Creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon (2007) starring Andrew Vellenoweth, Tanith Fiedler

I've never hidden my affection for mutant monster flicks or nature-run-amok cautionary tales. Whether it's a big-budget spectacle like JAWS, a B-movie rip-off in the PIRANHA vein, or even a straight-to-video attempt such as Brett Piper’s under appreciated THEY BITE, I'm always in the mood for a bit of good-natured creature-on-the-loose horseplay.

Unfortunately, that can frequently lead to watching stuff like the endless tedium of AQUANOIDS, the over-hyped LAKE PLACID, or 2007’s CREATURE FROM THE HILLBILLY LAGOON. Thought it sports great box art of a mutant monster about to attack a bodacious, beer-hungry backwoods hunny, the flick will quickly have you longing for the relative subtlety of a Troma flick.

Way over-plotted for something called CREATURE FROM THE HILLBILLY LAGOON, the flick opens with two redneck workers drinking Piels (is that even made anymore?) and goofing off. Naturally, Cooter—the more mentally-challenged of the pair—gets coated with toxic goo and tries to wash it off in the creek.

Enter the team of old-looking college students that includes such stock issue characters as the skinny dork, hard-bodied gay dude, and shy but hung "hero", plus two broads with some of the most hideous tattoos I've ever seen. Led by their wheelchair-bound professor (who appears to be about the same age), the students are there to chart the local eco-system and figure out why it has changed so dramatically—almost overnight. The simple answer is that exposure to the toxic crud is turning everybody who comes into contact with it into crazoid fish freaks. 

Unfortunately, the filmmakers weren't content with that simple, effective plotline and overload things with a student who turns out to be a corporate security officer, a "cleanup crew" there to take care of the fish creatures and students, a hillbilly girl with a weird fish fucking fetish, rogue scientists, bad puns, references to the bad puns, a mutant fish monster in a dress serving tea, fish creature rape, and a sea (sorry) of angry, mutating fish people.

On one hand I'm glad that people are still making schlock like this. But I really wish CREATURE could make up its mind and decide what it wants to be. Is it going to be funny? Scary? Bloody? Titty? Unfortunately, it ends up being such an overambitious, directionless hodgepodge of all the above that it's hard to care about the flick on almost any level. — Dan Taylor

Christmas Twister (2012) starring Casper Van Dien

Casper Van Dien stars as the World's Most Handsome Weather Nerd in what can only be described as Background Cinema. I started it on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, watched a little that night after IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, and finished it up when I got home on Boxing Day. So you know it's gotta be riveting. But I am nothing if not devoted to my cinema.

CVD plays Ethan Walker, a devoted meteorologist and climate change evangelist who became notorious for causing an evacuation for a storm that never materialized. Now he's working in Texas, is in a rocky marriage with a local newscaster, and has a precocious son and a teenage daughter who hangs out with Faux Paris Hilton.

Naturally, a brewing storm keeps setting off twisters but nobody believes CVD that conditions are ripe for an unheard of F6. Will the local yokels stop gazing at him long enough to know he's right? Will his wife ditch him and their kids for a gig in the big apple with not as handsome weather guy Logan Haynes (Richard Burgi)? If you actually care, it's available on TUBI. – Dan Taylor

Dan Taylor will watch any movie you put the word "Christmas" in front of.