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Released by: AGFA
Released on: February 28th, 2023.
Director: Mike Stanley
Cast: Robert Nolfi, Julia Rust, Robert Lengyel, Lisa Pak, Frank Murgalo, John Vichiola
Year: 1985
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Attack Of The Beast Creatures – Movie Review:
In May of 1920, somewhere in the North Atlantic, a ship that is not the Titanic but very much like the Titanic goes down. A few survivors manage to make their way into a life board and a short time later, wash up on the shore of an island, seemingly uninhabited.
Our survivors - John (Robert Nolfi), perpetually terrified Cathy (Julia Rust), Case (Robert Quinn), pretty Diane (Lisa Pak), Philip (Frank Murgalo), rich jerk Mr. Morgan (John Vichiola) and kindly Mrs. Gordon (Kay Bailey) and a few others – start poking about their new digs. Diane, Cathy and Mrs. Morgan are excited to find some berries but before long, one of the men finds what he presumes to be fresh water. After dunking his face in it to take a drink, he learns the hard way that it isn’t water at all, but some form of acid! His face melts off, and it’s awesome.
At this point, the crew realizes that the island isn’t as friendly as it seems, but it only gets worse when, that night, they’re attacked by a group of small but toothy creatures with glowing eyes! Mr. Morgan’s leg gets injured and he bitches at everyone but for some reason they decide to help him travel the island with them, instead of just leaving him there. As they make their way through the forest hoping to find their way back to the shore where they desperately want to be rescued, they’re attacked by these red beast creatures time and time again.
Who will survive and what will be left of them?
Shot as Hell Island, which is what the title card used for this transfer reads, 1985’s Attack Of The Beast Creatures, directed by Mike Stanley, may not convince us that the beaches of Connecticut are a tropical island but none of that matters when you’ve got a movie filled with as much wacky mayhem as this one. If you want to see people attacked by what looks like an army of the dolls from Trilogy Of Terror painted red, this is the movie for you because believe me, dear reader, Attack Of The Beast Creatures gives you exactly that. The effects are really fun. The face melting scene that happens early in the movie is a definite highlight and anytime the beast creatures are running around sinking their tiny, razor sharp teeth into our human characters, the movie is gold. If that wasn’t enough, the movie also offers up an absolutely fantastic synth score.
While the characters don’t really wind up mattering all that much (when the movie is over you won’t remember who played who), most of the principals are likable enough. Most of the cast members don’t have a whole lot of other credits to their name and seem to be a little less experienced than most film actors, but they’re clearly committed to their roles and are a lot of fun to watch here. Stanley paces the movie pretty well, it’s eighty-one minute running time not overstaying its welcome. The creature effects are great and while the plot isn’t exactly super deep, it does throw a few fun twists into the mix as the story plays out.
Attack Of The Beast Creatures – Blu-ray Review:
Attack Of The Beast Creatures arrives on a region free 50GB disc and is taken from a brand new restoration of the original 16mm negative. The AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer is framed at 1.85.1 with the feature using up 23.1GBs of space. There’s some irreparable damage in a few spots that shows up in the form of some vertical scratches but otherwise, the image is pretty clean. Colors look excellent here and we get nice, deep black levels. There are no issues with any obvious noise reduction r edge enhancement, the image always looks like a proper film transfer, and detail, depth and texture are generally pretty strong throughout.
The original English language option is offered up in a 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track. Optional subtitles are provided in English only. Generally, it sounds pretty solid. There are a few spots here and there where the dialogue is a little muffled but these are rare and the vast majority of the movie sounds quite clean and clear. The score has quite a bit more depth to it than you’d probably expect.
Extras start off with a partial commentary with director Mike Stanley that runs over the first twenty-four minutes of the movie. He covers putting together the cast and crew, shooting on location in and around Fairfield, Connecticut and the beaches nearby, creating the beast creature puppets, dealing with some of the challenges that the effects set pieces required and more.
Up next is an interview with Mike Stanley and writer Robert Hutton that runs nine minutes. It covers where the idea for the story came from, not wanting to use the real Titanic in the opening scene out of respect for those who died in that tragedy, creating the puppets used in the movie, how the score came to be and how much fun they had working on the film even if it didn’t make much money.
From there, we’re treated to twenty minutes of test footage. The vast majority of this, not surprisingly, is footage involving the beast creatures rather than the cast but it’s interesting to see the crew members working out the specifics of how to make them work. There’s no live sound here so AGFA has layered music from the feature overtop of this footage.
The disc also includes a preservation of the VHS version from the 1” tape master which uses the better known Attack Of The Beast Creatures title. It runs 1:21:38 versus the feature attraction at 1:20:30 and it’s presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition with 16-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono audio, framed at 1.33.1 without any subtitle options.
Attack Of The Beast Creatures - The Final Word:
Attack Of The Beast Creatures may be a bit on the repetitive side but even with that said, the movie is a whole lot of fun. Made with little money and whole lot of enthusiasm, it’s quick in its pacing and offers up a few unforgettable set pieces. AGFA’s Blu-ray does a nice job bringing the film to its high definition debut looking and sounding very solid and with some nice extra features as well. recommended!
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Attack Of The Beast Creatures Blu-ray screen caps!
