Blog #3 - Chupacabra Terror

            Is that a shower curtain separating the cockpit from the passengers on that plane?  Yup!  That’s the question I asked and answered for myself the first time I saw, Plan 9 from Outer Space, the famous Ed Wood (Edward D. Wood Jr.) classic from 1958.  Ed Wood was amazing.  No, not Ridley Scott, or Christopher Nolan, amazing, but amazing in his own right by being a minimalist.  Making movies is making contemporary magic, in that the director can take an unassuming location and create the illusion it’s something completely different. 

            In Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Director J. Lee Thompson used the University of California Irvine Campus, and more specifically the Social Sciences Campus as the backdrop for his sci-fi film.  The campus was designed by the futuristic architect William L. Pereira, and was still under construction while the movie was being filmed.  Obviously, the look of the future was largely due to Pereira’s work but still, it was not from the future.  The director and his team of production workers are the ones who took what they had to work with and made the magic happen.  When you watch conquest, the backdrop really does look like something from years from now, even to this day..  So that’s this week’s focus.  What happens when the director doesn’t have the skills to pay the bills? 

            Plan 9 from Outer Space, is an extreme example of getting by on a budget, or in this case getting by with no budget at all from the looks of it.  Wood was such a terrible example of bad movie making he inspired the film, Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp as Wood.( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109707/ ) who’s directorial antics were so flawed and legendary, they became the basis of a feature film.  So that leaves us with two very extreme ends of the movie making spectrum and a lot of room between both ends.  Is there a middle point?  What happens when a director tries, but not that hard?

(Think you have what it takes?  Plan 9 is Public Domain now.  Watch it here http://www.archive.org/details/Plan9FromOuterSpace_811

If you dare?) 

            When you go part way, and try hard to do a good job; and someone points out, that room looks nothing like a cruise ship dinning room.  What do you do?  What would Scott or Nolan do?  It would be back to the drawing board with the production team and find a solution.  But that would not be the case for this week’s film.  Today we will look at what happens when you start out running hard and fast, but sort of start to sit down and take breaks; and then the breaks start to get longer, and longer.  Chupa didn’t have to be a bad movie.  It could have just been a good B movie, but sometimes, when you try too hard, you fall on your ass; or you just look like you chupa.

           

Chupacabera Terror (2005)

Director	John Shepphird
The Main Players
John Rhys-Davies	Captain Randolph
Dylan Neal	Lance
Chelan Simmons	Jenny (Randolph)
Giancarlo Esposito	Dr. Peña
David Millbern	Rick McGraw

Synopsis: 

            The legendary creature known as Chupacabera (Goat Sucker) is stowed away on a luxury cruise liner using the crew, passengers, special forces team members, and just about anything else as food to ease his insatiable appetite.  Also, he’s in a bad mood, but of course, so would you if you had a handle like goat sucker. 

Review:

           

            I love movies and I get right into them.  Even better, I love a good monster movie where the monster is as much a mystery to the characters, as how much blood the human body can hold is to the production team.  This is a low budget right to video special, and when you have that kind of budget there isn’t much chance you can afford to rent a massive cruise ship.  In fact, it would be a safe bet that locations, equipment, and props for this one are taken right from the begged, borrowed or stolen category.  Other than second unit shots, you can guarantee this production team had to work a lot of magic.  They likely spent a lot of time dressing up locations, arranging deceptive shots and camera angles to make you think, without a doubt, the characters are dining at the Captain’s table and not table six of the Chippewa Room, at the Motel 6.  Or, I guess they should have.

            Like I said, I get into the movie and a lot of the time I don’t see all those goofs and mistakes people love to point out.  You know the person watching with you demands to know why the guy is suddenly holding his drink in the other hand.  I just never see that stuff, but when you are supposed to be on a mighty cruise ship talking to the Captain, the grass on the sand dune behind him should not be taller than him.  Here’s a list of just a few of the glaring mistakes you will see:

• A scene depicting the exciting pool life on the ship which is obviously a beach.
• People engaged in a tough round of shuffleboard on asphalt probably behind a 7-11 in South Central LA.
• The cement cargo hold of the ship that looks a lot like a storage facility.
• Jenny teaching Tae Bo on the ship with a large picture window behind her showing the breakers crashing into the shore line (must be one of those ships you drive on land).

Yes, all that entertainment, and in the first 10 minutes of the film, but it would be unfair to let the bad sets take all the credit.  The acting is responsible for a lot of Chupa in this one.

            John Rhys-Davies, you poor soul, did you get nailed with DUI in Florida and this was part of your community service sentence?  Oh how the mighty have fallen.  John was in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and all Lord of the Rings movies.  How did he wind up in this with actors we’ve never heard of, and probably won’t ever again.  But there is an important lesson to be learned here.  When you see John on the screen, he leaves you with no doubt as to who knows how to act and who just showed up for the buffet.  Perhaps the worst offender here is David Millbern who plays Rick McGraw, the over the top gigolo would be cat burglar.  There can be no possible way Millbern took his role seriously unless he is mentally disturbed, and that still wouldn’t make up for his performance.  Now and then, you find yourself cheering for the monster, but rarely do you chant, “Kill him!  Kill him!” every time a certain character comes on screen; Millbern is the exception.

            Millbern isn’t the only actor here to test your imagination and stretch it to the snapping point; he’s just the most consistent at it.  The team of over weight and out of shape Special Forces guys do a pretty good job of trying to upstage him.  They don’t look very capable and they don’t disappoint.  I guess their special tactic is to wander around letting themselves be picked off one by one while their boss and the Captain watch it on the security cameras like a pay per view event.  The Chupacabera is keenly astute for a murderous blood sucking creature, because even though it kills the fat guys, it’s careful not to eat them because of what I imagine to be cholesterol concerns. 

            Is there a moral to this story?  If there is, I can’t figure it out.  I don’t want to give too much away, because I really want you to watch this one and see for yourself; besides why should I be the only one to suffer.  But, back on track, the moral would have to be something a character learned along the way in this classic.  I’d have to say the character of Dr. Pena who was the person who worked most of his life to search out the Chupacabera, capture it, and bring it back for science to study; plus end his tenure as laughing stock.  I guess Pena learned that no mater how hard you try, sometimes life just Chupas.

Watch The Trailer

Lessons Learned:

• If an AK47 can’t stop it, a cargo net will.
• Blood sucking monsters are not team players.
• An anorexic Tae Bo instructor can be more effective than bullets.
• Sometimes your best insurance is an insurance salesman.

Fun Facts:

            I’ve done some research into this one, and there are no fun facts.  But that’s fine because I’m sure we will come up with something next time.

Coming Attractions:

            It’s been a sad start to this week and it seems only fitting that we take a look at a good movie that’s a study in character and leadership.  We will look at, and up to the great Commander J.J. Adams when he visits the Forbidden Planet.