Tag: John Sayles

The Hunger (Alligator, 1980)

Opening with a young girl getting a pet baby alligator at an alligator park (after an alligator attacks an employee) whose father decides to flush the gator down the toilet. Playing into the old urban legend about alligators living in the sewers, this film adds an animal testing conspiracy to the mix.

Robert Forster is a Detective named David investigating dog corpses and human body parts popping up at the local waste treatment plant. His defining character trait is being embarrassed by his thinning hair. he brings this up often. The little girl from the beginning grew up to be Marisa, a zoologist who specializes in reptiles. When David discovers that the killer leaving around body parts is a giant alligator, she helps give him insight. It has been feasting on the carcasses of dogs used by a pharmaceutical company in growth hormone experiments.

When people try and catch the alligator, it goes above ground and starts killing people left and right.

Alligator is a rather goofy film. David has a trauma related to a partner who was killed and he blames himself. He does not just get help Marisa, no they start sleeping together. The evil company eventually sees their comeuppance is a bloody finale.

Notably, this film pulls a Jaws, killing a kid. But unlike Jaws, where that is played as a major tragedy that haunts Brody, here it is just one of many scenes with no real impact to the story.

I do like this creature feature overall, even though it does not have a lot of emotional weight.

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All Stand Together Pt 7 (Battle Beyond the Stars, 1980)

Battle_Beyond_the_Stars_PosterA peaceful planet called Akira is visited by the conqueror Sador.  He promises to return with an armada that will overrun the planet if they do not willingly submit to them.  A young man named Shad goes on a mission to get weapons and warriors to fight off Sador and his forces.

He assembles six unique individuals, including a vengeance seeking lizard man, a young scientist, a clone race, a haunted assassin, a beautiful warrior seeking glory, and a fun loving earth man. They all return to help the citizens of the planet.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, this Roger Corman film is a perfect example of Corman’s formula. Star Wars was a hit and had a sequel on it’s way.  Corman wanted a Star Wars style film.  He commission a script from John Sayles (who also wrote Corman’s Piranha).  They opted to take the story from Seven Samurai and set it in space, just as the Magnificent Seven moved it to the old American West.

And the movie is not shy about this.  The planet is named Akira, after Seven Samurai director Akira Kurosawa.  The advertising for the film included phrases like “Seven Magnificent Warriors”. Robert Vaughn even plays a character much like his dark Lee, from the Magnificent Seven.

This film, while being a knockoff meant to cash in onStar Wars hype, actually stands pretty well on it’s own.  A lot of this goes back to the strong cast.  George Peppard is a more laid back Han Solo type as the space faring earth man Cowboy.  The alien race the Nestors are an alien race of clones who are psychically linked.  This allows for a lot of intended humor, such as when they are offered a hotdog and while only one of them eats it, all the Nestor’s can taste is, and one observes, “There is no dog in this”.  After they recite the ingredients of a hot dog (determined by taste), Peppered cheerfully responds, “That’s what we call meat on Earth.”

Sybil Danning’s Saint Exmin the Valkerie is from a race that live only to fight in wars.  And wear swimming suits (what, you think a Roger Corman film is not going to feature at least one buxom woman in a tiny outfit?!).  Initially, Shad is annoyed and tries to chase her off, but she hangs on, proving herself in battle and winning Shad’s respect.

The film features work by James Cameron (as art director) and the designs go from very serious, such as Sador’s rather impressive ship to somewhat tongue in cheek.  Shad’s ship has a smart talking female voiced AI.  And the ship has breasts.  I am not joking.

Battle_Beyond_the_Stars_Ship

Seriously, Cameron…

And James Horner’s musical score is downright great.  Battle Beyond the Stars is entertaining and downright fun as low budget Sci-Fi goes.

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Fishies pt 1 (Piranha, 1978)

piranha_1978_posterJoe Dante’s third film was one of Roger Corman’s knockoff films.  Corman had a formula and it had a lot to do with seeing what was big or on the verge of big and following suit with lower budgets.  And it worked.  A lot of well known filmmakers and performers came out of the Corman Machine.  Dante, James Cameron, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Gale Anne Hurd and John Sayles are but a few.

The first writing gig for John Sayles, Piranha is the tale of a young private detective named Maggie who is searching for a rich man’s daughter who disappeared on a hiking trip.  She meets up with local guide Paul and they find a remote building with a large pool.  They suspect maybe there could be bodies in the pool.  They find the lever to flush the pool, but get in a struggle with a crazed gentleman who wants to make sure they do not succeed.  After they managed to flush the pool, they find two skeletons.  Ultimately, it turns out that the pool was full of genetically altered piranha who are making their way down the river eating everything that comes into their path.  The river is taking them right to a local summer camp and a grand opening of a resort.

As is to be expected, there is a race against time (Paul’s daughter is at the camp) as Maggie and Paul try to warn everyone.  The local mayor wants them jailed, as he does not want to hurt tourism.  Did I mention that Piranha was made to cash in on the success of Jaws?

Sayles and Dante do not treat this as just a knockoff of a bigger film.  They understand the limits of their budget, and center things to work within those boundaries.  This results in a fun monster movie that has plenty to enjoy.  It is not nearly as exploitative as other Corman films (Corman often had deals with distributors requiring sex scenes and gratuitous nudity) and the gore is low level.  The titular piranhas are often unseen or blurry shadows.  The attacks often involve people disappearing beneath churning waters.

The cast is enjoyable, especially Corman regulars like Paul Bartel and Dick Miller.  Kevin McCarthy is always dependable for the “Maniacal Scientist” role, and he does not let the viewer down here.  Piranha has earned it’s cult status, being one of the more clever attempts to take advantage of a hit movie.  It manages to avoid simply being an imitation and is quite memorable in it’s own right.

 

 

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