Tasmanian Devils

Tasmanian Devils (2013)

** (out of 4)

A new year brings us new monster flicks from SyFy. Oh yeah. A group of base jumpers head to an off limits location when one of them is killed and his blood awakens the deadly title creature. Soon the base jumpers as well as a forest cop (Danica McKellar) are trying to figure out a way to kill the ancient beasts. TASMANIAN DEVILS is actually a pretty decent monster movie but about the half-way point it crashes into a wall and simply runs out of gas for the finale. I will admit that for the first fifty-minutes or so that I thought the film was a lot of fun. This is due in large part to the creatures, which obviously look fake but I still liked how they actually looked. I guess if the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were made into a horror movies and ran on four legs then they'd look something like the monsters here. Their ugly little faces were actually a good look for a monster and they certainly help carry the picture. There's also quite a bit of gore for fans of the red stuff, although the first death is one of the most memorable in horror history simply because you're asking yourself how the hell this person is still alive after what originally happens to him. Even the performances are better than you'd typically get from a film like this with McKellar keeping one's interest throughout. The biggest problem is that there's really not much interest in the characters and in the second half of the film we spend a lot more time with them and they're just not really interesting. Still, fans of this type of movies know there's much worse out there.

Okay. Soo I'm watching and somewhat enjoying the flick till the part where they're stranded and they have to call the base for help. Naturally in a National State Park things could go wrong, to say the least, and you occasionally have to call for help. That's why we have Rangers. The Rangers are there to save the day. But who saves the Rangers? Well, these Rangers in particular. They have radio(s) and they work just fine. But of course no one is gonna BE at the base for help. Why? Because duh, THEY'RE ALL THERE. It's a "State Park" for chimps sake! Why would all three personnel on the WHOLE mountain/park go out on a call together and leave the place unmanned? Aye chihuahua! Hey, I am aware they needed high action drama...but thats plain ...stoopid. It's a helluva plot (sink) hole that just annoyed me to the point that I just had to tell SOMEBODY! So here I am.

I will admit it by saying that I do hate many of SyFy's movies with a passion. I'll also be honest in saying that I was expecting to hate Tasmanian Devils. So I was surprised at how surprisingly not bad it was. By all means it is not great but it is much more tolerable than most SyFy movies. I did find the first hour of Tasmanian Devils entertaining. The creature effects are fake(though not as bad as the horrid CGI helicopter at the start), which was more than less what I was anticipating, though I did find the creatures themselves quite creepy and fun. The gore wasn't excessive and didn't cheapen the death scenes, which were more inventive and suspenseful than the usual SyFy death scenes, which are usually toned-down and like going-through-the-motions. The editing isn't too choppy, the scenery is quite nice, the story does divert your attention(that is in the first hour) and the acting while not great is better than average for SyFy. There are entertaining moments as well(cheesy of course but more in a fun way than infuriating), such as the death of Apolo Ohno, Winnie Cooper attacking the creatures with a flame-thrower and the hilarious close-ups of Danika McKellar gnashing her teeth and wrinkling her nose.

For all the good things about Tasmanian Devils there do come a number of debits. The dialogue is terrible(hardly surprising, I don't think I have seen a SyFy movie where this wasn't a weak point) and the music is generic, but the biggest problem is how the movie really runs out of steam in the second half. Here the creatures are under-utilised which dilutes the tension and fun factor, and things get more serious. This wouldn't be a problem if it was a tone that was maintained throughout the movie and if SyFy were any good at trying to develop or humanise characters. Instead what happens is that the second half feels as though it belongs in a completely different movie altogether. The pacing is sluggish, and while there is an attempt to humanise and get to know the characters it just felt flat and lifeless, so despite these efforts we end up not caring or finding out enough about them. And unfortunately the fun and tension in this half is nowhere near as effective as it was in the first half, and the ending feels contrived and rushed through.

All in all, I was mixed on Tasmanian Devils. It was much better than I expected it to be and it is easily one of SyFy's more tolerable efforts, but at the end of the day it was a decent enough if not entirely memorable outing. 5/10 Bethany Cox

As another Aussie, I didn't mind this all that much. I read a heap of complaints about the accents and that it wasn't filmed in Tazzie. True. Bad accents, not Tasmania, parks employees with sidearms. Who cares? That's like watching Sharknado and complaining that sharks don't fly, or Big Ass Spider and moaning about how spiders don't grow that big.

Same for the whinges about the Devils not being actual Tazzie Devils. Duh. Of course they're not. They're special supernatural devils.

It's a farcical horror movie. It's not meant to be factual. That said, it's not a brilliant one, but if you're looking for a fun farcical horror, this isn't too bad. If you want it to be about real Aussie parks and wildlife or high drama... Erm... Leave this be. If you had fun with Sharknado and Big Ass Spider! then maybe you might like this.

Three forest rangers in Tasmania stumble across a group of base jumpers who are in the park illegally . They frantically tell the rangers that one of their team has been killed in a cave by something and that something is still in the cave . What ever killed their colleague is hostile and it's not alone

If I'd seen TASMANIAN DEVILS a few weeks ago I would have dismissed it as yet more brainless clichéd fodder from the SyFy Channel but I still had a sense of disappointment from a recent trip to the cinema where I watched WORLD WAR Z which cost me £7.80 to watch and Paramount Studios $200 million to produce . I'm guessing in terms of production TD cost closer to the rice of my cinema ticket than WWZ . One very common and vocal criticism of the Pitt epic was the conspicuous lack of blood and gore , along with a lack of suspense . It says something that despite all the money thrown at it TD is slightly more effective as a suspense driven horror movie TD beats out the brain dead undead epic spectacle of WORLD WAR Z

Don't get me wrong I'm not for a second claiming TD is some sort of lost underlooked gem just waiting to be discovered by a wider audience because it's not . It's merely a low budget horror movie featuring sketchily drawn characters played by a journeyman cast hiding out in dark remote woodland and stalked by hostile viscous creatures . The clichés come thick and fast but what the film does it does relatively well . It also contains a bit more blood and guts you'd expect in this type of TVM and an early death with a character impaled is genuinely shocking . Perhaps if the production team of WWZ studied this film - which coincidentally features monsters attracted to sound - in depth their own film might have been better received by critics