Kamillions

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Kamillions
Directed by	Mikel B. Anderson
Produced by	Robert Hsi, Teresa Woo, Sally Aw, Ning-Ping Chan
Written by	(story) Robert Hsi (screenplay) Mikel B. Anderson Harry S. Robins
Starring	Christopher Gasti Dru-Anne Cakmis Kate Alexander Dan Evans Laura O'Malley Chuck Bartelle David Allan Shaw Andrew Ross Litzky Alison Rachel Golde Harry S. Robins
Music by	Kent H. Randolph
Cinematography	Kathleen Beeler
Editing by	Ian L. Turner
Distributed by	Ulysses Pictures
Release date(s)	1989
Running time	90 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

Kamillions is a 1989 film directed by Mikel B. Anderson from a story by Robert Hsi and a screenplay Anderson wrote in collaboration with Harry S. Robins. The film was re-edited by producer Teresa Woo, who later admitted she did not really understand an English language science fiction comedy, and was expecting more of an action film. The film was shot primarily in the Dunsmuir House and Gardens in Oakland, California.

[edit] Plot

Robins plays amiable and bumbling mad scientist Nathaniel Pickman Wingate, affiliated with Miskatonic University, who is busy trying to open a portal to another dimension while his wife, Nancy (Laura O'Malley), and family prepare to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. When he makes contact with the new dimension, he releases two creatures resembling horseshoe crabs with legs that have knees that bend as though they are elbows. These creatures can mimic anything and take on the appearance of Nathan's wife's cousin Desmon (Christopher Gasti), now a Count in Liechtenstein, and a model named Jasmine in son Sam's (Dan Evans) poster (Dru-Anne Cakmis).

The latter is friendly, and with the creatures' high intelligenece and telepathy she quickly becomes Sam's girlfriend. The former is ill-behaved and causes disasters. Lindy (Alison Rachel Golde) talks too much on the phone, so he stuffs the receiver in her mouth so she has to have it extracted in the emergency room. Handyman Floyd (Chuck Bartelle cuts some wires, so the false Desmon uses them, via psychokinesis, to give him a severe electric shock. Inability to control his new body scares off the French maid Emma (Lynn Applebaum) that he tries to seduce in the closet. The philandering Reverend Lawrence Newman (David Allan Shaw), Nathan's college roommate, gets into bedroom antics with Nathan's sister, Angelica (Kate Alexander), and Desmon, clinging to the ceiling, causes a dragon with a mind of its own to come out of his pants.

Sam and Jasmine, along with Sam's best friend, Alex (Andrew Ross Litzky) rush to get the coolant supplies from the university, which Nathan believes is necessary to prevent an explosion that will destroy half the earth, while Jasmine is concerned with doing whatever she can to stop the false Desmon and get them both back to their dimension, out of concern for their ability to survive outside their world. Still, she takes time to build a relationship with Sam in a '50s-style malt shop, guzzling down a milkshake that they have shared with two straws.

[edit] Edit

The film came in at 121 minutes in a rough cut that Robins believed to be the director's cut until Anderson corrected him. Robins contines to pay to have the original elements stored in refrigeraton in hopes of a director's cut, which the 90 minute cut released on video and television is not. According to Anderson, such a cut would be longer than 90 minutes, but shorter than 121 minutes. Robins's late brother, Jeff, barely appears in the 90 minute cut (in the malt shop scene, and in the party scene that ends the film), but has a larger supporting role (Albert) that has been essentially excluded from release. The film was sold in German-speaking markets as The Wingates. The film was shopped around outside the hands of any of the creators, and the VHS released that cropped up from a company called SBM of Chatsworth, California in 1991 was not authorized, and Robins, who subsequently acquired the rights to the film, dislikes the artwork. The packaging compares the film to David Cronenberg's The Fly and Joe Dante's Gremlins. Unlike Dante, the film is more concerned with social comedy than referential comedy. Teresa Woo was more used to action films like the Iron Angels series she was involved with, was confused by the brevity of fighting action in the film and whittled it down accordingly, though later regretted it.