It’s a trio of creature features, but are the movies as good as their monsters? Let’s find out.
THE AREA 51 INCIDENT (2021)
You could say this is derivative of many alien movies, but that’s just admitting that many alien movies are derivative. The goal is to find derivative movies that are fun to watch, and the hubby and I had a good time with this one.
The opening scene, which introduces us to the aliens on their home planet, assures us we’re in for a visual treat. This is how you do computer-generated scenes right.
Next, we go down into a bunker, where a scientist has decided to take his adult son and the son’s girlfriend for a first-time tour. Don’t ask me why he also decides to let them witness a close encounter of the third kind when a portal opens in a tunnel in the bunker. Bad for them, good for us, because it’s another great looking scene.
A giant alien infiltrates the bunker, as do hundreds of mini aliens. All hell breaks loose at first with some thrilling chase scenes, but the movie does slow down for some character development in the middle, which makes you wonder if the aliens decided to take a break, because they disappear for a while.
Once things pick back up, there’s a new alien aspect–an onslaught of mouth-to-mouth transmission of alien eels that infect people and make them crazies. Back to awesome.
The giant alien finale looks straight out of Cloverfield, but I don’t understand why it is taken down without a fight. Such an epic presentation of the final boss deserved an epic boss battle.
URANUS ATTACKS (2024)
When this one popped up in my Prime recommends, I clicked on “add to list” so fast you’d think I was clicking “buy it now” on a dildo with the same name.
Uranus Attacks is just what you’d expect it to be. The opening trigger warning informs viewers that Uranus and fudge packing references will abound. Did I mention that the movie takes place in a fudge factory called Uranus? Sure there’s crass, adolescent humor, but it’s surprisingly all trash talk with little in the way of visual trash.
Our main young man heads off to work at the fudge factory, leaving his mom home alone with a hot daddy that lives in an RV in their yard. The hot daddy thinks an alien egg is one of his golf balls…until it hatchets a purple slug that penetrates his anus.
This is the prettiest, gayest looking purple slug ever, so it’s no surprise it enters daddy’s ass.
Oh, how I wish the film were more graphic and explicit for that scene. We don’t see him spread his cheeks, but the hot daddy does spread the slug love to others. However, following that first host takeover, all remaining slug entries are through the mouth. Uranilingus? There were quite a few guys I wanted to see hot daddy lock lips with, but instead he just spits the slugs onto their shoulders. Blah.
If you wanted more anal, you get it later. When the main guy and his coworker friend finally discover how to eject the slugs from those who have been infected, that shit shoots out the ass. I was quite relieved to see that the expulsions are purple as well…especially since there’s a lot of face splatting.
The Uranus and fudge packaging jokes do come rapid fire, and while some are excessive, many of the different approaches to them will make you giggle like a thirteen-year-old boy. The cast is totally dedicated to the goal of delivering on the humor, so the comedic performances are right on target.
The only real issue is that the movie starts to drag a bit in the middle and would have benefitted if it had been trimmed down from its 105-minute runtime.
Once a small, infected army is finally assembled, it’s an ass blast as the main boys take them on at the fudge factory. This sequence of trying to outwit and destroy the aliens should have been a good chunk of the movie, but instead, it’s over in a flash, and the final takedown of the main alien (the hot daddy spitting the slug plug out of his ass) didn’t quite give me the big climax I was hoping for….
THE MELON HEADS: HOUSE OF CROW (2024)
I always check out the indie films of Eddie Lengyel, and although the creatures are creepy in this one and it has a great. 1970s horror look whenever they’re on screen, it’s not one of his better films. The script is weak and the story drags.
The intriguing part is that the movie is based on a real local Ohio legend. We meet a group of college students assigned to projects based on urban legends, and two girls get the melon heads. Supposedly a psycho scientist named Dr. Crow kidnapped and experimented on children years ago, making their heads grow in the process. Now, those “melon heads” roam the woods at night.
We get occasional attack scenes of random characters, but our main characters take their sweet ass time finally getting to the woods to search for the melon heads.
There are two main male classmates who decide they are going to find out the truth about the melon heads before the girls can in hope of getting a better grade, and yet they decide to spend way too much time at a strip club before getting their head start into the woods. It’s seriously 40 minutes before they finally find Dr. Crow’s lair and get abducted and tortured.
Meanwhile, the girls get loads of unnecessary backstory about their family drama. They don’t arrive in the woods until 76 minutes into the movie, at which point they are in Dr. Crow’s lair just long enough to find the guys and try to escape.
The most excitement we get is a head explosion and an unintentionally funny scene of the main girl running away from the lair with one of the guys…in a wheelchair!
