HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE CURSE OF THE KOMODO (2004) **

It’s been a while since I watched a Jim Wynorski flick.  As a fan of his work, I’m usually up for whatever genre he finds himself dabbling in at the time.  The Curse of the Komodo was made during Jim’s SyFy Channel phase, and as early-century CGI-heavy monster mashes go, you could do a lot worse.

Scientists working on a remote Hawaiian island get hoodwinked by the government who want to turn their giant formula into a weapon.  Naturally, a Komodo dragon gets into their stash and grows to enormous size.  After eating up all the wildlife in the area, the ravaging reptile soon sets its sights on making a hot lunch out of the scientists (not to mention a gang of thieves who are hiding out on the island).

It’s always fun seeing Wynorski finding ways to utilize his usual cast of stock players.  In this case, we have Tim Abell as the reluctant hero, Gail Harris as the sexy scientist, Arthur Roberts as a cop, Jay Richardson as the head of the operation, and Paul Logan and Melissa Brasselle as the thieves.  The most memorable bit comes from Glori-Anne Gilbert who goes skinny-dipping mid-movie and manages to steal the film out from under the Komodo in the process.  (The swimming hole location will look familiar to fans of Wynorski’s Busty Cops Go Hawaiian.) 

It must be said that the Komodo effects are pretty good, at least for a SyFy Channel flick.  What I liked about the creature was that it looked fake, but in the best possible sense.  Like the aliens in Mars Attacks!, the monster has a herky-jerky gait about him which is a nice nod to the ‘50s stop-motion monster movies that the film is clearly aping.  

Too bad the budget was so low that they could only afford to show him sparingly.  Yes, most of the running time is devoted to a lot of dull dialogue scenes.  The stuff with the thieves hiding out on the island eats up a lot of screen time (as does the subplot involving the Komodo’s saliva turning people into half-assed zombies).  If only Glori-Anne Gilbert managed to hop in that swimming hole two or three more times, it might’ve been worthwhile.  (Brasselle does have a couple of scenes where she walks around in a see-through T-shirt though.)  As it is, The Curse of the Komodo is a watchable, but inessential addition to the SyFy and/or Wynorski library.

Wynorski returned the next year with Komodo vs. Cobra.