Gila! (DVD Review) - Polyscope Media Group

USA/2012
Directed By: Jim Wynorski
Written By: William Dever, Steve Mitchell, Jim Nielsen, Paul Sinor
Starring: Brian gross, Terrence Knox, Christina DeRosa
Color/93 Minutes/Not Rated
Region 1
Release Date: April 22, 2014

The Film
Jim Wynorski might be considered B-Movie royalty. From the incredibly awesome Chopping Mall to Return Of Swamp Thing, he has damn near 100 directing credits to his name. He is no stranger to working with low budget productions and has often turned out an entertaining movie. GILA, a remake of the 1959 so-bad-it's-good cult classic The Giant Gila Monster is quite another story.

The story is simple a giant Gila Monster is on the loose in a rural town and is causing all sorts of havoc which makes a local boy tries to stop the monster when his girlfriend is in danger. That's it, a single sentence synopsis and you probably know exactly the type of movie GILA is. The thing is, these movies can go either way, from dreadful to a ridiculous blast of cheap entertainment. GILA is the former. For whatever reason Wynorski decided it would be a better idea to set this film in the 50s, like the original than present day where they could have saved a few bucks on renting classic hot rods and maybe spent it on some wardrobe (that looks like it came from a 21st century mall anyways) or on rendering the monster better so that it didn't look like a complete mess super imposed on the screen. I mean there is no blending here at all, there is the background, and there is a cartoony monster on top of it. Pick out any of the Syfy channel movies of the last several years and I promise you the CGI is notably better. The acting fucking sucks, the writing fucking sucks and some of the shit the monster does is just unrealistic. I'm speaking mainly of a scene where a freight train rolling full speed rams the monster head on and the monster doesn't budge an inch while the train derails and explodes. The monster isn't even that big, about the size of the train engine... fuck it. I'll just add that this movie is easily 20 minutes too long. Z-grade movies that don't know when to end are the worst and even though this movie is just over an hour and a half it is still too damn long. It drags and drags and sucks and sucks. I'm done. This movie is garbage.

The Audio & Video
The audio and video can be summed up with this - You could have made this movie with your HD Handicam a couple boom mics and even a basic knowledge of CGI. The DVD looks and sounds about as good as it possibly could given the production of the movie.

The Extras
The DVD features a tribute to the original film and a still gallery.

The Bottom Line
Jim Wynorski is more talented than this piece of shit. Skip it and go watch Chopping Mall instead. 

GILA is available HERE