Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

So yeah, this is not quite “giant monster” territory as the poster would imply, but i wanted to cover this one for a while and it will do as a parallel to Monster Armageddon, as any excuse to compare Roger Corman’s output of the 50s-60s with the Asylum’s to shame the latter… it’s a good one.

Even if it’s still a tale of lies, because this was deliberately made as a comedy but was never advertised as such, with the promotional material playing it straight, like this being a “serious” monster flick in the vein of Creature Of The Black Lagoon, only to ambush the audiences come to see this in a double feature with Devil’s Partner.

Goading people into seeing a deliberate farce, a parody of basically every movie Corman did to that point, another quickie he actually shot in Puerto Rico alongside Last Woman On Earth, but it wouldn’t be seen until a year later in 1961, a farce that also a political satire and then lastly a monster movie, with one of the silliest looking aquatic monsters ever, as if The Monster From Piedras Biancas was made to look as silly as the bird thing in The Giant Claw. Deliberately.

Continua a leggere “Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch”

Monster Armageddon/2025 Armageddon (2022) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

I’ve lamented the downright lethargic, nearly comatose state and distinct disinterest, so nested and in a rot The Asylum is with their output in this last period, i’ve done that before.

It’s clear whatever “magic” they summoned with Sharknado didn’t last long, and now just rest on their laurels, so to speak, as even the usual aficionados of trash got disinterested in the same way the company itself seems to be with whatever they cram out, they keep doing their thing but just because it’s what they have always done, and will keep doing until there’s not any money left off mockbustering.

I remember from a class in genre cinema i once took that – broadly speaking – a genre has reached a stage of severe stagnation when it starts becoming metatextual, to speak of itself more than anything else, as it can obstensibly find nothing else to iterate on, so it “turns on itself”.

And while it no longer hold completely true, as we’re now in a post-meta phase, if you will, there’s still a valid argument in there, because films like Monster Armageddon (released as 2025 Armageddon in trying to fool more people) validate the implied drying up of the “creative well”, and are a testament to this decade of post-irony, meta overdosing incestinal multiverse crossovers, of finding out there’s no bottom of the barrel, no real lowest of the low that can’t be “improved” upon.

I remember buying the DVD for this one for 5 bucks, sight unseen, on Amazon back in 2023, i knew it was an Asylum joint, and the cover art was nice, featuring a lots of monsters and creatures.

As with Monster Island (their mockbuster response to 2019’s Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters), the cover art is way better than the movie itself, but this time around it isn’t a complete lie like it was with that movie… as in it’s not technically a lie.

It’s worse… or is it?

Continua a leggere “Monster Armageddon/2025 Armageddon (2022) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch”