POBB July 25, 2020

Pick of the Brown Bag

July 25, 2020

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the latest Pick of the Brown Bag.  I hope you're enjoying the more in-depth reviews.  Albeit, at a slower rate.  For this posting, I look at the newest Starring Sonya Devereaux.

First, Jaws--affectionately known as Bruce--terrorized audiences.  Then, Grizzly--affectionately known as Grizzly--brought tears to the eyes of ten year olds everywhere.  

Grizzly is so very good.

Alas, plausible, huge animals devouring tourists became passé.  Filmmakers would find ways to crossbreed such creatures for new frights.

Or, not.

Sonya Devereaux faces the latest of these hybrids.  Only, she doesn't.  Sonya Devereaux is a fictional actress who stars in cheesy movies.  The comic book presents her current film.  

To establish the rules, the creative team of Todd Livingston and Nick Capetanakis open the issue by exploiting a wraparound segment featuring a horror hostess in the vein of Elvira.

Mmmmn.  The state of double-entendres and the land of bad puns were made for eerie emcees of late night television.  

You'll note that Capetanakis along with inkers Brendan and Brian Fraim and colorist James Couts execute traditional styles.  This emphasizes that what you're reading is fiction reflective of our reality.    

The artists and writers offer a smart, successful woman who plays dumb and often dumber in her movies.  She's not a cartoon, though her characters just may be.  

In fact we've only seen a glimpse of Sonya Devereux's truest self when talking to a fan at a convention.  The rest of the time, she's performing either for Ivanna Cadaver, lovely, simply lovely, or an entertainment reporter.

The prologue and epilogue could have been a throwaway construct.  Instead, Ivanna, between gags, conducts a light but serious interview with Sonya about the flick.  This serves to reinforce the conceit of the premise.

The whole scenario reminded me in a good way of the DVD extras from Katrina's Nightmare Theater on the Scorpion Releasing line.

Sonya's character joins a defective A-Team to search for a missing archeologist.  What they find is a Spider-Shark and a Snake-Bear that decimates the cast.

Starring Sonya Devereux's movie opens with a killer twist, which may be a spoof on The Suicide Squad.  It's not exactly funny just strange.  The comedy hits hard when a Lyle Waggoner figure shows up as the insufferable bureaucrat archetype.  Is he something more?

Nah.  Just a tight ass.  That LOL giggle will carry straight through the story, appearing when you least expect it to give you a chuckle.  Throughout, the pacing of the often clever jokes is superior to anything you would see in a movie from this genre.  

Our team gathers, and it's a superb spectrum more woke than the actual A-Team.  More like The Fast and The Furious franchise or the underrated Losers.

Ah, yes, the T in our A-Team.  Sonya stays like that through the lion's share of the book.  There's quite a bit of snappy writing and artistry in this scene.  Not just a woman showing off her ample chest in a bikini.  This is the television version of the film.  Ivanna is a television hostess.  So, no nips just cleavage and sultriness.  In fact Sonya and the rest of her female cast mates showed more skin in her last issue  "on video."

You should draw your focus on other aspects of the torso, particularly the super thin tactical gear the men wear.  

This is a brilliant visual goof.  They look like they've donned tricked out Walmart greeting vests.  I think only one of them have pockets that actually open.  The costuming is exactly what you'd expect from a low budget film with monsters given a higher production values than the typical CGI dreck.  

The Shark-Spider is a delight.  It's scientifically bankrupt.  As is the Snake-Bear.  The chimeric creatures and their attacks do not add up to funny.  Oh, look, it's a send-up of Jaws. Ha.  Ha.  No, no.  Sonya Devereaux goes way, way over the top and comments on the fine traditions of shlock on the way to the summit.

For example, our missing archeologist, remember her, loses her pith helmet, and some other clothing, when she runs afoul of a severely misplaced Russian Ilsa.

If you don't know who Ilsa is, I'm almost motivated to say good for you.  When you see a sexy female dressed as a Nazi, you're looking at a reiteration of Dyanne Thorne's Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S.  Femme Fatale Nazis spied in cinema before Ilsa, of course, but those actresses executed their roles dramatically.  Nazi sexploitation from the female perspective began with Ilsa.

Not to worry.  Livingston and Capetanakis pump the gratuitous suspense values considerably.  However, this is the television version of Spider-Shark vs. Snake-Bear.  So, you'll not see any explicitness or nastiness ahead.  More like hapless actors being splattered with ketchup and an abundance of poor science leading to absurdity.  

The latest from Sonya Devereux maintains a delicious spicy, bad sci-fi quotient and delivers on the promise of the title.  It also goes farther than other issues with wtf twists that turn at a breakneck speed.  Take away the jokes, film this seriously with the budget proposed, and you would come away from the viewing completely dumbfounded.