Blogcritics

Sci-Fi Channel Original Review: Heatstroke

Matt Paprocki — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 18:15:16 EDT

They rarely get worse than this.
Ah, global warming. Not only is it going to destroy us all in some ozone-inspired heat ray of death, it’s also soon to be the new catalyst for creature features. Creature exposed to radiation because of dumb calls by humans, creatures get big, creatures munch on humans. Heatstroke comes close to bringing this into the limelight, but...

Sci-Fi Channel Original Review: Aztec Rex

Matt Paprocki — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:32:33 EDT

Rewriting history even if it makes no sense.
We’ve been taught throughout the years that William Parker Foulke discovered the past existence of dinosaurs in 1858. Well, you’re wrong if you believe that. It was actually Cortes in one of his earlier missions before conquering Spain. Movies never lie you know.See, it was the Aztecs who held the key. They worshipped a couple of...

Sci-Fi Channel Original Review: Rock Monster

Matt Paprocki — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 19:32:10 EDT

Movie rule #2,346: Never pull an old sword out of a rock. Ever.
In another one of those remote small towns that conveniently can’t get a cell phone signal, is isolated from the rest of the world, and has some ancient legend that could destroy them all, there’s this monster. Well, it was a wizard who, for some inexplicable reason, turned into rocks when he was killed a while back. Now, he’s...

Sci-Fi Channel Original Review: Ogre

Matt Paprocki — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:19:49 EDT

Shrek stomps people in the 1800s. Okay, maybe a loose cousin of Shrek.
Pop quiz hot shot. You have an ogre problem. He’s huge, ticked off, and looking for a human sacrifice. Oh, and you’re stuck in the 1800s. What do you do? What do you do?Not watching this movie would be a good start. To its credit, it does try to do something with the inept material other than throw a creature on screen to maul some poor...

Sci-Fi Channel Original Review: Eye of the Beast

Matt Paprocki — Sun, 9 Dec 2007 19:46:37 EST

Small Canadian town is taken out by a giant squid. That's all you need before knowing you can watch Jaws instead.
Eye of the Beast should have been titled The Movie Where Absolutely Nothing Interesting Happens. This dull, generic, and completely pointless creature feature is poorly paced beyond all comprehension. It’s loaded with an ending beyond ridiculous, and barely any creature to speak of. As soon as a monster movie opens and two teenagers are...

Sci-Fi Channel Original Review: Maneater

Matt Paprocki — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:47:14 EDT

Let the tiger eat me so I don't have to sit through this again.
It's rare that you go into a Sci-Fi Channel movie expecting anything decent. Expectations should be low and somewhere near the gutter. Keep moving lower to prepare for Maneater.Based on the (far better) novel Shikar from 2003, Maneater is an appallingly bad creature feature that barely qualifies as such. Credit is due for avoiding going the...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Sci-Fi Channel Premiere Review: Solar Attack

Matt Paprocki — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:50:25 EDT

Generic in the extreme, Solar Attack is a standard fare disaster movie on a shoestring budget that can hardly be considered captivating. There’s no tension here, the threat feels ridiculous, and performances range from passable to well below par. Mark Dacascos stars as the overly-rich scientist trying to convince a brain dead government that the end of the world is real. Minimal, unconvincing destruction is caused by a coronal mass ejection from the sun. It threatens to burn the oxygen from our atmosphere or blow up a few satellites. At any rate, it’s not a particularly unusual or interesting "end of the world" scenario, and the minor budget doesn’t allow for mass destruction. Global warming is preached throughout as one of the main reasons for this situation. The largest result of the threat, the annihilation of an entire country, occurs completely off screen. The audience doesn’t even get some stock footage of cities burning to the ground. A side plot, a Russian distrust of American politicians, is dated beyond all comprehension. Fake newscasts come off as that, incredibly cheap and unbelievable. A newscast this cheap would be pulled from the airwaves before going on the air. The few effects shots are passable. Some decent shots of satellites crashing into Earth work fine, though the inevitable destruction isn’t anywhere near the level audiences expect from a disaster movie. This is boredom. We’d all want Louis Gossett Jr. as president, but if it requires us to sit through Solar Attack to get there, forget it. Without the destruction level at the expected level and burdened with dialogue that's unbearably long and unnecessary, this show is a mess. You can find far better films out there to satisfy your urge for end of the world scenarios.

Matt Paprocki is the former reviews editor for Digital Press, a video game website with an appreciation for the retro side of the industry. The deep game collection which spans nearly 30 systems and 2,000 games line his walls for research purposes. Matt strives to bring credibility to video game journalism, and take it in a new direction to aid the industry in becoming respected with all forms entertainment media. He currently freelances for GameArgus.com and MultiPlayerGames.com.

Sci-Fi Channel Original Review: Supergator

Matt Paprocki — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 22:05:33 EDT

With Roger Corman's name attached, odds are around 20:1 that you're in for a true classic. As executive producer on Supergator, Corman releases this horrendously schlocky, boring, and inconsistent creature feature mess. Why is it so hard to craft a movie around a giant alligator?Filled with some of the most god awful performances in the history of the Sci-Fi Channel, Supergator deals with the title creature and for whatever reason, a group of volcanologists studying an active volcano on the Hawaiian Islands. There are countless scenes of shop talk between the lead characters, shots of computer screens showing data, and others of the team investigating various rocks since nothing ever comes of the volcano. For the first half of the film, this is obviously trying to be a campy as possible. Tossing giant breasts... err, women on screen to jump around or run through a forest wearing the skimpiest layers of clothing that cable TV can handle is blatant exploitation. There's nothing wrong with that for most of the audience, but once they all end up as victims, Supergator becomes a serious (or at least an attempt to be serious) chase with every possible genre cliché tossed right at the viewer. Plot points are introduced and dropped immediately. About 10 minutes is spent on a group of kids who discover a miracle cure for hangovers, and once they meet their fate, nothing is heard of it again. One would think this profitable business venture could have been integrated into the story somewhere. Two lesbian tourists are also dropped from the plot, though there's a chance they're eaten at one point. As usual, the special effects are abominable, and even the gore comes off as cheaply as possible. Close ups are impossible to decipher, with a shaky camera far too close to the action in order to hide the rubber gator mouth used to chomp on victims, leading to the above confusion about certain characters fate. Hilarious red splatters appear on screen for the few full screen deaths, and seem to fade off into thin air. Credit is due for the nifty looking DNA bred alligator. Huge spikes protrude from its back, and its lean face is definitely menacing. Of course, when all it really does is look around and occasionally jump on people, the design is the last things on the viewers mind. A few surprising character deaths are the only shockers, and hardly worth watching Supergator for. If you've sat through Dinocroc or the in no way related DVD release Supercroc, you've seen Supergator. It's pitiful, and worthwhile only for the cheeky tone that's not particularly funny either.

Sci-Fi Channel Original Review: Dark Storm

Matt Paprocki — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:40:49 EDT

Setting a new standard for incoherent science, Dark Storm is a baffling mess that is so completely ridiculous, you have to wonder how it made it all the way through to production. Stephen Baldwin stars as a scientist heading up one of those oh-so-popular "secret government experiments" that apparently aren't that secret if movies are any indication, and we all know TV doesn't lie. Anyway, there's some world destruction, nasty special effects, and ridiculous plot twists before this one mercifully ends.The movie revolves around dark matter, which is so poorly explained by the script, the audience will have a tough time wondering how this all works. What you need to know is that it produces storms that can disintegrate any object it's aimed at, and if left uncontrolled, the world would not be a place to buy real estate. Through the government experiments playing with the stuff, Stephen Baldwin's character is infused with this matter, becoming a ridiculous-looking super hero type that can control it.The story feels as if it's making things up as it goes. The dark matter seems to randomly choose targets when it's out of control, with no real sense as to why. There is plenty of lightning and thunder along with some smoke, and that is what sub-atomic particles known as dark matter look like in case you're paying attention. A few mildly interesting destruction sequences fail to convey the threat thanks to the expected low budget effects. Basic scenes of military personnel fighting to keep the secrets, well, secret end up being uninteresting action sequences that paint our military as incompetent, or the soldiers assigned to guard this project were kicked out of boot camp long before proper training could be completed. Stephen Baldwin races to the rescue in an attempt to save the world from full on disaster, using his newly received super powers that manage to activate at precisely the right moments. A predictable ending could have come from any super hero movie; only this one is amazingly anti-climatic given the build up. The final showdown between hero and villain is brief, and doesn't necessarily follow the rules set earlier. Shouldn't the dark matter dissolve anyone exposed to it like it did multiple times in the film? Apparently, villains can inhale it like crack and they become all powerful. Along with the ridiculous scenario used to set up the story, there's nothing here worth watching. Disaster movies are numerous, and if seeing the planet being taken down by scientific phenomena is what you're looking for, keep moving. There's nothing to see here that you won't find elsewhere.

Sci-Fi Channel Original Review: Ice Spiders

Matt Paprocki — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:02:04 EDT

What is a person to do when they’re looking for a nice ski resort vacation? You decide to write or direct a movie located at your favorite spot. At least, that’s apparently what Tibor Takacs wanted with Ice Spiders, a by the numbers schlock fest that could only come about by the geniuses at the Sci-Fi Channel.How many clichés does Ice Spiders hit? About 10:1. Genetic experiment2. Enlarged insects3. Dumb teenagers4. Government cover up5. Stock footage6. Mad scientist7. Completely untrained “special forces”8. School bus held hostage by creatures9. Awful special effects, both computer generated and practical10. Loads of gore to mask all the above, albeit unsuccessfullyYes, Ice Spiders is as bad as you’d expect. The dialogue is as painful as anything else here, littered with cheap “surfer” dialogue, and the most ridiculous explanation for the government to create the threat you’ve ever heard. As the ski resort begins to lose members, it takes a drastically long amount of time for anyone to figure out there’s a problem. The huge lot of six (yes, only six) overgrown spiders do their best to take down the idiotic residents who could probably take one of the arachnids down with a few punches. Why the government chose a populated and popular vacation spot to host their experiment only adds to the ridiculousness.Vanessa Williams, well, not that Vanessa Williams but the daughter of that Vanessa Williams, stars as the scientist fed up with the experiment she’s been involved with for an unknown amount of time. Putting the spiders in the snow doesn’t lead to any inventive means of death fort the vacationers, and in the end, only leads to more screen time invested in the explanation for why these things exist in the first place. If anything, Ice Spiders does move along briskly, and attacks are frequent. Gore is high, and the body count right in the range it should be in a movie like this. Unfortunately, you’ll need to deal with a script that doesn’t do anything new, painful conversations between characters, and the worst government cover up you’ll ever find on screen.