It is always nice when you get a nice surprise out from a DVD. Case in point, I bought a bunch of movies with some gift cards. One of those movies was an old sci-fi B-movie that I have always enjoyed. So I watched that movie and afterwards, started looking through the special features on the DVD. Lo and behold, I discover that there is a second movie on this disk, and it is one that I have never seen before. I call that a win. So let’s get right into today’s movie, The Cremators.
The plot: Three hundred years ago, a meteor falls to earth, incinerating an “Indian brave” as it falls. Fast forward to present day, Dr. Iane Thorne discovers a crystallized rock in a tidal pool and decides to send it out for further testing. However, as the mailman is driving that night, both he and his car are engulfed in a ball of flame, reducing them both to ashes. The next day, a hippie named Mason brings in a dying cat, and Iane discovers the mailman’s dying dog near his house, both of which had a similar stone that had burned through their stomachs. The next night, a man is walking down a dirt road when he stops for a rest and lights a match off a nearby stone, when the stone starts to pulsate with energy and a fireball appears and reduces the man to ash. Iane discovers the ash-body and takes the stone back to his lab to study it. The next day, he returns to where he found the stone and tries smashing it with a tire iron, but the impact knocks him down and forces the tire iron from his hand while the stone remains unharmed. He reports the body to the sheriff but both the sheriff and the medical examiner think the body was killed by a lightning strike. Iane’s friend that he sent the sample to, Dr. Willy Seppel, tells him that the rocks give off low level infrared heat. That night, Iane is plagued by strange dreams and when he wakes up, he discovers that the stone samples he had have burned through the container and appeared to have left the house on their own. The next night, Iane’s girlfriend, Jeanne, is attacked on the lake by the ball of fire but manages to throw the piece of rock off her boat, preventing her from being killed. At the hospital, Iane is confronted by Mason, who shows him that his hands pulse with the same light that the rocks have, and Iane realizes that anyone who has had contact with the rocks has had some of the particles rubbed off onto their skin, including himself, Jeanne, and Willy. Willy takes the remaining samples of rock out on a boat and tries shooting the fireball with a shotgun, but the fireball keeps coming and kills Willy. Iane takes the recovered stones and sets a trap for the fireball, blowing it up when it reaches the stones.
This was a good example of a 70’s B-movie. The acting was somewhat bland. The plot was confusing. The scenes kept jumping around and did not help in making things less confusing. I did like the fireball and thought the effects with it were pretty good, especially the scenes of it coming out of the lake, Still, if you like these types of films, like me, this is a great way to kill 80 minutes on a stormy day and your internet is down.
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5
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