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Herman has made northern drama his own with Little Voice and Brassed Off, but the formula falters in this ropey, flat and contrived tale of two teenage delinquents trying to get season tickets to see Newcastle.
Truancy, underage smoking and drinking, underage sex, teenage abortion, school bullying, drug abuse, substance abuse, depression, child violence, child sex abuse, shoplifting, housebreaking, auto theft, violent assault and armed robbery all put in an appearance here. None of these issues are explored, they merely serve to move the story along from one implausible situation to another. The film is not as acutely observed as Trainspotting, as poignant as The Full Monty, or as reflective of the times as Wonderland (from which it shamelessly steals music in an overly-manipulative manner). I suspect none of the filmmakers are from Newcastle, and have certainly never experienced the social problems the film references. I am all for entertainment, and Herman's track record shows he is aware of the need to balance the social message with laughs and tears. Quite simply, he comes up incredibly short here.
The film has a nice ending, but there are far too many flat, banal moments to sit through to get there. Nicely shot, not very well acted, and ultimately fails on three crucial points: script, script, script.


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The film is set in Newcastle on Tyne in north east England, the town where I was born and grew up. The film is also fundamentally dishonest - the way it presents the town, the kids, but above all the men of the town. In this film they are all stupid, violent, thieving, thugs.
I suppose I could comment on the plot (predictable), the performances (competently unattractive), the direction (lazy and unimaginative), but to me that is all irrelevant compared to the director's insult to the town and its people.
Thus the invitation in my summary to the director and writer, Mark Herman, to leave the north east.


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Contrary to most of the comments in this section, I have to say this film just barely escapes the definition 'rubbish!'. The only readers who seem to be aware of what a catalogue of clichés it is are those who, like me, live in the north-east and know at first hand what the area is like. I am totally sick of films that are supposed to be 'realistic', yet portray the working class (of wherever) as stupid, criminal low-lifes, but then excuse them because of their social background. And funny? I smiled briefly twice and laughed once, but that was at the incongruity of two boy actors with Sunderland accents supposedly trying to hide their Newcastle accents from Sunderland football fans! There was only one likable character in the whole film, and that was the senile grandfather played quietly but very competently by Roy Hudd -- the only non-Geordie in the cast.
As for the writing -- well, I just wonder what university sociology department the author studied at. He certainly had no ear for the local accent. And I too have never heard the expression 'Purely Belter' -- and not only am I a native, I'm a linguist who's written articles on the local dialect.
Don't waste your time and eyesight on this garbage. It isn't funny, it isn't realistic, it isn't entertaining, and it is fundamentally dishonest.


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After seeing PURELY BELTER I came onto this site to review it , but not only that I also had to check out the resume of the screenwriter / director Mark Herman . As soon as his name appeared on the opening credits I knew that I had seen his name before somewhere and after checking I found out he wrote and directed the film version of LITTLE VOICE one of the most underrated feelgood British movies of the 1990s
PURELY BELTER is an entirely different kettle of fish . It's a grim stereotypical view of Geordie life and a very unfunny one at that . Everyone is either a wife beater , a single mother , a shoplifter , a drunk or a junkie . Since many scenes are set in a school the PE teacher is a sadistic bully and that's the closest the film ever gets to reality . Oh and everyone is very foul mouthed which adds to the grim unlikable atmosphere
I didn't like PURELY BELTER much while I watched and now that I know who Mark Herman is I like it even less . With LITTLE VOICE Herman proved you can make an amusing uplifting comedy featuring northern souls but I had to ask where his undoubted talent went in this movie ?


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Two teenagers in the north-east of England are desperate to raise money and buy season tickets for their favourite football team. They go through a series of "comic misadventures" but come up smiling in the end.
The trailer for this film sells it as a comedy and includes most of its light-hearted moments. However, the tone is increasingly grim and the end result is a depressing story peopled with familiar stereotypes. The two "heroes" have no problems with lying, cheating and stealing. Their adversaries are a callous teacher, a pantomime villain of a father, a psychotic skinhead and a well-meaning but incompetent social worker. The other female characters are a drug addicted teenager, a pregnant schoolgirl and a battered wife who seems to be smoking herself to death. There are no likable characters, and the audience can only feel either pity or contempt. Local actors Tim Healy and Kevin Whateley both play against type as baddies, but the writing and direction of their characters are so one-dimensional that they have no more than novelty value.
Chris Beattie and Greg McLane give good performances in the two young leads. However, they are miscast, because they have the wrong accent. To anyone from the north east, it is obvious that they both come from the Sunderland/Durham area, and yet we are expected to believe they are natives of Newcastle. As a Geordie myself I can assure you that the accents are by no means the same. Take the phrase "Let the poor lad speak". We say "Let the pooa lad speek" while they say "piwer lad spiyk", with two distinctly different vowel sounds. This discrepancy creates a ridiculous double irony in a scene in Sunderland football ground, where the two lads are trying to disguise the Newcastle accents they don't have, and *pretend* that they come from Sunderland - which they clearly do. In a gentle comedy this kind of criticism might be seen as nit-picking. However, the film's bleak tone makes it clear that writer/director Mark Herman is aiming for gritty realism: that means "near enough" is actually way off.
I had hoped for humour and optimism from this film, and instead found tired old clichés. Tyneside is not a grey wasteland populated solely by losers, and in telling us it is, Herman should have known he would cause offence. It's interesting to compare the film with the same director's "Little Voice" - also largely downbeat and populated by one-dimensional characters, "Little Voice" at least has a talented heroine and doesn't wallow in misery to the same extent. I've heard "Belter" ranked alongside this year's "Billy Elliot", but that film is a vastly more enjoyable and life-affirming experience.
Incidentally, I may be just too old, but having lived on Tyneside for 42 years, I have never heard anyone outside this film use the expression "Purely Belter".


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I think we are supposed to think what wonderful salt-of-the-earth characters. Unfortunately, this is lame and laboured.
As always with any production set in Newcastle, there are numerous shots of the Tyne Bridge and frequent attempts to show what great 'characters' Geordies are. The viewer is never allowed to forget where the film is set, as though the rest of the world cared about Newcastle and its inhabitants.
If you like well observed, literate and original work stay well clear.


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Very strange. But meant to be. This director is his own man. Even through there are strains if Polanski, Bergman, and Kafka at least in the episode no 6, the peeping tom one. What made it all so strange, and reminiscent of the above three artists, was that it went all over the place, you never knew where it was headed, and could have ended anyplace, and finally when it did end, could have kept going. The ending is hardly a finality, nobody could tell you what these two characters would be doing in even the next frame. One other thing should be said about the director: No wonder Kubrick found him fascinating. There is a lot of Eyes Wide Shut in this episode somehow, in the direct approach to character, the realistic fantasy elements of both. A Kubrick placement of the camera without any of the stark effects, much more washed out, and hurried, not as fussed over. That said, back to the beginning, still this guy has his own things to say and says them well. Yet, for some reason, there is not a single scene I ever want to see again. But definitely did not feel ripped off in the least watching it one time around. But I did keep getting the feeling of three or four other directors ghosts moving through the parade, blurring everything. The caveat being that it was only episode six: the other nine might give me entirely different takes. But since this episode revolved around peeping, looking, the absolute domain of film, I will say this, he took none of the usual routes, definitely went his own way while carrying the baggage of a lot of good directors behind him.


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Think of an extremely low-rent version of "Heathers," and you've got "Pep Squad." That sums up the flick in a nutshell. I must give credit where credit's due, though. The film has a nice visual appeal to it. I liked the cinematography, I liked the wild color schemes, I liked the costume designs. But without good acting, a film has no redeeming value. I'd rather watch a film with little visual appeal, with good actors and sharp dialogue (i.e.: "The Brothers McMullen" or any Edward Burns film). The actors either recite their dialogue in monotones or scream it out like they're in a bad soap opera. This is why I don't badmouth most mainstream actors. Let's face it, most actors who are mainstream are mainstream for a reason. If they're not "great" actors, they're at least competent. People badmouth Leo DiCaprio, but when was the last time you saw a movie where he recites the dialogue as if he's reading it off the page? It's a shame, because the director seems like he knows his stuff when it comes to mis en scene (sp). At the same time I can't totally praise Steve Balderson (the director). He did write the screenplay, which contains some horrible dialogue. He might be slightly racist too, since there's a black principal in the movie, who inhabits a culmination of African-American stereotypes.


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With Pep Squad receiving an average of 4.7 on IMDb.com, no wonder Steve Balderson slanders this website so. But the fact is that Pep Squad is a poorly crafted "black" "comedy" (both words in quotation marks for a reason). It's a movie full of over-acting (Cherry, Beth's Mother), coupled with a couple of lethargic performances (Beth and Julie's boyfriend). A movie where you can follow cars from twenty feet away in a gaudy red Jeep and never be noticed. A movie chock full of not-so-appetizing cleavage and nudity shots that make you wonder, "Does the director think this is funny? Or clever?" Most of all, the characters are so paper-thin and poorly developed that the film becomes quite unpredictable, but probably not on purpose. Pep Squad can't decide whether to be a comedy, or a drama, or a satire (patriotic music, I get it...). The movie fails at being serious, because the idea of killing for any school position (this being Prom Queen) crosses the line into insanity (not to mention shots of flag burning and drive-by shootings, a poor attempt at being controversial and edgy), and fails at being a comedy, for all the forced and awkwardly placed jokes (big butt mama, "funky" black principal, and excessive cussing delivered poorly by the principal cast). Watching the documentary "Wamego: Making Movies Anywhere" only made this film more cringe-worthy, with praise lauded towards it by... the director and the director's father... hmmmmmm. Not a black comedy, or anything for that matter. I guess Kansas will have to wait.


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This is a really really bad movie. That may seem like an oversimplification. A fickle, childish retort comparable to a petty unsubstantiated insult. The truth is, there is not enough I can say about the confusing senseless plot, the really atrocious acting (I'm talking nasty here folks), or the random images of violence toward women that make up the chaotic pastiche of radically horrendous film-making mistakes that propel this affront to all that is good and decent in the world of cinema, nay, human culture. Please, take my word for it, don't watch it... ever. I'm serious. Stop. You'll thank me for it later.


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Saw the film at it's Lawrence, Kansas premiere. This wavering story about a group of disgruntled highschoolers killing off the competition for prom queen was just awful. It fails for many reasons - bad acting, bad script, no clear point. But mainly it just felt like the filmmakers said to themselves - "Hey I have some money, so let's make a movie!" - without really thinking it out. Sorrowfully most indie films that don't make it suffer from just that mentality. They just don't seem to realize that it takes more than money to make a good movie... or in this case, even a watchable one. With this film I do not feel ashamed to say, that if I didn't know some of the crew, I would have walked out. Simple as that.


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I don't mean to sound pretentious here, but to call this the next cult classic is yet another example of the lowering standards filmmakers have for themselves. This movie is an offense to everything we hold sacred, and not in the good "artsy " way of offending. This film becomes the archetype for PAINFUL dialogue, delivered by even more pathetic actors.


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...but I would be lying. A relative was a crew member, and we got to go watch the production of this movie for a couple of days (and I was an extra). I get to die and have a second of screen time, not that I plan on moving to Hollywood anytime soon. I just thought it was awesome to see how movies are made and be a part of it. Plus, I got a copy of the movie once it was finally released. They didn't have a studio backing when making this film so it truly was independent. Why the writing and acting is so awful is beyond me, but the main character "Cherry" is the director's sister so that could be part of it. But the cinematography was good. :)


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H.G. Wells is spinning. No doubt about it.
Really, this would have been a decent sci-fi/adventure movie, if it hadn't been based on a classic novel and directed by the author's grandson. I kept hearing about how this would be the definitive version of the novel. What resulted was a pathetic and simpleminded bastardization.
The novel is a great sci-fi story but what a lot of people miss when they read it (probably because they read it when they're very young) is that it's overflowing with social commentary. The Eloi and Morlocks are a satire of the class distinctions of Victorian England, and the overall message of the film is that EVERYTHING DECAYS AND DEGENERATES, a satiric jab at Victorian complacency and their belief that their civilization would last forever. There's no love story, no romance with a beautiful Eloi woman....in the novel, the Eloi are 3-foot-tall childlike beings with a mental capacity not far above that of an animal. The Time Traveler does befriend an Eloi woman but it's clear he thinks of her more like a pet, and anyway she's killed before the novel ends.
This movie first tries to give us a totally stupid backstory as to "why he wants to travel through time." The treacly romance and the Lessons He Must Learn are enough to make film fans vomit.
The journey into the future is punctuated by a future disaster. OK, not bad, but it would have had more punch if we had been allowed to see that mankind just generally degenerates, as in the book. More a reflection of the times, I guess, as the George Pal version had a nuclear war take place.
The general story? Ugh. A total misrepresentation of the novel. The Eloi are too competent and warlike. The Morlocks are too intelligent. The UberMorlock is an embarrassment, and there's no setup. He just shows up in time to be killed. Yawn.
Samantha Mumba does OK. Guy Pearce is one of my favorites but he often seems confused and in pain. (Reportedly he broke a rib while filming this.) He also looks unhealthy and overly thin, as if he had been ill for a long time before making this.
A sad, sorry film version of one of the world's classics. H. G. Wells deserves better....MUCH better.



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Worst. Movie. Ever. I can't believe they had to hire Jeremy Irons to give this piece of crap some credibility - and still failed. Did they think that if they stuck to the plot of the book that their target audience wouldn't be able to figure it out on their own? (probably). "Hey, let's make lots of things explode and give Mina big boobs, and have her speak in an adorably fake broken English. That'll make the morons watch." "But sir, that's not how the book went at all, I think we're mot being faithful to Mr. Wells' message." "F*ck it, we're going to the box office here, never mind some dead author's ideas on human nature. Also, let's add in Orlando Jones with some classic 'Black attitude' as a supporting character, and never mind the interesting conclusion to the book - Guy Pierce has to get some p*ssy at the end."


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It's a Time Machine all right. It runs in "real time" for 96 minutes but it felt like 96 years. The first 20 minutes were utterly superfluous. Massive amounts of "dead" time throughout. What happened? When will something happen? Who cares? Apparently the film was made on a tight budget, I note for your edification the following: The Morlochs: nothing like saving a little money by reusing the sets and costumes from Lord of the Rings part I, hey? The "scary dude" in charge of controlling the Morlochs... The scariest thing these guys could think of was somebody wearing one of Gene Simmons: (of the band Kiss) old costumes??? Little-known fact: freaks of the future have perfectly manicured nails.
Save your money, save your time. Pass on this one.


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After reading the novel which is about a one hour read, watching this film became a sad disappointing experience. Just as he did in prince of Egypt simon wells somehow managed to direct a script that took away all the drama and mystery out of its source material and turned it into this homogenized nonsense. Now I'm a sucker for cheese and camp but this movie made absolutely no sense. There was no joy in any of the performances or any humor. There were no thrills and that silly bookend with addy's character of filby throwing his hat in the air was the last hackwriting straw. I felt very violated when this movie was over and I still refuse to believe it was only 90 minutes it went on forever. I wondered how the studio and director could have OK'd such a lousy script but then my friend pitched the movie to me exactly as It was and I said wow that sounds great but what happened to the movie.


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I was one of the many fools who were sapped out into paying for this at the theater, even though I payed 4 bucks for matinée (before 6pm) prices.
The remake's story was ho-hum, the CGI Morlocks were lame, the Eloi were rastafarian to mimic today's fads (no I did not think the chick was hot at all), the re-killing of the hero's modern girlfriend was somewhat cruel, overall just a sad, bad remake.
I'll take Rod Taylor, Weena, and the fat glowing eyed surfer Morlocks over this junk any time. My estimation is that many of the reviewers who like this awful remake are young kids, which does not account for either good taste or a true value of the old classics which are largely unappreciated by today's confused and ever-wanting-more youth.
When the 60s version came out (I first saw it in the 70s for summer fun) it was pretty damn impressive and still holds up. You don't have to have an over abundance of CGI in a movie for it to be better. Too much of this looks fake. I can't say enough of how disappointingly bad the Morlocks looked and they ran and jumped around like they were in a child's video game. 3 stars out of 10.


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This movie sucked. From beginning to end it was predictable. There was absolutly no chemistry between Pearce and the Mumba chick. The plot went nowhere, floating off into oblivion. All of these led to the movie being very hilarious in its stupidity. And I wanted to strangle Orlando Jones, the guy just needs to go away.


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This movie is a disgrace. How can you take one of the greatest science fiction stories of all time and turn it into some kind of half-assed love story. The entire beginning of the movie was not in the H.G. Wells story and didn't need to be. Also the Eloi were done completely wrong. They did build houses or form any kind of real society. They didn't care about each other at all. That was an important part of the story. The way they had formed a world that was without hardship or complex emotions. They were barely even aware of the Morlocks. I don't know why this movie was made the way it was but some stories should be told as they are or left alone.


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Do you know that they want to escavate the Moon for real?And in Geneve there is the debated project that could lead to make possible time machine?All i can say about this movie that is based on facts about future(at the time of the movie)scientifical projects but real. Hope the moon will exist not happen as in the movie. Now about the movie itself, I saw the original movie too, and I also read the book. The book I didn't like though, but the movie yes.I totally agree with a previous comment that this movie was depressing,unlike the 60's one.That was very good with force, this one was only a paralled future of what is good movie.


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This was one of the worst films i have ever seen. I'm still trying to get over how bad it was. Just because it has Godard's name attached to it, doesn't make it great. Beyond the fact it makes absolutely no sense, we see one insanely long shot of a traffic jam that is not stunning, unbelievable or anything of the sort. While this long shot of the traffic jam is going on you will be feeling probably more like making a pastrami sandwich than continuing watching it. Pieces of a supposed story, silly, stupid characters. What message are we suppose to take from this? It offers nothing and serves no purpose. The arrogance of the director in showcasing these puny, dull chain-smoking french people and having them sit around and converse for hours on end and then getting it passed off as art is truly astounding.


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If you like me is going to see this in a film history class or something like that at your school, try to convince your teacher to see something else. believe me, anything is better than this movie. it is slow paced, confusing, boring, poorly constructed, gory, gringy, do I need to go on? It's message is good, but I have seen them been handled better in several other films. The acting isn't even any good. This movie is just even more awkward, as it start off as being funny (not intensional though)because of it's surreal story, than at the end, just becomes uncomfortable to watch.
I honestly feel like 1 hour and 40 minutes of my life has been robbed. Why would anyone want to watch a girls describe a threesome for 10 minutes, than watch them drive through a traffic jam for 20 minutes, listen to a hippie who can make sheep appear, witness a sort of rape, than see the female lead role eat her husband.
Honestly this movie deserves nothing but a 1/10. And if your not happy with my preview,seriously I'm an open minded guy and I like movies that protest through symbolism, but this movie was just awful. make any excuse you can, to avoid this film.


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I saw this film in a Cinema-Club in Germany in 1970. Most of the attendees were from the local private school at which I was teaching. I had seen a few Godard films previously while I lived in France, and, though they hadn't been my favorites, I could at least make sense of them. Being able to speak French helped.
The fairly innocuous beginning of "Le week-end" soon turned into a kaleidoscope of images, very well, maybe too well photographed, that soon made no sense to me. For me, films, like books, must have some clear sort of meaning. This didn't for me. I suppose I'm not "into" artsy films. Images still haunt me from the film. To this day I refuse to eat rabbit meat, well-loved by the French. Those who've seen the film might realize why. Yes, the theme of materialism came through, but the cannibalism, the car wrecks, and all the other scenes of destruction and horror only sickened me. I'm not sure if I walked out before the end, but I certainly felt like it. I promised myself that I'd never watch another Godard film, and I haven't and never knowingly will.
My rating: nothing. It was the most disgusting film I've ever seen. Others may have been more inept, silly or stupid. I've forgotten those while scenes from this one will haunt me forever.


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I work at the video store that rents this video in Lexington and I must say...it should have never been made. I even know some of the people who worked on it who regret doing so. Bad effects, horrid acting, bad script especially. I swear the dialog wouldn't have passed for the original PSX Resident Evil; it's that bad. If you want to know how not to make a movie, watch this film to learn a thing or two. If not, don't waste your time. And even the director know it sucks because he keeps coming in to try to get us to upsale the movie. No sir. I've watched two-thirds of the horror section and this rates even lower than Plan 9 from Outer Space. Even Ed Eood would have said, "Nope. That's too stupid even for me."


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Once a month, I invite a few friends over for a "Retarded Movie Night". We look forward to movies that are either so bad they're funny or movies that know they don't have a plot and just show a lot of chests. Last night, we were unfortunate enough to have Zombie Planet as one of our movies. The cinematography is on par with what we're used to, but the acting was a different story. The lead role is played by a Johnny Depp/Rob Zombie wanna-be who couldn't get a role in a high school play, let alone a LOW-BUDGET horror film. Our indecisive hero, who couldn't tell whether or not he wanted to be a bad-ass this scene or a whimpering coward was one of the reasons why this was the first movie of 30 that I have ever had to stop early during a Retarded Movie Night. It had the possibility for greatness with a GREAT twist on the standard zombie infection, but they took it an entirely different direction based on Johnny Zombie. I personally would not recommend this to any of my friends. However, it's unfortunate that I already invited a few over last night to suffer through 80% of this movie with me.


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Now, I'm a big fan of Zombie movies. I admit Zombie movies usually aren't all that good, but I like them anyways. Despite the crappy acting and worthless dialogues that occur in almost all Zombie movies, this one is by far the worst. See, there are a few ground rules with zombie-movies. 1. Zombies are suicidal. Tactics is seldom used, and NEVER do they act like a boxer. They don't dodge a blow to the head, they take it with a ugly smile. They don't try and hit you in the face, they grab a hold of your arm and bite it! 2. Zombies can't speak. Only in Evil Dead. Otherwise, they DO NOT SPEAK. 3. You don't fight zombies with melee-ranged weapons. You loose in a melee fight against zombies. Firearms are used. In this movie however, melee is the way to go, which is wrong. Very wrong.
It had NO redeeming qualities.
If you wish to see a Zombie movie, see one with an average score higher than 3 on IMDb.com


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Just when you think that you've seen the worst the zombie sub-genre can offer, along comes another budding Romero and his team of no-talent mates to prove you wrong.
I've suffered the Zombie Bloodbath trilogy, endured Death Valley: The Revenge of Bloody Bill, sat semi-comatose through The Zombie Diaries, and laughed hysterically during Zombie '90: Extreme Pestilence, and genuinely thought that amateur movie-making could sink no lower. However, having just watched Zombie Planet, a two hour long festering pile of drivel from writer/director George Bonilla, I think I have found the ultimate in awful zombie movies.
In this dreadfully amateurish effort, which is part Mad Max and part Dawn of the Dead (but ALL bad), Frank Farhat stars as T. K. Kane, a tough fighter who kicks zombie ass for a hobby, armed only with knives, a machete, some concussion grenades, and what he obviously perceives to be a really mean glare.
After a desperately unexciting opening sequence in which he takes on a horde of dodgy looking zombies, Kane teams up with a group of survivors who not only have to fend off attacks from the undead, but must also must placate a gang of vicious thugs who have taken control of the area (by searching for and handing over any valuables that they find).
Of course, Kane isn't the type of man to take orders from a bunch of z-grade post-apocalyptic bully boys, and he sets about teaching the bad guys a lesson (mostly by glowering at them in a threatening manner), only pausing to periodically rescue pals from zombies.
Featuring awful acting from almost everyone involved, a dreadful script, laughable effects, and shoddy production values, there is virtually nothing in this film to make it worth a watch. To be fair, I quite like the basic premise that the zombies are the unexpected result of a highly popular slimming drug that blocks cravings for carbohydrates (we learn this when one character conveniently explains the back-story to Kane, who strangely has no idea what has happened), but this is about the only vaguely interesting aspect of the whole production.
I have a certain amount of respect for anyone who manages to fund and make their own movie, but when the results are this poor, that respect is lost when they decide to make it available for public viewing. I would've kept this one under wraps if I had made it.


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I live and work in Lexington, Kentucky, the town where Zombie Planet was filmed. I'd heard about the film forever ago, from various people who claimed to be a critical part of the production. Then, for several years, I heard absolutely nothing. Imagine my surprise when I found it sitting all by itself at the local video store, just itching for a rental. So, being the cinephile that I am, I decided to give these local filmmakers a shot.
Bad idea.
Zombie Planet is overlong, boring, poorly acted, miserably shot -- and that's just the good stuff. I tried my hardest to enjoy it, which included removing my brain and setting it on the table so that it wouldn't get in the way of the horrible storyline. Alas, nothing worked. Zombie Planet is so bad it's pathetic. And the very idea that they're planning a sequel leads me to believe that the director and his henchmen have listened to none of the criticisms I'm sure they've heard. Move on, you guys. Please. In fact, refrain from film-making altogether. Or attend a few classes on pacing, storytelling, and, well, basic direction.
Otherwise, for the love of God, hang it up.


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Zombie Planet seems like an example of good ideas and laudable ambition overstepping budget. I thought the explanation for the zombies was real original and gnarly, and loved the dog munching in the exposition scene. The rest of the gore was effective in a low budget kinda way, but too spaced apart throughout the movie. The problem was that it was too long and anti-climatic. Sure, they had a intriguing, if derivative plot line, and a similarly familiar but cool setting, but a low budget zombie film really needs to be goretastic to make an impression and there just weren't enough red moments in this for me. I think there was surplus of cheap looking and bloodless fight scenes as well especially given the generally minimal grue. Plus, for a two hour movie, there's very little closure at the end, and though it kinda makes me want to track down Zombie Planet 2, I felt a tad cheated. So probably most worth looking for the two of them.


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Set in the near future a dark stranger walks into some southern American city plagued by zombies. Settling with a group of friendly face inhabitants our stranger learns the harsh realities of city life. There are two groups of people; the upper classes who dwell safely behind the concrete walls of the city being provided by, at the right price, the state police. Then there are our friendly face inhabitants. These lower class folks live along side the zombies. There only means of survival is to trade goods, which they forage for during the day, with the police in exchange for tins of food. Our stranger discovers why his world is plague by zombies. A new dietary pill that suppressed the craving for carbohydrates was the foundation. The human race's desire to shed fat caused the down fall of society as we know it. These pills increased the desire for protein i.e. meat, even the pet poodle. However, there was one more grave side affect, after death people became reanimated with an even stronger craving for protein namely human flesh.
With what I feel is an imaginative introduction I felt that this film many realise some inventive material. What better way could explain the cause of the zombie race than by a contemporary idea of people's desire to make any sacrifice to change their body without the hard work of the gym? However, the imagination of this film soon stopped after this exposition. This film falls into the old trap of 'I can not imagine what the world will be like when society collapses'. When you watch this film you do not escape to a different world as you do when you watch Planet of the Apes (original), Alien, Mad Max or Texas Chain Saw (original). In this film the alternate society is define by people with hair dyed orange and green. Face paint and charity shop leather jackets. There is no harshness about life in this alternate society, just healthy faces and over made-up zombies. Films should allow you to escape not remind you that you need to clear out your wardrobe and take your old cloths to the charity shop.
Forget about some of the pitiful acting, or the over made-up zombies. This film fails because it is too polished, too congenial and too predictable. I have watch films like this since the early eighties. If you are going the make a film of this nature I suggest you need to watch again such films as Dawn of The Dead (original and remake), Threads or Fulci's Zombie to see and experience that feeling of desperation in a devastate society.


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In the 50's, a gay photographer called Bob Mizer (Daniel MacIvor) founded an agency of male models, releasing a muscle magazine called "Physique Pictorial" and movie of men, and many of the models became prostitutes. "Beefcake" shows the rise and fall of this pervert.
Alternating footages from the 50's, testimony of many models and Bob Mizer himself in the present days, the director Thom Fitzgerald used this subterfuge to show naked men and lots of penis along 93 minutes running time, in a complete bad taste and very silly crap. I have never heard anything about this morally corrupt Bob Mizer and I do not know what AMG is. In my opinion, only gay and very specific audiences might like the theme of this boring and pretentious movie. My vote is two.
Title (Brazil): "Carne Fresca" ("Fresh Meat")


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...left behind when the ostensible heroine's Venus flytrap makes any man whose sexual advances are forced upon her--ahem!--disappear. Fiona "This IS my career!" Horsey is an attractive enough screamqueen ingenué, although I found her acting chops to be suspect. With better direction, and a better vehicle, she might improve. Likely as not, her leading man, Paul "Mine, too!" Conway, never will, proving to be one of the most unlikeable, unattractive love interests I've seen in a film in recent memory. There's some nonsense involving Siamese twins, a frying-pan-to-the-head-obvious hot dog joke, a reasonable amount of bare boobies, production values in the low-budget-to-laughable range, scripting that would make Syd Field cry, acting that by and large only an Ed Wood could love, and camera-work a step above pedestrian. The vagina dentata gimmick might well have made for an interesting horror movie, but "Angst" botches the premise. Strictly for stoned-out viewing, and even then, you could do much better. Sturgeon's Law (or Revelation) still holds.


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The main premise for this movie is every woman's fantasy: a vagina that kills and eats men. Well at least it is a fantasy for every woman who has ever had a fight against a man. What's that, 99.9999% of women? But don't worry it's not a gory kind of eating of men. It's more like a comical slurping them in, like a drain plug. There's no blood or parts left behind. So for blood, guts & gore fans, forget about this film, not much gore here.
The two main characters of the film are somewhat unrealistic. Helen is a good girl who becomes a prostitute. Meanwhile, Dennis is a nice guy who stalks Helen.
The story is already a little silly at this point, but then they throw in two more equally silly sub-stories that just send this movie into the bad B-movie territory. The first new sub-story is about Dennis finding new love with a pair of conjoined twins; and then eventually murdering one of them, and becoming a fugitive bank-robber. The second new sub-story is about Helen finding new love with a nice policeman who rescued her from a prostitution-related bad date, and decided he wanted to marry her. Dennis and Helen eventually meet up again at the end of movie in totally unbelievable circumstances, and magically Helen's murderous vagina is cured!


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So umm this woman has a vagina that sucks people into it when they umm do it and there's this dude who like follows her around...everywhere....and uhh is umm in love with her and she cant love him back because of her thingy. Well her thingy starts talking to her...sort of...it just says feed me over and over and she tries to feed it hot dogs but that doesn't work because it ummmmm wants fresh meat?!?!!? So this woman heads to the red light district where she picks up tourists but only the really sleazy ones cause I guess they deserve it and after a while this dude comes looking for her and even though shes like right there he doesn't see her so eventually he gets involved with conjoined twins but he only likes one of them cause the other is a real hussy. This isn't bad good like I thought it would be cause like the novelty sort of wears off within the first 1/2 hour and it goes on for another hour. I think it killed off a few brain cells cause I sat through this whole thing and now im a little brain damaged. Either way man this is the worst man-eating vagina movie I have ever seen.


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Am I the only one to think that this is a bad movie?
I admit that horror movies often lack things like a big story or good acting or even good special effects. But the way these deficiencies come together in this movie is surprisingly pitiful.
Miserable story: The idea of a raped vagina that takes revenge by turning into a man eater sounds quite funny, but what the writer made out of it is stupid.
Bad acting: The actors move like marionettes. They play and look like people, who really try hard but completely fail to act.
Bad FX: Especially the explosion of the Van looks unspeakably cheap.
It is surprising that a director who made some nice movies during his carrier changes over to such messy stuff.


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Hello all--for what it's worth, I'm in a doctoral program on Indonesian politics and returned this semester after about a year's fieldwork, most of it in Jakarta.
I'm a big movie fan generally, so I went out as often as I could, and bought tons of local VCDs while I was there. This one I saw in the theater, since it opened while I was there, and, thankfully, closed soon after.
Who was the intended audience for this film? The spoiled wives and daughters of the Indonesian super-elite whose antics are weakly and ineffectively parodied? The vast majority of Indonesians who could never afford even a single dish, let alone a full meal, in the film's central restaurant location? Or gay Indonesian males, whose dilemma in the country's Muslim-dominated society is reduced to absurdly simplistic, how-to-respect-yourself preaching.
If all this wasn't bad enough, the soundtrack was either recorded or mixed so ineptly that even native-speaking Indonesians couldn't hear many of the lines.
In brief, if you're looking for a cutting-edge gay-themed film from a region of the world that seems among the least likely to produce such an animal, forget it. "Westler" from the early '80s, or "My Beautiful Laundrette," from the same era, succeed far better in putting a happier face on dealing with homophobia, and do so by showing not telling through incessant, wordy scenes.
Overall, an unfortunate waste of money in a country that still can't educate all of its children nor keep them healthy.


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How can this movie be described? Oh yeah I've got it wretched!!!
I'm not big on chop socky, but this is just plain garbage. Anyone who would waste their money to pay to see it, is just too sad for words.


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I was ready for a Crouching Tiger style movie and all I got was the worst movie i've seen in years. It was almost as bad as Baron Von Munchhuasen. Dead script. Dead acting. Dead everything.
Granted there was some good fight scenes but the positive side ends there. If this movie arrives in your house run screming to a phone and dial 911 and say, "Please help there is a movie in my house meant to force people to commit suicide"


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Sure, it's hard being gay, especially in the south. We get it. Over... and over again.
What stood out was that the film makers focused almost wholly on the more "extreme" characters in these small town gay bars; the drag queens, the seedy sleaze of a bar long-closed, and on a guy who was brutally murdered for being gay, yet had nothing to do with either of the bars which were the focus of this film.
There were snippets of interviews from other people, people viewers would, perhaps, be better able to relate to. But they were glossed over, practically skipped, maybe shown in a glimpse in the background.
It would have been more interesting, to me at least, to hear the experiences of the more common gay men and women who were either enriched or otherwise by the experiences of a small town gay bar and/or the absence of that community.


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Maybe it's unfair to dislike a movie for what it isn't, rather than what it is, but I approached this hoping that finally a filmmaker would make a movie about small-town rural gay men and women. Instead, the focus is primarily on the outrageous bigotry (big news!) of the locals (and those in outlying areas) and the really gruesome torture/murder of a young gay man.
So much time devoted to stupid people squawking about AIDS, sin, hellfire, and perverts. So much time devoted to the ghoulish preacher ranting about the Bible and gay people getting what they deserve.
I wanted to see more of the people that came to the "small town gay bar", not those who opposed it. In addition, the young man who was murdered isn't even from this town.
The whole movie works as a warning rather than a celebration, and it's very suspect.


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