Hot Picks
|
|
|
Beasties
The Bionaut
USA 1991
produced by Steven Paul Contreras, Helen Contreras (executive), David DeCoteau (executive) for Pulsar Films
directed by Steven Paul Contreras
starring Eric C. Bushman, Denise Mora, James Jefferies, Brenda Stubbe, Hector Yanez, Eric DelaBarre, Janine Miskulin, Michael Perry, Suzanne Brever, Marty Davis, Andrea Dralow, Deborah Yates, Missy Pierce, Scott Dixon, John Boylan, Manuel Mendiola, Shane Sharkey, Matt Prine, Eric Stockton, Tony Jay, Ken Frances, Allen F. Contreras, Scott Bonomo, Roderick Grajeda, Mike Chavez, Maria Blanco, Elisa Nieto, Ted Esquivel, Dean Clark, Sherry Parisi, Mary Dunbar, Janet Cotton, Renee Birkett, The Shroudettes
written by Steven Paul Contreras, music by Darrell Devaurs
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Apparently an alien spacecraft has landed on earth, and its rather
monstruous passengers just hop out and kill the teens on lover's lane
rather indiscriminately. Only nerdy Nelson (Eric C. Bushman) and his
girlfriend Laura (Denise Mora) somehow make it inside the spacecraft and
snatch an egg ... before they find themselves on the run from the aliens.
They get to Sara's (Janine Miskulin) house, who has just been attacked by
one of the extraterrestrial creatures but chased it away ... and now she
can need some company in defending her place. So she's glad to let Nelson
and Laura in, but not so glad about the alien egg. The three of them
decide to bring the egg to the local scientist ... but never get there
because Hammerhead (Eric DelaBarre) and his gang of punks, who take them
to their leader Osires (Hector Yanez), who just happens to be the Son of
Satan and who for some reason knows Nelson will one day become his biggest
adversary, so he'd really like to kill him now. For some reason, Nelson, a
total nobody to this day, knows he will become Osires' greatest adversary
as well, as apparently time goes back and forth like a jojo, thus all
these premonitions and déja vus people tend to have. Anyways, Osires'
plan is thwarted as the Son of Satan is apparently pretty easy to be
dispatched of, and Sara proves to be very feisty fighter, pretty much
enabling her own and her companions' escape. While Nelson and Laura are
examining the spacecraft once more, Sara again falls into the hands of
Hammerhead's gang - and is only saved by the creatures, she immediately
finds herself on the run from though. In the spacecraft, Nelson and
Laura meet the alien residing over everything which is actually a human
who has been grown into the spacecraft, which is not actually a spacecraft
but a timecraft from the future, and its central intelligence so to speak
is not just any human but Nelson himself from the future who has come back
in time to warn Nelson from the present. Thing is, in the future, Nelson
will (accidently) develop a killer virus which will be used by the army as
... well, killers, killers like the creatures roaming the countryside. Now
to prevent that from happening, Nelson from the future has to alter the
present significantly to change everything ... and after more
confrontations of our heroes with Hammerhead's punks and the creatures,
Nelson-from-the-future kidnaps Laura, Nelson's bride-to-be, as without
her, Nelson's life would surely take a different trajectory ... Beasties
is pretty much your typical early 1990s direct-to-video indie shockers:
Shot on a shoestring, based on a sensationalist idea but not all that
thought through script (especially the subplot about the Son of Satan
seems to be out of place), full of grand ideas that are not necessarily
covered by the budget at hand, carried by performances that are not always
above wooden level, and a few tits thrown in to iron certain things out
... but on the other hand, you can see a love for the genre, fun hommages
to 1950s drive-in cinema, and a not always dead serious approach to the
story at hand, all of which makes up for some of the flaws, though not all
of them. In all, far from a perfect film, even considering the budget,
and I'd not even call this a good low buget genre flick ... but some fun
to watch all the same.
|