Double-Rip Off Cover Art: 'Reigo: King of the Sea Monsters' and 'Raiga: God of the Monsters' (No Relation)

 At a Video Store (they exist if you know where to look), I came across the 2nd bit of Artwork I'm going to share.

I didn't buy the Film, but did look into it.

What I found was that the Film was not alone.

First up, Reigo: King of the Sea Monsters....

You've gotta love the nerve of this one.

As a bonus, I'm pretty sure that Ship Image is a generic art asset that I've seen on at least one Asylum Film Poster.

Here's the unrelated Film with a similar name- Raiga: God of the Monsters!

A more shameless one in terms of design, given that it looks like a weird cross between 2014's Godzilla, a bit of Kong: Skull Island and, of course, the font from the new Film.

So, here's where things get more interesting.

First, Reigo is not even a new Film.  

It is, in fact, a Film from 2005 with a *slightly* different Title...

Besides looking even cheaper (what is the scale?!?), this one tows a double copyright line as there are a number of Anime/OVAs with Yamato in the Title.

Yes, it is also a real Ship, but...I mean, come on.

In Raiga's case, it is just a bit of difference in the marketing...

The Title remains the same, but this Japanese Poster sure doesn't look like it is trying to trick you nearly as much.

You can thank the US Distributors for that one.

Are the Films worth watching?  Reviews are poor to mixed, so let me know if I should.

New Streaming: Creepshow- 'Skincrawlers'

 Another week and another freaky tale from an issue of...

In this Segment, we learn that beauty is more than just skin deep.  It is what wriggles under it that matters...

A group of people who have a trouble with their weight come to see Dr. Sloan.  His miracle cure is...odd.

Dana Gould's 'everyman' doesn't agree to try it, but changes his mind when he see that it works!

Things come to a head as he agrees to appear with the Doctor on a Morning News Show.

Will the other breaking news play a factor?

Things get all sorts of crazy and lots of blood is spilled.  I don't want to ruing things, so no SPOILERS.

To find out, stream this on Shudder or watch the DVD.

Another freaky and fun Segment.  This one features a relatable idea- wanting to lose weight, but not being willing to put in the work.  It is easy to see that people would take a shortcut like they do here.  Would they worry about the possible side-effects?  Hell no.  Remember, people have died from drinking bleach to protect against COVID-19.  Gould makes a good Lead here, as you feel for him.  He's clearly flawed- he's not exactly trying to get better- but he's also not willing to do the crazy thing Sloan says is the cure-all he needs.  Well, not at first.  If you saw what he saw, wouldn't you?  Without SPOILing things, I will say that I got a real Sam Raimi vibe with this one.  There's lots of practical effects and blood on display here.  They use their effects sparingly to get the maximum effect from them.  The same Director from the 'Lydia Lane' Segment is here again, so good for her.  The twist for the finale is telegraphed with all of the subtlety of a shotgun blast to the face, but why not?  You're already sold by then and want to see the insanity that plays out.  For fans of tongue-in-cheek Horror and Gore, this is a must-see.  Just ask them...

Next time, we see the other half of the Episode.  Tom Savini is behind the Camera, so yea.  See you then...

'70s Trash: Beast of Blood (1970)

 At last, the Trilogy reaches its end!  This is Beast of Blood, the final Film in the Blood Island Trilogy from 1970.  What's new?  Well, we've got a new Female Lead and a new guy playing the old Villain.  Yes, you remember the old Villain- he was beaten to death and trapped in a burning Building.  Well, he survived.  Speaking of surviving, John Ashley is still here AND the Monster from the last Film.  That one ended with Sequel Bait and...it was actually paid off!  What are the odds?!?  Bad luck continues to befell this poor Doctor and he ends up back on Blood Island.  When the same old problems are here, he hopes to prove that the same old Doctor is not behind it.  Obviously he is, since I just covered that.  What fresh evil is he up to this time?  Will he keep using Chlorophyll?  Will I stop asking questions that I know the answer to?  To find out, read on...

Hours after the last Film ended, the Beast emerges and starts killing the disposable, ethnic Crew.

Only Ashley survives the attack, but, of course, a fire is started.

The Boat blows up and only two people survive- Ashley and the Monster.  Both make it to the Island separately.

So, to be clear, the Female Lead from the last Film was killed off-screen.  Nice.

A year later, we see Ashley return.  He seems to unsure of what is happening on the Island, even though we are told that he was found there and restored to health.

I guess he was just comatose and left.

Either way, we have a different Native Girl and Old Man.

Ashley ends up with a Reporter who follows him to Blood Island and get the story.

Oh good- a new Love Interest.  

...and she got kidnapped.  Whoops.

As for the Beast, well, it lost its head.

Well, that's not 100% accurate- he just got it separated from his body!
It actually lives on just fine!

The middle part of the Film drags quite a bit.

Basically, we see Ashley and the Villagers wander around looking for the Reporter.  They sneak around the Jungle.

Filler filler filler.

Ashley eventually finds the Doctor- who is wounded and still as evil- and the Reporter.

Naturally, she is now dressed up in 'native' attire.
Oh and he is over his lost love for her...for some reason.

The Doctor survived thanks to Plot and is continuing his work to...um, make mutant people.  His endgame is never quite clear.

This all leads to the second confusing and prolonged shoot-out of the Film.  For a Film called Beast of Blood, he sure does jack all in this Film...

The titular Beast finally gets into things as it can control its body from afar like Bender.

It speaks and kills the Doctor, putting an end to all of this stuff.  Our Heroes escape and everyone is happy.

Damn, this one has some problems.  If you watch a Blood Island Film, you know what to expect.  Native People being killed.  John Ashley making out with every woman possible.  A Monster.  In this case, you get all of that...but it isn't as special.  They take the Reporter out of things too early and make the middle all about getting her back.  She gets to do nothing, other than be scared and then be kidnapped.  You could have some bit of agency for her, given all of her setup.  It's too early for that, so she's just Damsel in Distress.  The pacing hurts this one as the Jungle bits feel like padding.  They know what you want to see.  They know where this need to go.  For whatever reason, they waste a strong, Cold Open and take their sweet time getting there.  There's not enough meat on the bone here.  The Beast is strong at the beginning and then vanishes from all importance for an hour.  In a way, it foreshadowed Friday the 13th: Part 9's whole vibe, didn't it?  We still get a taste or two of what we want.  The previous Film gave you a Buffet, while this one gives you an amuse bouche.  The Acting and overall vibe here is alright, but this one is a bit of a retread.  Sadly, the only Sequel in the bunch suffers from being a Sequel.  I will leave you with a bit of a fun fact: both of Ashley's love interests played one-off Characters on the original Star Trek...

Next up, I dive into my pile of random Films to pick out something good.  Well, not necessarily good, but at least interesting.  Stay tuned...

Quick Review: Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of one Harley Quinn)

 Can we get past that super-silly subtitle?  Can we get past Suicide Squad?  Let's find out...

At the end of Suicide Squad, The Joker broke Harley out of Blackgate Prison.

Now, with no explanation, they are broken up.

Things aren't looking good for Harley.

Once the word is out, everyone she's wronged has free reign to get revenge.

To the Film's credit, they don't sugarcoat this (or her).

The villainous Black Mask has a diamond full of secrets (changed thanks to bad Test Screenings and a Script Leak) stolen and makes Harley get it...or die.

Determined to save her own skin, she does the deed...but has a change of heart.

Can she protect the 'innocent' kid here?

Black Mask doesn't take this well, as you'd expect.

To be fair, 90% of the people wanted her dead...and now 95% do.  I guess that is a bit worse.

Can a group of disparate people- a Cop, a Vigilante, Harley, a Thief and a Singer- team up to save themselves and, by default, Gotham City?

To find out, watch the Film.

A pretty fun Film, although DC still has some work to do.  When this Film works best, they are focusing on Harley and the insanity around her.  There can be some moments that are just there for later payoff- like her doing Roller Derby- but they mostly all work.  They don't change the character too much to make this work, which was my concern.  Instead, they make a somewhat-elaborate-and-contrived situation that forces her to change.  It just happens that sixty things line up just right for it all to happen.  She just happens to be at the Club, where Canary just happens to work.  Montoya just happens to be pressing on Black Mask as all of this goes down AND Harley ends up in her sights to boot.  Life can feel like a series of coincidences, but only so much.  If you can excuse how elaborate this whole thing has to be to work- like Huntress just happening to be going after people who interweave into the Story-, you can enjoy it.  It's by no means perfect and it would have been nice for Harley's agency to be based on more than just 'I got dumped' at the start.  Why couldn't she dump him (and still feel bad about it afterwards)?  Speaking of The Joker, he's mentioned, but never seen.  It's funny to see this happen, since they did so much work to interject him into a Story that *didn't* involve him in Suicide Squad.  Now he's just MIA- is he dead?!?- for something involving him being indirectly-attacked by Harley AND in his City.  Also I guess Batman is just on vacation (or in rehab) during all of this too!  Speaking of missing, why can no Batman-related Film do Victor Zsasz close to his Comic Book roots?  He was a random Criminal in Batman Begins and now he's...a vaguely-bisexual Henchman for Black Mask who cuts himself after his victims...or so we're told.  I'll admit he's not the most complex or greatest character, but why can't they just make him like he's supposed to be?

A pretty good Film that shows that DC can be different than the pure grim-and-gritty.  There's still enough of that, however, to show you that they quite aren't done with it yet.

Poor Bastards of Cinema: Rings (2017)

 I guess minor SPOILER Alert here, although it is the Opening Scene, so...

In Rings, the curse is apparently still around...for no clear reason.  No Tapes and Samara seemed trapped, but...I guess not.

That leads to us seeing the fate of one man who watched the cursed tape and took a domestic flight.
Naturally.

To further muddy things, a person who ALSO watched the Tape, but passed on the Curse is also on THIS SAME PLANE!!!

Since she's awful, Samara causes the whole plane to crash to kill this one guy, also indirectly violating her own rule- if you pass on the curse, you avoid her wrath.

To put things into perspective, the average flight NOW has 39 Passengers.
This was in 2017.

So yeah, she just killed four to five times that many people to get one guy...who watched a tape...since her Dad tossed her in a Well 30 years ago.

Seems about right.

Next time, a man wanders down the wrong Street in a bad Film.  See why he suffers more than I did watching the Film!  See you then...

'60s Trash: Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969)

 Why do people keep coming to this place?  Does it have great Beaches?  Does it have Gold?  Regardless, people are going to come here at least one more time, so I guess I'd better get used to it.  This is The Mad Doctor of Blood Island, the 2nd official part of the Blood Island Trilogy.  Unofficially, there are FOUR Films in this Trilogy, since I guess Math is an elective now.  Basically, people include Terror is a Man, since it was by the same Director and used the Island first.  That's...not great logic.  I mean, Steven Spielberg also did 1941 and it has a Scene at the Beach, so...Jaws II?  This time, we are back to the same Island for the shoot, but not for the story.  John Ashley is back, but as someone else.  There's still a monster, but not the same one.  This one's goal is to be more trashy and more of a Cult Classic.  Did it succeed?  To find out, read on...

The Film had a fun, if silly Marketing Ploy where people at first-run Theaters would be given 'green blood' to drink alongside a Cult that does it to protect themselves.

Of course, that has nothing to do with the Plot and never comes up at all.  Pointless, but fun.

Ashley and company are heading to Blood Island for a number of reasons.

One guy's whole role is to go 'Hey, why are YOU going here?' on the Boat.  He vanishes after those Scenes.

Ashley is a Pathologist come to check on reports of strange infections.

The titular Doctor is clearly evil, but Movie needs to be 80 minutes.

If you get a real Jim Jones vibe from this guy, just remember that this PREDATES Jonestown!

Our other Male Lead is here to reconnect with his Mother and reunite with a lost love.

The latter works out pretty well, as the second picture shows you.

The people on the Island are facing two major issues.

The first is a strange infection that relates to the Doctor experimenting with injecting Chlorophyll into them.

""And then I see the Chlorophyll, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning..."

The other is a creature- which turns out to be his first Test Subject- killing random folks.

Another Monster- I sure hope it isn't some guy again...

SPOILER ALERT: It is.

He's freaky and ugly...and the Dad of one of the Main Characters.

Between the Co-Lead's Mom issues, the Female's Lead's Daddy issues and this being the Dad of the Native Woman ending up as the Monster, was Writer Ruben Canoy trying to work some stuff out?

I should mention two things that might be real here.

1) They do sacrifice actual Animals.  Sorry, PETA.

2) Less confirmable is Angelique Pettyjohn's account that her love scene with Ashley was 100% real and cut down for the Film.

I'd look into it, but she died in 1992 and he died in 1998, so that's a no-go.

In the End, the Mad Doctor frames our Leads for murder, but they stop his attempts at making fully-realized creations.

The woman gets her monster dad to kill the Doctor and everyone who is white and important escapes.  The End.

More of the same kind of trashy fun.  You won't ever mix up Mad Doctor of Blood Island with The Godfather.  For one thing, the Titles are completely-different!  Seriously though, this isn't a *good* Film.  It has silly Music, so-so Acting, a pretty dumb Plot and a big green monster- again.  The worst thing you can say is that there's not too much new here.  Why fix what isn't broken, I guess?  The Film offers what you expect and really nothing more.  It tries to cover up its shortcomings by front-loading the Film with lots of Soap Opera Drama.  Reunited with a lost love.  A tense reunion with a widowed Mother.  A woman trying to save her drunk Dad.  Once you get past all that, there's another guy and another Monster.  I guess it is different in the sense that the Monster *isn't* the Doctor this time.  They definitely go for broke in this one.  If you like trashy B-Movies, they give you all that you want and more!  Just one slight issue: the Camera Work.  The Film has this odd gimmick of constantly playing with the zoom during the Scenes with the Monster.  It zooms in and out in an effect that is fun precisely-once.  It happens way more than once.  If you can get past that and the bit with animal death, this is a sure-fire hit for B-Movie Fans.  I just have one more of these to watch.  I'm curious to see what is coming...

Next time, I was inspired by a find at a Thrift Store last weekend for this.  While I didn't buy the Film (you'll see why), I can stream it.  Stay tuned...

New Streaming: Creepshow- 'Times is Tough in Musky Holler'

Another week and we get to the second segment of the Episode in...

In this Segment, a small Town goes through some big changes.  How will the new Bosses deal with the old ones?

A group of armed Townspeople are checking on their underground Prisoners.  What happened to get here?

Why are the people in the Cages the ones you would think of as those who would run the Town (like the Sheriff and its Mayor)?

Oh wait- one of them is David Arquette.  That makes sense.

Wait- is this the real Scream 5?  I mean, he is a Deputy?!?

What dark and painful fate awaits the guilty?

To find out, stream the Show on Shudder or watch it on DVD like some old fart (like me).

Another good one, but it has some real...oddities to it.  So the obvious thing here is that Creepshow tries to emulate a Comic Book aesthetic.  I like that.  However, they go a bit too far in this Segment for me.  Just doing the transitions with the Comic Book Panels is fine.  Just doing a light mix of them for flavor is fine.  This one, for some reason, goes a bit overboard.  The whole thing is rife with exposition and backstory, since it is all set after the main action for some reason.  So that means that they spend 60% of the Segment just showing us Flashbacks and/or narrating.  The way they do that is almost entirely done in the Comic Book Panels.  It looks neat, but I feel like I'm watching a Motion Comic or something.  They just keep doing it.  I was beginning to wonder if they had an issue with the Shooting Schedule or just plain ran out of money.  The Comic stuff is nice, but...there's just too much, I guess is the point.  If you can get past this, this can be a good bit of fun.  The whole thing is just oddly put together for the listed reasons and it didn't quite feel as good to me for that.  Maybe I'm alone in that.  For what it is worth, the Art isn't bad or anything...

Next time, a man tries to improve his body in a dangerous way.  It can't be worse than the Paleo Diet, can it?  See you then...

Lost and Found?: Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1943)

 

The Story:

 Released in 1943, the Film was played at Roadshow Theaters and Drive-Ins.  It was apparently notorious for lots of early walkouts.  As such, Theaters were allowed to keep 75% of the Revenue as a show of good faith for playing it at all.

It was a loose collection of Film Clips from stuff that *likely* didn't belong to the Producers.
Of course, it was 1943, so that's alot more viable than today.

According to IMDB, Films used in Clip Form include White Zombie, The Return of Chandu, The Living Dead, Vampyr, The Man of Stone and The Flaming Signal.

For a modern equivalent, see the 'Clip Shows as Films' that Full Moon has been putting out like Puppets Gone Wild, etc.  Of course, they *own* those Films...

Was It Found?:

Sadly, no.

Thankfully, no.

Simply put, you can watch all of the Films that actually were poached for this one.  It isn't a Lost Film like London After Midnight in that regard.  

On the flip side, it is a piece of Film History- for better or for worse.

True story: you can buy Lobby Cards from the Film online and even a Poster for it from Sears.  

No joke.

Part of me does still want to see it.

Is there a merit to this kind of thing, in spite of the apparent theft and lack of copyright?