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Dreadful horror sequel to "The Howling". This picks off with Karen White's funeral (she was killed at the end of the first film). Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee sadly) arrives there and tells Karen's brother Ben (Reb Brown) that Karen was a werewolf. He's going to Transylvania to kill Striba (Sybil Danning) the head werewolf. Ben and a coworker of Karens (Annie McEnroe) join him.
A terrible script, bad direction, inept editing and truly horrendous acting by Brown and McEnroe single handedly sink this one. The werewolf effects are mostly kept in the dark--for good reason! They're terrible when you see them. Subpar special effects also--although I DID like the cartoon lightning that comes from Danning's fingers. There's also a werewolf orgy which is particularly stupid and Danning takes off her top at least EIGHT TIMES during the closing credits!
There are a few good things--I found the village in Transylvania amusing--it looks like it came from a Universal horror flick from the 1930s! There are interesting camera tricks between transition scenes; Brown and McEnroe have good bodies and Lee and Danning are good in this--but they can't save it. Really--WHY did they do this? Where that they hard up for money??? This is one of IMDb's lowest rated movies. That alone should tell you something. Supposedly Danning was horrified when she saw the movie--I can understand why! A must-miss.


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OK, as everyone has pointed out, this film is a complete dog. To some degree this is because it was a gory sexploitation film that had a lot of material excised (or darkened down to near invisibility) to escape the censor's X-rating; but the film has many other flaws as well.
To begin with, the scriptwriter seems to have got his werewolves and vampires mixed up. The baddies in this film are furry and don't like silver but in every other respect they behave like vampires. Now you just can't do that with a crappy genre flick, you've got to stick to the rules of the genre or the fans get all confused and annoyed by suspending disbelief in the wrong thing. In fact the whole (confusing and poorly presented) plot is something that has already been done for vampires, but doesn't make any sense in a werewolf movie.
Secondly, the werewolf costumes are the lamest you have ever seen. Anybody in the werewolf movie business ought to know that the werewolf costumes and transformations are something the fans assess critically, yet some of these werewolves are just plain goofy.
There are a couple of slightly good bits. I actually quite liked the score. Others have mentioned Sybil Danning's tits. And...
(***SPOILER***, if such a thing can exist)
I also quite liked the plan for attacking the werewolves' stronghold. There are so many horror movies that rely on characters behaving stupidly, but in this case they first acquire a very sensible and effective anti-werewolf arsenal and go slaughter the monsters. I mean, you can kill werewolves with silver bullets, and we have some pretty powerful firearms these days. Shouldn't be too hard to put two and two together, hmm? But in typical style this movie goes over the top and adds some other very zany and amusing anti-lycanthrope weapons.


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Ugly shot, poorly scripted and amateurishly paced sequel to Joe Dante's 1981 classic. "The Howling" is one of the two or three ONLY good werewolf-films ever made and yet it got 'rewarded' by a series of obnoxious and unendurable sequels like this one. If it's any consolation, "Stirba" is a sequel in name only and there's absolutely no connection with the characters or events that were introduced in Dante's film. The plot here revolves on a bloodthirsty cult of Transsylvanian werewolves  primarily female ones  led by Stirba. Stirba is played by Sybil Danning who transforms from a curvy old lady into a blond super-babe (with impressive bosom) in the blink of an eye and becomes all hairy when sexually aroused. Her arch-enemy is played by a seemly fatigue Christopher Lee. His character  Stefan Crosscoe  is an occult investigator who travels to Stirba's kingdom, accompanied by an American couple who lost their friend to the werewolf cult. In case you're exclusively looking for filthy gore and gratuitous nudity...this is your film. Even the smallest killing is shown in great detail and we're even treated to exploding eyeballs and the vile image of a dwarf who gets pierced on a pointy fence. However, if you want a little substance or depth, you'll be sorely disappointed. The dialogues are embarrassing and there's absolutely no tension to detect anywhere. The scriptwriters constantly seem to confuse werewolves with vampires (the Transsylvanian setting, garlic, wooden stakes...) and Danning's gorgeous balcony is shamelessly exploited as the film's only gimmick. During the end-credits, a shot in which she rips off her top, is re-edited repeatedly (according to my fellow reviewer Dr. Gore, no less than seventeen times!) which is pretty pathetic and pointless. The music is okay and some of the scenery is rather beautiful. I'm talking about the fierce-looking statues during the opening credits and the dark dungeons of Stirba's castle. The directing by Philippe Mora is a giant mess and  as far as I'm concerned  his only worthwhile film remains "The Beast Within", released three years earlier.


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Ben a out-of-town cop is convinced his sister was brutally killed and wants to bring her killer to justice, but he's approached by Stefan who believes his sister was a victim of a werewolf cult. So Ben, his sister's best friend and Stefan travel to Transylvania to put a end to this evil.
This is incredibly awful B-grade stuff and I wondered how it even got released. It makes the original 'Howling' look like a masterpiece. What was Christopher Lee thinking, as this has to be his worst performance I've seen.
There was a lot wrong with this real cheap-ass film, ranging from the really hammy and wooden performances from Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha A. Hunt and Sybil Danning (not to forgot Lee), cheesy fashion (those sunnies), cheap and lame special effects, bad use of lighting, the humour... if there was any, trashy 80s music (with some of the film just focusing on some unknown band playing), werewolf's having orgies which is a sight to see and a tiresome story with flat and annoying dialogue. I thought if it was that bad it would be awfully funny, but I was wrong.
The positives were the location and settings of the film looked great, but that's about it... actually I'll add Sybil Danning short stripping scene too.
During the end credits the band plays their crap-house song during a weird montage of scenes from the film, which I beckon the question why?
An awful piece of mess, however at least it isn't boring.
1/5


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This film is really bad,so bad that even Christopher Lee cannot save it.A poor story an even poorer script and just plain bad direction makes this a truly outstanding horror film,the outstanding part being that it is the only horror film that i can honestly say i would never ever watch again.This garbage make Plan nine from outerspace look like oscar material.


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Lee hosted the 100 Years of Horror for Ted Newsom and was talking about filmic werewolves. He said something to the effect that his only brush with lycanthropy was The Howling II, then he quipped, "The less said about that the better." Indeed he was right as this film may very well be the worst in his entire catalog of screen performances. The first Howling by Joe Dante was a groundbreaking werewolf film with its incredible special effects and its campy sense of style and subject matter. It was a film to be taken seriously. Like other good original films, filmmakers for some strange reason thought that even more campy sequels were needed rather than what worked the first time(See CHUD then CHUD II to illustrate this point). This film is miles and miles away from the first on every front. There is absolutely nothing scary about it. It looks cheap and is pitch black through most of the major scenes. Lee is the only actor in the film worth mentioning(okay, I'll cede Ferdy Mayne too). Lee looks embarrassed as he says inane dialog and does ridiculous things(check out that ending with him and Stirba). Lee looks incredibly tired and knows what dreck this is which is a tad more insightful than the two leads who leave America to go to Romania. The story isn't really worth examining here, and you can bet there is very little story worth mentioning when you have to have Stephen Parsons and his band Babel play through much of the film in the beginning and the ending with that dreadful noise. Sybil Danning is here and, yes, she disrobes once and then we get that scene showed again and again and again - one reviewer said 17 times(I counted ten - but might have been so bored out of my mind by that point). I gave the film three stars, but it really deserves a zero - the three I gave it are 1 for Lee and two for Ms. Danning's contributions. Yuck!


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Yes, the first "Howling" was a classic. A rather good werewolf movie that I admit started slowly, but gained momentum along the way to have a rather good finish then the anchorwoman changed into a cute werewolf only to be gunned down on camera. Yes that made for an entertaining horror movie to be sure...well forget all of that as this movie has nothing to do with that film. Oh sure, they kind of make it out that the anchor woman is the same and that her brother or something is wanting to find out what and why things went down as they did, but they go from the little cozy retreat from the first movie to Transylvania or somewhere here where they must battle evil magician werewolves or something. I often wonder what in the world Christopher Lee was doing in this movie, however I read the trivia here where it says he had never been in a werewolf movie before, but still read the script before you take a role. Maybe you could have gotten into "An American Werewolf in London" hell that could have been possible. It was set in London after all. Heck, werewolves do not seem to figure much into this movie except for a rather bizarre and prolonged sex scene. In fact, the most memorable death in this movie for me was when the one gal started talking loudly and this one dude's ear's started bleeding.


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We had STARZ free weekend and I switched on the station to see what was on . It was this movie Howling II: The acting was terrible but the eye candy was great. Sybil Danning and Marsha Brown as the afore mentioned eye candy. I was laughing a lot from the few scenes I saw.
My friends wonder why I never want to go to Horror movies , If they saw this film they would know why. I would get thrown out for laughing so hard.
Just a couple of trivia notes : Reb Brown who played Ben White had played Captain American in a made for TV movie Marsha Brown was Mick Jaggers inspiration for the song "Brown Sugar" Mick has great taste in women for sure.


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In the first Howling, we are introduced to a world where werewolves exist and are somewhat organized. The plot in that film made some sense; a TV reporter investigates this and attempts to uncover the truth. She ends up having to kill many of them including her boyfriend who becomes one. Then she shows the world that they do exist by transforming on live TV. The special effects were just laughable in the first movie and they don't get any better in this one. Whether it's the transformations or the bad puppets or the cheesy computer graphics showing the superpowers.
The plot line isn't all that bad; they must kill the leader of the werewolves for some reason. This won't destroy all werewolves and it really doesn't end the threat from werewolves as it...they just want to kill her. I think there was some cloudy reason for this but it really gets lost in the film.
After the film "ends" we have a 10 minute montauge of the movie we just watched and every other scene is one where the female werewolf leader rips off her top exposing her large breasts while some Devo-esquire band plays to a crowd of werewolves.
The only thing that makes this movie even watchable is Christopher Lee.


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to be honest, i didn't watch all of the original 'howling', but those scenes i saw made it obvious that the first howling was a great movie. so great, that seven horrible sequels had to be made. they started off with "Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf". i got this movie on VHS from my uncle sometime ago when he was giving away a bunch of old movies he bought back when Atari was brand new. i just watched it last night, and it wasn't really BAD, it was just weird. i mean, the whole thing with Sybil Danning going three-way with two of her werewolf minions was just out of place and quite disturbing (but kinda hot), Christopher lee about to stab a dead karen as if she's a vampire, etc. actually, this movie was actually like some sort of mish-mash of Dracula and The Lost Boys...except with werewolves, because everything Christopher Lee (whom played Dracula himself) was saying about werewolves pretty much ripped off from every other vampire movie (stake in the heart, garlic, the creature of the night must die AT NIGHT, and the ruler of werewolves lives in TRANSYLVANIA). not much for the acting, but the worst of it came from Annie McEnroe. i swear, at some point in the film i found myself rooting for the werewolves to rip her throat out, because that damn throat always had to say SOMETHING. Anyway, the plot is pretty silly and clichéd, so there's no real point in telling you, you could just read about it on Wikipedia. By the way, the thing that really makes me nauseous about this movie is the fact that it's the ONLY film out of all the seven sequels thats related in any way to the original (not counting Howling IV (1988), which was a remake of the original, or in other words, a sequel based on the same novel). so don't see this movie. there's no real horror, hardly any werewolves, and just horrible special fx. 3/10


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Now this film isn't going to scare anyone, but it was interesting for two reasons - two big reason and a smaller one- well, that's three reasons, isn't it.
The first reason this is interesting is the special effects. I found them to be quite interesting and somewhat spectacular. To see the hair growing on Marsha A. Hunt and Sybil Danning was creepy, especially when they were participating in a ménage à trois.
Of interest, is the fact that this Marsha Hunt is the famous "Brown Sugar" of the Rolling Stones song, and that she was in the infamous nude scene in the London cast of the rock musical Hair.
Besides the special effects, there were two other points of note in this film, and they were brought out repeatedly during the closing credits. I lost count, but i swear that Sybil Danning bared those points for us in the closing credits at least a dozen times and maybe many more. Theyu were the most outstanding feature of the film.


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This is a pretty bad movie. But not so bad as it's reputation suggests. The production values aren't too bad and there is the odd effective scene. And it does have an 80's cheezoid veneer that means that it is always kind of fun. Watch out, too, for Jimmy Nail's brief appearance - his attempt at an American accent is so astoundingly rubbish it's fantastic. Fantastic too are Sybil Danning's breasts - they make a brief appearance in the movie but the scene is repeated umpteen times in the end credits in what can only be described as the 12" remix of Sybil Danning's boobs. Has to be seen to be believed. As a horror movie it isn't scary, the effects are silly and Christopher Lee turns up to sleepwalk through his performance. I guess he was buying a new house and needed some cash for the deposit. The two central characters - the man and the woman - were so negligible that I have forgotten almost everything about them and I just watched this movie earlier tonight. The werewolves are noticeably less impressive than in the original movie, in fact, bizarrely, they sometimes look more like badly burned apes. The eastern European setting is quite good and the music provided by the new wave band Babel, while being pretty terrible, does at least give the film some added cheese.
Overall? Good for a laugh. Not good quality but did you seriously expect it to be? And, at the very least, you've always got Sybil's knockers.


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Somewhere, buried very deep inside this film is a half-way decent movie trying to get out. The only traces are a few early scenes in Los Angeles (in a bar and a graveyard) and thereafter a couple of pieces of production design. Like I say, buried very deep. One of the biggest challenges faced by movies involving the supernatural is how to have characters react believably in unbelievable situations. Annie Mcenroe's reaction to being told that her sister (presumably Dee Wallace from the first movie) is (was?) a werewolf is, if I recall, along the lines of; "Oh! Really?". Not one of the better responses to said challenge. The non sequitirs continue as the story moves to Trannsylvania in search of Stirba the (apparently self-appointed) "Queen of the Werewolves". As Stirba, Sybil Danning is the two best things in the movie. Yes, even better than the werewolf group-sex scene, Reb Brown's acting, and the oddly simian-looking werewolf suits. The end credits have assumed minor legend status and are available in all their glory (at least until the censor finds them) on Youtube. Check them out to see why and remember, the whole film makes about the same amount of sense. If you happen to catch this on US television the credits have been re-edited to replace the endlessly repeated shot of Danning ripping off her top with another endlessly repeated shot of her ripping open a cloak only this time she has some kind of top on underneath. It's a sort of absurdity, cherry-on-top moment which defies satire.


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This U.S soap opera, 'Knots Landing' has all the entertainment value of being trapped in an elevator. Every episode contained plots such as rape, murder, kidnapping and drug smuggling, not much different to the plots of other drama shows of the period. As for the cast, I've seen better actors on a cereal box. From the mid to late '90's, repeats of 'Knots' stunk up U.K-Gold like a mountain of mildewing nappies. I regret to announce that I had to suffer this as my mother was a huge fan of the show and would watch it religiously. Though since then, re-runs have been few and far between (let's hope it stays that way). The only positive thing that can be said of 'Knots' is the catchy saxophone signature tune, later used as the title music for the I.T.V sitcom, 'The Upper Hand'. Great legacy that, eh?


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In the Tower of Babel installment of the mini-series, the narrator describes the builders of the tower as "the descendants of Moses."
That's like saying George Washington lived many centuries before Alexander the Great.
Or that the light bulb was invented before the wheel.
Or that the guided missile was the forerunner of the bow-and-arrow.
Need I say more?
The writers of The Greatest Heroes of the Bible should have at least paid closer attention to the chronologies of Biblical people and events.


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I watched this knowing almost nothing about it, other than the brief description I read here. After watching it I was originally going to say that the director shows promise but seems kind of amateurish, then I looked at the other stuff he's done to see if this was his first or second movie, but no, he did House on Haunted Hill and Fear Dot Com. He sort of missed the mark on both those movies and it was the same with this one.
The story was pretty awful too, could someone just fall in love with a girl because she's pretty but has the mind of a child? I gave it a 3 because there were some visuals that I rather enjoyed near the end but as a whole this movie is pretty terrible.


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I watched this movie after seeing other comments on IMDb, even convincing my wife that it was a "unique horror movie." I wanted to like this movie, but was unable to.
The "love story" was good, but the horror aspect was quite bad. If the story was just about a young man who fell in love with a girl suffering from parasomnia, then it would have been a better movie.
The care centre stretched credulity well past the limits, in fact it was quite ridiculous. The doctor happily ignors privacy laws and professionalism. A nurse goes into a room for a routine feeding of a dangerous patient (without security escort), and drops the tray and runs out of the room screaming for no apparent reason. The forensic patient (and the film's villain) is tied up in a standing position fully clothed - apparently for years? None of it makes much sense.
The movie even had some actors that I've liked in other things, such as the detectives, but still I can't recommend this movie.


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It's somewhat telling that most of the great reviews for the film on IMDb all come from people who have only reviewed one film in their entire IMDb career and yes you've guessed it, that film is "Parasomnia". I've often suspected suspiciously good reviews on IMDb for what turns out to be an anything but good films as underhand marketing , but it seems fairly transparent in this case.
That's not to say Parasomnia is terrible, but it stops well short of being the good or great film it had the potential to be.
On the plus side, it has a great baddie in Patrick Kilpatrick who does a brilliant job projecting menacing and evil, I could easily see him having what it takes to play a truly memorable baddie on a par with Hannibal Lecter. There are some beautiful visuals in the dream sequences, in fact if the film had decided to explore that terrain more it might have been something better. The actual concept of devious misuse of hypnosis is great too.
Although I understand suspension of disbelief is necessary for immersion in any good story, it's the mark of a good story that it succeeds in letting you do that. If you find yourself being annoyed at what you find illogical or just plain silly, then the story is losing you and that's what kept happening to me with this film. Other reviewers have mentioned this here and I don't want to get into spoiler territory, but I will say the setup at the ending was particularly ludicrous and disappointing, not too mention the varying mental age of a character that is only supposed to have experienced a few years of life.
All in all, there is the germ of a great idea here in diabolically misused hypnotism, but sadly this film fails to realise it into anything special.


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Parasomnia has an interesting premises, but the story is poorly done without any tension or even a logical approach. The cast in unconvincing, even Patrick Kilpatrick, who played great roles in movies like Scanner Cop 2, Open Fire, Under Siege 2 and Eraser. The rest of the cast is unknown (and not very good) with the exception of Jeffrey Combs. (Herbert West from the great Re-Animator trilogy). But he can play roles like this in his sleep (which is a little what he does here). The main problem is that the actions of the characters make no sense at all. The story is rather dull and predictable with cheap computer effects mixed with some gory scenes, especially at the end.
This could have been so much better, I do not get the good reviews on this one. It is below average really.


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Here goes the perfect example of what not to do when you have a great idea. That is the problem isn't? The concept is fresh and full of potential, but the script and the execution of it lacks any real substance. It should grab you from the start and then pull a little on your emotions, get you interested and invested in the characters. This movie doesn't have what it takes to take off and sustain flight, and here is why. First you don't really care about the characters because they are not presented in a way that people can relate to, I mean this is not Superman or Mission Impossible here, it's suppose to be about normal people put in a stressful situation. They are not believable in the way they act and interact. Example : Jeffrey Combs as a cop over chewing is gum, frowning and looking intense all the time isn't the way to go here. I mean what is that?, he looks like he's on the toilet or something. I loved him in re-animator and the way he was playing the intense/neurotic, unappreciated medical genius was right on the money. But not for this, he tries too hard to over compensate by looking so intense and on edge but in a still mild neurotic manner, it's not natural, I'm surprised he didn't dislocate his jaw during filming. The movie is basically on life support, it barely has a pulse and it kept me waiting for something that would never come.


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Nice attempt and good ideas (redemption of the prostitute, human beings helping each other out,...) but a poor result... The director obviously tried to emulate his French colleague Tran Anh Hung by recreating an ambiance which is suppose to portray Viet Nam... The only problem is that this Viet Nam is long gone and when "The scent of the green papaya" had a historical background... trying to project this kind of ambiance (muffled sounds and the slow pace of life...) on modern days leaves a feeling of fake. Besides it rapidly creates a sentiment of boredom and the outcome becomes too obvious.
I can only suppose the action takes place in Saigon or Da Nang because that is where Harvey Keitel, ex-marine in the movie, was probably stationed during the war... But in Southern Viet Nam nobody or very few people speak with the clip Northern accent displayed by the actors... Seriously odd even for a bad Vietnamese speaker.
An old poet with leprosy...very doubtful (not a disease for people of his condition), a peasant girl who can read and write elaborate Vietnamese poetry,... even more doubtful...



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There are similarities between Ray Lawrence's "Jindabyne" and his last movie "Lantana"  a dead body and its repercussions for already dysfunctional lives. But whereas "Lantana" offered some hope and resolution, "Jindabyne" leaves everything unresolved in a bleak way that will leave most viewers unsatisfied, perhaps even cheated.
The storyline - the aftermath of a fisherman's discovery of a corpse floating in a remote river - is based on a short story by Raymond Carver. It became an element in Robert Altman's classic 1993 ensemble "Short Cuts". Lawrence uses this theme for an exploration and exposition of relationships within a small Australian community under stress. The movie poses some moral questions "Would you let the discovery of a dead body ruin your good weekend?" and more poignantly for Australians "Would it make any difference if the dead person was an aboriginal?" The acting, especially by Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney, is commendable. And there are elements of mysticism reinforced by haunting music, not unlike "Picnic at Hanging Rock".
If all this sounds like the basis for a great movie - be prepared for a let down, the pace is very slow and the murder is shown near the beginning, thereby eliminating the element of mystery. And so we are left with these desolate lives and a blank finale.


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This film is terrible. I was really looking forward to it, as I thought "Lantana" was great.
The following review may contain *spoilers*
*****
First, the good things: it looks great, some of the performances are OK. The bad things are everything else about it.
The story, as you possibly know, is about some blokes who go fishing and discover a body, with the twist that they find it on Friday but continue fishing and finally report it on Sunday when they get back into mobile (cell phone) range. However the film takes it's time (boy does it take its time) getting to this central event.
Of the ensemble of characters (about a dozen), not one seems to like another one (which is, I suppose, consistent, because they are all unlikable). I was extremely frustrated by the failure to adequately explain how the characters are related, and it was not until near the end of the movie that I could vaguely construct the family tree.
It's hard to think of a film us unrelentingly grim, which is a failure in the structure of the story, as the character's lives seem just as bad before the fishing trip as after. Once you've set the bar so high, it's hard to up-it short of everyone committing suicide.
There are silly lapses in logic. The killer dumps the body in the lake, and then it somehow drifts miles upstream into the mountains. The fishermen walk out Sunday morning, but for some reason Byrne gets home late at night after his wife has gone to bed. Then first thing the next morning the cops bang on the door to get him to come down to the station. Um, they haven't heard of the telephone? Down at the station, the media know the whole story, less than 24 hours after they reported the body?
Totally missing from the story is the debate the blokes surely had after they find the body. This is a mystery - everyone asks them "how could you do that?" and the audience is asking the same question. (The debate about what to do with the body is the key scene in "Deliverance"). I know exactly what I'd do in their situation. Someone needs to walk out to the car, drive to mobile range, call the cops, wait, and them guide them back to the location. If the others wait at camp and fish, who cares?
A lot of all this just seems false. The only thing that rung true was that, as the girl was black, the local aboriginals seized on the fishermen's actions as racist - "wouldn't have done it if it was a white girl."
Throughout there is a curious indifference to who might have killed the girl (I think the subject is mentioned once), and there is no mystery, as the audience sees the killer in the opening scene.
So I'm sitting there simultaneously bored and confused, when there's a twist - not in the plot, but the theme. Suddenly it becomes about the quiet dignity of the bereaved aboriginals leading to a ludicrous ending with some incoherent stuff about black-white reconciliation. Huh?
This is Australian film "at its finest", according to The Age.


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This isn't art, it's inner-urban, politically-correct propaganda! Jindabyne's political intolerance is beyond unforgivable... it doesn't see people as individuals, but rather, as members of categories.
This is the most patronisingly offensive Australian movie I can recall ever (and it's up against some pretty stiff competition!). A message movie, every tired theme beloved of the trendy left is there: Aborigines are victims; white men are violent or alcoholics; white women aren't that bad -particularly if they are lesbians - but they're most likely of a depressive nature.
Four men who go away fishing, find the body of a murdered woman (Aboriginal, naturally) and leave her in the river for several days while they catch trout. It's a strange decision taken with almost no discussion, as if the men are animals. The one man who briefly demurs is the goodie... we know this because he's living with a bisexual woman - he likes to hold his baby a lot - and eventually moves to a more fashionable costal location (away from all these beastly bush-dwellers).
This is a film made by those trendy urbanites who live in fear of the Australian landscape and those evil rednecks who reside within. It's ignorance of country life is almost as shocking as its contempt. The film is shot through with long-distance views of the bush backed by foreboding, mysterious music. It's made very clear by the end that Aboriginal people are the only ones at home in this landscape. It concludes with an excruciatingly implausible scene of black-white reconciliation.
In Jindabyne, country life is reduced to little more than a backdrop for a story that by implication proclaims the superiority of the values of enlightened leftist urban dwellers over those of other Australians.
This film was not made by people with real jobs but funded by the Government's Film Finance Corporation. It's a product of the artsy set, that soulless void populated by the beautiful people for whom lavish government funding sustains these patronisingly offensive projects (which are as detached from real life as possible), as opposed to actually making popular films people want to see. It doesn't matter if the film is a stinker, they still get paid.
Spare yourself from wasting time, avoid it like the plague. More jaded social commentary than actual entertainment, this film deserves to pan!


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Before I watched this film I read a review here stating that this film could possibly be one of the best films ever!? ha ha Scene by scene the tension grows alright... from the annoying characters in this movie. From the little girl talking gibberish and trying to drown the little boy, to the killer just running about without any notice (and who was the guy at the beach talking to the little boy!?)..things just seem to happen and then go unanswered in this film. As I watched it seemed like the film was going in one direction, then just doesn't go anywhere, but into a new direction...and on and on...
The acting is great, but the writing is horrible. Each character, in each scene, says or does something so unbelievable, unrealistic and the reactions of the fellow cast/extras are simply strange. There are no resolutions to the problems developed throughout the film, making it confusing and ultimately a big waste of time.


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there was some truth to this movie. I remember a story reported 15 to 20 years ago of 4 fisherman finding a body in the water and they chose not to report it until their trip was finished. I also recall they were charged with interfering with a corpse (or some such charge). I'm not sure if it was in Australia. The viewers outside of Australia must think we live in a country full of rapists and serial murders. Wolf Creek and this film would encourage this perception. The film itself reminded me of A Simple Plan. But as far a being one of the best Australian films ever, as someone claimed, I can't be that generous. Put it this way, I wouldn't bother watching it again.


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With no fault to the actors (they all put on great performances), the overall story was not very well executed. The movie opens with a great zinger: a crazy old guy forces a young Aborigine girl's car off the road. But then, we're forced to endure 40 minutes of character development with an entirely new group of characters ... and we don't know why until the 40 minutes are up. It turns out that they are the ones who eventually discover the girl's body ... and the story progresses from there.
While the story does pick up at that point, it really goes nowhere. After 2 hours, I asked myself: was there a point to this, or was it just to see the characters struggle with accusations of racism and stupidity of how they handled the discovery? The story was ultimately unsatisfying and felt unfinished. While it is well acted, there's not a strong enough backbone in the film to warrant recommending it.


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I had a really hard time making it through this move. It was extermly slow and at times wondered when the plot of the movie would actually come to life.
This movie seemed to flow to slow and I kept on wondering when it was going to end. I am normally a person who likes a good indie file every once in a while but this did not satisfy what I was looking for.
It seemed they tried to make to much out of this movie. At one point it seemed to turn political which I am not a big fan of in movies. If you are looking for a slow moving movie with little to no plot then this is the right movie for you. As for me I felt I wasted 2 hours when I could of been doing something else.


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Canadians are too polite to boo but the audience at the Toronto Film Festival left the theater muttering that they would rate this film 0 or 1 on their voting sheets. The premise is that a modern filmmaker is interpreting a 17th century fable about the loves of shepherds and shepherdesses set in the distant past when Druids were the spiritual leaders. Working in three epochs presents many opportunities to introduce anachronisms including silly and impractical clothing and peculiar spiritual rites that involve really bad poetry. Lovers are divided by jealousy and their rigid adherence to idiotic codes of conduct from which cross-dressing and assorted farcical situations arise. The film could have been hilarious as a Monty Python piece, which it too closely resembles, but Rohmer's effort falls very flat. The audience laughed at the sight jokes but otherwise bemoaned the slow pace. The ending comes all in a rush and is truly awful. This is a trivial film and a waste of your movie going time.


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I was aware of Rohmer's admiration for the late works of the ones he considered like great cineasts, and that normal spectators generally considered as artistic failures (as Renoir's or Chaplin's very last movies ; yes, the "politique des auteurs" also has its dark side). But with "Les amours d'Astrée et de Céladon", it's as if Rohmer himself wanted, for what may be his last movie, to perpetuate this tradition of great directors, who made a last senile movie, by adapting Urfé's "L'astrée", with ridiculous aesthetic codes, witch just look like a parody of Rosselini's last movies (the ones he made for TV from Descartes or Marx's lives).
In his version of "Perceval", Rohmer refused to film real landscapes in order to give a re-transcription of what may have been a middle age classical representation of things. The director apparently changed his mind when the XVII century is involved, and films actors, dressed like 1600's peasants reciting their antic text surrounded by contemporary trees and landscapes. But the all thing looks even more ridiculous than Luchini and its fake trees. It's not that the story itself is stupid, but the way Rohmer mixes naturalism with artifices seems so childish and amateurism that it rapidly becomes involuntarily funny (and I'm not even talking about the irritating pronunciation of the actors, the annoying and sad humorist tries by Rodolphe Pauly, the ridiculous soft-erotic tone, the poor musical tentatives, or the strange fascination for trasvestisment!).
The radical aesthetic of the film ultimately makes it looks like a joke, which mixes a soft-erotic movie made for TV with theological scholastic discussions (sic !). At the beginning of the movie, Rohmer teaches us that the original french region of the story is now disfigured by modernity, and that's why he had to film "L'Astrée" in other parts of the country. However, I'm sure the movie would have look more modern and interesting, if Rohmer would have actually still filmed the same story in a modern area with same narrative codes and artistically decisions. This film may interest a few historians, but most of the cinephiles may laugh at this last and sad Rohmer's movie.


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One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Acting was terrible, both for the kids and the adults. Most to all characters showed no, little or not enough emotion. The lighting was terrible, and there were too many mess ups about the time of the day the film was shot (In the river scene where they just get their boat destroyed, there's 4 shots; The sheriff and Dad in the evening on their boat, Jillian and Molly in the evening swimming, the rest of the kids in the daytime *when it's supposed to in the evening* at the river bank, and the doctor, Beatrice, and Simonton at night but not in the evening getting off their boat.) The best acting in the movie was probably from the sheriff, Cappy (Although, there's a slip of character when the pulse detector *Whatever that thing is when people die, it beeps* shows Cappy has died, he still moves while it can still be heard beeping, and while the nurse extra checks his pulse manually, then it shows the pulse again, and THEN he finally dies.) I guess it's not going to be perfect, since it's an independent movie, but it still could be better. Not worth watching, honestly, even for kids. Might as well watch something good, like The Lion King or Toy Story if you're going to see anything you'll remember.


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This was the WORST movie I have ever seen! Molly (molly hall) could not act AT ALL! she had no emotion it was all blah blah blah like she was reading out of a boring text book. The smart kid and the kid who loves food (there names weren't worth remembering) were so annoying it drove me crazy.When ever the talked it was about some scientific thing or food. Mollys Dad didn't show enough emotion about his daughter missing. The police officer and Mollys dad said the same thing like four times. it was just horrible. Everything was repeated way to much. Beatrice should have had something bad happen to her for being so mean. I just wasted a moment in my life by watching this movie!


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It was so terrible. It wasn't fun to watch at all. Even the scene where the girl is using a vibrator, even that's not fun to watch in this movie. I say again, the scene where a girl is masturbating with a vibrator is not even fun to watch. Or maybe if that was the only part of the movie that you watched, just girl on couch using a vibrator. Maybe they should have just released that one scene in theaters, maybe then the movie would be enjoyable on a certain level. My advice, fast forward to that point, watch it, rewind the movie, watch it again, rewind, repeat. Maybe you could enjoy yourself for 2 hours that way. This movie ranks alongside I spit on your grave and Doom generation in the category of worst movies that I have ever seen.


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This is the worst movie I have ever seen. I was deceived into thinking it might be good because a couple of my favorite actors are in it. Now I want to punch Jason Schwartzman in the face for taking this role. I was physically ill after watching this film. I really don't understand Hollywood sometimes. There are so many people trying to break in that I'm sure you can skim off the top and get the very best. That way the worst movie you make is equivalent to Ferris Beullar instead of this sludge. The gags like the hair doll and blatantly ripping off jeans commercials added to the humorlessness of the film. Glad I avoided this film and watched it on TV. This proves that you should avoid January releases at all cost.


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