It’s Discount Puppet Explosion 411! Two teams battle to review B-movies.
In this episode, Team Bastards deals with Thor. Not the big budget Thor that was boring and bland, but the low-rent Thor that has guns and whines all the time. But there’s dinosaurs! And giant dogs! And Richard Grieco! And some chick! Will Whiny Thor make Team Bastards declare war against Thursdays? Find out!
aka Raptor Island 2
2008
Directed by Gary Jones
Written by Steve Latshaw
Remember that SciFi Channel movie Raptor Island and how it was one of the worst SciFi Channel movies ever, the raptors just stood there and got shoot, and the whole thing was a complete mess? Well, it got a sequel! Don’t you feel your harsh criticisms of the original are now unjustified? Of course not, there is no reason for this sequel to exist. And yet it does. And it is set in space.
Yes, OUTER SPACE!
Well, Critters, Friday the 13th, and Leprechaun did it, so why not Raptor Island? That also gives you the excuse to rip off Aliens wholesale with the excuse it is in the future, thus it is a homage or something. So IN THE FUTURE Raptor will still be eating people, because that is what they do. And SciFi Channel will be airing Shark Attack 46: Megalodon in Space.
Director Gary Jones worked with Sam Raimi on two of the Evil Dead films, and has since become a genre director of his own right. Writer Steve Latshaw has been around for years, previously encounter here in The Curse of the Komodo. Neither of them have much to work with due to the limited budget, and are forced to resort to stock footage and abandoned towns. The film reeks of a small budget, it even has problems with the American flags on the uniforms. Sometimes the American flag has forty stars, and sometimes only 35! It looks like in the future America lost a few states, or they are in a state of quantum flux, probably due to more raptors. Schrödinger’s states.
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1969
Starring
Susan Berkely as ???
Gary Ken as ???
Billy Wolf as ???
Sharon Wells as ???
Jack King as ???
Natasha as ???
Directed by Ed De Priest
Written by Ed Wood, Jr!!!! (as Akdon Telmig)
“This film meets requirements set forth in the code of the ADULT FILM PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION.” Too bad it doesn’t meet requirements set forth by GOOD FILMMAKING!
AC/DC is a detestable mess full of repulsive, greasy actors going at it like chimpanzees on Spanish fly. The incomparable One Million AC/DC is on a DVD with The Mighty Gorga, and probably because they both share a common T-Rex puppet used for bad special effects. The puppet, however, is the pinnacle of effects in AC/DC, as opposed to the low point in The Mighty Gorga. They get worse, much worse. The puppet isn’t even used half the time, otherwise it is a static plastic toy tyrannosaurs who moved by a hand just below the fake mountains. Now, bad special effects can be forgiven if there is a good story. There story here is just an excuse to get the cast naked so the audience can get off. Written by Akdon Telmig, who you might know better as Ed Wood, Jr.!!! Yes, after becoming a depressed alcoholic, Ed Wood was forced to write semi-adult films under pseudonyms. Besides this mess, he also wrote the cult classic about a Venus flytrap man The Revenge of Dr. X, which we’ll be reviewing the second we get a hold of a copy. The one redeeming factor on the film’s terrible pun title is you can make jokes about AC/DC songs: “He’s got big balls, And she’s got big balls, But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all” That would get old quick, so we won’t be doing it. The plot is around a tribe of cavepeople, and their sex, orgies, sacrifices, and winemaking. Exciting stuff, and historically accurate, just like the movies The Patriot and Braveheart.
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1969
Starring
Anthony Eisley as Mark Remington
Megan Timothy as April Adams
Scott Brady as Dan Morgan
Kent Taylor as Tonga Jack Adams
Bruce Kimball as The Witch Doctor/Mort the Clown
Lee Parrish as George
Greydon Clark as Charlie the Elephant ticket seller
Directed by David L. Hewitt
One of the worst rip-offs of King Kong ever, even worse than Queen Kong (which is an epic chore to sit through itself), this masterpiece of horrible filmmaking sinks below the chum of the crap, a benchmark that is not easily passed by those trying to create a worse giant gorilla film. Sure, that genre has some terrible entries: the aforementioned Queen Kong, King Kong Escapes (though I like this one), the Mighty Joe Young remake, A*P*E, the upcoming Kinky Kong, and the classic porn masterpiece King Dong. Giant ape movies will be with us forever, and some of them go on forever like the Peter Jackson version of King Kong. The Mighty Gorga is mercifully short, the best feature of the entire film.
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A woman is chained as sacrifice because she is the next victim of the Mighty Gorgo! As we all know how this works from the various King Kong films, the movie doesn’t even bother to explain what is going on. They then jump right into a circus, as lion taming happens during the opening credits, something every version of King Kong can’t claim to have, so that’s one point for The Mighty Gorga.
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2004
Starring
Lorenzo Lamas as Hacket
Steven Bauer as Azir
Hayley DuMond as Jamie Cole
Michael Cory Davis as Marcus
Peter Jason as The Captain
Sci-Fi Channel has aired some stinkers. I know that, you know that, TarsTarkas.NET knows that in spades. Even with some of the junk they air, most of the films have a few redeeming points, money shots, or one or two enjoyable scenes. Sometimes, such as Frankenfish, the movie is actually very enjoyable. Usually, it’s 90% junk. Once in a while, a movie comes along….a movie of such caliber….that 100% junk does not do it justice. Raptor Island is well over 8696843% junk, and still climbing. You can take that to the bank, after all, I am a scientist. Much of the junk in Raptor Island is so bad there isn’t words to describe it. It’s terrible. Terrible. TERRIBLE! There is nothing redeeming about this film. From Lorenzo Lamas being out acted by rocks and trees, to CGI monsters so badly rendered a kid with crayolas would do better, to action sequences involving people standing still shooting while their targets stand still and take fire. You won’t believe the origin of the raptors. I’d rather watch the Toronto Raptors trapped on an island than see this film again. You couldn’t pay me to watch it again, and I’ve seen Manos two dozen times. There cannot possibly be a worse Sci-Fi Channel movie than this one. Read on, if you dare…
2005
Starring
Coolio as Captain Bergin
Cameron Daddo as Professor Lovecraft
Amy Sloan as Kate
Steve Braun as Willis
Mircea Monroe as Angie
Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
slide slide slippity-slide
with switches on the block in a ’65
It’s a fantastic voyage indeed, to the heart of the Turkish-Armenian border, which is ripe with pterodactyls. Yes, pterodactyls. Only one man can stand up to the pterodactyl menace, Coolio! Coolio’s experience in living the Gansta’s Paradise is the key factor in destroying the Jurassic Threat. This isn’t the typical Sci-Fi pictures movie with just one giant monster, there is a whole flock of pterodactyls swarming the Turkish air. No wonder Turkey gives us such wonderful films, they’re constantly being raided by prehistoric monsters!
An ancient volcano in Turkey erupts, causing eggs to roll down a strategically placed hatch inside the volcano. The eggs instantly begin to hatch, producing pterodactyl hand puppets. Seconds later, some Turkish hunters are out wandering the countryside. Turkish Rednecks dress like American Rednecks, they just look more like Goths. We get a pterodactyl-vision shot, and hunter number one is sliced in half! His bottom half stand a few seconds before crumpling down. The other hunters shoot back, but in vain. They are soon given a first hand look at why The Flintstones would never work in real life, as they become dinner.
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