Vile 21 (1998) — Triskaidekafiles

VILE 21

WRITERS: Mike Strain Jr. & Mike Weldon

DIRECTOR: Mike Strain Jr.

STARRING: Dan Skinner as Walter Hall
Bryon Blakey as Tom Huston
Ronnie Sortor as Jack Patruski
Brian Southwick as Steve Rollins
Jack Elliot as Commander Johnson
Steve Kelly as Jon the Bum

QUICK CUT: A scientist tries to help out a homeless person with a bit of cash, in return for some help in his research.

THE MORGUE

Doctor Hall - A dedicated scientist invested in discovering a cure for aging. He’s not quite full on mad scientist, and he sticks to procedures, but he is willing to do what’s necessary, if it comes to it.

Agent Patruski - Hall’s liaison with the government overseers that are funding his research. Gruff and to the point, and not the typical government agent trying to use Hall for his won ends.

Do I need to see the first 20 Vile movies to understand this one, or can I just jump right in?

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! It's April 1st, and I'm starting the month off with a foolish movie called Vile 21. It's a little known science gone wrong monster movie from the late 90s that caught my eye, so let's get into it.

The movie starts in the year 2020, with a young girl running home. She wakes up her grandfather to tell him about "the monster" and get him to watch the news.

We go now live to the scene, with a bunch of police in tshirts and hand crafted riot gear. They're on the hunt for this supposed monster, and doing what cops do.

I guess there have been major budget cuts to the police department of this alternate 2020 timeline.

There's one solider in particular, that they kinda focus on, but not really, as will become evident soon, but he stands there all stern and commanding, throws his cigareete to the ground, and causes stuff to explode. It's just a funny bit of editing that made me laugh.

So the grandfather realises "it's all true, he's still alive,” and gets a call from a government agent in supposed old age makeup. It's clear these two are working together in some capacity to stop the creature, and have been for some time, but time has run out.

The scientist picks up a photo album, and we jump back to 1995, an archaeological dig, and they stumble on some strange artifacts; a meteorite, and a strange skull.

A coin? Possibly from the 18th century? Could this be the piece of evidence that connects Oak Island to the Knights Templar?

And, look, I'm gonna level with you folks. A large chunk of the movie from here on out is just gonna be a LOT of sciencing and technobabble before we get to the monster. I'll try and breeze through this for all our sakes.

The meteor is transported to a stage set...er, a lab, where younger versions of the grandfather and agent are setting things up to begin their research.

Oh, and while the doctor is in charge, agent Patruski is sending over a few of his men to "help" and make sure things go according to plan.

Agent Linkara of the Fourth Wall investigations bureau.

The agents arrive, we meet THOSE guys, introduce them to the rest of the team, and it all works well enough to introduce the cast. And now, let the sciencing begin.

Later, Doctor Hall checks his fridge, and finds a vial of green liquid, that must have been left behind by the previous tenant, Herbert West.

This is an old serum of his he was working on, as part of an anti aging serum, I believe, and wait wait, why is it just hanging out in your kitchen fridge??

This is the last known sample of Ecto Cooler, we MUST reverse engineer its secrets, for the good of humanity!

Eventually, they discover some bacteria in the meteor, and this has huge potential. The agent scientists head back to base to make a progress report to Agent Pastrami and his boss.

There's talk of starting animal testing, so Hall goes to get a cat. Meanwhile, there are conflicting orders coming down the chain of command. Petruski ONLY wants to do animal testing, after a referenced "incident" that went badly, but behind his back, his boss tells the science agents to pressure Doctor Hall to start human trials.

But meanwhile, Hall is getting his new pet, bringing him home, and injects him with a combination of the meteorite bacteria and the contents of his green vial. In his home. I am sorry, but this is not how to science.

He brought home the world’s largest, and squarest, baked potato.

After Walter chases off a bum that likes to sleep outside the lab, Huston makes his hard sell on starting human trials. He threatens to cut off funding, shut everything down, all the usual threats. Hall gives in, and agrees.

The next day, the bum is still lurking around, and Hall has a brilliant idea to find a volunteer for his human testing.

Hall offers the bum a bite to eat, and some money, if he'll allow the doctor to run a few tests, and just never mind this vial of green liquid. Totally not Mountain Dew.

So, Monty Hall makes his deal, and starts drawing blood and getting samples, and injecting his victim...er, test subject. It does not go well.

Oh no, the doctor has discovered the secret to breast enlargement!

The bum starts to convulse and moan, his body starts contorting and shifting, and he begins ripping out of his clothes. And it is all VERY tv Incredible Hulk transformation.

Eventually the bum mutates into a horrible monster that is barely human, and trashes the lab before escaping into the night.

Doctor Hall is lucky to be alive, and follows his creation out into the city to try and find him before he causes any trouble.

Awwh, come on little guy, no one is gonna hurt you, come on out…

Hall makes his way to the parking garage, and discovers the cat has escaped. He tries to retrieve it, but cat being cat, scratches him instead. Oh yeah, the cat is horribly mutated as well, but not as much as whatever was in the Uninvited.

No exaggeration, the Jonster puppet is the star of this show. It's what we all came here to see. And for this budget of film, it is definitely a standout, and well executed. They use a good blend of miniatures and green screen, and while some of their skill and monetary limitations can be seen, I definitely give them an A for effort.

Anyways, the agents finally arrive on the scene, and the Jonster goes scrambling through a window to get away.

They see the monster cat and shoot it dead, and we get a bit of plot catchup as Hall explains what he's been up to with the serums and experimentation.

While everyone gets caught up, the Jonster goes on a rampage, leaving a trail of death and carnage and fire in his wake. Well, he'll be easy to find, at least.

Again, I'll give credit where it's due; for this budget of a movie, they pull off an impressive number of stunt crashes, car flips, explosions, and body burns.

The terrible trio hop in their car and follow the trail of deadcrumbs to try and bring this destruction to an end.

We get into a car chase, but one in which we only see one of the sides. They can't really show the monster during the chase, so instead, we get several minutes of three guys riding down city streets. This could've been trimmed, or made more interesting, with more time or money. It's a forgiveable bit of padding for a low budget movie, but that doesn't make it less noticeable.

They eventually run out of road and have to follow on foot, which is at least slightly more interesting because you have the tension of stalking silently with guns drawn, but again, this is a lot of just following the creature, for a long period of time.

Hall and Oates and Garfunkel keep following the creature, until it enters the woods, and they split up. The agents continue to follow it, and have Hall stay behind to call Agent Petroleum for backup.

The agents catch up to the monster, and don't do a whole lot of good, aside from one of them getting killed.

Also, this is when it all comes out that the agents had secret orders, not that any of this really ever matters much to the overall story.

Petrichor arrives and brings Walter home, and he agrees not to say anything. Since the alternative is hinted at as death, it's not much of a choice.

But we then jump back to 2020, with the doctor still trying to solve this puzzle, and we dive into the tried and true SCIENCE MONTAGE!

So after 20+ years, all it took was sitting around and going "AH HA!" It's typical "the plot keeps going until we need it to wrap up" style science.

Doctor Hall and Agent Petsmart head to the park where the monster was seen on the news, and the police let them in.

They find the creature, and Walter talks to it, while the agent takes his shot with the new serum, that completely reverses the process. It took us 20 years to shoot one bullet and stop the monster's reign of terror.

Outside, the police get different orders, to take the creature out, and go rushing in to do just that. But by the time they arrive, Jonster has returned to his human form.

There is an attempt at a touching scene where Walter is reunited with Jon and apologizes, and Jon accepts it, knowing the doctor didn't mean for him to be a hulking beast for nearly a quarter century. But, Jon dies naked in bat guano, and the movie ends with Petruski being wheeled off into the sunrise.

Your monster’s in the cave. You missed it.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It’s not great, but for a low budget late 90s shot on video, it’s tolerable. You can see most of the action, and get better looks at the creature than you’d expect. I also watched the remastered, edited, cleaned up version for the recap and review, but I did also watch the original VHS cut. And that does look worse.

Audio: Solid enough, above average for this sort of thing, but nothing of note.

Sound Bite: “Time to pick a better neighbourhood!"

Body Count: There’s not a lot of deaths here, and to be honest, I probably missed a few, especially during the car crashes, but there’s a lot we don’t see.

1 - The first death, aside from the cat, that I can absolutely confirm happening is the burning body by the flipped over cars, 52 minutes in
2 - Agent Mullet gets gutted by Bumzilla
3 - Jon dies at the end.

Best Corpse: Agent Rollins getting sliced up by the creature is the highlight here.

Blood Type - D: The movie is very light on blood. I’m giving a lot of credit for the creature design and animation, and a few more for a surprising amount of fire.

Sex Appeal: Nothing of the sort.

Drink Up! Every time someone says “bum”.

Movie Review: I…don’t really have particularly strong feelings about this movie, one way or another. I definitely don’t hate it, but it doesn’t really get me to do much more than like it. I respect it, more than anything. It’s the sort of movie that while it doesn’t quite hit the mark, is still the sort of movie I like to highlight here, because it comes from the sorts of people who just wanna make movies they wanna see, and their ideas are too big for their budgets, or skill, or amount of time. I am delighted this movie exists, even if at the end of the day, it’s just kinda…there. And for our usual fare of movies, it is, credit where it’s due, VERY well shot. There’s some wonky stuff going on with lighting and exposures, but that’s more down to equipment than skill, here. Ultimately, it feels like a movie that has it’s heart and mind in the right place, but misses some opportunities along the way. There's an ongoing bit where there are protesters in the "present" waving signs to 'save the creature' and this is something I wish they developed more. It might have helped make the framing sequence feel more relevant.. I wish they fleshed out those intervening 20 years, and made some sort of reason WHY it took this long. And there's also a recurring theme of agents and soldiers following conflicting orders that they could've done something with, maybe. for something that’s a low budget indie flick, it certainly isn’t BAD. I just wish it was better, and we’ve seen similar plots to this be done better, as well. Two out of five metal cat carriers.

Entertainment Value: Again, it all comes down to that monster. It’s well made, and utilized, and they actually show it, which can sometimes be rare. I wish we’d seen and done more with the monster cat, too. The acting is pretty solid from the main cast, especially Dan Skinner as Doctor Hall. He grounds this otherwise quirky, weird monster movie, and that helps. And while the science stuff in the first half is a lot to get through, there’s enough characters going around, and Skinner’s acting to move things along, and a few other highlights, that at least keep it watchable, at worst. Once the monster appears, it’s a lot more fun to watch, and I was not prepared for the car stunts and body burns. I genuinely sat up and took notice when those happened. The movie is worth seeking out for fans of odd, obscure indie movies, even if this might feel like well worn ground, there’s enough in the back half that’s worth your time. Three out of five vials of Ecto Cooler.