Posts tagged "Rib Hillis"

Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda (Review)

Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda

2014
Written by Matt Yamashita
Directed by Kevin O’Neill

Mom! Dad! Why are you fighting! ::bursts into tears::

Sharktopus was one of the better performing SyFy original movies and helped lead the charge into the fray of combination animals running amok on an unsuspecting populace. As it’s also a Roger Corman production, you know that every last dime is going to get squeezed out of the film. Hence two sequels! Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda is the first of these, essentially the Empire Strikes Back of the trilogy.

But Sharktopus is dead, how can there be another Sharktopus movie? Easy! Thanks to a handy recap of prior events, we learn that Sharktopus was preggers! A shark egg sack is among the pieces of Sharktopus that float out to sea and are quickly caught in a net for a boat being chartered by a Latin America amusement park that has sent it out to find cool stuff in the ocean, and Lorena Christmas discovers the baby Sharktopus 2.0, which she begins to raise.

I’ll make you watch every episode of King of the Nerds, or else!

On the polar opposite side we have another genetically engineered creature built as a weapon with Pteracuda, which has the flight powers of a pterodactyl and the underwater strength of a barracuda. While talk mentions that the US military is probably going to settle on its drone program over these genetically manipulated monstrosities, Dr. Rico Symes is convinced that he can create a creature that is more destructive in air and at sea that can outclass the drones. Things look well, until Pteracuda is almost immediately hijacked and goes berserk.

Good thing she was wearing her life jacket!

	Dr. Rico Symes (Robert Carradine) – Dr. Rico Symes is the amoral genius creator of Pteracuda, doing the whole project in secret to the world and his own company. Symes must then stop his creation after it is hijacked, but refuses to stick his neck out while doing so. He founded Symodyne, which we know is bad because all companies that end in -dyne are evil! Not only that, but Dr. Symes kidnaps Lorena at gunpoint and drags her into his unmarked white van. Robert Carradine is awesome here, he is like an evil Lewis Skolnick on steroids!
	Lorena Christmas (Katie Savoy) – Not a Ph.D., hired directly out of college by her uncle, who owns the aquatic theme park. Raises the new Sharktopus from a newborn, and recognizes its intelligence, and was trying to condition it to be nonviolent. I wonder if she’s named after Dr. Christmas Jones from The World is Not Enough.
	“Ham” Hammerstein (Rib Hillis) – Leader of the security team hired by Dr. Symes as insurance in case something goes wrong with Pteracuda, and the only member to make it through the opening sequence alive. Weirdly loyal to Dr. Symes for most of the flick until he’s betrayed one too many times. Enjoys harpoon-based weaponry.
	Sharktopus (CGI) – Sharktopus is really Sharktopus 2.0, either Son of Sharktopus or Daughter of Sharktopus. It doesn’t really matter for movie purposes. Just how Sharktopus got pregnant in the first place is not addressed. Raised in a theme park, Sharktopus is unable to throw off its created purpose as an alpha predator/weapon, and thanks to a control circuit lodged in its head, is sent out to fight Pteracuda.
	Pteracuda (CGI) – Designed as a replacement/improvement of drones, Pteracuda is hijacked and soon is killing lots of people, leading its creator to go to extreme methods to hunt it down. Which means it fights Sharktopus! The hacker who takes control wants Pteracuda to attack a nuclear power plant.

Seconds before the kiss

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!

	Rose (Terri Ivens) – A producer concerned with work and handling the difficult actress on her film. Figures out all the dumb stuff Lovegrove is doing that’s endangering everyone.
	Jack (Rib Hillis) – Jack and Rose, huh? I guess their hearts did go on! A stunt guy with the hots for Rose, Jack helps save the day while avoiding dating Kimmy.
	Professor Robert Lovegrove (Michael Madsen) – A herpatologist who has spent his life studying the piranhacondas that killed his dad, and has finally proved they exist just in time to set them loose on a killing spree. What a nice guy!
	Kimmy Weston (Shandi Finnessey) – Famous b-movie actress, known for the line “Suck lead, you hillbilly buttnugget!” Shandi Finnessey is very convincing on playing the spoiled brat, adding a charm to the role a lesser actress wouldn’t know what to do with.
	Pike (Michael Swan) – Leader of the random heavily armed gang who kidnap several of the characters for “ransom”, despite being so weirdly incompetent their game plant makes little sense.
	Talia (Rachel Hunter ) – Female member of the random heavily armed gang who sort of has a thing with Pike. Is one of the smarter members, which means she dies quick so everyone else can do dumb things
	Piranhacondas (CGI) – A monster who chomps lots of people and pumps out dozens of eggs in between long hibernation cycles. Also goes in long quests for eggnapped eggs. Piranhacondas can even takes down helicopters. The origin of Kepolo, a Polynesian river devil. Like the creatures in Flying Monkeys, a mythological creature from another culture becomes a star in a Western film with a quick name change for how culture in the West would call them. There are hundreds of awesome monsters in cultural myths from around the globe, enough SyFy could make films for decades just on them alone.

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Posts tagged "Rib Hillis"