Scorpius Gigantus

Hmm.. well I was surprised when I started watching this, as it appeared to be in the hands of a vaguely competent director. Well the lighting's quite good, considering the normal quality of filmaking to be found on the Horror Channel. It only grabbed my interest though when I noticed the major in it was the same bloke who was the major in Carnosaur 3 (aka Primal Species). having endured that gem of filmaking last week, I carried on watching out of loyalty. Turns out the movie is a virtual shot for shot remake of Carnosaur 3 - even down to the bizarre we were in a warehouse, now we're on a ship plot twist. Even the "climactic" explosion is a straight lift from Carnosaur 3. In its defence, the script, acting and effects are step forward from Carnosaur 3. Sadly thats still a long way behind pretty much any movie you will watch.

See, there's this giant scorpion, and it's been mutated by government weapons testing or nuclear waste or something and - oh, what do you care? No one watches movies like this for the plot, for God's sake. You want to know if the bugs are any good, if it's any fun, if any of the chicks get their boobs out, right? Sadly, the answer is no, no and emphatically no.

The bugs are really, really rubbish, and look like nothing so much as plastic models blown up to giant size. If they paid for these effects, they should ask for their money back. The plot and characters are all Z-grade clones of Aliens, the acting is uniformly appalling - Jeff Fahey, we hardly knew ye - and the whole thing is about as much fun as, well, being eaten alive by a ginormous scorpion, actually. There are no good lines, no cool moments, not even any good deaths. As for the breasts, don't get me started. One very hot chick and one moderately nice-looking one, and both stay extremely fully clothed throughout.

Whatever the makers intended when they started out, this is a cheapo monster flick. Some things are expected - thrills, fun, gore, etc. They delivered on the gore, but forgot about everything else.

This movie had some funny graphics though. Why was Jeff Fahey in this turd.

I rented this to see what it was really like -- and it was just like every other monster movie in the current crop. Experiment on something, it goes wrong, send somebody in to save the day. The girls were cute; the guys were not so competent, the lead was full of himself. It's a carbon copy except for the bizarre language moments, though I kind of liked those too. All in all I had more fun than I should have. I mean once you accept that the bugs are CG bugs, then they're just like every other monster movie out there. Maybe they went overboard with beheading the cute babe, and maybe we didn't need to see the snot shooting out of the bad actor's nose, but it all seemed right to me.

This wasn't a bad diversion if you didn't mind not recognizing anybody but Jeff Fahey. It's what you'd expect in most ways. The Special Forces are called in when Russian mafia try to steal what they think is nuclear fuel, only of course, to have it turn out to be something far more dangerous and unpredictable. I tend to think one CG monster is like the next, except in terms of how cleverly it thinks. I like this one. He was in places I didn't expect (others I did) but most of the time it did what it was asked -- it made sweaty palms. My complaint and it's not really a complaint is not knowing who anybody is. I always like seeing familiar faces. I liked Jo-Bourne Taylor, and there's a guy early on who comes and goes very quickly but the rest are adequate unknowns.