80's Wes Craven Part One

DEADLY BLESSING
(1981)
Overall: MEH
 
This early effort from Wes Craven is an atypical one in several respects for the filmmaker.  Professional and clean, filmed on location in the bright and sunny farmlands of Waxahachie, Texas and equipped with a sweeping, often busy and romantic score by James Horner, Deadly Blessing has the persistent look and feel of a made for TV movie.  Though Michael Berryman briefly returns from The Hills Have Eyes, the last two minutes are supernaturally eye-popping, and it occasionally adheres to the slasher framework, hardly any other standard Craven trappings are present.  Most noticeable is a lack of purposeful schlock, which is the director's usual stock and trade.  Though it therefor boasts a consistent, serious tone for a change and the accidental silliness is kept to a minimum, that leaves the humdrum story to play out unremarkably.  Ernest Borgnine camps it up as an ubber-Amish family leader, plus a twenty-three year old Sharon Stone gets terrorized by spiders for some reason, so there is that.  Also, watch out for a recognizable bathtub shot that Craven would use again in A Nightmare on Elm Street, replacing a snake in this instance with Freddy's claws in the latter.

 

SWAMP THING
(1982)
Overall: MEH
 
The only comic book action film from Wes Craven was Swamp Thing; a low budget offering that is passable if ultimately lackluster.  Long before superhero movies were taken remotely seriously and a few years before Alan Moore would embark on his legendary Swamp Thing run for DC, this is essentially a by-the-books, misunderstood monster in a rubber suite interpretation of the character.  It is also one with less than exemplary production values.  Dick Durock looks more silly than intimidating as the title character, but he is nowhere near as embarrassing as when Louis Jordan goes full sword-wielding werewolf in a Gorn-worthy costume that ups the camp value tenfold.  The second act brings everything to a meandering stand-still, but the finale is nothing to write home about either, being both sappy, (pardon the pun), and underwhelming.  Adrienne Barbeau makes a bosomy scream queen and treats the material more sincere than it deserves, but her commitment is not enough to elevate the film above being just a forgettable example of when such movies were mere disposable cheapies.

 

INVITATION TO HELL
(1984)
Overall: GOOD
 
The same year that A Nightmare on Elm Street was released, Wes Craven delivered the less famous made for television film Invitation to Hell for ABC.  With a well-maintained and eerie tone that is more level-headed than the director's bombastic and camp-fueled works, the script by Richard Rothstein heavily recalls the type of cultish, suburbanite paranoia found in The Stepford Wives and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except with a supernatural slant.  As is usually the case, the network television presentation neuters certain aspects, but the sterile look actually suits the material where upper middle class conformity and ambition is critiqued.  There is no gore or disturbing nastiness, but the final set piece is effectively strange and creepy, even if it is also silly and dated.  The cast has a hefty number of familiar faces as well, with a pre-Punky Brewster Soleil Moon Frye and a pre-The Neverending Story Barret Oliver showing up as Robert Urich and Joanna Cassidy's kids.  Kevin McCarthy and Michael Berryman drop in for a couple of seconds as well.

 

THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II
(1985)
Overall: MEH

Accounts vary as to what went wrong with Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes Part II, a sequel to his flawed yet more enduring original.  While the movie is not as abysmal as its long-standing reputation dictates, (Craven has done far worse), it is still problematic.   It could be that the production ran out of money, that it was heavily tampered with after the fact, or that Craven was simply in a financial pickle and knocked-out such a lazy follow-up for a quick paycheck.  In any event, the film was shelved for two years, only emerging in a post A Nightmare on Elm Street landscape and appearing that much more amatuerish and lame because of it.  In an attempt to stretch out the running time, significant amounts of footage is taken from the first movie in the form of arbitrary flashbacks.  Yet it is also padded with boring dirt bike races and awful pacing, with mostly obnoxious male characters and comparatively more likeable female ones prattling on and slowly walking around.  Once the sun goes down and things get drenched in darkness, Craven does manage to stir up a little atmosphere.  Unfortunately though, he endlessly interrupts it with cheap jump scares and sloppy tonal shifts.  It is more boring than anything and easily one of the most unnecessary and lackluster sequels of its kind, which is saying a lot.

80's British Horror Part Eleven

SCREAMTIME
(1983)
Dir - Michael Armstrong/Stanley A. Long
Overall: MEH

The British and American co-production Screamtime comes from director Stanley A. Long and Michael Armstrong, serving as the latter's final time from behind the lens.  A clunky anthology movie, we have a wrap-around segment with two dipshits who steal some VHS tapes, each one containing a different story.  The first concerns a puppeteer who goes loco after his bitchy wife and stepson keep acting like unreasonable assholes, the second one cobbles together premonition and slasher motifs, and the last has another two disphits that decide to rob some old ladies only to come face to face with sinister garden gnomes.  While none of the vignettes are terrible, all of them are also not any good. Budgetary constraints provide the usual issues since Armstrong and Long are only able to cobble together the most minimal amount of spooky atmosphere.  Two of the stories are more ridiculous than creepy anyway, but the lack of star power and the D-rent presentation makes this instantly forgettable.  At least the dad joke worthy title is clever.

 

THREADS
(1984)
Dir - Mick Jackson
Overall: GOOD

This famed nuclear fallout drama from the BBC, Nine Network, and Australia Western-World Television Inc remains arguably the most harrowing that has ever been made.  Inspired by the 1966 pseudo-documentary The War Game, (which was initially banned in its native U.K.), amongst other apocalyptic fare, Threads arrived near the peak of Soviet tensions throughout Europe, the Middle East, and America. Sheffield provides the natural working class industrial site for nuclear bombing, which when hit, instantaneously eliminated of all semblance of functioning society.  It takes until the fifty-five minute mark for such ruination to land, but that still leaves a full hour of unrelenting turmoil, confusion, and hopelessness to absorb.  Director Mick Jackson and screenwriter Barry Hines establish a minute amount of characters early on, (in order to give us some individuals to follow as the world they know and the plans that they laid cease to exist), but the film would be just as powerful if it merely showed us the unorganized downfall of humankind, which it still does in spades.  The drama is inter cut with typed screen text, Paul Vaughan's narration, and still shots of obliterated urban devastation, emancipated bodies, dead animals, and rotten crops.  It is a weighty watch that admirably pulls no punches, deglamorizing a post World War II threat that has remained steady every since.

 

BILLY THE KID AND THE GREEN BAIZE VAMPIRE
(1985)
Dir - Alan Clarke
Overall: MEH

An undead billiards musical, (Wait, what?), Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire comes from veteran television writer directors Trever Preston and Alan Clarke, respectfully.  The fact that it also manages to throw Thatcher-era class struggles into the mix on top of its snooker sports movie foundation is even more impressive and ridiculous.  While composer George Fenton has plenty of notable works on his resume, the songs here are mostly terrible as well as large in frequency.  What few blood-sucker motifs are present are inconsequential to a tale of the dignified elite vs the underdog, (both of whom play right into the media's hands of over-zealous competitiveness), and it slams home its point long before the last act arrives, which is exclusively dedicated to the big bout between Phil Daniels and Bruce Payne.  Clarke's presentation is surreal and claustrophobic as there are a minimal amount of sets and no location shooting, but the art decoration lacks flair, as do the musical numbers which are minimal on choreography.  Even if it fails to live up to the more showy standards of your Tommys and Rocky Horror Picture Shows, the film is still strange enough to warrant a gander.

80's British Horror Part Ten

KRULL

(1983)

Dir - Peter Yates

Overall: MEH

A large-budgeted British production from Columbia Pictures, Krull stands out from the horde of sword and sorcery films that were made at the turn of the 1980s due both to its impressive scale and melding of science fantasy with medieval archetypes.  Though it has some inventive set pieces and a propelling musical score from James Horner, the film never captures that necessary sense of mystical whimsy.  This is because of bland characters, (including Ken Marshall's dashing hero who acts like a kid in a candy story throughout his adventure even though his enchanting bride is in desperate peril the entire time), stock storytelling, and director Peter Yates' sluggish pacing.  By Yates' own admission, he was overwhelmed with the undertaking as this bares no resemblance to the filmmaker's usual, modestly-scaled and unassuming dramas.  In hindsight, it may have been a mistake to put such a director in charge of a Arthurian space opera with a thirty million dollar price tag, but the film nearly gets by on its visual scope alone.  Largely shot at Pinewood Studios, the massive sets are spectacular, plus the special effects team does top-notch work for the era.  Only some rear projection and stop-motion animation comes off as dated, with everything else standing up against the best practical movie magic out there.  It is a shame that these positives are the only ones that is has to offer, but for popcorn fantasy, it may just be enough.

 

SCREAM FOR HELP
(1984)
Dir - Michael Winner
Overall: WOOF

Notable for featuring the last screenplay that Tom Holland would pen before making his directorial debut Fright Night, as well as being John Paul Jones first film work as a composer, Scream for Help is an odd exploitation movie that is almost worth tilting one's head at due to the moronic story, wretched performances, and confused tone.  A British production that is set in the US with American actors, it concerns an annoying teenager who is convinced that her douchebag stepfather David Allen Brooks is not on the up and up.  Even though her suspicious are validated halfway through, the diabolical plot that she uncovers has enough holes in it to sail a yacht through.  It involves said stepfather teaming up with two slimy criminals who pretend to be brother and sister yet are actually lovers, and even once Brooks finds out that he is being played, he still goes along with the plan that spirals out of control in unintentionally laughable fashion.  Everyone here performs like they are in a comedy even though they are not, but one could argue that such embarrassing acting is fitting for the character's baffling behavior.

BORN OF FIRE
(1987)
Dir - Jamil Dehlavi
Overall: MEH
 
An exercise in stylistically nebulous storytelling, Jamil Dehlavi's Born of Fire is visually compelling and has atmosphere to spare, even if its Middle Eastern mysticism never connects with a compelling narrative.  Shot in Turkey and making gorgeous use out of fire-lit caves and haunting deserts, (captured by Bruce McGowan's vivid cinematography), it concerns a professional flutist who undergoes a mysterious journey after the death of his mother and the arrival of an astronomer whose personality leans toward supernatural possession at regular intervals.  It all seems to tie around said musician's father, Djinns, and a bald, creepy-looking Master who dwells in the Arabic wilderness and shoots fire out of his eyes.  Shots of snakes, maggots, pool worms, erupting volcanoes, skulls, a wailing dwarf, lizards crawling on the ceiling, a slug baby thing, and other such random flourishes mix with pretentiously vague dialog and spell-binding music to create a cacophony of oddness that is slow if not impossible to make heads or tails out of.  This is a shame since it is more excessive than quirky, void of humor and lacking in any type of human element to make its evocative scenery and sounds come off as anything but aloof.

80's Mexican Horror Part Five

EL MALEFICICO 2: LOS ENVIADOS DEL INFERNO

(1986)
Dir - Raúl Araiza
Overall: MEH

A feature-length continuation of writer/director Raúl Araiza's supernatural soap opera El maleficio, El maleficio 2: Los enviados del infierno, (The Hex 2: Messengers of Hell), takes its cue from Dan Curtis' The House of Dark Shadows, which retooled plot points from its daytime program for the movie version.T  he story here focuses on one of the series' main bad guys, Ernesto Alonso who portrays a practitioner of the black arts that is on a quest to find his Bael-worshiping successor.  Unfortunately for him, the young chosen one is a teenager that is in love with his own sister and because Alonso also has the hots for said woman, things do not go according to plan. Arbitrary telekinetic powers, The Omen-styled "accidental" death sequences, a continuously ominous musical score, and two different paintings that seem to omit unholy power, there are a number of fun genre elements thrown into the mix.  As far as Araiza's presentation though, the word "fun" is not as fitting as one would hope since it plays its cards too seriously to lean into any of its inherent silliness or exploitative value.  Humorless and dour, it gets points for sticking to its macabre tone, but it also feels its length and only delivers in fits and starts.

THE INFERNAL RAPIST
(1988)
Dir - Damián Acosta Esparza
Overall: WOOF

Arguably the sleaziest film to ever come out of Mexico, The Infernal Rapist, (El violador infernal), lives up to its apt title.  This is the type of gutter trash that one can skip over large portions of, (if not the entire movie), while also ignoring subtitles since it follows a rinse and repeat framework for eighty-three minutes that consists of nothing more than some guy chatting up his victims, giving them drugs, raping them, and then killing them.  Said hopeless romantic is played by Noé Murayama, who has all of the charisma of your creepy uncle that should be kept away from children.  His title character is a convicted murderer that is left alone in his electric chair immediately after getting fried, only for three fabulously dressed female demons to show up and grant him immortality, drugs, and pleasure so long as he continuously rapes, murders, and carves "666" into the flesh of his conquests.  He definitely does this and the entire ordeal is sporadically broken up with hot-headed police officers who rough up "fags" and make the usual complaints that the media is laughing at them and blah, blah, blah.  How a dead man waltzed out of jail and roams around freely on a murder spree for so long is left hilariously unexplained, but anyone coming to this expecting narrative coherence is watching the wrong movie.  It is cheap, boring, painfully moronic, and pathetically offensive, but for those who are in the mood for garbage, you cannot do worse than this.

 

HELL'S TRAP

(1989)

Dir - Pedro Galindo III

Overall: WOOF

Slasher movies suck for a number of reasons and one of the primary ones is that it is impossible to give a shit about characters who are A) all idiots and B) exist in a universe that runs on arbitrary logic.  Pedro Galindo III's Hell's Trap, (Trampa Infernal), pits its cast of morons against a Vietnam vet who went loco in the woods; woods that everyone ventures into on a dare as to which group of friends/enemies can kill a bear first.  The flimsy jumping-off point is made worse by a drawn-out sense of pacing that will lose most viewers long before the first kill happens at about thirty minutes in.  Once these dumb-dumbs realize that they are being picked off, instead of fleeing their isolated location in their properly working automobiles, they insist on staying put because the killer has traps everywhere, (traps that in no way hindered their arrival on road), thus we settle into a mind-numbingly boring and unimaginative "picking everyone off one-by-one" framework.  On paper, mixing First Blood with your typical masked slasher piece of garbage might sound like a fun bit of stupid to indulge in, but all of the existing problems render this a forgettable and insulting waste of time.  So in other words, it is just another 80s slasher movie.

80's Spanish Horror Part Seven

REGRESO DEL MÁS ALLÁ
(1982)
Dir - Juan José Porto
Overall: MEH

The second of only two horror movies from Spanish filmmaker Juan José Porto, Regreso del más allá, (Back from Beyond, Return from Beyond), is an obscure and clearly minuscule-budgeted one. Set almost entirely at a contemporary-styled mansion that a couple rents to work on their novel and thesis respectfully, it has a redundant nature where the woman incessantly has visions of the three people who were brutally murdered there. Save for one or two hazy framing effects, the ghosts are just actors in pale zombie make-up who either merely stand still or slowly walk up to Ana Obregón as she stares wide-eyed, cries, screams, and still insists on staying there because the movie needs to be longer than twelve minutes. The husband never sees anything of course, but at least he does not gaslight his partner, plus Porto goes for a curious stillness in the presentation. There is little incidental music and the numerous supernatural scenes play out in a calm and matter-of-fact manner. While the approach is unique and seems to be going for a sense of low-key and eerie intimacy, it unfortunately results in a sterile watch.  The twist ends up  being both predictable and logically undermines the long wait to get there, but at least some exploitative gore, nudity, and a genuine attempt at spookiness is appreciated.

 

AKELARRE

(1984)

Dir - Pedro Olea
Overall: MEH

A witch trial drama from filmmaker Pedro Olea, Akelarre, (Witches' Sabbath), hits all of the miserable and predictable beats even if it is presented sincerely instead of being merely exploitative.  Set during the end of the 16th century in Navarre, Spain and apparently shot on location there, it concerns your usual crop of corrupt clergyman and town officials who squash the peasants pre-Christian traditions by striking fear into the village with preposterous witch accusations.  It has false confessions brought on by torture, a Don's son who tries to free a condemned tavern maid after making repeated sexual advances towards her, (and then raping her anyway), plus the Catholic church depicted in the bog-standard and unflattering light where they go from town to town murdering innocent members of the lower class in the name of the Jesus.  As stock as the story and black and white as the characters may be depicted, Olea presents it as a timely tragedy where paranoia and superstition make natural bedfellows with corruption and class dynamics.  The pacing is without agency, but José Luis Alcaine's cinematography utilizes natural lighting to ideally capture the rustic setting.

 

THE SEA SERPENT

(1985)

Dir - Amando de Ossorio

Overall: MEH

Doubling as the final theatrically-released film from Spanish writer/director Amando de Ossorio as well as veteran actor Ray Milland, The Sea Serpent, (Serpiente de mar), is a rightfully neglected nature horror dud, one of oodles that sprung forth in the wake of Stephen Spielberg's Jaws.  There is no killer shark, but the creature that we do get is hilariously unconvincing.  The filmography of de Ossorio was always ill-equipped budget wise and this, (his only giant monster movie), is no different.  The creature resembles that "What! What'll come out no more!" stop-motion thing that shows up for one shot in John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China, if only it was made with papier-mâché for a third grade school art project.  Hardly a proper Loch Ness Monster stand-in, it is delegated to little screen time anyway.  In fact, it disappears for almost the entire second act which allows for the hackneyed plot to unfold as a series of frustrated people trying to convince other frustrated people that an oversized sea beast exists.  Besides Milland, Jack Taylor, Victor Israel, and even Spanish horror director León Klimovsky make appearances, but this and the stupid looking title monster are hardly enough to maintain interest.

80's Italian Horror Part Fourteen

NOTHING UNDERNEATH

(1985)

Dir - Carlo Vanzina

Overall: MEH

 

Interestingly, the writer/director team of Enrico and Carlo Vanzina deliberately stylized Nothing Underneath, (Sotto il vestito niente, Pele nua, Où est passée Jessica, Modelmordene, The Last Shot, Mannekiinimurhaaja), as a Brian de Palma-esque giallo, which was a genre that de Palma himself adapted a handful of times across the Atlantic.  Bringing it back to home base, the film takes place in Milan, concerns a pair of psychically connected siblings, has plenty of T&A, and revolves around the fashion industry where a guy witnesses his sister being murdered via supernatural mental images and then travels to discover the killer.  Donald Pleasence also shows up to eat spaghetti at a Wendy's and talk in an Italian accent as the head police inspector, so he at least interjects some life into an otherwise pedestrian offering.  The movie was originally to be an adaptation of Paolo Pietroni's novel of the same name, (with famed filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni of all people at the helm), but it eventually fell into the Vanzina brother's hands, with screenwriter Franco Ferrini allegedly reconfiguring the script from scratch.  In any event, it disguises its exploitative nature to a point, but all of the elements are merely competently rehashed, so it has little going for it in the end.

 

TOO BEAUTIFUL TO DIE

(1988)

Dir - Dario Piana

Overall: MEH

The full-length debut from TV commercial director Dario Piana, Too Beautiful to Die, (Sotto il vestito niente II), lumped itself in with Carlo Vanzina's 1985's erotic thriller Nothing Underneath, but like many Italian films which were haphazardly thrown into a franchise after the fact, (and in this case, a franchise that does not exist), it bares little resemblance to Vanzina's aforementioned giallo.  It still revolves around the fashion industry and has a police inspector trying to track down the killer, but countless other Euro slashers adhered to a similar jumping off point going all the way back to Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace.  The details here are lazily fleshed out, as if Piana and his co-screenwriters were just going on autopilot and throwing in whatever merely serviceable plot nonsense they could in order to tie together one slow montage after the other.  On that note, the film is plenty stylish, featuring wet models in Max Max/Rollerball gear doing heaven knows what while the bad guy goes around slicing people up with a nifty medieval-styled device.  Nudity, some steamy saxophone music, flashy colors, and dark warehouses provide the alluring scenery, (also a guy plays an Atari-styled porno game on his computer at one point), but the story is instantly forgettable, the dubbing of course sucks, and the kill scenes are both lame and infrequent.

ARABELLA BLACK ANGEL

(1989)

Dir - Stelvio Massi

Overall: WOOF

To sum up what kind of giallo Stelvio Massi/Max Steel's Arabella Black Angel, (Arabella l'angelo nero), is, a woman willingly goes into a castle with S&M practitioners having sex, she gets yelled at for not charging money like the rest of them do, then a cop bends her over her car and asks her "Didn't anyone ever tell you its illegal to be a whore in this country?', followed by said cop raping her on said car.  Oh, and he rapes her again within the next ten minutes and then gets killed.  The proceeding hour and some change of this gutter-level Euro-sleaze continues in a similar vein where naked women cry while being degraded in some capacity, and then someone keeps easily stabbing people to death with a pair of scissors.  Sometimes the nakedness and the fornication is consensual, but the murder, (and particularly the genital mutilation), naturally never is.  Who any of these people are and why they are all either assholes or emotionally and physically battered women does not seem to be of any importance.  Going through the debauchery motions in the laziest manner possible does seem to be of importance.  Massi had a steady body of exploitation on his resume at this point and had also been a cinematographer on a hefty amount of equally-to-less gaudy movies, but this would be a bottom-barrel entry on anyone's filmography.

80's Italian Horror Part Thirteen

THE SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS

(1982)

Dir - Sergio Martino

Overall: WOOF

Possibly the worst directorial effort from Sergio Martino, The Scorpion with Two Tails, (Assassinio al cimitero etrusco, Murder in the Etruscan Cemetery), was his final entry in supernatural horror, though he continued to work prolifically in other genres for the next several decades.  Perhaps partially inspired by Raiders of the Lost Arc which offered up a slew of similar temple/lost treasure adventures on both sides of the Atlantic, this France/Italian co-production was initially set to be an eight-part television serial yet was mercifully cut down to a still grueling ninety-eight minutes.  Lucio Fulci collaborator Fabio Frizzi delivers some hooky if incessant music, screenwriters Dardano Sacchetti and Ernesto Gastaldi had plenty of similar credits on their resume, plus Euro-trash regulars Claudio Cassinelli, Paolo Malco, and John Saxon, (in a minor capacity), are all present.  Even with such sure-fire personnel and arguably Italy's second best giallo filmmaker Martino behind the lens, the results are snore-inducing crap.  People get murdered by having their heads turned around backwards, maggots show up a lot, there is a well-decorated tomb, Elvire Audray's millionaire dad has a side hustle selling heroin, and characters that never make an impression just prattle on with each other until we reach some kind of conclusion involving a double-cross.

 

DAGGER EYES

(1982)

Dir - Carlo Vanzina

Overall: MEH

The sibling duo of Enrico and Carlo Vanzina channeled Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 cinéma du look thriller Diva with their own ambitious giallo variant Dagger Eyes, (Mystère, Murder Near Perfect).  Broken up into chapters and scoring Bond girl Carole Bouquet in the lead as a high-end, femme fatale lady of the evening, it adheres to long established film noir tropes as much as it does "black gloved killers with inventive means of murdering people" ones.  The dialog is snappy and most of the characters glide through things with a cool-as-a-cucumber charm that bypasses the type of melodramatic silliness that most Euro exploitation adheres to.  Even the disco-heavy score by Armando Trovajoli is less tacky than it should be, helping to enhance a smooth and erotic tale of double-crossing characters who adhere to their own rules.  Things are more interesting in the first act where we spend a significant amount of time with Bouquet and her classy call girl lifestyle, but the rudimentary plot runs out of momentum even before we reach a rushed and disappointing finale.  Apparently, the Vanzina brothers wanted to shoot a more downtrodden ending, but producers insisted on an uplifting one which is handled in a clumsy manner at best.

 

RATMAN

(1988)

Dir - Giuliano Carnimeo

Overall: MEH

 

The penultimate film from director Giuliano Carnimeo, Ratman, (Quella villa in fondo al parco), is a typical exploitation snooze-fest, one that is punctuated by some nasty kills and peppered with a cornball synth musical score by Stefano Mainetti.  This was one of only three movies to feature two-foot, four-inch tall Dominican actor Nelson de la Rosa, who would more famously show up as Marlon Brando's prop lackey in the infamous The Island of Dr. Moreau from 1996.  As the title creature who was created by Pepito Guerra's scientist by crossing rodent semen with a monkey because dumb, Rosa makes few appearance, squeaking, leaping, and clawing away at hapless individuals who cross his path.  There is a little T&A to appease sleaze aficionados and Euro-horror fans will recognize a few of the faces that are on board, but Carnimeo's direction is lifeless and Roberto Girometti's cinematography leaves just as much to de desired.  The first two acts are sluggish enough with Janet Ågren going into morgues only to try and convince the police that the dead ratman victims are not her sister, but it eventually settles into a just as lackluster slasher framework where Eva Grimaldi tries to fend off her tiny mutant attacker.  At least the final closing credit tag is a fun and campy note to go out on.