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FEATURED THREADS for 9-17-22

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 18, 2022 9:46 am    Post subject: FEATURED THREADS for 9-17-22 Reply with quote



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Today we start out with a movie which presents an unlikely premise; a hideous half-man, half-octopus. The lower half is the human part, allowing this wacky creature to stroll around his fully equipped, deluxe mobile home.


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I realize that this ultra-cheap production had limited resources, but if the story is about a mutated marine mollusk its shame their "octopus/man" couldn't have looked more like this.

Anyway, our other two Feature Threads are The Omega Man (1971) (sometimes mistaken for a sequel to The Alpha Man), and Phase IV (1974) (sometimes mistaken for a sequel to Phase III).

Perhaps some of our ingenious members can concoct plausible stories for those two imaginary prequels. Surely I'm not the only one who enjoys doing that! Razz

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Octaman (1971)

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Despite its superficial resemblance to a revival of the great 1950s sci-fi monster movies, this US-Mexican film is a major disappointment to everyone in general.

Still, the component parts are impressive. Makeup ace Rick Baker designed the costume, and even though the suit is packed with detailed features, the over-all effect is silly, especially when the man in it flaps the tentacles around.

Two of the film's stars are Kerwin Mathews ("The 7th Voyage of Sinbad") and Jeff Morrow ("This Island Earth").

The director is Harry Essex, who wrote the script for "The Creature from the Black Lagoon — but he doesn't impress anyone with his directing abilities here. According to the story, the monster is supposed to have been created by contaminated water, but the concept isn't very well presented.

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The Omega Man (1971)



Enjoyable remake of Vincent Price's 1969 The Last Man on Earth, both of which were based on Richard Matheson's I Am Legend.

The Omega Man casts Charlton Heston as a tough, determined man trying to survive in a post-holocaust world populated only by himself and the few people who survived a plague caused by biological ware fare. Most of the survivors have been transformed into nocturnal zombie-faced zealots who all share one mad obsession: the destruction of books, machinery, and everything else connected with the pre-war world.

They also want to destroy Heston, and he wages an on-going war with them as he explores the near-deserted city in which he maintains his fortified townhouse residence, scavenging for supplies and tracking down the nocturnal plague-victims' hiding places while they are helpless during the daylight hours.



Eventually he discovers a group of normal, non-zombie survivors, and together they work to develop a cure for the plague.





Heston's character isn't just an efficient survival machine, killing anything that threatens him. Instead, he's a sensitive, intelligent man who demonstrates great imagination when it comes to battling his own loneliness.

In one scene he is shown watching "Woodstock", just for the crowd scenes. In his residence, he sets up TV cameras and monitors to literally keep himself company. He plays chess with a bust of Napoleon.



This, perhaps, is the most interesting aspect of the film; an incredibly competent and admirable man, maintaining both his dignity and his sanity under savage conditions. "The Omega Man" is a lean and well-constructed drama, skillfully directed by Boris Sagal, from a script by John William and Joyce H. Corrington.

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Phase IV (1974)



Highly enjoyable and intelligent sci-fi thriller about a research facility in Arizona which is attacked by super-intelligent, normal-sized ants. Pollution and a damaged ecology are blamed for creating the altered ants (not radiation -- a sign of the changing times).

Not only can the ants gobble up animals and humans, they can hypnotize with telepathy. They swarm over their victims and coat them with a yellowish mucus. The ants attack computers and other machinery by chewing the wires. (Yes, there are "bugs in the system"! Very Happy )

The ending is unexpectedly strange and surrealistic, and Paramount did some last-minute editing which (as usual) didn't help a bit.

Production design by John Barry ("Star Wars"). Directed by Saul Bass, famous as a title-work designer. Screenplay by Mayo Simon.

Starring Nigel Davenport and Lynne Frederick (both of who appeared in "No Blade of Grass" in 1970), Michael Murphy, Alan Gifford, Helen Horton, Robert Henderson.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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