F UNIDENTIFIED
LYING VARMINTS
COWBOYS & ALIENS Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde
Directed by Jon Favreau Written by Mark Fergus, Steve Oedekerk, Hawk Ostby, et al. Universal
Movies such as Cowboys & Aliens aren’t born,
they’re hatched – like a scheme. In this case, the egg was a concept pitched to Uni- versal Studios in 1997 by film and television producer/comic book publisher Scott Mitchell Rosenberg. As it entered de- velopment hell and was being fertilized by scores of writers, Rosenberg put out a graphic novel version of the tale in 2006. Now the Hollywood blockbuster has arrived, after being sat on by many a chicken. The result is exactly what
you’d expect: plenty of sci-fi eye candy, every western cliché in the book, thin char- acters and a bunch of set pieces created by different writers and strung together by some extremely sus- pect character motivations. Really, the only surprise here is what it has to offer to horror fans – namely
RM38 C I N E M A C A B R E
some really monstrous-looking aliens doing some sick stuff to humans, and humans in turn exacting some violent, gory revenge. It begins with an amnesiac cowboy, who we later
learn is outlaw Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), trying to remove a bizarre gauntlet from his wrist. He makes his way into a typical town where he mixes it up with a local thug and then some lawmen, eventually get- ting himself thrown in a prisoner transport. But before he can be shipped out, alien spacecraft attack and abduct a bunch of the locals, including the son of rich local rancher Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harri- son Ford), the sheriff (Keith Carradine) and the wife of the town doctor/saloon owner (Sam Rockwell). Naturally a posse is formed, which, along with a strange woman (Olivia Wilde) who has inside knowledge of the aliens, sets off on a res- cue mission. After running into a group of outlaws and a tribe of Apache, our heroes eventually take the fight to the invaders. As Lonergan recovers his memory,
we’re treated to flashbacks of some horri- ble alien surgical experiments on the ab- ducted, who are essentially zombified beforehand – and depicted like the tor- tured souls you might see in a Silent Hill
movie. The aliens, who sport pop-open chest cavities, insect eyes, pointy claws and needle teeth, savagely bash, stab and chew their victims, making them sur- prisingly frightening. It’s more than a little satisfying
when the cowboys stab, spear and blow them into showers of green goo. If the filmmakers behind Cowboys & Aliens had put
the same effort into the story that they did the creature effects, perhaps they could’ve laid something more substantial than just vapid summer entertainment. DAVE ALEXANDER
CRY ME A RIVER MONSTER
BOGGY CREEK Starring Texas Battle, Melissa Carnell
and Stephanie Honore Directed by Brian T. Jaynes Written by Brian T. Jaynes and Jennifer Minar American World Pictures
Early buzz suggested Boggy Creek was to be a re-
make of the 1972 horror classic The Legend of Boggy Creek. While the new film obviously draws influence from the truth-inspired original with its small-town setting and swampy locations, it has more in common with the 1985 sequel, Boggy Creek II, in that it’s a purely fictional tale of sasquatch-gone-bad that does- n’t quite live up to its legendary namesake. Directed by first-timer Brian T. Jaynes, Boggy Creek has some incredibly memorable scenes, but regrettably falls short overall. The story revolves around Jennifer, who is having
a hard time coping with the recent death of her beloved father. To get away, she takes her best friend on a weekend trip to the rustic cabin she’s inherited,
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