Combat Shock (1986)

It's been a while.  Sorry about that.  I probably lost about half my audience in the process, so we're down to four of you.  Thanks for sticking with me.  I'm not really sure what happened.  A part of me just lost interest there for a bit.  Watching movies is easy.  Writing about movies is slightly less easy.  Easier to just watch another movie.  In addition, the quality of my write ups over the last year or so has gone downhill.  I'm not interested in writing proper reviews, but that's exactly what I've been doing.  As if I know shit about directing, and colors, acting, or music, etc.  Well, I know a little but to tell you the truth, I don't really care.  Give me a good story, some breasts, a weird diverging subplot or two, some capable action, and a few funny lines.  That's the kind of stuff I appreciate.  So, again, I'm sorry I haven't been there for you lately. I'm trying to get better.  Well, not really trying that hard.  I am pretty god damned lazy after all.

Anyway, so we're back with this picture called Combat Shock which has been labeled a "Tromasterpiece" by Troma themselves.  I find myself agreeing.  It's the only Troma movie I've seen that actually feels like a real movie.  And, it's depressing as all hell, although that depressed feeling is lightened somewhat by several goofy vintage Troma moments as well as some shitty acting.

The picture opens with some cheap scenes set in Vietnam where this guy Frankie was sent to fight the Cong.  Things didn't go well over there for Frankie but at least he made it home.  Unfortunately, his home was Staten Island which, if you ask this movie, was not much better than Vietnam at the time.  See, Frankie returns home a broken man and also a broke man.  He has a wife but she's an overweight nagger with an annoying New Yawk accent.  He's got an infant son but his son has been mutated due to the agent orange that got into Frankie's sperm.  He's got a job but his job only involves walking around all day, avoiding gangs, waiting in line at the employment office, talking with his best friend whose a junkie, and avoiding underaged hookers and their pimps.  And, his job doesn't pay.

So, like most movies that deal with Vietnam War veterans life is not good.  It's downright terrible.  You might say that you can take Frankie out of the war but you can't take the war out of Frankie to regurgitate some oft used cliche about war veterans.  Combat Shock does something no Troma film (at least ones I've seen) has ever been able to do.  It manages to achieve a gritty realism.  The acting is shoddy, almost across the board, but it's not self referential.  It's not cutesy.  Strangely, it feels genuine.   Basically, this is Troma's Taxi Driver.  We got the Vietnam veteran that hates what his city has become.  A vile cesspool of filth and smut.  At one point, Frankie even talks to a fifteen year old prostitute but that conversation is abruptly cut off by her pimp and we never see her again.  Unlike Travis Bickle, Frankie isn't really interested in cleaning up the streets.  He just wants to "save" his family.  If you're wondering why I put save in quotes you can probably guess that it means he wants to save them in the wakco sense of the word and not the literal sense.

The entire picture takes place over the course of one day.  Frankie walks around.  A lot.  Every now and then we're treated to a flashback from the war of Frankie in "the box" or some shit like that to illustrate what he went through and kind of give us a sense of why he is where he is.  He calls his father, who had a lot of money, from a payphone and begs for his help.  His father doesn't recognize him at first, thought he died in the war, and is dying himself.  Also, he lost all his money so thanks anyway pops.  Frankie is in debt to some loan sharks who hound him throughout the picture.  Eventually, they catch up to him and beat the shit out of him in some abandoned warehouse.  During the course of his travels that day, Frankie came across a gun.  He blows his assailants away in the first truly visceral moment of the entire picture.  Unfortunately, it took nearly an hour for us to get to this point.  Everything else before was just about the slow build to what is ultimately a brutally shocking, and strangely humorous, climax.

Spoilers to follow so beware. Frankie finally makes it home where his wife has spent the day scrounging around their filthy apartment looking for food to feed the baby (she settled on stale bread crumbs and water).  She immediately starts in with the nagging to which Frankie responds with a pull of the ol' trigger of love....meaning he shoots her.  Ok, none of this is really "strangely humorous".  I'm not sure where I got that from now that I think about it.  He blows away his wife and then walks into his kids room and blows away his baby (which by the way, resembles the love child of E.T. and Belial).  As the sirens close in, he grabs the baby and drops the thing in the oven (and turns it on) before putting the pistol to his own head and pulling the trigger in a shot that is an obvious nod to the climactic blood bath of Taxi Driver.  So, the part with the baby in the oven elicited a bit of a chuckle from this guy probably because the thing was a mutant but also because of now why the hell would he put the baby in the oven?  It's just so absurd.  Maybe he thought the starving baby could eat itself when it was done?  I have no clue.

So, this is one of the better Troma movies.  It's a bit of a smolder, has some ridiculous parts, but, other than the finale, never really turns offensive which is why it might throw some people off a bit.   I mean, it's weird watching a picture like this and not being subjected to even just a little bit of nudity.  And, not much happens until the last twenty minutes.  It's probably not well made enough to be taken seriously by most film critics or film snobs but if you're looking for something a little different that might end up punching you in the balls while also tickling them a little bit (not in a sexual way, more in a I'm laughing and this is sort of uncomfortable kind of way) this picture might be what you're looking for.

The Objective (2008)

Well, the director of The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick) has done it again.  He made another movie.  It's almost as good as Altered, the movie his co-writer and co-director (Eduardo Sanchez) from Blair Witch made.  Basically, what we got here is Aliens.  Only, it's told from the perspective of the Paul Reiser character.  Also, there ain't no fucking aliens in this thing.   Also, minimal action.  And, it takes place in the blighted deserts and mountains of Afghanistan.  Throw in some mysticism and some awkward performances and we've got ourselves a picture.  Still, it was all kind of...interesting.

Jonas Ball stars as CIA agent, Benjamin Keynes.  Keynes is in Afghanistan weeks after 9-11 under the guise of leading a mission to overthrow the Taliban.  He recruits a not-so special forces unit to aid in his mission.  Their goal is to find some Afghani cleric and record a statement from him that will apparently dissolve the Taliban.  Somehow.  Along the way, they pick up Abdul, an Afghani guide who will take them through the treacherous mountains.  Also, there's an Aussie in the unit for some reason.  And none of the troops look particularly fit.  The captain looks like Steve Austin after a year long bender and with a pasted on beard.   Still, I found myself captivated by this bullshit for some reason.

Keynes narrates the action in the drollest of monotones.  He's Fox Mulder on prozac.  He scans the horizon with his infra-red, and radiation detecting, equipment.  After a brief firefight leaves one of their men dead, and no enemy bodies, things get weird.  The mountains of Afghanistan hold many secrets.  Lights dance around the sky, compasses are useless, GPS systems fail, radio communication is fruitless, the water in their canteens is replaced with sand.  Keynes isn't opening up about anything.  His narration is using the present tense. We understand his survival is no guarantee.

I'm not sure where this thing was filmed (and I'm not about to look it up) but it seemed to use a pretty authentic location.  Could have been Death Valley for all I know.  The picture provides few answers and is the better for it.  We got weird triangles in the sky, men evaporating, guys jumping off cliffs and, in one case, some poor bastard wakes up to find himself nothing but guts and clothing (he didn't actually wake up, sorry for making it seem like he did).  I'm not sure what the picture is saying about the war in the Middle East.  I'm not sure it's saying anything.  We all know war is hell.  Sometimes you live.  Sometimes you get evaporated by a giant triangle in the sky. 

Well, if we are to believe the South Park mythos, what these guys were up against was none other than Moses and his army of macarroni pictures.  Of course, this is the real world and so South Park mythology gets thrown out the fucking window.  What we have here is something deeper than that.  Something involving satellite pictures of some weird mystical phenomenom in some Afghanistan mountain range.  Not sure if that phenomenon has anything to do with Osama Bin Laden, but that's who we were searching for in those mountains immediately after 9-11 went down.  Not these guys though.  Shit man, I think Muhammad shows up at the end.  Is it ok to have an actor portray him in shadow or is that shit a death sentence?  I don't know, but I hope Daniel Myrick lives long enough to make another movie.  This one wasn't bad.

Deathdream (1974)

Classic. Yup, that's the first word that came to mind after viewing this picture. It's a fucking classic that, unfortunately, very few people have probably heard of. Bob Clark, killed last year in a car crash, directed two of the better horror movies from the 70s. This and the influential Black Christmas. Clark would eventually direct another, albeit wildly different, classic called A Christmas Story. Perhaps you've heard of it? Of course, he was also the genius behind such garbage as Porky's I-II, Rhinestone, and The Karate Dog (haven't seen it, but come on, really?). I still haven't seen Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things which sounds like it should be fantastic in every way based on the title alone.

Deathdream, based on "The Monkey's Paw" (haven't read it), is one of those pictures that went by many different names. Fuck, the title credits list it as Dead of Night (it's also known as Night Walk, The Night Andy Came Home, Uncle Sam 2: The Prequel, The Veteran, etc). It's a Vietnam war era story about the Brooks family whose son, Andy (Richard Backus), has been away in "the shit". The picture opens with Andy, apparently, being killed (it's a confusing scene, much like the war). His death is confirmed when a representative from the state department arrives at the Brooks home to deliver the news to his family. His mother, Christine (Lynn Carlin) goes immediately into denial and, later, is shown chanting "he's not dead" over a lit candle (hmmm...). His father, Charlie (John Marley, aka the guy that woke up next to a horse head in The Godfather) struggles to maintain his composure, himself a veteran of WWII. His sister, Cathy reacts as most sisters do, with blubbering hysterics. His dog....is a dog.

So, imagine their surprise when a few nights later Andy comes home. The family is startled by a noise and heads downstairs, together. Andy's appearence is a startlingly chiling reveal and the look on his face, well, it's fucking creepy as hell. How did he get home? Shouldn't he be dead? What the fuck? I guess it's not that much of a stretch to imagine the state department making such an egregious blunder. Probably happens all the time. Maybe his dog tags got switched? Perhaps what we witnessed in the picture's first five minutes wasn't exactly what we thought?

Andy, however, is clearly not the same. He is completely emotionless, zombie-like if you will. His answers to questions are short and curt. He doesn't eat. He doesn't sleep. He spends his time sitting in his room, in the dark, rocking back and forth in his chair. Ocassionaly, he disappears at night. On the night he arrived home, a truck driver was brutally murdered after having made the mistake of picking up a hitchhiker. There was a needle mark in his arm and his throat was jaggedly cut. Was this Andy's handiwork? What the fuck happened to him over there?

Fucking A man, they just don't make them like this anymore. Everything about this picture worked for me. The performances are terrific, natural. John Marley is great as the father, the only one willing to admit that perhaps Andy isn't quite the same. Lynn Carlin is, I guess, a typical mom if your mom was Martha Stewart. She blindly loves her son (as a parent should) and completely ignores his changing demeanor like when he strangled the family dog with one hand in front of some terrified neighborhood kids. It's a shocking scene. I expected him to release the dog just short of death but, no, Andy keeps going and then tosses the poor dog aside. If only the poor little guy knew karate. Anyway, this doesn't sit well with Pops ("That was the best dog I ever had"). This is most evident in an earlier scene where Pops, sitting alone and wondering what went wrong, calls the little dog up to his lap so he can pet him. It was one of those little yippy dogs (a schnauzer or a shnizit or something like that) so I wondered what the big deal was. The mother's last scene with Andy is actually pretty heartbreaking in its way. Even the minor characters, the mailman, the doc, Andy's girlfriend from before the war, the drunk guy in a diner, are completely believable (and in several cases funny).

Clark's never been one to make a pretty-to-look-at film (A Christmas Story is one of the more brilliantly ugly classics around) and that is certainly the case here. This is a portrait of middle america through the eyes of middle americans and middle americans and the towns they live in aren't always pretty. There are some gore effects in this picture and you might be pleased to learn that they were created by none other than Tom Savini. If that doesn't mean anything to you than we're finished. This was Savini's first film (he was billed as an assistant, but his stamp is all over it). It's not a splatterfest by any means. I'm trying not to spoil this one too much and to describe some of the effects would be to do just that. Here's a hint, probably too much of one, but fuck it. At one point, Andy sneaks out of the house and we see him scratching something on a gravestone in the local cemetary. We don't learn what he etched until the very last scene. No one leaves this picture happy, let's just say that.

Of course, this is all a metaphor for the problems facing soldiers returning from Vietnam. There are moments of power equal to anything in Coming Home and, astoundingly, set within the trappings of a genre film! The thing is, this picture might not have worked as well as it did had I seen it 10, 15, 20 years ago. Now, it's more relevant than ever with the situation in Iraq. It's like our own fucking Vietnam. Soldiers are returning now as fucked up as ever, families systematically being destroyed (I can't imagine anything worse though than what happened to the Brooks family). Anyway, this is a good fucking picture, way better than Uncle Sam, although I like that one too. War is hell if you die. Hell if you live. I guess it's no picnic if you're somewhere in between either. Also, there is a great scene at a drive-in where some poor schlub gets hit by a car and then driven over. War is no place for me I guess because I laughed and laughter has no place in war. Only the insane laugh at death or think a death that happens in a movie is real, for that matter. No idea where I'm going with this so I'll just end things here.

SS Hell Camp (1977)

Should I really let anyone know that I watched this thing? Famous (infamous?) for being labeled a "video nasty" and subsequently banned in the UK, SS Hell Camp is the touching story of a mongoloid (the picture is racist too!) creature (man with lots of hair glued on) held prisoner by a Nazi she-bitch, fed an overabundance of aphrodisiacs, and forced, against his will mind you, to have sex with lots and lots of virgins. Will the poor brute ever know its freedom? Is there any atrocity those Nazi sons (daughters) of bitches won't commit?

I'm just kidding folks. There's nothing touching about this picture. If you're the kind of person that would "touch" yourself during it, I don't want to hear about it. This one is offensive in every way imaginable. Having no idea what to expect going into this thing, I developed an idea as soon as a Nazi grunt grabbed a crying baby from its screaming mother, flung it into the air, and used it for target practice (nazi skeet shooting). Brilliantly (despicably?), this occurred a mere fifteen minutes into the film. With no taboo off limits, I proceeded to the edge of my seat.

I guess there's this whole genre out there called "rape". You may be familiar with it. I'm not gonna lie here, but I've seen a few in my day. Still, I refuse to give rape it's own label as I'm not really fond of the particular genre. Perhaps you've seen a little film called I Spit On Your Grave, perhaps not. That features a gang rape by some New England yokels. The film itself is terrible, but I begrudgingly acknowledge that the rape scene (all 20+ minutes of it!) was extremely effective (i.e. repulsive). For the majority of the film, the actors were awful, simultaneously hammy and stilted. Somehow, they turned it on for the rape though. I'm not sure if they should be commended for it. Of course, typical of most rape films, this one ends in some sweet revenge as the victim uses her sexuality as a weapon (remember the bathtub castration?). I've also seen Irreversible which has the distinction of being the only Monica Belluci film that managed to repulse me despite her being nude. Since the events are told in reverse, with one of the most brutally realistic revenge scenes ever filmed happening in the first five minutes, the rape scene is all the more difficult to handle (and like the scene in I Spit...this one seemingly has no end). It's a brilliant film, yet one I will never sit through again. I guess the toughest scene to sit through was in the 1984 classic Revenge of the Nerds when Louis posed as Stan and raped Betty in the Carnival Fun House. Fucking nerds.

See, not really a fan of rape. There's a huge difference between the films I just referred to and SS Hell Camp, however. Hell Camp presents some of the most unrealistic non-consenting sex scenes I've ever seen (clearly no coitus). It's hard to take seriously even though the content is so disturbing. Really though, rape is not cool whether realistically portrayed or not, especially when it's sole purpase is to titillate the viewer (I fear that was the filmmakers intent). Rape is not cool kids and I almost think it's an act even lower than baby killing. Unfortunately, the premise of this picture kind of involves the subject so let the slogging begin. Hitler condoned it, embraced it, Loved it and look how he turned out. It's late in the year of 1943 and Hitler is getting nervous. His troops are encountering extreme resistance. The allies are advancing, spies are everywhere. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Hitler recruits his leading scientist, Dr. Ellen Kratsch, to run experiments on a mongoloid prisoner, taken from a mongoloid ghetto, probably somewhere in or around Mongolia. Basically, Hitler wants the guy to be really horny so he can rape as many virgins as possible. That'll show those fucking allies! Yeah, that's the plot. Are you still here?

Look, it's not all rape. There's also some good old fashioned torture. One guy gets his balls cut off (off screen). There's a torture device involving a bucket, rats, and fire that seems pretty unpleasant. Water torture, etc. A subplot involves some resistance fighters plotting the rescue of their women (virgins) before the monogloid (referred to in the credits as "the beast") rapes them to death. They get captured (offscreen) and tortured in some pretty horrific ways, but not nearly as horrific as what some of the women get. Yeah, this picture might be a misogynistic one. Sorry ladies. That's just the way the Nazis were. This picture is a truth vehicle, telling it like it was and soon may be again if we don't learn us some lessons. This Nazi scientist (she's hot and evil) was the biggest chauvinist of them all. When she wasn't berating a soldier for getting aroused while viewing a rape ("a soldier's supposed to be stoic!"), she was fondling the breasts of a virgin prisoner. If you can't guess what happens to this nazi she-devil in the end, you shouldn't be anywhere near a "video nasty". You're too innocent.

I'm barely touching on the disturbing elements here. So, let's just play a simple word association game and learn something. "Pubes". Did you say "good eats"? Let's try again. "Dildo". Did you say "Walter P-38"? One more time. "Jumper Cables". Fuck, you guessed "genital torture" didn't you? Damn, you're fucking great at this game. I'm guessing you've seen the picture.

There's a lengthy battle at the end that's about 1 part actual footage shot for this movie and 99 parts stock footage. The differences in film are jarring. For some absurd reason, they decided to shoot the aerial scenes of a bomber themselves, and used a model airplane attached to string (slow it down and see for yourself). The best part of the picture was the panning shot of a Nazi vehicle entering base as a swastika statue looms in the foreground. What's that shadow, clear as day, on the swastika? Oh, it's just the camera crew. Pause it and you can make them out perfectly. Brilliant moment. Check out the Hitler stache on the director.

Lots of bush, lots of boobs, hell, lots of dick even. Not one titillating moment though. Several boring scenes that almost had me begging for the obscene stuff, then I sobered up. Stupid Nazis. Now, they're ruining my skin flicks.

Zombie Lake (1980)

Nazi Zombies have never been as boring as they are here, in Jean Rollin's masterpiece of snoozy schlock. During the Second World War, the Nazi's occupied a small french town adjacent to a small putrid lake. The french resistance fought them off, killed them and disposed of the bodies in the lake. Years later, with no explanation, those Nazi sons of bitches rise from the depths of the lake to eat naked french beauties....and a dude or two. It sounds fucking amazing, right?

Wrong. Still, is it worth checking out? If you're a guy, absolutely. there's enough virginal bush in this thing (all of it stunningly shot from the bottom of the local YMCA pool, which stands in for the pond during these shots. fuck, you can even clearly see the walls at times) to keep you occupied for at least ten or fifteen minutes. If you're a girl, stay far away (unless you're a lesbian). This movie has none of the details that make a good zombie picture; make up, shocks, gore effects. I think there were five zombies in the entire movie! Each kill was precisely the same. Zombie bites neck, a little red wine seeps out, moves on to next victim. The victims, to the best of my recollections, stay dead. If you're making a zombie picture, shouldn't the zombies turn people into, um...you know....zombies?

The best scenes of the picture were told in flashback as we're treated to the epic battle and, I suppose, the origin story of the Zombie Nazis. At this point, I realized that the entire movie (we're over halfway through) had about five lines of dialogue. I did love the battle scene enhanced by some lousy string music, meek explosions (I think they had prop guys throwing dirt in the air) and plenty of shooting from the hip (something I'm told you're not to do during war time). I actually thought these filmmakers took a time machine and shot a genuine WWII battle.

Cut back to present day and we're enthralled to learn that a naked women's volleyball team are now camping out at the lake. Time for a swim girls. I trust you left your razors at home? Probably the greatest scene in the movie as the camera moves back into the YMCA pool and we're treated to several shots of the Nazi Zombies just hanging out at the bottom as their green face paint washes away. You know, just hanging out and taking in the view of the pretty folliage floating on the surface above, as lake zombies are known to do from time to time. Then the zombies spring to life (these guys must have a severe case of priapism, by the way) and attack the team, before moving on to the town (and never increasing their numbers). At least we got to enjoy a few subtle nods to Frankenstein as the pretty-boy zombie decides he just wants some good, old fashioned, opposite sex companionship. Sorry boys. Unfortunately, he befriends a little girl and was later brought up on child pornography charges. Actually, the town formed a lynch mob instead as the mayor declared "we better face the facts, the zombies have declared war!"

The highlight of the movie is probably the Zombie knife fight or perhaps the eye penetrating scene reminscent of one done much better in Fulci's Zombi 2. Considering that this came out in 1980, the gore effects are extremely lousy. Especially when one considers what Tom Savini was doing at the same time (Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, The Burning). There's a similarly themed movie that came out a few years earlier called Shock Waves that stars Peter Cushing and Brooke Adams. With a cast like that, how can it not be far superior to this piece of shit? Check out this tagline: Once they were almost human! Beneath the living....beyond the dead...from the depths of Hell's ocean! The deep end of horror! Almost human! Brilliant. This movie? It's a porno without the money shots. And, it nearly put me to sleep. Wasn't even that hammered, truth be told.

Manticore (2005)

The manticore is a legendary creature of persian (300 villains) origin. Half man, half bear, half pig I believe. Or is it half pig, half man, half bear? Wait, I just looked it up. It's half lion, half man, half dragon, and half scorpion. The Sci-fi channel, in 2005's Manticore, has chosen to address this legend in a scathing treatise on the war in Iraq. Of course, based on this picture, the manticore is actually about 75% lion, 20 % dragon, and 5 % scorpion or actually, what I might consider to be stingray. So, not quite half and half and half. Thankfully, they didn't even attempt the "man" part, even though it's in the fucking title. That would have looked even more ridiculous. Believe me, this thing didn't need any more help in that department.

The first thing I noticed was "wow, I know this scene." What Manticore has managed to do, brilliantly I might add, is rip off several other far superior movies. Like most Sci-fi originals, there is a galling bankruptcy of imagination. Here's the formula. Take a creature (either mythological or genetically altered), come up with a basic plot involving a group of characters isolated from the rest of society, rip off scenes from classic movies within the genre, mix in a few C-list (and below) actors, and Voila! You've made yourself a Sci-fi original. Manticore is a part of the "essential" collection, so I can only imagine what crap is considered non-essential. God, this movie stinks

Here's the basic plot. We're a few years into the debacle known as the war in Iraq. Apparently, the terrorists must think we're winning the war because they wake up a manticore to help fight their battle. However, the manticore just holes up in an isolated town called Al Kumar and feeds on the villagers instead. That's ok, they can just blame it on the United States later. For some reason, an american journalist for GNN named Ashley Pierce, played terribly by Chase Masterson (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), and her cameraman come to this town because they heard some WMDs might be hidden there. What they find instead is a "living, breathing WMD". The United States Army stationed in the area, under the command of Major Spense (Jeff Fahey from Body Parts and Planet Terror), sends in a squad of soldiers led by Seargent Baxter (I swear it's George Lopez) and Corporal Kinky played by Heather Donohue (she was in Blair Witch Project, not The Bare Wench Project) to retrieve Pierce. I guess these are the C-listers. Actually, Fahey is more of a B- lister. No one else is really worth mentioning. So, the soldiers get to the town and are immediately under attack from the manticore. Can they hold out until support arrives? Oh, also one of the terrorists is in the town as well (played by Faran Tahir and looking like Mola Ram). There's also an Iraqi boy, with a heart of Saddam's missing bullion, to show us that not all Iraqi's want to blow us up.

The initial scene, the one where the beast is unleashed, is stolen directly from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom AND Conan the Destroyer. I guess the filmmakers need to be given credit for that small coup. The slaughter that follows, in this scene, is not quite as good as Conan, however. The red stuff flies certainly, but we don't get to see much detail. Wisely, the creature is shown sparingly. Unwisely, this was not the case later on. Typical of Sci-fi, they employed Playstation 2 CGI. My favorite line came in this opening scene when Mola Ram says "for 2,000 years they have slept, waiting paitently to be called to rid us of our enemies". George Bush? If you're listening, I think it's time we left Iraq. Do you really want to take the chance that terrorists have access to such a weapon?

Baxter's squad is introduced to us during a stone fight that escalates into a firefight. Think Saving Private Ryan meets Brotherhood of the Wolf, which in turn, says "hi" to The A-Team. It didn't really work. They're a rag tag bunch of loveable guys though that truly enjoy each others company. Baxter is under the impression that their job is to help these people (the Iraqis), but his commanding officer (Fahey) has other ideas. A potential conflict that isn't really dealt with once there is a monster to deal with.

Once the squad reaches Al Kumar everything goes to shit, including the movie. The jokester of the bunch, Mickey is torn to shreds because he's been labeled "the boy who cried manticore". The Sarge radioes in that they "are under attack from an unknown entity that can't be categorized". There's an attempted helicopter rescue that shamelessy lifts the attempted rescue scene verbatim from Aliens, a film I'm pretty sure is infinitely superior. The guy named Busey (not to be confused with Gary or Jake) I believe is taken out during the "spectacular" crash. One soldier tapes a goodbye message to his wife, so we can only guess what happens to him seconds later. Yeah, he gets impaled by manticore's barbed tale. One thing struck me as odd though. Apparently, there was no medic in this squad or perhaps he was killed early on and I didn't notice. As one soldier lies dying, All Baxter can do is tell him to "hang in there"? No morphine, no gauze, no impromptu surgery. This film might be the greatest deterrent to military service that I have ever seen.

This particular picture ends, as they all do, with the calling in of a strategic air strike. Is that going to destroy the manticore?

Are you kidding? Look at that thing! Clearly, the only way to defeat it is to rip off The Clash of the Titans and use a mirror. Then, the filmmakers can rape The Terminator and have it's glowing red eyes fade to black. By the way, the beast looked exactly like the image above, except it had the head of a lion and the wings of a dragon. Other than that, same thing.

If you're a Jeff Fahey fan, as I am, don't bother with this one unless you're a completist. I think he's halfway through his 50 picture deal with the Sci-fi channel, a contract he must be regretting. Why else would half his roles consist of throwaway parts filmed in the span of an hour? A quick word on the setting. This was apparently filmed in Bulgaria, a place I will not soon be visiting because it looks exactly like Iraq. A quicker note on Heather Donahue. Porn. It's in your future. How many times have I used that line before?