WEREWOLVES: THE DARK SURVIVORS

I could not find a poster for this film,

so I decided to use the greatest poster ever made.

Werewolves: The Dark Survivors is the weirdly racist account of all the African American contestants on the CBS reality show Survivor. Actually, it is the equally ill-advised two-hour special on Animal Planet about the true story of werewolves. It’s a mockumentary, or at least it tries to be.

Basically, the special is a combination of fake interviews and werewolf reenactments from the channel’s stable of reenactment actors. Unfortunately, the kind of actors that are believable in five-minute intervals as snake victims and crocodile wrestlers don’t exactly emote well in two-hour stories about blood curses and family rivalries.

But the biggest problem with Werewolves, its fatal flaw, is that it doesn’t fully commit to the mockumentary format. The entire thing is narrated by one of the main characters, a werewolf who ends up dead by the end of the film. He’s meant to guide us through the angsty world of werewolf drama, but it’s not emotionally engaging enough to accomplish anything. This doesn’t work as a fake documentary, or a real fictional narrative. It’s meant to be able werewolves, but its format is closer to the miss-matched hide of a second-rate Frankenstein knock-off.

Werewolves: The Dark Survivors has turned into a sort of perennial Halloween time-filler on the channel, but it mercifully hasn’t spawned a series of narrative features for Animal Channel. Check it out if you’re a car-crash-rubber-necker. Otherwise, avoid it like a curse.

The trailer is pretty thrilling, though.

Too bad the movie itself was fifty times longer.

HUMONGOUS

I am not sure what the picture is meant to be.

It looks like a floating drumstick with feet.

HUMONGOUS is an early eighties (1982) slasher flick set on a deserted island, where a young woman raises her baby (the product of a sexual assault) to go around murdering people. The baby is now a Jason Voorhees-type mutant, and he has a lot of killing to do once a group of horny teens sneak onto his land.

I wanted to enjoy this film. I really did, but when the plot hinges on an opening rape scene, it takes away all the goofy fun for the rest of the movie. It is like watching The Hangover right after Million Dollar Baby. No matter how much you like Zach Galifianakis, you cant laugh because you keep thinking about poor Hilary Swank and her spinal cord.

That said, there was plenty of beefcake in the form of young, blonde guys wandering around trying to solve the mystery of the island.

Like this guy, the Laurence Olivier of the bunch.

What were some of the clues they found, you might ask. Skulls, a giant crib, footprints, basically every possible hint that there was a psycho mutant baby all grown up and really to kill.

I found this skull right next to some baby toys.
I got it! Skeleton babysitters!

Even though it takes the group a ludicously long time to realize that they are getting murdered one by one, the movie still kept my attention. This was probably because their little island setting was oozing with atmosphere.

Cool house. Too bad the cameraman
forgot to steady his tripod before filming.

Plus, there were plenty of deaths. Not particularly memorable deaths, but deaths nonetheless. Besides, what they lacked in quality they made up for in quantity.

And overacting.

However, my biggest (non-rape) gripe with the film is that it was so freaking dark. Now, I understand that horror movies need nighttime and shadows and all that. But when the sun sets and these teenagers start getting murdered, it was almost like those scenes in Scooby Doo where you cant see anything besides eyeballs.

Thankfully the director liked to shine a

light on the back of the murderer.s head.

At least its a start. And at least he

did better than the tripod guy.

Still, for a movie with some many scenes involving people jumping out of the background, it would be nice if we SAW the background half the time.