Killer Crocodile 2 came out in 1990, a year after Killer Crocodile. It was filmed back to back with the first movie but with a new director. Giannetto De Rossi is the director of the sequel and he's the guy who created the crocodile. He really made his name with film fans doing make-up effects for all sorts of Italian films, including some for Lucio Fulci. Sadly, he's not much of a director. He only directed two other titles, Cy Warrior in 1989 and a short in 1995. Probably a good thing. The script is by Giannetto, Fabrizio De Angelis and Dardano Sacchetti. Fabrizio was the director on the first film.
Anthony Crenna returns as Keith and Ennio Girolami, under the name Thomas Moore, returns as Joe. An annoying reporter lady comes to the swamp area of the first movie to investigate a rich developer who wants to build a resort in the area. There's still some radioactive barrels in the swamp even though the rich guy says they've all been picked up. Anthony is asked to go there to find the reporter.
There's another problem in the swamp. At the end of the last movie we pan across a giant croc egg sitting on the shore. In the sequel, enough time has past, the egg has hatched and released a giant man muncher into the wild. In a laughable scene some kids tip their boat and dump themselves into the crocodile's maw. It's laughable, not because kid's got eaten, though that can be funny. It's laughable because it's was executed so poorly.
Anthony, the reporter and Joe battle the baddies and the croc. The croc eats most of rich guy's henchmen. This time Anthony thinks to bring some dynamite. We were all disappointed in Joe's death, the movie loses so many points for that piss poor scene. They get a few good points for some of the croc attacks but it's not enough, even after they blew the shit out of that chompy prick. We did get to the end and I can't see wanting to watch it again.
I can say the same for The Shape Of Things To Come, the 1979 Canadian adaptation of the HG Wells novel. The Wikipedia says it hasn't got anything in common with the book. Not too surprised. The screenplay is by Martin Lager and the director is George McCrowan. George directed a few films and plenty of TV from 1960 to 1990. He died 5 years later. I know I've seen some of his work, Frogs and Shadow Of The Hawk the most recent.
Before the movie starts the humans on Earth had a battle with their robots and lost. The humans have set up on the moon and they survive by using the anti-radiation drug Raddic-Q2. It's manufactured on a distant planet called Delta 3. Jack Palance has taken over Delta 3 and he's crashed a ship full of the drug into the moon men's city dome. He wants to run the moon colony as Emperor. If they don't agree he's going to stop the drug following.
No one wants that so Barry Morse, Nicholas Campbell and Anne-Marie Martin steal a spaceship and go to Delta 3. Some of the plot points make me wonder what the writer was thinking. Carol Lynley was the leader of Delta 3. She's got a few men out in a quarry, they meet up with the crew from the moon, eventually they beat Jack down but not before he starts the unstoppable planet destruction countdown.
Anne-Marie and Nicholas leave with a ship full of the radiation drug. Hope they can make more once that's gone. I don't know why they didn't all move to Delta 3 before it was taken over by Jack? It's not really clear if the drug was just manufactured on Delta 3 or it was something that was tied to the planet. I'm asking too many questions of a movie with no answers.
There's some action but it's often terrible. One sad scene with a guy who gets thrown against a wall had us laughing out loud. The story is dull and the dialog awful. The robots are laughable but not the worst I have seen. Small comfort. The special effects are poor for the most part. It's not a movie that I would need to see again but I've already bought the DVD. I guess I'll keep it so I can see that guard flip himself against the rock wall. That will give me laugh. You can take a look at the movie, there's a link in the title above, and see if you like it more than me.
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