Thunder Of The Gigantic Serpent (1988) [REVIEW] #snakesofjunetoo

One of the more infamous piece of copy n paste cinema from the IFD Film & Arts factory of Godfrey Ho and associates, one that happens NOT to be a ninja movie with their pink ninja pajamas and 30 seconds superfights against caucasian ninja masters, but the other kind of exploitation the company specialized in, the “actionxploitation” flick with super american stereotypes fighting against criminals of some ilk, all played by the same 6 non-asian guys Ho and Lai employed.

And we’re lucky because we got Pierre Kirby in this one, playing agent Ted Fast, who only works alone because he’s so good and not utterly stupid, opposing the crime boss Solomon, after a secret formula that can make animals and plants grow to gigantic proportions, like 3000 times their original size.

But sadly Solomon will have to crime very hard for it, since the formula is actually from the “host movie” spliced in by Godfrey Ho (here directing), a 1984 Taiwanese kaiju movie titled “She Wang” (translating to “King Of Snakes”) about a pet snake, Mosla, belonging to a little girl that accidentally comes in contact with the formula, grows giant, and then stars rampaging because the terrorists after the formula kidnap the girl, and Mosla is having none of it.

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Village Of The Giants (1965) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

Starting this Giant Monster March with one of the lesser discussed Bert I. Gordon flicks, Village Of The Giants, which also marks the first time our notorius B.I.G would harass poor H.G. Wells, specifically his novel The Food Of The Gods, which would later adapt again in a slightly “less loose” manner with 1976’s Food Of The Gods, spawning a fittingly loose sequel 13 years later, Food Of The Gods Part 2, which didn’t see Bert I. Gordon involved at all, and has somehow even less to do with H.G.Wells’ book.

Good old Bert this time basically used the book reference only so he could crib the idea of people turning into giants… this time via a generic “goo” chemical substance that falls in the hands of a group of teens, making themselves gigantic and decide to rule over the town and its grown ups using this newfound size, because they’re teens, and this movie has a lot more to do with Horror At Party Beach than Food Of The Gods, since it has a lot of elements from the “beach party film” which was indeed quite en vogue at the time, and also about to fizz out before the 70s came to be.

I haven’t strong feelings about the genre, it gave us Beach Blanket Bingo but also Arch Hall Jr. strumming his fuckin guitar while his face looks like they embalmed a Elvis impersonator in wax, and also the classic MST3K episode riffing his ass and teaching the evergreen lesson of watching out for snakes, even when the dub is off sync and the movie might not even have snakes at all.

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The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) [REVIEW] | No Titans Allowed

Released by American International Pictures in a double bill with Cat Girl (not what you’re probably thinking), this Bert I. Gordon “cheese classic” also spawned a sequel, War Of The Colossal Beast, and it embodied – alongside The Incredible Shrinking Man – the 50s B-movie fascination for size alteration, leading to another popular and often parodied drive-in feature, Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman. Mr. B.I.G. himself would go back to this motif not only with the The Cyclops (previously released the same year), Attack Of The Puppet People and the aforementioned sequel to the movie , but even well into the 60s with Village Of The Giants, VERY loosely based off H.G. Wells’ Food Of The Gods, before he actually did a more…let’s say “proper” adaptation of the story. And then followed it with a sequel that had even less to do with the H.G. Wells classic book.

Nothing new, since this is actually an uncredited adaptation of the short sci-fi novel The Nth Man by Homer Eon Flint, a fairly unknown sci-fi author of the early 20^th centhury.

Like many B-movies from the 50s, it’s the radioactivity (discovered by Madame Curiè) that’s in the air for you and me. This time it’s Lt. Colonnel Glenn Manning (played by Glenn Langan), who gets hit by a plutonium bomb after rescuing a pilot that just crash-landed near the testing site.

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