
Following on from the screening of Creature, tonight’s selection provoked an argument five minutes in about who the hell selected it, and why. Liz having confessed to the deed, we moved on to speculating whether the entrails on-screen were real or especially good creature effects. Taking note of the quality of the entrails and the filming location (Spain) we decided they were real.
This is the first film by Deran Sarafian, who’s now chiefly known for his work on House, M.D. He’s come a long way. I learn from the credits that it was adapted from an original screenplay titled “Massacre at R.V. Park.” Aside from the lead characters (three American college students), everyone appears to be Spanish. Twenty minutes in as we watch a chicken meet its fate execution-style we suspect it was shot in Spain solely to get around American regulations. That or a tax dodge.
Anyway, what we’ve got here is a Spanish rip-off of The Andromeda Strain, but with an actual monster. On first glance this is a winning formula: enliven a portentous American film with additional action sequences and (one assumes) cheap exploitation. That’s what the Italians would have done. Instead the whole thing is weighed down by a badly-acted, badly-written subplot (main plot?) involving the three American students, including Lynn-Holly Johnson (as seen as James Bond’s spurned teenage love interest in For Your Eyes Only, another cringe-worthy performance). The other two are interchangeable brotards.