Monday 1 November 2010

DVD: CREATURE FEATURE: HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER

In 1958 they did it with latex-

In 2001 it was computers-

Desperate for a hit game, a company hires three experts -the nerd with low self esteem, the cool black guy with too much, and Tyler Mane as the aggressive one to create a pants-wetting video game. They pretty much get locked in a room with the idealistic intern (Clea Duvall), and the cynical manager (Steven Culp) and proceed to get on each others nerves. There are extended cameos by executive producer Colleen Camp as the top bitch company boss and B-movie actress Julie Strain playing a B-Movie actress called "Julie Strain" who gets her kit off to wear a motion-capture suit. Pay attention, that was important.

After the usual fuckups, the computer decides to play the game for real with each of our 5 protagonists representing a game 'life' and the motion capture suit as the game's monster. The suit does this by killing off our heroes and attaching bits of them to itself until it finally looks like the game monster.

Given that there is only a small cast and a small location, there's plenty going on to hold the interest  such as the sexual tension/clash of views between Duvall and Culp which has an interesting resolution and not the one you expect. This keeps going along nicely until the film finally turns into a gory stalk and slash until there's only one 'life' left.

Duvall is good, Strain (who should have been in longer) is fun, and Tyler Mane proves he can act rather than just growl or shout insults (cf X-Men).

The weakest of the three to date but still fun despite the dated computer graphics.

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