Piranha (1995)

Well, it's the end of summer. So, let's celebrate by doing another summer horror movie! I originally planned to review the 1978 Piranha this week – the original movie that people sort of remember. But unfortunately, I didn't do my research, and ended up watching something else entirely – the 1995 Piranha remake, to be exact; a movie I didn't know existed. Because apparently, I am going senile after six years of doing this site and can't be bothered to watch the right movies.

Director: Scott P. Levy

Starring: William Katt, Alexandra Paul

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This movie is good, if by 'good' you really just mean 'ripping off every creature flick in existence and doing a bland job of it without actually offending.' Which is what I always mean when I say good. So I guess it's cool.

The film begins with two kids going out onto the water, and yes, it's totally OK for the girl to get naked and the guy to be completely clothed – that's what feminism has brought us.

They blather on about how it's totally cool to be there, and no, nerdy guy, nothing bad will happen. Which is a surefire guarantee, really. It should be an insurance premium – if a hot chick in a horror movie tells you everything will be fine, it totally will be.

The nakedness apparently has all the answers.

They start swimming for a bit until one thing slightly inconveniences them – a swarm of hungry piranhas that devours them alive. I guess the insurance policy was a bit of a fraud. Oh well. At least we have Obamacare now, so this kind of thing never happens in horror movies anymore.

The main story starts when a writer guy named Paul living out in the woods is confronted by a scientist named Maggie, who is searching for the two kids who got killed in the opening scene – even though we will never remember their names, and even the movie sort of forgets them as we go along. We get a few bland scenes of them introducing one another, which of course ends with Paul joining her for a wacky buddy cop scenario like all bad movies have.

"Let's exchange pointless banter and then grow to love one another at the end!"
"Okay!"

They go and find some laboratory where some scientists were experimenting on piranhas, or some shit like that. They don't get very far, though, before a crazy woman attacks them with an ax. It's random and out of nowhere, but hey, the movie needed someone to spout exposition lazily later on, so they just threw this lady in. I've seen worse excuses for exposition... wait, no. No I haven't. This is the worst.

Put the ax down, Annie Wilkes. You're better off just getting out of this while you can.

They tie her up and bring her back to Paul's place, and the next day while they're searching for the source of the piranha attacks, the lady gives them some exposition about how the piranhas were created by the government so they could put them in the water of enemy countries and kill everyone off. That's so stupid, even most Internet conspiracy theorists would call it insane – but I guess in this movie it's a reality.

I also love how there had to be this whole big explanation of this plot. Isn't it just the same shit all these movies have? If the government wasn't behind this, it would have been aliens or something. Those are the only two options. After that, you just copy and paste all the other tropes and wallah, you have a bland and formulaic creature horror flick.

They do save a kid from the piranhas, but the crazy lady dies, because her purpose in the movie was just to tell the extremely bland backstory. Boy, these movies sure do have a weird, Darwinian view of purposes in life, huh? Once you give the exposition, you have no reason to live and can thus be ripped apart immediately. Heavy stuff for a movie made by people who I'm not sure could count past 12.

"Farewell, sweet princess. You have served your purpose and may now go to the Great Exposition Dump in the Sky, where Odin awaits you."

Also, while I'm on the subject, the piranhas make noises more like raptors from Jurassic Park or something, and it is annoying as shit. It's also always the exact same noise, with no variation. It's kind of like if they were puppets with the laziest sound-box in the world. Really? Couldn't even vary up the scary noises they make? Ah well – it's still better than the noise the mosquito made in Mosquito.

This apparently makes noises like a fucking dinosaur or bird of prey. Oh well. I'll go with it.

They then find out Paul's daughter who he never talks to is at a summer camp where all the piranhas are plotting to kill everyone. The movie doesn't say they're plotting to do that, but I think it's funnier to imagine a bunch of mutant piranhas sitting around with a map plotting out points on where to attack.

Of course, because this is a dumb movie from the '90s, the authority figures don't believe Paul and Maggie when they say piranhas are going to attack. Because Mr. Bigwig Businessman wants money! So that trumps any and all warnings of danger, even from legit scientists who have no reason to lie about it. This is basically how the whole conversation goes:

PAUL AND MAGGIE: We need to evacuate that park, because piranhas are going to kill everyone!

BIGWIG BUSINESSMAN: No, we need money! You're just a bunch of liberal feminist hippies!

(Yes, that's an actual line in the fucking movie.)

PAUL AND MAGGIE: Wouldn't it make sense to at least check and make sure a bunch of child deaths aren't going to be on your conscience?

BIGWIG BUSINESSMAN: *plugs ears with fingers* LALALALALALA!

SHERIFF: I'm gonna arrest you now on no legitimate charges because I am in the businessman's pocket! That's how reality works!

PAUL AND MAGGIE: Damn!

So, yeah, really – they get thrown in jail for no reason and can't even make a phone call because “they're not arrested, they're just being held.” Which is so illegal that I'm positive the entire sheriff's department would be immediately overhauled in real life and Paul and Maggie would be able to sue them for millions. But this movie is more of a cartoon than anything, so we need a scene where they knock out a guard to escape and steal his pants because the key to the jail is chained to them, and we get to see this:

Amazing. I can die in peace now after seeing this.

Then we get the climax, full of kids dying and their parents dying while trying to save them. That's great because their lives are ruined forever now.

Aw. What a heartwarming summer image.

Paul and Maggie go out to the ocean and try to lure the piranha into this old barge thing, or something like that – Paul is underwater for much longer than any of the other characters who died, but he doesn't get attacked at all. Hmmm. Maybe that's incredibly poor writing based on lazy convenience and anyone who does it should be ashamed.

Nah – the fish were probably just hungover that day of shooting.

And plus, it's cool – later, the piranhas DO attack him mercilessly, which is what I wanted to see from the first time I heard that weenie talk. But he demonstrates that being the main character means piranhas devouring you just means you have blood paint on you afterwards and are mostly fine.

"No! That guy I knew for one day is DEAD! I loved him!!!"

"Arrrgggrrrrrhhhh! Even I don't know how I survived this!"

So they get rid of all the piranhas and then the businessman guy shoots himself. Yes, really – that's the end of his story. It's totally dark, and is the best suicide I have ever seen.

Best ending ever!

Then the movie ends with kids on a beach presumably going to get eaten by more piranhas, with a voiceover from the mayor or somebody telling them it's totally safe!

Which is totally original and not at all a lame Jaws rip off. Not at all.

This was pretty bad, but not offensive or anything – it was pretty harmless. The worst thing about it had to be that noise the piranhas made. Just for that, I give it zero stars. If it didn't have that noise in it, it could have been a solid three-star movie. But the noise the piranha made killed it, just killed it dead.

And what? There were plenty of boob shots and fanservice scenes I could have very easily put into the review and made it better? Damn. Just damn. Between getting the movie wrong AND not putting in those pandering fanservice shots, I'm really not at the top of my game. I could have edited this further and fixed everything in addition to watching the correct movie instead, but I'm just leaving all of this rambling at the end of this mediocre review. Oh well. I'll try again next week.

Images copyright of their original owner. I own none of them.

Mosquito (1995)

It’s summertime again. And that means the mosquitoes are out, hunting for blood like the little bastard vampire insects that they are. Most of the time, you can just kill them with an ordinary flyswatter or the bottom of a sturdy shoe. Other times, though, they grow giant due to meteor radiation and kill dozens of innocent people. This phenomenon is most closely observed in the 1995 cult flick, Mosquito.

Director: Gary Jones

Starring: Gunnar Hansen, Rachel Loiselle

IMDb

Co-written with Colin and Michelle.

With a title like Mosquito, it really doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Like you know this isn’t gonna be about the Vietnam War or civil rights. It’s going to be about a mosquito. That’s kind of a limited scope and size, isn’t it? I mean, where is the spontaneity? When I watch a goofy sci fi horror flick about a giant bug, I’d like it to throw me for a loop.

As we see, the movie starts with a spaceship and some other stuff in outer space.

You know, it makes sense; I'll go with it. Maybe the new Star Wars movie will start out with a bunch of people looking at bugs under microscopes.

Anyway, some asteroid crashes into the Earth. Some time later, two people are driving to go to the woman’s new job, when a freakishly huge mosquito plummets from the sky and destroys their windshield. Megan, a scientist, is curious about this. Ray, who is just some dude… well, not so much. He’s just annoyed that his windshield is broken. This guy acts so nonchalantly that you just have to wonder how many abominably giant insects he sees per day. Maybe 50.

"Honey, it's just a miracle of scientific discovery that will change the world; why should we do anything? Let's just get back in the car and leave."

Meanwhile, this fat incompetent park ranger guy is spying on women in the bushes, because, well, the camera needed an excuse to show the most important parts of this scene:

Their impeccable skin tones?

The other guy pulls him away, because really, the department doesn’t need any more sexual harassment lawsuits.

"We don't want to have to put out another press release saying we're sorry for bothering the tourists!"

The park ranger then goes to see the captain, who has a bunch of animal heads and stuffed animals all around his office, because in a movie like this, that’s basically gold standard subtlety. The captain guy then launches into a huge dramatic spiel about how mosquitoes are evil and it is the park rangers’ duty to exterminate them all, the last line of defense between mankind’s fall and mosquitoes. You’ve been practicing THAT one in the mirror, huh buddy?

There’s also this other guy, who is extremely serious and doesn’t really seem to fit in with the movie. Personally I kept expecting him to launch into a super serious monologue about who killed his father, how he’s going to find him, that sort of thing, but unfortunately the movie continues on its current path about radioactive giant mosquitoes, and he is a part of that plot. Oh well.

"Someday, I will get vengeance on the man that killed my father, as you can tell from this super serious look on my face...wait, what movie am I in? Mosquito? Oh, fuck that noise."

Rounding out our main cast is a group of vague criminals wearing military jackets and pants. It’s never really explained what they want to do. So I’ll just make it up myself: they want to steal every copy of the movie Race to Witch Mountain and sell them to small Indonesian children at outrageous prices. What a bunch of douchebags. At least keep Race to Witch Mountain for yourself. Nobody needs that mess.

And yes, the big guy with the white beard is Gunnar Hansen, famous for playing a small bit part in an unknown film. But this one is clearly where he's even more well known for.

"Yes, this map will tell us how to do unspecified crime-y stuff..."

Anyway, one of them gets eaten by a giant mosquito. Which, frankly, isn’t done in enough action movies. Heat came out a few years after this. How come THAT movie didn’t have a giant mosquito in it? That would have really improved things.

Yes, yes...this is what the movie needed.

Ray and Megan meet up with Steve, as their vehicle is broken down and they need a ride. I still like Steve the best of any of the characters. He’s just so cool. Every movie like this needs a really cool guy, and Steve is it for Mosquito.

"One day I will finally ride away on a comet and find the other dimensions."

We also see the only true way to have shameless product plugs - put Pabst Blue Ribbon everywhere. Yes, while other beer companies today are trying to look legitimate and also tear down the little guy craft breweries, PBR back in the 90s was just like “fuck it, we're appearing in Mosquito. This is now the plan.” I can dig it.

PBR is the only way to get through giant mosquito attacks.

My favorite part about this scene is the sex scene:

Oh, wait, no, that's wrong. My real favorite part is when he leaves to go take a piss (with the PBR of course, what other way would you have it?) and then comes back and finds his girlfriend being killed by a giant mosquito in the tent. He's pretty nonchalant about it, because nobody seems to care that there are giant mosquitoes in this universe. And plus, he has more PBR to drink.

"MY GIRLFRIEND JUST SCREAMED FOR HELP, BETTER TAKE A SWIG OF BEER WHILE I RUN!"

Or maybe he just doesn't like his girlfriend that much, because you know, she was good in bed but also kind of annoying and wouldn't shut up about animal rights or something.

"...eh, I didn't like her that much anyway."

Meanwhile, the main characters find everyone dead at this camp and then steal this RV with a dead guy in the driver's seat. Careful, he might have germs!

Then they find the military outfit criminals, who are doing whatever those types of guys always do. They have a fight, but it's okay – afterward, the good guys invite them to come onto their RV and hang out after. They tie them up I guess, but it's still a nice gesture.

The ensuing RV driving scene is full of mosquitoes chasing our heroes (or, if you prefer, “those random people we don't care about” which is what I imagine most viewers called them). 

However, that wasn't exciting enough. No, we also needed a subplot in this action scene about the bad guys breaking out and attacking everyone in the RV.

Mosquito attacks aren't that exciting, we NEED this dumb hostage scene that goes nowhere!

Ray does some kung fu fighting he mysteriously learned between takes to take on the younger guy – I wonder where he learned that. Maybe they had him strapped to a chair with his eyes forced open Clockwork Orange style watching Bruce Lee movies in his trailer.

Then Megan stops it by kicking the older dude in the balls, because we're operating on 1990s pre-teen cartoon logic. Maybe in the next scene, someone will pull pigtails or make a “Yo Mama” joke.

Then they have to go hide in the sewer. I'm sure they had a good reason, like maybe they wanted to see how one of those giant mosquito props could fit in a sewer. Or maybe, I dunno, the main characters just act better when surrounded by literal heaps of stinking garbage.

Verdict - eh, too blurry.

After they get out of there, we get a bunch of scenes of Mr. Park Ranger Guy yapping his bitch hole about how annoying it is to be chased by giant mosquitoes. I guess maybe he got shot in an earlier scene before this. But so what if he got shot? There are children starving in Africa, you ungrateful pig swine!

So, a bit of a question for you guys: do you like Night of the Living Dead?

I assume you do. In that case, haven't you always thought it would be better with giant mosquitoes replacing all the zombies? I sure have. And I am fucking glad this movie solved my issues with Night of the Living Dead.

Yeah...that house looking exactly like the Night of the Living Dead one and this situation being very similar doesn't do your movie any fucking favors.

We get some pretty so-so scenes full of a bunch of gunfire and stuff. Then in the best twist in the world, it's revealed that underneath the house, there are a bunch of mosquitoes nesting. Fearing sequels to this, they destroy them by blowing up the entire house.

That's way too many to animate, so we have to destroy them all and end the movie now.

This film was instructional. Through its runtime, it did help me understand how to get rid of a mosquito infestation. If there are too many of them around my house, I really just have to open the door, let them all in, and then burn down my house. That's the path to true mosquito death. Thank you, Mosquito, for giving us that tutorial. Now if you'll excuse me, there are way too many of those little fuckers in my house. Time to go get my blowtorch.

Images copyright of their original owners; I own none of them.

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)

Well, the Chldren of the Corn series slogs on. This one is called Urban Harvest, which sounds like a really stupid rap album based around a bad Goosebumps book or something. You can definitely see that being the point where some poor sap of a 1990s rapper's career would jump the shark.

Hell, I'm astounded they didn't have any rap songs in this movie's soundtrack. For 1995, that's kind of like being the one gold miner who didn't feel like getting rich in the late 1800s.

Director: James D.R. Hickox

Starring: Daniel Cerny, Ron Menendez

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This one begins with a sort of rushed telling of a usual story for this series – a teenage kid, Joshua, is being chased around by his drunken, abusive father in the country. His father uses what most drunken, abusive parents do – a giant scythe, and he swings it like a maniac as his terrified son runs for his life through the cornfields.

Tough love, at its finest.

Ah yes...just part of the usual parenting regimen. Doing dishes, doing chores... chasing them around with a giant scythe for no reason.

Luckily he gets helped by something even better than child protective services – we get Eli, a strange kid who has the power of conjuring up dark mystical forces that I'm sure Sam Raimi would sue for if he wasn't already a dozen times richer than anyone in this movie:

Well, it's not exactly tree rape Evil Dead style - his clothes are still on...

Eli and Joshua, for some unstated reason, decide to go to Chicago and let themselves be adopted. Why? Isn't the whole idea of this series that the children don't need adults and want to just live on their own drooling and eating corn all day out in the middle of nowhere? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but the kids in the previous two films were very much content with doing that. And this one takes place in the same town, Gatlin, that the other ones were in. So my guess is just that Eli is so annoying and douchey that none of the other kids (of the corn) want anything to do with him, so he has to go to the city to find anybody to hang out with.

The parents they get are apparently leftover stale 80s stereotypes. The mother is a personality-free cardboard cut-out with big hair and screams a lot. The father is a mulleted douchebag businessman who wears suits and does stupid things like adopt two children and then, as soon as they get in the house, says “just remember to knock before you come to our room at night.”

"Honey, we're going to make sweet, sweet love right across the hall from you all night long."

Yup, he adopted two children just to tell them he and his wife will be having loud, constant sex in the night while they're there. Hell, I'll go a step further – I think the only reason they adopted these kids was because knowing impressionable and abandoned kids are sleeping in the other room, turns them on more. Real libido booster, there. You goddamn fucking weirdos.

"Moan louder, they need to hear this!"

Eli is able to match the bizarreness, though, when the mom sees that his suitcase is full of cockroaches – which is a typical carry-on for kids who used to live in cornfields, but the mom's delicate big-city disposition just can't handle it. The dad, though, sees a bunch of ears of corn when he opens it – you know; sometimes you see ears of corn and other times you see cockroaches. That's just the diversity of life.

Either way, I think we can all agree the mom needs to go to a mental asylum and chill out. Especially after the next scene where, while again having sex with her husband, she has a hallucination of having a mouthful of dirt. I mean, I've heard of weird fetishes, but eating dirt before making out? Ew, just ew.

"Ahhhh! Phew, that's the same dream I've had all my life, about dirt coming out of my mouth. How awful."

Meanwhile, Eli grows a bunch of corn in the dangerous creepy old abandoned, almost surely haunted, warehouse directly behind their house. If you're wondering why the department of children and families would let two kids go live right near something so obviously hazardous, or why a house would be built in such a weird place at all, well, you're thinking too hard.

Did I say grows corn? I meant takes it out of a suitcase. You slacker.

And while you were thinking too hard about this dumb-ass movie, Eli killed a homeless man and used him to make super good corn. I guess homeless people are nutritional.

All the people who talk about GMOs would also do well to pick up the cause of homeless people used as fertilizer. It's seriously a problem.

The father comes over and eats some of the corn right there without washing it or anything, just right from the ground, because, I guess after making out with a woman who eats dirt, anything seems better.

"Mmmm, tastes as black and filthy as my soul."

He decides that the corn is so good he can take it to his work and sell it to Germany, even going over the head of his boss. What's that? You don't care and are wondering why this scene is in the movie? Yeah, me too. Skip it!

We then see they go to an inner-city school where kids are just allowed to bring knives in just in case they want to get in huge fights with their classmates. School security was lax back then. But don't worry – all they really do is shove each others' chests and get close enough to kiss if they wanted to, without actually hitting one another. Like most school fights, ya know.

Just kiss him, you fool.

Also, if you’re wondering why some of these kids are dressed like clown pimp gangsters with colors bright enough to be in a Skittles commercial - well, it was the 90s. Just leave it be.

So I guess for the rest of the film is taken up by Eli somehow, mysteriously, winning over every kid in the school to his werdo corn religion, worshiping He Who Walks Behind the Rows. I’m guessing nobody had much imagination when writing this, because it’s seriously unbelievable that any kid would follow him. Yeah - I’m sure a bunch of streetwise Chicago kids are gonna want to join up with some weird Amish-looking kid who worships a Lovecraftian corn deity on a whim; that's fucking realistic.

Well, everyone except Joshua, anyway. He’s too busy having sex with the neighbor girl. I just love how hackneyed and random this scene is - it’s like hey, you survived this long into the movie and had to watch the parents fuck, so here’s a scene of two attractive people doing the same thing. That’s your reward.

Most of the other scenes are just Eli ripping off The Omen and doing a particularly poor job of it. Hard to really be scared of this movie when most of it has been done 15 years prior and much better. And how many more scenes do we really need in any movie of a creepy kid leering at adults and then eventually killing them? Is someone really sitting around in a dank-ass apartment writing this and going 'oh yeah, THIS is really original'?

I guess eventually they catch onto what Eli is doing after he makes a common mistake for wannabe cult leaders and crucifies a priest using cornstalks and other wildlife. Damn. That has ruined so many aspiring cult leaders!

"Kid, you're really not very good at acting like a creepy older person. Quit watching The Godfather so much and instead, just take acting lessons."

So Joshua and his girlfriend’s brother go off to Gatlin again to find this magic Necronomicon-esque book that might solve the whole thing. To do this, they first have to fight this horrific abomination:

"Quick, use your football moves on him!"

Seriously, what the hell is that? It looks like a bunch of straw stuck together with human vomit and then a Jack ‘O’ Lantern’s face was drawn over it. Someone tell the neighborhood alchemist not to get drunk next time he makes something.

Also, the girlfriend’s brother dies stupidly before they leave. Farewell, whatever your name was! You were a valiant soul to try and survive in a movie this stupid.

Back in Chicago, we get a scene where Eli is mobilizing his cult to go and, I dunno, eat lots of corn on the cob or something. It’s probably something more violent than that, but really, does it deserve any more dignified write-up? No. Joshua shows up and announces that the only way he can kill Eli is by destroying the book AND him at the same time. Which I’m pretty sure he just made up on the spot. I mean, how lazy can you get? This was literally never mentioned in the film before.

Joshua also makes a reference to the situation being like killing a worm by cutting off its head. Yes. That IS what it's like. Heh heh... but yeah, this is just the kind of clever writing we have in this movie, and I am basking in its glow like a person lying for hours in a manmade tanning box... and getting cancer from it.

"Now part like the sea in an extremely hackneyed and contrived way to let this lone dissenter through! Yes, my minions, go now and do so!"

Eli dies, but then He Who Walks Behind the Rows arrives, looking like something Ray Harryhausen would have made when he was tired after a three-day mountain hike and wanted to go to bed. The kids all wake up from their hypnotized trances and then they all start getting eaten.

Imagine if the Harry Potter films had CGI like this.

And wait a second - they were under a trance that whole time? Really? I couldn’t fucking tell, and I’m not even sure you made an attempt to tell us, movie. Sometimes I wonder why I even try to put this much effort to review these things, for how little effort they actually put into making them. I could just post a picture of a potato, no other context, and that would be appropriate enough to sum up half the movies I watch.

Only the potato is more interesting.

Anyway, the girlfriend character stabs the monster, but I guess that’s all she had - it turns around and eats her immediately. But then Joshua stabs it like once and that ends the whole thing. My favorite part about this is that she's actually alive inside the monster still and escapes completely fine, as if nothing happened. I guess his digestion is really fucking slow and his teeth really fucking soft, like pillows.

Or she's related to that guy from Jaws: The Revenge last week who also escaped being eaten by a monster...yeah, I'm going with that one.

Everyone goes home, wondering how best they can forget the unearthly abominations they have just witnessed. The possibilities are endless for them. Will they partake in alcohol, weed, LSD, cocaine? Who knows?

The movie is unsatisfactory. On every level of story, character and relevance, it gets an F. The effects can be kind of fun, but they aren’t enough to save it. Overall, like in any urban school, this movie deserves to be swirlied in the bathroom - head completely shoved in a toilet and flushed. That’s all Urban Harvest deserves. I have written it, it is my grade, and so it shall be carried out.

Images copyright of their original owners; I own none of them.