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

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Never Bring an Axe to a Chainsaw Fight and Other Lessons of PROPHECY

Made in that more serious time known as "the 1970s" when everybody was ginned up on post-Watergate suspicion of the government and environmental causes like "no nukes", PROPHECY was one of those flicks I'd always passed on in favor of something more, well, fun-sounding. Plus, I'd never heard anybody rave about it, John Frankenheimer seems like an odd choice for a monster thriller, it's rated PG, the cast of minor-league all-stars doesn't exactly inspire enthusiasm (Armand Assante aside), and I'd always kinda confused it with THE MANITOU. So there you have it.

But when a copy turned up in a box of DVDs I was sorting through I knew it was time to finally break down and give it a watch.

Rob (Robert Foxworth) and Maggie (Talia Shire) are the world's most depressing couple to hang out with. He's a permed, self-righteous do-gooder doctor that treats inner city babies and wants to punch out landlords for the crappy conditions of their buildings. She's a sour-faced orchestra cellist who recently discovered that she's pregnant but is afraid to tell Dr. Perm because he's anti-bringing-children-into-this-horrible-world.

When his buddy (Graham Jarvis) offers an opportunity to do a nebulous-sounding environmental survey in Maine, Rob jumps at the chance for a getaway (despite the fact that Maggie has to come along for the ride).  Arriving in the secluded Northeast forest, the pair find themselves in the middle of a land rights tussle between the paper company with designs on logging the shit out of the forest and the original people (or "OP") who want to protect the land... possibly at all costs. This leads to things like Armand Assante – armed with an axe – taking on a logger with a chainsaw and Foxworth wondering why the fish are so damn big.

After a lot of talking about land rights (from the mill's mouthpiece played by Richard Dysart) and OP rights (from the aforementioned Assante as a downbeat American Indian named John Hawks) we eventually get down to business when a gaggle of characters and their pilot get stranded and stumble across some kind of mutant bear cub. Naturally, this brings out the mama "bear" who begins chasing the survivors through the Maine wilderness.

Despite a preachy, heavy-handed and talky first hour, PROPHECY eventually ramps it up and delivers some solid PG action including an exploding sleeping bag, decapitation, multiple inside-out-mutant-bear attacks and some Grade A "He's Gone Apeshit" acting from Foxworth and his perm. (The perm is especially spectacular.)

It's too bad the first part of the flick is such a downer, with lots of talk about mutant babies, Foxworth looking at everyone disapprovingly, Assante pontificating and Talia Shire screaming lines like "You were too busy playing God to be a HUMAN BEING!" and doing The Talia Shire Face she perfected in the ROCKY movies.

Complaints aside, the last half hour is classic "nature run amok" with bonus points given for the Inside Out Mutant Bear and my guess is that PROPHECY would probably play pretty good with an enthusiastic crowd. – Dan Taylor

PROPHECY is available from Amazon.