it's embarrassing I had like 3 minutes on my way to a job to stop at the video store and it was 2 for 1 night and I was really intrigued by the half nekkid pic of the 'star'.

I guess this film shows what the new york film school and sir daddy's fortune - judging by the bio of this clown in the lead - can do for you and you and you cause that's about what we have here and in addition a photoshopped pic of the lead "actor" with someone else's body in a still image that doesn't happen anywhere in the movie. it's weird cause in so many ways it had money thrown at it obviously low budget money buckets but from the outset when all the extras are laughing in their scene of terror it doesn't bode well would have maybe had some charm if it had been done for 2 cents! in short order I skipped scenes and fast forwarded to see the image on the box that was all I really cared about. strange, why don't I just rent a porno or something? but wow there is bad acting that's funny I guess and bad acting that's just bad. robert englund is pretty pathetic in this along with everyone else. it does make you appreciate the more not so straight to video horror that's out there. . . blah most of which I wouldn't bother with. shoulda watched uh hellraiser 3 if I wanted to see an 8 pack! I would imagine horny old gay guys with 2 minutes in the video store are going to be the principle renters of this and they ought to start a class action suit!


If there's one thing I've learnt from watching George Romero's Creepshow, it's that if you stumble upon an mysterious old crate that someone has obviously gone to a lot of effort to hide, just leave well alone: there's probably something nasty inside.

Obviously, Professor Gordon Crowley, Robert Englund's character in 'Jack Brooks, Monster Slayer' isn't a Romero fan, 'cos he busts open the old wooden box he finds buried in his yard, only to discoversurprise, surprisean ancient demon that possesses his body (initially causing him to eat and vomit rather a lot).

When the demon eventually erupts from Crowley's body during chemistry class and begins to transform the students into hellish, flesh-tearing beasts, it's up to plumber Jack Brooks (Trevor Matthews) to try and stop the foul creatures, armed only with a length of pipe and fuelled by a lifelong hatred of all things monstrous!.

The DVD packaging for Jon Knautz's low-budget monster flick promises one hell of a fun ride, offering cheesy thrills and spills of the kind one might expect from your average 80s creature feature (toothy critters, rubber monster suits, gruesome gore, and absolutely no CGI!)and for the last 15 minutes, that's exactly what viewers get: non-stop splattery effects; a silly, tentacled Jabba-style demon thingy; and mucho macho monster mashing!

It's a shame, then, that the rest of the film's running timea massive 70 minutes or sois mostly spent following Jack as he goes about his boring, everyday business: plumbing, visiting his shrink, going to chemistry class, and upsetting his girlfriend. If you think you might enjoy a film that focuses primarily on coping with childhood trauma and anger management, buying spare boiler valves from a hardware shop, and the chemical properties of Sodium, then this is the film for you; but if it's a massive dose of monster mayhem you're after, then I'd advise looking elsewhere!


Though a fan of shock and gore, I found this movie disappointing to say the very least. The effects and puppet work were impressive, yes, and the humor was well-timed, but... something was missing. See, the first act of the film is spent establishing nuances of Jack Brooks' character, despite the fact that everything we need to know about his aggression is delivered within minutes of the first title cards. As for the narration and many of the flashbacks: needless.

The pacing during the second act was tedious. Most of it is focused on Freddy Krueger eating, then vomiting, then eating some more, then flailing his arms and saying something snappy or rude. All the while, the schlock is punctuated with brief scenes of Jack discussing his rage problems with a therapist. (Definitely the entertaining scenes in the film -- excellent dialog worth plenty of laughs.) Then, without warning, Jack decides to kill a few monsters. And then it's over.

All in all, as a throwback to 1980s horror movies, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer has loads of potential but is purposeless and plods on without conflict or adequate resolution.

Hopefully, these issues will be addressed before Jack Brooks VII: Jack Goes to Hell or Jack vs. Ash go into production.


Jack Brooks' quirks are, at first, somewhat charming and lend to the deliberately campy feel of the beginning of this movie.

I found myself getting angrier and angrier as I was duped into seeing this one through to the end, in hopes that the payoff would be worth the super-tedious wait.

The climax can't begin to make up for all the setup time.

Normally one might expect shallow characters from this genre. But the fact that the wait-time-before-action index is so high, should mean that the meantime would be devoted to some interesting character development.

Not so.

While not without its initial charms, this movie ultimately infuriates, and disappoints.

Wish I could get all that setup time back, to reinvest it into something that pays off.


I fail to understand why you would give this film anything over 4... Fair enough it does take me back to the 80s and to the 'good old days of horror comedy' but that genre has not got any better since then - it is still so 'LAME Low budget - low tech - bad acting - bad story line - not at all scary and not funny enough... in fact there is not much good I could say about it. The so called monsters are just hideously bad! I mean we have gone back in time to when they used to make the monsters out of plasticine and shoot the scenes fame by frame... I really fail to understand why someone would invest any money in order to make this script to a film - but I guess it might have been almost OK if it had been a bigger budget film.

Recommendation would be - please do not make the mistake of wasting your time on this unless if you wish to get tips for a bad Halloween make up! Personally I enjoy independent films and anything outside the box but this just did not do it for me in the least.


After viewing "Still Life", a short film directed by Jon Knautz, I was genuinely excited for his feature film debut, "Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer". "Still Life" had perfectly captured the essence and feel of an episode of "The Twilight Zone" and I was eager to see what Knautz could do when taking on the horror-comedy genre. The campy nature of the name and promotional materials suggested something along the lines of "Evil Dead" or "Army of Darkness"; a fun, gory, 80's style horror flick with lots of monsters. While that was what Knautz was going for, he utterly fails at capturing any of the fun or entertainment value these movies had.

The problem with "Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer" is that it completely lacks an understanding of what made these horror-comedies, that it tries to evoke, so great in the first place. Two-thirds of the running time is primarily devoted to the film's hero, Jack Brooks, a plumber and college student, as he goes to class and attempts to deal with his uncontrollable bursts of anger. There's nary a monster in sight for the greater part of the film, barely even a drop of blood or the slightest attempt at anything horror-related. Even if "Evil Dead" or "Dead Alive" had subsequent amounts of the gore cut out, they'd still be entertaining. "Jack Brooks" isn't. It's plain boring, which is the worst thing a film of this nature can be. Jack Brooks himself is not all that interesting, at least not enough to warrant the amount of screen time he's given. All one needs to know about him is revealed in the films first ten minutes and from that point on, whenever he's not beating the pulp out of a monster (and he rarely does), he's not worth watching. The movie goes nowhere, following him around on psychiatric sessions and scuffles with classmates.

Eventually things do pick up. Jack Brooks battles a few monsters, some heads are crushed, a few humans are slaughtered, and then it's over. Just like that. All within the span of about fifteen minutes. It is a good fifteen minutes. The monsters are all fairly inventive (and done entirely in camera) and there's some great gore gags (the best being a zombies head crushed in), but after sitting through seventy-five minutes of pure tedium, fifteen minutes just isn't going to cut it.

That's really all there is to it. I could ramble on about the acting which is fairly well done (especially horror icon Robert Englund in a non-traditional role) and how the creature prosthetics are a nice throwback to the days when films didn't use CGI, but it really doesn't matter. "Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer" is utterly boring and while Jon Knautz obviously does have the talent to create a good film (once again, the last fifteen minutes are killer and "Still Life" was amazing  check it out), "Jack Brooks" completely misses the mark. It has its successes (acting, make-up), but those don't change the fact that it's not very entertaining at all. The screening I caught this at had the director and cast in attendance. One piece of information I picked up was that a sequel was in development and that this time, it would focus more on fighting monsters as opposed to "the creation of a hero". My advice: skip this one and wait for the sequel.


I don't know why this has gotten any decent reviews as it could be the weakest horror comedy I've ever seen. Englund is just in it for a cameo and his performance is as unnecessary as most of the lame attempts at jokes (and scares). The direction is terrible and the acting is worse. It seems like every year producers are trying to make another Evil Dead but these weak unoriginal attempts are just stepping on the memory of a true horror classic.

Whether its filmmakers saying,"this isn't a remake but its an 80s throwback (which is just as unoriginal in my opinion - Hatchet) or people trying to plug this with other horror classics, Its still misleading and wont make up for the lack of scares, horror, comedy, or even a decent movie for that matter.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!


I was just watching a Forensic Files marathon on Court TV. The episode was identical to the plot of this movie, right down to the incest secret and the affair-with-the-sister subplot. I don't recall any Based on a True Story disclaimer, but the case does have MOW written all over it. Apparently it chronicles the real homicide of Ruby Morris by her husband Earl, sentenced to 25 years to life for her murder. Just goes to show you, truth can be stranger than fiction, because I thought the Lifetime plot was contrived and a more than "a stretch" insofar as believability goes. I'm with the other posters who said the acting was bad. I didn't notice it with all of the players, though. It was really the lead character, the daughter, whose performance was bad.


This is a terrible film. Angie Dickenson is a class act and always does well, but she does not get many roles any more and she must have needed some money to do this film. By the way, she is on screen less than 10 minutes. Oooh, wait, there is one redeeming feature in this film: Meg Foster has a small part in this film. Now, Meg has been on the screen for 35 years and is not particularly great but she has the scariest eyes of any actress I have ever seen. By name, you probably don't know her, but one look at her eyes and you will recognize her. To summarize: the acting is horrid, the story bad, and even the filmography is dreadful. A screen going to black every time the director wants to change scenes is pretty moronic. Watch any thing else but this, even Mr Ed reruns!


This was intolerable. (SPOILER #1) Protagonists avoid the pointless disclosure of agonizing truths to their loved ones, lest they surrender said status and assume the roles of Antagonists. (SPOILER #2) The writers would have us believe that the exposure of multiple transgressions, by the transgressor, presents a threat to, and provokes a retaliatory response by, the primary victim of the transgressions. (SPOILER #3) Until the final 15 minutes, I was anticipating a score of 6 to 8 out of 10; instead, it was kind of like discovering that Lieutenant Columbo's dog is the REAL murderer. The story just wasn't credible, and I don't think the world's best director could have saved it without massive editing.


I know this is a made for TV movie, and the acting in made for TV movies is usually sub-par, but it's absolutely horrendous in this film. Sometimes acting gets so bad it's laughable, but in this case, it's so bad it's sickening.


I'm watching this film as I write this. It's about 45 minutes into the film and there's been so much back and forth and empty drama, I don't quite see where it's going. No facts, just enough to leave you making assumptions. The acting of main daughter is painful. How did this ever get made??? Not the best of Lifetime films.


Come on? FANTASTIC DRAMA ON SCREEN? Are you joking folks? I wouldn't put horrible Molly Gross to play even in school play! Where did these people learn acting? Borrowing some papers from their neighbors actor? Terrible plot, awful acting. Heh ... why do you take us for an imbeciles? What can I say more. I understand this is an TV production and the acting is not supposed to be the one from Citizen Kane. But nevertheless they should try it harder in order to earn their money. And apart from that what can be said IN 10 LINES for a simple movie like this? U wanna article in the morning paper? To say what? Worse film in the decade? OK, you want it - you got it!


I'm very disappointed. First of all, the German synchronization is bad. Maybe in the original version (with subtitles) it would have been better, but the whole movie looks like if the director saw Luna Papa and Black Cat White Cat and tried to produce something in this style, too. But failed in every aspect. It's an incongruent mixture of a weird unbelievable story and very childish gags. No atmosphere, no life. Extremely primitive sex-humor. I voted 2, because 1 is the worst, and the other point for 'Sybilla', she's really cute. Sorry - I like 'eastern' movies, but this one is really superfluous.


In order for a thriller to elicit fear, suspense or any emotion the story must be believable. There is nothing believable or realistic about this film. The protagonists have several opportunities to escape or turn the tables but manage to screw it up every time. The antagonists who supposedly plan this out and customized their shuttle specifically to trap people sure left a lot of improvisational weapons laying around. There is actually one scene where the "smart" girl has a gun to the head of the main bad guy and decides to scold him instead of pull the trigger. This was a thoroughly predictably, brainless "thriller". Every character was one dimensional. The "victims" were the usual gutless, brainless sheep that deserved to be slaughtered. Is there anyone on this planet capable of writing an intelligent thriller?


Don't pick this one. ****Spoiler Alert***** The plot of this aggravatingly bad movie is four friends are talked into taking the shuttle from the airport by a very zealous driver. On the shuttle with them is a rather milquetoast looking business type.

Shortly into their trip the driver of the shuttle takes an off-ramp and some lunatic driver tries to run them off the road. The end result is they get a flat tire. The driver gets one of the people on the shuttle to help change the tire and the jack slips and the guys fingers are crushed between the tire and the shuttle. It's at this point that the driver reveals himself to be a kidnapper and he has taken all the people hostage.

Now the movie gets extremely slow and tedious, as the characters do one lame thing after another. One of the men is killed trying to escape -- even that lacks any suspense. Finally it is revealed that the milquetoast business guy is in cahoots with the driver when milquetoast guy kills the other male friend by slitting his throat.

There are a couple of attempts to escape by the women. Milquetoast is beaten over the head with a tire iron -- yet he survives.

The driver is also beaten and somehow survived a head on collision with a fence at high speed while kneeling next to the steering wheel. Somehow he didn't go through the window or even get seriously injured with a collision with windshield. Yet the woman driving the shuttle is knocked unconscious -- yet she had a steering wheel to protect her and he had nothing between him and the windshield.

He is eventually able to subdue the women and get them to an underground garage that is a front for human trafficking. One of the women is killed. The other one stabs the driver in the leg with a good sized piece of broken mirror and shoots/grazes him in the head, yet he is able (in what should be a severely weakened state -- severe blood loss, two head injuries and a large leg gash) to drag her out of the shuttle, drag her to a large crate, throw her in and get it locked, all the while with her fiercely fighting him.

Now some people admire the message of the movie about human trafficking and how it is going on today. This is a serious problem. But, making an extremely boring movie about the topic does not entitle it to a higher rating.


I found 'Shuttle' an incredibly frustrating film to watch. It starts quite well and moves along briskly until the first 'injury' (which is a doozy). After that it becomes very lazy and underwritten as a story. It was the case of the plot driving the characters and not the characters driving the plot. If you hate film where you can't understand why characters do what they do, you will loathe 'Shuttle'. Particularly, the last act is odd and seems to occur in a world without common sense. Also at the end one of the characters confessed a past misdemeanor to her friend, rather than generating sympathy from the audience, most people started to giggle. This was probably because the 'heroines' of the story was a complete idiots. Finally there is an ending which just seems tacked on to be 'shocking' and comes from the horror cop-out school of 'people are bad, audience, so just accept it without any explanation'.

'Shuttle' is neither good or bad, but mediocre. And annoying.


Hi, today i looked this film because of the medium (5,6) IMDb rating. I thought it would worth viewing. Also the comments here were quiet good but after start watching this movie i quick realize that this movie isn't anyway near a 5,6 ! Its just boring. You can describe the movie with some words also its just the standard horror movie story with all the standard horror movie scenes. I don't know why people still like those films or why they vote such films better then a 1-3 in IMDb. Just some examples

Bunch of people arriving from somewhere or going / driving to anywhere. They meet somehow on their journey strange people but hey maybe they are just nice so hang out with them. Then a very important scene for every horror movie "Oh my cell phone isn't working oh oh mine too .. is that strange but we don't need them so enjoy our ride ..." uhhhhhh our strange person is a strange psychopath better we all sit back and scream a while till he starts cutting parts from us or killing some of us. After a while the bunch of victims get a weapon or chance to escape ofcorse they never think about running away or even kill the psychopath if they got the chance they just talk about what to do until the psychopath got his weapon back with any of the handful of standard tricks they got in those films and all running back as usual ... screaming ... some more to kill ... oh and in the end it gets really exiting sometimes the bad guy wins sometimes some of the victim can escape wow great movies. ... OK if i never ever saw a movie of that kind i would say it is a movie which can be watched but if anyone ever saw any movie of its kind it should be just a boring waste of time because nearly everything in the movie you know before you even watched it because it every time runs like the standard horror movie shematic. .... mmm maybe there is a windows program out there? Horrormoviemaker 2.0 ? You can just pull some adjustment buttons and get the new Shuttle, Saw45674, Jeepers Creepers kind of movie.


OK this will contain spoilers. Now I have never seen such a large pile of poop since the laxative/feed mix up at the elephant enclosure in the zoo! It has more plot holes than moth eaten lace and as for the 'realistic' plot line. Well sexual slavery is a dreadful and very real world wide problem and this pile of bilge utilises this plague as a plot device to titillate and tease, shame on everyone involved for that piece of questionable judgement. But back to the film, if you were going to kidnap people from an airport, some of the most secure and camera happy places in the modern world by the way, then why plant a stoolie on the inside of the van who does bugger all until the plot needs a twist. Just wait until you are out of the airport, pull the gun, handcuff the passengers, drive calmly to the warehouse and kill the guys, job done. On the passengers side, on at least three occasions the good guys have the bad guys incapacitated and are armed, WASTE THEM! Once in a movie it can just be acceptable not to put a bullet in the bad guys skull, but COME ON three times! And after he's killed most of you. Also the guy is willing to put down the gun to stop a scarred cheek but kills a girl for a yeast infection that could be cleared up with $20 dollars worth of drugs. I could go on and on about the amount of holes in this but I won't waste any more of my time. Suffice to say that I have rarely been so insulted by such a dreadful piece of drivel and as for the real problem of sexual slavery, girls go voluntarily to new 'jobs' in distant lands and are abused, raped, and often killed by the gang master who meets them off the boat/plane and takes their passports and freedom. This s**t is an insult to anyone whose life has been affected by this! Do not waste your time!


"Shuttle" is an indie thriller about four young adults who get a ride late one night on a shuttle bus from the airport to find out that the driver is a sadistic psychopath.

Although some of the sequences of scares and it's unconventionally interesting plot work, some aspects just don't. The bad dialogue and unlikeable characters gives a good reason to not care for them. But, often the suspense works and asks you the question of "What would you do?" and usually what you WOULD do isn't what these idiots on the shuttle do.

If you're expecting a mindless, bloody horror film, you'll be mistaken. This is a film that causes you to use your mind, but, unfortunately, not until the end.

Four out of ten.


PERHAPS SPOILER !! well, i ve seen it at the film festival in cologne and i have to say it s ridiculous ... sorry author and writer and ...whatever but it is the worst try making a good movie i ve ever seen ... if u ve got 5000 times the possibility to get away from your enemy and u don't do it .... its getting boring ... there are szenes in the movie witch gives u the impression that they are forgotten e.g. a szene in front of a security cam, they are asking for help and a somebody sees it and calles the police ... than there is a cut and .... NOTHING ??!!! ... the killer gets a shot in his head and 50 secs later he is behaving like nothing happened ... no its no zombie movie ... and finally the final ... the BIG END which we were promised .... hmmmm, lets say take a little guy who always wanted to give the world one of the best endings in history so badly that everything goes wrong .... im not going to vote "1" because the actress is beautiful ... ;)


Brainless film about two girls and some guys they meet in an airport getting on the wrong late night shuttle bus and ending up in a whole world of trouble. Great twists and turns are totally, and I do mean totally wasted, in a film with a plot so incredibly stupid as to defy description. What is going on in a general sense is okay, I mean the idea of a guy kidnapping unattended girls for nefarious purposes is a good one. The problem is that the details are so beyond belief that I would be shocked if you don't turn off the film in utter disbelief. Gee, a guy who is suppose to be taking you home doesn't go any of the ways you know, and you stay on the bus? It get worse from there, think of every bad choice and this film has the characters make it, even to the point where they could just walk away, but never do. Whats annoying is that some of the twists and turns might have worked if there was something intelligent before it, but there is almost no intelligence anywhere in this film. Okay, maybe there is, the end, the end is clever. The end is the sort of thing that should freak you out. it should be the "oh #$*@!!!!" moment and become a classic of horror cinema. Instead it just lies there among the stupid ruins of a stupid movie. One of the most brainless films of the year.


I had a hard time sitting through this. Every single twist and turn is predictable. You're sitting there just waiting for it ... waiting for it ... and yes, there it is! Just as you predicted at the very beginning of the movie. Or 10 minutes out. Et cetera.

Smart writing? No.

Torture porn? No, there's no nudity. Other reviews calling this torture porn are most likely written by people on heavy drugs. Unfortunately there's no torture and no nudity (yes, no nudity).

There's no suspense at all in this "thriller". The only good part about this movie is the ending, but I'm not going to spoil that.

I'm giving it a 2/10. A 1/10 would be a horrible B-movie. This movie had better acting.


The beginning was decent; the ending was alright.

Sadly, this movie suffers from complete and utter shallowness of the characters, unrealistic confrontations/fight scenes, lack of anyone intelligent outside of the shuttle. This makes for an awful middle screenplay.

Stuff to look for: overly obvious foreshadowing, fast-healing cuts, overly smoky fires, fun seatbelts, delayed reactions.

I did give it a 4, not a 0, because the start of the movie had some nice elements of happiness and basic character development. The relationship between the main, dark-haired girl and her fiancée is touched upon briefly, and the placement of the blond friend's impact on that relationship is present, though awkwardly so. The business discovered at the end is becoming more mainstream and decently done, though, as another commenter pointed out, not unexpected.

~viper~


I hate guns and have never murdered anyone, but when even half of the events that take place in 'Shuttle' happen to you or close ones and you find a gun, YOU SHOOT YOUR ATTACKER. THREE TIMES. FIVE TIMES. Whatever makes the pulse stop on them and increase on you. I think even God would say, "Good call." In a very 'Hostel'-type film, but more realistic  as this really could happen to anyone, well, if you're a pretty young woman, that is  'Shuttle' was a decent film, though on the long side. A few good shocks (always call AAA even just to change a tire), basically just one surprise but for the most part, you could see things coming. And aside from the typical "tie him up" instead of the previously mentioned shooting him, the most annoying part was the revelation towards the closing from one best friend to the other. Getting past those, it's enjoyable for what it is. Basically, we have two unsuspecting females traveling alone from Mexico home (wow, that's original) and one lost her luggage preventing them from leaving the airport until late. And after an obvious foreshadowed sign-language scene, they enter a "too-good-to-be-true" half-price shuttle ride. Clichéd jocks, previously introduced, con their way on the shuttle, to join what appears to be Alan Ruck's stunt double from 'Speed.' From here, it's obvious what happens (I did mention it was a 'Hostel' knock off) but still, I didn't find too much horrible, yet nothing spectacular. Though, it would've served the audience better with roughly 15-20 minutes deleted, I would recommend if you have almost 2 hours to kill and are into sick horror.


This movie is stupid, made by stupid people. The plot I suppose works well enough for a Horror movie, but the actions these characters take is insanely STUPID! Like, incredibly non-sensical stupid to the Nth degree! Basically the whole movie consists of these 4 idiots being captured, repeatedly, despite having many, many easy ways and opportunities to overcome their captor. It does not make one lick of sense and is not entertaining whatsoever. Stabbing yourself in the eye is more is more rational, and probably more fun than watching this.

****SPOILERS**** The ending is hilarious!! The only good part of the movie! I nearly died laughing at the end! That whole stupid movie, and it ends with the dumb girl getting shipped off in a crate to white slavery in Asia!! Hilarious! I thought it was a totally awesome ending to a really sh!tty movie.


This is about as stupid as it gets.

A classic case of two-dimensional characters who always act exactly contrary as to what a sane person would do in the same situation. It reminds me of a scene in "Scary Movie" where Carmen Electra flees from the killer. There are two signs, one marked "to safety", the other one "to sure death" (I am reciting from memory).

And just like in Scary Movie, the characters always run into the direction marked "Sure Death".

Why oh why did the girl start the fire in the teller booth AND HOLD THE DOOR SHUT ??? Did she prefer to die in the fire instead being killed by the guy? Why oh why, after cutting and overpowering the driver did they sit him in the seat and have him being watched by the wounded guy instead of plain shooting him or at the very least knocking him out? He was running over their friend and killing him a minute before, yet they have scruples ?? Why oh why a hundred things more ...

If this movie were a road, you could not drive a single yard because of the holes. Everything is so far-fetched, it's starting to physically hurt at times.

Add mercilessly overplaying "actors" and a small budget to that and here's what you get. Looking at the rating and the comments, I get the feeling those people have been watching an entirely different movie.

The one thing missing really, is the infamous red toolbox from "While She was out" - a movie that is about similar in unrealistic plot and stupid behavior of the characters.


"Shuttle" is/was more than a boring movie that had an interesting start, but after half an hour it ended in the worst imaginable way I ever could imagine. This movie has lost its story, if you can call it a story? ... after half an hour. All the next scenes are totally out of proportion. The driver is some kind of superman because he survives every attack with gun - knife etc.. even after stabbed in his leg he was able to put her in the box. But what a coincidence that there was a box in that garage. I really felt sick and misled when the movie ended. It could have been such a great one if the story was far more better. In my opinion even a kid would make a better story. And why shipping the girl with water and food. I quit with counting the plot holes about halfway through. And when the movie reached its almost admirably sick over-the-top final twist, I had completely given up (better say "throw-up). The worst thing about Shuttle is actually that it can not be even more worse that worse. Maybe writer/director Anderson will learn from this lesson and provide us with a decent thriller next time. Think the better he'll move to a different genre. I Keep my fingers crossed. But from now on I will read the comment on his future movies first before looking. A waste of time.


Just saw this film at the Fantasy Filmfest BERLIN. i am not impressed.

As far as the story goes. Too girlfriends return from their Mexico vacation. While waiting for their luggage they get to know a couple of boys, who then take the last and of course wrong shuttle bus to the city. On board is also one other older man, so weirdly portrayed that you instantly guess that he is one of the bad guys. The other one is the driver.

The shuttle takes them into industrial wasteland and then one after the other goes done, a little blood, some cut of extremities, some violence, mostly playing with the fear of the girls In the end after some ups and downs, heres and there's, some not too new scary moments, everyone is dead but the driver and the girls. the girls end up in some garage, where one of them is killed, after confessing that she had slept with the other girlfriends boyfriend. The other girl, which is the conclusion, is sold by the left-over kidnapper (yep, weirdo got killed) in some cargo box to asia (a freight harbor being the final picture.) First. Story. Tons of loopholes, questions you ask yourself, loose ends, and a conclusion that is not a good revelation, but a total disappointment. I can't see how such a unprofessional looser is supposed to have abducted dozens of women (as is indicated by a drawer full of drivers licences...aha) Second. Acting. Mediocre at its best.

Third. Scare Factor. OK. but I AM BoRED by torture as a means to nothing but itself. Trade with humans could be a good reason for a horror flick, but it's not used as one, just as a background.

Fourth, Music and Sound. Some nice tries, but the sound possibilities of the industrial landscape, warehouse garage, and truck sounds have not been really explored. Music? Would have been worse without it, but apart from that. Some pseudo moving synth string theme for emotionality when the girls reach their final destination. OK, I guess.

Verdict: AVOID IT!


waste of 1h45 this nasty little film is one to avoid, its like a cheap badly plotted cross between saw and a few other recent films about kidnap, why the writer wrote this is obvious..he has no soul and did it to try and me some money. The twists were obvious, when those in peril could escape they did the obvious and didn't etc.. only good thing about it is I've discovered 1 new actress worth watching..peyton list, don't watch shuttle though, there are too many better nicer films to watch rather than this that will make you miserable and think less of the world. Spend your time more wisely watch good films, do some exercise, cook a nice meal..anything but waste your time on rubbish like this


May 2nd: someone clicked 11 NOs, and then proceeded to do 15 more on my previous 15 comments: almost as funny as this turkey!

May 1st:

As I write this, I'm still very much under the impression of what must be the funniest thriller I've ever seen. I've got a major case of the giggles, but I'll try and calm down. (It's kind of hard to write when your nose spills snot and the mouth ejects sporadic drool onto the keyboard.)

A pair of young women who just returned from a vacation take a ride on a shuttle bus. A couple of young guys join them. But the bus isn't really a taxi service: it's a kidnapping vehicle. (Don't snicker!) Its driver has been part of an organized "white slavery" gang who snatch young women from airports, and they've been doing it for FIVE years. (Don't laugh.) Five years on the SAME airport, without the police or even the FBI ever getting any wind of it. (No giggling, please.) Apparently, dozens of women go missing on in the same exact place for years and years - and yet no-one notices a trend. Is the FBI that incompetent? The world of "Shuttle" seems to consist of three types of people: easily kidnappable blonds, dumb/comatose/invisible FBI agents, and omnipotent psychotic gangsters (who hate sexy blonds with tattooed behinds).

The driver has barely stayed alive on this one mission, and yet he's done this for - I repeat - FIVE years, without being killed or losing one of his limbs. (Stop laughing...) Did I mention that the driver is immortal? Need I mention it? We all know that movie psychos have immortal DNA. You can stab them, bounce them against the walls of a bus repeatedly, caress them softly with a hammer, prick nine-inch nails into their ears... Hell, you could stick a hand-grenade into the average Hollywood psycho's mouth, and he'd still escape with only minor scratches. No, the driver is not Satan or even a minor demon, but just a regular Hollywood psycho with better survival abilities than the biggest, meanest sewer cockroach.

The basic plot outline: A guy loses all the fingers on one hand in a silly scene. (A magical bus that reads and obeys minds!) The passengers try to escape. They fail. They get hurt. They sulk. They argue. They try to escape. They fail. They get injured. They argue. They try to escape. They fail. They get injured. They try to escape. They fail. They try to escape. The kidnappees manage to snatch the gun from the driver! Alas, they do not kill him because the Golden Hollywood Rule Of Gandhi-like Pacifism prohibits them from doing it. (No giggling.) One of the other passengers turns out to be part of the gang! (Stop laughing.) He is played by an actor who studied in the Rob Zombie/John Travolta School Of Over-Acting & Silly Mugging. He threatens rape. Later on, one of the gals hits him with a crowbar over the head, about a dozen times... very hard. Only seconds later does he regain consciousness. Yep, he survives. (Immortal, remember?) He gets killed a little later. (No idea how, though! He is not supposed to be killable.) The kidnapees argue. They try to escape. One of them escapes! Alas, the psychos are just far too God-like in their powers not to re-capture their prey. The game starts all over again: the passengers try to escape. They fail. They sulk. They stare into the void. They get hurt. They try to escape. They fail. They get hurt...

You get the picture.

Frankly, I believe that a drugged, heavily disorientated, inebriated snail would have escaped these nincompoop captors with ease. There were so many opportunities. At one point these bumbling psychos (remember: FIVE years!) even send one of the kidnapees into a grocery store! She leaves a message to the police. However, yeah... you guessed it: this fictional fairy-tale U.S. city has no police.

And just as you thought the movie couldn't get any dumber - not even if Luc Besson and Brian De Palma joined forces to lend a hand with the script - it does. The girls are kidnapped in order to be sent to some remote island(?), and this is achieved by transporting them as cargo. Apparently, this fictional America has no FBI, no police - and no border customs either. It does however have immortal criminals with more luck than twenty lottery winners. One blond had her billionth chance to kill the driver, and yet she failed. How is it that victims in these dumb thrillers NEVER try to finish off their immortal adversaries once they have them down on the floor and injured? I guess I answered that one myself: they're immortal! So why bother trying, she must have thought...

So why was one blond gassed to death and the other one boxed and shipped alive (complete with a kitty-litter box, and the funniest photograph since Demi Moore's primary school pictures)? Could it be the tattoo? I think they killed the prettier one, but that's just me. Was her tattoo that ugly?

Could it be that I don't care? Why should I search for logic in a movie made by imbeciles (for imbeciles)? Besides, how can I even think straight when I'm laughing so hard half the time?!

Naturally, this being a 21st-century horror/thriller, the mobile phone doesn't work... Perhaps this invincible gang control not only the FBI, the police, and the customs, but satellites in space too.

Do I have to spell it out? There are far easier ways to kidnap people. And far more intelligent people who should be making movies. Give an idiot a camera and he'll lay an egg every single time... That sort of answers the eternal riddle of which came first: the egg or the bird-brained director.


This show demonstrates the depths to which UK TV pre-watershed drama has sunk. With these dull scripts, mediocre acting, poor plots, awful dialog, one is forced to watch a DVD of any old ER episode to see excellent hospital drama.

None of the actors employed on this show seem to be able to actually act!

If you want low quality but easy to absorb soap opera style TV, this is the show for you. Personally I like something with more meat on the bone. Sadly as with all other UK licence payers, I'm funding this dross.


Creakiness and atmosphere this film has, but so unfortunately does the print I just viewed. Raymond Massey provides a laid back Sherlock Holmes, almost comically so in early scenes in his bathrobe, which he trades in for a laborer's garb to investigate the creepy mansion of Dr. Rylott (Lyn Harding). What wasn't clear to me was why Rylott would have wanted his stepdaughters dead. If as in the case of Helen (Angela Baddeley), he didn't want her to run off to get married, he would have accomplished the same thing by having her dispatched.

Other curiosities abound as well. After setting an early wedding date with Helen, the fiancée is no longer heard from for the rest of the picture. The presence of a band of gypsies at the time of Violet Stoner's death provides merely a diversion, and what could have been an interesting murder tool, a poisonous snake, is diluted by the fact that it was not a cobra, the musical renderings of the Indian man servant notwithstanding.

Athole Stewart competently portrays Holmes' aide Dr. Watson, though he takes some getting used to if Nigel Bruce is more your cup of tea. As Rylott, Lyn Harding is sufficiently menacing, a trait that would be put to good use as Holmes' nemesis Professor Moriarty in two later films - 1935's "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" and 1937's "Murder at the Baskervilles".

With repeated choppiness and an unsteady camera, it's surprising that the story line isn't more disrupted than it is. It's integrity is generally maintained, even if one stretches a bit to fill in the gaps. I guess that would be my main complaint with the film, as mentally bridging some of the jump cuts in the picture proved to be a real pain in the asp.


The fact that a film is on DVD doesn't guarantee that its quality is very good. The fact that a film's quality is threadbare doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it. This review actually applies to 2 films paired on a single DVD.

The plots of these films are of little consequence. They are of interest only to people who collect Holmes films  anybody who merely wants a few of the better offerings would do well to purchase some of those made by Jeremy Brett  or, in a pinch, Basil Rathbone. There are a few other very good Holmes films featuring good actors on a one-shot basis  such as "Seven Per Cent Solution" or "Private Life of Sherlock Holmes". In any event, these films are considerably less estimable.

Here we have a pair of films featuring some of the best actors to do Holmes, even if the results tend toward disappointing. This appears to be the only disc with these films on it (although "Deadly Necklace") appears by itself in the same version on other discs.

"(Sherlock Holmes and) the Deadly Necklace" dates from 1962, although it neither looks it nor sounds it. Some who have seen this may be surprised to learn that it was produce by Hammer Studios. Not that Hammer hasn't turned out some really schlock stuff, but where Christopher Lee was concerned, they usually did a better job. The print a direct transfer from a rather worn 1:1.33 copy in black-and white. The quality of the color suggests the original may have been in color, and the snipped ends of the film's aspect suggest it may originally have been 1:1.66 or more.

The film is set in the early 20th Century  not improbable, since Holmes was still working then (and didn't actually die until 1957). However, the script is not adapted from any actual Doyle story. It involves an Egyptian necklace, and Professor Moriarty shows up as a world-famous archaeologist as well as the Prince of Crime. The plot is melodramatic and banal.

The biggest defect of this film is that  for whatever unfathomable reason  Hammer filmed it in Germany. It was nonetheless filmed in English. It was then dubbed in German and then re-dubbed in English. So what you hear isn't Lee nor any of the other original actors, but a bunch of unknowns  not that, outside of Lee, I doubt anyone would know any of the other actors. This is too bad, since Lee (see his "Hound of the Baskervilles") makes a quite decent Holmes. As it is, his voice double is condescending and plain as bread pudding with no raisins nor cinnamon.

The music for this film is primarily jazzy, in a possible attempt to be "period". Too bad nobody thought of ragtime. As it is, the music doesn't relate to what's happening on the screen, and often is at odds with the action.

The other film is "(Sherlock Holmes and) the Speckled Band" from 1931, starring a young Raymond Massey. The quality of the picture and sound is fully up to that of the 1962 effort, and in fact a bit better. Massey makes a quite respectable Holmes, although he certainly doesn't own the rôle in the way Rathbone did and Brett does. The other thespians who take part in this production are unlikely to be of interest to modern readers. The acting  as is true of many films of this period  owes a lot to the post-Victorian stage and to silent films.

It should be noted that, while "The Deadly Necklace" is available on DVD by itself, "The Speckled Band" is available only with the former film.

There is very little else to be said of this film. The settings seem to be an odd combination of the 1890s (horse-drawn carriages) and the 1920s (electronic devices such as a primitive dictaphone). Taken altogether, it's an interesting curio and a sufficient inducement to buy the DVD with the pairing rather than a DVD with "Deadly Necklace" only.


Movies just don't get worse than this. Horrible plot, terribly timed, pathetic characters and effects and yes this is using "B" standards.

And for the guys: nothing, this movie is a terrible let down, couple scenes that could have been great but you get nothing but build up with no delivery.

This movie appeals to no one, horrible movie,it had bad; plot, acting, "B" flavor, special effects and everything else. Plus no nudity or erotics for guys or the girls.


There isn't enough space to explain the many ways this movie is a disappointing mess. Silly special effects and an incomprehensible plot are the least of this movie's problems. The film looks like it was conceived in the mid-eighties and just stewed until it could finally be made in the early nineties. The mullet-headed "hero," (complete with fashionable "Miami Vice" three-days shadow beard), the ham-fisted slams at Ronald Reagan, it would be funny if it didn't take itself so seriously. As it is, the movie is just pathetic. I actually feel sorry for the poor actresses who wasted their fine nude scenes in this awful movie.


Well, at least this was the last sequel that I could find at Blockbuster, because this movie was just downright horrible. I mean, I can understand how hard it would be to get rid of an evil house. We're talking starting a horrible fire, bulldozing, flood, etc. But a mirror? How hard could it be can it be to get rid of a mirror?! This was the most horrible movie that could've put the title of Amityville into the picture!

Well, a group of friends who are pretty much from the start, are a bunch of freaks. One of them is a photographer of some kind and buys a haunted mirror from a homeless creepy guy, teaching me a valuable lesson, don't buy things from homeless creepy guy. Of course, the horrible deaths and chaos ensues this group, though I can't imagine anyone missing them.

Please, skip Amityville: A New Generation, I've already got a few complaints about my generation, so I think this was a premonition. Not to sound so crazy. :P But believe me, this is horribly acted, not well thought out, and not even scary! I feel so bad for the original writers of The Amityville Horror, they must be crying every time person witnesses this film.

1/10


'A New Generation' is the third Amityville entry to base its plot around writer John G. Jones's premise of an item taken from the Long Island house that causes spectral misery and death for its new owners. First a lamp, then a clock, and now a mirror. However, this is also the first Amityville since 'The Possession' to directly tie in to the real- life events that started the whole series. This time around, Keyes Terry (Robert Partridge), an artist, is given a macabre-looking mirror by a homeless man one day. Soon enough, people around him start to die, eventually leading to his discovery that the mirror once hung in the Amityville house - indeed on the very night a man named Franklin Bronner (Sonny Montelli in 'Amityville II') murdered his entire family. Unfortunately for Terry, his discovery of the mirror isn't entirely coincidental, and he soon learns the truth about his past a truth he's kept buried since childhood.

This 7th installment in the often worn-out franchise is something of a disappointment for me. Things were starting to pick up with the silly and uneven, yet entertaining 'It's About Time', and given how much this film tries to draw upon its roots - not the first episode, but the source material itself - it should have been better than it was.

However, three trips to the same well with yet another evil artifact from the Amityville house with yet another explanation for the malign paranormal visitations is wearing on me, to say the least. One of the biggest weaknesses of the Amityville franchise is the steadfast determination by each set of producers to completely ignore every other episode in the series. On the one hand, it's perfectly reasonable that they don't want to be tied to someone else's continuity, but at the very least, they could maybe acknowledge story lines that have already been done and just possibly *not repeat them over and over again*.

There's also something rather plodding about the way in which the story unfolds, doubtless due to the inevitability this repetition-fest brings. Since you already know what's going to happen, the carefully-paced build-up is simply slow and tedious. Or maybe it's just tedious anyway. Director John Murlowski probably could have done more to heighten the tense atmosphere associated with the mirror rather than simply having it flash red and emit chattering 'evil' voices, which lacks any kind of subtlety. There were times when characters seemed fairly unfazed by its otherworldly qualities. If they don't take it too seriously, why should we?

Which is a shame, because 'A New Generation' has a more-than-capable cast. I was going to hold off on watching this until I saw the name 'Julia Nickson' in the credits. She captivated my attention just as she always does, and if anything, I was annoyed her part wasn't more extensive. Terry O'Quinn was equally charismatic and again, underused. Partridge himself in the lead role clearly fits the early 90s over-coiffed lumberjack-shirted square-jawed hero type, and while I'm not sure he really gave it the gravitas needed, it's not as if anyone here is performing Ibsen.

The sets are also worthy of note, from the dramatic artwork filling Suki's room, to the claustrophobic corridors featured in flashback/supernatural sequences. Getting the look of these right is especially important given how certain sequences are repeated throughout the film to simulated fragmented memories. Clearly, Murlowski is more of a visual director rather than either an actor's director or one of horror. Unfortunately, it is meant to be a horror film, after all.

'A New Generation' sees the same race being run for the third time in 4 years. Add to this the lack of direction where it was really needed and the whole effort fails to stand as tall as it should. However, it should be acknowledged for its strong ties with the source material and some good actors in not necessarily their finest hours. Honestly, the ideal person for this is someone who hasn't seen any of the sequels past 'The Possession', for whom the story won't be such a massive deja-vu trip.


Oh dear. This sequel has a mirror, this time, which houses the evil spirit of a psychopath which murdered an entire family with a shotgun in the Amityville home. The mirror captured the entire ugly incident of the horrified family who had no time to prepare for their uninvited guest. The mirror is given to a photographer, Keyes(Ross Partridge)by a bum(..who just so happens to be his lunatic father, and the man responsible for killing the family)and it's evil soon terrorizes those in a loft(..such as Keyes' painter pal Suki, portrayed by Julia Nickson-Soul)where he lives when they look into it. Soon Keyes is having nightmares, looking through the eyes of his father as he guns down the family in cold blood, worried that he might follow in his footsteps. Soon he sees other occurrences through his father's eyes like that terrible day pops bashed his mother's head against the floor of an institution or experiencing a moment inside the cell as doctor's administered a drug to immobilize him.

Pretty solid supporting cast who deserve better than being stuck in junk like this, such as David Naughton(American Werewolf in London)as the proprietor of the loft with which Keyes lives, Richard Roundtree as an eccentric sculptor/artist, Terry O'Quinn as a psychologist-detective, and especially Lin Shaye as a hilarious ditsy, rather strange secretary-nurse in the asylum(..the one which held Keyes' father) soon to be closed down.

Rounding out the film, the sexy, leggy Lala Sloatman as Keyes' supportive girlfriend, Barbara Howard(Friday the 13th:The Final Chapter)as Naughton's betrayed wife(..he was on the verge of starting an affair with Nickman-Soul), Jack Orend as the sadistic fiend who attempts to provoke his son into killing innocent people as he did, and Robert Rusler(A Nightmare on Elm Street 2:Freddy's Revenge)as a rejected lover(..of Nickson-Soul)who meets an unfortunate demise while ripping apart paintings as a revenge for his dismissal.

This film is a poor special effects movie merely using the Amityville title as a cash-in. The franchise has never been that great to begin with, but as each sequel was green-lit, it grew worse and worse. After the third film, furniture from the infamous house become "possessed" items tormenting folks. The cast try hard, though, but the material(..a mirror causing chaos and murder through supernatural means)is lacking in quality..and the rather mediocre special effects don't help matters. O'Quinn, as little as he has to work with, shows why he's such a great actor, he can even shine in excrement such as this. All's not lost, you get to see Sloatman always wearing super short skirts(..or her man's shirt in panties), showing off her legs throughout..hey, you have to find a silver lining somewhere. Believe it or not, AMITYVILLE:A NEW GENERATION was the seventh film in the franchise! Coolest part of the film were the portraits of demons painted by Nickson-Soul's artist, perhaps inspired by the evil mirror after looking into it.


At the rate these movies are ploughing through the artifacts from the Amityville house it won't be long before we get down to the floorboards, but for now it's a mirror that's causing problems for more cardboard characters in this sixth entry in the series. A homeless man hands it over to artist hairdo Ross Partridge, who then has strange visions and discovers some unpleasant revelations about his past. This mundane horror trundles along at a dull pace, leaving us waiting for a build up that never comes as the various 'spooky' goings-on lead to a dumb finale. Bland and lifeless, with ropey acting and Partridge's huge hair not helping matters.


Not a good one. -Not at all.

This installment revolves around a descent of the original murderer inside the Amityville home who must face his past to rid himself of the nightmarish terror of Amityville itself.

It's basically nothing. My bet is that this film was made for some extra fast-cash to buy a boat or something... because this one's just ridiculous... Thankfully, it doesn't kill or ruin the series, but it just has no effect on the series at all.

I'd have to say that just the fact that it is constantly referenced to the old, infamous house is probably the only thing that makes this one slightly more bearable than "The Amityville Curse".


What movie is this??? A horrible movie with the old boring concept of infidelity which has already been achieved by the "Bhatt camp". The movie starrs EMRAAN HASHMI, UDITA GOSWAMI AND DINO MOREA. The movie has "No Base". It just goes like this... Dino an Udita are married and living in a rich mansion. However Dino doesn't like Udita to the heart as he wants only her wealth. He loves someone else (Tara Sharma). So he bribes Emraan to have an affair with Udita so that he could catch them and finally split up with Udita.. How BORING!! However Emraan falls in love with Udita and vice versa. Lastly when Udita gets imprisonment for killing Emraan, Dino pretentiously tries to save her showing his false love to her. Udita on the other hand does not understand this and feels that he loved her truly. So she lends all her wealth to Dino. Finally Dino comes out of the police - station and goes with Tara with all the wealth. What a fraud!! The songs are good and are the only thing good in the movie. Now the individual ratings: (Out of 5) Emraan: * * Udita: * 1/2 Dino : * 1/2 Overall acting: * 1/2 Direction: * * Story: * Music: * * * 1/2 Final rating: * 1/2 Poor performances and poor casting....... Music: Good... I rate the movie: 1.5 / 10 (Dont waste your time !!!!)


I often wonder how movies like this even get made, and the most shocking part is that people actually pay to watch them.

With Aksar it appears as though the director made up the story as he went along, adding twists and turns when he liked, no matter how ludicrous they were. The script was non existent with inane dialogs such as "Jo Sheena Roy pehenti hai, wahee fashion hota hai" and "Yeh Versace hai Madam" (yeah right).

Every one of the characters was shallow and underdeveloped. Acting was awful. Constumes (lycra for Udita and awful suits for a stocky Emran), locales (the numerous houses that were used for interiors did not even vaguely resemble a Victorian mansion), screenplay etc etc, just one word- rubbish.

For those people who love Hashmi and his movies, watch it. As for me, I'll never get those two and a half hours back. The only redeeming factor was some of the music which was decent.


Aksar is an awful movie. The script, the story, the acting are all simply laughable. Dino Morea plays a man who pays Emraan Hashmi to seduce his wife. Yes, this is as ridiculous as it sounds. Both Morea and Hashmi offer incredibly and unsurprisingly bad acting. Udita Goswami plays the aggressive, capricious and angry wife. She is good-looking but has zero acting talent. The film has one hit song called "Jhalak Diklaja" which is composed and sung by Himesh Reshammiya. I never could understand the hype around this song as I never found it particularly good though it is catchy. The film is supposed to be a thriller but instead it just looks like a comic strip thanks to the terrible direction and writing. Avoid this cheapo at any cost.


Emraan Hashmi post MURDER did some good roles in Bhatt films but other director just made use of his kissing and naughty image

AKSAR is one of them and it came after AAA, JAWANI DIWANI in a row and I was already fed up of him and such roles

The film has a nice twist at the start i felt like an Abbas Mustan film but then it turns into a routine film with sudden love, sudden jealousy and a bad climax

Anant Mahadevan makes a terrible film Music is saving grace Camera-work is fabulous

Emraan Hashmi just repeats his act of his earlier films and has 2 expressions throughout Dino looks stiff, talks as if he is practicing Hindi and does okay in some scenes Udita is expressionless and irritates


weak direction, weak plot, unimpressive music, i wonder why Udita Goswami is there in the movie world in the first place ? she tried to reveal a lot of her talent (mostly skin) but failed to impress.

music wasn't that impressive as well, only one song "Jhalak Dikhlajaa" was worth listening to.....

Aksar, the title ? well they tried to justify the title of the movie in the end, but it didn't make sense..

there were many unwanted twists and turns in the story, which made it more boring. however if someone's a Dino Morea fan, please go ahead and watch it.


Independent film that would make Hollywood proud. The movie substitutes good looks for good acting, a cryptic plot for a good story line, and self-absorption for character development. May be I missed something, go see it for yourself.


This film is a third rate attempt at a compelling, moody thriller and fails miserably on all three counts. It just about managed to keep my attention as the protagonist was seen slowly and predictably breaking all the life rules he had conveniently set himself at the beginning of the film.

But it's in the last 25 minutes or so that things really start to spiral. A vaguely plausible plotline (and that's being generous)becomes completely rediculous as suddenly new characters appear from nowhere and random and bizzarre events are never explained.

This wouldn't be quite so bad if the scripting wasn't so cheesy, the acting so wooden (despite a strong British cast) and the direction so uninspiring. This is not an example of good British film making nor indeed should it make Tarantino bat an eyelid, at least not in comparison to his earlier work.

My advice in this case, if it's hard to get hold of, don't waste the effort. If you're a Brit like me and it's in your local video shop, steer well clear. Perhaps head to the video entitled "American Beauty" - now that's an example of great British direction.


[Warning contains spoilers]

I felt no sympathy for any of the characters, incl the main one, who gets over the death of his girl friend v.quickly, (but it's OK as he shacks up with an ex prostitute from the casino he works at). The main character is portrayed as this wonderful intelligent writer who gets drawn into a web of deception, all the while there is running his monologue of the book he is writing. I can't say I would buy the book, a much better premise perhaps would have been if the voice-over (which annoyingly cuts in to narrate any bit of the film that you might not have understood, via his book) would've had 52 different personailties... to represent each card in the deck, but I digress. In the end there was a twist, whereby the main character has been setup by someone close to him, but as I disliked his character so much by this point (I found it impossible to like anyone in this film, the characters are all one dimensional zombies) that I really didn't care, and was glad the film was over.

Plus points: The English actress from ER doing a dodgy south african accent Minus points: An irritating film


This was one of the most contrived, tedious and clichéd films I have ever seen... and, yes, I've seen Pearl Harbour. Even the likes of Gina McKee couldn't act their way out of the appalling dialogue. It has been described as 'art-house', this can only be a euphemism for dull, dreadful and, quite frankly, artless. Why is it that when a film is devoid of plot, critics feel it deserves to be called art? But far more baffling, why did America love it? Without you, this film would have remained on the shelf where, perhaps, it belonged.


I respect Mike Hodges, and liked Get Carter immensely for it's bleak outlook, but The Croupier just seems like a particularly dull ITV drama.

The reserved, cold acting isn't just the preserve of the lead character, it's spread to the entire cast, meaning there is nothing to contrast Owen's character with.

None of the characters evoke any kind of feelings at all, except boredom. The ending of the film is also untidy at best.

 The camera work etc is fairly good, but if you want to see Hodges best watch Get Carter, don't bother with this uninteresting, unimaginative trawl through emotions he covered better 20+ years ago


This low-budget film about a writer who goes to work in a London casino has an awful script, wooden performances, and not much to recommend it. Of course it will appeal to highbrows for whom "mainstream" is a curse word, and who automatically add 20 IQ points when they hear a British accent (apologies to Jeff Foxworthy).

The script is full of holes (has he written a book yet, or not?), cliches (relationship trouble: she works days, he works nights), and provides so little insight into such basics as character motivation that it requires a voice-over narration just to move the story along.

In an attempt to keep the audience from dozing off, it includes a street fight scene that is about as realistic as a high school production of Julius Caesar.

If your idea of scintillating dialogue is "I'll see your ten, and raise you twenty", then RUN to see this movie. Otherwise, save your money.


Hideously bad movie purportedly about a croupier who wants to be a writer and the incidents that make up casino life. Moves at a snail's pace. Dull, dull, dull! Virtually everything about this movie is amateurish and unconvincing - with one very notable exception: the performance of Clive Owen, who is like a Rolls Royce purring through a slum. Advice for the casino sequences were allegedly provided by a professional but judging by the way in which they are handled they were completely ignored by the director. While casino staff may very well be a different breed to the rest of the world they are nowhere near as witless and booooring as the characters presented in this script. Odds and ends are thrown into the script in an attempt to provide it with convincing background but would appear to have been jotted down in a list on a cocktail napkin. For anyone who makes a living in the casino business (as this writer has for the last FORTY years!) this is a poverty stricken depiction of their world which even in the farthest and most obscure reaches of England has NEVER been this wanting! An appalling, insulting mess of a movie that plods and plods and plods along to an idiotic and unconvincing ending. American critics loved it.


After some internet surfing, I found the "Homefront" series on DVD at ioffer.com. Before anyone gets excited, the DVD set I received was burned by an amateur from home video tapes recorded off of their TV 15 years ago. The resolution and quality are poor. The images look like you would expect old re-recorded video to look. Although the commercials were edited out, the ending credits of each episode still have voice-over announcements for the segway into the ABC news program "Nightline", complete with the top news headlines from the early 1990's. Even with the poor image quality, the shows were watch-able and the sound quality was fine.

To this show's credit, the casting was nearly perfect. Everyone was believable and really looked the part. Their acting was also above average. The role of Jeff Metcalf is played particularly well by Kyle Chandler (most recently seen in the 2005 remake of King Kong). The period costumes were very authentic as were the sets, especially the 1940s kitchens with vintage appliances and décor. The direction was also creative and different for a TV show at that time. For example, conversations between characters were sometimes inter-cut with conversations about the same subject between other characters in different scenes. The dialog of the different conversations was kept fluid despite cutting back and fourth between the different characters and locations. That takes good direction and editing and they made it work in this case.

As I started watching this series again I suddenly remembered why I lost interest in it 15 years ago. Despite all the ingredients for a fine show, the plots and story lines are disappointing and confusing right from the start. For one thing, the name of the show itself is totally misleading. When WWII ended in 1945, there was no more fighting so obviously there was no longer a "homefront" either. Curiously, the first episode of the show "Homefront" begins in 1945 after the war had ended. That's like shooting the first episode of "Gilligan's Island" showing the castaways being rescued. The whole premise of the show's namesake is completely lost. I still held on to hope with the possibility of the rest of the series being a flashback but no, the entire show takes place from 1946 through 1948. Additionally, this series fails miserably in any attempt to accurately portray any historical events of the late 1940's. By the third episode, it becomes obvious that this series was nothing more than a thinly veiled vehicle for an ultra left-wing political agenda. The show is set in River Run Ohio, near Toledo. However, the show's ongoing racism theme makes it look more like Jackson Mississippi than Ohio. Part of the ensemble cast are Dick Williams, Hattie Winston and Sterling Macer Jr. who portray the Davis family. Much of the series shows the Davis family being discriminated against by the evil "whites" to the point of being ridiculous and totally absurd if not laughable. The racism card has been played and over played by Hollywood now for over 40 years. We get it. We're also tired of having our noses rubbed in it on a daily basis. The subject of racism is also unpopular with viewers and it is the kiss of death for any show, as it was for "Homefront". The acting talents of Williams, Winston and Macer were wasted in their roles as the stereotypical "frightened / angry black family". The wildly exaggerated racism in this series makes it look like everyone in Ohio was a KKK member or something. The racism issue could have been addressed in this show in a single episode with a simple punch in the nose or fist-fight in which a bigot gets a well deserved thrashing, and leave it at that. Devoting a major portion of the series to the racism thing gets really old really quick and its just plain stupid.

In yet another ridiculous plot line, the big boss of a local factory (Ken Jenkins) is portrayed as an Ebenezer Scrooge like character who is against pensions and raises and is unconcerned about acid dripping on his employees. The workers revolt and take over the factory in a blatant pro-communist propaganda message to the viewer.

Personally, I think this series had great potential. The writers could have easily placed the timeline in 1941  1945 as the title suggests and shown the hardships of food and gas rationing and working 14 hour days at war factories. Of course the loss of brothers, sons and husbands fighting overseas would have also added drama. The situation was also perfect for writing in special guest stars as military or USO personnel passing through their town during training or en-route to Europe or the Pacific. The possibilities for good story lines and plots are endless. But no, the writers of Homefront (David Assael and James Grissom) completely ignored any relevant or interesting plots. Instead, they totally missed the point and strayed into a bizarre and irrelevant obsession with racism and left-wing politics. It would be unfair to the actors to condemn the entire series but the plots and situations in which they were placed are total garbage.


It's important to keep in mind the real meaning of the phrase "Inspired by a true story" when watching Pride. It's sort of like "You could save up to 50%," which can quite literally be translated to "You can't save more than 50%." It all sounds great until you realize that the lower part of "up to" is "zero." Similarly, "inspired by a true story" means that someone heard a story and it made them think of this one. The only certainty is that the real story and the one you're about to see are not the same thing.

There is a real Jim Ellis that began coaching the swim team at the Philadelphia Department of Recreation in the early 1970s, but I have a feeling that the real Jim Ellis must not have been able to conceal some feelings of disappointment at the way the movie turned out. Clearly, it takes wild liberties with the story of his life, and I just picture him responding to the strange looks of his friends who wonder why the movie is so much different than the man they know.

At any rate, one thing that he will surely be proud of is that he is portrayed by Terrence Howard, one of our finest actors, who starred alongside Bernie Mac who, despite the lack of an original and powerful story, still gives a heartfelt and moving performance.

The movie takes place in 1970s Philadelphia, a time and place where racism was the norm, not the exception, and the educated and professional Jim Ellis, who is also an accomplished swimmer, is having trouble finding a worthwhile teaching position, until finally relegated to a falling apart recreation center, which he is assigned the task of cleaning up before its demolition. We can certainly understand his feeling of belittlement.

When we first meet Elston, the maintenance man (Bernie Mac), he is a disillusioned grump who sits in his office surrounded by piles of junk that touch the ceiling and watching daytime TV on an old, dusty television set. Needless to say, when Jim shows up to start cleaning the place up and clearing it out, Elston is not exactly friendly with him. He knew his rec center was being closed, and all his anger about that transferred quite smoothly onto Jim.

Given his past as a college swimmer, Jim takes a special interest in the pool, which he cleans and fills and brings to top shape. A group of black teenagers who play basketball just outside the rec center take interest in the pool when their basketball rim is taken away and the heat remains stifling, and soon the group have a developing swim team on their hands, which they enter into a citywide swim meet. To call them underdogs, of course, would be something of an understatement. They're unorganized, unprofessional, insufficiently trained, and have no idea how to behave at a swim meet.

That doesn't matter, of course. The movie is your standard underdog sports story, so the first athletic outing is totally unimportant as anything other than a learning experience, a catalyst to drive their much harder and much more focused training that will lead up to the final athletic outing, the one that matters. By now, the only thing a sports movie has going for it is that the protagonist(s) do not have to win at the film's climax, we only have to understand the meaning and significance of their effort.

Sadly, the movie has all of the character development of an old Seagal movie. The good guys are the good guys because they're just supposed to be, and the bad guys are the nasty white swimmers who laugh and jeer and make racist jokes at our team. Oh, and there's one scene where one of the white guys kicks one of the black guys underwater while in the middle of a race. I didn't know it was really possible to kick someone underwater like that, but you get the idea of how deep the character development is.

We understand that this is the group of kids that Jim Ellis turned from kids hanging out on the streets doing nothing with their lives and into an organized and competitive team of swimmers, but other than that we don't really get to know anything about who they are.

But the biggest problem is that the only real statements that the movie makes are that effort and organization lead to success and racism is bad. Both of these are so obvious that when a movie is made with them alone it ends up feeling empty and unnecessary. Racism was so much more powerful in America in the 1970s that it feels like an enormous loss that the movie dealt directly with that issue but didn't really say anything about it. It's sort of a feel- good movie, but when it's over and you realize how much it should have said is much bigger than what it said, the feel-good sensation turns into a sad disappointment.


Inspired by a true story tale is full of 1970's feeling but is disjointed in the telling. This is the tale of a black college swimmer who ends up in Phillie at a closing rec center in a bad neighborhood and somehow puts together a swim team. The film staggers around blindly for the first half hour until Terrence Howard, as our hero, gets the kids into the pool.It picks up at that point by becoming somewhat engaging, though it still staggers about. There is a good story in this and its clear why Howard and Bernie Mac took part in it, but the script is poor and most of the direction seems intent on making it feel like 197something instead of making us feel anything for the story.

Not the disaster that some reviews made it out to be, it instead suffers by all of the recent sport true stories-Coach Carter, Invincible, Glory Road, etc, which at least knew that you have to at least work with the story to make a movie as opposed to just letting the audience suffer because "its true".


To start, I'm not a person to rate movies that I haven't seen, nor am I a person that rates movies 1's when they don't deserve it. This movie was really that bad. The basic plot was extremely formulaic, and while it wasn't great, the plot deserved about a 5. The part that really bothered me was anything referencing swimming in the film. I compiled a short list of things wrong with the swimming aspects of this film.

1. No character development. 2. No sense of time. 3. Completely inaccurate swimming scenes, which include: a. A team of six swimmer going to something called both "Nationals" and "regional" with no mention of how they qualify. b. This same team going to whatever the hell this meet was without swimming a real meet at any point in the film. c. The rival program goes from being a high school to a club team back to a high school and then a club team again. d. In the scene where Ellis is interviewing for a job the banners show high school state wins and placements at nationals, yet the team consists of anywhere from 5 to 12 swimmers depending on which of the 3 meets are happening. e. A team of 5 guys and a girl win nationals/regions whatever. f. Said girl wins a men's 100 butterfly event. g. In this race, said girl beats two guys from a team that the previous year was in the top 3 in the nation. h. The announcer changes a race from the 200 breast to the 100 breast back to the 200 again in the span on about 45 seconds. i. In the final relay, the 4X100, which is being swum in a 50 meter long course pool, one swimmer is seen doing two flip turns. j. In this same relay, the teams anchor swimmer freaks out and steps off the blocks, prompting an inspirational pep talk, which lasts for about two and a half minutes, or about 3 times as long as the leg would take at a national caliber meet. k. The movie begins in the month of July or August, assuming that Ellis was applying before the school year started, and the pool was to be closed in 3 months, so assuming these things both hold true, the swimmers went from not being able to swim to winning nationals/regional whatever, in less than two, as the pool had to be cleaned and the kids didn't start practicing for a while. l. I'm sure there are a couple hundred more, I'm just trying to block them out of my memory. 4. Throughout the film there is not a single mention of a swimmers time. 5. If you're going to have a movie about swimming, it would be a good idea to hire extras that know how to swim well. 6. The scene where the kid is kicked underwater is physically impossible.

That being said, all the swimming scenes were way too slow, swimmers had horrible technique, and the idea of being able to qualify for a national meet within three months of learning to swim is just insulting to swimmers everywhere.

OK, if you still don't believe me, let me say that this movie is one of the 5 worst films i have ever seen, and this is coming from the guy that owns Gigli, Soul Plane, Manos: The Hands of Fate, Skullduggery, and any number of other total piece of crap that have been put on film. Please don't go!


It's a shame Barry Humphries infamous Sir Les Patterson character had it's film debut in this under cooked spy/comedy.

This film reminded me of the Beatty/Hoffman stinker, Ishtar (1987). Humphries should have learned from the mistakes that film made - if your going to change gears on a concept DON'T USE SPIES! Like Ishtar, the first 20 minutes or so offer a promise of something different. It would have been great to see the anachronistic and boorish Patterson sleazing around in the world of Australian politics. One of characters even point out that Patterson is of date with the current times - you'd think Humphires could of had a field day making commentary on the Hawke government (I can just picture a scene with Patterson and Hawkie in a drinking contest). But instead of a film that might of been clever and even a biting look into that world, we get Patterson running around the world as James Bond trying to save the world from bio-chemical weapons that runs out of steam before the half way mark.

Disappointing.


The brilliant Australian comic genius Barry Humphries had a rare failure with this uneven, and occasionally distasteful comedy, which was snatched back from release after only a few days. Drunken, lecherous Australian diplomat Sir Les Patterson accidentally sets an Arab potentate on fire at the UN and is posted to his tiny country as punishment, arriving just as a palace coup puts a new leader (American soap star Thaao Penghlis) on the throne. Sir Les, with the reluctant help of Dame Edna Everage (Both played by Humphries) almost accidentally foils a scheme by the new leader to release a deadly, disgusting, AIDS-like virus on the Western World. Joan Rivers has a cameo as the female President of the United States, her desk plate reading "President Rivers"! Extreme bad taste mingles with slapstick and Humphries' usual scathing satire in a film which is more enjoyable in it's many funny parts, than taken together as a whole. Dame Edna's TV fans may be puzzled by the presence of a different Madge Allsop, sadly, one who lacks Emily Perry's wonderful drab comedy magic in the role. The film was written By Humphries & his third wife, Diane Millstead, and directed by the Mad Max man himself, George Miller. For die-hard Humphries fans like myself, essential. All others, beware.


Arguably the most disgusting thing to come out of Australia since Vegemite... Predictably distasteful comedy with Barry Humphries in a dual role as boozy Australian diplomat Les Patterson and undercover agent Dame Edna! So many bodily function gags that even the Farrelly brothers would have been sick, and several gross-out moments, especially the effects of the horrible H.E.L.P. virus. Only for fans of extreme toilet humor. Oh, and that´s the "NeverEnding Story II", NOT the "Mad Max" George Miller, who directed... *½


When one considers that Carson McCullers is one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century, it seems that it needs a very great lack of talent to be able to ruin one of her stories, but this movie shows it can be done! How do actors ingratiate their way to becoming directors? Wooden, unatmospheric, unsympathetic, totally out of sync with the poetic compassion of McCullers' writing, my jaw dropped with horror and disbelief that such a mish-mash of a movie could ever have found finance and backers. The only redeeming features are some moderately good acting, (although that said, Vanessa Redgrave seems to permanently render much the same performance whatever character she plays), and some good cinematography in places, but otherwise it is a bitter, bitter disappointment, and it could, and indeed should, have been a contemporary masterpiece. Simon Callow should hang his head in shame and stick to acting!


How do you make a totally unappealing movie out of a story by one of America's most famous authors? Watch this film and find out. Maybe I am overrating author Carson McCullers, but I was impressed by "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" and was hoping for something memorable here, too. Forget it.

Vanessa Redgrave looks like a man with her short haircut and clothing. I never found her much to get excited about in almost any movie, anyway. Rod Steiger as a preacher? How insulting is that? Unlikable characters, one after the other. Well, maybe that's the book, too, and I am being unfair to this film. I am not familiar with the story other than what I saw on screen and this was so unappealing a movie that I could never recommend it to anyone.

It's just one backwards person after another in a backward town. Outside of some nice cinematography here and there, there is nothing to recommend. How anyone could sit through 100 minutes of this is amazing.

I didn't even go into how bad this is directed. There is good news: this was the only film Simon Cowell directed.


"The Ballad of the Sad Café" worked hard at its image, but when it came down to crunch-time, it was left standing in its own self-created dust.

One cannot image saying this out loud, but if Vanessa Redgrave's Amelia were to fight John Wayne or even Clint Eastwood, my hard-earned dollars would have to go to Redgrave. Her portrayal of Amelia was as close to perfection and consumed with more detailed dedication than most actors are willing to give to any multi-million dollar contracted persona. Redgrave gave Amelia this soulful drawl that was a blend of her own unique voice and a hard-earned woman from the south. To the average viewer, this could be construed as annoying, but as the film progressed it became her  Miss Amelia transforming this stage beauty into a roughneck. It was Redgrave's performance, as well as her interaction with the other characters, that made this film stand tall  but not the tallest. The others following her performance were needed, but not stellar. As we moved past the murky cliché image passed on by every set designer hired for the post-Depression South job, the minor characters felt like poster board. The image was needed to set the scene, but the characters of the town had no other purpose. Take for example Rod Steiger's vision of some old, wild spoken preacher. His scenes alone will make any viewer question the validity of this off-the-beaten-path town. The main two players who surrounded Amelia battled with charm for the admirable top scene-stealing moment, but due to the lacking direction  it just seemed faded. The most absurd of the two (albeit both rank high among the questionable sanity line) is Cork Hubbard who plays Amelia's "cousin" who shows up randomly one night. His character is never quite defined, he lacks true motive, and his loyalties remain uncertain. He plays no vital role in this film outside of forcing us, the viewers, to question his sanity and honesty. Can you create a character simply by sticking out your tongue, flicking your ears, and punching your chest and head? Finally, there is the other end of the absurd  Keith Carradine. Callow's close-ups of this tormented man build character, but our lack of understanding between him and Amelia causes his purpose to flounder. These were the characters, as cliché Southern as they were  some stood forward and attempted to create an absurdist period piece, and I cannot argue that they failed.

Where "Ballad of the Sad Café" failed to rise above mediocrity was in the cinematography and narrative. This film was about Amelia, and her need for other souls in her life. The audience's level of comfort with the arrival of her midget cousin was entertaining  one couldn't help but wonder if he was honest or merely a confidence man attempt to leech off a warm heart. Cork Hubbard's character is never quite understood, but we do accept him with brief shots of him and Amelia doing small things together. It is his idea that transforms from a recluse businesswoman to a bona-fide café owner. The problem is that director Callow never quite takes us to that dramatic take level between Cork and Redgrave  is the man crazy or does he represent all of Amelia's family? I needed something from Callow that brought these two out of the David Lynch-esquire relationship that they had. Then our pool gets even deeper with the addition of Carradine as Amelia's "love interest". Using the technique of a flashback within a flashback, we see the two wed, but never consummate their love  which Amelia's anger against their love drawing him into the world of madness. Why was Amelia so angry? Why was there no connection between Carradine and Redgrave? Why was this even in the film? With the lack of focus towards these characters's connection, the eventual scenes between the two made no sense  throw in Cork's choice and it just gets completely discombobulated. While there were a few beautiful choreographed scenes that Callow created, the inability to transfer his characters from point A to point B. I lost focus, interest, and my care for the characters plummeted when I didn't understand the ultimate question  "why"?

Overall, "The Ballad of the Sad Café" began with a bang, but ended with a very small crack of a firecracker. My emotional feel of this film swung up and down, up and down, and eventually stayed further down mainly due to the lack of understanding of the motives of the characters. Redgrave did a phenomenal job as Amelia, and while the other characters (outside of the random Steiger) tried their best, I just didn't quite understand who they were. Their motives were so muddled that when the emotional ending finally occurred, I was apathetic. Director Callow seemed to have been lacking importing connecting scenes that would allow us to understand the dynamic relationship between all of our main players. Callow created some beautiful scenes where faces seemed to overlap the scenery, which allowed us to focus on Amelia  or Carradine, but nothing was explained or developed. The film played out with anger, discover, happiness, flashback, anger, anger, anger, fade out. Without the comparative connectors, this transformed from distinguished period film to actors playing parts in front of camera. It was a shame, because "Sad Café" had the promise, it just couldn't deliver.

Grade: ** ½ out of *****


This movie was ridiculous from the start. Let me save you all time from watching this movie. A woman who sells corn liquor to the locals takes in her cousin or nephew and he convinces her to open a café downstairs from her home. She does and she and the cousin become close. There is a scene later where she is locking lips with him. Later, the woman finds out an old boyfriend is coming back from jail and its tense between them, leading to a down and out fist fight in the café. The woman's cousin/nephew is enamored by the man. The ending was awful, the story was awful, and if I could get back the time wasted on this movie, I would appreciate it. A definite skip.


I have to say this, this is the first movie I'm reviewing on here I didn't finish watching. I mean.. I COULDN"T CONTINUE! No matter how adamant I am for watching things until the bitter end, 'The Ballad Of The Sad Café' proved no match to this viewer. Vanessa Redgrave stars as the Strange Woman in Town who does things like walk through the river with a full set of clothes on. Anyways,. A long lost relative comes to visit, he's a midget and well, that's as far as I got. What the heck was the point of all of this? I didn't even bother to wait for Michael Carradine to come on, as I was already pummeled senseless by the combination of the slow script AND having to deal with a midget in a dramatic role. I call this coffee table cinema. The type of cinema that appeals to just a scant few of you, but the others just STAY AWAY.


Looking and sounding like a cheap porno without the sex, this is the first in an impressive string of stinkers from producer (or in this case director) Geoffrey Reeve.

And it's a doozy. Laughable on just about every level.

Some government agents (I think) are "professionally murdered" in Amsterdam and a considerably less-than-charismatic, block-of-wood Interpol agent (who I assure you is not named Louis Salinger) is sent in to investigate by walking around a lot to ensure the tax-dodge financiers get their money's worth for the plane tickets to shoot on location.

The wannabe-hard-hitting attitudes to drugs and depiction of prostitution must have looked laughably outdated even before the celluloid dried, but the script at least is very obliging in that it explains exactly what's happening regularly in horribly contrived direlogue ("Were you followed? Oh no of course not. No one outside Washington even knows you're here!") yet despite this the plot somehow remains confusing. By the time a sinister Vladimir Putin lookalike Priest (no less than Kronsteen from From Russia with Love) swaggers up to his pulpit to deliver a sermon your brain will have switched off, which is unfortunate because you'll miss our hero - pinned to the ground during a fight - struggling to reach for a plank of wood only to later realise he is in fact sitting on a loaded pistol, and him shouting "You bastaaaard!" at his friend's murdered corpse, and the leather-bound, moustachioed go-go boys, the morris dancing and the hilarious torture sequence - all of which provide ample laughs. Only the climactic boat chase impresses. It's an exciting, well-directed sequence that really has no place in this movie. Such a glaring anomaly is explained when the credits roll - Reeve had nothing to do with that sequence! Thankfully everything goes back to business as usual for the ridiculous, spit-out-your-drink twist and warehouse shootout.

Unless such a wretched thing as a Geoffrey Reeve completist exists - and you're one of them - I wouldn't bother with this instantly forgettable nonsense.


Storyline drags. Drug smugglers a Beautiful women and a determined cop. Nothing not already done a hundred times before. The boat sceen will be well worth the wait Amsterdam is the perfect city to pull it off. The canals and waterways put you on the edge of your seat. I would say the same as did the car chase in Bullitt, very intense!.


Ruggero Deodato is often credited for inventing the cannibal subgenre with JUNGLE HOLOCAUST in 1975. But director Umberto Lenzi, usually acknowledged as a Deodato rip-off, directed THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER 3 years earlier in 1972. Is it a worthy start for the genre? Well....not really.....

A photographer accidentally kills a man in self-defense and while retreating into the jungles of an Asian country, is captured by a native tribe who hold him captive, force him into slave labor, and eventually accept him when he marries the chief's daughter. Throughout the whole film, I never felt this was a horror film. It was more reminiscent of a drama, like A MAN CALLED HORSE, which I liked better. Ivan Rassimov is pretty good as the photographer, but it is Me Me Lai as the chief's daughter who is memorable and great. I have always been a Me Me Lai fan ever since her breathtaking performance in JUNGLE HOLOCAUST and she is never given credit for her acting chops because she hardly speaks in her films. She is still very talented and charming. Lots of real animal mutilation is the one thing about DEEP RIVER that could make it a horror film, but even that doesn't execute well.

THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER is good to see for those who want to see what started the cannibal subgenre, but as an entry in the genre, is easily eclipsed by Deodato's entries and even Lenzi's own later entries. Recommended only for completists and Me Me Lai fans.


No shortage of female flesh but still not interesting! Lenzi at least is capable of so far greater probably peaking at Spasmo and starting with Kiss Me Kill Me

The Hard Gore R2 DVD release may be cut at 86 minutes, but this movie contains one act of cannibalism and one victim - a scene with a native girl who is brutalised and disembowelled by the cannibal tribe we are warned of and who later set fire to some huts. Arsonist Holocaust? Firestarter Fernox anyone?

Certainly not a cannibal flick but was there ever a decent one made? Avoid.


I purchased this one for a couple of dollars at the local video store, as they cleared out their tapes in favour of DVDs. I doubt they'll be replacing this one, somehow.

I couldn't say that it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but it's very dull. No real cannibal scenes. Me Me Lai is not naked enough of the time (only about 4 or 5 times). And she's not the Thai goddess that I expected, either. So two of my reasons for watching this movie were knocked out.

There is some severe animal violence here for those that enjoy that sort of thing. A great fight between a mongoose and a large snake gets quite bloody. Animal torture, as well, some of which is real and some fake. Thankfully the fake is somewhat funny, but the real is just a little sickening.

Generally speaking, it's a 70s film - overly long, under-developed, not as deep as it would have liked to have been. But it's something different, right? ONE AND A HALF STARS!


From the late teens to the 1920s, Stan Laurel was a solo act in films. During this time period, Laurel was definitely NOT among the upper echelons of talent and his humor isn't nearly as good as contemporaries such as Lloyd or Keaton. However, for second-tier short comedies, he did create a decent niche. As far as the quality of the films go, they varied wildly. Some, such as DR. PYCKLE AND MR. PRYDE, were terrific, whereas most were of average to below average in quality.

FROZEN HEARTS is an odd film. Like many of the films he made for Hal Roach and distributed by Pathé during this period, the costumes were absolutely first-rate and the film looked very nice. However, despite this and having support from the likes of James Finlayson, one thing they forgot to include in this film was humor. None of the jokes seem to work and the film looks almost like a drama, not a comedy. Only the really silly intertitle cards betray the type film it's supposed to be.

My advice is try to see all his Laurel and Hardy films and then see the solo films. In addition to DR. PYCKLE, try seeing THE SOILERS and MUD AND SAND--two of his more tolerable solo shorts.


I am testing myself to watch 3 bad movies in a row to find out if watching 3 bad movies in a row could give me amnesia I have a dubbed to English version of this movie. Now let me go down the points Music Score: bad quality but at least it suits Story: it's about a guy who goes to a town and he meets his sheriff brother and they fight for farmers land from a major and he allies with mexicans to drive them out and Trinity and his brother try to teach them to defend it - The final climatic fight scene will confuse anyone about who the #### are the good guys Conclusion: better than I thought but I need to continue with this I am next going to watch the Dolph Lungren and Jean-Claudde Vanne Damme movie "Universal Soldier" pray for my sanity