Shrieker (1998) – David Decoteau.

'For he who hears the creatures blood-curdling shriek is DOOMED!!'

Penurious students squatting an abandoned Hospital, are oblivious to the building's dark history, as it hides an especially sinister secret; the murderous, pan-dimensional banshee, 'The Shrieker'. Once again summoned from the stygian depths, this rampagingly evil, twin-headed monstrosity noisily gives our querulous collegiate squatters a MAJOR f'n headache! Life-sized creatures have proven less popular Full Moon protagonists than their diminutive, franchise-building death-dealers, and, sadly, Shrieker was to be another admittedly creative, stand-alone project that unfortunately failed to find an audience. Shrieker is not poorly made, much like an artisan, non-alcoholic ale, it's eminently quaffable, but the fun part is missing!

On paper, this cosmically eerie, Lovecraftian, occult creature feature looks viable, perhaps, suggestive of another 'Lurking Fear', but, as is so often the case, much, if not all, is lost in translation. The squeakily youthful cast are fine, if a little dull, Mark Williams bold creature design is winningly lurid, desolated Hospitals are innately creepy, but Decoteau's Shrieker often feels undernourished, as it never truly takes flight. Unlike Rawhead Rex, Shrieker pointedly lacks visceral incident, fizzling out like a Goosebumps, supernatural gee-whizzer, sleepover romp. The energy is wrong, the Shrieker should be a genuinely WTF netherworld nightmare to be absolutely feared. Shrieker colourfully reiterates the inherent dangers of allowing the little head to rule the bigger one!

 Dead Space (1991) – Fred Gallo.

Dead Space is one of the more relatively obscure 90s Sci-actioners from Roger Corman's beloved Concorde Pictures. Set upon an isolated research facility, a devastatingly mutable virus is monstrously unleashed, ultimately producing a far less schlocky variant of the original mutation seen in Forbidden World. Dead Space remains a breezy blast of retro DTV Sci-splatter for the more avid B-freak/Corman-addict, but it may prove tame if compared to the infamously exploitative source material.

Fred Gallo's remake is a fun, far-flung spacer adventure, with serviceable practical FX, decent production design, a whip-crack pace, and a solid cast, manfully headed by sinewy sexpot Marc Singer, plus an early, absolutely credible performance from Bryan Cranston. Singer's drily sardonic demeanour, making him a compelling, more than capable combatant for the rampaging monster. The palsy rapport between Krieger (Singer) and his loyal Cyborg companion Tinpan is endearingly maintained throughout, perhaps, their empathy for one another appearing more concrete in Dead Space, than the original?

 Forbidden World (1982) – Allan Holzman.

'We've created a little monster, I'm afraid!'

On planet Xarbia, researchers create Subject 20, an artificial lifeform that runs bloodily amok in thrillingly lurid 80s Sci-splatter gem Forbidden World. A kinetically edited intro, wherein cryo-resurrected Jessie Vint bosses a deep space dog fight, dynamically sets the scene for cosmic, chunk-blowing cult classic Forbidden World. I'd like to claim my zealous appreciation is largely down to Susan Justin's pulsingly urgent electronic score, but Forbidden World's free-spirited preponderance of explosive gore, and tantalizing nudity had me transfixed like a tractor beam directly from blastoff! And who couldn't appreciate a prodigiously gloopy B-flick that features the aces line 'What's the gooey stuff?' While the narrative is routine Sci-pulp, it's of on especially rich consistency!

I don't wish to sound trite, but one should NEVER, under ANY circumstance, leave the door to the metamorph's cage open, I haven't done much in my life that I'm proud of, but I felt it was my citizenly duty to reiterate this pertinent fact. If one relates to Forbidden World as an off-world slasher, with an especially mutable killer, it plays better than simply being just another creature featured Corman romp. This lascivious metamorph can't quite keep his multitudinously oozing proboscis off the scintillating ladies! I've said this many times before, but clunkily expository dialogue is better digested when delivered by two absolutely nude, exquisitely lovely women! The salient question remains, which is greater, Cozzi's Contamination, or Holzman's Forbidden World? I shall leave that up to future Siskel & Ebert's to cogitate over!

 The Terror Within II (1991) – Andrew Stevens.

One approaches sequels gingerly with palpable distrust, as more often than not, genre/B-sequels zealously appropriate the credo of 'more of the same, with added cheapnis!' My continued curiosity over sequels to forgotten films, or those that sank without trace is not one that I am especially proud of. Right off the bat, hunky B-legend Andrew Stevens bossing out Osama bin Laden's ripped brother look got me, bang to rights, guy! and I ventured expectantly forth into this DTV dystopian wasteland until the bitter end (of days). Stock characters in mothballed boiler suits do their upmost to impart post apocalyptic tension with terse outbursts of equally mothballed dialogue, their meagre numbers gruesomely depleted by a deadly virus, and besieging hordes of ghastly-looking mutoids!

David Pennington (Andrew Stevens)has a wicked cool dog, perhaps a nod to Sci-fi icon A Boy and his Dog, or, I desperately need to permanently flush out all this movie crud from my head! I know it's terribly shallow, but after Stevens trimmed his beard, exposing his signature studly demeanour, I lost a minim of interest. Shot in the 90s, The Terror Within II has an appealingly 70s vibe, partially due to the recycled dramatic scenarios, bombastic Hollywood score, rudimentary FX, and the conspicuously fake-looking gun-fights are straight out of Rocket Man! This is no spoiler, merely pragmatic advice, NEVER, under any circumstance bring a severed, grossly mutated scavenger's finger into the home, much less a covert subterranean military facility! Fans of Shadowzone and Inseminoid could do a lot worse than checking out Andrew Steven's action-packed The Terror Within II.

I give it 3 grimly mutated placentas out of 5!

 Ring of Darkness (2004) – David DeCoteau.

Once popular Boy band Take 10's lead 'singer' Gordo (Greg Cipes) is hungrily sacrificed by fellow band members for his attempted abscond, softly sinister manager Alex (Adrienne Barbeau) begins auditioning for an equally anodyne replacement. This should be a relatively simple procedure, as surely one moronically butt-grinding, Von Dutch-clad doofus is indivisible from the next? Apparently not, since all new members must be goofily initiated via occult rites of Hammer Horror blarney. Greatly experienced B-Movie impresario DeCoteau does his level best to maintain your ebbing interest in this splendidly foofy homoerotic fantasy. His fleshly gambit of languidly photographing lithe male torsos should tantalize all who share his fetish for youthful, well-tempered men in their grundies!

Ring of Darkness isn't especially strong on its fantasy/horror elements, the vampiric/ghoulish content is curiously bloodless. As a tepid, ostensibly hetero supernatural thriller, it strongly makes for an amusingly camp satire of mainstream media's asinine fetishization of cliched male archetypes. I don't believe Take 10's absurd music is any less excruciating than the likes of Coldplay, or Ed Sheeran, but, sheesh!!! their schmendrick 'dance moves' are more than my sensitive soul can endure! In similar B-fare, it is usually the management who are portrayed as bloodsuckers, at least Ring of Darkness sorta flips that script, suggesting that burnished mainstream pop is evilly sucking the very marrow out of the world. Not for the first time, Adrienne Barbeau is magnificent, delivering an effectively low-key performance, bringing much needed verisimilitude to a story with none!

 Lone Wolf (1988) – John Callas.

Horror fans have endured a scourge of Hard Rock Zombies, rampaging Werewolves on wheels, so why not a surly, computer-hating, soft metalled, chronic-haired Lone Wolf? Cuz' Lone Wolf sounds better, good dude! Lone Wolf's High School hierarchical elements are frequently hilarious, as are the so-called class punks, patently indivisible from the boorish, micro-mulleted jocks, but the supposed school tramp delivers, Deirdre's (Ann Douglas) far spunkier than Eddie's (Jamie Newcomb)limp noodle bar band. The gumby plot adheres rigidly to the goodly folk of Fairview being predated by a wolf, or feral dogs, or mutant squirrels, but the irksome preponderance of conspicuously tight medium shots, and frustrating CU's, obscure the ability to 'ave a decent butchers at the hirsute, Colorado-stalking cad!

While Callas's wintry indie shocker remains a schlocky, but pretty fun B-Howler, it also exemplifies the inherent flaws of all low, no budget Werewolf chunk-blowers, y'all can't ever truly give rabid Wolf-fans what they REALLY wanna see! It's such a shame that no one ever thought of making gorily gourmandizing Gerbils a thing, much easier/cheaper to jerry-rig an awesome-looking full-body transformation of a bloody mental Gerbil than its larger arthropoidal cousin! It might not be a popular view, but I kinda dug on how the previously querulous Scooby Squad, temporarily put aside their tribal grievances, and courageously bound together for the almost gnarly Wolf hunt at the school dance.

 Panic aka Bakterion (1983) – Tonino Ricci.

Horribly mutated, the hubristic professor Adams (Roberto Ricci) is driven completely insane, and proceeds to lay violent siege upon the small town in a bloody, uniquely shoddy Euro-Schlock manner. Panic has long been a gateway drug for neophyte schlock-seekers, and once exposed to this titillatingly toxic, David Warbeck/Janet Agren B-gem they are forever altered. Italy and Spain has an altogether credible history of producing winningly gruesome horror, unleashing exquisite exploitation lunacy for generations of B-movie-raddled freaks to enjoy. 'Panic' is arguably Patient Zero, the perfect splatter shitshow, the onerous dialogue, and perfunctory dubbing creates an eerily cosy familiarity, like a shot of good whiskey, or an especially libidinous woman, vintage sci-schlock is the gift that keeps on giving!

The true joy of prodigiously trashy films is that there's never any need to suspend disbelief, one is pleasurably stupefied by the disarming tomfoolery. From the 2^nd act onwards Panic feels like one of the more bucolic episodes of Pertwee-era Dr. Who, the cloddish military personnel clearly in dire need of the brigadier's steely hand! The scene in the cinema is bona fide glorious, both the music, and righteous monster-a-go-go-ing is arguably up there with Slithis. One aspect of Euro-schlock that I have always appreciated is the weird dissonances generated of intercutting between UK exteriors, and Spanish interior/exteriors, which finds its sublime apotheosis in Bakterion! Panic's sluggish pace, inane text, unabashed goofiness, and crude FX is certainly not beloved by all, but fans wouldn't have it any other way. 'In 2 minutes, we bail out!' I'm quite sure, some less enthralled viewers might care to do the same!