Godzilla #11 (June 1978)


Godzilla Marvel 11

Red Ronin is in the Choom Gang!


Godzilla #11 – Arena for Three! (June 1978)
Writer – Doug Moench
Penciler – Herb Trimpe
Editor – Archie Goodwin

When last we left Godzilla, a rumble was afoot between Big G, Yetrigar, and Red Ronin. And now the rumble will happen! If you need a reminder of the cast, stop by the Godzilla Marvel Splash Page, and check in on everything with March of Godzilla 2013!

The three monsters (Godzilla, Red Ronin, Yetrigar) battle, with Robert trying to help Godzilla, but Yetrigar is good at fighting them both. Some river rafters get caught in the crossfire, while Robert in Red Ronin is oblivious to their plight.

Dum Dum and Gabe get in a fighter and fly after the monsters, while the crashed Behemoth begins repairs.

Robert also doesn’t want to kill Yetrigar because the yetrigar of legend are supposed to be related to men. Even though this one has clearly lost it and is a danger to everyone. Of course, Robert also doesn’t try any real nonlethal attacks, either.

Robert eventually sees the Yetrigar is mad with rage and can’t be reasoned with, and will kill them both if he doesn’t kill it first. Robert has learned that sometimes the world is shades of grey. An important lesson. Robert buries Yetrigar under the side of the canyon (where he will remain until he pops up some time later in the West Coast Avengers!?!!) Dum Dum and Gabriel Jones end up saving the river rafters, if you were worried about the safety of these random one-issue flavor characters.

Godzilla Marvel 11

Red Ronin is just making excuses now…


Godzilla then wanders off, his work done. His work being to start a fight and then watch someone else end it. Robert flies away in shame that he had to take a life and is a fugitive from SHIELD.

Now that Robert is a murderer, will he come to grips with the fact that Godzilla might have to be put down like a foaming mouth dog? Or will Robert have learned an important lesson about monster morality, and which monster is good and bad? More likely, Robert learned that being an adult means you have to sometimes make adult decisions that you don’t like, but have no other choice.

And just wait until you find out what he learns next month!

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Abominable Snowman

Abominable Snowman

aka Deadly Descent

2013
Written by Nathan Atkins
Directed by Marko Makilaakso

Abominable Snowman
Hey, guys, funny joke, now let me in!

A group of mountain climbers learn that sometimes the mountain climbs you, even if it isn’t in Soviet Russia and also “the mountain climbs you” is a metaphor for huge abominable snowmen that eat you. Sure, that joke makes no sense, but who gives a crap, we got a gigantic abominable snowman eating people, making sense is for losers!

Proud SyFy vets UFO International drop this tale of man vs. beast (Originally titled Deadly Descent), which follows a similar structure as most of the creature features, so it’s all down to details. While not being a bad example, Abominable Snowman is by the numbers, it does what it does and that’s what we got. The things to distinguish it from other creature features is not the monster, but the vast amount of skiing and snowboarding.

Every character is either active military, a vet, or going into the military. This means they drop military terms like candy at a parade. They’re also all experience mountaineers and skiers thanks to the nearby slopes, so those hobby terms are used all the time as well. I’m not experience enough at mountaineering and skiing to know if they were making sense or blabbing a bunch of nonsense, but I shall give them some leeway here. The military aspect defines the characters. They’re trapped in a small town, the only way out is to go into the army and see the world. Everyone’s friends join up, and the only jobs left is bartending for the broken vets who return. A main character Brian suffers from PTSD, as does at least one of the supporting cast. Adrian Paul’s helicopter pilot character returned from war an empty man and got into substance abuse troubles. Other characters argue about whether to reenlist, how it will disrupt their lives vs. the potential benefits and ability to do something interesting. It’s an evenhanded approach that doesn’t take sides, just shows reality. The variety of military characters as opposed to the usually cliche military nut is what I liked best about Abominable Snowman.

Abominable Snowman
Hi, we’re yetis, but usually we disguise ourselves as ellipses!

Director Marko Makilaakso helmed War of the Dead, which ran out of money and sat on a shelf for years. I haven’t seen it. Beyond that, he’s done a lot of documentary work. Writer Nathan Atkins also wrote Super Tanker and Cold Fusion, but before all this he angered a bunch of people who like a terrible movie too much when he wrote the DTV sequel, S. Darko.

The biggest disappointment is that the monster CGI just a few simple repeated movements, and beyond that we rarely see the creatures. As someone who likes lots of monster shots and shots of monsters doing things, this was disappointing. Beyond that, this ski route has seen a lot of snow bunnies slide down it. So in the end, the needle moves back to average but not terrible.

Brian Tanner (Chuck Campbell) – Obsessed Afghan vet who loses a friend hiking the same way he lost a father 25 years ago – via Abominable Snowman attack. Connecting the dots, Brian goes looking for the monster, and ends up finding him! Uh-oh! Chuck Campbell shows up in Jason X.
Nina Tanner (Lauren O’Neil) – Brian’s sister, was going to head off to officer’s training until her bro went missing. Now she has to go all Where’s Waldo and fight a monster that killed her dad.
Rick McCabe (Nicholas Boulton) – Guy sort of with Nina, which makes Brian uncomfortable because his sister is so young. Rick is a natural leader who takes charge of the search for Brian.
Mark (Adrian Paul) – Pilot and combat vet. Mark was in a helicopter crash, where he was accused of being too drunk to fly. Now drinks milk to forget and argues about his reputation.
Abominable Snowmen (CGI) – The fierce creatures of Glacier Peak, eating everyone they meet.
Abominable Snowman
I should’ve had a V8!

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SyFy Channel in June is Monster Movie Heaven!

[adrotate banner=”1″]June looks like it will be one of the best months for SyFy films since Chupacabra Were-Vampire vs. Space Quake Snake. And while that film might not exist yet, these four new films do exist and will bring a world of hilarity and awesome to the small screen:

June 9th brings us Jersey Shore Shark Attack. Check out your Snookies and J-WOWs vs ocean death, and pray that the Jersey Shore loses big time. Only sharks can save America from Snooki’s baby! Jack Scalia and Paul Sorvino star, while the Jersey characters have names like TC “The Complication”, BJ, J-Moni, and Nooki. John Shepphird (Chupacabra Terror) directs.

Next week on June 16th is Piranhaconda – Jim Wynorski’s new flick about the Part Snake! Part Fish! All Killer! Michael Madsen and Rachel Hunter star, and the title alone is worth a view! The trailer recently popped up.

piranhaconda

June 23rd gives us Arachnoquake – the awesomely titled film where and earthquake causes giant albino spiders to get unleashed upon the Earth to attack Tracey Gold, Ethan Phillips, Bug Hall, and Edward Furlong.

Griff Furst directs, he’s proven he can direct a fun SyFy flick (and be fun as well when he shows up in one of his dad’s films)

I couldn’t find a trailer, so here’s an interview with Furst and some of the cast:

And finally June 30th gives us Bigfoot, which is notable because Danny Bonaduce and Barry Williams are following the Tiffany/Debbie Gibson route and teaming up for a SyFy film where they play rivals! Sherilyn Fenn, Howard Hesseman, and Alice Cooper also star.

Needless to say, the DVRs are being set as we speak to make June the SyFyest month of them all!

Son of Dracula (Review)

Son of Dracula


????
Directed by Saleem Suma

Bollywood horror is filled with ups and downs. Mostly downs. Every once in a while, you run into something so ridiculously stupid, it is awesome. Unfortunately, that was Shaitani Dracula, and we are now watching Son of Dracula, which is absolutely terrible. All of the fun of random dudes strolling around in dime store costumes is gone, instead we have a disco guy seducing random women, one of which gives birth to Son of Dracula, a doll that is waved around like it is the spookiest thing ever, and a statue looking like bigfoot that spends the entire film yelling. The main crime is none of that is any fun. It should be fun. It sounds like fun. But, brother, it ain’t fun! I originally ordered this knowing nothing except what the vcd cover looked like, and it promised a vampire/Yoda thing. He is in here, but he isn’t as fun as he looks. The lesson for today is disappointment, a harsh lesson I am tired of learning over and over again with more and more films. Luckily, the good jewels make up for the duds.

I am guessing the film was edited by caffeinated squirrels with ADD, due to the hap-hazard cuts, random scenes, and nonsensical anything. Nothing in this film makes the slightest bit of sense. Even if there were subtitles, this thing would be a mess, and the subtitles would probably end up having been stolen from a Harry Potter film. Bollywood horror has a complicated history covered by multiple sources, and a quick summary here would not do it justice. So we will just skip it and dive right into the film, because it doesn’t take a detailed history of a country’s movie culture to recognize that this film sucks. And at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles, so we dive in unaided.

Thanks goodness!

What year this was made in is debatable, because it doesn’t seem to be listed anywhere. The other problem is the cast list, I cannot conclusively link most of the actors to parts, largely due to my lack of finding good pictures or even any information at all about most of the cast. The actors list is credited as follows: Joginder, Raza Murad, Alaudeen Ferozm, Poonm Das Gupta, Sapna, Arif, Mahendrea Tiwari. Joginder is probably Joginder Shelly, and he has been called “the Badshaah of 70s B-grade films” as he was a popular over-acting villain. I am sure you know what Badshaah means, so moving on. Raza Murad is another popular villain character actor. Poonm Das Gupta is Poonam Das Gupta, and is probably Mom of Son of Dracula. Imagine that, a misspelling in the name of an actor in a B-movie. Shocking. I got nothing on any of the others. So there. Drop us a line if you have a clue.

UPDATE: in the blog announcement Vinayak has disclosed that Takul is played by Joginder Shelly and the Inspector is played by Raza Murad: “he stated with “A grade movies” and slowly slipped to “C Grade”.” Thanks, Vinayak!


Takul (Joginder Shelly) – Disco Dracula, I guess. There is a constant cat yelping as he talks. He spends most of the film trying to seduce the random girls who sing songs while dancing in the rain or waterfalls that Bollywood films have taught me litter India like beer cans on the highway. He also seems to have a second good identity where he is a family man, I couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be twins (with one evil) or just a secret identity as the evil guy. Even worse, he lives at the end and seems to be accepted by the innocent family. So, yeah…
Inspector (Raza Murad) – This police chief makes Chief Wiggum look like Sherlock Holmes. Many of his men get killed by a doll, and he is defeated by his clothes vanishing. Riggs and Murtaugh wouldn’t put up with that crap, and just shoot Son of Dracula in the head, revoking his Puppet Immunity.
Witch Doctor Jesus (???) – Witch Doctor Jesus comes complete with trident, and fights the forces of Son of Dracula and Angry Bigfoot Statue. He uses retro effects, waving of hands, and being freaking weird as powers. He also has sit-down talks with bad guys, showing the forgiving spirit of Jesus. This is far more accurate of a portrayal of Our Lord than Passion of the Christ.
Mom of Son of Dracula (Poonam Das Gupta) – As the name implies, she is the Mom of the Son of Dracula. She loves striped socks, odd clothes, writhing around, and giving birth to freaky puppet doll monsters by video toaster effects. Basically, your average girl next door!
Son of Dracula (A doll) – A freaking doll with a rubber mask is waved around by an off-camera dude, and that is the Son of Dracula that terrorizes people in this film like crazy. Every once in a while, Son of Dracula is actually played by a real guy wearing the mask, probably a kid. These rare instances stand out like a hobo at a millionaire’s ball. Despite Son of Dracula’s immobile face and body, he is somehow able to kill around a dozen people thanks to his fangs and Son of Dracula magic.
Angry Bigfoot Statue (A statue) – This statue never shuts up. All he does is yell and yell, and occasionally impregnate someone with the Son of Dracula. So I guess he is Dracula, except Dracula is not a statue, so he is more of a monster that the movie uses Dracula as the name for to get investors to pony up more dollars than Son of Angry Bigfoot Statue.


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My Martian Bigfoot Project

Sometimes great ideas just come to you. Like the time I thought to make bats large enough to ride, which also had the added benefits of saving me gas and eating the excess overgrown insects around my castle lair. Another great idea was the Bigfoot Army. A legion of Sasquatches that will march under my banner and help my reign of chaos. We all know Bigfeet are impervious to weapons and have the ability to blend into the surrounding environment. That is not even mentioning their fog effect, where all cameras trying to photograph them either end up blurred or destroyed. To make the ultimate weapons, I have to grow them in a variety of harsh environments to make them bigger and badder than any other sasquatch army out there. I wouldn’t want any other mad scientist to try to jump the gun with his own Bigfoot army. NASA inadvertently snapped a photo of one of my troops (Bigfoot #1200543-A) and that has now spread across the internet. Luckily, some have chosen to not believe, which will still allow me to take the world by surprise!

martianbigfoot1

Life on Mars? Amazing photos from Nasa probe reveal mystery figure on Red Planet
By BETH HALE

Perched on a rock, she could be waiting for a bus.

But if so, she could be in for an awfully long wait.

This photo of what looks remarkably like a female figure with her arm outstretched, was taken on Mars.

Call me rocky: The intriguing image captured by Nasa on Mars
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has set the Internet abuzz with claims that there really is life on the red planet.

Others may well feel that it is simply an optical illusion caused by a landscape.

Alien life: What seems to be a human-like Martian is pictured on Mars
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The image was among many sent back to Earth by Spirit, Nasa’s Mars explorer vehicle which landed there four years ago.

Initial inspections revealed nothing unusual, but closer examination by amateur astronomers has thrown up this intriguing picture.

Painstaking: Space enthusiasts spent four years analysing this image, which on much closer inspection shows the ‘alien’
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As one enthusiast put it on a website: “These pictures are amazing. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw what appears to be a naked alien running around on Mars.”

Another, dismissing cynicism about the somewhat stony look of the “alien”, wrote: “If you show me another rock in another photo from Mars, or Earth, that naturally looks like that, I will reconsider.”

Say cheese: The mystery image was captured by Nasa’s explorer vehicle, Spirit

A third contributor, who might have come closer to the majority view, said: “Ah, the human eye can be tricked so easily.”

bfmars2
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