Attack of the Beast Creatures (1985)

ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES

WRITER: Robert A. Hutton

DIRECTOR: Michael Stanley

STARRING: Robert Nolfi as John Trieste

Julia Rust as Cathy

Robert Lengyel as Case Quinn

Lisa Pak as Diane

Frank Murgalo as Philip

John Vichiola as Mr. Morgan

Kay Bailey as Mrs. Gordon

Frans Kal as Pat

Robert T. Firgelewski as Mr. Bruin

QUICK CUT: A group of people spend their time on a cruise and exploring an island, while on vacation.

THE MORGUE

No one has much of a notable personality this week. The only notable exception is Mr. Morgan, who is the thorn in everyone’s side, always trying to duck responsibility, and say they’re all doomed.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Normally, the movie I look at on April 1st is either ridiculously awful, or just funny, or just absolutely punishing to me. This year, I just went with something very on the bizarre side, Attack of the Beast Creatures. Or as it is alternately titled, Hell Island.

The movie tells us we're somewhere in the North Atlantic, in 1920. As the opening credits roll, we watch Titanic II sink in the background, and a group of survivors clambor into a life raft for safety and survival.

It's not long before the lifeboat starts to drift away from all the rest, and lemme tell ya, this is the point when there day REALLY starts to go wrong.

Listen up, here’s a story about a blue crew who lives in a blue boat.

When dawn breaks and the blue filter comes off, the survivors find themselves near an island, and make their way to shore.

They get an injured survivor comfortable on the beach, and head inland to see what they can find for resources, since they don't know how long they're going to be stuck on the island.

Brother, if you find a mysterious hatch, or are attacked by a clattering smoke monster, run away, run away fast!

"Are we there yet, Captain Smurf?" "Just a little further."

After a lot of wandering, and a few of the group getting the eerie feeling that they're being watched and followed, we get a few character moments with most of them, giving us at least a baseline for the important people. There’s nothing terribly notable, but it’s something to hang your life vest on.

They find a few berries, but otherwise nothing else very much of interest, until one of them spies a pool.

Pat rushes down the hill, shoves his face deep into the water so he can get a good drink of fresh water, and...well...

Yeah, this island has some unexpected dangers, like giant pools of acid laying out there like nature's own OSHA violations.

The women gather berries, while everyone else buries Pat's acid melted half corpse. Look, I know this might label me a bit of a bitch, but uh, you got a handy pool of acid RIGHT there. It’s already half way there!

While picking berries, Mrs. Gordon gets bitten by something in the bushes. They wrap it up with a handkerchief, and everyone comes back together so they can start settling in for the night.

The captain and Case head back to the beach to get Mr. Bruin, and whatever supplies they can salvage from the lifeboat.

Everyone gathers around a fire for the night, they talk about keeping watch, and one of the castaways, Mr. Morgan, is the token character who says they're all going to die here.

While they try and calm him down, everyone settles in for the night, and gets some much needed rest.

Once it's Cathy's turn for watch, little lights start appearing out in the island forests of Connecticut, watching and coming closer.

Little orange...well, beast creatures is as accurate a phrase as any, scurry out of the woods and attack the survivors. But being teeny tiny allows the humans to deal with them well enough for now.

Most everyone gets by with only a few love bites, but Morgan gets an injured leg, and will be limping his way through the rest of the movie. One more thing for him to complain about.

Following the attack, they decide to find higher ground and come up with ways to ward off the creatures, until they can figure out a way off the island.

As they make there way through the forest, the beast creatures keep making hit and run attacks, taking quick little bites as they can, and then returning to the woods.

Morgan's leg isn't doing well, after taking a few more bites, so they stop to catch their breath. Even though that's a mighty big risk to take.

While they do that, Mrs. Gordon wanders off alone, and actually finds a really real pool of water and totally not acid this time.

"Are we there yet, Captain Smurf?" "Juuuust a little further."

This is good news, since they can have something to drink, and clean up a bit, before returning to their trip through the woods.

Everyone is getting ready to continue on, but Mrs. Gordon takes a few extra minutes in the pool, singing "Cockels and Mussels" until the beast creatures attack everyone.

The good news is, someone realises, hey wait, these things are light and tiny, and while they hurt, you can just...fling 'em off!

So, after a lot of biting and screaming, they find Mrs. Gordon’s body, the lone casualty of this latest attack, and then continue on their way. They are more determined than ever to get off this hell island.

As they trek across the land, Morgan is slowly losing it thanks to blood loss and assholery. He's ranting about stocks, and eventually hallucinates one of the women, thanks to her long hair, is one of the beast creatures.

He takes off, frothing at the mouth, and eventually ends up falling into another acid pool. Well, that problem ended up taking care of itself.

Case and the Captain catch up to him and stare at the completely stripped to the bone skeleton of Mr. Morgan, and declare, Well there's nothing we can do for him now.

They take a moment to catch their breath after the latest attack, but they know they need to keep moving.

Cue even more walking through the North Atlantic tropical jungles of Connecticut, until they all start to hear the buzzing growling noises that the beast creatures make.

They climb up the latest ridge, following the noises to see what they can see, and find dozens of them all standing and worshiping some sort of idol

And I joke, but that's pretty much their sentiment. They know they are 'vastly' outnumbered, and start to head back to the boat to get the fuck outta Dodge.

Naturally, one of the creatures sees them, raising the alarm, and it is a race back to the beach.

While they are running for their lives, one of them trips, and lands, impaling himself, on a completely random stick just pointing up. That...that is the most embarrasing death of the movie. If I made it off this island, I'd tell everyone he died a hero's death, and not...like that.

The captain tells Case to hurry ahead to the beach and get the boat ready, and shoos the surviving women to join him, while the captain stays with sticky Pete as he bleeds out.

But when he reaches the shore, Case discovers that the beast creatures are smart enough to understand boats, and have stolen their only means of escape.

Meanwhile, the women end up surrounded by creatures as they try to catch up to Case.

Case runs back into the forest to find anyone else and break the bad news, but he falls into a pit, where beast creatures jump in with him to finish him off. This was a contender for most embarrassing death, but the creatures make it less so.

The captain finds the women, flinging creatures off Cathy, and sees Diane is already under deep attack. He throws away the beast creatures trying to eat her as well, but it's too late for her.

As the last two make their way for the boat they don't know is missing, the movie flashes back through a greatest hits reel of deaths and attacks. Normally, I mock this reuse of footage, but since we're in the home stretch, it's a fun way to showcase the journey.

"Are we there yet, Captain Smurf?" "NO WE'RE NOT!!"

Once the captain reaches the shore, he sees a ship in the water, and he makes sure Cathy runs out to try and get its attention.

While he's trying to join her, a handful of beast creatures make one last attempt to make this a clean sweep of a movie, and attack him.

He easily keeps flinging them off as they come, and wades out into the ocean to try and join Cathy.

They signal the boat, climb aboard, and row off into the sunset.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Thanks to a brand new Vinegar Syndrome restoration and release, this movie has never looked better. I saw it about a year ago for the first time through…other means, before the release had been announced, and it was rough. A movie this silly shouldn’t look this good.

Audio: There’s some muffled moments, but for the most part, it sounds fine.

Sound Bite: ReeeEEEEeeee!!

Body Count: Percentage wise, this does very well. And I’m sure I missed a few of the beast creatures being killed, since it’s hard to tell definitively. But I tried!

0 - Not everyone got off that sinking boat...

1 - Pat gets his face melted off

2 - Mr. Bruin's body is stripped clean

3 - One of the Beast Creatures gets set on fire.

4 - Another gets stabbed in the face

5 - Mrs. Gordon gets attacked

6 - Morgan finally succumbs to his injuries...and acid

7 - Phil falls over and impales himself lol

8 - Dianne gets pounced by beast creatures

9 - Casey falls down a hole and gets pounced

Best Corpse: Oh that has to be Pat. That melted face is epic, and throwing in skeleton hands flailing and groping, works really well.

Blood Type - B+: There’s some great blood here, like that face, some solid bites, and good, economic use of a skeleton. It’s not great, but it’s effective, and the few gore moments really go hard.

Drink Up! Every time Morgan complains.

Movie Review: For what this is, it’s pretty good. These people had limited resources, but they haed a skeleton, a forest, and a dream. And it works. That’s what matters at the end of the day. Now, this is VERY padded. There is a LOT of walking. I had two or three more Captain Smurf captions in my notes, but just could not fit them into the review, unless I broke my “three paragraphs minimum between captions” rule, and it didn’t quite warrant that like other movies have in the past. But there’s still enough going on that it doesn’t drag TOO badly, and they find ways to keep the walking interesting with chatter and building towards discoveries that serve as payoffs. There are several things that elevate this movie above what it should be; the acting is pretty good, the gore effects and death are very well done and effective, and the music definitely helps add something to the film. Three and a half screeching beast creatures.

Entertainment Value: Sadly, while it’s a sold enough movie, a lot of that walking does drag down the entertainment value. The movie has it’s fun moments, but you definitely feel it could be more so. There’s too much waiting for the next danger, even if those are great when they hit. I am a little concerned that the creatures are a bit too much of a racist caricature, but that’s a bit above my pay grade. Setting that aside, they are ridiculously adorable, in a terrifying way. They are weirdly effective, and they have just enough to make their numbers feel threatening. A problem in a lot of these ‘doll’ movies (or more accurately in this case, tiny creatures) is that you should just kick or throw them away. This movie fortunately leans into that, and the numbers advantage helps fill in the gap by making the humans feel overwhelmed, even when they can throw one or two aside, there’s dozens more. Two out of five plywood idols.