Just in case you thought Japan and America (and to a lesser extent, Korea) were the only ones to blame for giant monster movies, then you're wrong... fatally wrong. This particular rubber monster nightmare hails from Denmark. Yes, Denmark, land of Vikings, a hotel called the Cromwell Middlefart, Legoland and no holds barred pornography... yep, Middlefart... Our story begins in the mountains of Lapland (Land of Lap Dances?), where a group of copper miners find something unusual and deserving of a dramatic reverb: blood on the end of their drill! Freud would have a field day with just this opening scene... Overcome by curiosity the head miner, Sven (all Danish men are named either Sven, Otto, or Kraig... yes, with a 'K'), calls a halt to the operation until someone from the University of Copenhagen can investigate. The results of the investigation? A prehistoric fossil creature trapped in icy slush, over which the mountain built up during the millions of years to follow. All my insulin money says that this "fossil" creature will now thaw out and still be more than active, breaking from it's frigid bondage to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting nation of danishes!
Further inspection into the side of the mountain reveals the creature's tail and bone segments that are said to resemble the composition of shark bones. This particular observation is made by the scientist heading the exploration, Dr. Otto Martins, who's got one of those typical mad scientist accents... Eastern European professors have it. Aside from Dr. O, the hero of the picture is obviously pretty boy Sven, who's a latent homosexual... not even that latent come to think of it... Also in the picture are Dr. Otto (sorry, no Jim Varney in site folks)'s daughters Karen and Lisa, who are clawing at their crotches to get some of Sven's phallic pastry. That, or the girls just got crabs... Also in the picture is Mr. Peterson, a big dumb hick (yes, even Denmark has hicks) hired by Dr. O and the aquarium staff to play bodyguard/maintenance man to the tail segment, which must be kept in a regulated freezer room to keep it from melting into a puddle. Hmmmm, a half-wit goon is put in charge of one of the rarest and most valuable scientific discoveries in history... I smell trouble. As I like to point out, just because you've got a PhD in dissecting fish doesn't mean you have the common sense to hire security guards, that's what human resource people are for! Actually, in a shocking twist of events, it's Dr. O's partner Dr. This-Guy's-Gonna-Get-Killed-First who fucks up, leaving the freezer door ajar and thawing out the tail... and who knows how much of the national fish stick supply was ruined. However, the tail is far from a sloppy mess, as it's actually alive and regenerating itself! Damn it, there goes my insulin money... looks like another coma for me...
Dr. O holds a small press conference (though the 4 people there are likely the entire Copenhagen press community) where he announces to the Danish world the story of his regenerating tail. Unsure what kind of dino it belongs to, they decide to name the errant appendage "Reptilicus". The UN then makes it official that any resources Dr. Otto needs for his experiments, they'll be happy to supply. Wow, from the finest glass beakers of Canada to the leakiest eye droppers of Russia to the sloppiest whores of Saigon, Dr. O's got access to the land of milk and hunnies! Heh heh. Also, being the global police force nobody asked for, the U.S. exports high ranking General Greyson over too to keep an eye on this replicating creature and make sure the Danish don't try anything sneaky with it... leave it to the good ol' USA. But, so his visit's not a total loss, the General gets a night out on the town with one of Dr. Otto's loose daughters. The whole scene plays out like a bad tourism video of Copenhagen. Finally we get somewhere though, as one dark and stormy night the tail has fully regrown the rest of it's body and makes it's move, eating Otto's sidekick before escaping the aquarium and disappearing into the sea! Meanwhile, Peterson makes an ass of himself at the local police station, trying to convince them that the monster is loose. I know the guy's a moron and doesn't deserve even a leaky thimble's worth of respect, but if the cops actually gave a fuck about serving and protecting and all that other tripe, they should've at least gotten off their asses to look into it! It's a 90ft monster destroying a building, it's not that hard to verify! Damn, the Danish cops are even lazier than the pigs around here!
I have to contemplate the possibility that an entire dinosaur can be replicated from a single tail. Yes, I know a lot of you are probably thinking, "well, if scientists in Jurassic Park can clone entire dinosaurs from simple blood taken from mosquitoes trapped in amber, then why not an entire tail?". Well, to completely destroy your stupid defense, Jurassic Park featured guys in pocket protectors using DNA sampled from the blood and combined with frog DNA to create the building blocks for life and clone them, structuring the dinosaurs with computers before mangling the genes to create what they consider to be dinosaurs. As for Reptilicus, there's a tail that can construct an entirely new body... a tail that's nothing but dead cells... preserved cells, but dead preserved cells none-the-less. Then you could bring up the concept that, "well, when an iguana loses it's tail, it's grows back another, so why couldn't a larger reptile do basically the same?". Hold it right there Poindexter. If an iguana loses it's tail, then yes, it will grow back another, just like we humans can grow back severed arms. This is because the iguana's body is structured so that it can replicate the lost limb and reconstruct a new one. In the case of Reptilicus, all you have is a tail. The tail cannot spawn a new creature, just like an iguana's severed tail cannot, otherwise the iguanas would be asexual, budding offspring like an amoeba! Besides, how can the cells of a tail reproduce the nerve cells and organs and other complex machinations of the original creature?! It can't! Amoebas can reproduce like that because they're such simple celled organisms, Reptilicus, no matter how primitive, is still far more complex than an amoeba. I live with my head in the clouds, but sometimes my scientific logic has to take over and ruin shit like this. And yes, I know the irony of a "mythological" diety having scientific logic, so please don't send me e-mails about it, or I will have to sign your death warrant prematurely.
Speaking of primitive, let's get back to the story. When Reptilicus emerges from the Baltic Sea, he does what every over-sized rubber reptile does and begins farmers, with Sven and the Danish military in pursuit. Can the forces of Denmark destroy this horrible prehistoric hemorrhoid, or will the world no longer be privy to the wonders of Danish pastry and loose Nordic women? I think Hamlet was right, there IS something rotten in the state of Denmark... and it's Reptilicus! And after all this wait, what does the creature look like? Well, think of that serpentine Toho creation Manda, seen coiling itself around model cities in Destroy All Monsters. Remember him? Now, cut the FX budget for Manda by about 43% and give that money to a Danish 4th grade art class student and watch it all come together in to one of the world's scariest sock puppets... who also can't seem to keep his mouth shut... perhaps Rep has lockjaw? This is what happens when you don't let the physicians stab you with their needles for things like Tetanus shots! Speaking of which, the military's machine guns and tanks seem to have little or no affect on the beast. Okay, stop the logic train, because someone obviously lost their ticket! You're telling me that a mining drill can rip it's way into one of these creatures, but tanks have no effect?! What are they firing out of those cannons, cheese danishes and individually wrapped personal pies?! And what's that shit the creature's vomiting all over the film?! And was that oddly animated thing Rep eats supposed to be a man or a crinkled up paper doll?! THIS IS HORRIBLY WRONG! I FEEL DIRTY JUST WATCHING IT!
Though useless at first, the military finally does something right when it turns it's flamethrowers on Reptilicus... sock puppets are highly flammable after all. The beast then escapes once more into the Baltic Sea to lick it's wounds (and likely it's genitalia... come on, you know that you'd do the same if you could) while our humans are left to prepare for his eventual return, and you know he'll be back too, because the Copenhagen Aquarium was his re-birthplace, so his internal instincts will initially drag him back sooner or later. Not ones to wait to become victims, the Danish Navy (which consists of one battleship) decide to use some aquarium technology to search out the monster on the sea floor and depth charge the shit out of it while it's weak! They do locate Rep and blast it to pieces... pieces which will also regenerate into other monsters... leave it to the American General to initiate a major botch like that before evaluating the consequences. The assault is called off when the error is realized though, and as for Dr. Otto, he has a coronary. Unable to attack the monster while it's catchin' 'z's in the water, everyone sits back and waits for it to surface again. Two weeks pass and we rejoin the scene with Sven sleeping at a desk... no doubt exhausted from "entertaining the troops". I know some people are probably offended at my gay jokes about Sven and his oral favors on the Danish soldiers, but why the Hell else would he be there?! He's a mining foreman for Osiris' sake! Unless the military plans to be a preemptive strike and drill Reptilicus's brain in search of copper while it sleeps, Sven's useless! As for Dr. O, his condition has improved and he'll be up and shuffling around like a crippled old man in no time. As for the monster, Rep finally pops up again, this time destroying a freighter ship mere miles from the aquarium.
This latest horror disturbs Sven, as he has a fit because it was his drilling operation that eventually led to this whole mess happening... way to go Sven, you asshole. Rep's next target is a populated beach that... HEY! WHY ARE THERE PEOPLE ON THAT BEACH!? In moments of crisis in which a populated area bordering a potentially dangerous body of water could lead to a bloody public relations nightmare, it's good to see that the city of Copenhagen doesn't cave into pressure to preserve public safety or anything... After marauding across the Baltic sands, Reptilicus turns it's attention to the densely populated Copenhagen... which hasn't been evacuated what-so-ever... again, nice to see that Copenhagen plays by it's own rules, like the rebellious Danish folk who inhabit it... The armed guard takes another stab at the creature, though are continuously moisturized to death by what we now learn is Rep's "acid slime", and not just some streams of phlegm he gobs up. I've never seen so many people terrified of a hand puppet, but at least they have Sven there to operate the local drawbridge when the bridge's usual technician goes pussy and decides to cry in the corner of his office while numerous Danish bicyclers go careening head first into the moderately chilly depths of the river. After weighing the options, General Greyson decides the only option is to drive Rep out into the unpopulated wastelands outside of Copenhagen (otherwise known as the countryside), where they can unleash the heavy artillery without fear of civilian casualties... not that anyone lives outside of Copenhagen... The plan doesn't work anyway, thanx to an overzealous dumbass who fires on the monster WAY too early, so our title beast turns back around and stomps back to the city. This doesn't stop Greyson though, who still intends on leveling Reptilicus with heavy bombs, even if it means the loss of a few blocks worth of Danishes...
Dr. Otto arrives just in time though, bitching out the General for endangering innocent people and being so damn American. Besides, if they bomb the beast, how do they know they'll recover all the parts and prevent them from regenerating MORE monsters!? After a tense (and sweaty) stand off, Greyson folds like a Jacob's Ladder, apologizing for only knowing how to answer problems with death and explosives. Dr. Otto then offers up absolutely NO alternative at all, saying we're all basically screwed. Sven finally shows us why he's still in the movie though, when he brings up the idea of tranquilizing the monster. This comes completely by accident of course, but at least the movie's coming close to the end, and that I can live with! As for Reptilicus, he's busy destroying a Copenhagen building that looks VERY Japanese in it's architecture... I'm not asking, because questions just beget more questions and more questions just beget anger and anger begets me caving in my mother's skull with a tire iron, which begets years of psychiatric treatment and my insurance doesn't cover that shit right now, so I'm not even gonna risk it. Anyway, Greyson gets a bazooka rocket with a warhead full of eXXXtra strength Nyquil and shoots the monster in the mouth, forcing it to pass out almost instantly... as lookers on casually ride their bicycles in the background of the scene. Yay, the day is saved and Sven can celebrate with a night out on the town with his mining pals at the Piledriver Club. As for us, we're left with the ominous knowledge that one of Reptilicus's talons, blown off during the depth charge attack, still sits at the bottom of the Baltic, likely to regenerate into another dinosaur that will also cause havoc and mayhem in it's wake... then again, since this film sucked so much donkey ass, maybe we'll just leave it there to decompose and be picked apart by ravenous guppies.
Often overlooked in a genre of Godzillas, King Kongs, Gameras and reruns of "BJ and the Bear", Reptilicus is rightfully buried under a sea of celluloid that it should never claw it's way out of... then again, some assholes decided it'd be funny to test my patience, and re-released this monstrosity on DVD as part of some "Midnight Madness" collection or something equally as cheesy... I assure you, those people are either dead now, or wishing they were that lucky. I guess the film wasn't really a total loss though. Besides the terrible monster FX, the sub-par city models, the freakishly bad "acid slime" and "paper doll farmer" FX, the awkward voice dub and the "so bland that tofu's like Mexican food in comparison" direction, there was one redeeming moment to Reptilicus. For the scene between Dr. Otto and General Greyson, where they face off over the whole "should we blow up Copenhagen" controversy, there's actually a tense moment where you're engaged into the film and you even feel a twinge of pity for Greyson, who momentarily lost his humanity amidst all this chaos, becoming more the monster than Reptilicus as he was willing to destroy lives in order to reach his goal... sadly this drama is very short and everything else was logically maddening, but at least that one scene is more than stuff like Robot Holocaust can boast. I kiss the foot of Osiris every night before I pass out in a drunken stupor now, because he didn't allow a series of Reptilicus films like Godzilla received, though you know those Danish mongrels were probably planning otherwise... That reminds me, I gotta brush my teeth. Damn that Osiris needs to buy some Odor Eaters...
The Moral of the Story: There are somethings on Earth worse than a grown man in a rubber suit, and bad puppetry is definitely one of them...
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- This baby's got it all: bad dialogue, bad acting, bad story and the always bad not-so-special effects. Give it Hell kids!
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: Them! or
Yongary: Monster of the Deep
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