The best Stuart Gordon movie Stuart Gordon never made.

Over on Secret Handshake, we kick the tires on the careers of low budget horror workmen Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter to celebrate their goopy monster flick finally (after fourteen years in the works!) hitting Blu-ray. Meanwhile, Brett Gallman outlines the many reasons why this should've been minted a cult classic years ago.

Scott Cooper finally finds a genre he's halfway decent at (I know, I'm just as surprised as you are by this development). While still undeniably burdened by a bunch of poverty porn, plus a yearning desire to be About Something (colonialism! meth! abuse! trauma! the economy! oh my!), this is still adequately gnarly and brings the monster movie thrills when shit gets real. Look, at least he's not trying to shove another HOSTILES or OUT OF THE FURNACE down our throats. That'd be actionable at this point.

"I'm certain that my creature will give you a demonstration of its virility that no human being could be capable of imagining. You will see, dear Doctor, and appreciate the immolation of the chosen virgin who, without realizing it, will be sacrificing herself to science."

Is this the most vile thing on my shelf? Probably not (*side-eyes WATER POWER*), but it’s certainly in the conversation.

Decent rubbery VHS era monster movie detritus that’s basically a roughneck PET SEMATARY with a Clive Barker monster in the basement twist. Like many recent VS releases, it’s fine for the video store runoff that it is, but little more.

“I can turn your family town
Into one less mouth to feed
I can take up everything that you own
And turn it into something that you never thought that you need
Take your precious daughter
And your very first born son
I turn ‘em into something
That'll make you turn and run…”

Story of a Junkie.

If Rick Dalton were real, he would’ve undoubtedly starred in something like this by 1984: a shameless JAWS rip off where our heroes fight a giant octopus mutation, bed multiple girls in bikinis, watch innocent bystanders be torn limb from limb, fend off corporate assassins, and wield flamethrowers to try and exterminate this brutal, clearly animatronic rubber beast. Monumentally stupid, but also breathlessly entertaining, with a few Goblin-aping prog rock cues on the soundtrack to boot. Lamberto Bava is the most fun Bava.

Simultaneously exactly what you expect from a movie where Nic Cage battles possessed Bandian animatronic beasts at a haunted, abandoned Chuck-E-Cheese clone, while also being somewhat boring. Still, fun to watch Cage silently skulk through a film, relying on nothing but physical acting to create a character that's fascinating, even if he's just cleaning a gross bathroom or orgasmically playing a pinball machine. In short, your mileage may vary, but I didn't get much out of these (ittedly breakneck paced) eighty-eight minutes.