Monster of the Day #1220

MotD 1220

Sorry about yesterday, I wasn’t able to get on the site before work. Hosting issues, I guess. Then I went out right after work to watch the rest of the Cubs match against the Cards. We won, but those last two innings were nerve wracking. Still, it’s on to the NL championship round, and after taking three in a row from the Cards, well, there’s not reason we can’t beat the Dodgers or Mets.

Back to T-Fest. We watched Robot Monster and King Kong Escapes, but those beasties have all been featured here already. However, in its tenth year T-Fest has officially bifurcated, between those who like to socialize and yack during the event, and those of us social misfits who just watch the movies. Because of this, I think (and with Kirk Draut again doing yeoman’s work on the grill, cooking delicious meats for everyone to eat), the movie people just grabbed plates of food and immediately returned to our seats. Because of this, instead or running overlong and cancelling a film–which as happened more than once–we actually got well ahead of schedule. So Sandy through on Harbinger Down, a Kickstarter film both he and I (in my more well-funded days) had chipped in on. It’s basically a riff on The Thing, but a quite good one, and it featured nearly 100% practical effects and the wonderful Lance Henriksen. Galaxy Jane and I were weirded out by how negative some people are towards the film, which is actually quite good. Check it out.

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Flangepart

Lance and The Bug…an alternate title for your consideration.
Cullen Waters

It being a The Thing riff sort of cooled my wanting to see it, though I can’t honestly tell you why. It’s not like I don’t like the story and anything that gives Henriksen work is okay in my book.
kgb_san_diego

I am a fellow movie geek, and was watching with y’all… Yeah, Harbinger was everything I wanted when I threw a few bucks its way to get it made. Best movie ever? Course not. But (as Arthur can attest), it fooled me, a few times. As the movie was starting (about 10-15 minutes in), it was starting to look REALLY formulaic, and I made some predictions, which Arthur (having seen the film already) encouraged. And almost every single one of the predictions was wrong. So, not nearly as formulaic as it looked. And definitely a really fun time!
Galaxy Jane

Yeah, I am still baffled by the hate-on the Internet seems to have for this movie. Of course a lot of it seems to be bitching about the effects, so it may be partially a generational thing, maybe folks that grew up on CGI actually prefer it. Me, I like my critters to have mass.

The others seem to be mad that it is a Thing riff, but the fact is there are no new stories under the sun (just ask Shakespeare) and what you do with the material should be more important than pure originality. I think they did some great stuff with it here. And Lance Henriksen is always worth watching, he does yeoman’s work here.
bgbear_rnh

I was thinking I would like to see Lance show up on the return of ” The X-files”.
Gamera977

I’ve never even heard of it but it does sound pretty cool.
Gamera977

Wasn’t he the lead on the ‘X-Files’ spin-off ‘Millennium’? Never watched it myself, I was honked off enough by Chris Carter’s yanking the fans around I’d given up on the series by then.
bgbear_rnh

Yes, that is what I meant. His character was Frank Black. The first season was good but, later the series lost its way.

Actually my favorite crossover would be if agent Dale Cooper ran into Scully & Mulder. Of course in the “Twin Peak” universe, David Duchovny, is a cross dressing FBI agent.
The Rev.

It was new to quite a few of us, including myself. Good stuff, though. The creature wasn’t what I was expecting considering what it was supposed to have been mutated from, but that’s an exceedingly minor quibble (particularly since it’s never been used as a monster before). The practical effects were a delight, as were Henriksen. The two main female actresses were pretty strong, as well; I found them more interesting than the male characters (save Henriksen, natch). I’ll join in the recommendations for it; I’m going to watch it again in the near future, as missed some stuff.
Eric Hinkle

At the risk of sounding ignorant, just what is that monster?
kgb_san_diego

Being that this movie IS (as much as I liked it) a Thing rip-off, by this point the monster is a mutt of some kind. I think they said “DNA from hundreds of species” at one point…
Eric Hinkle

Thanks. That description makes it sound like incompetent mad scientists just tossed every DNA sample in the lab into a mixing bowl and this is what crawled out.
The Rev.

According to Sandy, it started off as a tardigrade that became heavily mutated and went from there.
David Fullam

Harbinger Down, what happens when butt hurt FX men head to kickstarter.

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