Two new films and a handful of weird oldies. We’ll open with “Grizzly Night,” a new dramatization of a true event. Also, we’ll take a look at the sci-fi “Merge” which hopefully isn’t based on true events. We’ll continue looking at the Pumpkinhead series with “Ashes to Ashes” and then the really old “It Came From Beneath the Sea” from way back in 1955. Lastly, Godzilla Returns with “Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack” from 2001.
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Mainstream Films:
2026 Grizzly Night
Directed by: Burke Doeren
Written by: Bo Bean, Katrina Mathewson, Tanner Bean
Stars: Charles Esten, Oded Fehr, Brec Bassinger
Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
In August 1967 in Glacier National Park, Montana, there were two fatal attacks by two different grizzly bears. Here they have milked this story into an hour and a half movie. It’s well made and the acting is decent, they captured 1967 pretty well. Brian liked it a lot, and Kevin says it feels like there’s a lot of filler that bored him some.
Spoilery Synopsis
A couple in a tent are harassed by a nosy grizzly bear as they hide in terror. This goes badly as credits roll.
It’s 1967, and this is based on a true story.
Eighteen hours before the attack, a woman files yet another report about the bear that’s been terrorizing the campers. The rangers are all busy with a firewatch and fire fighting after the lightning storm last night.
Joan, the new girl, gets assigned to lead an overnight hiking group since all the “real” rangers are busy. Julie calls her mother from the camp store; she’s going camping with Michelle, Paul, Denise, Raymond, Ronald, and Roy this weekend, since there’s nothing else to do. Everyone sets off on their respective hikes.
At the chalet, Joan stops with her group. Julie and Roy stop in, but there are no rooms available. Her and a few others have to sleep outside since the place is all booked up. Paul and Michelle’s group go to the lake and do some fishing.
Michelle’s group runs into a bear, and it takes their dinner. It’s too late to head to the ranger station, so they just hope it doesn’t come back. Roy staggers into camp and says a bear got Julie. The screaming wakes up Joan and the people at the chalet. We get a flashback, and see that they were the couple screaming before the credits.
Joan calls the main ranger, Gary, and reports the bear attack. He promises that help is on the way, but he’s a long way off. Gary then takes a helicopter to get there faster, but it’s awfully dark outside. Joan gets the people on the ground to light fires to give the copter a place to land, which finally works. The doctor patches up Roy and they load him onto the helicopter to the hospital.
Meanwhile, nine miles away, Denise wakes up, and the bear they saw earlier is back. The bear drags off Michelle, sleeping bag and all.
Gary, Joan, and the others search for Julie, and soon find signs of the attack in her campsite. They soon find her, still alive but wounded. Gary and Joan talk about leadership. Julie’s too far gone, so the priest moves in to do his thing as she dies. Gary explains that in 57 years, there hasn’t been a single grizzly attack until now.
In the morning, Michelle’s group is still out there, but they haven’t found her yet. They decide to walk to the ranger station and report what happened. Two attacks should be impossible, and the ranger there is skeptical at first. They search the woods and find… parts.
Many rangers show up, all armed; it’s time to kill the bears. Joan and Leonard talk about the likelihood of two bear attacks and whose fault this was.
Brian’s Commentary
This isn’t so much a horror movie as it is a drama about a terrifying situation. It starts out with all the horror movie tropes and characters, but then just focuses on what happens without playing up the bear or the drama excessively. It’s based on a true incident, and it doesn’t stray too far from the actual case.
It was quite good!
Kevin’s Commentary
This is indeed based on a true event. On the night of August 13, 1967, two young women were attacked and killed by two different bears miles apart in Glacier National Park, Montana - a heck of a coincidence. There’s an online article about the real thing that’s interesting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Grizzlies.
Here they expand the story out into a movie almost an hour and a half long. The sauce is spread mighty thin. It’s well made, but there isn’t a lot of substance. After the attacks, I found myself getting fairly bored.
2025 Merge
Directed by: Bela Baptiste, Dalano Barnes, Richard Fenwick
Written by: Bela Baptiste, Dalano Barnes, Richard Fenwick
Stars: Achmed Abdel-Salam, Tatjana Alexander, Bela Baptiste
Run Time: 1 Hour, 17 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s an anthology of science fiction short stories, each heavily depending on technology far ahead of where we currently are. It shows various ways humans could interact with such technology, and how it can interact with us when it has a mind of its own. The stories are pretty gentle, sweet, and romantic, with a zero body count. But there is uncertainty, a lack of control, and the potential for disaster making an undercurrent of horror if you look for it. The stories are all well written, well acted, and well directed. The CGI is a little heavy handed and obvious, but it’s entertaining. It reminded us of “Black Mirror.”
Spoilery Synopsis
A man has breakfast in a futuristic city and suddenly starts screaming.
Angst
A narrator explains that everything is perfect and everyone is happy now. Fear no longer exists, and that’s how he makes his business. He gives people phobias for excitement. We see a man become terrified of his own pet spider and a woman becomes claustrophobic. We return to that screaming man and see what he thinks he sees. “Embracing your fear allows you to be reborn,” he explains. The man offers the drug for free. Credits roll.
Soulmate
A couple talks in bed. He’s so glad he found her, he bought her a book. Turns out, this is a virtual world, and only the girl is real. She’s not allowed to be in there, and there’s an investigation into the illegal avatar. She goes back inside to break up with the man, who doesn’t understand. When she arrives back at work, the boss is sitting at her workstation; she’s going to be caught– but she isn’t. As the boss goes for a break, she deletes the AI logs.
The investigation eventually ends, and Anna goes back to work. She restores the deleted information and goes back inside for Neil, who no longer recognizes her. She gets a message: “Scenes no longer compatible with current software version.’ She deletes this newest meeting and then goes back in time to their first meeting. Anna meets Neil for the first time– again.
When Unfettered
Two men sit by their father, who dies. The father’s robot assistant, Ash, walks them through the process. The girls decide what to do with the house and also what happens with Ash, whom they don’t really want anymore. Ash goes outside for a walk, and she’s a lot more human than people expect. She meets a handicapped boy in the park and plays with him. Everyone thinks she’s great until the mom finds out she’s an AI, and then she gets rude. Then she meets and helps an old couple who are very nice.
Ash decides to never go home.
The First Time I Never Met You
John listens to recorded messages from his dead wife. He’s so broken up that he’s lost his job. Overdue notices litter his desk. He’s got some kind of plant that sends him back in time to the first time he met her. Their “first” date goes well; he’s a physicist, and she’s an evolutionary biologist. He talks about “rewinding” time. He’s so in awe at seeing her again that he acts strangely, knowing too much about her that she’s never told him. She’s so creeped out that she breaks it off and goes home.
Suddenly, he doesn’t remember why he’s there. He forgets his children and whole life, since now, none of that happened. He leaves the bar and goes back to his new, old life.
Subscribed
We open on a commercial for Vitalus, a new AI product. “Your life, upgraded!” We soon see that all the AI just lets people stay inside all the time. Carol gets a phone call, and it appears that maybe Vitalus is censoring the news and information she gets to keep her inside and addicted to the AI. It watches all her body functions everywhere, even on the toilet, and in bed. Luke keeps trying to get through to her, both on the phone and in-person, but the AI keeps dropping the call and running him off. The AI does not want her talking to him any more.
She wises up to all this, but “Vicky” still won’t let her out the front door. She shorts out the power and runs outside, where Vitalus Tases her and sends her back inside. She wakes up, and Vicky says it was all just a nightmare.
The Man Behind the Machine
Martin lives in a warehouse; a man from the Turing company comes to repossess his android. He’s an older model and is returned to Turing, where he meets a newer model. His signal is different; he’s malfunctioning and escapes back to Martin. He wants to choose what he wants, which is unique.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s way more sci-fi than horror, but these alternate, high-tech futures have a lot of overlap with horror. The first segment of this anthology has dodgy CGI and voice dubbing, but the others mostly look good and are well-acted. I have to admit, I didn’t really understand the final segment. The middle segments are the best of the bunch,
If you like “Black Mirror,” then you’ll probably enjoy this.
Kevin’s Commentary
The CGI was a little overused and obvious at times, but the technologies and stories were cool.
The stories were all at least pretty good. The last one was a bit confusing. I especially liked “When Unfettered.” What’s an autonomous AI robot to do when they lose their job because their master died?
I’d call it a win overall, not really horror, but I enjoyed it.
2006 Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes
Directed by: Jake West
Written by: Barbara Werner, Jake West, John Werner
Stars: Lance Henriksen, Doug Bradley, Douglas Roberts
Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This third movie is a sequel to the first movie, even bringing back several of the same characters. This time several wronged people want revenge and go to the witch Haggis to summon Pumpkinhead, and the main target tries to fight back. It’s not as good as the first one, but it was still pretty entertaining.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man named Bunt runs through the woods in a panic. Pumpkinhead is right behind him. When he catches him, he cuts an “X” in his forehead. And then Bunt wakes up. His boss, Doc Fraser, tells him it’s time to move the body. As Bunt hides the body, the ghost of Ed Harley, from the first film, comes and tells him bad things are coming his way.
A hiker in the woods spots Bunt dragging a corpse behind him. He runs to a nearby crematorium. Inside, Doc Fraser cuts open a dead man as his accomplices watch. The hiker stumbles in and interrupts things; on the way running out, he finds numerous other bodies. They soon catch the man and use him for parts.
Doc takes the man’s kidney to a man to sell it for him. Meanwhile, the now-kidneyless dead man wakes up, not as dead as they all thought. He flags down a truck and gets ride to town. Molly Sue takes him to the police station, who rush out to the crematorium and arrest the people there.
In the morning, the sheriff’s men clear out the bodies from the crematorium’s barn. They find lots of bodies. One of the bodies they dig up is in the middle of an old pumpkin patch; Doc Fraser is there, and this one doesn’t look familiar.
In jail, Bunt tells his accomplices about Pumpkinhead, who feeds on sins.
Back at the crematorium, the old woman from the woods shows up and looks at the weird body. “This one belongs to me. You outta know better than to disturb this one.”
Molly finds her dead son with the other bodies, and she’s angry. She wants revenge on whoever did this and wants the old woman’s help. She, along with a handful of friends, go to track down the old woman that night. The old woman seems more than happy to help. They all get their hands sliced for blood, and soon enough, the ritual is done. The twisted little skeleton writhes and becomes Pumpkinhead.
At jail, Bunt screams, “It’s coming for us!” And it does, right then. It kills the deputy, but the prisoners Bunt and Dahlia get away. They run home to her father, Doc Fraser. They all talk about the monster.
Oliver and Mary Sue go to see Doc; she’s not feeling well after the ritual. As soon as they leave, Pumpkinhead attacks Tiny, and all the baddies see it. They hop in the car and drive off. Bunt sees Ed Harley’s ghost in the road and makes them crash. Bunt gives us a flashback to the first film, when he encountered the monster.
Meanwhile, at the church, there’s a midnight memorial service for all those dead people they found. Doc arrives and sits with Molly and Oliver. Pumpkinhead arrives soon after, and the whole town sees the CGI creature jump through the skylight. The resulting carnage goes on for a long time.
Molly and Oliver talk about the curse. Why did Pumpkinhead go to the church? Who was it after?
Oliver, Ellie, and Ritchie regret calling up Pumpkinhead and want to undo what they did. They go back to the old woman, who says that Pumpkinhead can’t be stopped.
Doc goes to see Ritchie and tries to kill him but is interrupted by the monster. When Doc kills Ritchie, Pumpkinhead collapses, allowing the evil doctor to get away. Ellie and Oliver return and find the body, along with evidence that Doc was involved.
Molly is packing up to leave town when Doc arrives to kill her. Oliver arrives and warns her about Doc. Dahlia and Bunt pack up to leave as well. All of them decide to stop at Lenny the drug dealer’s house first for some reason.
Bunt comes to Oliver and Ellie and tells them everything. They plan to get the crematorium working and dispose of all those corpses, which might make the demon go away.
Doc and Molly have a talk. He did what he did to give the town free health care.
Meanwhile, Oliver and company burn all those bodies at the cemetery, shoving them into the crematory oven like firewood. Molly holds Doc at gunpoint as Pumpkinhead kills Lenny and Dahlia in the next room. The whole place explodes, and only Doc seems to have survived.
At the crematorium, Ed comes to Bunt one more time to sound ominous and foreboding. Doc comes in and shoots at Ellie but misses; Pumpkinhead comes in and kills Doc. There’s only one more body left to cremate. Ellie throws it into the fire, but nothing happens. Ellie then crawls into the fire and burns herself up– she was the last of the four who conjured up the monster.
Pumpkinhead collapses and shrivels back into the body of Ed Harley before dissolving into a skeleton. The FBI guys finally show up and talk to Oliver and Bunt.
The old woman comes to the crematorium and takes Ellie/Pumpkinhead’s little body back to the pumpkin patch.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s a decent enough continuation of the story from the first film. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it does seem to stick to the information we learned in the first film.
Lance Henriksen returns from the first film, but his part is basically just a cameo as a ghost. Doug Bradley has a substantial role as the villain of the film. These two are both good, as always, but most of the rest of the cast is mediocre at best.
It’s alright, but nothing special.
Kevin’s Commentary
Mediocre CGI strikes again and too often. The creature looks good when he’s a practical effect though.
The story is a pretty good sequel of the first movie, following the same rules. I saw in the trivia that Lance Henriksen was so embarrassed by the film that he snuck out of a Q&A without taking the stage, but I didn’t think it was that bad. It’s not as good as the first one was, but it’s entertaining.
1955 It Came from Beneath the Sea
Directed by: Robert Gordon
Written by: George Worthing Yates, Harold Jacob Smith
Stars: Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis
Run Time: 1 hour, 19 Minutes
Watch it:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The “It” is a gigantic octopus (or hexopus if you look closely - the budget was tight and it’s a couple arms short). The military and lab stuff is all realistic looking because it was the real thing, mostly. The puppetry, miniatures, and rear screen use are pretty obvious but they get the job done. The original was black and white, but it’s since been colorized. It’s a fun creature feature of the 1950s, worthy of being called a classic of its time.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get a military voiceover talking about the new submarines. The human mind had thought of everything… except that which was beyond his comprehension… Credits roll.
We are shown the wonders of the periscope. Commander Matthews talks to another officer, Griff, about how impressive the ship is. Suddenly, something big shows up on the sonar that might be following them. They accelerate, but the thing is gaining on them. It bumps the ship from behind as it catches up. Also, there’s a radiation warning, but it’s not coming from their engine. They finally manage to escape whatever it is and head to dry-dock for repairs.
The men find something strange stuck in the rudder, and the scientists had to analyze it. Dr. John Carter and Professor Lesley Joyce, two marine biologists, explain that what they brought in was just a small piece of a much larger creature. Mathews likes Joyce and makes that abundantly clear.
The scientists work for a couple of weeks and then report that the creature is an octopus, albeit a giant one, that lived on the bottom of the ocean until H-Bombs stirred up the ocean floor and irradiated it. It can no longer eat fish, so it may be hunting for a higher form of life, maybe even man. The heads of the military don’t seem impressed or believe that the problem is a giant octopus.
We cut to a cargo ship out in the ocean, and they spot a huge tentacle outside the ship. It pulls the whole ship down. Carter and Joyce are finished with the military and ready to move on to their next project, but Mathews isn’t going to give her up that easily. The admiral revokes their transfer and requires them all stay– they know about the cargo ship that went down. The survivors tell the story, and it’s still a little hard to believe. The military heads still aren’t convinced. The survivor recants his tales, and Joyce goes to meet with him before he’s released. She’s smooth and crafty about getting the sailor to tell about what he saw.
The military shuts down all shipping in the Pacific as they hunt for the monster. Joyce warns that they might be able to kill the thing once they do find it. The main characters all split up to run down a few leads as they hunt for the octopus.
They soon find a wrecked car, a missing family, and odd circles in the sand on a beach. That must be the place! Instead of investigating, Mathews and Joyce are soon making out on the beach. They soon get an actual sighting.
The Navy plans to trap the creature in San Francisco Bay. Carter talks about the need to destroy the creature’s brain; they have a special weapon for the job– a jet-propelled torpedo. Joyce explains that this kind of thing has happened in the past.
The creature makes another appearance, and they attack it with depth charges and electricity. This only manages to anger it, and it climbs up onto the Golden Gate Bridge. Carter has to drive out to the middle of the bridge to turn off the electricity. Mathew and Joyce soon follow to pick him up. The trio barely make it off the bridge before the monster crushes it. The octopus eventually gives up and goes back into the water and vanishes.
The monster soon reappears at the ferry terminal, where there are a lot of people still around. As it starts to pull itself up onto land, Mathews and his submarine approach. They dive and prepare torpedoes, but the harbor is pretty crowded, so it’s gonna take some luck. They embed a torpedo into it, but then it grabs and holds onto the sub.
Mathews himself puts on Scuba equipment to blast the sub loose with explosives. It doesn’t work, so Carter tries next; he shoots it in the eye, which really gets its attention. Griff orders that the torpedo be detonated, and the octopus blows up. Carter and Mathews are picked up, alive, not long after.
Mathews wants Joyce to marry him, but she’s argumentative and wants to write a book instead.
Brian’s Commentary
Could Mathews be any more inappropriate with Joyce if he tried? He’d be up on charges for coming on that strong today. It’s the 50’s, where “No” always means “Yes.”
The filmmakers had access to a lot of military sets and equipment, probably all leftover from the war, and they weren’t afraid to incorporate them into making the film seem more realistic.
The monster is one of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creations, and it’s really well done. It crushes ships, the Golden Gate, and various buildings near the ferry port. It’s not much compared to modern effects, but for the time, this was all groundbreaking stuff.
Kevin’s Commentary
The interior submarine scenes were really filmed in a submarine. How cool is that?
What’s worse than a gigantic angry octopus? A radioactive gigantic angry octopus.
It’s strange to think that everyone on the screen is seventy years older than they were when this was released.
It’s very 1950s in sexual and social attitudes, culture, and technology, which I thought added to the fun. It seems to take a long time to get to showing the creature, but we do finally get a payoff.
2001 Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
Directed by: Shusuke Kaneko
Written by: Keiichi Hasegawa, Shusuke Kaneko, Masahiro Yokotani
Stars: Chiharu Niyama, Ryudo Uzaki, Masahiro Kobayashi
Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one is another sequel to the original 1954 Godzilla that disregards all those that have come since - except for a dig at the 1998 American remake starring Matthew Broderick when an admiral mentions a creature looking something like Godzilla that attacked the United States. It’s a bad Godzilla vs. several good guy monsters and there’s lots of big creature action, carnage and explosions, as well as humans to root for. It’s not the best of them, but it’s entertaining.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a Japanese Navy meeting where they talk about the 1954 Godzilla attack (I suspect we’re going to ignore all the other films). There was a monster that looked like Godzilla that attacked the USA, but the real one hasn’t been seen since. Suddenly, a US nuclear sub has gone missing. The Japanese send a deep-sea rescue sub down after it. Suddenly, a giant monster arrives on the scene. Guess who? Credits roll!
At Mt. Myoko, a reporter talks about the monster of the mountain. They’re making a pseudo-entertainment documentary to entertain children. There’s a sudden earthquake, and it’s clear that there was a real monster involved.
There’s some kind of earthquake that night, and Yuri, the reporter, wants to investigate. The army shoots a special “digging” missile at the mountain. An old truck driver claims he saw a monster last night, and it must have been Godzilla. Yuri is given a book, “The Guardian Monsters,” and some of the pictures inside look familiar.
Yuri’s father is an admiral, and he thinks she drinks too much. She turns on the TV and learns about another monster attack; this one left a bunch of kids wrapped in cocoons.
Yuri interviews an old man who has been saying Godzilla will return for years now. He says she needs to wake up Ghidorah to stop Godzilla this time. Baragon, Mothra, and Ghidorah are the guardian monsters. They are supposed to sleep for 10,000 years, so it’s too soon to wake them up.
Yuri’s father, the admiral, has a flashback to 1954, and it wasn’t a happy memory. A giant monster attacks, and everyone says it’s Godzilla, but we know better; it’s Baragon. The actual Godzilla soon arrives on shore and heads right toward the other monster. Soon, they’re fighting as Yuri and Kadokura watch from afar. Little Baragon doesn’t have a chance. Meanwhile, the old harbinger breaks open some ice we saw in a nearby cave.
The military is activated to take on Godzilla, and fighter jets are dispatched. Yuri obtains a bike and sets off toward Godzilla to get the story rather than follow along with the evacuation of the area. Not surprising, the missiles only manage to make Godzilla more angry, and he shoots the jets out of the air with his atomic breath. Yuri gets it all on film and follows Godzilla from a distance.
Another creature wakes up from the ice cave where the old man is; Ghidora. But wait, there’s more! Mothra also hatches from her cocoon at the same time. All of them head toward Godzilla. Baragon, Mothra, and Ghidorah are all heading toward Tokyo, where Godzilla is also on the way.
Mothra shoots some kinds of spores that knock Godzilla over onto a building. He retaliates with nuclear breath, which really makes a mess of the city– and Yuki, who survives somehow.
Ghidorah shows up, and he’s dramatic with his three-headed lightning bite. Godzilla, on the other hand, is unstoppable. The humans then open fire on Godzilla, which just results in an angry Godzilla blasting the military.
Godzilla blasts Mothra, who dissolves into millions of glowing lights that reinvigorate the apparently dead Ghidorah. The two merge into something new that’s blast proof. Super-Ghidorah clobbers Godzilla explosively and the fight moves underwater.
Yuri learns that her father is leading the counterattack from a small submarine that isn’t really meant for war. They shoot Ghidorah by mistake, and that goes badly. But then Ghidorah is reanimated and supercharged by a chunk of stone from one of the talisman statues.
There’s still more battling between the two until Godzilla finally blasts Ghidorah into dust. Baragon and the other two guardians are visible as golden energy that combines and then dissolves.
The admiral pilots his submarine right down Godzilla’s throat, and Godzilla swallows. He’s not immediately killed and uses one of those drill-missiles to shoot his way out. Godzilla tries to blast Yuri and Kadokura, but his nuclear blast shoots out the wrong hole and he collapses into the water. He tries blasting again and blows himself up. The sub bobs to the surface.
Yuri and the admiral are reunited, and both are OK. Tokyo, on the other hand, looks to be mostly gone now. Down in the harbor, we see Godzilla’s still-beating heart– nothing else, just the beating heart. He’ll be back!
Brian’s Commentary
The monsters are still men (and a woman this time) in rubber suits, but there’s also a great deal of really dated CGI here. The bad CGI is pretty distracting this time, because there’s so much of it, but there is some good carnage and explosions. Godzilla’s fire breath is really impressive this time around.
This is the one and only film where Ghidorah is considered one of the “good guys” rather than a main villain creature. This one endows the Guardian Monsters with magical healing powers and a bit of religious mystery to them, which basically lets them come back from the dead several times.
Kevin’s Commentary
This one had more of a tangible body count than typical. Not gory graphic, but many instances of people getting stomped and blown up and crushed in rubble. Plus aftermath showing the many wounded.
Godzilla is purely the bad creature here, which isn’t typical either.
Mothra looks especially cool in this one, I thought. Fluorescent colors and more movement from the wings and legs than we usually see. I also liked the gold dragon look of King Ghidorah.
This wasn’t the best of them, but it was entertaining.
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