FROGS (1972)

Okay. This isn't SQUIRM, but it's fun enough. Ray Milland is an old jerk who hates nature and poisons everything that moves on his little private island. Sam Elliott (who doesn't look ANYTHING like the moustached cowboy from THE BIG LEBOWSKI) is a wildlife photographer who winds up on the island after Milland's son nearly runs him down in a speedboat. Elliott must've picked the wrong weekend to go canoeing, because this happens to be the weekend that nature decides that it's had enough of Ray Milland's dickery. Everyone gets attacked by snakes, lizards, tarantulas, leeches, alligators, and, of course, frogs.

My only problem with this is that it takes itself a little too seriously. I mean, it's called FROGS, for crying out loud. (On the other hand, maybe it was supposed to be called something else originally. Frogs aren't the only thing attacking these idiots.) Then there's a big cartoon frog that hops out after the credits and slurps down a cartoon hand, so I don't know what these people were thinking. It's got a "message," which is basically "don't screw around with Mother Nature's plans, or you could get eaten by frogs," but all of these "nature turns on mankind" things have that kind of message (THEM! = "atomic radiation probably has some side effects that you might want to avoid, like giant ants"...SQUIRM = "downed power lines can make earthworms eat your face"). But it being so serious also kind of works in its favor, like a 1950s Big Bug On The Loose movie.

All in all, though, it's got a nice swampy summer vibe going on, and makes for some fun July movie viewing. Dad watched this one with me, said he remembered seeing it on TV way back when. According to him, stuff like this was on TV all the time back then. They even had made-for-TV horror movies just like this. He got off on a rant about how all the TV horror stuff was so great back when he was a kid, and nothing like the stupid CGI "Mega Octo-Python vs. The Sharkinator" stuff that Syfy shows these days, and how the next time he took me and Jack to one of those comic book conventions that we were going to find some of these things. And he wonders where I get it!!!

Invaders From Mars (1953)

Watched this back-to-back with Invasion of the Saucer-Men for a night of invading saucer-men. This one is totally serious, and pretty creepy. A kid named David sees a saucer sink into a sand pit behind his house, and everyone who goes to check on it comes back...different. They get sucked into the sand pit and have brain-control devices implanted in their heads! Holy crap. So he's got the problem of everyone who believes him getting controlled by the Martians, plus having to convince people who *don't* believe him in the first place. Wikipedia says that this film is unique in telling the story from the point of view of a kid in an adult world heading into crisis. Man, I can identify with *that*. The film is amazing-looking. It totally takes advantage of whatever budget it had, and it turns out really bizarre and otherworldly. Even the "regular" scenes on everyday Earth are weird. Which makes sense when you find out the final twist, which I'm not going to spoil. You need to see this. Dad tells me to avoid the remake from '86. I don't see how they could make this any better, even with better effects, so I might just follow his lead on that one.

Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957)

Wow. Picked this up at a local comics convention that Dad and Cady took me and Jack to. I'd seen the little alien guys in this in pictures and posters and stuff, but had never seen the movie itself. This thing is nuts! These little aliens are invading and kill people by injecting alcohol into their bodies with these needles in their fingers. It winds up you can defeat the aliens by shining bright lights on 'em. There's a disembodied alien hand with an eye wandering around for good measure, too. It's obviously not taking itself very seriously, which is good, because there's no reason for it to. It has one of those great 1950s "The End...Or Is It???" endings. SO much fun. Me and dad laughed like idiots the whole time.

ALIEN (1979)

You know, you think you know a movie. I’ve seen this before, and the sequels, but I forgot just how scary this movie was. The sequels tend to be a lot of action, especially the first sequel, but this one is just all tension. You know the story: cargo ship picks up a distress call, tracks it down, winds up bringing a deadly alien back with them that kills everybody one by one. There’s the “chest-bursting” scene where the baby alien hatches out of John Hurt’s chest. There’s the evil android robot guy played by Bilbo Baggins. But you forget how slowly the movie goes, but never gets boring. There’s always this atmosphere of tension in every scene, like anyone could die at any time. And then there’s the sets! I’d never noticed them this way before. The ship where they find all of the alien egg things is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It looks like it’s some kind of living thing, like it grew. They were all designed by this Swiss guy named H.R. Giger. I looked him up on the internet, and his stuff ALL looks like this. It’s all scary, and like some cross between living things and mechanical things. But back to the movie. I know most of you have seen it before, but you really need to watch it again.