Beneath
Beneath was a dollar store purchase, lost in a stack of other dollar store purchases. With a stack of much more interesting looking and recognizable films. I had sort of dismissed it as just another film with a cool logo in the stack, but probably nothing special considering the MTV branding on the cover. It’s always nice however, to be pleasantly proven wrong.
Beneath manages to mix ghost story and thriller together brilliantly. I spent most of this film about a young woman looking for her sister, killed in a car crash, wondering if I was watching a ghost story or a stalker story. As she explores an old mansion and digs into the mystery of the young woman’s death and burial, I never quite thought that she was going crazy, but was never entirely certain where the story was going.
Beneath this beautifully filmed and gorgeous in its atmosphere. It manages to give you that sort of creepy atmosphere you’d expect from a Gothic ghost story or an Agatha Christie murder mystery. The plot as well thought out and well acted, and much to my surprise I’ve got nothing but praise for this film. This one’s definitely a movie you want to grab if you still see it littering the shelves of your local Walmart or dollar tree.
Piranha (1972)
I can’t even tell you how excited I was to find Piranha at the dollar tree. I mean, I’d scored Piranha 2 DD at one earlier as well and figured I’d be heading home to do a nice Roger Corman marathon right?
That’s odd, I didn’t know that William Smith was in this… But the dates right isn’t it? And there’s a Piranha right there on the cover!
Turns out, this is not the 1978 Roger Corman schlock monster fest that I was expecting, but rather a Grindhouse B feature from a few years prior, and released in 1972. Another audience might have been disappointed, fits right into my wheelhouse, and I was ready to sit down and dig in.
The film opens with credits over a twitching piranha that somebody pulled out of the water. This is about all you’re going to see of the killer fish. Because the films title doesn’t an actually refer to the animals, but rather an evil rogue hunter in the jungles of Venezuela; William Smith’s character.
We have wildlife photographer Terry and her brother Art braving the jungle for a photo shoot, complete with guide Jim Pendrake. They get friendly with local hunter Caribe, Who joins the crew, causing this quiet and his rest with his recklessness. Ultimately, he takes a shine 
to Terry and eventually the film transitions into a bit of a siege as Caribe begins to hunt and kill them out there in the wild.
It’s not a bad feeling, it’s exactly the sort of thing that I expect to see at a disreputable driving as a late night feature, entertaining particularly because of a young William Smith but not necessarily notable for much else.
Argo City Comics 