Hard to believe that the Bush Jr. era now feels like a better time, but here we are. Those were the days when the hubby and I would indulge in cheesy SyFy creature features regularly, so I was excited to find three on Tubi that I’d never seen that fit the mold, whether or not they actually aired on the network.
BLOOD PREDATOR (2007)
I didn’t expect a movie that was eventually going to make the hubby and I chuckle when this one started. The opening is deceivingly suspenseful, with a man exploring an empty cabin after his snowmobile breaks down. He goes deeper and deeper into a basement as spooky music with a late 70s/early 80s vibe plays, and eventually he encounters a slimy, spider-like creature.
Next we meet a group heading for a skiing vacation in a plane. They crash in the snow, and moments later they are walking through the woods…with absolutely no snow. In fact, this film jumps from scene to scene with either tons of snow or absolutely no snow.
The characters, who are mostly obnoxious, come upon the same cabin as the first guy. They sit around killing time, have sex (including some lesbian action), and eventually discover something in the basement.
What initially appears as a practical effects critter quickly dissolves into a bunch of hilariously overlayed CGI critters that look like ants walking on a glass window that was then placed in front of the camera.
I seriously can’t comprehend how bad the “effects” are, right down to the green screen as the survivors escape the cabin right before it explodes behind them.
I do think, however, that the biggest flaw here is the pacing. This is the kind of movie in which the group should have started peeling off one by one to be killed off without anyone else knowing before they discovered the threat. Instead, virtually the whole group encounters the critters together for the first time…67 minutes into the movie!
FEAR THE CREATURE (aka: Creature Unknown) (2004)
Now this is my kind of SyFy level creature feature…and there isn’t even CGI! This is good old rubber monster material, and we see him a lot. Awesome. On top of that, there are plenty of cuties in the cast, a staple of early 2000s SyFy flicks.
After an opening kill, we meet a dude who is bringing his friends back together at a cabin in the woods where his twin brother died a year before. Typical horror movie therapy that’s totally unrealistic. But who cares? It works.
There’s some drama between the friends, and one girl storms off into the woods, immediately kicking in the monster attacks.
This is a sort of reptile/man hybrid creature, and as the movie progresses, friends go missing, there’s an old school T and A shower scene, and the attacks get fast and furious.
Eventually the creature invades the house, the gore ramps up, and the truth of what happened to the brother is revealed, and it’s a classic plot point.
MANDRAKE (2010)
This creature feature stars hunky Max Martini and 80s fave Betsy Russell as part of a team that heads into the wilderness to retrieve a dagger from a burial ground, an expedition being paid for by a rich dude.
They find a coffin and corpse with a warning of death to anyone that removes the dagger, so…they remove it.
Soon, they are being terrorized by vines in the woods as well as a tribe of primitive men looking for sacrifices to what we eventually see is a huge plant creature. Eek!
There are some cool kills and some monster lore, but this is a very cliché flick, and rather than focus predominantly on the threat of the cool monster, too much time is spent on humans warring with each other. Also, there’s some really bad green screen action that distracts from what is otherwise a pretty polished production.
