Number 60: Boggy Creek II: The Legend Continues (1985)
Aah, it feels good to be back on familiar ground with good
old reliable, b-movie horror.
From looking on IMDB, this appears to be the third Boggy Creek movie. So we’re off to a
good start already.
I haven’t seen the other films but I’m sure I’m not missing
much.
A university professor, Dr Lockhart takes three students on
a trip into the Arkansas woods in a search for a yeti creature. Tim is a bit of
a dogsbody for the professor lugging stuff around but the two girls, Leslie and
Tanya, contribute nothing. They have no useful skills. The film is quite honest
that they only exist for the purpose of eye candy.
While setting up the equipment to track any large beasts in
the area, Lockhart regales the students with stories about the beast they are
looking for. It’s a dull life the beast has led, just walking around not really
doing much. The kids aren’t that interested, apart from teacher’s pet Tim. The
two girls don’t much like roughing it in their tents and wish they could go to
a hotel instead. Why did they volunteer to go?
Not much happens until towards the end. I think the director
Charles B.Pierce (who also plays Professor Lockhart) is trying to build tension
but you need events to build suspense around. It picks up a little when there
is a storm and they have to take refuge in Old Man Crenshaw’s farm.
Whenever you hear someone with a Southern accent in an
American movie, generally they either want to hump you or eat you. Crenshaw
looks like he could do both at the same time. But Crenshaw has put them all in
danger as he’s taken the yeti’s offspring. Crenshaw is obviously quite scared
of the beast so why he kidnapped its young is a mystery. What I do know is, it
looks a lot like a small monkey.
The yeti comes a looking for its sprog and Lockhart just
gives it back to him. And that’s it, the creature walks away. What an
anti-climax.
Oh, and Lockhart narrates throughout the story. You could
argue this is necessary to tell the backstory of the creature (which doesn’t
have a name by the way) but this is already been told in flashbacks. Narration
over flashbacks, what kind of hell is this?
Nothing else to say. Rubbish horror film with no pay off.
Number 59: Soultaker (1990)
More B-movie horror. Delightful.
Squint your eyes a bit and you can pretend we have a big name star in this.
The titular Soultaker is played by Joe Estevez, the brother of Martin Sheen,
uncle of Charlie and Emilio Estevez. Trivia fact, Joe stood in for Martin Sheen
on days he was unwell filming Apocalypse
Now. Sometimes I like to remind myself that good films exist, it makes the
bad ones more tolerable.
A group of teenagers are in a horrific car crash but only
two of them are important, Zach and Natalie. Their souls have been disconnected
from their bodies and they need to find a way to get their souls back in them.
They are being kept alive on life support but they are given a convenient
deadline of midnight when they will be turned off. That seems quite a quick
turnaround, not even kept in for one nights’ observation before being turned
off.
Charlie Estevez is the Soultaker out to stop them. Something
went wrong and they should have died in the crash but didn’t, I don’t know why.
He’s got a boss who tells him he needs to catch them, while obeying the ‘rules’
(no idea), or their souls escape forever. All something to do with restoring
balance. It’s all a bit silly but to be fair it is quite fun.
Emilio Sheen appears to take a personal interest in Natalie,
not wanting to take her soul but wants her to join him instead. We learn the
reason for this later on, when Zach finds one of his dead friends from the
crash has now become a soultaker himself. It would seem Martin Estevez was once
a regular guy and Natalie reminds him of his former wife.
Joe Sheen doesn’t catch them in time and they make it back
into their bodies. Apparently this means they can’t ever take their souls now, so
I guess Zach and Natalie are immortal now? The soultaker gets packed off into
the underworld forever.
Having escaped death, Zach and Natalie awake from their real
life comas and are up and moving around. Here’s the thing, they were in a
horrific car crash, the car was crumpled up like an accordion. Escaping a crash
like that alive would be considered highly fortunate, to have no injuries would
be a miracle. They aren’t even bruised.
Overall, it’s an ok film if a little bland and the ending just leaves it with no credibility.
(these are from IMDB Bottom 100 movies list as it was on 31st August 2015)
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