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.

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

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.

A group of adventurers land their helicopter in the mountains of Australia. They are going to parachute off really big, high cliffs. Unfortunately, the first one to jump doesn't pull his chute on time and suffers a terrible fall. Incredibly, he survives the fall - which doesn't seem physically possible, considering the extent of his puncture wound. Things get worse for Olympic champion Apolo Ohno (appropriately named Stone) because his sky-dive releases the titular "Tasmanian Devils". Naturally, the animated monsters want to kill everyone in camera sight.

The movie's greatest visual is park ranger Danica McKellar (as Alex). She is presented in a tight uniform that accentuates her prominent front...

One interesting little moment in Brook Durham's script occurs when Ms. McKellar notes her character has a man's name ("Alex") while leading man Kenneth Mitchell plays the male character "Jayne" - spelled just like a girl. This starts out like it might be an interesting relationship, but it's really ordinary. The couple does get good interesting support from Mike Dopud (as Anderson) and a trio of food suppliers for the Tasmanian devils. The creatures are not very scary or believable, but the effects team makes up for it with some well-stage gore scenes.

**** Tasmanian Devils (1/19/13) Zach Lipovsky ~ Danica McKellar, Kenneth Mitchell, Mike Dopud, Terry Chen

6 base jumpers (5 guys and only 1 girl) fly in a chopper to some forbidden area in Tasmania. Once they arrive, the first goof jumps, waits to long to open his chute ends up crashing through trees, falls through the ground, and gets impaled on a pointy rock. His blood flows through some channels and starts bubbling. Now something awakens in the cave.

Eventually some of the others make it down there but they hear something and run away. Meanwhile the park rangers are looking for them. They find them as they run and arrest them. There are three ranchers, 2 guys and a girl who knows about aboriginal mythology.

When she hears their story she has an inkling of what is going on. The ranchers check out the cave and find that what the others are saying is true. As they all drive back to the station, they are attacked by something with a glowing red mouth. Two of the ranger are caught. The rest escape after getting a closeup look of what they're facing. From the ranger girl we learn that the things are ancestors of the Tasmanian Devil that were said to eat humans whole. But these things don't have hair but more of a dinosaur stone-like appearance. They scream like Tassies, have a glowing red mouth, and are attracted to noise.

One guy who is gung-ho and another guy try to run to the helicopter to rescue the others but things don't turn out well. Next they try to trap the devils in a cave. That doesn't work either. By now most of the bunch are dead and the remaining ones will give it one last shot.

It's not a bad idea to make a horror movie about Tasmanian Devils. This one is your usual Syfy fare--on a low budget, filmed in Canada, and with lousy effects. Initially effects seem promising. During the night chase sequence, the creature looks well-done, but once things shift to day the creatures look like 80s CGI effect. The story is alright for what it is, the cast is OK, although it could have used some more females. I'm not sure who exactly the audience is supposed to be for these movies but perhaps they would like it, otherwise there's not much here that stands out.