I’m not particularly a fan of the “thinly animated scary story,” but this one stands out quite a bit, as the military details are what make the entire thing more plausible.
These feature “pale crawlers.”
The first story doesn’t do much for me, but the second, featuring a national guardsman on nighttime land navigation (“lan nav”), which means moving around in the dark and navigating by landmarks and a map.
While out there he spots something.
“Up at the top of this broken tree, about 15 ft up off the ground, what I can make out a distinct head and shoulder silhouette against the clouds.”
“I can’t make out the face but it looks pinched and by that, I mean I couldn’t see its eyes or mouth, like they were very small and in the middle of the head. It’s skinny like it hasn’t eaten, but it’s tall and obviously strong enough enough to have made such a vertical climb on his tree.”
“I flick my red light on and I catch it on all fours, moving toward the brush line in the direction I’m heading.”
Then the thing starts tracking him on a parallel course…
Romero, George A. and Daniel Kraus. Pay the Piper. Short Scary Tales (SST), 2026. First hardback edition, #330 of 500 copies signed by Kraus and illustrator Dirk Berger, a Fine copy in a Fine slipcase, with numbered bookmark and tissue closure stickers laid in. First signed, limited edition and first hardback of this Louisiana swamp monster with a grudge novel started by Romero and finished by Kraus. Oh, and Kraus just happened to win the Pulitzer Prize this year for his novel Angel Down.
I will have one copy of this available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog, due out in just a couple of days.
Let’s continue yesterday’s giant spider horror theme with a look at some recent video games.
First up: Cassiculus, a game where you face giant spiders underground.
Next up: Daz Games plays Jawbone Hollow, where you face… a giant spider underground.
Finally, Daz also tackles giant spiders in Huntsman, where you face a giant spider…in an office building! This one may have the most realistic spider of all of them.
Title: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Director: Adam Wingard
Writers: Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, Jeremy Slater, Adam Wingard (story)
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle, Alex Ferns, Fala Chen, Rachel House IMDB entry
Like the previous entry in the series, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire works because it understands what people going to a Godzilla films do and don’t want to see: monsters fighting, not people bickering.
You know that part of the Pitch Meeting video for Godzilla vs. Kong where the writer goes “Giant monkey punches giant lizard!” and the producer immediately stops worrying about logic?
Yeah, I’m that guy.
The movie starts with Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall, sporting Jamie Lee Curtis’ hairstyle) mystified by signals detected in their hollow earth station that also seem to be giving her adopted deaf monster-whisperer Iwi daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle) visions. In the Hollow Earth, Kong is suffering from loneliness and a infected tooth, and comes up to the surface to have it replaced (!) by kaiju veterinarian (!!) Trapper (Dan Stevens). Meanwhile, Godzilla rises from his slumbers, slays titan Scylla (sort of a giant crab thing) in Rome, and then levels a nuclear power plant to feed on the radiation and power up for…something.
So Kong goes back to the Hollow Earth, followed by all the human characters in the above paragraph, plus conspiracy theory podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry, who, like Hall and Hottle, is reprising his role from Godzilla vs. Kong). Naturally, things go wrong for them and their redshirt gravity ship pilot. Meanwhile, Kong is lured by a mini-Kong to locate a tribe of giant primates ruled over by the cruel Scar King, with the assistance of his own enslaved titan Shimo, a cross between Stegosaurus and a D&D ice dragon, complete with the latter’s freeze breath.
Naturally, Kong goes up against the Scar King, and naturally, it being the first big Kong fight, he loses, because it turns out that Scar King is a better tool user than he is.
All of this, of course, sets up a tag team Kong and Godzilla vs. Scar King and Shimo fight at the climax.
The Monsterverse approach has evolved to “You will completely suspend all your disbelief, and in exchange we promise to overawe you with wonders.” Which solves the long-running problem with Godzilla movies, in that you never really care about the human characters. By minimizing their screen time to the bare minimum to move the plot forward in favor of more kaiju battles, this results in a quicker sprint past various plot improbabilities. (A kaiju dentist! A giant exoskeleton arm for Kong we just had lying around the hollow earth!)
To those who complain that the plot improbabilities in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire are way too improbable, I would like to remind them that, merely by buying a ticket, viewers have already accepted the existence of a hollow earth and a high-speed subterranean tunnel between Pensacola and Hong Kong that was evidently built in less than a decade by private funds without anyone finding out that was on display in the first Godzilla vs. Kong. Compared to that, a giant Kong exoskeleton lying around in a convenient location is rounding error.
Also, to those that further complain the Monsterverse is too silly compared to the original Toho movies, I say: Remember this?
Or this?
Can you make a Godzilla film where the human characters don’t suck? It’s possible. The original Gojira and Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack both come to mind. I have not seen Godzilla Minus One (the timing just didn’t work out for it’s short run here), which Critical Drinker and others have indicated does a much better job on the human story front.
But instead of human drama, you get more kaiju fights, giant crystal energy pyramids, and a flaming cavern right out of a D&D supplement.
It’s a fair trade.
As a bonus, here’s the Pitch Meeting video for this one.
Kong: Skull Island
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Written By Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly and John Gatins
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Tom Hiddleston, John C. Riley, Brie Larson
With Godzilla vs. Kong upon us, I finally watched Kong: Skull Island. Even though I’m a Godzilla partisan, overall I think it’s the best executed of the Monsterverse films. (I’m seeing Godzilla vs. Kong this weekend.)
In 1973, with the Vietnam War winding down, LANDSAT has discovered Skull Island in the South Pacific, previously hidden because it’s perpetually ringed by storms. An Air Cav force, lead by Samuel L. Jackson in the Samuel L. Jackson role, escort a group of ostensible scientists to the island, including John Goodman (head of barely-funded Monarch, secretly looking for monsters), Tom Hiddleston (an ex-SAS pathfinder/tracker mercenary) and Brie Larson (a photographer). Soon they run into Kong, who crashes their helicopters a lot quicker than the Viet Cong. Jackson immediately goes full Ahab while another group runs for their life and right into John C. Riley, playing the American version of Sir Basil St. Exposition as a stranded WWII American flyer, along with the silent but friendly native tribe. Riley quickly explains to them that not only is Kong king, but he’s the good king, saving people from the monstrous subterranean “Skullcrawlers,” which look like giant tatzelwurms with vaguely possum-ish snouts.
The plot unfolds more or less the way you would expect.
This seems the best of the monsterverse movies because it has the best cast, and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (who’s primarily worked in TV) seems to have come closest to realizing his vision for it. It quickly and efficiently gets the ensemble to the island with a minimum of character exposition accompanied by a great classic rock soundtrack that runs the gamut of CCR, Jefferson Airplane and Black Sabbath. Jackson, Goodman and Riley all turn in their usual solid work in roles that might seem trite with less stellar performers (see: everyone who’s not Brian Cranston in the previous Monsterverse films). Larson is less annoying than her Marvel role. The support cast of mostly redshirts also do good work. Only Hiddleston comes across as Johnny Onenote And His Pet Stoic Gaze, but the script doesn’t give him much to do.
The special effects work on Kong is extremely solid (which you would expect from Industrial Light & Magic), even if not as expressive as the Andy Serkis version from Peter Jackson’s remake. The Skullcrawlers are appropriately menacing. But it’s the Huey flight sequences where the effects really shine. It’s obvious from the shot composition that Vogt-Roberts watched Apocalypse Now a whole bunch of times…
By jettisoning the “Kong takes Manhattan” plot from the previous versions, and dialing the Beauty and the Beast bits down to a bare whisper, Legendary Films has created a swift-moving kaiju film that even casual fans of the genre should enjoy.
