Better Late Then Never

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Blistering performances.

Hmm.. well I was surprised when I started watching this, as it appeared to be in the hands of a vaguely competent director. Well the lighting's quite good, considering the normal quality of filmaking to be found on the Horror Channel. It only grabbed my interest though when I noticed the major in it was the same bloke who was the major in Carnosaur 3 (aka Primal Species). having endured that gem of filmaking last week, I carried on watching out of loyalty. Turns out the movie is a virtual shot for shot remake of Carnosaur 3 - even down to the bizarre we were in a warehouse, now we're on a ship plot twist. Even the "climactic" explosion is a straight lift from Carnosaur 3. In its defence, the script, acting and effects are step forward from Carnosaur 3. Sadly thats still a long way behind pretty much any movie you will watch.

Scorpius Gigantus starts somewhere in Eastern Europe where an incognito U.S. military convoy is ambushed by the Russian mafia in the hope that one of the trucks contains uranium, they slaughter the American soldiers & steal the truck. They drive it to a disused warehouse & open the doors only to discover a genetically created creature that is a cross between a scorpion, water-bug & cockroach, it kills them. Major Nick Reynolds (Jeff Fahey) is informed by his boss Colonel Miller (Ray Hartbarger) that he & his team will be responsible for going in & sorting the whole mess out, unfortunately Miller doesn't tell Reynolds about the giant bug & some of his team are killed. The Government call in the scientist who created the creature Dr. Jane Preston (Jo Bourne-Taylor) to oversee the capture of the bug but as she insists on a live specimen for study Miller tells Reynolds neither he nor his team can use ammo, however the Scorpius gigantus hasn't read the script & kills anyone it comes across & to add to Reynold's problems it seems to be giving birth...Directed by Tommy Withrow I can't quite get my head around Scorpius Gigantus, for a start what a cool title but ultimately what a poor film. As I was watching Scorpius Gigantus last night the script by Raly Radouloff & Terence H. Winkless reminded me of another film called Carnosaur 3: Primal Species (1996) also made by the same production company New Horizon Pictures & both were executive produced by the king of the rip-offs Roger Corman. It is amazing just how similar the two films are, from individual scenes & sequences which are almost exactly the same apart from the cast & instead of a dinosaur this time it's a mutant insect bug. The arm wrestling scene, the bit when they are examining a dead specimen on a table & it comes back to life with the same revelation that the creatures cells repair themselves, from the ambushing of an American convoy by bad guys who think they're stealing uranium but instead find a dodgy genetic experiment which kills them, the female scientist who wants them alive, the run down warehouse setting to the fact both share exactly the same ending aboard a ship. The thing is I only saw Carnosaur 3: Primal Species two & a half weeks ago (My IMDb comment for it is dated 30th July) so it's still quite fresh & both films really are virtually the same, in fact I'd say this is more of a remake of Carnosaur 3: Primal Species & follows it more closely than the recent Dawn of the Dead (2004) remake was to the original Dawn of the Dead (1978) & looking at the other comments for it I see I'm not the only one whose noticed this. As a film in it's own right it's poor, it's clichéd & extremely predictable, it's far too long at 100 odd minutes, the dialogue is bad, the character's are cardboard cutouts & there isn't an original idea within the whole film. Having said that it moves along at a reasonable pace, some of the dialogue is hilariously bad & there's one or two decent gore scenes, that's still not enough to save it though.Director Withrow doesn't distinguish the film from any-other low budget sci-fi/horror & as a whole it's pretty forgettable stuff. There's little excitement, no scares or atmosphere & serious lapses of logic within the story. The CGI effects are really bad, the creature looks awful & at times just seems an ugly mass of shapes. There's some decent gore though, people are cut in half, someone has their throat slit, there's severed arms, peoples guts are sucked out, someone gets infected & their face & neck swell up which then explode, there are various body parts flying about & a fair amount of blood.Technically Scorpius Gigantus is average looking made-for-TV stuff & won't impress anyone. The special CGI effects are poor although some of the gore effects are OK. The acting is bad, Jeff Fahey looks embarrassed & has every reason to.Scorpius Gigantus is a poor film in it's own right but I'm simply amazed at how closely it resembles Carnosaur 3: Primal Species, why remake a film which in probability hardly anyone has ever heard of let alone seen. In this respect it might not actually be a big problem because many people haven't seen or heard of Carnosaur 3: Primal Species, still a terrible film though.

I bought this hoping to enjoy it. I can usually find something in most movies to enjoy. I really like not so good movies for their entertainment value of being not so good. I sat down and started to watch this movie over the weekend thinking good a monster type movie..Oh boy!! I got it started and about 5-8 minutes I was thinking this is very familiar. It is a remake of Conavore 3. The original was not as bad as this one is because it was a movie that did not try to be more than it was. Scorpius Gigantus tried to use better effects to little advantage. The acting was not there. It followed the script of the other movie so closely that I knew what was happening. They did attempt to make a couple of changes to add something but the changes went to nothing except to add a little time to the running of a movie. If you want to see this movie see Conavore 3 and you will probably enjoy it more.

This wasn't a bad diversion if you didn't mind not recognizing anybody but Jeff Fahey. It's what you'd expect in most ways. The Special Forces are called in when Russian mafia try to steal what they think is nuclear fuel, only of course, to have it turn out to be something far more dangerous and unpredictable. I tend to think one CG monster is like the next, except in terms of how cleverly it thinks. I like this one. He was in places I didn't expect (others I did) but most of the time it did what it was asked -- it made sweaty palms. My complaint and it's not really a complaint is not knowing who anybody is. I always like seeing familiar faces. I liked Jo-Bourne Taylor, and there's a guy early on who comes and goes very quickly but the rest are adequate unknowns.