Monster of the Day #661

No idea what film but it looks like he was left in the oven too long…

You mean it could be the Pillsbury Doughboy? The horror, the horror.

Ditto.

Is that the same photo that John “Mothman” Keel used to argue for the existence of thunderbirds in the Old West?

Wait, what?
How did I miss that?

Possibly, but I don’t know of his work. I know the origins of the photo were traced back to the 70’s, when a number of Civil War era photos were transferred to paper stock. My gut tells me it’s a fake, but it sure is a neat pic!

I think Rock is referring to an image that was produced as a viral marketing tool for the short-lived TV series Freakylinks. However, said image was based on the legend of the “Thunderbird photograph” that Keel was so fond of. If you’d like to read a great article about the origin of the infamous photograph, Google “metafilter thunderbird photograph.”

The first one is of a piece with the original Class of Nuke ‘Em High: some humor, mostly dark; kind of a mean streak; some good gore. I can’t really defend my fondness for them, but there you go.

The second one is more light-hearted, more overtly comedic, but still violent (albeit minimal gore). I’d put its tone along the lines of Sgt. Kabukiman, N.Y.P.D. My experience is that most people pick this as their favorite. I prefer the original (probably due to the gore and the original actress playing his girlfriend; the one in the 2nd and 3rd movies was grating and not as pretty, in my opinion), but this is pretty fun, too. My favorite part is Toxie entering Japan “Godzilla style,” mostly because I did that a few times at the beach as well.

The third was, as I recall, pretty much slapstick comedy, much like the 2nd CoNEH. I thought both sucked, although at least the 2nd CoNEH had a kaiju-sized mutant squirrel running around. They should’ve done a whole movie with that thing fighting, I dunno, a giant Toxie or something. Could’ve been gold.

I haven’t seen the 4th one, although I saw it was on Netflix. I assume that, like just about everything Troma’s done since the mid-’90s, it’s seriously terrible, but I could be wrong.

I’m guessing most people here would enjoy the 2nd one the most. The original’s definitely an acquired taste. Don’t bother with the 3rd one.

MONSTER IN THE CLOSET is pretty good. One of the earlier spoofs of 50’s monster movies (and it even manages a genuine jump or two). THE DARK FORTRESS wasn’t bad, although Troma re-worked it into A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL and completely undercut some of the film’s better points. If you can even find the original version of the film, I’d say give that one a shot. That’s the limit of my own experience with the studio.

Yeah, the re-working of the film was mostly the addition of that prolog which explained everything in the first two minutes, completely undercutting the eventual discoveries made by the characters. I think they did it mostly to give the film a stronger connection to the Troma universe, as it was a film they acquired rather than one they actually produced.