In my many years as a television watcher, I don’t think I’ve ever had (or will ever have) a night of television watching as great as last night. Holy damn, this was incredible.
It started with Eye of The Beast, which is some made-for-ppv movie starring James Van Der Beek (Dawson!) as a ocean scientist (their term, not mine) who becomes wrapped up in a small town’s struggle with a giant squid. Oh my God, this movie was so, SO great.
Forget the fact that this was a freshwater squid of impossible size — there are far more subtle moments where you’ll ask your television set if its shittin’ you. After a series of deaths (sometimes we see a squid’s tentacle, sometimes nothing at all), Dawson goes online to research ship wreckage. He wants to know if the rings seen on the smashed hull pieces are in fact the suction marks of a giant squid. How does he do this? A GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH. Incredible! Later, his co-workers back at the government-funded research lab spot the silhouette of a giant squid…on a Google Earth map! Dawsome!
The film, which seems to have been built mainly as the holy grailistic centerpiece for movie cliche drinking games, rounds out with a lengthy battle between the film’s characters (every single one of them) and the giant squid. The characters are spread across two boats in the very rocky seas, which seems to go against the fact that the squid is murking about a lake. In the closing moments, we finally get a good look at the squid — in fact, it’s the only time we see anything other than tentacles after a solid 90 minutes of bullshit. And how is this accomplished? By having the CG squid lift itself out of the water, evidently so it would be an easier target for one of the heroes to throw an electrically-charged harpoon into its eye. You have to see this movie.
Almost immediately after that, I stumbled onto Destination: Infestation, a made-for-television movie that could’ve been titled “Ants on a Plane.” Somehow, this was even worse than watching James Van Der Beek ax the tentacles off of a giant squid. Starring Antonio Sabato Jr. as an anti-terrorist special agent in over his head against a plane full of genetically-enhanced super ants, it’s the story of 40 innocent passengers banding together against…ants.
The ants have seemingly been programmed to destroy the plane, which they do by chewing through critical wiring systems and even denting through the fuel reserve. On a few occasions, hordes of ants will invade the main cabin, choose one victim to bite to death, and then disappear completely until the next time they feel like doing that. This was helpful in keeping the film’s shoestring budget firmly tied, as they repeat the same exact shot of ants running over wires or climbing through vents no less than 500 times throughout the film.
There’s even more to the story. Did I mention that the United States government’s decisions come solely from some Frank Langella-esque villain sitting in a dark office? Well, they do, and he commands that the plane not be allowed to land, fearing that these mega-ants will spread disease and death throughout our fine nation. And just to prove that he’s serious, the government guy even calls every other country in the world, telling them to shoot down the plane to avoid having serious bug issues of their own. I won’t spoil how the pilots and passengers avoid that grisly fate, but it’s even more hysterical than seeing people get bit by ants a few times and dying immediately from it.
And to top it all off, a movie/documentary about what would happen if a giant comet hit our planet was on the Discovery Channel. Instead of just giving us the facts, they filmed all of these scenes of little girls looking for lost puppies in 400 degree temperatures, and of homeless people in NYC looting through trash before being washed away by gigantic tidal waves. I love TV!
Also, there’s a new article up, covering almost every page from the 1990 premiere issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Magazine. Cowabunga.
Posted by Matt. E-mail me!
Ghosted by 
I will give it props for being the only magazine based on comic based, turned into a cartoon, created to hype up a live-action movie about ninja turtles to mention glasnost.
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Awesome! Hey Matt have you ever seen Orca: The Killer Whale? It’s amazing. Sharks screaming, Orca fetuses being launched through the air, crazy Indian guides, and more! Top notch stuff; highly recommended.