One Star Classics : Endangered Species

Endangered Species

May 04, 2015 / Movies, Music, and TV

I guess in my heart, I had a certain idea of how Pinocchio’s Revenge came to be: A couple of low-level producers sitting in a room, trying to figure out how to come up with a Child’s Play knock-off, when one of them in a fit of frustration, blurted out that Kevin in accounting owns both a camcorder and a puppet, so why not just let him make the movie? Little did they know what they unleashed…

That might be what happened, yet as it turns out, said Kevin Tenney was allowed to make yet another movie. That’s right. After having butchered the horror genre, Kev (as I like to call him–I picture him being kind of a Guy Fieri type of guy) set his sights on sci-fi. Child’s Play was replaced by Terminator.

And yet again, I picture long, futile production meetings, where, in the end, the same junior producer angrily shouted out, “Well, we’re not gonna get Julia Roberts for this thing, so let’s just effin’ get her brother instead!” Thus it came to be that Endangered Species stars Eric Roberts, an actor so prolific he, at the time of writing, has sixty (60!) projects lined up. Sixty! Focus is apparently not his strong suit. (Credit where credit is due, though, and no pun intended: He was not bad at all in a recent run of Suits.)

As for Endangered Species, who the hell knows what actually is going on? Some Terminator-like alien arrives to slaughter humans, while some other Terminator-like alien tries to stop him. There are some half-attempt to put this into an actual plot, where humans are considered the equivalent of gorillas, and I dont’t know, it all makes very little sense.

I will give Kev some props for trying to fill up 94 minutes, but will also question if the gratuitous nudity really was needed. I suppose it comes back to his Guy Fieri, bro-like ways, but it gets kind of embarrassing how he tries to pander to 14 year old boys. Still, without it, the movie would probably run shy of an hour.

The effects here are pretty much something you could have made at home, even before iMovie came around (the aliens appearing from “nowhere”, aka the middle of the screen… dads everywhere did that at home in 1988), and the acting is just grotesque. Kind of like this scene where Eric Roberts makes out…

… I mean, what the hell?

Kev kept his streak going with Endangered Species, but judging by IMDb, this was were it all came to a stop. The mighty accountant flew too close to the sun, and Icarus-ed it to the ground. And you know… I kind of admire that. Kev tried, he really did. He did what he thought was right, and sure he didn’t succeed, but he was what he was: a man with a camcorder, a love for the 4:3 ratio, a puppet, and a dream, trying to make his mark on the world.

By Remi, May 04, 2015

Letterboxd summary: When police are puzzled by several horrific murders, they assume they have a serial killer on their hands. But soon they realise that the unimaginable has happened. A killing machine from another world has arrived on Earth determined to brutally execute human beings. Finding themselves out of their depth they are forced to rely on a mysterious alien hunter that has volunteered his help.