Creatures From the Abyss

Rating:
Summary: check this out!
Review: All I knew about this title was that it was an Italian horror film. I'm glad I took a chance on this DVD, because Creatures From The Abyss (AKA Plankton) turned out to be a hoot. From the bad dubbing and inane dialog, to the cheezy, but fun SPFX, this one reminded me of later films by Lamberto Bava (Graveyard Disturbance, Prince of Terror) and Lucio Fulci (Ghosts of Sodom, Zombie 3). The plot is simple: 5 kids out for a good time take refuge on a deserted ship, where they soon discover mutant plankton, which attack them one by one. Some of the effects reminded me of Carpenter's The Thing, but much more crude. So grab a six pack and enjoy. THIS ONE'S ONLY FOR THE MOST TOLERANT ITALIAN HORROR FANS! you'll love it.

Rating:
Summary: check this out!
Review: All I knew about this title was that it was an Italian horror film. I'm glad I took a chance on this DVD, because Creatures From The Abyss (AKA Plankton) turned out to be a hoot. From the bad dubbing and inane dialog, to the cheezy, but fun SPFX, this one reminded me of later films by Lamberto Bava (Graveyard Disturbance, Prince of Terror) and Lucio Fulci (Ghosts of Sodom, Zombie 3). The plot is simple: 5 kids out for a good time take refuge on a deserted ship, where they soon discover mutant plankton, which attack them one by one. Some of the effects reminded me of Carpenter's The Thing, but much more crude. So grab a six pack and enjoy. THIS ONE'S ONLY FOR THE MOST TOLERANT ITALIAN HORROR FANS! you'll love it.

Rating:
Summary: As BAD As It Gets
Review: I was looking forward to watching this previously unreleased (at least in the States) euro-horror flick originally known as "Plankton" which is about some mutant fish terrorizing 5 teens on an abandoned research ship. I knew ahead of time it was going to be bad, but I was not prepared for the magnitude of how godawful it actually was. Does that mean I didn't enjoy it? Of course not --- it's so inept in every way that you can't help but laugh at it's amateurish execution. Atrocious acting and dubbing (the voices are so detached that sometimes it is hard to figure out which character is talking!), awful special effects (superimposed animated flying fish!), terrible editing, phony rubber monsters (and one stop-motion tentacle-man-creature), and even explosion fireball footage superimposed over a model ship being blown apart. Even the few 'gore' scenes are disastrous because they build up and don't deliver...and what's with that animated fish (?) flying out of that chick's mouth?!?! Her head should have exploded instead (guess they didn't have the money to do that). Best scene is when a guy turns into a fish monster when making love to one of the girls. His eye pops out of his head and falls in her mouth. Yeaah! Unfortunately, there are quite a few lulls in between the chuckles and the film really is recommended only for diehard euro-trash fans. It's good for a few laughs, but I doubt it will revisit my DVD player anytime soon.

So how does the DVD look? Thankfully, the film is sharp and does not suffer from that awful artifacting that was so evident on Shriek Show's "Demonia" DVD. So, this is a very good sign for Shriek Show and bodes well for their upcoming releases. The extras include a few trailers (Demonia and 2 Asian horror flicks - which are not at all my thing and the 2 trailers showcase exactly why I dislike that genre so much), but not a trailer for "Creatures From the Abyss" which is probably because there never was one. There is a picture gallery (which I didn't bother going through) and a brief on-screen director interview - if I were the director, I would have been embarrassed to show my face! Anyway, I must admit that even though the movie really BITES, it does have a weird charm to it and this DVD is a welcome release from Shriek Show. Looking forward to many other obscure and "unreleasable" releases from them in the coming months.

Rating:
Summary: As BAD As It Gets
Review: I was looking forward to watching this previously unreleased (at least in the States) euro-horror flick originally known as "Plankton" which is about some mutant fish terrorizing 5 teens on an abandoned research ship. I knew ahead of time it was going to be bad, but I was not prepared for the magnitude of how godawful it actually was. Does that mean I didn't enjoy it? Of course not --- it's so inept in every way that you can't help but laugh at it's amateurish execution. Atrocious acting and dubbing (the voices are so detached that sometimes it is hard to figure out which character is talking!), awful special effects (superimposed animated flying fish!), terrible editing, phony rubber monsters (and one stop-motion tentacle-man-creature), and even explosion fireball footage superimposed over a model ship being blown apart. Even the few 'gore' scenes are disastrous because they build up and don't deliver...and what's with that animated fish (?) flying out of that chick's mouth?!?! Her head should have exploded instead (guess they didn't have the money to do that). Best scene is when a guy turns into a fish monster when making love to one of the girls. His eye pops out of his head and falls in her mouth. Yeaah! Unfortunately, there are quite a few lulls in between the chuckles and the film really is recommended only for diehard euro-trash fans. It's good for a few laughs, but I doubt it will revisit my DVD player anytime soon.

So how does the DVD look? Thankfully, the film is sharp and does not suffer from that awful artifacting that was so evident on Shriek Show's "Demonia" DVD. So, this is a very good sign for Shriek Show and bodes well for their upcoming releases. The extras include a few trailers (Demonia and 2 Asian horror flicks - which are not at all my thing and the 2 trailers showcase exactly why I dislike that genre so much), but not a trailer for "Creatures From the Abyss" which is probably because there never was one. There is a picture gallery (which I didn't bother going through) and a brief on-screen director interview - if I were the director, I would have been embarrassed to show my face! Anyway, I must admit that even though the movie really BITES, it does have a weird charm to it and this DVD is a welcome release from Shriek Show. Looking forward to many other obscure and "unreleasable" releases from them in the coming months.

Rating:
Summary: Hey man..lets smoke some plankton
Review: This movie wasn't the worst I've ever seen. In fact I found it enjoyable. It's about these 5 kids who go out on boat trip on the ocean and end up running out of gas. They then spot another
ship and they then board it. (it's deserted of course), except for one derelict who's lines throughout the movie were..grrnnt,
uhgggffhh and some other unintelligle gack.
The kids then start wondering what happened to the crew when one of the guys begins reading about the crew's experiments with the
fish etc.One of the guys thinks it was a lab to mfr drugs(wait till you see what happens to him)
The movie itself wasn't bad, the acting was kind of lame. The SFX
were some stop-motion and other just hammy kind some good scenes.
The part I like is when one of the guys turns into a fish/squid
something or other while he's making love.(She gets mutated also)
The part i thought that really sucked was when the ship exploded at the end, sheesh they could of at least used a miniature and blown that up instead of superimposing flames etc over the ship
Other than that i thought it was an ok flick