Attack of the Beast Creatures
About two months ago I bought a huge box of rare trashy films whose descriptions sounded beyond comprehension. Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century, Rooster: Spurs of Death, Black Terminator (with is sitting proudly on my shelf next to the Indonesian Lady Terminator), Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things, and Spawn of the Slithis. I’ve been slow going through said box and actually watching the films, but one of my favorites so far has been Attack of the Beast Creatures. From 1985, this piece of trash gem tells the tale of a group of survivors of a shipwreck who get stranded on a deserted island in the tropics (though it’s clearly some woodsy Connecticut area) and run afoul of tiny killing monsters who pick them off one by one by one….
Now the plot is pretty much standard horror - they land on the island, one guy’s injured, and there’s upstanding guys who care and that one mean guy who keeps telling the others not to care, that they have to fend for themselves. One guy sticks his face in the river to clean it off and when he gets up his face is melting off, because the water wasn’t water at all! D’oh! Then they all go to sleep and these little eyes show up and attack them. It’s hard to get a look at the monsters at first, but eventually we see them and realize that they are basically dead-on copies of the Zuni Doll in Trilogy of Terror. Here’s a glimpse of that immortal classic, which I showed at my last birthday party to much delight:
Yeah, that’s right. She tries to drown a wooden doll with magical powers. Bright move. Anyway, compare the Zuni Doll with the monsters from Attack of the Beast Creatures.
Exactly the same doll! Except the Beast Creatures have that cat-hissing noise whilst the Zuni doll has the immortal “YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYA.” I know, folks, I don’t get it either. I guess they figured nobody would notice because nobody would probably ever see the movie?
Yep, it’s the best movie ever! And did I mention the whole thing takes place in the 1920’s? It’s not clear whether the filmmakers wanted to evoke the memories of the Titanic disaster, which only occured 8 years before the start of the Roaring Twenties, or whether those costumes were all they had in their stock. In any case, we’re (the audience) are treated to the most ludicrous “I can’t believe what I’m actually seeing” horror film since, well ever, in my opinion. Amazingly bad acting, ridiculously bad puppetry, a script from Mars….what more do you need people?
Oh by the way…
BOO! AHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!