Hooptober... And Then There Were Nine

25th Kill

I was under the impression that the general convention when it comes to tag lines is that they are some kind of attempt to sum up the entire identity of a film in one pithy sentence. So, given Sting of Death's tagline is "SPECIAL SINGING STAR NEIL SEDAKA!", I had assumed that this movie would feature the 60's pop crooner as a kinky assassin who took down his quarry via a quick dose of neurotoxin delivered via a surreptitious pin-prick - perhaps a gold-plated syringe secreted up the sleeve of his comfy-looking yet strikingly baroque corduroy sweater.

Alas it was not to be. Instead we have a cnidarian cnitemare of cnot insignificant proportions - a tale of jellyfish gone homicidal; stalking, surrounding and pouncing on their hapless human prey as only passively mobile organisms can - with the help of a gentle breeze and a favourable current.

Much angst has been shared about the the internet phenomenon of the anonymous, malice-fuelled incel, but spare a thought for the poor folks of the 1960's. In those days, incel males didn't have the outlet of online hate-speech, but the alternative was turning themselves into human jellyfish, literally expressing their venomous hatred through long plasticised tentacles with which they entangled and slaughtered their unwitting prey.

All Egon wanted to do was breed giant Portuguese man-o-war jellyfish - think of the commercial potential of such a creature! But foolhardy Dr Hoyt - elder statesman of the Everglades marine biology establishment - refuses to accommodate Egon's ambitions. And so, his comely daughter and her squadron of scantily clad friends must pay the price. As they compulsively gyrate their outdated dance moves on whichever level surface they come into contact with, little do they know that Egon and his gelatinous minions are lurking vengefully in the shallows, awaiting their opportunity to strike.

Best Kill (may contain traces of spoiler)

Don't get me wrong. As a kid in Australia, I used to live near the beach and we used to get quite frequent infestations of Portuguese man-o-war jellyfish, which we called bluebottles. They are quite beautiful looking creatures - little iridescent blue-tinged bubbles floating on the water. But, being blue, they are hard to spot, and below those bubbles dangle a couple of meters of thin tentacles, covered in stingers. Let me tell you, diving headfirst into a breaking wave only to find yourself entangled in one of those things is like suddenly getting lashed in the chest by a cat-o-nine-tails - it fucking HURTS.

So, the kill scenes here, for all their clumsiness, are not without their impact. Nevertheless, I think I have to call out the scene where a whole boat load of teenage idiots are taken out by a smack of jellyfish. Only, this being a very cheap William Grefe film, all he had to work with was about four jury-rigged jellyfish made out of plastic bags. When we cut from this pathetic waterborne menace back to the panicked teens and someone shouts "They're attacking!!!" it's absolute gold.