Monster of the Day #294

Updated on July 21, 2011 By Ken Begg 18 Comments

Again, somebody explain to me why the SyFy Network seemingly can’t make films like this? Low budget, small cast, but more ideas than you get in a season’s worth of the channel’s ‘original’ movies. (Although admittedly this film is a tad more grisly than their fare is likely to be.)

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  • The Rev.

    I dunno about the grisliness…some of them have been pretty gory. Come to think of it, though, not so much the monster ones, so I guess you point stands. (Locusts: The Eighth Plague had its moments.)

    Anyway, yeah. This was a fun one, and you’re spot on about ideas present in it vs. Siffy movies. It saddens me that we only get a movie like Splinter once every few years from that channel.

  • Ericb

    I think I’ve mentioned this before but this film is kind of like a horror version of Gilligan’s Island (though it came out before the show) but with the Professor being a Nazi Mad Scientist rather than a kindly egghead.

  • David Fullam

    A text book example of how to make an over reaching B film that totally works. Surprisingly strong in a lot of regards.

  • Not-So-Great Cthulhu

    I’m not sure which flick this is from… Ken’s comment made me think it’s from one that isn’t released, though (as he says something similar in his T(ween) Fest diary).

    Regarding Splinter, I agree that I’d like to see more films like that, but maybe without the friggin’ shakey cam. I caught only the last half of it on Siffy once and it looked great, but man did that camera work detract from an otherwise good movie.

  • The Rev.

    NSGC:

    1. This is The Flesh Eaters.

    2. I’ve seen enough movies abuse the shaky-cam now that I can kind of ignore it, to a certian extent. I recall there not being so much of it in the first part of the movie, so at least there’s that.

  • Ericb

    This is from The Flesh Eaters. It was on DVD a few years ago but I’m not sure it’s still available.

  • roger h

    Do you have to develop creatures that eats flesh? I thought that was the job description of many microorganisms.

  • Ericb

    Well, when these guys are massed in their miniature form they can strip a body clean in seconds. They are like hyper mini-piranhas.

  • Ericb

    … and they are so small they only appear as scratches on the negative so they are light on the budget as well.

  • alex

    These movies are from a different time and place. I think that’s why SyFy or any other production outfit just can’t re-create something that doesn’t belong in today’s culture.

  • roger h

    Thanks Ericb.

    So, they are highly motivated flesh eating microorganisms. High wages, good benefits, 2 week vacation, 401K, casual Fridays?

  • Not-So-Great Cthulhu

    Wow… that’s sad. I just saw The Flesh Eaters a few years ago and didn’t recognize this. I now feel shame.

  • Alex — They don’t need to duplicate these old films, certainly. The question is, why are SyFy’s movies so unappealingly cookie cutter when B-movie producers back in the day for a LOT less money were really going off in a wide variety of interesting directions.

  • Rock Baker

    “These things want flesh, any kind of flesh, and they’ll eat their way through anything that stands between them and their next meal!”

  • zombiewhacker

    “The question is, why are SyFy’s movies so unappealingly cookie cutter when B-movie producers back in the day for a LOT less money were really going off in a wide variety of interesting directions.”

    The answer probably has more to do with how much $ a particular Sci-Fi cookie cutter film takes in.

  • GalaxyJane

    I believe this movie is available on the Drive In Classics channel on the ROKU. I haven’t watched it yet, so I could not attest to the quality, their stuff varies wildly.

    And yes, I realise that’s my second ROKU plug in a week, what can I say, the damned thing’s a movie junkie’s dream, especially since I refuse to have a video game console in the house to stream Netflix through.

  • John Campbell

    Does ROKU have captioning or at the least english subtitles? (English – SDH is far better, but something is better than nothing.)

    As my fiancee is deaf, any choice of “streamed” visual media MUST involve captioning/subtitling for deaf and hard of hearing (SDH).

  • GalaxyJane

    Yes, the new ROKU 2 that came out this week supports subtitling (or maybe just CC), at least on Netflix content.

    Of course that just really kind of pisses me off, because I just bought the old top of the line HD one less than a month ago, as a second unit, which does not. I have noisy kids who never shut up, so I love subtitles.