Welcome back to Roger Pretzel’s Haunted Dungeon. In this spooky sanctum I’ve poured over all the replay tape to come up with my favorite NFL play of the week. Then it’s straight back to the projector to unspool a film you may have not been aware of…
The lights have dimmed, the walls drip blood, and the bell tolls for thee.
Conference Championships: Ripkowski Stripped By Jalen Collins
FUMBLE! Jalen Collins (@jaycar_11) forces an Aaron Ripkowski fumble and recovers it for the #Falcons. #RiseUp #GBvsATL pic.twitter.com/I2o7k2LDwg
— Chat Sports (@ChatSports) January 22, 2017
What’d I tell ya? The Falcons D-men showed up and gave Green Bay a headache all day long. There’s always gonna be a little schadenfreude involved for this Lions fan when The Pack loses, but even with the nutso amount of injuries they had coming in, I never saw this total implosion coming down the pike.
The Packers died the death of a thousand cuts with a majority of their top players off the field or playing hurt, an early missed field goal by Mason Crosby, and this mega-bummer of a fumble by Aaron Ripkowski.
Ripkowski has shown some impressive flashes as a power runner and this big statement play, pushing past the first-down marker, felt special on a day where both teams had trouble running the ball. But you gotta hold on. This is great textbook play on the part of Jalen Collins playing for the ball with Ripkowski safely wrapped up by a couple other guys. Collins really owns the damn thing by recovering the rock in the end zone for a touchback.
Congrats to the Falcons. Bring on the Super Bowl.
Conference Championships: The Food of the Gods
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Released: 1976
It’s no secret that Roger Pretzel loves a good giant animal flick, and this one’s gotta be my favorite of them all.
It’s a fairly simple setup from famed genre scribe H. G. Wells himself, in which the titular goop causes all animals who consume it to grow to massive proportions. And while the chickens, rats, and other quotidian creatures may not be as shocking or crazy as the giant ants of Them! (1954), or the tarantula of the cleverly named Tarantula (1955), the generous amount of beautiful matte shots, solidly constructed puppets, and good old fashioned animal wranglin’ all laid out by special effects vet Bert I. Gordon, here as director, makes for joyous viewing.
Something tells me that the original H. G. Wells story didn’t include shaggy blonde football players with sideburns in the lead, but this is ScoreBoredSports so we welcome that addition, plus all the ‘70’s affectations only add to the fun filled B-picture feel.
Once again, the survival horror angle of a disparate group thrown together wins the day as the jocks, a standard love interest, a pregnant hippy couple, and a straight up asshole from Central Casting all vie to live another day.
If the visuals are worth the ticket alone, some of the schlockier elements provide icing on the cake with eyebrow-raising plot conceits like “even though regular rats are excellent swimmers, big ones might not be” and the notable instance of a poor actor trying his hardest to act terrified as a giant chicken puppet is aggressively pushed from off screen into his face.
At its most fun, when not taken too seriously, The Food of the Gods remains required viewing for junkies of pre-CG effects and lovers of the stranger cinema.
Full movie: Here