Ahhh sequels. Don't you just watch them?
Anyway, for reasons that I can ascribe to pure coincidence, this weekend's choices for Unseen Terror were all follow-ups to films that have been previously covered over the many years of doing this silly little blog-o-thon. One of them was a very last minute addition though, and boy oh boy do I have some stuff to say about that particular entry.
I honestly keep forgetting that there is a sequel to 1984's underrated gem known as C.H.U.D., and after sitting through the sequel that was released five years afterwards, I really wish that I could still forget it. The plot for C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud has little connection (if any) to the original picture outside of uttering the word "Chud" several times, and mostly focuses on the titular "Bud" causing hijinks and infecting as many people as he can with singular bites. Who is this man you ask? Why, he's the result of a failed military experiment who initially ends up in the hands of a trio of doofuses for ridiculous reasons. Trading in a LOT of the legitimate horror aspects from its predecessor for idiotic comedy that falls flat at pretty much every turn, C.H.U.D. II looks like a good time on paper, but the whole picture is executed in a way that just leaves you with a disappointed scowl throughout most of its running time. I'm happy to see Gerrit Graham (The Critic, Terrorvision) get more screen time no matter what the project may be, but this whole experience just, in layman's terms, really stank. Stick to the original C.H.U.D. or just google screenshots of Tricia Leigh Fisher's swimsuit if you're a sad sack of shit like I am. That + the admittedly catchy "theme song" to the flick are about the only positive things to say about it.
Did YOU know that there was a sequel to The Car? And that it came out last year? Neither did I! Well, perhaps it's for the best that we all just kind of.....not talk about this. Making C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud look like a masterpiece in comparison, I am dumbfounded by how utterly HORRENDOUS The Car: Road to Revenge actually is. The plot is a Frankenstein's creation with elements taken from The Crow, Robocop, and Shocker: a rich asshole who can't quite hide his New Zealand accent is killed by a group of rejects from The Crow: City of Angels and Queen of the Damned and his spirit manifests itself into his priced vehicle, which then sets out in search of the people who murdered him. If I see a movie worse that The Car: Road to Revenge this year (not just this SEASON), I'll be legitimately surprised. The movie is ugly as sin to look at, the cast is incredibly boring, the kills are nothing to write home about (save for one which I clipped and put on my twitter to save people the time), and worst of all, the titular car is BARELY in the flick itself. A last minute cameo from Ronny Cox (Robocop, the o.g. The Car) can't save what is ultimately a waste of time and just a pathetic excuse for a sequel that took FORTY-TWO YEARS to come out. I really don't understand how you can take a concept as simple and basic as The Car and try to make it anything that resembles The Crow of all things (and in 2019 no less). This can fuck right off of a cliff.
If you know anything about me, you know that I absolutely adore the Tremors films (well, more so the first two), but this revival that it's seen over the past few years has been less-than-stellar. I was not fully aware that the original creators at Stampede Entertainment (Nancy Roberts, Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson, and original film director Ron Underwood) had zero involvement with the franchise once Tremors 5: Bloodlines was released back in 2015. It does explain why these newer films, while not without their charm, just don't feel quite right or at home with longtime fans such as myself. I did think that Bloodlines was a perfectly fine, if not unspectacular entry in the series, but 2018's Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell was a pile of missed opportunities and fairly unacceptable lies (promising Graboids in the snow and not delivering deserves a paddlin'). Thankfully Tremors: Shrieker Island is better than the aforementioned movies, but it isn't by a substantial amount. The story for the seventh picture in this series is a variation on Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game:" an arrogant billionaire (Richard Brake of 3 from Hell) imports Graboids to a remote island where he and his hunting buddies intend to hunt them for sport. Seemingly forgetting about the very strange lifecycle that these worms partake in, they soon discover that they're up to their necks in "Shriekers," and it's up to good ol' series veteran Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) to come and help these poor suckers get out in one piece before they get torn to...well, pieces.
So we'll start off with the good aspects of Tremors 7 (hey, it's easier to type out): Michael Gross is always fun to watch. Seeing a very disheveled Burt living isolated on a island in the middle of nowhere makes for some amusing gags early on, and his interactions with the newer members of the cast are entertaining (particularly Jackie Cruz). We're also free of Jamie Kennedy's Travis, who as one character explains is "in a Mexican jail. Don't ask." I don't dislike Kennedy as a person, but I felt as though his presence and dialogue in A Cold Day in Hell really hurt the picture as whole. Then again, supporting characters in this franchise have historically been incredibly hit-or-miss once they went into the realm of straight-to-video. The newer designs of the titular Shriekers are also fairly neat, and much like recent outings in these films, they've developed their own little tricks and traits to help them stand out in this new location. Unfortunately, now we have to come to the bad and the "meh." While I have not liked either of the Rob Zombie-directed movies which garnered him more attention over the years, I still like Richard Brake as an actor. Unfortunately, his villain is one that we've seen time and time again and you never get the sense that he's much of a threat to anyone or anything. The CGI is also fairly ugly, and really reminds you of why sometimes practical is the way to go, even if the former is more time-friendly. Jon Heder's character is also a bit on the bland side, but he thankfully doesn't grate nearly as bad as prior sidekicks have. He does have an obnoxious tendency to reference Predator a bit too often though, and while I'd normally never have a problem with anything that mentions one of my favorite films of all time, it feels very tacked on. Finally there are some very important Burt-centric plot elements that just had me groaning, but I'd rather not give those away on here. Let's just say that the screenwriter must have really liked Logan.
Tremors 7 is a step up for this series compared to the two movies that preceded it, but the absence of Stampede Entertainment is hard to ignore and in the end, I don't view it as necessary viewings for anyone except for diehards like myself. It isn't terrible by any means, but it never manages to go beyond the realm of "just okay." If you're curious about where to find it, you'll have to wait a few days to buy a physical copy from places that are in no way infected with COVID-19.
Do you want to hear something amusing? I own Return of the Living Dead 3's poster design on a t-shirt obtained from one of Fright-Rags' "mystery" clearance sales. I was pretty stoked to get it, but while compiling this year's Unseen Terror list, I realized that I had never seen it from beginning to end in a VERY long time. Heck, I saw this one way before I ever watched the original film (a.k.a. the VERY FIRST entry in Unseen Terror), and that has gone on to become one of my absolute favorite horror movies. Four years ago, I covered the second picture and in retrospect I'm honestly not the biggest fan of it as a whole (though it's still baffling to see just how low of a rating it has on RT). Regardless of my thoughts on ROTLD2, I have heard from multiple sources that this motion picture, while a major bomb at the box office, was the last truly good and/or interesting flick in that franchise, and after revisiting it I'm inclined to agree.
This time around, we're focusing primarily on a young man named Curt (J. Trevor Edmond from Lord of Illusions) whose girlfriend Julie (Melinda Clarke of The O.C. fame) is accidentally killed during a motorcycle ride one evening. Initially distraught, Curt suddenly recalls seeing the results of a reanimating experiment that his father's company was working on and breaks into their base of operation. Exposing Julie to Trioxin gas (a staple of these flicks), she springs back to life, but it isn't long until she starts to exhibit signs that aren't unlike that of the undead. Return of the Living Dead 3 makes a very bold choice by abandoning much of the humor found in its prior entries and going for mostly full-on horror and most shockingly, romance. Despite Curt coming across as incredibly naïve throughout a lot of the movie's running time, you do get the feeling that he and Julie genuinely care for one another and feel bad for the both of them when she becomes more bloodthirsty and prone to violent behavior. It helps that the two leads have good chemistry with one another, which could have brought this movie down HARD had that not been the case. Clarke is also exceptional here: she does become somewhat cartoonish during certain moments but is bringing her 'A' game for a film that she could have just blown her nose at. She also sports one hell of a great look during the climax that I'm sure has been cosplayed at multiple conventions over the decades. Sadly, nobody else in ROTLD3 is anything special: Predator 2's Kent McCord plays Curt's military father and they don't really give us any time for character development between him and his son until the final ten minutes or so. There's also a ragtag group of villainous stereotypes who stalk our "heroes" that feel more like walking mincemeat than legitimate threats, but sometimes that's par for the course with the horror genre. The makeup work and gore is also a step up and fairly impressive considering it wasn't allotted the biggest budget ($2 million still isn't a great deal for something released to theaters).
Because it's late, I'm not sure I need to wax poetic on Return of the Living Dead 3 any more. Sure it has some flaws, and some people might be turned off by how very "angsty" it can be at times (someone HAS to have done some "AMVs" with this set to gothic metal bands' tunes), but I'll be damned if it isn't at least different and doing a good job to keep you entertained. Brian Yuzna (yes, of Re-Animator and Society fame) set out to inject some life-boosting Trioxin into these films, and for the most part I think he succeeded. Not a bad way to end a block of projects that I was prepared to dub "sad sequels."
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