Piranhaconda (Review)
Piranhaconda
2012
Written by Mike MacLean
Concept by J. Brad Wilke
Directed by Jim Wynorski
 |
|
This won $20,000 on America’s Funniest Home Videos!
|
Piranhaconda is like a mix of SyFy meets the softcore bikini film. Elements of both merge together while director Jim Wynorski returns to his favorite stomping ground of Hawaii. Thankfully, we don’t have a rehash of the Curse of the Komodo/Komodo vs Cobra/A.I. Assault script, and instead have something wholly new. While parts of it may not work, overall Piranhaconda isn’t terrible and gives enough death and destruction to knock it into mid-tier SyFy creature feature region.
Piranhaconda comes from the period where SyFy had begun to run low on monsters that exist in nature/mythology and needed to just combine fierce animals together to create new horrors. Sharktopus is the one that started this trend, which has expanded to include animal/natural disaster hybrids.
This is a preview video only! Get the full movie with Membership Access of Creatures Sliming Babes.com, only $9.95/mo recurring!
Piranhaconda doesn’t waste time trying to come up with a fantastical origin of the creatures, it just throws out a line or two about how the monsters have always been there and just hibernate a lot. They even grab a supernatural name for their creature – Kepolo, a Polynesian river devil. In reality, the origin of the creatures does not matter, what matters is if things are a grand ol’ time while all the monster action is happening.
Let’s get this out of the way right now. Piranhaconda is a gigantic dong that slithers through the grass and attacks its prey, often spewing goo over the chest of female characters. I think we’ve moved a bit beyond subtext here into hilarity. The two Piranhacondas don’t like each other very well, which isn’t surprising considering what they represent, but they’ve also mated and dropped dozens and dozens of eggs. Throw that into the fake film being a slasher film, which have their own phallic symbols going on, and things reveal themselves nicely. So, yeah. Piranhaconda!
When we put our heads together…it hurts!
|
This happens every day on the 101-N
Read more…
Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Amber Malia Laka Ali, Angie Savage, Chris De Christopher, Cynthia Lucas, Diana Terranova, Erika Jordan, giant snake movie, J. Brad Wilke, Jenny Lin, Jim Wynorski, Kurt Yaeger, Michael Madsen, Michael Swan, Mike MacLean, Piranhaconda, Rachel Hunter, Rib Hillis, SciFi Channel, Shandi Finnessey, Syd Wilder, SyFy, Terri Ivens
Sharktopus (Review)
Sharktopus
2010
Directed by Declan O’Brien
Written by Mike MacLean
 |
|
I hate it when people don’t leash their dogs at the beach
|
Sharktopus is Roger Corman’s latest, having found a new outlet to distribute his films through the SciFi Channel (never SyFy, never!), previous Corman films including Cyclops, Dinoshark, Supergator, and Dinocroc vs. Supergator. Thanks to me moving to a location without SciFi Channel at the moment, I have been slacking off on watching the newer flicks that don’t pop on DVD first, but Sharktopus is a special case so I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who I traded a rock shaped like Sarah Jessica Parker to for a copy of Sharktopus he recorded off of TV. This is the new economy. I think he got the better end of the deal, but then it’s easy to find rocks shaped like horses– I mean, Sarah Jessica Parker.
 |
|
Hey, I have glasses AND a ponytail now, that mean’s I’m the smartest one in here
|
Sharktopus has also ridden the wave of internet interest, just by the name “Sharktopus”. Buzz started immediately, with people trying to figure out what the creature would look like. There had been a recent string of SciFi Channel movies that have produced internet buzz, including Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Megapihrana, and MegaMegaMegaMegaMegaMega earthworm vs Giant Mega Vampire Cow. Granted, internet films don’t really have a big history of succeeding (see Snakes on a Plane) but for a low-budget creature flick on a cable channel, the buzz actually works. It has even succeeded in making an ever-increasing amount of films with ridiculous creature names and films where ridiculous creatures battle ridiculous creatures. Have the films themselves been any good? That’s more of a mixed bag.
But forget the rest of the flicks, this review is about Sharktopus! So let’s judge it against its peers, other SciFi Channel films. Compared to the rest, the acting is pretty darn awful. We usually expect the acting to not be very good, but Sharktopus is a step beyond the normal SciFi Channel mediocrity, even the bit players are worse than the stock bit players. You got to hand it to Bulgarian extras – they aren’t as bad as the spring break extras they got for this one. Since Sharktopus likes to set up different kills, we see a lot of the minor actors for an extended period of time. This becomes disadvantageous as many of them couldn’t act their way out of a paper sharktopus.
 |
|
Mega Sharktopus vs. Herbie the Love Bug
|
The good is we see the monster a LOT more than usual, and that’s awesome. Because we want monster monster monster! This also makes it more satisfying when the bad actors get killed.
|
 |
|
Eric Roberts – now with 95% more smug
|
Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: CGI trainwreck, Declan O'Brien, Eric Roberts, Kerem Bursin, Liv Boughn, Mike MacLean, Roger Corman, Sara Malakul Lane, SciFi Channel
