Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Invert Horror!

So I just finished writing the cicada photo posting, with the closing comment about the old B horror movies, when I check the RSS feeds and see a new posting at Snails Eye View. A news item from Stuttgart Germany about snails taking out Beemers and and Porches on the Autobahn... "like something from a horror film."

I thought first of an award winning animated film Les Escargots (Loving animation, why not?) In which giant snails drive people out of a French village.

Then I remembered an old late night 1950's B-horror with a snail, but I couldn't remember the name. Two minute on Amazon and IMDB grabbed a pair of the old movies I had seen so many years ago (someone actually took the trouble to put them on DVD too!) The one I remembered was The Monster That Challenged The World. And what do you know... the original trailer and one of the scenes are available on YouTube too.

The other one I vaguely remembered was Attack of the Giant Leeches, another classic invert B-Horror flick. With not only the trailer but the whole movie available online. I love that these leeches have suckers like a cephalopod... Hirundia + Cephalopoda = badass monster?

Kevin quickly volunteered the 1988 movie "Slugs" by Juan Piquer Simón, the same man who subjected...er, that is, brought us to Pod People. Kevin's link was all the best scenes of the movie in 3½ minutes - the best way to watch carnivorous molluscs devour western society.

Of course all these movies may be corny (the 50's stuff) or even over the top gory (Simón's) by our standards today, but does it (or did it) help cause irrational invert fear in some people?

I would bet most of us know people who "Eeeewww" when we tell them we like/study/eat inverts... or worse some that get totally irrational about even lady bugs.

So what's your take? Or what's your favorite old late-late-night invert horror movie?
Are there any invert hero movies?
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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 11, 2008 at 5:45 AM

    The Fly, 1958. Help meeeeee.

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  2. Kevin ZelnioJune 11, 2008 at 9:22 AM

    There is an Antman movie coming out! Yay Dr. Pym!

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  3. SnailJune 11, 2008 at 4:46 PM

    Bravo! That was a wonderful serving of schlock. I hadn't been exposed to any of them of before.

    The Monster That Challenged The World doesn't look very molluscy even though it came out from under a shell. Maybe it's a caddis fly larva?

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  4. AnonymousJune 12, 2008 at 5:18 PM

    My favorite insect-horror film is the granddaddy of them all, the classic "THEM!"

    But an insect-hero movie? Well, it's also a horror movie, but one great unsung pro-insect feature is Dario Argento's "Phenomena" (aka "Creepers"), in which a young girl finds out she can communicate with insects, and they help her track down a serial killer. My favorite scene has her smiling and saying "i love you!" to a huge swarm of flies....!

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  5. Eric HeupelJune 12, 2008 at 9:33 PM

    How could I have missed "Them!" thank you for catching that one.

    I'll have to get a copy of Phenomena at Netflix and check that out.

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  6. AnonymousJune 22, 2008 at 3:14 PM

    Well, I haven't seen it, but there's a film out soon in Japan: Kani Goalkeeper. I tlooks like a loveable man-sized crab saves the day for a bunch of kids playing soccer. Priceless! Here's the link to some trailers from Twitch Film: http://twitchfilm.net/archives/006009.html

    ReplyDelete

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