Octopus 1 (2000)

Octopus
John Eyres (2000)

Submarine, I would never enter a submarine,,, what if something goes to hell and you sink deeper and deeper into the ocean until the hull crumpled up like a fucking beer bottle that gets run over by a big fat foot . A large part of the movie is of course set in a submarine in distress on the seabed, and if that was not bad enough, it lurks a hugely overgrown octopus, which is angry and hungry for human flesh.

”Above and below the water, there is no escape”

The movie starts with a Russian submarine with barrels containing something that is not good for Mother Nature being shot and sinks to the bottom. The barrels break and the shit inside starts to leak out in the ocean. Soon an evolution starts which results in an octopus grows to enormous proportions, talk about growth hormone. We move to the present day and witness a terrorist detonates a fairly powerful bomb at the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria that results in many dead and injured people. Fortunately, the terrorist is captured and with handcuffs they put him in a submarine for transporting him to U.S. for trial. Yeah, this should have been an easy trip but something dangerous is lurking in the depths of the cold dark ocean that makes this routine mission to become a nightmare.

Boaz Davidson is behind the story and seems to love when animals of all kinds run amok against the man because he has written numerous stories in the genre including Spiders (2000), Crocodile (2000), Rats (2003) and Larva (2005). Although this does not help it to become an interesting movie because, it is a fairly predictable story without any sudden fluctuations in the story. The entire story is based on trying to survive down at the bottom of the sneaking octopus and the wayward terrorist Casper (Ravil Isyanov: Arachnid) who tries to get free all the time. I do not understand why all the kind people have to die and those who truly deserve to die: Casper, who survives all the way to the end. Sorry if I ruined the end for you, but I think, let the terrorist die early in the movie and concentrate more on trying to get up the submarine instead. Let the big lovely octopus with its enormous flapping tentacles get more space to tear the crew into small pieces. Why not take a bite with the oversized fangs that adorn the mouth so very nice.

If you choose to see the movie or not does not matter because in my opinion the movie is rather dull with just a small entertainment value, thanks to the sexy octopus. Thumbs down for Dr. Lisa Finch (Carolyn Lowery) who wins the poker game in the beginning of the movie; this might have saved the movie a bit.

More Octopus mayhem in the next issue of Horrophobic. Do not dare miss it...

 

Zombie 108 (2012)

“After a catastrophic accident at a top secret research lab, a deadly virus is released into the city and all hell breaks loose.”

A SWAT team is sent in District 108 to evacuate the survivors, but ends up in gunfire with a local criminal gang who thinks that they are the targets of a round-up. During the shootout, they are attacked by zombies, and they decide to initiate a ceasefire and together combat the currently biggest threat, bloodthirsty attacking zombies. The entire district is overrun with hungry zombies who have only one desire, to eat human flesh.

When thinking of Asian horror, it's probably not Taiwan you think of first, but there are definitely a number of more or less known as The Heirloom (2005) and Invitation Only (2009). Zombie 108 is said to be the first of its kind from that island over there in Asia, this is exciting in many ways because it's always nice when it comes genre films from new makers from the so-called not so common countries in the world. Is this zombie mayhem unique? Not in all aspects, it is a combination of Western and Asian film history but it is definitely an exciting combination. What makes the movie in my opinion entertaining and puts a lovely touch to the it is when a woman and her young daughter are captured by a crazy malformed cripple. He has decorated his basement to a prison-torture like dungeon where he have imprisoned women in cages, which he rapes and performs medical experiments on. One of the coolest and bizarre event is when he injects a tied woman with the zombie virus, just to get the opportunity to fuck a zombie.

Otherwise, we also have two Westerners who get in trouble with the gangster gang and leaves behind tied as food for the approaching zombies. All this hilarious collection of individuals came together for a common band of lunatics who just want get out from the district now owned by the zombies.

This is not really a low-budget indie production, the effects are clearly good and zombies is either the slow or the fast one, a little bit in between but they are many as there usually is. The beginning of the movie is clearly delicious with some sexy Taiwanese dancing at the nightclub owned by the fat hyper stressed crime boss who also adds a bit of entertainment in the flick. Yet another film for us zombie lovers around the world and have English subbed and best of all, it can be purchased cheaply from Amason.uk.

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