"BRING ME THE HEAD OF KING KONG!" – A SHUKERNATURE PICTURE OF THE DAY

 

Vintage photograph of a man-made pantomime stage prop in the form of a giant primate head (but NOT derived from a real, dead animal) (public domain/Wikipedia)

It’s been quite a while since I last posted a 'ShukerNature Picture of the Day', but this particular photograph seemed an ideal candidate for such a role, especially as it's one that I've been meaning to blog about for ages, so here it is, together with what I've managed to uncover concerning its nothing if not visually striking subject.

Needless to say, had I encountered this picture recently I would probably have simply assumed it to be an AI-generated image and therefore may not have investigated it, as the head was certainly far too big to be from any type of anatomically-feasible primate, even one of the cryptozoological kind.

In reality, however, I first encountered it online some years ago (on Wikipedia, if memory serves me correctly), and its arresting appearance was such that I decided to do whatever I could to identify exactly what it depicted and where it had originated. Here is what I discovered.

As indicated by this present ShukerNature post's tongue-in-cheek title, parodying the biblical Salome's imperious demand to King Herod Antipas for John the Baptist's head (served on a platter, which it duly was!), I had initially wondered whether this public-domain photo may have been in some way related to the original, classic King Kong monster movie released by RKO Radio Pictures in spring 1933, directed by Marian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and starring Fay Wray alongside this movie's titular stop-motion mega-star created by celebrated animator Willis H. O'Brien. Perhaps it was a spare giant ape head for close-up shots, or used for publicity purposes?

Although that idea ultimately proved false, I suspect that it nonetheless contains an element of relevance to the latter movie. For what I finally found out was that the object in this photo is actually a gaff, in this instance specifically a stage prop that had featured in a major pantomime performed just a few months after the release of King Kong, so it seems possible that the prop was inspired by this film, which had proved such a massive hit worldwide earlier that same year.

 

Publicity photo-still of American actress Fay Wray promoting the 1933 film King Kong (public domain)

According to an unidentified, tantalizingly-brief newspaper report published on 11 December 1933 that had contained the photo, what it depicted was a 4.5-ft-tall giant ape or monkey head made from cardboard and paper (NOT from the remains of any real, dead animal) that had been specially constructed by a stage props company for a pantomime staged in Glasgow, Scotland, during the winter 1933/34 pantomime season.

Sadly, the report gave no further details, not even naming the pantomime in question or the theatre where it was staged. According to the Panto Archive website's comprehensive listing of Glasgow pantomime venues and productions (click here to view the entire list), the only pantomime staged in Glasgow during the 1933/34 season was 'Babes In The Wood', at the Theatre Royal, and featuring veteran Scottish music hall comedian Tommy Lorne (1890-1935) as its principal star.

Perhaps, therefore, the giant monkey/ape head had appeared in it in the capacity of a guardian to the babes abandoned in the wood, or possibly as a comic bogeyman-type character. This is only speculation on my part, however, as I have been unable to discover any further information concerning either the head itself or the pantomime in which it appeared, but I did succeed in locating a second newspaper photo of it. Dating from the same period, but this time showing the head of a man inside the prop's gaping mouth and a woman standing alongside it, this second photo can be accessed here. I wonder if this eyecatching effigy still survives somewhere, stored away, perhaps, in the vaults of some theatre or stage props provider?

At any rate, we can all be reassured now by the comforting knowledge that somewhere deep within the cloud-shrouded Skull Island of make-believe movie-land, the real King Kong is still striding majestically through his stop-motion domain with his huge head held high, still firmly attached to his mighty neck and shoulders, whereas, tragically, the same cannot be said for John the Baptist's.

Speaking of Skull Island: be sure to click here to read my full review of the more recent King Kong-starring monster movie Kong: Skull Island in my film review blog, Shuker In MovieLand.

 

Me with a gargantuan statue of King Kong at Wookey Hole's Dinosaur Valley in Somerset, southwest England, on 29 August 2010 (© Dr Karl Shuker)

 

SEEKING THE SCIENCE BEHIND RAZORTOOTH AND FRANKENFISH!

 

My official Lionsgate Region 1 DVD of Razortooth (© Patricia Harrington/Gravedigger Films/Capital Art Entertainment (CAE)/PUSH/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Genetically-modified beasts, i.e. creatures converted from the mundane into the monstrous by mad scientists of the kind beloved by film audiences and directors alike for over a century now, have long been a staple theme in science fiction movies, and the two examples reviewed and mini-reviewed respectively here, both of which are of the piscean persuasion, are definitely no exception to this trend.  So as 2024 winds down on this, its final day, why not wind down too by leisurely perusing these cinematic offerings originally penned by me for my sister blog Shuker In MovieLand? Unless of course you're an ichthyophobe, whereupon the time to look away is right now!

My movie watch almost exactly a year ago, on 20 December 2023, was my long-owned but previously-unviewed Lionsgate Region 1 DVD of Razortooth, in order to find out at long last just how very far short this horror/monster movie would fall in comparison to what I'd always naturally assumed was the extreme visual hyperbole of its DVD's ultra-dramatic front cover illustration (which opens this present ShukerNature blog article) – only to discover to my great surprise that, if anything, the actual movie was even more OTT than said illustration!!

Directed by Patricia Harrington, and released in 2007 by CAE/PUSH, Razortooth is on the surface just another of those numerous modern-day CGI-laden creature features in which a group of diverse people are brought together in a shared spine-chilling experience of a horrific monster on the rampage. The latter usually constitutes either a freakishly large or genetically-altered mutant individual of a known present-day species or some gargantuan prehistoric horror retrieved from the distant past either directly via time-travel or once again via genetic manipulation.

Said monster then systematically slaughters in a variety of different (but usually gory) means virtually every human character in the movie, steadily devouring its way up the cast list from bit-part players to supporting characters and then, finally, confronting the leads in a grand do-or-die climactic battle before expiring with just enough screen time left for the surviving leads to exchange some light banter before the credits roll.

In Razortooth, the titular monster is a genetically-modified Asian swamp eel (much more about which later) of huge size and voracious appetite that has escaped into the Florida Everglades from the laboratory that engineered it, and now is diligently decimating everything and everyone that it encounters there – escaped convicts, Irish wolfhound, teenage canoeists, they all suffer the same gruesome fate, albeit executed in an array of imaginative splatter fests. Incidentally, I should warn you that this particular movie contains far more blood and gore than is usual for a low-budget modern-day creature feature of the Syfy-similar genre, which is why it holds an R rating certificate in the States, so beware.

Normally at this point I'd present my own précis of the plot, but in this case the latter is so generic, and also because there is one particular aspect of the movie, a zoological aspect, that I'd much prefer devoting the majority of this review to (especially as it does not appear to have been covered by anyone else whose reviews I've read), I've elected to save time and space by simply quoting instead a very succinct, accurate summary of it penned by Brazilian viewer Claudio Carvalho that I encountered on IMDb's Razortooth entry, so here it is:

Two prisoners escape through the swamp land in Everglades and the search party is attacked by a giant mutant eel and is considered missing. The Animal Control agent Delmar Coates is searching [for] a missing dog with his ex-wife Sheriff Ruth Gainey-Coates and he discovers the remains of the animal. Meanwhile members of a canoe club organize an expedition through the swamp. When Sheriff Ruth organizes a manhunt to capture the criminals, Delmar informs that his former friend, Dr. Soren Abramson, who is chasing the eel with a group of college students, is the [person] responsible for [this] mutant species [sic – specimen]. Sheriff Ruth organizes two teams to hunt the prisoners and the eel.

The two lead characters are Delmar Coates (played by Doug Swander) and Sheriff Ruth Gainey-Coates (Kathleen LaGue), so it will come as no surprise to learn that they are still standing, just about, by the time that we reach this movie's big, explosive finish – and I do mean big, and explosive!! What may indeed come as a surprise, conversely, is spotting a familiar face playing one of the lesser characters – yes indeed, Josh Gad (playing ill-fated Jay Wells), in one of his earliest big-screen roles before going on to the likes of Pixels with Adam Sandler, Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast, and the voice of Olaf the snowman in Frozen, among many others.

 

Eyeballing the razortooth: not a sight that you'd ever want to see close-up – or from any distance, for that matter! Please click composite picture to enlarge individual photos in it for viewing (© Patricia Harrington/Gravedigger Films/Capital Art Entertainment (CAE)/PUSH/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

But now, let's move on to what for me was the all-important feature of this monster movie – the specific zoological nature of the razortooth!! (Curiously, despite someone in the production company having specifically devised this memorable moniker for it, I don't actually recall 'razortooth' being employed anywhere within the film, other than as its title). As I mentioned earlier, this creature is supposed to be a genetically-modified, super-sized mutant specimen of a genuine species known zoologically as the Asian swamp eel Monopterus albus.

Native to shallow, muddy freshwater wetlands across eastern and southeastern Asia, this air-breathing eel-shaped species (but a synbranchid rather than a true eel), measuring only a very modest 3 ft or less, has indeed been introduced into the USA – beginning during the 1990s in Georgia, from where they themselves migrated into the Florida Everglades (their air-breathing ability enabling them to move overland in limited fashion if the land in question is water-saturated, but not if dry).

Due to the deleterious effect that its presence is having upon various native crayfish species, however, the Asian swamp eel is nowadays deemed an invasive species in these States, with attempts being made to control its burgeoning numbers and physically remove specimens where possible.

Needless to say, however it does not exist in any kind of mutant, extra-large version, and in any case this species confines itself to a diet of aquatic worms and insects, frogs, fishes, terrapin eggs, and crustaceans – as opposed to gorging itself upon humans and wolfhounds! But these are not the only major differences between the real Asian swamp eel and its monstrous movie counterpart.

Although much was made during the film regarding the disturbing nature of its true-life invasive presence in Florida's Everglades, in terms of its morphology the Asian swamp eel is nothing remotely frightening or dangerous, possessing only small, inconspicuous jaws and a totally smooth, featureless body. So how was this innocuous creature going to play the central role of a bloodthirsty terror? By not only greatly increasing its size but also appending to it some decidedly horrific characteristics purloined from various real but visually hideous piscean predators, that's how?

As a zoologist, moreover, I could readily recognize which predators had been utilized, and they were all from a specific taxonomic family of deepsea marine fishes – Stomiidae, the barbelled dragonfishes.

Totally unrelated to swamp eels, but once again only a few feet long at most (usually a lot less), these dragonfishes exist in several visibly different types, and it looks as if certain specific characteristics sampled from three of these types were deftly combined with the elongate body of the Asian swamp eel to yield the murderous razortooth of this movie, as I duly demonstrate below via the following series of comparative illustrations:

 

From top to bottom: the Asian swamp eel Monopterus albus; the viperfish Chauliodus sp.; the black dragonfish Idiacanthus atlanticus; Alcock's boatfish Stomias nebulosus; and the composite result, the razortooth; please click  picture to enlarge individual images for viewing purposes (top four pix public domain; razortooth composite pic © Dr Karl Shuker)

As can readily be seen from this comparison: if the viperfish's head and jaws brimming with javelinesque teeth, the black dragonfish's nearly membrane-less spiny dorsal fin (but extended along the eel's entire dorsal surface, not just the posterior half of it as in the dragonfish), and the boatfish's unusual arrowhead-like dorsal and ventral pre-terminal fins are added to the Asian swamp eel, the result is the razortooth. Apparently, Jeff Farley, the special effects expert who worked on Babylon 5, created the razortooth, so he had evidently conducted some sound ichthyological research during this process.

Moreover, there is no doubt that for much of the time, whether in the water or on land, or even when it slithers up into trees, the razortooth is impressive enough to keep the viewer's eyes glued to the screen, but most especially when it is very rapidly undulating horizontally in dramatic whiplash manner as it pursues its human prey on land, thus adopting the same mode of movement that snakes utilize.

The big problem comes from this monster's body size, which is anything but constant. One moment the razortooth is so huge that it rears vertically above the water like a latter-day plesiosaur from those now-dated prehistoric animal books from the 1960s and 70s that habitually portrayed these aquatic reptiles as swan-necked. The next moment it is small enough and narrow enough to swim up through the exit pipe of a toilet or shower unit in order to seize hold of the unsuspecting, hapless human utilizing said facility. Then suddenly it's big enough again to bite a man in half, or to be wrestled with by the redoubtable Delmar, and so on…

By way of mitigation for such morphological inconstancy, at one point scientist Dr Abramson (Simon Page) tells his students about how flexible the muscular bodies of eels are, enabling them to squeeze through holes and crevices ostensibly too small for this to be possible. That is true, but there are limits, even for a mutant eel ('mutant' being another oft-utilised get-out-of-jail card in monster movies for explaining seemingly impossible feats performed by the monster in question!).

Anyway, such quibbles aside, and if you're not hoping for any in-depth characterization of the mega-eel's numerous victims either, Razortooth is certainly an enjoyable creature feature (unless you're not only ichthyophobic but also haemophobic!). And unlike many of its oh-so-serious contemporaries in this genre, it even purposefully includes a blacker shade of black vein of tongue-in-cheek humour running through it, but without descending to spoof or parody levels. Monster movie purists may well hate this flick, of course, but at least its choice of animal antagonist makes an interesting, diverting change from the more usual giant invertebrates, prehistoric survivors, and belligerent ape-men that tend to dominate this cinematic category.

Razortooth is currently available to watch free of charge on YouTube, so if you'd like to do so, just click here. Or click here if you'd simply like to watch an official trailer for it.

 

No escape from the razortooth – whether in the water, out of the water, on dry land, or even up a tree, it's gonna get ya! Please click composite picture to enlarge individual photos in it for viewing (© Patricia Harrington/Gravedigger Films/Capital Art Entertainment (CAE)/PUSH/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Several months after viewing Razortooth, I purchased and watched in quick succession another monster movie with genetically-engineered mega-fishes as its animal antagonists. This movie was the aptly-entitled Frankenfish, and here is the mini-review that I wrote about it afterwards:

 

FRANKENFISH

 

My official UK DVD of Frankenfish (© Mark A.Z. Dippé/Columbia TriStar/Syfy – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 16 May 2024, I watched my recently-purchased DVD of the 20-year-old TV monster movie Frankenfish.

Directed by Mark A.Z. Dippé, and released in 2004 by Columbia TriStar for the TV channel Syfy), Frankenfish is a very generic MM, and is all about some huge, voracious, genetically-modified Chinese (aka northern) snakehead fishes Channa argus that have been let loose into a Louisiana bayou where they wreak bloodthirsty havoc upon its alligators and human inhabitants alike. (In real life conversely, this gourami-related species does not exceed 5 ft long at most, and is usually less than 4 ft.)

Consequently, the appropriately-named Sam Rivers (played by Tory Kittle), a medical examiner, is dispatched to the besieged bayou, together with biologist Mary Callaghan (China Chow), only to discover that they have as big a battle on their hands with the locals' firmly-ingrained superstitions and faith in black magic solutions to the situation as they do with the monsters themselves – which lose no time in picking off the humans, one by one...

 

A real Chinese (northern) snakehead (public domain)

Amusingly, whoever wrote the DVD's back-cover blurb presumably had no idea what a snakehead is and was therefore led badly astray by its name (and had apparently not even watched the movie itself, in which snakeheads are accurately described).

For the blurb writer described the movie's monsters as being not only "massive, genetically-engineered, flesh-eating fish" but also as having been "scientifically bred with a deadly snake"! Now that's a monster movie I'd definitely pay good money to watch!!

As for this one, the monster fishes when seen briefly out of the water are ok, but as the main storyline takes place almost entirely at night, I didn't see as much of them as I'd like to have done. But in compensation, there is a very unexpected and entertainingly chilling closing scene to look out for, featuring the ever-troublesome character Dan (Matthew Rauch).

If you'd like to watch an official Frankenfish trailer, please click here to view one on YouTube.

 

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

The official American DVD for Frankenfish (© Mark A.Z. Dippé/Columbia TriStar/Syfy – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

SHARING SOME MONSTROUSLY-ENTERTAINING CRYPTO-CREATURE FEATURE REVIEWS IN FORTEAN TIMES!

 

Front cover of the current issue (#446, dated July 2024) of the British monthly magazine Fortean Times, featuring yours truly as its cover star! (© David Sutton/Etienne Gilfillan/Fortean Times/Diamond Publishing Limited – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

One of ShukerNature's several sister blogs and now in its fifth year of existence, my film review blog Shuker In MovieLand hits the big time! A selection of its Fortean (and especially monster)-themed creature feature reviews has been compiled by me in the form of a monstrously-entertaining front-cover-linked lead article that has been published in the current issue (#446, dated July 2024) of the iconic British monthly magazine Fortean Times, or simply FT to its worldwide array of fans.

FT via its countless contributors and readers down through the decades has been steadfastly reporting and investigating across the vast and thoroughly fascinating spectrum of mysterious phenomena ever since the early 1970s (when it started out as The News), and I am very privileged to have been contributing articles and news reports (the latter via my regular, longstanding Alien Zoo column) ever since the 1990s, concentrating upon cryptozoology and animal anomalies of every conceivable (and inconceivable!) kind.

Moreover, as readers of Shuker In MovieLand already know (as do more than a fair few ShukerNature readers too), I am also passionately interested in movies, particularly fantasy and sci fi-themed ones, but never more so than those that incorporate monsters and other mystery or fantastical beasts. So in my latest FT article as now highlighted here, I have collated a diverse selection of my Shuker In MovieLand reviews of creature features that I have very much enjoyed watching over the years. And I hope that it will encourage ShukerNature's numerous fellow beast-movie buffs to watch and enjoy them now too.

I'm not going to say anything more regarding my article's contents, so as not to spoil the surprises awaiting FT readers, but I do wish to express my sincere thanks to FT's editor David Sutton and its art director Etienne Gilfillan for making my article an FT reality, with Etienne not only doing us all proud in not only assembling the dazzling collection of illustrations accompanying its text but also creating the front cover's truly amazing associated artwork!

 

Another magazine front-cover appearance, from issue #14 (November 1997) of the now long-defunct British monthly magazine Uri Geller's Encounters, to which I contributed a number of cryptozoological articles (© Nina Pendred/Paragon Publishing Ltd – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

No doubt you'll recognize the very handsome chap (cough cough!) attired in best Indiana Jones accoutrements taking centre stage on the FT cover as he prepares to cinematically confront a veritable host of horrors...and that's just the audience! – or most of it. For I also wish to highlight the delightful fact that the happy little lady with the extra-large box of popcorn is none other than my dear little Mom, Mary Shuker, who always enjoyed watching monster movies with me back in the good old days. How I wish that she were still here, to know that she was now a front-cover star! She would have been so proud. Thank you so much, Etienne, for such a wonderful and very touching tribute to her.

So, be sure to seek out and purchase a copy of FT #446 if you can (it's out now!), and have a monstrously good time reading about some very varied creature features of the cryptozoological and zoomythological kind. Go on, you know you want to!

For mor information concerning FT, please click here to visit its official website.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Close-up of the front cover of FT #446, showing Mom happily selling popcorn to a truly beastly audience! (© David Sutton/Etienne Gilfillan/Fortean Times/Diamond Publishing Limited – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

FIRE SERPENTS, SAND SERPENTS, AND A SERPENT KING – A TRIO OF CRYPTO-CREATURE FEATURES UNCOILING ON-SCREEN!

 

Publicity posters for Fire Serpent, Sand Serpents, and Basilisk: The Serpent King (© John Terlesky/CineTel Films/Kandu Entertainment/Outrage Productions/Premiere Bobine/S.V. Scary Films/Sci-Fi Channel/Lionsgate Home Entertainment // Jeff Renfroe/Media Pro Pictures/Muse Entertainment/SyFy/RHI Entertainment // Stephen Furst/BUFO/Curmudgeon Films/Sci Fi Pictures – all three posters reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

It's always a pleasure to watch creature features in which the monsters in question are far removed from the usual cinematic stereotypes (e.g. ferocious man-beasts, werewolves, sea monsters, gargantuan insects, prehistoric survivors), and the three examples appearing in the trio of monster movies reviewed by me here, courtesy originally of ShukerNature's sister blog, Shuker In MovieLand, are definitely out of the ordinary, that's for sure! They display a vermiform similarity, but their respective origins could not be more dissimilar – cast down to Earth from the scorching surface of the sun, rudely awoken from deep subterranean desert dreaming, and resurrected from a very lengthy petrified past.

 

 

A second publicity poster for Fire Serpent (© John Terlesky/CineTel Films/Kandu Entertainment/Outrage Productions/Premiere Bobine/S.V. Scary Films/Sci-Fi Channel/Lionsgate Home Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

FIRE SERPENT

My movie watch on 25 August 2022 was a highly original sci fi/monster movie entitled Fire Serpent.

Directed by John Terlesky, created by celebrated Star Trek actor William Shatner, and originally screened in 2007 by the Sci-Fi Channel, Fire Serpent has as its central concept the notion that every so often throughout history, one of these eponymous fire-embodied serpentine entities is shot forth via solar flares from the sun's scorching surface down to Earth, where it commits all manner of mayhem, inducing large-scale blazes, forest fires, etc in its search for fuel to revitalise it.

In so doing, this ophidian flame-spreader will even take over humans in its bid to destroy anyone who stands in its path before incinerating them internally yet without leaving a mark on them externally. Needless to say, spontaneous human combustion instantly comes to mind here, but sadly – and strangely – this extraordinary yet still-unexplained fiery phenomenon is neither mentioned by name nor incorporated in any way within the movie.

The existence of fire serpents is known to the US government but is kept a closely-guarded secret until maverick firefighter Dutch Fallon (played by Randolph Mantooth), whose girlfriend was killed by one of these flying furnaces, decides to devise a means of destroying them. This does not go down well with one mysterious government agent in particular, however, a religious fanatic and covert arsonist named Cooke (Robert Beltran) who believes that they are fiery angels sent by God to cleanse the world by fire in order to renew it.

Can Dutch and a couple of semi-believing associates put a stop both to the fire serpents and to the fire-preaching maniac Cooke who seeks to harness them in his mad bid for catastrophic global conflagration?

The CGI fire serpents are well executed, and, as I say, this movie's theme is unusual enough to keep even a hardened seen-it-all creature feature fan like me interested and entertained.

If you'd care to gaze from the flame-retardant safety of your sofa at the coruscating creatures featured in this incandescent movie, be sure to click here to watch an official Fire Serpent trailer on YouTube that won't leave you feeling hot under the collar!

 

 

Close-up of a giant sand serpent in Sand Serpents (© Jeff Renfroe/Media Pro Pictures/Muse Entertainment/Syfy/RHI Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

SAND SERPENTS

On 29 June 2022, my movie watch was the crypto-themed Canadian film Sand Serpents.

Directed by Jeff Renfroe, and released on the Syfy Channel in 2009, Sand Serpents is definitely one of the better entries in the long-running made-for-TV 'Maneater' series of sci fi/horror creature features produced by RHI Entertainment for Syfy and released from 2007 onwards.

Think Tremors, but set in Afghanistan (although filmed in Romania), Sand Serpents centres upon a small US special forces military squad led by Lieutenant Richard Stanley (played by Jason Gedrick) and seeking to elude the Taliban, but also facing an even deadlier and far more unexpected foe – 60-ft-long predatory worms disturbed from their subterranean realm by a massive explosion and now hunting down and devouring or destroying anything that betrays its presence to them via loud sounds or other vibrations. Not even helicopters flying overhead are safe from these voracious vermiforms that rear up into the sky and swallow the whirlybirds in a single gulp. Gulp!

The squad's only hope is to make its way through a series of underground tunnels to a location where yet another helicopter will attempt to rescue them, but the worms seem intent upon picking them off, one by one... Make sure that you watch this movie right to the very end, because the closing scene contains a very dramatic and unexpected albeit somewhat unnecessary twist.

For a low-budget movie, its CGI mega-worms are excellent, with Sand Serpents a worthy homage to the Tremors franchise, and an equally worthy addition to my crypto-cinema collection.

Moreover, if what I've read in various reviews of it elsewhere is true, this movie's portrayal of the US military in action in Afghanistan is a decent, relatively accurate representation (though apparently there are various authenticity issues concerning the soldiers' outfits and insignia – as someone not well-informed on military matters, however, I couldn't say).

For a spectacular taster of what to expect down deep in the desert where the giant sand serpents dwell, be sure to click here to view a trailer of sand serpent excerpts from this movie on YouTube.

 

 

A French publicity poster for Basilisk: The Serpent King (© Stephen Furst/BUFO/Curmudgeon Films/Sci Fi Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

BASILISK: THE SERPENT KING

Viewed on the UK's Horror [now renamed Legend] TV Channel, my movie watch for 18 June 2022 was the creature feature Basilisk: The Serpent King.

Directed by Stephen Furst, filmed in Bulgaria, and released in 2006 on the Sci Fi Channel, Basilisk: The Serpent King opens with a modern-day discovery in the Middle East of what appear on first sight to be a series of stone statues of soldiers dating back two millennia. These are brought back to the States by the archaeological team that has discovered them, led by Dr Harrison 'Harry' McColl (played by Jeremy London), together with their most extraordinary find there – namely, what again seems to be a stone statue, but this time of an enormous serpentine dragon, plus a very ornate serpent-ornamented sceptre containing a beautiful precious stone.

However, it's not long before the terrifying truth emerges – these 'statues' are actually petrified humans. Moreover, when the giant serpentine dragon 'statue' is put on display in the Colorado university museum sponsoring Harry's archaeological dig, and sensationally comes to life during a major reception there for the museum's wealthy patrons via an unexpected photo-reaction involving the sceptre and a solar eclipse, it turns out to be a basilisk, which spits forth a deadly white liquid that when activated by its incandescent gaze promptly turns to stone a fair few of its awe-struck audience. Not only that, it's pregnant! (Not so much a Serpent King as a Serpent Queen, therefore, or are there aspects of basilisk reproduction that I have yet to learn about??)

Anyway, much mayhem results, especially when the basilisk lays waste to a multi-story indoor shopping centre (whose property & contents insurance is unlikely to cover wholesale destruction caused by a mythical mega-monster!), and the U.S. army is brought into play in a desperate bid to nullify this Medusa-mouthed Middle Eastern mall-wrecker.

Meanwhile, Harry and friends (one of whom, Carlton, is played by director Furst) no less desperately attempt to regain possession of the sceptre that has been stolen by a wily and wealthy albeit decidedly wacky villainess named Hannah (Yancy Butler). She plans to use it to uncover a priceless cache of treasure, uncaring that it also happens to be the only object in existence that can counter the basilisk.

Notwithstanding its ostensibly incongruous, spindly little legs (even though some traditional basilisk depictions do indeed supply it with limbs), the CGI basilisk is very acceptable, and whereas there is an emphasis upon wisecracks and goofy characters, this monster movie still boasts its fair share of thrills along the way too. Basilisk: The Serpent King was a film hitherto unknown to me but one that I certainly enjoyed, and also recorded in order to add it to the crypto-themed section of my movie collection, as I have so far been unable to locate it on DVD.

Incidentally, for the benefit of zoomythology zealots, I must point out two intrinsic discrepancies between this movie's basilisk and traditional ones. Firstly: although the basilisk is indeed referred to in classical legends as the king of the serpents, it is usually represented as being quite small, certainly nothing remotely as sizeable as this film's gargantuan representative. Secondly: and according once again to legends, should a basilisk direct its gaze or its venom upon anyone (or any other living thing), the latter is instantly killed, not turned to stone – that more specialised slaying ability is instead reserved for the trio of  gorgons in Greek mythology.

Nevertheless, here and here, to petrify you, but, happily, not in a gorgonesque manner, are a couple of Basilisk: The Serpent King clips on YouTube.

 

A close encounter of the basilisk variety in Basilisk: The Serpent King(© Stephen Furst/BUFO/Curmudgeon Films/Sci Fi Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

REVIEWING 'THE DARK' (AKA 'THE RELIC' AKA 'THE GOD RAT')

Three different video/DVD covers for The Dark – the centre picture is on the cover of the DVD version that I own (© Craig Pryce/Lightshow Communications – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Readers of ShukerNature may not all know that in July 2020 I launched a new blog, Shuker In MovieLand (SIML), in which I review all manner of movies (and occasionally TV shows) that I've previously watched. They include a wide range of genres, from sci-fi, fantasy, super-heroes, and animation, to musicals, comedy, historical drama, crime fiction, and much more besides. Needless to say, however, as a cryptozoologist I have a particular preference for monster movies, and have already reviewed on SIML several films that contain a cryptozoology theme. Most of these are well known movies, but, intriguingly, the review of mine on SIML that currently boasts more hits than any other is of a very obscure, little-known monster movie, variously entitled The Dark, The Relic, and The God Rat.

As I feel sure that it will be of interest to ShukerNature readers too, I am reproducing my review of this movie here, and I earnestly suggest that you seek out the movie itself and watch it, because it makes very entertaining viewing. So, without further ado, here is my review of The Dark, whose original, shorter version I posted on my Facebook timeline on 30 November 2019.

Last night [29 November 2019] I watched a long-anticipated cryptozoology-themed movie, The Dark (aka The Relic aka The God Rat – see later), originally released in Italy in 1993. Directed by Craig Pryce, it stars Stephen McHattie as a leather-jacketed, motorbike-riding cryptozoologist (sounds familiar??) named Gary 'Hunter' Henderson. He is seeking a mysterious, scientifically-undescribed subterranean beast akin to a giant carnivorous rodent that excavates huge tunnels underneath a graveyard, feeds upon recently-interred corpses, and secretes a slimy substance that has miraculous, swift-acting healing properties. Filmed in Canada, this unusual movie also stars Neve Campbell, making her big-screen debut, as Hunter's girlfriend Jesse Donovan.

The monster is only seen in brief glimpses, and then only its toothy long-jawed head and long-clawed forepaws for the most part. The plot is fairly pedestrian - a good cryptozoologist seeking to study and preserve the creature for its taxonomic significance as an apparent prehistoric survivor and also for its slime's potentially immense medicinal benefits versus a bad vengeful ex-cop relentlessly seeking to slay it in revenge for its self-defence killing of his police partner when he was still on the force.

Stephen McHattie as Gary 'Hunter' Henderson in The Dark (© Craig Pryce/Lightshow Communications – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

However, what has always intrigued me about this movie, which had particularly spurred me on for so long to seek it out on DVD (no easy matter!) and view it, was that its cryptid subject is more than a little reminiscent of a bona fide mystery beast. Reported from Scotland, this latter cryptid is known as the earth hound, and is indeed said to frequent graveyards and devour buried corpses. My book Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999) was the first crypto-book to investigate and document the earth hound, but if you click here you can access a ShukerNature blog article of mine concerning this fascinating mystery beast.

The DVD of The Dark that I own actually has a German-language cover (see centre picture in the trio of photographs opening this present blog post), on which this movie is entitled The Relic (in English) and The God Rat (in German), but the movie that plays on the DVD disc itself is the original English version and is entitled in its opening credits as The Dark.

Incidentally, this present movie should not be confused – but often is – with another cryptozoology-themed film also entitled The Relic. Directed by Peter Hyams and originally released in 1997, its very different plot concerns a monstrous entity inadvertently transported back to the USA from South America, which duly runs amok in Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. I have this movie on DVD too, but haven't watched it yet – be sure that once I do, however, I shall be duly reviewing on Shuker In MovieLand!

Last, but by no means least, The Dark is currently available (as of today, 10 September 2020, anyway) to watch in its entirety free of charge on YouTube (click here to do so). Consequently, if you're a fan of monster movies with a cryptozoology theme like I am, I strongly recommend that you make the most of this golden opportunity to watch this otherwise difficult-to-find movie while you can, in case it is subsequently deleted from YT.

Reconstruction of the likely appearance in life of the mysterious earth hound as based upon alleged eyewitness descriptions (© William M. Rebsamen)