Mammoth

Since I recently published a book with the same title, I felt it was my unpleasant duty to watch this. So I recorded it while we watched The West Wing and The Sopranos, then watched the tape the next night.
Very soon I was making a lot of mental notes, various nasty things to say, really vicious cuts and overhand chops and knees in the nuts. But I soon lost my enthusiasm. It would be like kicking a big, steaming, fresh mammoth turd. It’s just going to be all squishy, it’s going to fly all over the place, and the more you kick it the more will end up on your shoes. What’s the point?

I will make the observation that it obviously intended to be a spoof, or an affectionate send-up of old B movies about monsters. That can be done well: Tremors, or Shaun of the Dead, or even Re-Animator. But you gotta choose. You can’t be silly, scary, and sentimental at the same time. (Maybe it’s possible, but it’s way beyond the talents of the idiots who made this movie.)

Another thing … it’s amazing how even a no-budget porker like this can have some pretty good CGI effects these days. By good, I mean better than Ed Wood. It’s relatively cheap now. So … why did they apparently invest more money in the opening credits than in the mammoth/mummy/alien itself, which looks like a heffalump with the stuffing falling out?

Oh, I can’t help myself, I have to stick at least ONE bandillera into the putrid corpse of this film. Twenty minutes in I was feeling gloomy, knowing there was an hour and forty minutes to go. Then … a commercial break! This movie was so bad I was eager for the commercials, so I could fast forward the tape. Hell, it’s only about 85, maybe 90 minutes long, not 120! I can handle that …