Whatever you think of the Asylum’s previous genre productions, I suspect they’ve got a winner in Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (US-2009; dir. Jack Perez [as Ace Hannah]) … provided you like giant monster mash-ups. If you’re in doubt, check out this just released trailer:
Cheesy? Sure. Fun? Oh yes, definitely ….
Understatement of the Year: “We’re dealing with a menace!”
Brian Yuzna‘s directorial career may have been a little patchy, but this is a man whose name is linked to such Stuart Gordon classics as Re-Animator, Dolls and Dagon (which he produced) and From Beyond (which he wrote and produced), as well as being the director of Society, Bride of Re-Animator (which he also wrote and produced), Return of the Living Dead III (also producer), The Dentist and The Dentist 2, segments of Necronomicon (also writer) and Beyond Re-Animator (also producer and writer). As producer, he was also partially responsible for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Guyver, Warlock, Infested, Faust: Love of the Damned, Arachnid, Darkness, and Romasanta — all worthy in their own right. Latter day directorial efforts, such as Beyond Re-Animator, Faust: Love of the Damned, Rottweiler, and Beneath Still Waters may not have reached the classic status of the earlier films, but many of them are much better than their obscurity deserves. Clearly Yuzna has been, and still is, a significant force in genre filmmaking.
Along with Gordon and others, Yuzna has generally avoided too close a relationship with Hollywood and its restrictions, preferring to take the independent route and forging international connections that allow for a greater degree of flexibility and freedom in the pursuit of the horrific and the monstrous. In recent times, he was closely associated with Fantastic Factory, which, with its Spanish connections, was responsible for a slew of decent films — not least of which is what may be the best werewolf movie of all time, Romasanta (Spain/UK-2004; dir. Paco Plaza), and what is arguably one of a small number of effective Lovecraft-based films, Dagon (Spain-2001; dir. Stuart Gordon).
Now Yuzna has set up Komodo Films, a Jakarta-based production company that he owns along with Indonesian distributor Queen Imperial Films. The company is “dedicated to producing films of terror, the supernatural, science fiction and fantasy for the international market. Drawing on the legends, culture, locations and talents of Indonesia as well as importing technical and artistic talents from America, Europe and Asia Komodo Films aims to create a new wave of fantastic cinema” (Fuworks). A key motivation is to produce 3D genre films and in this regard the company’s recently announced schedule looks intriguing to say the least. In the pipeline, for example, is a giant-monster extravaganza, which Yuzna will direct from his own script.
Amphibious, which features a giant sea scorpion that rises from the depths to attack (one assumes) a major city or two, has been on the table for some time, being first mooted for release in 2008. It appears now that it will become Amphibious 3D:
Kaiju Search-Robot Avery is on the prowl for further information on this kaiju film and the Backbrain will let you know as soon as anything rises to the surface.
Meanwhile Variety reports on two other Komodo Films productions to follow:
Next will be Necronauts, a journey into the realm of death written by novelist Terry Bisson. Pic will be helmed by Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity director Brett Leonard, who has also directed two Imax 3-D movies. [Leonard also directed the zombie flick The Dead Pit in 1989.]
Richard Stanley (Hardware, Dust Devil) helms the third project, Cold Blooded, a survival story penned by Rob Wiser about vacationing Americans stranded on an island where they must combat man-eating komodo dragons.
Komodo Films is apparently working with Singapore Film Commission, The Media Development Authority and Singaporean partners to establish a state-of-the-art 3-D facility that will supervise these productions to become the first 3-D feature films produced in the region.
Meanwhile Yuzna, along with associate San Fu Maltha of the Netherlands, has just produced Takut: Faces of Fear under their new company. Fuworks reports:
Takut is an anthology of six short films directed by seven Indonesian filmmakers, including internationally acknowledged Riri Riza and a group of first-time directors, dubbed “Darah Segar” or “fresh bloods”. It features Indonesia’s top acting talents such as Dinna Olivia, Lukman Sardi, Marcella Zalianty, Fauzi Baadila and actor-singer Shanty.
The stories draw on the traditional genre flavors of Suspense, Supernatural, Erotic-Thriller, Horror-Comedy, Zombie Action and Slasher filtered through the unique cultural sensibility of each director.
The individual stories are:
In “Show Unit”, Rako Prijanto, a known television and feature film director, tells a story of a man who becomes a victim of a deadly game of extortion after he investigates an intruder at his house. Riri Riza shares his childhood fear through “Titisan Naya”, where a sceptical young girl discovers that her ancestors are not just a faded memory during a traditional family ritual. Ray Nayoan explores the world of a Peeping Tom in his first short movie “Peeper”. Another newcomer Robby Ertanto tells a tale of black magic in horror-comedy “The List”. Veteran music-video director Raditya Sidharta collaborated with the country’s Police special rescue squad in Indonesia’s first zombie flick “The Rescue”. And in “Dara”, the Mo Brothers show how an attractive chef applies her knife skills to protect her secret recipe.
Indonesian police rescue squad versus zombies! Noted!
The film has garnered much international interest, though most of us will probably have to wait for a DVD release to catch up with it.
I’ve been a bit too busy to get my act together this week, so despite some great articles in the pipeline and some interesting news snippets, Undead Backbrain has been a little quiet. For those who might have been waiting, I haven’t organised a Weekend Fright Flick this week. Instead here’s a very weird music video — publicity, it seems, for a new game. Enjoy.
Thanks to the ineffable Chuck McKenzie for sending it my way.
For those awaiting the fifth and final instalment of Mike Bogue and Todd Tennant’s Tales of King Komodo, I will be posting that sometime in the not-too-distant future. If you can’t wait, go fetch the most recent issue of G-Fan.
The 2009 Ditmar Awards shortlist of nominated works for fiction, non-fiction, artwork and achievements during 2008 has just been released. Undead Backbrain has fared well in the nomination stakes (see titles highlighted in red), in a field that is very daunting indeed — and very deserving. Congratulations to all concerned.
Best Novel
Best Novella or Novelette
Best Short Story
Best Collected Work
Best Artwork
Best Fan Writer
Best Fan Artist
Best Fan Publication
William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
Best Achievement
Best New Talent
For those readers outside Australia, the Ditmars are the Oz equivalent of the Hugo Awards — the year’s best speculative genre writing and art by Australians, nominated by fans and voted for at the National SF Convention. This year voting will take place at Conjecture — the 48th Australian National SF Convention, and is on in Adelaide, South Australia, from 5th to the 8th of June. If you possibly can, join the convention (even if as a non-attending member) and vote!
This is excellent! It’s a non-profit fan production by Sasha Feiner in which he takes the Gremlins 2 “Film Break” scene and flings the little monsters into Batman, The Exorcist, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Goonies and even The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. He created new Gremlins puppets to film the “imposed” elements, using CGI as an enhancement. The stop-motion Beast sequence alone is worth your time.
Gremlins Fan Sequence by Sacha Feiner from Sacha Feiner on Vimeo.
Great! Especially that Beast from 20,000 Fathoms scene.
Source: /film
Postscript: Here is a YouTube version if you’re one of those having trouble with the download speed of the Vimeo embed.
The next episode in Mike Bogue and Todd Tennant’s graphic novel, Tales of King Komodo, is now available.
In which King Komodo takes the sting out of the scorpion!
Check it out here!
If you haven’t caught up with the first episode yet, try this link instead.
Bikini Zombies from the Moon (UK-2001; short [23 min.]; dir. Grahame Jones)
Synopsis:
Two soldiers on routine manoeuvers witness a meteor crash into the sea. They also witness the horrifying effect the meteor has on the innocent, unsuspecting women relaxing on the beach. The soldiers soon find themselves being hunted by bikini-clad flesh-craving zombies!
Update: New Transformers 2 Trailer (3 May 2009)
Kirk vs the Snow Monster (2 May 2009)
New Trailer: Pig Hunt (27 April 2009)
Update: The Strange Experiment of Doctor Purefoy (25 April 2009)
The Terminators Trailer is Released! (25 April 2009)
Institute of Séance DVD artwork (25 April 2009)
Ghoul Girl Pics (25 April 2009)
More Bikini-Wearing Samurai Chicks Killing Zombies… (25 April 2009)
Transmorphers: Fall of Man (24 April 2009)
New Trailer for George’s Intervention (22 April 2009)
Another Giant Snake: The Scout (19 April 2009)
New: Megaconda (19 April 2009)
Over on our “burst appendix” subsite, Undead Brainspasm, I’ve been talking about an upcoming giant monster flick from The Asylum — a small studio mostly known for making shadow-films inspired by current blockbusters, such as The Terminators (US-2009; dir. C. Thomas Howell). Their newest in-production giant monster opus, Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus (US-2009; dir. Ace Hannah), features a giant shark and a giant octopus whose ongoing rivalry starts to cause problems for human bystanders.
Now the real question here was: “What does Mega and Giant mean in this context?” Too often filmmakers throw these adjectives around, but what they give us when the hype fails and it comes to the crunch is something less than awesome.
Not content to wait for the film’s release to find out where the film stands on this issue, Kaiju Search-Robot Avery was determined to hound Paul Bales of Asylum Entertainment until he finally caved in under the pressure. As a result I can confirm that “mega” and “giant” in this context mean “really friggin’ gigantic”! Check out the following exclusive stills and you’ll see what I mean.
Click on each image to get the full effect!
That’s an atomic sub the Giant Octopus is using for a tooth-pick…
All I can say is, bring it on!
Ever since Eve became overly familiar with the inhabitant of a certain tree in the Garden of Eden (rather eccentrically depicted in the above painting by William Blake, “Eve tempted by the serpent” [1799-1800]), snakes and women seem to have displayed a strange penchant for co-mingling, at least in the world’s mythologies.
In Aztec mythology, for example, Cihuacoatl (“snake woman”; also Cihuacóatl, Chihucoatl, Ciucoatl) was a motherhood and fertility goddess, prone to haunting crossroads at night in order to steal children. She also helped Quetzalcoatl create contemporary humanity by grinding the bones of our predecessors and mixing the result with Q’s blood to form the clay from which humanity was molded.
The Japanese have Nure-onna (lit. “wet woman”), seen here in a famous illustration from the Edo Period, by artist Sawaki Suushi.
According to Pink Tentacle,
“Nure-onna is typically seen at the water’s edge, washing her long, flowing hair. In some stories, she carries a small child, which she uses to attract potential victims. When a well-intentioned person offers to hold the baby for Nure-onna, the child attaches itself to the victim’s hands and grows heavy, making it nearly impossible to flee. In some stories, Nure-onna uses her long, powerful tongue to suck all the blood from her victim’s body.”
In the various Hindu mythologies, snakes and in particular cobras (or naga) play a prominent role. The Naga Kanya (Cobra Women) are a race of fairy-like demi-goddesses born of the Naga, which are basically water deities. They may have the form of a beautiful maiden, but are usually maidens only from the waist up, while from the waist down they are serpents.
It’s not hard to conclude that there is a cross-cultural socio-psychological imperative of some kind that drives this particular mythic stereotype, possibly Freudian in nature (even ignoring the phallic nature of the snake). One aspect is the joining of the fertility symbolism of “The Woman” with the chthonian significance of “The Serpent” — and post-Eden, this is part-and-parcel with the woman’s imposed role as “The Temptress”, the purveyor of sin — a satanic surrogate for “The Devil” (reflecting a deep fear of emasculation in the face of female sexuality), who, being “of the Earth”, distracts Man from more spiritual imperatives. In other words, a convenient scapegoat. Yet in Asian mythologies “The Serpent” is a water symbol, water being the source of life — in which case its relationship with “The Woman” is more on the creative side than the destructive. Creative or destructive, it’s all a matter of point-of-view. And, of course, a lot more complex than I can explore in these few sentences.
Evil, predatory snake women seem more common in the cinema (certainly Western cinema) than those of a creative aspect. Typical is Hammer Films’ The Reptile (UK-1966; dir. John Gilling). Here the woman/snake combo is rather less attractive than some, though in their full hybrid state few of them would make it onto the front cover of Vogue.
Like the Reptile they all have a tendency to feed off men in a literal sense, the combined sensuality of woman and snake making them powerfully iconic as a film monster and a depiction of “The Other”. Once Amanda Donohoe’s alluring Lady Sylvia Marsh — in Lair of the White Worm (UK-1988; dir. Ken Russell) — comes out of her snake basket, it’s not long before it’s all fangs, blood and a rather literal form of sexual predation, culminating in a monstrous critter that bears no relation to humanity at all.
And the sexual emasculation theme isn’t exactly hidden:
Other generally predatory snake women films include The Snake Woman (UK-1961; dir. Sidney J. Furie), the Japanese ghost story Snake Woman’s Curse [aka Kaidan Hebi-onna] (Japan-1968; dir. Nobuo Nakagawa), The Snake Woman [aka Sanyeo] (South Korea-1969; dir. Sang-ok Shin), Revenge of the Snake Woman [aka Sanyeoui han] (South Korea-1970; dit. Yongmin Lee), The Snake Queen [aka Nyi Blorong] (Indonesia-1982; dir. ), Grudge of the Snake Woman [aka Mongnyeo han] (South Korea/Taiwan-1984; dir. Beom-gu Kang), The Hungry Snake Woman [aka Petualangan cinta nyi blorong] (Indonesia-1986; dir. Sisworo Gautama Putra), Snake Devil (Taiwan/HK/Thailand-1995; dir. Delio Hung and Jarin Phomrangsai) and Snakewoman (Spain/US-2005; dir. Jesus Franco).
On the positive side, though, the titular character in Devi (India-1999; dir. Kodi Ramakrishna) becomes a gargantuan multi-headed cobra, a manifestation of a female naga, having been granted the power of the Goddess in order to right a wrong (see Backbrain review).
There was a less-voracious snake woman with a sexual aura in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (US-1958; dir. Nathan Juran), a fantasy film best remembered for the classic stop-motion creatures of SFX guru Ray Harryhausen. This particular woman/snake hybrid is a product of magic, when the villian of the piece places a homely female servant and a snake in a huge urn, then smashes the urn to reveal a sensuous multi-armed snake woman who dances seductively for the amusement of the Caliph. (The picture below shows Ray Harryhausen working on his snake woman model.)
Then, of course, there’s that other monstrous snake woman, Medusa, who confined her serpentine aspect to her coiffure. In cinema, a memorable use of her is in Hammer Films’ production The Gorgon (UK-1964; dir. Terence Fisher), in which sexual fear/guilt plays a prominent role:
But the real “snake women” are the mermaids of the underbrush — top half woman, bottom half (obviously the most dangerous half of a woman) serpent. A new snake woman flick of this kind is currently in post-production, directed in India by Jennifer Lynch, daughter of film auteur David Lynch. Find out about it in Part 2 “Of Snakes and Women!”
Sources: Blake painting; IMDB; Pink Tentacle
