Triple Horror

Because I'm so far behind in my blogging, I'm going to combine three loosely related movies into one post: Monster movies with a focus on first responders.

First, Grabbers (2012). It takes place on the peaceful, isolated Irish isle of Eirann. A policeman is going on vacation, and bright go-getter Ruth Bradley will be taking his place. Her partner is drunk slacker Richard Coyle, which pleases neither of them - she is too perky for his taster, and he smells bad. Meanwhile, a (drunk) fisherman has pulled up something weird in one of his crab traps. He takes it home to keep it in his tub, but it attacks him.

It's nice to get to see the monster early on. This one is kind of cute - all tentacly and blobby. Our drunk manages to fend it off, and we soon decide that these creatures (because you better believe there's more than one) can't handle alcohol, and are poisoned when they try to drink the blood of the inebriated.

So our mismatched pair of police come up with a plan: a lock-in at the local (a lock-in is where a pub locks the patrons in after last call, and keeps serving). The twist is that Bradley, who had never been drunk, will have to achieve a high blood alcohol level, while her drunk partner Coyle will stay sober to act as a level head.

This is a funny movie, what with all the drink-related shenanigans - and they are perfectly aware of the relation between drunkenness and Irishness. Coyle, who has a reason for his drinking and manages do keep free of it when needed is interesting, but Bradley is a blast once she gets going.

Finally, this is the movie that made me realize: The best movie monsters are cute. Cuddly, tentacled cthuloids - got to love them.

Speaking of cute monsters: Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007). It starts a little confusingly, with a Predator spaceship and a few Aliens (who confusingly have absorbed Predator DNA and look kind of Predish) crash in a remote Colorado town (Gunnison, where I had a nice sandwich once). A hunter and his son are soon eaten. Meanwhile, Steven Pasquale arrives back in town, after getting out of prison. He gets a ride from the sheriff, John Ortiz. Everyone is trying to get him back together with his old girlfriend. We also meet Pasquale's brother, a guy who has been raising a daughter while his wife is deployed in Iraq, the wife, a waitress at the diner, some bullies... It's a lot to take in.

The Aliens start to facehug, the Pred starts tracking them, there's a tense scene at the school pool (shades of It Follows). Again, our focus is on the sheriff and the ex-con. They get in contact with the Army, who promise to evacuate them from the town square (infested by Aliens). They prefer to use the hospital's medivac copter to get out. Hey, maybe the hospital was planning to use that!

This wasn't all that bad - it was interesting to see how they isolated the town. But the action tended to be kind of choppy and hard to follow, and all the interpersonal drama, which is the backdrop to all the action, was kind of boring. A surprisingly small and generic entry into the AvP canon.

30 Days of Night (2007) has a cute gimmick: Vampires isolate a town in Alaska, where the night in winter lasts thirty days. After some mysterious setup, we meet Sheriff Josh Hartnett, who finds out that his ex-wife is in town. She is a fire dept. inspector and is stuck until the sun comes up in thirty days.  Then the vampires come.

In some ways, this is a fine horror movie. In other ways, it ticked me off. Again, there was the drama around the horror, which didn't seem to fresh, especially after the other two movies. Second, it seemed like the vampires should have destroyed everyone in the first week (or been destroyed by then). I was shocked that they lasted the entire thirty days. More shocked by that than the twist ending...

So, three horror movies that take place in an isolated town, with an awkward romance involving sheriffs, police, or firefighters (or some combo). The only one I really liked was Grabbers - partly because it was funny, partly because it seemed fresh.

Maybe mostly because of the cute cthuloids.