PANTHER GIRL OF THE KONGO

A 1955 Republic Pictures cliffhanger serial

Directed by Franklin Adreon

Starring Phyllis Coates in the title role, vs. an all-star cast of GIANT KILLER CRAWDADS!

PLOT SUMMARY: A nature photographer named Jean Evans is out lensing one day, in the company of her trusty African guides, when what strolls out in front of the camera! It’s an IMMENSE CRAWDAD, twice the length of a tall man, acting quite as if he OWNED THE JUNGLE. Jean keeps filming, only realizing when the CLAWED SPECTER OF TERROR is ALMOST UPON HER that her trusty guides have already CUT AND RUN. She takes off after them, whereupon the IMMENSE CRAWDAD proves itself to be a RUTHLESS KILLER by, slowly and tentatively, turning over the camera tripod, then slowly walking away.

The chase is on. Jean is hot on the trail of the GIANT KILLER CRUSTACEANS with the help of a local bwana, Larry Sanders, trying to figure out how this can be happening while investigating the strange behavior of two good-for-nothing lowlifes from the next village over. All these people, except the native guides, are white Americans, by the way. It turns out that the two suspicious guys are working for the local Mad Scientist, and we learn almost immediately that the scientist is the one who’s been enlarging the local wildlife by feeding them special hormones. Why? To chase away the ignorant, superstitious locals from their SPECIAL FIND: a played-out goldmine that proves to be full of diamonds. The idea is for the three evildoers to dig out all the diamonds they can carry and go back to civilization to be rich guys.

Because this is a cliffhanger serial, the story is chopped into twelve pieces, most of them less than 15 minutes long. And we get to ask, with each installment: WILL ANYONE SURVIVE?

CLIFFIE’S NOTES ON THIS COMPULSIVELY-WATCHABLE INSTANT,YET FORGOTTEN CLASSIC OF KILLER CRAWDAD GOODNESS:

>> "Jean" Evans? I think they meant to call her "Dale." This story may be set in Africa, but this serial is, unmistakably, a Western. Dale Jean goes out to work each day in a flirty little buckskin mini-dress, with a tiny little skort at the bottom and snappy lapels at the top, edged with giant blanket-stitching that appears to have been done with leather thongs. Cuffed go-go boots and a leopardskin gunbelt, cunningly disposed to show off her corseted waist, complete the outfit. Man, I hope that corset isn’t made of leather like the rest of the ensemble. It could become really painful after she gets it wet.

>> Doesn’t sound very Western to you? Then consider the two thugs: they wear low-slung gunbelts, workshirts, dungarees, and sturdy boots. They have the requisite matchsticks protruding from the corners of their mouths, scatterguns slung casually over their elbows, six-guns on each flank, and they didn’t forget the cowboy hats. The male lead, Larry Sanders, tries to look more bwana than buckaroo, with a safari shirt open at the neck and a white Panama hat, but it doesn’t quite work. He looks merely out of place in this utterly Western picture. So do the elephants and lions.

>> So, for that matter, does the Mad Scientist, a very elegant Forties noir villain with the slicked-back hair and the tweed sack suit. Yes, he has the sort of spectacles worn by all intellectuals of that era, in accordance with international law. And, yes, he has the ritzy pseudo-English accent. Life is strange, isn’t it? One day you’re doing pure research in a chemistry lab in Boston; the next you’re enlarging Crawdads in darkest Africa.

>> Dale Jean gamely does all the good Tarzanish tricks she can to try to make this back into a jungle picture. She swings from vines, rides an elephant, braves quicksand, and swan-dives into a river from an immense height, with a knife in her teeth, to kill a giant rubber crocodile and save Larry’s life. But the cowboys show up and start shooting, and there’s no fighting it: we’re back in a Western again. Before we know it she’s in a mineshaft, ducking the lit sticks of dynamite the cowboys are throwing at her, firing a pistol 18 times before the bullets run out and never hitting anything.

>> Even the friendly natives look more like refugees from a picture about the old South, in their tattered slave outfits. One of them found a skipper’s hat somewhere and looks for all the world like the forgotten Black cast member of Gilligan’s Island. Only the tribal chief, a James Earl Jones prototype with a booming voice, wears African regalia. They manage to make even this guy look like some kind of weird renegade Plains Indian, by giving him a great big headband stuck full of great big feathers, and having him stride around with his arms folded across his chest.

>> The evil natives are a different story. They look very African indeed, with warpaint, leopardskin miniskirts with daring "car wash" hemlines, and extraordinary marabou headgear that strongly resembles Sam Jackson’s "Mr. Glass" hair from Unbreakable. These are typical evil natives – chicken-hearted toadies who speak pidgin English and do anything they’re asked in exchange for the Mad Scientist’s habit-forming "jungle juice."

>> All this talk of trails, canyons and the like is very un-jungle-picturish, too. Someone even said the word "posse." Come on, people, THINK.

>> The story is full of surprising elements: a barking Lion; a tame Elephant named after the host of This Old House (Jean calls her out of the jungle by hollering "VIIIIIIIIIILA!"), who on closer examination proves to be an Indian Elephant, not an African one; a girl nature photographer who is tougher than her big, brawny male protector; a bad guy raising the shade so that his partners can easily hear the drum signal he’s sending out; and most importantly, those GIANT KILLER CRAWDADS.

>> Let’s take a closer look at the stars of this serial. The evil chemist explains dismissively that the Crayfish only live a few days after being embiggened, and that may well be true in their puny scientific lab, but little can they suspect the natural rebellious streak in GIANT KILLER CRUSTACEANS that will make them survive JUST TO SPITE YOU. At one point, the cowboys tell the scientist that the latest Killer Crayfish must be dead, because they found pieces of shell on the trail. It occurs to NOBODY that, like the Crabs in Island Claws, the Crawdads may simply have MOLTED and GOTTEN BIGGER in order to DESTROY YOU ALL. Sorry, was I yelling?

>> You have to like the nonchalant way the Crawdads stroll through each installment, totally unconcerned by the frenzied antics of the Shaved Monkeys. Said monkeys try to herd them around the jungle with sticks, then pepper them with bullets, run away screaming, throw rocks, whatever. THE CRAWDADS DON'T BAT AN EYESTALK. That's 100% right and proper, ladies. I like the careless display of RAW POWER when one of the stars crashes through the log crate she’s being kept in. I like the casual way another picks Jean up off the ground like the PUNY HUMAN she is. As someone who dines at least monthly with Giant Killer Crawdads, I know they got THIS part right, at least.

There are so many things to like about this story.

BUY IT. TAKE IT HOME. WATCH IT. REPEATEDLY.

One more thing...See that whiskery, tentacled monster on the poster above? Upper left?

It doesn't appear anywhere in the story.

DEEP BLUE SEA

We'll get to the movie review in a second. First, here is an info sheet for you to print and distribute.

Today’s topic: How To Keep Your Hermit Crabs Alive Some More

ABOUT FOOD

>> Crabs are scavengers who eat any gross dead thing that washes up on a beach, as long as it is still fresh. Keep this in mind when you shop. They love fish, fresh or dried coconut, driftwood and cork bark, the crab pellets sold in the stores, all kinds of fruit, mild-flavored greens and vegetables, crackers, fish-food flakes, and the pellets intended for ducks, ferrets, rats, carp, guinea pigs, monkeys and rabbits.

>> For the reason stated above, you cannot give crabs the same food day after day. They will stop eating it completely. They will also not be able to face the same food again, even their favorite, if you let it go rotten in the tank and then try to replace it with fresh.

>> NEVER FEED BREAD TO YOUR CRABS, or anything else baked with yeast. It kills them rather slowly and horribly. Unyeasted breads like crackers, matzoh, hardtack, and cornbread are fine.

>> Crabs love kelp, and you can buy it in tablet form at the health-food store. Take some yourself, Fish Girl, it’s good for you.

>> Crabs ALWAYS need a mineral chewy available. They love cuttle bones and the calcium blocks intended for turtle tanks. These are pinchably delicious to a crab. They also badly need the calcium.

>> Alternate meat, fruit, grains and vegetables when you serve dinner to your crabs. Four-course meals rarely wash up on a beach, and you want to approximate the beach lifestyle as closely as possible. Their natural tendency is to find a big chunk of something, eat it until they can’t stand the sight of it, then move on to a big chunk of something else.

>> Reptile vitamins are good for crabs. Sprinkle some on their dampened food every so often, but not every day. The stuff is powerful and not all of them like the taste. Once a month is plenty.

>> Crabs refusing to eat are miserable indeed. Check to make sure the tank is clean, warm, humid, and properly lit. Make sure the food is fresh and not the same thing they’ve had daily for a week. Make sure the tank smells fresh and that there are no dead crabs in there. Bad smells kill a crab’s appetite, the same way they kill yours.

CLIFFIE’S NOTES ON Deep Blue Sea

I put off reviewing this movie for a long time because of the horrible reviews it’s gotten over the years. Imagine my surprise when I finally saw it and realized it is actually A HILARIOUS SPOOF ON THE CURRENT HUMAN-FISH POLITICAL SITUATION, full of inversions and sly jabs at the "ruling class" (supposedly humans, at least if you ask THEM) that Oscar Wilde would have been proud of.

PLOT SUMMARY: Humans trying to find a cure for their own degenerative brain diseases decide to Tamper In Dagon’s Domain by creating a group of mutant sharks. In the usual course of things, the sharks turn on their tormentors in a wonderfully diabolical way, sabotaging the underwater facility that is the setting for the story and systematically flooding it, section by section, so they can swim right in and put the munch on the researchers. Through a combination of luck and pluck, and in spite of my rooting consistently for the sharks, a handful of humans survive.

A character sums up the story nicely in the midst of the crisis: "Now, you see how that works? She’s scroon with the sharks, and now the sharks are scroon with us!" Well, yeah, what did you expect? Did you expect us to give you money? The unfolding of this plot encompasses some fine moments shamelessly stolen from Jaws, The Poseidon Adventure, and, oddly enough, Vertical Limit. The result makes for a two swell hours of entertainment, with alternating moments of super-high tension, great knock-you-out-of-the-water surprises, and of course lots of the explosions, wisecracking commentary, and terrified females in foundation garments that are so beloved of the hairy bipeds.

I’m telling you – if this were a true story the humans would be OURS by now. The Notes below should help illustrate the way the Monkey People could one day, in a perfect world, PLAY RIGHT INTO OUR FINS:

To hand the land back to the fish in just a few easy steps, Dear Humans...

START HERE: take some Mako sharks, known for their high-speed swimming and willingness to eat Naked Apes. Enhance their brain size dramatically, particularly focusing on the forebrain which governs reasoning and will. While you’re at it, feed them Miracle-Gro pellets so they get as big as school buses. Do all this in an invasive, humiliating way that leaves them COMPLETELY PISSED OFF AT THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE.

NEXT: Ignore any evidence you see that the Sharks are starting to plan, anticipate their captors’ next moves, and hunt cooperatively.

TAKE CARE to let the enhanced sharks watch through a handy observation window as you insert immense, harpoonlike needles into the heads of test sharks, so they understand perfectly that they are going to be next if they don’t make a move, and quickly.

DON’T FORGET TO include in your researches a plan to remove the enhanced brain cells from the sharks and insert them into the noggins of human medical test subjects, THUS MAKING THEM PART SHARK. The only sad part of the movie for me was the fact that you never got to see this happen. The fun we could have had!

PROCEED THUSLY: When the sharks start doing things like swimming backwards, playing pranks with helicopters, pounding through steel doors to get at you, and feigning death so they can snap pieces off you during medical tests, tell yourself that EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL.

NEXT: When the mutant sharks start sabotaging your test facility, DON’T KILL THEM. Instead, stand around arguing about the ethics of gene therapy.

PROCEED AS FOLLOWS: Wait until the damage is done without intervening. Do not make any attempt to check around the damaged facility to search for survivors. Let other members of your species fend for themselves.

TIP: If you are accosted by a mutant shark on the open sea in a small boat, your best move is to jump into the water and flail around like mad. At this point, you can trust that the preternaturally hunky hero guy, a shark wrangler with a chequered past, will arrive out of nowhere and dispatch the menace. With a crossbow. Isn’t that how it’s usually done?

TIP: If you are accosted by a mutant shark in a sunken research lab, make sure you are standing in chest-deep water when you reach for the submerged, but still functioning, electrical gadget that you will then use to dispatch the menace. If you are female, remove your wetsuit before proceeding.

TIP: If you have an axe with you, use it to chop through the bulkhead, escape the room, and allow the shark to chase you longer, rather than ending the suspense by burying the business end in the shark’s skull.

HELPFUL HINT: When you are trapped in a teeth-chatteringly-cold, shark-infested, watery hell and all you have left are wisecracks, wield them ruthlessly and without scruple. The sharks will be SOOOOOOO impressed.

SUGGESTION: At the height of the danger, stomp around the edge of the pool in the lab where the sharks have been going through hell for months. Deliver, AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS, an impromptu speech on the importance good morale in the face of desperate situations. Be sure to give the sharks their rebuttal time.

I laughed so hard at this movie! I can’t recommend it too highly.

And get a load of the closing theme song for this remarkable movie! This is delivered from the apparent POV of a happy "half man, half shark" operative, recruiting new contacts in the briny. Rapped by LL Cool J. I cannot reveal on the Internet whether or not he is One Of Us, but see the movie, read the text of this rap and draw your own conclusions.

"Deepest, Bluest" (Shark's Fin)

Deepest, bluest – my hat is like a shark’s fin
Manmade terror
Hungry jaws of death
Y'all don't cross my depths
I'll pause your breaths
I cause you to sink down forty thousand leagues
Bleeding to death with no arms and short sleeves
My world's deep blue
Killers gotta eat too
Looking for human flesh to rip my teeth through
Other fish in the sea but
Barracudas ain't equal
To a half human predator created by a needle
Jet black eyes baby they stare while you sleep
When your Titanic sinks I'm the one you gon' meet
Hearing terrified screams they surround my team
All you see is trails of blood
Even God won't intervene
Nightmares of darkness
My appetite is heartless
Even if we related, you eliminated regardless
In the deep blue, underwater walls
Half man, half shark
My jaws don't fall
Our Father who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Killers sworn to beast
Swallowed them in flames
They switched my DNA
Trip me into Cool J
I can't fight the feeling
I'm born to kill prey
To survive an attack
There's only one way
Battle to the death
That's how sharks play
Weapons left behind
We dueling with the mind
You blind, crippled, or crazy
You're real easy to find
Struggling to flow with hemorrhages in your throat
Getting the lap dance while I smash through your boat
Eat your whole fam
Nothing left but a right hand
Clinging to a rail
Escape, attempts fail
You'll never make it home
Tear the flesh off your bone
Walking in undercurrents is a dangerous zone
I'm talking death out a moment's notice
You wasn't focused
Me and my crew strike
Like some underwater locusts

Uh, uh take it deeper
Uh, uh take it deeper
Uh, uh take it deeper
Uh, uh take it deeper

These waters are waist level
The hallway's flooded
Lost your scuba gear
The killer's cold - blooded
His name's LL
You don't really want it
I ate your ancestors
The ocean is haunted
I'm closing in cause I'm supposed to win
How the cold steel feel when it froze your chin
Should of stayed on dry land
Stroke while you can
Cause now you under pressure in the land of the damned
Abandoned pirate ships
Eels and sod scum
Fish that glow in the dark
The Titanic's hub
Underwater storms
Your blood is so warm
You're life vest is off
And that turns me onKiller for centuries
The Gotti of the deep
In the next millennium
I'm still gonna creep
Sand under my belly, ocean over my head
Through the light in the shadows
You become the living dead

Copyright 1999, LL Cool J

Can I just add a thought here? Human imagery ALWAYS connects Sharks with being dead. Load of crap if you ask me. Once your transformation to Piscatorial Consciousness reaches a certain level, you’ll know that Sharks are all about CLEARING THINGS UP. Which is the reason Naked Apes have made every effort to exterminate every species. The sad thing is that they truly can’t tell the difference between CLEARING THINGS UP and BEING ANNIHILATED. LL Cool J appears to see the shade of difference here, in these last couple of lines – "you become the LIVING dead." Nobody dies under the ocean – they only get EATEN and enter a different level of consciousness.

ISLAND CLAWS

FEELING CRABBY!

CLIFFIE’S NOTES ON ISLAND CLAWS

This fine cinematic achievement was created for the small screen in 1980. Directed by Hernan Cardenas, it stars Robert Lansing, Barry Nelson and a cast of KILLER CRABS!

Well, I thought I'd laughed before in my life, but I was wrong. THIS IS SIMPLY THE FUNNIEST MOVIE EVER MADE. Incidentally, it’s also a fine, incisive portrait of what we, the Fish People, are up against in promoting our glorious Cause.

Let’s do the quick plot summary first. Perky Blonde Reporter with great cheekbones, the daughter of a guy who runs the local nuclear power plant, makes a trip to a nearby fisheries-research lab to do a photo essay on the crab team's attempts to alleviate world hunger. She quickly falls in love with the Hero who is a blonde with great cheekbones. He is working on developing bigger and better crabs with a team of blonde scientists who have great cheekbones.

Meanwhile, back at the nuclear-power plant, there's a massive spill of contaminated water that runs off into the ocean. You guessed it: the local crabs begin to behave strangely, travelling in large packs at times and to places they wouldn't normally. The Perky Blonde comes across a molted exoskeleton that came off a crab the size of a Ford Festiva. Eventually the big crab (now the size of a bank building) shows herself. There’s a shootout, and the heroes prevail.

None of this has anything to do with why the movie is so funny.

>> This film gives me the impression that it was originally 18 hours long, but had to be cut down to its current 91-minute length to make room for the commercials. As a result, the dialogue in this movie sounds as if it were shredded by an army of -- KILLER CRABS! People just sort of blurt out random sentences that have nothing to do with what anyone else is saying. They also smile in all the wrong places. Strangest of all: this is not, in fact, a film-editing problem; in even the most surreal scenes, the camera is pretty well stationary with no visible cuts. Here’s my favorite conversational exchange:

PERKY BLONDE: When can we see our friend, doctor?
DOCTOR: Well, she came to briefly, but she was incoherent. What she said didn't make any sense at all.

>> Sometimes individual lines appear to have been run through a woodchipper. My favorite is spoken by Barry Nelson as they piece together the exoskeleton of the first giant crab they’ve ever seen or heard about. "It may be another crab of the same species that we've never seen before." Hunh?

>> The characters are weirdly assorted. Much of the story takes place in a bar called The Half Shell. In this down-at-the-heel setting, clean-cut blonde preppies, blue-collar roughnecks, hippies, bikers, and an assortment of guys who look like they are trying out to play Captain Quint can be seen drinking, joking and racing hermit crabs together like best buddies. This violates a cardinal rule of ‘70s filmmaking, namely that people of differing social classes and lifestyles must always be dire enemies, usually squaring off in a picket line or protest march of some kind in the course of the movie. This assortment is being serenaded by a guy who looks as if he wandered off the set of a Western being filmed on the next lot, using a player piano and a banjo to give us a rousing -- OK, not rousing -- rendition of "Oh, Suzannah." Presiding over this unsettling scene is a cartoon Irish drunk whose brogue fades in and out like a distant radio signal. We learn that the drunk raised the utterly preppy Hero from infancy, and was once best buddies with the rich guy who runs the reactor plant. Um, OK. Whatever you say.

>> We learn that the Hero and the Perky Blonde were Brought Together By Fate, because her dad killed both his parents years before in a drunk-driving accident. This potentially major plot point goes nowhere, even after the Hero finds out the truth. He is supposedly enraged about it, but he simply never mentions it to the Perky Blonde. And we never even find out if they hook up at the end. They just drop the ball completely.

>> There is no evidence that anyone in the movie has an IQ above about 53. When a blonde scientist with great bone structure is mauled in the woods, the good townspeople immediately conclude that she was attacked by Haitian boat people and get together a posse to hunt them down. They discuss with straight faces the likelihood that the girl's arm was ripped off by voodoo.

>> There are, in fact, some Haitian boat people in this movie. Everyone else in the story is being “attacked” in the safety of their homes by packs of dozy, apathetic, somnolent crabs that appear to have wandered in looking only for a place to curl up for a nap. Meanwhile, the boat people are sleeping rough in the woods by the beach without getting so much as a nip from the chelicerated menace. Let me add that the Haitians' voices are overdubbed in French, with flawless Nebraska grammar-school accents.

>> There's also a scene at the height of the crisis when the heroes stop on the causeway, having found an abandoned car, a boat moored to the causeway pilings and the boat's owner draped over the railing. Do they call an ambulance? Do they even check to see if the guy is alive? No, they pile into the boat and leave. Nice.

>> Just about every crab-related injury is caused by human panic. The Perky Blonde, riding along a trail in the woods, runs into and over a pack of crabs in her path and falls off her bike. She gets up, walks away from the scene without any suggestion that the crabs are coming after her – as well they might after she ran them over! -- then calls the hero in a panic to ask him to come get her, seeing as she's just been attacked by ferocious monsters. She gets a scratch on the arm; the crabs lose half a dozen comrades under the wheels of her Schwinn. Nevertheless, the conclusion drawn is that the crabs are a terrible menace.

>> Likewise, the giant crab later tears a house to the ground. There are people inside at the time, but nobody gets a scratch. Unless the guy’s homeowner’s insurance has lapsed, where’s the problem?

>> In a scene intended to terrify the decapodaphobiac, crabs advance on a converted school bus lived in by one of the characters. They are quite civil about this; you even see one of them knock politely on the door of the bus. As soon as the crabs realize the owner is unfriendly, they leave calmly and in an orderly fashion. He freaks out anyway, whacks at them ineffectually until he knocks over his oil lamp or candle or whatever it was, and burns himself to a crisp, the dork.

>> Can someone explain how EVERYONE in this movie manages to miss seeing the friendly attitude of every crab they encounter? Even the giant one does a minimum of damage. She’s amazingly tolerant of the Naked Apes harassing and assaulting her, and she even has the presence of mind to play dead when the Hero hacks off one of her eyestalks – and that probably didn’t tickle, either. Check out the scene when a guy gets picked up in one of her tremendous claws, and he screams in agony and squirts blood out of his mouth as if all his innards had been crushed. Well, all I can say is that it must have been psychosomatic, because she ISN’T EVEN SQUEEZING. He’s just draped over her thumb. She didn’t even put a crease in his shirt.

>> Can someone explain to me why, after all the fuss made about getting the crab darts at risk of life and limb, and making sure the gun is aimed at the soft part of the crab's thumb joint, does the hero give up on using it? The crab isn’t even kicking up a fuss. She’s just standing there quietly in front of the bar. He could have shot her a dozen times.

>> Can someone PLEASE explain the way he finally dispatches the giant crab by hacking off a single eyestalk with a pointed stick? Would that kill any crab you ever heard of? Would a fisheries research scientist working on a crab project REALLY not know any better than this?

>> Can someone explain how a guy with a history of drunk driving and negligent homicide even gets put in charge of a nuclear power plant? Oh, wait, I forgot; in ‘70s terms that would make him perfect for the job. That would even help explain the radiation spill. Never mind.

>> Can someone explain to me how the science team’s goal of developing bigger, meatier crabs is going to alleviate hunger for anyone but the rich folk crowding into the seafood restaurants along the Eastern seaboard?

>> Can someone explain to me how a fisheries research lab happens to have a tranquilizer gun and a supply of experimental crab darts on hand?

>> Can someone explain to me why the best acting in the whole movie is done by "Trouble" the dog, who has a great death scene, limping pathetically onto the beach with ketchup poured all over him after an apparent off-camera tangle with the giant crab? Indeed, why is “Trouble” almost the only character to come to grief? I notice that his owner is the guy whose house is pulled down by the crab, and that a little girl who pets him experiences crab difficulties as well. Is “Trouble” the Tippi Hedren of the crustaceans, or what?

>> Can anyone explain how this movie came out so lousy when one of the writers on the script was none other than Ricou Browning, former Olympic swimming star and the guy who wore the Gill Man suit in the underwater scenes of The Creature From The Black Lagoon? How could the result be anything less than expert, nay, dazzling in its brilliance?

>> Can someone explain why this terrible movie, of all the lousy killer crab movies ever made, has absolutely the most stunning creature effect I've ever seen? Yes, I'm including Ray Harryhausen's giant crab from Mysterious Island, because Ray just hollowed out a regular crab and ran wires thru. This baby was clearly a carefully-constructed 15’ tall working model. She’s huge. Graceful. Detailed. NICE paintjob. Anatomically correct, except for the disconcerting way she stuck her tongue out at the camera in that one shot. Even though they made her roar like a lion, she was CONVINCING. The entire budget must have gone into the crab. Not that I'm complaining. I LOVE IT. But crabs everywhere must be mortified to be associated with this film.

Honestly, ladies, the very ineptitude of this movie is a MESSAGE OF HOPE FOR US ALL. How can we fail in our world-takeover scheme when the enemy is this damn dumb? OK, not all of them are this bad, but according to the best intelligence available to me, the North American Cabal Leader (Women’s Division), the dumb ones vastly outnumber the smart ones. A viewing of this film should help clarify the situation if you are unsure.

Of course, this movie also underlines the need for great caution in working with new contacts among the landscum. Some of them do come unglued, no matter how well you follow the excellent example set by the friendly crabs in this film, and next thing you know someone’s hacking off your eyestalk with a pointed stick.

One thing I especially liked about this movie: unrealistic and laughable as it is in many places, there is nothing fictional about one aspect of the story. The landscum always forget that where there is one giant crab, THERE ARE A BUNCH MORE WAITING TO COME ASHORE.

HAMMERHEAD: SHARK FRENZY

Sharkboy Goes A-Courtin’

CLIFFIE’S NOTES ON Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy

PLOT SUMMARY: This recent presentation of the SciFi Channel takes the past master of the Mad Scientist role, Jeffrey Combs, and launches him into the world of Piscatorial Love -- not as a participant, but as a matchmaker.

Yes! This made-for-TV movie is essentially The Amphibian Man, brought into the new millennium with breakthroughs in stem-cell research and recombinant DNA. The scientist has saved his only son from a deadly disease by injecting him with Hammerhead Shark juice. That was the easy part. They now face the tougher question of how he’s ever going to get the kid a date, now that young Paul has developed a social problem: biting chunks out of his new romantic prospects. Aside from that, the kid’s looks have deteriorated somewhat, at least by Monkey People standards.

The scientist solves this niggling little difficulty by holding women prisoner, and shooting them up with some kind of compound to make them romantically attractive to the lad. It apparently also allows them to carry a part-Shark infant to term, which is the scientist’s next understandable goal. What father doesn’t want to see his only son produce some grandchildren? The science team is still working on perfecting this process when a party of visitors arrives. The group includes Paul’s ex-fiancee, who thinks Paul is long dead of kidney cancer, and her boss, the owner of a big corporation who once stole the scientist’s work. Is this going to screw things up for Paul and his dad? WATCH THE MOVIE AND SEE.

A FEW POINTS THAT MAKE THIS MOVIE COMPELLINGLY REALISTIC:

It’s easy to believe that a research scientist, robbed of the profits of his earlier work, can continue his studies on a secret, uncharted island equipped with a pricey-looking lab, a private army bristling with weapons, fleets of speedboats and helicopters, dancing girls in grass skirts, and of course a fully-stocked wet bar where you can get those drinks with the little umbrellas in them. Most research scientists have that kind of money buried in Mason jars in their back yards.

It’s easy to believe that a guy who never leaves his lab, and who habitually dresses in 3-piece tweed suits, prefers to keep the house and grounds in a perpetual state of "luau." Just in case the industrial magnate who stole his money drops by. Combs’ character proves that preparation is everything: the very thief shows up and Combs gets another crack at him.

It’s easy to believe that a scientist specializing in DNA splicing can easily obtain a pool of captive fashion models to experiment on, without arousing suspicion of any kind. Please note that he is supposed to be working somewhere in the Pacific, but all his test subjects appear to be corn-fed Midwestern gals.

It’s easy to believe that these fashion models are kept submissive by placing them in suspended animation tubes.

It’s easy to believe that when each Shark/landscum hybrid pregnancy fails, the science team just slings the stillborn into a plexiglass container without any kind of preservative – and it keeps perfectly! In the tropics!

I find it very easy to believe that when the scientist hacks open the midsection of a thrashing pregnant woman in restraints and then lets her bleed to death while he studies the malformed infant, that he can then turn around and explain with a straight face that she died of complications of his hormone treatments. I’m not being sarcastic about this one. They all think that way.

It’s very easy to believe that the villain was able to find and hire a discredited Eastern European scientist who was drummed out of her profession for Tampering In God’s Domain. It is especially easy to believe in her because she looks so much like Karen Black.

It’s quite easy to believe that the hero of the piece, a doughy, middle-aged IT professional, is effective at hand-to-hand combat and knows how to disable sophisticated security equipment using a hunting knife. Like all movie heroes, he is quite capable of accurately firing an automatic rifle -- underwater.

It’s a piece of cake to believe that an elderly conglomerate owner is capable of flying a military helicopter, but cannot handle a cellphone without breaking it.

Most compelling of all is the lab assistant, an Igor character who always walks doubled over as if he had just been kicked in the gut, and who sticks loyally to his job even after Sharkboy chomps off part of his hand one day. He just wraps it in gauze and soldiers on. All real lab assistants are like that. They never belong to trade unions or anything like that.

A FEW POINTS THAT MAKE THIS FILM JUST SLIGHTLY UNBELIEVABLE:

Can you believe that this scientist has shunted aside the typically human goal of curing cancer, deciding instead to adapt the human race to life under the sea? Come on, WHERE’S THE MONEY IN THAT? All that’s going to do is ruin real-estate values on dry land. And you wouldn’t be able to eat sushi without risking a personal-injury suit. Get real!

Can you believe that Sharkboy design? Have you ever seen anything so unseaworthy in your life? And, by the way, no wonder none of those gals want to go out with the guy. WE know how to make a Shark-human hybrid look GOOD. In fact, we know how to make them irresistable.

Can you believe that Sharkboy goes around biting people’s faces off throughout the movie, without even introducing himself or chatting them up first? What kind of recruiting technique is that?

Can you believe, for that matter, that once the fish DNA enters Paul’s bloodstream, he degenerates into a slavering monster with no desire to do anything but KILL, KILL, KILL? Well, that’s landscum technology for you. When WE turn a human into a Shark, they go all poetic and mystical. Some even get religion.

Can you believe for a second that Paul doesn’t recognize and approach his fiancee when he sees her again? And that SHE dismisses totally the idea that Sharkboy might still be, in some sense, the same Paul she knew? All she does is scream and run. I guess maybe they wouldn’t have worked out anyway, huh?

Can you believe that anyone, in or out of the movies, would seriously date a woman with hair like that? She looks like she fell in a Cuisinart, for Cod sake.

Can you believe in a landscum scientist SO sentimental that he performs an illegal experiment to save his son's life, yet SO objective that he can keep a row of his pickled, dead grandchildren on display in his office?

Can you simultaneously believe that the scientist is so UN-objective that he simply takes it on faith that deep inside, Sharkboy is still really his son? Weirdly, considering this assumption, he makes no attempt to communicate with the Hammerheaded lad, to see whether he has any cognition left, or is feeling OK about his life as a cancer-free but lonely Sea Monkey, or to see whether he would rather date blondes for a change! Surely getting feedback from the patient is SOP in medical research.

Last I checked, Hammerhead Sharks were ram ventilators, unable to breathe unless they are permanently swimming forward. But Paul allows himself to be kept immobile for indefinite periods in this gakky-looking bathtub full of stagnant green water. And how does he breathe when he’s charging around the island, killing the guests?

In the course of a two-hour movie, everyone keeps hollering "Watch out! There’s some water over there!" because they’re so afraid of what Paul might do. A shrewd titan of industry and his crack team of professionals never get the idea that the water is no more or less safe than dry land when you are dealing with an enraged Landshark.

AND THE BIG HONKIN’ CARP HELD ILLIMITABLE SWAY OVER ALL.

Let me explain what I mean. Along with the many other peculiarities of this underground scientific installation, the main lab is dominated by an enormous tank of Carp. These operatives observe all the goings-on in the sanctum sanctorum. And it goes without saying that during filming, they transmitted everything straight back to HQ.

All I’m going to say about THAT is that I can’t wait for the Sci-Fi Channel Totally Uncensored Bloopers Tape to come out.

…Back to my point. The filmmakers could afford to add a 200-gallon fishtank to a set meant to look like a science lab, but they couldn’t hire someone to keep track of the continuity? In the course of a single conversation the tank transforms magically from brimming with clear water to half-full of filthy murk…and back again…and then back AGAIN. It’s fantastic.

Overall, I see this film as a message of hope for us all. Even if they’re not very good at it, the humans apparently WANT to change into fish. SIT TIGHT, PEOPLE, WE’RE WAY AHEAD OF YOU.

PTERODACTYL WOMAN FROM BEVERLY HILLS

PISCATORIAL NOTES FROM THE WEST COAST!

OK, I imagine you're wondering why I would include a film like Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills in a newsletter dedicated to furthering the goals of the Fish Revolution. The fact is, this cinematic gem -- released in 1994, directed by Philippe Mora, starring Beverly D'Angelo and Brion James -- is a classic among Piscatorial Romances. Go figure.

The story is pretty basic for this genre. An archaeologist, Dick Chandler, cheeses off a desert shaman by digging for fossils where he oughtn't. The shaman retaliates by doing a quick chant to transform the scientist's wife into a Pterodactyl. "It's an on and off type of thing," the shaman notes to the disbelieving trowel monkeys. When the scientist scoffs and points out that he has a permit to dig here, the shaman demonstrates his powers a little more directly by transforming the assistant trowel monkey into a Skink. At this point the scientist keels over from heat exhaustion and dismisses everything that's happened, thinking it must have been a bad dream. Except the spell works and Chandler's wife, Pixie Chandler, starts behaving very strangely. Sure enough, she starts turning into a flying dinosaur overnight and on weekends. The chase is on to find a cure.

OK, but WHAT ABOUT THE FISH? Pixie's transformation changes more than her appearance -- she is suddenly and overwhelmingly CRAZY ABOUT FISH. During a bedtime conversation with her husband she catches herself absent-mindedly chasing the Goldfish around his bowl. When confronted with a tank of live fish in a supermarket, she makes a mess of the floor clawing one out by hand and snarfing it down alive in front of the other astounded customers (one of whom is Dame Edna). She then apologizes sweetly to the store manager and buys the whole tankful for later use. Her best friend is freaked out one night when she finds a live Lobster in the Chandlers' pool. Pixie handles the situation by scuttling off to the shrubbery with the startled Lobster and ripping into her shell with her hands and teeth.

Whatever the effects of the spell the shaman cast on her, Pixie is definitely UNDER OUR SPELL AS WELL. Don't be fooled by the rationalization that she has merely been turned into a piscivorous dinosaur! We learn at length that she is not the only person in the story able to turn into a Pterodactyl. Her counterpart reveals himself by cannonballing into the swimming pool in his dinosaur form, then turning instantly back into a human so he can tread water and make small talk with a woman standing at the poolside, freaked to the gills by what she has seen. At this moment the connection between the Aquatic Ape, the Piscivorous Dinosaur and the Primal Fish is clear as...as...as poolwater.

Although Pixie is unfortunately cured before we can see her really settle into the life of a Fish-eating Pterosaur, we have a message of hope for the future AND the past. Pixie and her husband and children retrieve a baby Pterosaur, the result of Pixie's unplanned pregnancy in the course of the film, from the government agents studying it. They release the baby into the care of the shaman, who appears to live in a sort of time warp out in the desert called Gondwanaland, populated by fabulous stop-motion dinosaurs. They return to their normal lives with everything back as it should be. So do the dinosaurs.

I think the message of this stirring film is clear as poolwater: Start today, go back 100 million years, and what do you have at both destinations? FISH LOVERS is what. I would recommend this film to anyone, either the new and untried potential recruit or the Piscatorial Operative with a love of our deep history. It's funny, well-made, and INCREDIBLY useful to us as a recruiting tool, considering it was obviously meant to be a light comedy with no whiff of political or historical meaning.