the most annoying child I’ve seen in a Filipino flick, and probably on my top ten list of most annoying children of all time. (That is a list with a heavy amount of Kennys!) But beyond that, the fantasy elements are pretty cool. They are all practical effects, and they are the lovable ridiculous practical effects that everyone rags on but secretly miss. Effects with heart. So I can’t hate on Boy God too much. Just the star, and the unfortunately decision to not kill the child off and replace him with someone not terrible.
Director J. Erastheo Navoa helmed a few other genre flicks, some have a bit written about them, and some are complete mysteries. His biggest is probably Darna at Ding, but there is also Tikboy and Pamboy and Super Islaw and the Flying Kids. The latter got a revival in the tv series Super Inggo, Super Inggo being the son of Super Islaw and a supervillainess. Movie superheroine Super Inday played Super Inggo’s fiance, Super Inday had her own movie in the 80s that was remade in 2010 called Super Inday and the Golden Bibe.
Despite this film being rather well-known among weird world cinema collectors, it doesn’t have that much written about it online, so enjoy the more detailed plot synopsis review below!
|
Sting of Death (Review)
Sting of Death
1965
Written by Al Dempsey and William Kerwin
Directed by William Grefé
 |
|
How dare you complain about the Strategic Helium Reserve!
|
A Jellyfish Man terrorizes Florida in Sting of Death, and in so doing becomes one of the most ridiculous movie monsters in history. Not only is there a Jellyfish Man, but Sting of Death comes complete with it’s own rocking theme song, Do the Jellyfish by Neil Sedaka!
Sting of Death is important because the monster suit is ridiculous! He’s got a big balloon for a head! The rest of the costume is a wetsuit with partial monster slime glued on, but the gloves are painfully obvious thanks to some closeups. It’s one of the most ridiculous monster suits of all time. In fact, an list of awful monster costumes that does not contain the Jellyfish Man is suspect at best.
Yes, a Jellyfish Man terrorizes women. Aside from that, it’s a pretty straightforward Creature of the Black Lagoon ripoff with elements of other horror classics thrown in. It also has a surprisingly high bodycount and many characters who act like gigantic douchenozzles. Almost enough to make you cheer for the Jellyfish Man. So instead, I just cheer for everyone to die. I almost get my wish. Almost…
Sting of Death features plenty of women in bikinis who are manhandled (Jellyfish Manhandled?) and killed by the monster. The (obvious) villain is revealed to have all sorts of issues with women, but these types of films also explore the creators’ issues with women. Sometime there are so many issues that you have to put them into longboxes and sell them 6 for $1 at conventions. Let’s also just ignore how easy it was to transition into talking about comic books while discussing issues with women.
There was almost an unbelievable tragedy with regards to Sting of Death, in that the film was almost lost forever. In fact, when a print was located, it was in terrible condition and covered with mold, causing a scramble to try to find a lab that could handle all the mold and decay. Luckily for film preservation history, things turned out okay, and now that Sting of Death is in the digital world, where it will exist forever. Being spread around on tapes, DVDs, on-demand streaming, digital downloads, torrents, and all methods of media sharing.
Sting of Death is on a Something Weird double DVD along with Death Curse of Tartu. Both feature commentary by director William Grefe, and include some cool information about the filming. Grefe is well aware that he made a low budget horror film with some ridiculous effects, but that’s part of the fun. Through this we learn the bump on Jack Nagle’s head was an actual injury that had to be written into the film, but it looks totally fake, which is hilarious. Another fun feature is one of the actresses is named Blanche Devereaux, who you might recall is a character on The Golden Girls, which is set in Florida.
The scene set to “Do the Jellyfish” is hilarious because of the awful dancing. Every extra is dancing to a different beat and mixing up 1960s styles. You can’t help but be entertained by this sequence. Sting of Death was released in 1965, just as Neil Sedaka’s career was careening downward (his type of music was pushed out of the charts by the arrival of the Beatles, and Sedaka would be without a label by 1966), so this was a great get to have a former number 1 artist do the movie theme to such a ridiculous piece.
Parts of Sting of Death remind one of a beach party movie, but this goodhearted fun doesn’t last as some of the snobby boys begin mercilessly mocking Egon because of his deformity. While many of the women seem fine with this, there is one or two who object to the cruelty on display. Their protestations do little to stop the abuse, and will matter little later when the killing spree begins. The bad behavior makes many of the deaths much more satisfying, but Egon ruins all attempts to make him appear justified in his rampage. The bad behavior of the monster can’t be excused by bullying, he was killing before the party began and is full of excuses. The deaths keep him from gaining the coveted tragic villain slot, instead just turning him into yet another monster. He was treated like a monster for so long, he (literally) became one.
|
Aventura al Centro de la Tierra (Review)
Aventura al Centro de la Tierra
aka Adventure at the Center of the Earth
1965
Written by José María Fernández Unsáin (as J.M. Fernandez U.)
Directed by Alfredo B. Crevenna
 |
|
Hug time!
|
The mysterious center of the planet Earth has been a tantalizing source of speculative fiction for decades, until a bunch of eggheads determined it’s all magma and rocks. But screw those eggheads, because we’re still about journeying to mysterious underground civilizations. The concept is so universal that even Mexico has an entry, which not only brings to mind the many dryly boring 1950s adventure romps, but even uses stock footage from some of them. Aventura al Centro de la Tierra (Adventure at the Center of the Earth) even has its own boring old professor guys who are twenty years and twenty pounds to late to be trekking around to parts unknown. Luckily they bring guns and all sorts of modern violence on this quest, because it’s full of monsters.
Hey, I’m a lizard with crap glued to my head! And you think you have a bad job…
First, let’s give Aventura al Centro de la Tierra a giant “FUCK YOU!” for the terrible real animal cruelty in one scene. A pit of snakes have a bucket of gasoline thrown on them and are set alight. I’m no big snake fan, but I’m definitely not a big fan of killing animals for a dumb film about a bat creature that wants to score with a hot babe. They also include that classic clip of the crocodile with a fin on its back battling the gila monster that’s in like four or five other films. BOOOOOOOOO!! to that as well. They even sort of reference it with iguanas with horns and crap glued to them that can be seen in the cave.
The real reason to watch Aventura al Centro de la Tierra isn’t all the terrible stuff I’ve been mentioning, but the creature costumes. There is a rather well constructed manbat creature, complete with giant wings and sort of human intelligence and lusts. Despite going on a murder spree, he realizes Kitty de Hoyos is far too attractive to just rip her neck open, and takes her back to his lair to try to woo with bat guts and live rats. The ManBat was joined by a Cyclops, who is also responsible for some of the bodycount in the film, but he’s gunned down rather spectacularly (efforts to drug him end with an impaled Cyclops!)
On the way, the film borrows from classic horror films. Underwater sequences bring to mind similar underwater scenes in Creature of the Black Lagoon. The entire going to the center of the Earth thing is borrowed from so many pulp novels, Jules Verne being the most famous. The ManBat acts like many monsters with crushes by trying to impress the lady he kidnaps (and carries in the required monster carried a lady pose!) Alfredo B. Crevenna would go on to direct Gigantes Planetarios, El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras, and Santo Contra la Invasion de los Marcianos
Ladies and blacks, get out!
|
Someone saw the missing King Kong spider pit sequence!
Read more…
La Nave de los Monstruos (Review)
La Nave de los Monstruos
aka The Ship of Monsters
1960
Story by José María Fernández Unsáin
Adapted by Alfredo Varela
Directed by Rogelio A. González
A woman after his own heart
An amazing adventure, La Nave de los Monstruos – aka The Ship of Monsters – is essential global pop cinema viewing, not simply just essential Mexican pop cinema viewing. A purely entertaining spectacle of space ladies who desperately need to replace the missing men from their civilization, thus are quested to scour the galaxy to find suitable males. But despite collected a rogues gallery of interesting monsters, nothing prepares them for the human male and his singing cowboy ways. Those who haven’t seen the film are now confused, not realizing the singing cowboy is presented as the irresistible bit of manliness that the rest of the galaxy is missing. In addition, he introduces the concept of love, which causes jealously and the best case of surprise space vampirism I’ve ever seen in a movie.
A non-gross male? What the heck??
The introduction to love concepts aren’t why everyone loves this film, it’s just the gravy on top. The real reason for the season is the amazing monster costumes! We got a crosscut of 1950s man in suit monsters, including a boxy robot. The costumes themselves are spectacular, some having appeared in Mexican cinema before, and a few that will show up again almost a decade later.
The Ship of Monsters takes more than just some of the monster designs from American science fiction films, there is a constant mention of radiation and atomic throughout the movie. The men from the planet Venus all died due to atomic sickness, everyone on Tor’s homeworld died due to nuclear radiation, and Zok’s planet had a radioactive disaster that rendered his entire species nothing but walking talking skeletons. While Mexico wasn’t a direct participant in the Cold War, it does lie in close enough proximity to the US that had any sort of nuclear exchange happened, it would suffer dire consequences as well. So the thought must have been on their minds. Mexico didn’t suffer from weapons being used on it like Japan, so their response in film is more a warning of the possibilities, not a reflection of the destruction of war and atomic horror returned in monstrous form.
We demand a creepier cave!
The joy of the monsters on the rampage propels The Ship of Monsters into amazing land, and you should track down a copy as soon as you can. Unfortunately, it only seems to be released as part of double DVDs. Where the heck is Criterion? Get on it, cinephiles! This is movie magic, so break out your wands and Wingardium Leviosa a copy to your player.
|
As all the men on Planet Venus have died due to radiation sickness, the interplanetary fleet is sent out to collect men. During a montage as the credits roll, Gamma and Beta’s ship picks up what is dubbed in the credits as Los Monstruos de las Galaxias:
|
 |
|
It’s another Republican primary debate!
|
Na Cha and the Seven Devils
Na Cha and the Seven Devils
aka 梅山收七怪 aka Mei shan shou qi guai aka Na Cha and the 7 Devils
1973
Written by ???
Directed by Yamanouchi Tetsuya
Here’s your disco inferno!
Who would have thought that a movie about a bunch of animal demons running amok, including a huge fire breathing dragon in sequences directed by Yamanouchi Tetsuya, would turn out to be so boring? Obviously anyone who has had prior experience with movies where flying kids battle monsters! At TarsTarkas.NET, we have dealt with a lot of them! Though most of those are Taiwanese, Na Cha and the Seven Devils comes from the illustrious Shaw Brothers studios. It’s the second of two Na Cha films that were made at the same time by Yamanouchi Tetsuya, featuring many of the same cast (they even reuse at least one human character as the grandson of his character from the first film!), and one of several Na Cha films, a character from a classic Chinese tale.
A quick Na Cha primer: Na Cha is that kid with the flaming circles around his feet that let him fly. Sometimes his name is translated Nezha or Na Zha. He’s based on Chinese mythology that probably has roots in Hinduism. Na Cha shows up in Journey to the West and has a stream of television and film appearances.
Na Cha and the Seven Devils seems like it would be an idea kids film, just let them watch the special effects while mom and dad go get hammered..I mean, go do chores. But there is an awful lot of boob grabbing. It’s oddly sensual (though in a clumsy sensual way), and Shaw was ranking up the sexy in the early 70s. It does seem way out of place for what goes on in the rest of the film.
The look of Na Cha and the Seven Devils comes from art director Mutsuo Mikimi, who has a pedigree of doing effects on Message from Space, Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell, and Super Infra-Man. Director Yamanouchi Tetsuya was making a brief foray out of Japan, but he also has a kaiju pedigree thanks to films like The Magic Serpent and 1969’s Akakage. Doi Michiyoshi is also listed as a director on the HKMDB, but not on the actual film and I can’t find any further information.
The biggest gripe with Na Cha and the Seven Devils is that Na Cha and his immortal buddies cause all these problems on Earth, then they send only three of them to deal with the problems. Meanwhile, hundreds of people die! Sorry, folks, you are all being slaughtered to teach Na Cha responsibility! The main trouble is there is a magic peach tree that only blooms every 1000 years, and then the peaches take 1000 years to ripen. And it’s about time for those babies to pop. There are 8 this year that are destined to be a gift to the Queen Mother by order of the Jade Emperor.
Na Cha is unaware of all this, and just sees a tree with a bunch of peaches, and Na Cha wants to eat them peaches. So he climbs up the tree and grabs on, accidentally causing the other 7 to fall. Because they are at Mt. Kunlu – which is between Heaven and the Mortal World, the peaches fall through the clouds to Earth. Where they are promptly found by animals, that eat them and become superpowered Devils themed on whatever animal they were.
See my vest, see my vest, made from real gorilla chest!
Now, Na Cha did cause the original problem, but he also wasn’t told not to eat the peaches, and as someone who has done their fair share of gardening (and has peach trees in the back yard!), I know for a fact peaches will be falling off the tree regardless of Na Cha shaking the branches or not, which means a few would have dropped down below anyways. Which means the immortals should have hung a few baskets to catch these valuable and dangerous peaches!
After the peaches are found to be missing, an edict comes down on high from the Jade Emperor to solve this problem in 10 days! So the group of immortals decide to just send Na Cha by his lonesome. It’s only when his two older brothers Jincha and Mucha beg to go along that the party is increased. But still, everyone else just stays around Mt. Kunlu and laments their fate and probably going to get squashed by an angry Jade Emperor soon. Lazy, lazy people who deserve it for not bothering to help solve the problem.
I’ll use this to contact Sauron!
|
I will be the Superior Spiderman!
Read more…
Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Aai Dung-Gwa, awful monster costumes, Chen Hung-Lieh, damn flying kids!, dragons, Hong Kong, kaiju, Law Bun, Ngai Chi Wong, Ngok Yeung, Shaw Brothers, Tina Chin Fei, Yamanouchi Tetsuya, Yau Lung
The Golden Bat
The Golden Bat
aka 黄金バット aka Ogon batto
1966
Written by Susumu Takaku
Directed by Hajime Sato
The Golden Bat is one of the best movies of all time. The Golden Bat is one of the craziest movies of all time. The Golden Bat is one of the funnest movies of all time. The Golden Bat is the reason movies were invented. You will watch The Golden Bat, or he will beat the tar out of you with his cane, laughing all the while!
A dreamlike haze of crazy costumes and duplications and maniac villains and monsters, The Golden Bat drags the tokusatsu genre to a surreal edge, pushing the boundaries of what a sane child would accept as proper plot progression while making great use of the black and white cinematography to give a gothic noir flavor. Sinister characters get shadows cast over them unnoticed by the good heroes. The set design is a wild 60s psychedelic take on pulp science fiction while using the light and dark contrasts to make the alien seem alien. Director Hajime Sato would later go on to direct the Bava-esque Goke – Bodysnatcher From Hell. Sato can take a straight scenario and bend it into a warped world, He would later put this pulp science fiction experience to work as a television director on Captain Ultra, which also features crazy surreal aliens that would be right at home in The Golden Bat.
Ogon Bat/Golden Bat was created in 1930 by writer Ichiro Suzuki and artist Takeo Nagamatsu for use in Kamishibai, a storytelling device where an entertainer would narrate a story for children as sequential wooden cards illustrate the exciting things that are happening. The Kamishibai merchant would make money by selling candy to the children who attend his shows. Kamishibai declined after World War 2, but a few story tellers still exist in tourist zones. The practice is said to date back to Buddhist monks in the 12th century, but the modern version used to entertain kids has it’s roots during the depression as a cheap way to entertain and make money.
Golden Bat is considered the first Japanese super hero due to these tales, and many more were created over the years (including adaptations of American heroes) Some of the art is collection in a few Kamishibai books, and slides are available for download on specialty Kamishibai sites. Ogon Batto would then appear in manga tales.
Golden Bat made his first film appearance with 1950’s Ogon bat: Matenro no kaijin (Golden Bat: Frankenstein Skyscraper). After thisThe Golden Bat film, 1967 saw an anime series, and the last official film adaptation was 1972’s Ogon Batto ga yattekuru (Golden Bat Shows Up), where a fat and stupid Golden Bat does presumably unfunny things. Neither of the other two films are easily available for watching, probably due to the lack of Sonny Chiba. There is an unofficial Korean Golden Bat film called Yong Gu and the Golden Bat (영구와 황금박쥐 – 1992) which is one of those awful awful Korean children’s films that you should never watch.
|
