The Strangeness

Some movies are just … unlucky. These are the films that obviously thrived on a lot of goodwill and a handful of potentially great ideas, but simply didn't have the budgetary means and/or professional cast and crew members at their disposal to make it happen. "The Strangeness" definitely belongs in this category. You really want to like it, but even the most tolerant and undemanding 80's horror fanatics will have to admit the film barely reaches the level of mediocrity due to its atmosphere of cheapness, clumsy stop-motion effects and impenetrably dark cinematography. "The Strangeness" has a fairly original plot and setting (okay, it's similar to "The Boogens" but I sincerely doubt that director David Michael Hillman intentionally ripped off a fellow insignificant 80's B-movie) and the players deliver enthusiast performances even though they're all miscast. An assembly of amateur speleologists go on an expedition to explore the infamous Gold Spike mine. Many years ago, several miners mysteriously died there and the place has abandoned ever since, but there's supposed to be too much gold hidden there to remain closed forever. Shortly after they descended into the mine, the group members one by one encounter the slimy ruler of the Gold Spike mine; a Lovecraftian monster with tentacles and an incredibly cheesy way of moving forward. Throughout most of its running time, "The Strangeness" is a boring and incompetent mess that is difficult to follow due to the complete lack of lighting. The characters are uninteresting and the mine remains a mystery because the only lighting effects come from the helmets of the speleologists. There's very little action or horror to experience in the first hour, but director Hillman cleverly grasps the viewers' attention by showing bits and pieces of the monster at regular intervals. As soon as you catch the first glimpse of the monster's tentacle, you're doomed to keep watching till the very end. The creature is realized with stop-motion effects, which I usually adore and worship, but here in this case they look extremely weak and pitiable. The person responsible for the special effects should have paid more attention to the work of Ray Harryhousen. The death sequences largely occur off-screen and there's very little suspense throughout the whole movie. A horror flick with a setting like this should benefice from claustrophobic atmosphere and unidentifiable sound effects, but "The Strangeness" lacks all this. The biggest trump of the film is unquestionably the beautiful appearance of blond actress Terri Berland. She resembles a speleologist as much as I resemble Mother Theresa, but she surely looks good in her tight white top and beige pants.

A geological expedition of an abandoned mine becomes a living nightmare when its members find themselves trapped underground with a hulking, tentacled vagina monster. The interesting looking beast is brought to life via stop-motion animation(with marginal success). This creature, of origins which are never conclusively deduced, appears to digest its victims externally by covering them with a thick, enzymatic slime.

This unjustly overlooked monster movie was clearly produced on breadcrumb rations, but well-maintained suspense and a dark, foreboding atmosphere make up heartily for its bush-league deficiencies. Not a classic, perhaps, but certainly deserving of a more prominent placement within the annals of horror cinema.

6/10... Recommended.

This extremely low-budget monster flick centers around a group of mine surveyors exploring an abandoned gold mine in order to see if its worth reopening. They get trapped after a cave in and find they are at the mercy of a strange, slimy creature which seems bent on knocking them off one at a time. The word that most came to mind as I watched this movie was 'desperate'. The script and acting is terrible, the stop-motion monster effects were unintentionally funny, and since the bulk of the movie takes place underground lighting the sets convincingly looked like a logistical nightmare. All that being said however for some reason I felt this movie failed not from lack of effort, but maybe from either a lack of budget, experience and/or lack of creative inspiration. The whole thing came off like it was either a college project or a first film made by amateurs, I have a certain amount of affection for films like that even when they completely miss the mark. I guess what I'm saying is I give it an B for effort and a D- for actual results, not insultingly bad as some low-budget monster movies I've seen but still not worth seeing unless you have a LOT of free time on your hands. I'm voting it a 5.

There are nostalgic reasons to like this now, back in the good old days the mid 1980's when low budget still meant you shot the thing on film and went outside of your neighborhood to shoot it. But I saw this in the 80's before the nostalgia kicked in and it was fun and it holds up for the most part now, rewatching a well battered VHS.

This is in the Lovecraft zone for sure and the story is good. The execution varies, it would be great to see a DVD release of this with some background info as this is an Indie production and therefore its origins would be interesting. A DVD might show the cave sets to be sets, but would probably also show the image more cleanly in good ways too. I think it's pretty well photographed,but in some instances video transfers just couldn't handle the contrast ratios like this. In one scene, for instance, a flash camera is used to light the way and each flash makes the whole video image jump and ruins a cool reveal shot of the creature.

(A pretty nice DVD of this was released in August of 2009 and is well worth getting)

The monster is creepy looking, even if you're not afraid of vaginas and part of it certainly does look like one. The DVD reveals two things that have to be mentioned in light of this. The director is now a women (though still married to his/her wife that he had kids with?!?) How much of a woman then is he/she? And the designer of the creature is now openly gay though at the time says he was not "out" yet. So think, or don't think, about this too deeply while watching the movie. They also show the puppet, battered but still looking very, well vaginal or as the designer says, it looks like a penis with a vagina on the end of it. Does all this make the monster sound scary enough for you?

Performers vary but several of them engage your interest enough to care about their fate and one of them, who deserves to die, does indeed have a very good death scene. Yes 1980's film fans, the lead large-possibly-not-real-breasted actress, seemingly the only veteran actor of the bunch, wears a tight white semi tube top,and even tighter jeans, and yes they eventually get her wet. But the thing that it deserves credit for is you can always tell which character is which, which, if you pardon the repeated word, is more than THE DESCENT managed to do.

The enjoyable John Carpenter rip off score is probably the most dated element and it actually dates it in a good way, the whole story with a cave monster gives it a old fashioned feel in a good way too. It's a good old fashioned monster story.

Other films in this ballpark are of course the recent THE DESCENT, and WHAT WAITS BELOW, and THE BOOGENS, but this film is not exactly like any of those and though not as good as those in many ways still has its share of creepy moments amid a couple of "we didn't really shoot this action scene well enough for it to all make sense sequences." The mine setting is well enough done to build interest and it moves pretty well to the end. Bring on a DVD version someone. Some of the well done animation is by Ernest D Farino who has for many years worked at Industrial Light and Magic doing work on Star Wars films and several James Cameron title sequences.

The Strangeness (1985)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A group of people hear various legends about a certain cave they are about to enter. They decide to go ahead with their journey and it doesn't take long for them to get trapped in the cave with a giant monster who wants to kill them.

If you're read Stephen Thrower's NIGHTMARE USA book then you'll recognize this title and the various stories that went along with it. This film was shot for $25,000.00, which was an incredibly low amount for the 1950s let along when this movie was made. One should keep that in mind when they're watching THE STRANGENESS because the film doesn't have too much in it. It's one of those films that you can tell didn't have much money to spend and obviously there's not too much to see.

I give the filmmakers a lot of credit for trying to pull the film off but sadly it didn't work. I thought the story was actually something that could have worked, although parts of it did remind me of THE BOOGINS. The cave location should have been put to much better use but sadly the cinematography is just so dark that many times it's hard to see what is going on. Another problem is that the budget didn't allow for a monster so we get a really awful looking bit of stop-motion that is more laughable than anything else.

Trying to pass off a stop-motion monster just didn't work and it's too bad that there wasn't some sort of physical monster here. The performances range from bad to decent but there's not one that would hard or damage the film. You don't have many other special effects in terms of the violence or gore. The majority of the running time has the characters walking and talking and then walking and talking some more. There's no question that the film just doesn't have much happening because they couldn't afford it.

THE STRANGENESS certainly isn't going to win any major awards over its final product but considering what the filmmakers had to work with, buying them a beer if you ever meet them would be a nice gesture.