Fantastic Fest 2010: Corman Night Double Feature: Machete Maidens Unleashed and Sharktopus
Corman Night Double Feature:
Fantastic Fest 2010
Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010)
Directed by: Mark Hartley
Sharktopus
Directed by: Declan O’Brien
Starring: Eric Roberts, Sara Malakul Lane, Roger Corman, Ralph Garman
Reviews by: Damon Swindall
Leave it to Austin’s incredible Fantastic Fest to bring one of genre cinema’s most treasured heroes to town for the recognition he so rightly deserves. When thinking of someone who paved the way for fantastical filmmaking, new directors, and backed most every idea worth exploring – even the most ludicrous of plot ideas – one name should come to mind: Roger Corman. For over fifty years he has worked tirelessly. You can blindfold someone and have them throw a dart in a video store and your chances of hitting one of his films is probably around 75%. Alright, so that might be an exaggeration but you get the point. Whether he is in the director’s chair or behind-the-scenes producing, Corman is a staple and a household name among horror/sci-fi/exploitation fans the world over. The festival programmed a double feature gala event to surround an award presentation in his honor and, if nothing else, it was quite a fun night.
To begin the night, festival veteran Mark Hartley brought along his new documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed! which focuses on the boom in exploitation film production in the Philippines in the sixties through the eighties. After his first documentary, Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!, debuted at Fantastic Fest a few years back, fans have taken notice of Hartley’s attention to detail. This quickly became one of my most anticipated films of the fest. What film geek doesn’t love a good cinema doc? After seeing it I can tell you, at the very least, three things I’ve learned about Hartley’s prowess as a documentary filmmaker. He loves exclamation points in his film titles, your “to watch” list will increase exponentially, and the end product is extremely entertaining.
Saying this is about Filipino exploitation films, you might wrongly think it’s about those strictly made and released in that country. It’s OK, I thought the same thing at first. The film actually focuses on the films made in the Philippines for American/worldwide distribution. Most of this films have local directors and crew but the people behind them stem mostly from the States, which is where super producer Corman fits in the mix. Through interviews with directors, distributors, stars, producers and more they explore the behind-the-scenes shenanigans and relaxed safety regulations which attributed to making this such a cheap and interesting place to film.
The doc is broken down into a mostly chronological account of the films starting with the likes of Filipino native Eddie Romero who helmed such classics as the Blood Island series of films. Everything started in the sixties with horror that was taking things to a new extreme not yet really seen in the States. Since the censors could care less about a little low-budget movie from another country they passed them through. Meanwhile, drive-ins all over the country became littered with tons of nudity, bloody goodness, and crazy creatures. After horror became the same everywhere, the trends progressed to more nudity with the women-in-prison films, then martial arts, and other action outings.
From start to finish, Hartley proves he can bring genre fans everything they want in a documentary of this kind. Plenty of film clips and interviews grace the screen, along with scenes of all the violence and plenty of boobs, which made these films so infamous in the first place. Corman and Romero aren’t the only names voicing their recollections on the Philippines, many others contribute like “Corman grads” Joe Dante and Allan Arkush, Jack Hill, Brian Trenchard-Smith, John Landis, and actors like Sid Haig, Colleen Camp, Pam Grier, R. Lee Ermey, Dick Mill and tons more.
If I had to pick something I didn’t like about Hartley’s doc it would be some of the films explored. With Not Quite Hollywood I was introduced to so many films I had never heard of and had a huge list written down by the time the credits were rolling. Even though I haven’t seen all of the films in Machete Maidens Unleashed! I’m aware of them. Chalk this up to the fact that these were made mostly for American audiences, but it would be nice to be introduced to more little known pictures. It would have also been cool to do a feature on one of the local actors who graced the screen in many of these films, Vic Diaz. You can see his work in many films shown in this doc, like Black Mama, White Mama and The Big Bird Cage, but according to Hartley they couldn’t find interview footage from the man or anything other than film clips so it didn’t make sense to add it to the final product.
Still, this is a highly entertaining film documentary with great stories from behind-the-scenes and the shenanigans pulled around the country’s government. I didn’t even mention the horrible accidents with the “expendable” stunt men. Eek!
Once MMU! was finished, Alamo Drafthouse/Fantastic Fest founder Tim League brought out the man of the hour and his wife and longtime partner, Julie Corman. Film critic Elvis Mitchell (who will be on the new incarnation of Roger Ebert’s At the Movies beginning in January) was on hand to present the Cormans with their lifetime achievement award. As with everything Fantastic Fest does, the award was taken to the next level. No plaques, trophies, or any other standard symbol of recognition at this presentation; no, this award is a huge freaking sword! Elvis said many nice things about the honored couple and then handed over the award/instrument of death on bended knee. Roger’s first comment was wondering how the TSA will feel about taking this on the plane.
There were plenty of nice things said about Roger and Julie during the course of their evening and the Q&A, along with some expected gushing. Who could blame them? It is the Roger Corman after all. Hopefully this will wind-up online at some point because I was too busy being starstruck by the director/producer extraordinaire that I only retained about half of what was said.
The second half of the double feature was a bit of an odd choice for this festival. Not sure if this was a stipulation in order to get Corman out to Texas or what, but the evening concluded with a screening of his newest production, Sharktopus. This was set to air on the SyFy Channel the next night, but we were treated to a special debut of the ocean’s newest predator.
If you are reading this right now that means you are aware of the internet, and if you have been on the internet in the past six months or so then there is probably no way you could have missed the news of Sharktopus. I’ll give a quick recount of what this movie is actually about anyway, though it’s probably not necessary.
In Mexico, an American team of marine biologists have been working on secret advancements for the Navy. The star of the show is S-11, an octopus/shark hybrid that is controlled via remote control. While out for a test drive the mechanism is damaged and knocked off the creature, and it begins to destroy and kill all in its path. The father and daughter team – of which Eric Roberts is the father – behind S-11 set out to find the beast, but must enlist the help of ex-employee Andy Flynn to help hunt down their creation alive before anyone finds out or dies.
This is a hard film to try and critique since it’s just zany for zany’s sake and pretty much supposed to be bad. I’m a fan of this type of film from time to time, especially when it comes to the killer animals on SyFy. Who doesn’t have a soft spot for shark movies? From the moment I heard about this I was sold. Guess we just have to see how well this stacks up on the so-bad-it’s-good scale.
There is bad acting from most of the actors, silly CG FX, bad dialog, and ridiculous scenarios – on paper it should be worth some laughs. There is much fun to be had with this, of course copious amounts of alcohol and a raucous group of friends will help tremendously. There are plenty of bikini-clad women to whet your appetite and even a hilarious cameo by Corman himself who is ogling one of said girls. Classic!
Let’s get to the star of the film and her (guessing here, I don’t think they ever identify S-11’s sex) exploits. She can leap from the water and snatch bungee jumpers out of mid-air, demolish a boat in mere seconds, and even walk on land with the octopus half’s tentacles! For a CG creature who looks like a shiny plastic toy, this beast gets into a lot of trouble. Because of the toy-like nature of S-11’s appearance I, along with the rest of the audience, chuckled pretty much every time she was onscreen.
But my favorite moment of the film did not involve the titular character at all. It was in the first two minutes. Two bikini beach babes are lying in the sun and one wants to go in the water but her friend protests to swimming in the ocean because, “there’s fish in there.” Not only is the line incredibly cheesy, but it is delivered with such downbeat, monotone unenthusiasm that it caused quite a roar from the crowd.
One of the reasons I was sold on catching this at the fest is because it would be a good crowd of like-minded people wanting to have some laughs. Unfortunately that really wasn’t the case. People had a good time and enjoyed the ride at the time, but it is probably better suited for in-home viewing instead of a crowd of 200 plus. Tread these waters with extreme caution.
When the night was finished it really ended on a lesser note. Still, there was a ton of fun had and anytime you can see the one and only Roger Corman in person that can’t be all that bad.
