Episode 289: The Deadly Mantis (1957)
Rundown
We warned you that this was the year we live our truths via movie picks, and Matt is holding up his end of the bargain with THE DEADLY MANTIS (1957)! The man loves his giant animal monster movies, and this is arguably the film that got him hooked (or rather, the orange book at the library about it but you get the idea). Grab the Raid, it's go time!
Film Trailer
Quote of the Episode:
"Even when they're bad they're not intolerable" - Matt
More Giant Animal Films
You flushed it, but this shit came back for more... See, we should be the ones writing taglines for mediocre sequels to beloved b-horror movies! It's another Matt pick, so of course he went for a killer animal movie, and since we've already done ALLIGATOR (1980), he chose ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATATION (1991). This meh retread of the first film lacks the charm of the original, but it gave us a chance to think back fondly on how good its source material was. The movie might not be memorable, but our discussion is, since we have our boy Kyle Kuchta on to keep the cold-blooded comedy flowing!
It looks like Brian's movie pick intervention worked, because he chose a real banger this week: the forced-perspective gory goodness of GNAW: FOOD OF THE GODS 2 (1989)! If you've ever wanted to see a young boy swear a bunch in the first 5 minutes of a movie, now's your chance... You also get to see some people bang on a bed of arugula, synchronized swimming, and a naked man-ass chase scene. By golly, GNAW's got everything!
We see a lot of amazing creature designs and practical effects on HMN, so sometimes it's nice to take a step back and see our SFX heroes' humble beginnings...like the ridiculously dumb Rick Baker monstrosity, OCTAMAN (1971)! More or less a lower-budget, less skilled retelling of the Creature From the Black Lagoon (written by the same guy), this one is 100% due to its moment of glory in Gremlins 2: The New Batch, so thanks for that, Brian. Between the three of us, we only have 6 arms to fight Octaman's 8, wish us luck!