cult film freak: eco-horror

Showing posts with label eco-horror. Show all posts

Written by James M. Tate / 11/19/2024 / No comments / armand assante , eco-horror , john frankenheimer , mia bendixsen , richard dysart , robert foxworth , talia shire

ROBERT FOXWORTH BEARS JOHN FRANKENHEIMER'S 'PROPHECY'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpqu-jae__wDcdUv07R_ONjAex7gyl-GSi3z345ls4kNEk5AchpolvLIfHo2GTMdhMOrNQMI2Uh1iSTwnoxUE3iCmQwF5g9oGvtY_eCTwrUWWOJuXGYEi3mzvsE0WQCUcV2Hry0yJjsfZQuRGBbSLkOjL2LVqwmuc-JoFHmcflgF8-XwUQUy9gGR0kGq5K/s1717/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="838" data-original-width="1717" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpqu-jae__wDcdUv07R_ONjAex7gyl-GSi3z345ls4kNEk5AchpolvLIfHo2GTMdhMOrNQMI2Uh1iSTwnoxUE3iCmQwF5g9oGvtY_eCTwrUWWOJuXGYEi3mzvsE0WQCUcV2Hry0yJjsfZQuRGBbSLkOjL2LVqwmuc-JoFHmcflgF8-XwUQUy9gGR0kGq5K/s16000/1.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: PROPHECY Year: 1979 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>At one point, when idealistic city doctor Robert Foxworthy and quiet musician wife Taila Shire are in the Oregon woods investigating strange happenings around a Native American community, we cut to an immense paper-mill with formidable music that would usually prelude a march of Nazi soldiers, or their mustached leader...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Meanwhile polite antagonist Richard Dysart, a few years before being part of a gory monstrous takeover in THE THING, is subtly covering things up: overall making the liberal-minded eco-horror PROPHECY far more ambiguous than if it were made today (or in the last thirty-years)...</p><span></span>

armand assante, eco-horror, john frankenheimer, mia bendixsen, richard dysart, robert foxworth, talia shire

ROBERT FOXWORTH BEARS JOHN FRANKENHEIMER'S 'PROPHECY'

Title: PROPHECY Year: 1979 Rating: ***1/2 At one point, when idealistic city doctor Robert Foxworthy and quiet musician wife Taila Shire are...

BERT I. GORDON DIRECTS 'FOOD OF THE GODS' WITH RALPH MEEKER

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNIibB5vfumfR6gRBmaMyqIIsKTS9Rl_w7zOwZjSdsRpCzlfaypeks8ibdOA7KkRiwdRRUTI8rEy1SNi3QFmTzUigtskVK3HB_X_OB1IeAlgAlTArdwgRMmnVaduU_LLZjn8i3Od1_4yrd99lin7C5ElgMo7syP75bFb67ccG8sXevSlz-HrHRoeJK3w/s1699/0.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1211" data-original-width="1699" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNIibB5vfumfR6gRBmaMyqIIsKTS9Rl_w7zOwZjSdsRpCzlfaypeks8ibdOA7KkRiwdRRUTI8rEy1SNi3QFmTzUigtskVK3HB_X_OB1IeAlgAlTArdwgRMmnVaduU_LLZjn8i3Od1_4yrd99lin7C5ElgMo7syP75bFb67ccG8sXevSlz-HrHRoeJK3w/s16000/0.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: FOOD OF THE GODS Year: 1976 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>When cult director Bert I. Gordon was a forgotten legend of 1950's and 1960's drive-in cinema, he had a comeback for two consecutive years — 1976 and 1977 — with a pair of science-fiction flicks, loosely based on 
stories by H.G. Wells, ending with EMPIRE OF THE ANTS and before that a more message-laden eco-horror in FOOD OF THE GODS, centering not on enlarged killer insects but voracious rats...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Like EMPIRE, they're actual creatures made to look immense by trick photography, while the actors are superimposed like they're either battling, or, with cheap close-up practical effects, being devoured by the rodents, who exist because a rural farm couple discovered the titular slimy FOOD coming from the earth, making these GODS rise up and conquer...</p><p><span></span></p>

action, adventure, belinda balaski, creature, eco-horror, exploitatio, ida lupino, marjoe gortner, pamela franklin, ralph meeker, seventies

BERT I. GORDON DIRECTS 'FOOD OF THE GODS' WITH RALPH MEEKER

Title: FOOD OF THE GODS Year: 1976 Rating: ***1/2 When cult director Bert I. Gordon was a forgotten legend of 1950's and 1960's driv...

KELLY BOHANON & CAROLINE HILDEBRAND IN 'IDAHO TRANSFER'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Kelly Bohanon as Karen Braden in Idaho Transfer circa 1973</u></td></tr>
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Director Peter Fonda went the "minimalist" route in his futuristic scorched-earth science-fiction IDAHO TRANSFER in both the aesthetic, using locales like the already hollow and haunting Craters of the Moon, Idaho, and especially the performances since the cast (except Keith Carradine in a bit part) aren't trained actors...<br>
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Which is similar to another 1970's Renaissance Era project, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP, only Monte Hellman's traveling duo had famous music-related day-jobs. But Fonda has his own reasons: While the pair of leading young ladies can't act out of that cliché <i>paper bag</i>, spouting lines in a brooding and lackadaisical, inattentive monotone, they're two of the cutest starlets (albeit one-time starlets) to <i>ever</i> appear on screen... <br>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAI_HsJ-lt6XpC4p5FU0oc73MlwxrUZqd0O-2SRGSCCQUzJtodSfNNGdlAuMBrWoeg6ROPZfpAir5iFN2AsXzDnj40itDy7GANHj5TuZmFb0DTMoZ6_kpMTzdrcrhEE0KrG1QoJGEKeBaF/s1600/0.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1185" data-original-width="1600" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAI_HsJ-lt6XpC4p5FU0oc73MlwxrUZqd0O-2SRGSCCQUzJtodSfNNGdlAuMBrWoeg6ROPZfpAir5iFN2AsXzDnj40itDy7GANHj5TuZmFb0DTMoZ6_kpMTzdrcrhEE0KrG1QoJGEKeBaF/s400/0.jpg" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Caroline Hildebrand as Isa Braden</u></td></tr>
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Especially full-lipped, sandy-blond haired, natural beauty Kelly Bohanon (also known as Kelley Bohanon) as Karen, who, unlike her science-minded hippie cohorts, is reluctant to take part in the experiment, pouting like a spoiled rich kid they have to put up with. Especially (and understandably) after her slightly older sister, seeming like the main character up-front, exits sooner than expected — on purpose. Making equally gorgeous Caroline Hildebrand's Isa the PSYCHO Janet Leigh of IDAHO TRANSFER... <br>
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Plus she's the bearer of primary exposition: Through teaching Karen, we learn how the kids go from the present time (the early seventies) to the future from within a white-walled laboratory building that tunnels up onto the desert exterior, looking the same no matter if it's 56-years later or not. By sitting, straddled close together, on an upturned yet grounded metallic slab while manipulating the right buttons, they can only wear tight t-shirts and panties for safe travel. In this, director Fonda wields an exploitation cinema twofer: Young scantly clad female bodies for the drive-in audience and his own original time travel rules for science-fiction buffs...<br>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEPHR4wV3Yt4AMR3a_ESB56n7khSR63xL-3FHED4oaleMIIMaGmD3gi0ZEKfxWpGCHbi_okrrG5JZm24xLcmZIpIIIrtXF2E44x4ijCK6RgHjiqShdQNZ6DN9l-TjUetFKoZspwoZ9wsUs/s1600/4.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEPHR4wV3Yt4AMR3a_ESB56n7khSR63xL-3FHED4oaleMIIMaGmD3gi0ZEKfxWpGCHbi_okrrG5JZm24xLcmZIpIIIrtXF2E44x4ijCK6RgHjiqShdQNZ6DN9l-TjUetFKoZspwoZ9wsUs/s400/4.jpg" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Film Score Rating of Peter Fonda's Idaho Transfer: ***1/2</u></td></tr>
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But the explanations don't last long. Soon enough, the TRANSFER (like "beaming") is physical, and thus a kind of road movie popular in the counter-culture era (ironically inspired by Fonda and Dennis Hopper's EASY RIDER) ensues and, hiking instead of biking, Karen is unevenly partnered with a lanky dork, both separated from the gang, all going from Idaho to Oregon across a barren landscape that looks effectively melancholy and post-apocalyptic...<br>
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While there are awkward and sometimes downright awful moments, especially during conversations when the young Bohemians meet up along the way, spouting dialogue as if struggling in a student film, there's still an inevitable feeling that the journey could shape up like every cautionary-tale or TWILIGHT ZONE or EASY RIDER itself: Possibly providing a not-so-sunny conclusion. And no matter what limitations are holding Kelly Bohanon back in the acting department, she's got more than looks going on: With just enough vulnerability intact, she makes a terrific pawn, not much different than a primal and desperate, last-girl-standing in a horror flick — a genre director Peter Fonda (who <i>doesn't </i>provide a cameo) is flirting with for the entire intentionally slow-paced, enigmatic, subtly nightmarish ride.  <br>

adventure, apocalyptic future, caroline hildebrand, eco-horror, exploitation, indie, keith carradine, kelly bohanon, peter fonda, road movie, science-fiction, thriller

KELLY BOHANON & CAROLINE HILDEBRAND IN 'IDAHO TRANSFER'

Kelly Bohanon as Karen Braden in Idaho Transfer circa 1973 Director Peter Fonda went the "minimalist" route in his futuristic ...

LYNN BORDEN INTERVIEW: 'FROGS' & EXPLOITATION CINEMA

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNS-RA4Nde770ZY8SEmVPr60iIK2z0Gu0I4nBFwVeH3k_TrmtVtFwPFJ1BGzkZACFU0YWHreq0TCdfYKXF71uB5Sung2MAD_soKNzpE8tSoc8CFoIXVf0zm54nzaJADNWybCExcA0gPYE/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNS-RA4Nde770ZY8SEmVPr60iIK2z0Gu0I4nBFwVeH3k_TrmtVtFwPFJ1BGzkZACFU0YWHreq0TCdfYKXF71uB5Sung2MAD_soKNzpE8tSoc8CFoIXVf0zm54nzaJADNWybCExcA0gPYE/s320/2.png" width="214"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Original Artwork</td></tr>
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A lovely and talented actress has left us, and her name was Lynn Borden… Known by some as the suburban wife from the last season of HAZEL, cult cinema fans remember her as Jenny Crockett, the beautifully bitter wife of Adam Roarke’s mischievous Clint in the eco-horror FROGS, which, made in 1972, is actually pretty great...</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lynn Borden... and a Frog</td></tr>
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Taking place at a rural mansion within the murky swamps, Ray Milland stars as a greedy capitalist who isn’t very environmentally conscious...<br>
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And so, long story short, a magazine photographer, played by Sam Elliott, winds up amongst the bickering clan, experiencing their eccentric behavior as a horde of reptiles slowly move in.<br>
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So here's a transcribed interview from a Cult Film Freak/Skull Island Surfer archive with actress Lynn Borden, who also shares about appearing with the late cult actor Adam Roarke in two other motion pictures, THIS IS A HIJACK and DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY...</div>

adam roarke, eco-horror, exploitation, lynn borden, ray milland, sam elliott

LYNN BORDEN INTERVIEW: 'FROGS' & EXPLOITATION CINEMA

Original Artwork A lovely and talented actress has left us, and her name was Lynn Borden… Known by some as the suburban wife from the...

SAM ELLIOTT & RAY MILLAND IN 'FROGS' WITH LYNN BORDEN

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8-IPIIbhM3YUA2ajOTBuUYs5oTrErUl1rEYjnXKrzzhb7WYbGxaQU4S5bnyIOdTHJQ0oZyLbPmWujtX2iWp0FK6PzfaBg6vi8y_CUjLprfPvnnSJNW4lSQHIbrK5uFiFvVmZs9s_-nr8/s1600/frogs.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8-IPIIbhM3YUA2ajOTBuUYs5oTrErUl1rEYjnXKrzzhb7WYbGxaQU4S5bnyIOdTHJQ0oZyLbPmWujtX2iWp0FK6PzfaBg6vi8y_CUjLprfPvnnSJNW4lSQHIbrK5uFiFvVmZs9s_-nr8/s400/frogs.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">year: 1972 cast: Ray Milland, Sam Elliott, Lynn Borden rating: ****</td></tr>
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"We’d all be scared," according to the late actress Lynn Borden in an interview about her work on FROGS, and the director, George McCowan.<br />
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"We didn’t know exactly how we were going to die… We knew we were going to somehow, but he would scare us." And though more suspenseful and creative than scary, this underrated 1970’s eco-horror has somewhat of a misleading title...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_EZdQigc-bQkEFugl_kSBsMR61Vf1Md65Ku8RvC37xqog91KsSopvzivI5XgCczGqV8W_17FYnjwd8kD-vdPp-kJwrl1zQZvVtA8cINth6wFudjsTJPfYszI5R2IBUA2Rj4KbzKHScI/s1600/photo-198.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_EZdQigc-bQkEFugl_kSBsMR61Vf1Md65Ku8RvC37xqog91KsSopvzivI5XgCczGqV8W_17FYnjwd8kD-vdPp-kJwrl1zQZvVtA8cINth6wFudjsTJPfYszI5R2IBUA2Rj4KbzKHScI/s1600/photo-198.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Lynn Borden & Adam Roarke</td></tr>
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While the frogs are the instigating generals who take their time to become formidable aggressors, there're also a bevy of lizards, snakes, and gators that encroach upon a mansion in New Orleans owned by greedy industrialist Ray Milland, countered by a young Sam Elliott as a nature-friendly photographer, who happens upon Ray and his pompous clan, including cute and helpful daughter Joan Van Ark, most of whom get picked-off during a traditional holiday gathering.<br />
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Adam Roarke is a standout as Milland's playboy/jock son, as is Lynn Borden as his frustrated wife (both worked together on THIS IS A HIJACK and DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY). Overall, FROGS is a very well photographed film that, lacking in expensive special effects, shows the reptiles in their natural poses and then, with creatively strategic editing, makes it seem like their curiosity's aimed towards the doomed humans: With a Tennessee Williams aura of the snobby Southern rich given their comeuppance, FROGS is loaded with terrific dialog, fantastic acting, and a first half setting up the characters so when they <span style="font-style: italic;">croak</span>, it matters. This isn’t the cheesy B-movie as the trailers and posters imply, but it'll work either way.

adam roarke, creature, eco-horror, horror, lynn borden, ray milland, sam elliott

SAM ELLIOTT & RAY MILLAND IN 'FROGS' WITH LYNN BORDEN

year: 1972 cast: Ray Milland, Sam Elliott, Lynn Borden rating: **** "We’d all be scared," according to the late actress Lynn B...

Written by James M. Tate / 3/11/2013 / No comments / eco-horror , exploitation , horror , john bud cardos , seventies , william shatner

WILLIAM SHATNER TREKS THROUGH 'KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS'

eco-horror, exploitation, horror, john bud cardos, seventies, william shatner

WILLIAM SHATNER TREKS THROUGH 'KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS'

year: 1977 cast: William Shatner, Woody Strode rating: **** Terrific build-up and follow-through by director (and once exploitation act...

Written by James M. Tate / 1/04/2012 / No comments / eco-horror , m. night , mark walhberg , suspense , zeroes

THE HAPPENING

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<b>title:</b> THE HAPPENING</div>
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<b>year:</b> 2008</div>
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<b>cast:</b> Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, Betty Buckley</div>
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<b>rating: </b>*</div>
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To quote the iconic  Buffalo Springfield tune, "There's something happening here, what it is  ain't exactly clear." These lyrics sum up half the film, where people  back East are mysteriously going crazy and soon-after committing  suicide. After the cause is known, something having to do with the  environment "fighting back," it's a lot of running around... And the  once prolific writer/director M. Night Shyamalan seems to have run out  of ideas and creativity. Relying on cheap camera work and cheesy dialogue,  he himself claims this as an intentional b-movie liken to the early work of  George Romero and David Cronenberg; low-budget classics relying heavily  on character-development: something this film has little to nothing of.  Eventually the survivors end up in a rural house inhabited by an old  creepy woman played by Betty Buckley (Sissy Spacek's coach in CARRIE), providing the only chilling  moments that don't last long enough.

eco-horror, m. night, mark walhberg, suspense, zeroes

THE HAPPENING

title: THE HAPPENING year: 2008 cast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, Betty Buckley rating: * To quote the iconic Buffalo Spr...

Written by James M. Tate / 12/09/2011 / No comments / burt young , darrell fetty , eco-horror , eighties , john saxon

JAWS CLONE IN THE SAND ALA BLOOD BEACH

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1981 rating: ***</td></tr>
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This  beach-set horror/suspense is yet another JAWS clone in the spirit of ALLIGATOR and PIRANHA, and has all the  elements including the Sheriff, his trusty gal, and an airhead deputy.<br />
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Throw in some established character-actors like Burt Young, Otis Young, and John  Saxon as politically-strapped law officials and you have yourself a  low-budget thriller that works despite itself.<br />
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The random sand-slurping  deaths are entertaining as hell, and there's a semi intriguing mystery involving  what exactly is underneath. Marianna Hill, Fredo's trophy wife from THE GODFATHER, makes for a terrific screeching ingenue, and BIG WEDNESDAY alumni Darrell Fetty's unexpected death scene (pictured) is one of the best in low-low budget cinema.

burt young, darrell fetty, eco-horror, eighties, john saxon

JAWS CLONE IN THE SAND ALA BLOOD BEACH

1981 rating: *** This beach-set horror/suspense is yet another JAWS clone in the spirit of ALLIGATOR and PIRANHA, and has all the elem...

Written by James M. Tate / 12/07/2011 / No comments / action , andrew stevens , christopher george , eco-horror , leslie nielson , seventies

DAY OF THE ANIMALS

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>year: </b>1977 <b>cast:</b> Christopher George, Leslie Neilson, Andrew Stevens<b> rating:</b> **</td></tr>
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A limp  <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">eco</span>-horror about wilderness animals going berserk because of the  man-caused depletion of the ozone layer. The critter madness occurs  during a hiking trip: consisting of an ensemble cast led by Christopher  George.<br />
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There's no mystery involved as to why the beasts, mostly birds  (Hitchcock, anyone?) and then wolves and German <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Shepards</span> have become  deadly since the movie begins with a scrawl teaching us: "According to  scientists, what you're about to see is possible."<br />
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Unlike FROGS,  PIRANHA, and KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, the characters/victims are  paper-thin and uninteresting, except Leslie Nielsen as an temperamental  bully who suddenly becomes a raping caveman.<br />
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The body count dwindles  quickly during the last half hour; ironically, this is when the film  improves upon the terribly boring lead-up consisting of what looks like  stock footage of wildlife seeming friendly enough save for a  <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">foreboding</span> soundtrack. </div>

action, andrew stevens, christopher george, eco-horror, leslie nielson, seventies