This is the best movie that Jim Wynorski has put out in a long time. It is nice to see as Wynorski has been alternating between making uninspired horror flicks and being lost in a sea of breasts. A remake of The Giant Gila Monster is apparently just what the doctor ordered as this brings back the light, comedic tone of his early work and you can tell that he was really making an effort to pay tribute to a genre he is passionate about. The tagline promises "hot cars, hot music, hot chicks... and one big monster" and delivers in all respects with a large dose of sentimentality that will appeal to even the most jaded b-movie fans. Even with a CGI-monster that is to be expected in today's filmmaking environment, the movie is a good, old-fashioned creature feature with likeable characters and a great soundtrack featuring 50s rock and roll including The Everly Brothers, Dion and the Belmonts, and Gene Vincent.

Brian Gross stars as Chase Winstead, a nice guy who has a sweet girlfriend (Madeline Voges) and a hot rod that he enjoys racing on the back roads of rural America. He is at odds with another drag racer named Waco Bob (Jesse Janzen) who always has something to prove. After a number of run-ins with Waco, Chase realizes the town has bigger problems when he sees a giant gila monster in his rear view mirror while driving back from his girl's house. He teams up with the local sheriff and they work together to find a way to put an end to the lizard's reign of terror. Meanwhile, the monster is hungry and destructive and divides his time between eating the residents of the county and destroying vehicles including a truck and a train. All the while, the tunes are rocking, the cars and revving, that there are plenty of cheesy melodramatic moments to keep things moving between monster attacks.

The drive-in movie craze of the 50s and 60s brought a lot of great movies to the screen but I find that many of these have not aged well. The sense of pacing leaves much to be desired leading to stretches of boring exposition and filler scenes. Having a director like Jim Wynorski (who is obviously a fan of these movies) put his stamp on a remake and update it for a more contemporary audience is an interesting experiment that clearly worked. In an age of remakes and reboots, I have come to realize that these are exactly the types of movies that should be remade because there is so much potential to improve. The main issue with a lot of older movies is that they can be a bit of a slog to get through and rely a great deal on the anticipation of a big payoff at the end. Pictures like The Deadly Mantis and The Leech Woman seem ripe for the picking especially for a director like Wynorski as he understands his audience and is a fan of the genre himself. I hope he explores this some more and maybe gets Fred Olen Ray involved as well because these guys are perfect candidates for putting life into some of these ideas while respecting the original pictures. For example, Wynorski gets that you can't remake a The Giant Gila Monster and leave out "The Mushroom Song" so he incorporates it in a way that made me come away smiling.

Scream queen fans will recognize Kelli Maroney (Night of the Comet) as the deputy who has the hots for Chase. I have not seen Maroney in a long time and she seems a little off her game compared to the rest of the cast. It was still nice to have a familiar face on hand. Those with a keen eye may also recognize Don Sullivan as Dawes, the old guy who identifies the species of the monster from a saliva sample. Sullivan played Chase in the original Giant Gila Monster. The next time some joker has the bright idea of remaking Halloween, Suspiria, or some other classic that needs no improvement, they should instead look at the plethora of movies that had cool ideas but just don't hold up. (Josh Pasnak, 5/30/14)

Directed By: Jim Wynorski.
Written By: Steve Mitchell, Bill Dever, Paul Sinor, Jim Nielsen.

Starring: Brian Gross, Terence Knox, Jesse Janzen, Christina DeRosa.