Yesterday I attended a five-film festival of Animals Attacking Humans movies:
* Phase IV (1974), intelligent ants vs. scientists
* Alligator (1980), giant gator vs. urbanites
* Jaws (1975), Bruce the Shark vs. swimmers
* Day of the Animals (1977), wild mammals (and birds) vs. hikers
* Piranha II: The Spawning (1981), flying carnivorous mutant fish vs. vacationers
The score, at the end of the fest: Humans 4, Animals 1.
I can't believe I sat through all 5; I originally showed up just to see Phase IV because I won free tickets from a local radio station. But it was 5 movies for 1 ticket, and I hadn't seen Alligator ... next thing I knew, I was getting my hand stamped to eat some oysters (a little protein instead of just popcorn), and returning midway through Jaws to tough it out for the duration.
Cinematically, Jaws was the best of these flicks, though not because Steven Spielberg was the best director. James Cameron made Piranha II (and it's such a mess that it's amazing he got greenlighted for Terminator.)
The most fun film, though, had to be Day of the Animals, particularly when low ozone levels turned Leslie Nielsen into a rapist and wrestler of grizzly bears. (Wine Rocks does not recommend or condone either.)
This got me to thinking, what are the best Animals Attacking Humans movies ever?
Here's a short list of seven that I actually liked:
* The Birds (1963): Birds vs. Tippi Hedren's friends
* Deep Blue Sea (1999): Intelligent sharks vs. Samuel L. Jackson
* Grizzly (1976): Fake grizzly vs. helicopter
* Grizzly Man (2005, documentary): Real grizzlies vs. real hubris
* Willard (1971): Rats vs. Ernest Borgnine
* Piranha (1978): Killer fish that can't fly vs. raw sewage
* Arachnophobia (1990): Venezuelan spiders vs. fat juicy Americans
I don't want to start listing Giant Animals Attacking Humans, because other than The Mist (2007), the Hamlet of giant bug films, most are Roger Corman-type rubber suit quickies.
But that said, here's a quick snuffly-nose shout out to
* Night of the Lepus (1972): Giant metrosexual rabbits vs. intelligent screenwriting
'Nuff said.
2 comments:
How about The Giant Spider Invasion, which starred the Skipper from Gilligan's Island? Spiders vs. Skipper!
According to IMDb, Cameron was only involved in the (ahem) pre-post-production of the film, and all his post-production efforts were rolled back. Be nice to Cameron, or else he'll sic his Avatar on you.
And, what, no "Them!"?
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