Really Awful Movies

So many questions. First, why set a film that’s predominantly underground, in Venice, the City of Bridges? You might as well recreate a gritty 70s New York hellscape in a suburban Long Island bungalow.

And while we’re asking questions, why, if you’re going to do a scene-for-scene remake of Aliens, would you title it Terminator 2 when you’ve only parachuted a time-travelling cyborg into the film’s final 15 minutes (at around the same time you’ve decided to finally showcase the non-subterranean side of arguably the world’s most picturesque city?)

Now, this is a dystopia, a Venice in which they’ve circumvented the engineering problem of what is essentially a highly unstable mud lagoon and built a vast network of catacombs.

A highly underwhelming (and we can’t stress this enough) military tactical force is sent into the depths to investigate and they’re known as Megaforce. They dress in “business casual” versions of Michael Jackson’s Thriller get-up and are named Kowalski, Franzini, et al and make horrible ethnic jokes at one another’s expense.

They’re given a debriefing in a room that looks like the waiting area to renew a driver’s licence and the intrepid crew heads out, with a member of Tubular Corporation in tow, a company that is contracted to help remediate a poisoned city.

Turns out the corporate stooge is not what he seems and that the company’s behind some nefarious virus.

What lurks below is the result: highly un-foreboding (and extremely cheap-looking) Alien-like creatures, complete with fangs, goo and a lousy temperament. Megaforce takes them on with ample firepower and an array of action film dialogue clichés (“what does he wanna do, get himself killed?”, “we’re gonna get you outta here, I promise”).

From the typewriter of Claudio Fragasso (Women’s Prison Massacre) comes unspiring lines like:

You either come with us, or I’ll blow your head off.
Do I have a choice?
No!

(we don’t mean to quibble, but isn’t that a choice?)

Years before starting this site, we’d encountered movies with far worse dialogue (hard to believe given the above, but actually not many), worse special effects (again, not many) and worse acting (a few dozen) but Terminator 2 Shocking Dark can plant its flag at the crest of having the most appalling cinematography we’ve ever encountered. Poorly lit, muddy, and uber-cheap (it was a shock to find out this was lensed in ’89) it has the aesthetic shared by Bruno Mattei’s other glorious rip-off, Strike Commando (though that had the benefit of being shot during daylight to make sense of what was going on).

** (out of 5)

[We discuss the films of Bruno Mattei, AKA Vincent Dawn in Episode 17 of the Really Awful Movies Podcast]

“He was mumbling some garbage about alligators in the sewer.”

Doesn’t this hospital honour patient confidentiality, especially in the case of a prominent police detective?

Anyway, with healthcare staffers so forthcoming with all kinds of info, a prying reporter manages to get that juicy tidbit from a nurse as we discover that a giant Alligator is roaming the sewers.

It all begins with a Midwestern kid on vacation with her family in Florida, who goes to a gator farm and despite the handler nearly getting eaten alive, is inspired to purchase a baby alligator to take home with her. When she gets back to Missouri, little “Ramón” is flushed down the toilet by a strict father and in this nod to urban legends, grows and grows and grows amidst subterranean filth, methane.

Because this is a John Sayles movie (he wrote Piranha), there is some anti-corporate subtext. So, we get a pharmaceutical company subplot involving a degenerate pet store owner who’s stealing neighbourhood cats and dogs and selling them as lab specimens and hormones being flushed down the sewer.

Called in to investigate, is Robert Forster (the “r” was added because there was already a Robert Foster in SAG), best-known as the sad-sack star of Jackie Brown. He’s Detective Harrison, who along with the chief (played by Michael Gazzo, “Frank” from Godfather II) pursues different leads and consults with scientists to figure out what’s going on.

Interestingly, in the original script Sayles envisioned a brewery leak and a gator feasting on malted barley as its growth catalyst, rather than hormones that made their way into the pipes.

***1/2 (out of 5)