Tasmanian Devils - Winnie Cooper vs. Carnivorous Marsupials

Tasmanian Devils
2013
Director - Zach Lipovsky
Writer - Brook Durham
Starring - Danica McKellar, Kennith Mitchell, Apolo Ohno


Tag Line:   The Hunt Has Begun



Alternative Titles:  None




Hoo-boy.  As you know, I have a weak spot for bad movies and Syfy is always pretty gracious with their Saturday night flicks.  Enter Tasmanian Devils, a creature feature starring Danica McKellar.  Yep, that's right, Winnie Fucking Cooper!  That was enough to sell me on it.  Was it worth it?  Well....yes and no.

Nailed it!!!!!

 
Tasmanian Devils is about a group of base jumpers who head to Devil's Peak in Tasmania....which is located in the middle of government protected wilderness.  These geniuses bring along $50k with them to bribe the officials who will most certainly be coming along to arrest them.  Ah yes....good ol' fashioned American egotism.  Anyway, they land their chopper on top of the peak (which is really less of a peak and more of a plateau....but hey....let's not split hairs here...), gear up and head to the cliff face.

The Wonder Years: 20 Years Later - Winnie Got a Gun

Stone is a noob and this is his first jump.....naturally you wouldn't make your first jump something easy and legal.  Nope, you wanna make it a 3,000 foot high chunk of rock in the middle of hostile wilderness in a foreign country.  So, Stone is having second thoughts and after some razzing from his friends takes the plunge.  Then the dumbass waits too long to pull his 'chute.  Crashing through the trees, he manages to fall through a hole in the rocks below....a hole that's about three feet wide.  After falling through said, hole, he then manages to land smack dab on a stalagmite, which naturally impales him.  This doesn't kill him though.  Even more amazing is the fact that he is impaled with a giant stalagmite obviously severing his spine and his legs are still moving!  Anyway, turns out he fell into a cave that the Aborigines used as a sort of sacred sacrificial offering place.  His blood has awakened some ancient monster Tasmanian Devils with glowing mouths.

The jumpers get arrested by Alex (McKellar) and her fellow rangers, but things get out of control fast when her two colleagues mauled by the Devils.  Alex releases the group and they must now stick together a find a way to survive the onslaught of Tasmanian Devil attacks. So as you can see, there's not much in the way of new material here, in terms of story.  However there is some fun gore to be had in this one.

"I'm just gonna stick around here guys......guys?"

We get the aforementioned impalement by stalagmite (which he then gets ripped off of the stalagmite by a Devil), we get a dude who's cheek has been run through by a sharp branch of a tree, effectively pinning him to the tree by his face.  A woman gets ripped in two, a guy gets half of his face swiped off and more!  So there's some good grue here for you gorehounds.

It's just like ET!  Only with no bike, no aliens....and a Tasmanian Devil...

There are plenty of absolutely insane moments that make absolutely no sense as well.  Such as when one of the jumpers (who is an NYC cop....yet is dumb enough to partake in this whole illegal jump) builds a makeshift flamethrower, MacGuyver style.  When he's asked how he knew how to make it, he responds that he once arrested a kid who made one from specs on the internet.  So....yeah.  However this does lead to a rather cool moment with Alex wielding the flamethrower and toasting one of the Devils.  It was very Ripleyesque.

Midnight Cinephile Totals

Body Count:  Seven.  Not really high, but as I mentioned above the deaths are gory and fun.  I think my favorite is the face swipe.

Boob Count:  Keep dreaming.  This is a Syfy original.  Though McKellar is wearing a rather nice white tank top.

Beast Count:  There are six of the titular creatures in all.  Sadly they are all computer animated and it looks like they came out of a Playstation 2 game.  At least one corporeal creature would have been nice, rather than completely digital, but hey.....it's Syfy.


Final Thoughts:

I was tempted to turn this one off after about half an hour, but I kept with it and ultimately I'm glad I did.  It's completely inept and ridiculous, but not without it's charms....most of all the beautiful Danica McKellar.  I hadn't seen in her in much as of late, save for an appearance on The Big Bang Theory and an interview on Attack of the Show, in which she was promoting the books she had written to help kids learn.  Only researching her a bit more for this review did I find out that she posed for Maxim Magazine and Stuff Magazine a few years ago.  Holy hell, I've fallen in love with Winnie Cooper all over again.

Final Rating:
Two out of Five Pizza Rolls