Editorials
“Stan Winston’s Creature Features” Brought 1950s Horrors into the Early 2000s [TV Terrors]
Horror and science fiction have always been a part of the television canvas, and constant attempts have been made over the years to produce classic entertainment. Some have fallen by the wayside, while others became mainstream phenomena. With “TV Terrors,” we take a look back at the many genre efforts from the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s, exploring some shows that became cult classics, and others that sank into obscurity.
This month we revisit the five-film series (and toy line) known as “Creature Features.”
- Aired from 2001-2002
- Aired on Cinemax and HBO
In 2001, the late great Stan Winston, Stan Winston Studios, Cinemax, and HBO teamed up to create a multimedia cross promotional project called “Creature Features.” Winston, together with famed producers Colleen Camp and (Samuel Z. Arkoff’s son) Lou Arkoff, produced a series of made-for-cable films for premium movie channels Cinemax and HBO. The series featured five individual monster movies inspired by the titles of American International Pictures’ monster movies from the 1950s.
The full roster of AIP inspirations included Earth vs. the Spider (1958), How to Make a Monster (1958), Day the World Ended (1955), The She-Creature (1956), and Teenage Caveman (1958). The catch was, though, that these new films were basically remakes in name only (or “Tributes” as they’ve been described). What the studios did were recruit directors to take the aforementioned titles and tack on their own concepts and plots, bearing absolutely zero resemblance to the cult classics we all know.
The results and quality varied wildly, but it allowed both networks to premiere new horror titles, while Stan Winston’s team was able to advertise their highly detailed “Creature Features” action figures line. Said figures were often inspired by the new monsters included in these re-imaginings. “Creature Features” was very much a precursor to Hulu’s “Into the Dark,” as all five episodes were low budget feature films, and the very definition of late night cable movie fodder.
She Creature from Sebastian Gutierrez is a period piece set in 1905 starring Rufus Sewell and Carla Gugino as Angus and Lily, a pair of carnies that seek to kidnap an actual living mermaid from a traveling doctor. After a botched robbery, Angus and his crew kidnap the mermaid intent on bringing her home as their new attraction. Things go awry though when Lily inadvertently bonds with the mermaid who begins eating various crew members that cross Lily.
Soon Lily begins getting possessed by the vindictive mermaid, who seeks to escape from their clutches. She Creature is painfully slow considering the great atmosphere and solid special effects. You assume such a good cast would help keep the movie afloat, but in the end, neither Sewell or Gugino’s combined talents help what is a very drab, tedious monster pic.
The second feature, Earth vs. the Spider from director Scott Ziehl, is a ballsy monster movie; ballsy in that it completely rips off Cronenberg’s The Fly wholesale. Quentin is a rabid comic book geek and a security guard for a laboratory. After failing to stop thieves on the job, he willingly injects himself with an experimental serum derived from spider DNA. Hoping it will turn him into the next big arachnid superhero, he soon realizes he’s transforming into a carnivorous giant man-spider, whose lust for human blood is insatiable. Co-starring Dan Aykroyd (who looks like he accidentally walked in from a Sam Spade play), Theresa Russell, and John Cho, it’s a silly, fun, and gory monster movie despite being so unabashedly derivative that I’m surprised Cronenberg didn’t seek legal action.
How to Make a Monster, from George Huang, is a classic monster movie romp that’s also silly but so much fun. A mix of Virus and Chopping Mall, the narrative revolves around a video game development crew anxiously trying to create the ultimate horror video game, “Evilution.” Using an advanced technology, shit hits the fan when the tech is struck by lightning giving it a sentience and awareness. Intent on fulfilling its purpose, it begins stalking and mutilating the group, with only meek intern Laura standing in its way. Gruesome and campy, this installment packs some dark comedy, along with a cast that includes Clea Duvall, Tyler Mane, Jason Marsden, and Julie Strain, who cameos.
The Day the World Ended from Brian King feels like a longer version of the 1983 take on The Twilight Zone‘s It’s a Good Life. Nastassja Kinski plays Jennifer, a child therapist who gets a job in a small town. The small town is filled with generally cold and unwelcoming locals and she takes an interest in a local boy named Ben. Bullied by everyone, Ben begins to display unusual powers, and is convinced he’s the offspring of an alien who mated with his deceased mother. He’s also certain his alien father is looking for him and will arrive any time to enact bloody vengeance.
What Jennifer uncovers is a dark past involving aliens, the town, Ben’s ill fated mother, and his single dad who hovers over Ben constantly. Starring Kinski, Randy Quaid, and a plethora of notable character actors, The Day the World Ended is uneven and veers more toward fantasy, but at least it introduces a slick looking monster.
Teenage Caveman is the absolute nadir of the series. Larry Clark (of Kids infamy) directs what is a ninety minute glorified Skinemax film made up of an hour of very young looking actors in the buff having sex in long, drawn out, tedious sequences. There’s about twenty minutes of actual narrative. Said film involves a pair of evolved humans (Andrew Keegan, Tiffany Limos) that lure a group of exiled teens from a post apocalyptic tribe to their home base where they seduce and sexually transmit their genes to them, allowing them a chance to evolve for survival. Believe it or not, there are monsters in this movie, but they play third fiddle to the shameless, nigh endless T&A.
Premiering on late night cable on Halloween 2001, “Creature Features” basically disappeared from both channels in 2002, accruing almost no buzz or acclaim. Released concurrently with the films, Stan Winston Studios made their very first line of action figures based on the monsters from these individual features. Winston also included CD-ROMs with each figure, detailing the creation and Stan’s feelings on the process. There are five total figures and CDs with five making-of videos. All five segments can be found on YouTube, allowing fans that didn’t spend money on the collectibles an interesting insight into the ambitious project.
Today we have Sideshow, Mezco, NECA and various boutique companies cross promoting their collectibles with TV shows and video games, and Stan Winston was ahead of his time on that front. Even if the movies that resulted from the endeavor were mostly duds.
Is It On DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming?
The movies were all individually released under the “Creature Features” banner, and are still available (on both DVD and VHS), if a tad pricey; which should be an indicator of how much HBO and Cinemax loved these films. The collectible figures are also still available, with reasonable pricing.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
You must be logged in to post a comment.