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Reptilicus

Reptilicus

List Price: $14.95
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Uffda, Pass the Aalborg please!
Review: All I can say is that this is without a doubt the finest "thawed out, prehistoric monster on the loose" movie ever made in Denmark.
If they could have kept him frozen like a bottle of aquavit things would have been just fine but NOOOO...
Until they re-master "From Hell It Came" this will have to do as my all time worst monster movie.
In other words, I love every nasty frame.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Caution: Acid Slime!
Review: 'Reptilicus' is the rarest of the Grade Z monster movie, alone in the genre of Danish giant lizard attacks Copenhagen with green 'acid slime' type movies, to my knowledge. True to form, the Danes call for UN intervention and after many wacky miscues finally discover an adequate method of pest control. This film achieved a very large cult following in both Denmark and the US in the 1960s, and clips from 'Reptilicus' were frequently used on the sitcom "The Monkees" and elsewhere.

The film begins with Danish copper miners exploring for mineral deposits and finding some strange reptile flesh, which when taken to the laboratory eventually transforms into Reptilicus, a lizard with a nasty attitude. The UN spends the last half of the film chasing him around with tanks, ships, etc.; only when scientists and the military get together can they find a solution to their infestation problem.

This is typical early 1960s fare: silly monster, silly dialogue, lots of padding (yes, even musical interludes) and ludicrous special effects (especially the 'acid slime' and the farmer getting eaten scene) combine to make this a classic. Considering when it was made and the novelty of it being from Denmark, this is a decent drive-in movie. It is a little more ponderous and stuffy than some of the contemporary monster movies from the US, so it doesn't rate five stars for camp value, still, a pretty fun picture to watch with the right frame of mind.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Target: Copenhagen
Review: Copper prospectors in the Arctic Circle find part of a giant reptile frozen in the ice. The fragment is taken to the aquarium in Copenhagen where it accidently thaws. But instead of being ruined, the fragment survives and grows. You can see where this is going.

Eventually the creature finishes growing in one quick spurt and breaks out to terrorize the city and countryside. It is up to a Brigadier General assigned by the UN and some local scientists to find a way to stop the creature.

In this film you will see:
The monster eat a cartoon farmer
Lots of green cartoon spit
Nearly the entire population of Copenhagen
Blouses so pointy they can put out an eye
A monster that has clanking bells as part of its roar
Predatory females
What is crawling around your sandwich

The special effects are almost nonexistent although there are excellent Copenhagen city miniatures for the monster puppet to crawl through. The creature itself is almost an Eastern dragon. It is long, snake-like, has two stubby wings and feet on almost-nonexistent legs that always seem to be off of the ground.

Still, this is a fun effort at the non-Japanese giant monster film. There is even some strong acting in a few scenes. A we can't forget the handyman who brings comic relief (he does a good Joe E. Brown imitation).

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Target: Copenhagen
Review: Copper prospectors in the Arctic Circle find part of a giant reptile frozen in the ice. The fragment is taken to the aquarium in Copenhagen where it accidently thaws. But instead of being ruined, the fragment survives and grows. You can see where this is going.

Eventually the creature finishes growing in one quick spurt and breaks out to terrorize the city and countryside. It is up to a Brigadier General assigned by the UN and some local scientists to find a way to stop the creature.

In this film you will see:
The monster eat a cartoon farmer
Lots of green cartoon spit
Nearly the entire population of Copenhagen
Blouses so pointy they can put out an eye
A monster that has clanking bells as part of its roar
Predatory females
What is crawling around your sandwich

The special effects are almost nonexistent although there are excellent Copenhagen city miniatures for the monster puppet to crawl through. The creature itself is almost an Eastern dragon. It is long, snake-like, has two stubby wings and feet on almost-nonexistent legs that always seem to be off of the ground.

Still, this is a fun effort at the non-Japanese giant monster film. There is even some strong acting in a few scenes. A we can't forget the handyman who brings comic relief (he does a good Joe E. Brown imitation).

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Cheesy Danish.
Review: First, there was Japanese sci-fi, filling the screen with fantastic rubberized monsters. Then there was Mexican sci-fi, telling of Wrestling Women and the Aztec Mummy. Here we have Danish sci-fi. A fine line separates movies that are so bad they are good, and movies that are just bad. Entertainment, much as love, is personal and subjective. One should be a steadfast and determined fan of cheap monster on the loose flicks to bother with this movie. The special effects are the main problem. Reptilicus is merely a wobbly marionette with an attitude. It slithers down miniature streets and destroys toy buildings. There are no full body shots. All one can usually see is the bobbing head and scaly neck. The cartoon-like acid slime spewed by the bilious beast makes the viewer green. The color photography is okay, but the scenes of Danish leisure activity are padding by the filmmaker. The cast and crew grimly work their way through the standard cliches as if this is great drama. Baby boomers may recall viewing this film on weekend TV creature-features. ;-)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Old Fashioned Creature Feature
Review: Great old fashioned creature feature about a monster that grows from a fossil and wrecks havoc in Copenhagen Denmark. Sure the effects are not very good, but this film has a special place in my heart as I saw it as a child and loved it. That magic hasn't gone away. Print quality is very good, and this DVD brings back the memories.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Makes Plan 9 From Outser Space seem like Star Wars
Review: I confused Reptilicus with The Beast from 2000 Fathoms, the Ray Harryhausen movie I wish I had actually rented. I wanted to rent The Beast because of its stop-motion special effects. Reptilicus literally had the worst special effects of any movie I have ever seen. The monster made a guy in a Godzilla suit look like something out of Lord of the Rings. It was an inanimate rubber monster on, perhaps, one string. No part of it moved, except that it would occasionally bob up and down or move on or off screen as if pulled or pushed. In more than one scene it simply sat there. As if this were not bad enough, there is the crudest-ever animated green slime that took me a while to understand was supposed to be coming out of its unmoving mouth. Worst of all is a scene in which the monster eats a person. We see the person screaming, then a cut to an incredibly bad cartoon person superimposed in the general area of the monster's mouth, again unmoving. Fortunately, the movie put me to sleep. I needed the rest. It's a mystery to me why this was in the video store and no Harryhausen movie as far as I could tell was there (nor, for that matter was the original King Kong).

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Cheese Danish!
Review: I didn't even know that Denmark had a film industry! If you like cheesy sci-fi films (and I do, especially when I am on summer vacation), this will be right up your alley. The fact that almost everyone in it looks Nordic and speaks with a heavy Danish accent and that you get a mini-travelogue of Copenhagen in the middle of the movie, only adds to its uniqueness. The Danish janitor does a scandinavian equivalent of stepin fetchit, complete with bug eyes. There are actually a few impressive scenes, such as thousands of Danes running throught the streets from the monster. As movies go, it stinks. As bad movies go, it is fun. Check it out.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cheese mania!
Review: I don't know why I love this film but I do and to finally have it on DVD is a dream come true (sad isn't it?). If you like cheese with your monster fests than this gem got it by the truck loads. Great fun and great unintentional laughs. Brilliant. Now all we need is the Danish version.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Shoot him point blank, at close range!
Review: If you are looking for a high-budget (for the time) Danish monster flick, this one is well worth the rental fee, if not buying (PRICE). The stilted English of General Grayson alone is good for a laugh or two, not to mention the deadly monster vomit that always appears to hit the camera. The picture quality of the DVD is suprisingly good for a 40 year old film (unfortunately no widescreen), though the scenes of Reptilicus himself look like they were filmed with a camcorder at the drive-in. You're already wasting time searching for B-movies on the Internet, why not do something useful and spare 80 minutes to watch this frightening chronicle of the fall of Copenhagen.


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