I saw this movie yesterday and thought it was awful; it was pointless and just plain stupid. the supposed plot concerned a prospective bridegroom too caught up in the problems of the world to relate to his bride and the other people in his life. He disappears on his wedding day (in a tux no less) and hooks up with an assortment of weirdos.

We saw it with a bus-load of people on the way down to Atlantic City and everyone agreed that it was a terrible movie. It was trying to be profound but it wasn't; it was stupid and offensive. If I wasn't on a bus I would have walked out on the movie. Anyone considering seeing the movie or renting or buying the video you have been forewarned.


If you took all the stock elements of a Shrek movie (grumpy ogre, annoying donkey, cute kitty, obligatory dance number, etc.), put them in a blender and condensed it to 20 minutes, you'd have this mess. Painful to watch; I may have laughed once. The story and dialogue are rushed beyond comprehension, with the voice actors sounding like they phoned in their lines. The final reworked rendition of "The Christmas Story" poem felt like it was written by a committee in five minutes. And boy, a little Eddie Murphy goes a long way. With its desperate attempt to be hip and current, this show will be long outdated and forgotten while classics like "The Grinch" will remain timeless. A sad waste of effort by all involved, a veritable "jumping of the shark" for the Shrek franchise.


While the premise of the film sounded unique and intriguing after watching the first 5 minutes of the film I could have stopped there and gone on with my life. She does get some interesting comments and reactions from her subjects, but not really enough to add to the validity of the film.

I also felt she went a bit overboard with many things. If a guy said a filthy comment, grabbed her, or made some disgusting gesture to her, I would say go for it, bring him down, he's a pig. What bothered me though is she would walk around in revealing clothes and be surprised when guys would look at her and give them hell about it.

I think somehow she forgot that being attracted to other people is a part of human sexuality and a big part of who we all are. Guys will look at beautiful women, especially when they dress provocatively, just like women will look at men when they are wearing a tight tank or no shirt at all.

Some women may hate me for this, but I hope not. I have much respect for women. I was raised by one. I also come from a Spanish family and we are very matriarchal. My grandmother was the center of my family for years, but I don't really feel this did anything to help women's rights and from what the filmmaker even said herself, some women were offended by her project.


I love ghost stories and I will sit through a movie til it's end, even if I'm not really enjoying it. I rarely feel like I wasted my time... BUT, this adaptation of the Bell Witch story was horrible!

It wasn't scary in the least bit. What is with the comic relief moments? The dialog was tedious. Acting inconsistent The movie was WAY too long and some scenes were unnecessarily drawn out in my open. (Like the birthday party)

The only good think I can think about mentioning is the costumes and props were well done.

I am curious about other adaptation, but until then, I will stick to reading about the story.


BELL WITCH HAUNTING (aka THE HAUNT) is an American horror movie supposedly based on real events that took place during the period 1817 to 1821.

This is not to be confused with BELL WITCH: THE MOVIE, a movie starring Betsy Palmer based on the same events. However, I can say that I wish I had seen this other movie instead of the one I saw! I enjoyed Betsy Palmer's chilling performance in Friday THE 13TH. As such, I believe that even on a bad day, she'd pull off a better performance than anyone involved in the travesty known as THE HAUNT.

With regard to my heading, this movie is not painful to watch because the content is disturbing. It is painful to watch because it is just downright boring.

Reading the positive reviews for this movie, I could only identify three possibilities. The first possibility - these authors were involved in the production in some way. The second possibility - the authors whilst not directly involved were paid to write positive reviews after production was completed. The final possibility - none of these authors has seen a sufficient number of horror movies and therefore is inexperienced with the concepts that successful attempts utilise.

The setting for the plot is Robertson County, Tennessee. James Johnston receives a visit from two journalists eager to hear the story of the Bell Witch. The story is told as a series of flashbacks. A series of supernatural events begin happening at the home of John Bell and his family. It soon transpires that a vengeful spirit is behind it all.

On the surface the plot appears to be a standard poltergeist affair, albeit one based on real events.

Where execution of the brilliant concept is concerned however, just about everything that could go wrong does go wrong. And then some!

First, the acting. The acting is almost uniformly terrible right across the board. This factor does the most damage to the production, undermining any possible credibility of belief or interest on the part of the viewer. The voice of the vengeful spirit sounds more like a teenage girl experiencing teenage angst rather than a powerful demonic force expressing malevolent intent. I almost laughed when I heard some of her lines. Unfortunately, this voice began to become very annoying very quickly! I may not have been alive in the 1800s, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that any young woman alive at that time would speak in the way that this "ghost" does!

Second, the direction. The direction is haphazard and very uneven. Some scenes show promise but potential is squandered by the clearly inexperienced director. Nothing is done with the camera, with sound or with lighting to add intensity to the scenes intended to be scary. The atmosphere is equally flat. A vengeful spirit is supposedly behind supernatural occurrences. Yet the effects are so incredibly inept that no one who has seen a proper horror movie would buy into them. I'll give one example. In one scene, the spirit attacks someone. See the scene for yourself. It's almost funny - almost.

Third, the script. Whilst it may be the case that the events shown are faithful to accounts of real occurrences, it cannot be denied that most scenes are incredibly flat and boring. Scenes as short as two minutes feel much longer thanks to the poor dialogue - dialogue that fails to add depth to the characters or story. This movie is far too reliant on conversations to advance the story. Whilst this style was also the case with British movies from the British horror heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, it cannot be denied that the dialogue exchanges were always interesting to watch in these more professional earlier works. Peter Cushing for example could read a telephone directory and still hold attention of the viewers. The same cannot be said of the actors in THE HAUNT.

Finally, the humour. The ill-guided attempts at humour in this movie are excruciating. An obese boy is the butt of many jokes. One particularly awful scene sees the said boy going to the outside toilet. This scene should never have been included - but it is and complete with sound effects in case you fail to understand what he is doing!

The only positive points about the movie are the location and the costumes. The decision to shoot the picture near the original location helped add some authenticity. The costumes were also well chosen.

Overall, THE HAUNT is an appalling movie. It is not even in the "so bad it's good" league. It is instead just boring. I advise everyone to save their money and avoid this movie like the plague. Don't even bother seeing it for free!

I have never seen the other movie about the Bell Witch. But it really couldn't be any worse than THE HAUNT. Could it? I'll give this other movie a chance if I can track it down.

In the meantime, I would advise everyone on here to check out some proper horror movies about ghosts and haunting. THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE, THE CHANGELING, RINGU, THE GRUDGE (Japanese original) and ONE MISSED CALL (Japanese original) are good places to start.


The filmmaker stayed true to the most accurate account of the story published in 1894 which includes an 1846 manuscript by Richard Williams Bell (son of John and Lucy Bell and younger brother of Betsy Bell) titled "Our Family Trouble." To knowledge this is the only eyewitness account ever penned. The filmmaker should be credited for accuracy but there is little to say about the production and acting quality. The acting was theatrical and the sound and picture quality was extremely poor. It appears that the filmmaker simply shot scenes of the reported events that took place without incorporating or weaving them into a flowing plot or story line. If you must know the story, read about it, its much more gripping and conclusive.


I am not understanding why people are praising this movie. I didn't like it at all. I watch it with several people. None of them cared for it either. First of all. It is just plain that another low budget studio is trying to cash in on a big name story. The actual filming looks like a live TV interview. The makeup is bad. When you watch the movie along with the DVD extras. You will see there is a lot of enthusiasm from the people who participated in it. There is no talent. There are facts that do appear in the book. The facts are distorted by the invention of comedy and skits added to it. I have read several books and have watched several shows on this story. What I have always caught from all the material on this is that it was a serious horror story. I really wish someone could really do a good film on this one. It has always fascinated me. The bad acting really ruined the story. The little boys situation really hammed it up even more. When you watch this movie. The little boy and his problem is the thing you and your friends will remember and laugh about. It didn't make any sense why his brothers were laughing at what had happened to him. It was like the witch was supposed to be so threatening but it was OK to throw baby brother to her. It is a whopping tale with him and his little problem. I can't still get over the little girl saying "Mom said tobacco will rot your teeth." Frank Fox's statement and facial expression is so bad. The scene out in the yard with him getting food is pretty stupid to. The sound from parts of it seems to be from the movie psycho. Also, The girl hovering over the bed and her little "Bladder control problem" are from The Exorcist. This movie is lacking from the talent of creativity. We put the movie in for a couple of minutes and knew right away it was a bummer. I also noticed that their was defects in the film quality. Parts of it looked like what a person might film on a Home video camera. I noticed a lot of the people in the credits had many multiple jobs. This is probably how this movie was put together. Someone said I like this story. I will get all my friends and make a movie about with a video camera and a computer. Doesn't matter if we don't know how to act. As long as we get it on film and say it is good. We got the family together and prepared food. Then sat down and watched this failed attempt to make a movie.


I wanted to like this movie. I really, really did. I was so excited when I saw the preview, which scared the hell out of me. But when I saw the actual film, I was disappointed. The acting is stilted, and the attempts at comedy are woefully out of place and forced. And I'm sorry, but a boy being chased by a turd in a bedpan is not funny or scary, it's just stupid. I grew up on the Bell Witch legend, so I know quite a bit about it. A lot of facts in the movie are right on target, but this film should have been much better. The entire birthday party scene, for example, lasts about fifteen minutes, adds nothing to the plot or the story, and should have been left on the cutting room floor. A more heavy-handed editor might have been able to get a decent film out of this mess.

Please understand, I'm not in any way, shape or form involved with the other Bell Witch movie, and I'm not trying to "attack" this IMDb listing. I'm just telling it like it is.


In addition to the fact that this is just an abysmally made film (imagine giving a camcorder to the average high school drama club) the people who think that there is anything "real" about this legend need to grow up. This is the 21st century. Guess what: ghosts don't exist. Most people learn that from their mother when they're about 5 years old. You guys seriously need to grow up.

The fact that a fraud was perpetrated nearly 2 centuries ago does not make it any less a fraud. The fact that a large number of inbred hillbillies from Tennessee believe it doesn't do it either. Go to college. Or at least finish high school.


Are you kidding me? This is quite possibly the worst, amateur movie I've ever seen. The casting was horrible, the acting was worse than horrible and I'm sorry, the guy at the picnic speed loading his plate full of food was somewhere near pointless and the demonic turd and chamber pot chasing Drew around was nothing more than comical. When I herd about the Bell Witch, I wanted to believe. I read some literature on it and thought it sounded like it was possible a plausible story. But this movie just destroyed that. Ric White (Director, Writer, Lead Actor, etc) takes himself a bit too seriously and I think he gives himself a little more credit than he deserves....Do yourself a favor....skip this one.


If anyone tells you this picture is just terrific they probably have something to do with either making it or profiting from it. This film is a real loser and it copies situations from big budget horror movies and not to mention soundtracks to. I wouldn't recommend this one to my worst enemy. It is a low budget movie with amateur actors. It looks like it was filmed for a film contest. The acting is terrible and it wouldn't surprise me if the script was written by a Hee Haw script writer. My family laughed at it. A Grade ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ all the way. You won't be scared by this one. Here is one little taste of the terrible elements of this film. When the guy gets his toe stomped by Ric White's stupid portrayal of the Reverend James Johnston walking cane. The guys reactions are like if he had an amputation with no pain killer. Watch the DVD extras after you watch the movie. When you see Ric White and others talk so seriously about the movie you will laugh till your stomach hurts. How people will stretch the truth and what they will do to earn a dishonest buck. Don't get fooled like we did and buy this failure.


I saw this movie with my girlfriend. It was a total disaster. You can really see it was cheaply made. Badly scripted and with very bad acting. I have read several versions of the book by different authors and also listened to one version on audio book. We couldn't take the movie seriously because of the lacking elements it should have contained. The experience of watching this was like The Blair Witch visits Green Acres. Then there were parts that were vulgar. They show this little boy using a bed pan and they actually show the contents of it. The witch throws the contents of it on the boy and the whole family laughs. I thought it was nasty and very strange. I really can't understand why someone would think that would be entertaining. It shows another scene where Dr. Mize arrives and Betsy Bell is urinating in her dress on the steps of their house in front of her mother and brothers. Instead of the mother leading her off it is the brother. How sick? The little boy in the first scene of the many scenes dealing with how your body disposes of wastes begs for toilet paper and goes to the out house and makes these sickening faces of joy with sound effects. I think they should have left all of that out. The makeup on the Reverend James Johnston as a older man didn't really make you assume he was older. It made you think he was dipped in fish batter. The blood on Joshua Gardner when he falls from the ladder is even worse. The John Bell death scene looks like they got out flour and tried to do something with it to make him look as a serious sick man. To me to much sickening comedy with bathroom problems and inexperienced people involved was the downfall of this picture. These people would do better if they film commercials for local TV Stations for bathroom products. They chose a good subject and were unable to produce it in a correct manner. I rate this film Capital F minus.


Thank God I didn't buy this movie myself! I borrowed it from a friend who bought it out of sheer curiosity and of course after viewing it feel they should be reimbursed! This has got to be one of THE worse movies I've EVER seen! I do realize they couldn't have had much of a budget but I swear I could make a better movie than this staring my pets! The acting was horrible, so was the editing, the dialogue, EVERYTHING! It was so bad that it was seriously making me angry as I watched it! I'm looking forward to the REAL movie about this story coming out soon so that people curious about it don't have to stoop to watch this joke!


I walked into a book store in Brentwood, Tennessee. I am not going to say the name because I am a dedicated customer. I have been satisfied with every item I purchased there before this one. On display in the front of the store was The Bell Witch Haunting. (Might I mention this is the only store I have seen it for sale in.) I had heard about the story somewhere and remembered it was supposed to have really happened for real. I was very excited and couldn't wait to watch it. I had great expectations for it. I couldn't believe what I seen when I viewed it. It didn't look like a real movie. It looked like a home video. I was under the impression it was suppose to be a horror movie. I mean the movie was suppose to be about a witch haunting you know. This is no horror movie. You will not jump out of your seat watching this movie. I gave the movie all the chances in the world to get better as it went along. I swear I did. It never did get any better. There were several scenes of this little kid getting poop and pee thrown on him. I didn't find that entertaining at all. I watched the whole movie with disbelief that the store would actually sell this to me. I guess that is how bad this economy has got. I have this to say to the cast and crew. Do not show this film as material to get other film jobs. Don't do it. I mean that sincerely. I commend you for trying. For people who have bought this. I say this. Don't sell your copy to someone. They could get very upset. Have a nice day everyone.


All the criticisms of this movie are quite valid! It is pretty boring, and filled with all kinds of pointless ridiculous stuff. A couple exchanging nods over their "good grub." A medium shot of a desk as a phone rings until someone finally comes, sits down, and answers it at a pretty leisurely pace. Quadruple-takes or more when people look at things. Solitary banjo-tuning and playing, taking a break for a beer. Telling a joke to a fawn, about a big-mouthed frog trying to learn what to feed its babies, complete with many big-mouthed expressions (which are needed for the weak punchline). The sharing of cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches on oatmeal bread, which to the squeamish become unpalatable when there's talk of people burned in a fire. Lots of seemingly stock-footage close-up shots of animals, birds, insects, and spiders in the woods.

The movie starts with a forest fire, then at least a couple decades later some people in those same woods get killed by an axe. The killer evidently wasn't too satisfied by the axe he stole, and kills other people with other weapons of opportunity or his bare hands.

If it's true that the movie in the version available on the out-of-print videotape is cut, perhaps if there's a lot of footage that was cut, it deserves another look on DVD. Otherwise, it's simply not very interesting, and would probably try the patience of even the most hardcore outdoors-slasher fan.


The prey has an interesting history, unless you remember the ads for it in newspapers in June of 1984 you might have caught it on the Movie channel back in summer 85, but little else is remembered. The plot is your basic killer in the woods again. But ironically this was filmed before Friday the 13th. The prey was actually shot sometime in 1978 according to one of the actors in an interview years later. But released for about a week at some drive ins, (yes Jim, namans drive in showed this in June of 84). But it has a dated look to it. Maybe they released it so later on to cash in on all the other terror films the market was flooded with by 1984. Now on the story, it has some kind of back story, a forest fire back in the 1940's leaves a lot of Gypsies burned to death. But one of their children survive (our monster) so flash forward to present day which would be 1978, we have an older middle age couple camping only to be dispatched by the Monster. The tag line for this picture claims ITS NOT HUMAN, AND ITS GOT AN AXE, but an Axe was only used in these first two killings. Now we have a bunch of teenagers who look like they in their mid 20's camping. We all know they are the Prey, and the monster knocks them of one by one. For an 80 minute movie it seems longer. We also have a lot of wildlife footage to fill in voids for the 80 mins. Overall for being out into an 80-'s horror movie it looks way more 70's than ever. Hey the Prey had potential to be a good horror killer in the woods movie but falls a little short.. It does however feature a pretty scary cool looking monster at the end, and we have to wait till the last 2 minutes to see him. Side note, the monster has gone on to star in the Addams family movies in the 1990's..


Rented 3 bad movies to watch with my friends in my dorm room.

Leprechaun 4, Jack Frost and The Prey.

I picked up Jack and Lep 4 because they are well known bad movies I have never seen.

I picked this movie out because it matched the "How to find a bad movie" guide on badmovies.org, No real description, no pics of the movie on the back, and I had never heard of it, had to be a winner :)

(SPOILERS, but this movie is so awful it doesn't matter :P)

This is a TRUE bad movie, Lep 4 and Jack Frost are dumb on purpose, this is dumb despite the best efforts of the cast and crew.

This "movie" starts out much like Evil Dead, even the actors look similar and have the same style of dress. Unlike Evil Dead it never gains any speed at all. For a "slasher" movie it is pretty bland, in 80 minutes 6 people get killed, but these are spread apart so far it becomes quickly boring.

The director threw in a lot of boring shots on animals hunting, obviously to go along with the whole "Prey" theme but they do nothing to advance the story and are quite boring. The gore is horrible. All these extra shots were to make up for lack of a script and story.

The last 5 minutes of the movie are shot mostly in slow motion, yet another way to add length to this. The "climax" is such a total joke, its hard to laugh at it is so bad. The back of the box says "The ending will shock and haunt you." Yes it will, it will shock you that someone could put such a bad "plot twist" on film and "haunt" you because you won't believe you paid to watch this crap.

Also the tagline is "Its not human, and it's got an axe!" One person is killed with an axe in the whole movie and it is off screen.

A true 1 out of 10. I LOVE laughing at bad movies, but this one is so bad that it even lacks campy qualities. No bad movie night is compete without a true character building flick :P


Foolish hikers go camping in the Utah mountains only to run into a murderous, disfigured gypsy.

The Prey is a pretty run of the mill slasher film, that mostly suffers from a lack of imagination. The victim characters are all-too-familiar idiot teens which means one doesn't really care about them, we just wonder when they will die! Not to mention it has one too many cheesy moments and is padded with endless, unnecessary nature footage. However it does have a few moments of interest to slasher fans, the occasional touch of spooky atmosphere, and a decent music score by Don Peake. Still, it's business as usual for dead-camper movies.

There are much better films in this vein, but over all The Prey may be watchable enough for die-hard slasher fans. Although one might be more rewarded to watch Just Before Dawn (1981), Wrong Turn (2003), or even The Final Terror (1983) again.

* 1/2 out of ****


Even by the lowered standards of '80s slasher movies, this one stinks. The usual gaggle of oversexed teens heads for a "forbidden" part of forest, which burned in the 1940s and apparently left a sole angry survivor. Fast forward (actually, you'll want to fast-forward through much of this mess) to the present day, where a couple of campers are butchered; the teens follow in their wake, while a semi-concerned park ranger (a sleepwalking Jackie Coogan) and his healthier cohort (who spins a lot of time tuning his banjo) succeed partially in steering our attention from yards of run-of-the-mill nature-footage padding. Finally, more killings--but nothing you haven't seen a zillion times before. If you want to see the kids butchered, opt for SLEEPAWAY CAMP or the first FRIDAY THE 13TH over this


Supercraptastic slasher fare, which feels overly long at 80 minutes. Years ago, a bunch of "gypsies" who lived in the caves of a mountain, were burned up in a forest fire. Years later, campers are going missing from the area of the fire. A bunch of horny kids are, of course, en route to this area for a debaucherous camping trip of there own. Despite an ominous welcome from the forest ranger (Jackson Bostwick) the kids troop up to the mountain any way. Before long, the kids start to get picked off by the monster, who remains unseen to the very end of the movie, probably because the makeup was so embarrassingly bad. No surprises to speak of: they get killed in the exact order that the formula for these movies dictates, leaving the "final girl" to fend for herself, although in a refreshingly downbeat denouement, the final girl ends up imprisoned and impregnated by the monster.

The story itself couldn't hold the weight of feature length, so it was padded out by seemingly endless shots of wildlife and insects, which were obviously shot for another film and inserted here haphazardously as a means of making the movie long enough for a video release. On the plus side, the wildlife footage is rather nice. Also among the highlights are Bostwick talking to a baby deer, a decent rock-climbing death sequence, OK gore, and the Great Jackie Coogan in his final film role, as the bumbling local sheriff. This is a far cry from Charlie Chaplin, but it was still nice to see him. This is for slasher completists only.


Oh yeah, this one is definitely a strong contender to win the questionable award of "worst 80's slasher ever made". "The Prey" has got everything you usually want to avoid in a horror flick: a routine, derivative plot that you've seen a thousand times before (and better), insufferable characters and terrible performances, a complete lack of gore and suspense, fuzzy photography and unoriginal locations and  most irritating of all  the largest amount of pointless padding footage you've ever encountered in your life (and that's not an exaggeration but a guarantee!). Apart from the seemingly endless amount of National Geographic stock footage, which I'll expand upon later, this film is shameless enough to include a complete banjo interlude (!) and two occasions where characters tell dillydally jokes that aren't even remotely funny! The set-up is as rudimentary as it gets, with the intro showing images of a devastating forest fire with OTT voice-over human screams. Fast forward nearly forty years later, when an elderly couple out camping in that same area get axe-whacked by something that breathes heavily off-screen. This ought to be enough information for you to derive that someone survived the fire all these years ago and remained prowling around ever since. Enter three intolerable twenty something couples heading up to the danger zone with exclusively sex on their minds, unaware of course they are sitting ducks for the stalking and panting killer. "The Prey" is an irredeemable boring film. Apparently it was shot in 1978 already, but nobody wanted to distribute it up until 1984 and it isn't too hard to see why. In case you would filter out all the content that is actually relevant, this would only be a short movie with a running time of 30 minutes; possibly even less. There's an unimaginably large of nature and wildlife footage, sometimes of animals that I think don't even live in that type of area, and they seem to go on forever. The only thing missing, in fact, is the typical National Geographic narration providing educational information regarding the animals' habits. Animals in their own natural biotope are undeniably nice to look at, but not in a supposedly vile and cheesy 80's slasher movie, for crying out loud. The last fifteen minutes are finally somewhat worthwhile, with some potent killing sequences and fine make-up effects on the monster (who turns out to be Lurch from "The Addams Family" movies), but still silliness overrules  the scene with the vultures is too stupid  and the final shot is just laugh-out-loud retarded. As mentioned above, "The Prey" easily makes my own personal list of worst 80's slashers, alongside "Appointment with Fear", "Berserker", "Deadly Games", "Don't Go in the Woods", "Hollow Gate", "The Stay Awake" and "Curfew".


Uhhh ... so, did they even have writers for this? Maybe I'm picky, but I like a little dialog with my movies. And, as far as slasher films go, just a sliver of character development will suffice.

Unfortunately, The Prey provides neitherand if you think I'm being hyperbolic, you'll just have to see it for yourself. Scene after scene, we just get actors standing around, looking forlorn and awkward, abandoned by any sense of a script. Outside of calling out each other's names when they get separated in the woods (natch), the only instances where these people say something substantive is when one character explains the constellation Orion (clearly plagiarized from Funk & Wagnalls; scintillating slasher fare, no?) and another rehashes an old campfire tale that doesn't even have anything to do with the plot (wait, what IS the plot?) At other times, The Prey actually has the gall to film its characters with the boom mic just far away enough so that we can't exactly hear what they're saying. So we get entire scenes wherein the actors are murmuring! Deliberately! Seriously, I've seen more dialog in a silent film. It's as if the filmmakers sat down at a bar somewhere in Rancho Cucamonga in the heyday of the '80s slasher craze and one looked at the other and said, "Hey, I gotta really sweet idea for a gory decapitation gag. Let's somehow pad an entire feature around it." And ... well, they did.

To be fair, The Prey probably had some sort of writer on board. I mean, somebody had to jot down the scene sequence and label the dailies. However, I am fully convinced that this film did not have an editor of any kind whatsoever. There are glaring pauses, boring tableaux, and zero sense of pacing throughout. The filmmakers don't have anything else in the "script" to film, so they fill out the running time with exhaustive taxonomies of the flora and fauna that inhabit the forest in which our wild and crazy teens are getting sliced and diced. These critters are all filmed in straightforward, noontime daylight in a completely reserved fashion and with no attempt at atmospheric photography. If it feels like a science film, that's because it is. I'm pretty sure this is all nature show stock footageall that's missing is a stuffy narration from some National Geographic alderman.

More exciting footage that was graciously spared from the cutting room floor: a scene in which two men discuss cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, and another scene wherein a supporting character strums away on a banjo for what feels like an entire minute-and-a- half! A minute-and-a-half! That's a lot of banjoing to commit to celluloid to begin with, let alone insert into the final cut of the film! Way to go, guys! Brevity and concision are the real victims of this slaughterfest.

Admittedly, the film picks up quite a bit of steam (comparatively) in the last 25 minutes, into which much of the carnage is condensed and where a rip-off of Béla Bartók's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta" cuts in. Vaudeville great Jackie Coogan makes a fun appearance as a tubby, bumbly park ranger (this was his last role, if you can believe it). And there are some nice gory moments, including a splattery neck tearing and the aforementioned decapitation. The make-up used for the killer (Carel Struycken, aka "Lurch" from the Addams Family movies) is also quite effective, and makes him look like a strange hybrid of young Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. Plus, if you love wacky, straight-outta-left-field endings, you need to check out how they wrap this puppy up. You'll do a spit take, I promise.

Usually, I love films that are on this level of ineptitude, but the first three-quarters of The Prey are just so interminably boring that they pretty much spoil the rest. Overall, this is a largely pallid and tedious affair, and, while it ain't all bad, it should really only be seen by debilitated slasher completists. Why do we do this to ourselves, anyway?


Everything everyone has said already pretty much rings true when it comes to 'The Prey'. Endless nature footage, bad acting - Aside from these elements, this is a watchable film for slasher fans that in some cases, is considered a cult classic.

Jackson Bostwick and Jackie Coogan play pretty well off each other. There's also a three minute banjo solo that shows off Bostwick's skill behind the instrument. Not too bad if I do say so myself.

The last ten minutes of the 'film' are its saving grace. The ending still haunts me to this day. This can also sport a short lived plus in that an early John Carl Bucheler does the special effects. Some may know him from films like 'Troll' and 'Friday the 13th part 7 - He directed both these films) All in all, this isn't a movie everyone will find something redeeming in. In fact, on a Hollywood level, this can rank right up there with one of the businesses most amateurish efforts, but for that handful (yet very loyal) of slasher movie fans in the world, even the bad acting and atrocious nature footage can be forgiven.


1980 was certainly a year for bad backwoods slasher movies. "Friday The 13th" and "The Burning" may have been the best ones but there were like always a couple of stinkers not far behind like "Don't Go Into The Woods Alone" and this one. But in all fairness "The Prey" is nowhere near as bad as "Don't Go Into The Woods" but it's still not great either. One thing is that it's just boring and acting isn't very good but much better than "DGITW" and this movie actually has some attractive looking females to look at, all three of the female leads were stunning. One thing what is up with all that pointless wildlife footage it just seemed pointless and it looked as the director used that to just used that to fill up some time space.

So, what was there to like about this movie? Well, there were a few laugh out loud cheese moments- I couldn't contain a fit of giggles when the final girl did a bizarre type of backwards moon-walk to get away from the kille and there were a few good kill scenes- my favourites being the girl suffocated to death with the sleeping bag; and the phoney looking.

All in all The Prey is dumb, boring and the killer I didn't find scary at all, this movie could have been a whole lot better.


I think that would have been a more appropriate title for this film, since it is padded to hell and back with stock footage of various bugs and animals. I recently found The Prey in its original VHS 'big box' form and was very excited. I just LOVE finding old slasher films on VHS because the cover artwork is fantastic. Usually though, it turns out that the film itself is less than fantastic. The Prey is one of those films.

To be fair, it started off OK, with the killer stalking the cliché teenagers in the woods. The heartbeat sounds used are a great effect that make you tense as you watch. This film is basically a big fat cliché, and when the "campfire stories" section rolls in, the film takes a new direction and spends almost half of the running time on the back-story of the killer. I actually thought this was quite an original idea. However, the back-story ends abruptly and shows us some stock-footage of a burning woodland (the lack of budget really starts to show now). After this, we are returned to the dumb teenagers being picked off in the woods. The killer himself isn't shown until the end, which is a shame because he actually makes an effective looking killer. Sort of like Cropsy from The Burning, but better. As for gore, there isn't too much, although there's an OK face squishing moment at the end.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone other than slasher completists - it really is a big mess.


Sure, most of the slasher films of the 1980's were not worth the

celluloid they were filmed on, but this video nightmare may well be

the dullest produced.

Six horny pot smoking students decide to go camping. Of course,

and you know this already, they begin getting killed one by one by a

mysterious stranger. The climax has a hunky forest ranger trying to

get to the teens in time before the last cute girl becomes buzzard

bait.

John Carl Buechler, my least favorite B-movie guy, did the lousy

makeup effects here. The cast features Carel Struycken, of "The

Witches of Eastwick" and the Addams family movies. Sadly, he

does not pop up until the very end of the film, and is covered in

burn makeup, rendering him unrecognizable. Steve Bond (anyone

remember him?) is here in an early role as a victim.

Brown's direction, and the script he cowrote, both smell like the

presents brown bears leave in the woods. He pads the film with

so much stock wilderness footage, I thought I accidentally rented a

special episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Much of the

cast sits around the campfire and eats, then walk, and sit and eat

again. The forest ranger is involved in the strangest scene ever put

in a slasher film: he tells a joke about a wide mouthed frog to a

baby deer. Jackie Coogan, who must have forgot he once worked

with the legends of silent cinema, has two scenes, and is involved

in the second strangest scene ever put in a slasher film: he and

the hunky forest ranger have a conversation about cucumber and

cream cheese sandwiches on oatmeal bread...yeah.

There is not one minute of suspense here. The killer, a forest fire

survivor looking for a mate, watches the students from behind

trees. We know it is the killer because the film makers have

dubbed in a heart beat sound effect that helpfully serves to wake

the viewer up every few minutes. Skip this pile of pine sap and rent

"Halloween," instead.

This is rated (R) for physical violence, mild gun violence, gore,

some profanity, brief female nudity, mild sexual content, sexual

references, and drug abuse.


This is truly, without exaggerating, one of the worst Slasher movies ever made. I know, it came out in the 80's following a tendency started by "Friday the 13th". "The Prey" copies the fore-mentioned movie in many aspects. The woods setting, the killer, the dumb teens, the gore, etc.

But "The Prey" is as bad as you might expect. I didn't even remember about it if it wasn't for coincidence.

Well, the killer is in fact human so don't expect a supernatural killer in the likes of Jason. The situations rather boring and lack of tension, gore, violence, etc. It just does not works for a slasher flick.

The acting is simply horrid. The score is horrible! a combination of boring instruments with cheesy 80's tunes?! I won't even mention the technical aspects of the movie because believe me, it seems that it cost only 20 dollars.

Please avoid this one like the plague. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and that's something to say. Thank God it seems to have vanished from earth.


The best thing about "The Prey" is the tag line..."It's not human and it's got an axe"! The movie itself is a padded stinkaroo....endless insect and wildlife shots make the viewer wanna die! No slasher fan will like this garbage.....Watch "Friday the 13th" again and burn any copy of this film you find!

It also rates as one of the 25 worst films ever made!


New York family is the last in their neighborhood to get a television set, which nearly ruins David Niven's marriage to Mitzi Gaynor. Bedroom comedy that rarely ventures into the bedroom(and nothing sexy happens there anyway). Gaynor as an actress has about as much range as an oven--she turns on, she turns off. Film's sole compensation is a supporting performance by perky Patty Duke, pre-"Miracle Worker", as Niven's daughter. She's delightful; "Happy Anniversary" is not. * from ****


Many people are standing in front of the house n some women are crying... Men standing in close groups and speaking in hushed up tone... a couple of guys come in and they are discussing how sexy the daughter might look today... soon u will know someone in the house has died... The dead person's wife is worried about preparing food for so many people, her friend sitting beside her gives an idea of making the matters easy by preparing simple roti sabji... One of the dead person's son is speaking with someone over the mobile, Daughter is busy with her makeup... her mother suggests her to wear salwar kameej, but the daughter is more interested in looking good when so many people will be visiting their house and hence prefers jeans and T shirt over salwar kameez... another son asks her mom to finish all the kriyas and also indicates to her that he should not be expected to come early from the office... Then the camera slowly focuses on the dead person... the white cloth covering the face is displaced slightly due to the wind, revealing the face ... Its Anupam Kher... suddenly alarm rings and he gets up from the bed... Is it his dream or a flash back? U won't get an answer until the end of the movie...Well, This is wat comedy is for the director Dibakar Banerjee!!!!! Later u find out this scene has nothing to do with the actual movie and hence making everything obvious that the still described earlier was a dream. Is this a film comedy? Well it is supposed to belong to that category... But it actually does not!!! there is nothing that can be remotely associated with comedy in the movie!!! More over the director gives the message that no one will get justice from Police!!! so everyone must cheat the cheats!!!! or forget about Justice!!!! Music by Bapi-Tutul & Dhruv Dhalla is OK... Nothing much to tell about other sectors... Bad script destroys everything... not even Anupam Kher's performance succeeds in making it at least a paisa vasool...


Earth has been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. Well, parts of the Earth, because somewhere in Italy, a band of purebred survivors--those without radioactive contamination--are holed up in a massive mansion surrounded by lush grounds, waiting for the next opportunity to go hunting for those with polluted blood. The Final Executioner is the story of one of their would be victims, Alan (William Mang, who looks, not surprisingly, a lot like Kurt Russell), and his efforts to take down the legally sanctioned hunters, who are led by Edra (Marina Costa) and Erasmus (Harrison Muller Jr. ). Alan has been trained to kill by former NYPD cop Sam (Woody Strode) who mostly hangs around giving his pupil moral support and mooching for tinned meat. Strode is by far the best thing about the film, though he doesn't look at all well and only appears for about a third of the running time. As for the story, it's a blending of elements from better films and stories, including Ten Little Indians, The Most Dangerous Game, and Escape From New York. The Final Executioner moves along at a fair pace and provides reasonable entertainment for less discriminate action fans.


At the bottom end of the apocalypse movie scale is this piece of pish called 'The Final Executioner'.. at least where I come from. A bloke is trained by an ex-cop to seek vengeance on those that killed his woman and friends in cold blood.. and that's about it. Lots of fake explosions and repetitive shootings ensue. Has one of the weirdest array of costumes I've seen in a film for a while, and a massive fortress which is apparently only run by 7 people. GREAT job on the dubbing too guys(!) Best moment: when our hero loses a swordfight and is about to be skewered through the neck, he just gets out his gun and BANG! Why not do that earlier? It's a mystery. As is why anyone would want to sit through this in the first place. I'm still puzzling over that one myself now.. 2/10


Here's a decidedly average Italian post apocalyptic take on the hunting/killing humans for sport theme ala The Most Dangerous Game, Turkey Shoot, Gymkata and The Running Man.

Certainly the film reviewed here is nowhere near as much fun as the other listed entries and is furthermore dragged down by poor voice over work, generally bland action sequences, a number of entirely tasteless scenes such as a prolonged rape sequence and some truly stupid and illogical points throughout.

Take for example towards the end of the film, when our hero manages to infiltrate the compound of the villains. He initially kills a sentry and leaves him in his jeep. Upon discovery of the said corpse, the villains response? (bearing in mind that our hero has come to brutally murder them all)  They resolve to wait until the next morning to look for the culprit (!!!!!!!!!!)

However, I suppose to be fair the film remains nonetheless about watchable if you can suspend your disbelief during such stupid scenes and does benefit immensely by the presence of the always excellent Woody Strode (even if his screen time is very limited)

Not a classic by any stretch of the imagination but still just about worthy of a watch for Italian B-Movie enthusiasts.


This film is absolutely appalling and awful. It's not low budget, it's a no budget film that makes Ed Wood's movies look like art. The acting is abysmal but sets and props are worse then anything I have ever seen. An ordinary subway train is used to transport people to the evil zone of killer mutants, Woddy Strode has one bullet and the fight scenes are shot in a disused gravel pit. There is sadism as you would expect from an 80s Italian video nasty. No talent was used to make this film. And the female love interest has a huge bhind- Italian taste maybe. Even for 80s Italian standards this film is pretty damn awful but I guess it came out at a time when there weren't so many films available on video or viewers weren't really discerning. This piece of crap has no entertainment value whatsoever and it's not even funny, just boring and extremely cheap. It's actually and insult to the most stupid audience. I just wonder how on earth an actor like Woody Strode ended up ia a turkey like this?


A big disappointment for what was touted as an incredible film. Incredibly bad. Very pretentious. It would be nice if just once someone would create a high profile role for a young woman that was not a prostitute.

We don't really learn anything about this character, except that he seems to be a hopeless alcoholic. We don't know why. Nicholas Cage turns in an excellent performance as usual, but I feel that this role and this script let him down. And how, after not being able to perform for the whole film, can he have an erection on his deathbed? Really terrible and I felt like I needed a bath.


So tell me - what serious boozer drinks Budweiser? How many suicidally-obsessed drinkers house a fully stocked and barely touched range of drinks in their lonely motel room that a millionaire playboy's bachelor-pad bar would be proud to boast? And what kind of an alcoholic tends to drink with the bottle held about 8 inches from his hungry mouth so that the contents generally spill all over his face? Not to mention wasting good whisky by dousing your girlfriend's tits with it, just so the cinema audience can get a good eyeful of Elisabeth Shue's assets.

Cage seems to be portraying the most attention-seeking look-at-me alcoholic ever to have graced the screen while Shue looks more like a Berkely preppy slumming it for a summer than some seasoned street-walker. She is humiliated and subjugated as often as possible in this revolting movie with beatings, skin lacerations, anal rape and graphic verbal abuse - all of it completely implausible and included apparently only to convey a sense of her horribly demeaned state and offer the male viewers an astonishingly clichéd sentimental sexual fantasy of the 'tart-with-a-heart'.

Still - I did watch it to the end, by which time I was actually laughing out loud as Shue's tough street hooker chopped carrots in the kitchen wanly, pathetically smiling while Cage - all eyes popping and shaking like like a man operating a road drill in an earthquake - grimaced and mugged his way through the final half-hour...


Cage plays a drunk and gets high critically praise. Elizabeth Shue Actually has to do a love seen with the most unattractive and overrated piece of dung flesh in Hollywood. I literally vomited while watching this film. Of course I had the flu, but that does not mean this film did not contribute to the vomit in the kamode.

Why can't Nick Cage play something he can really pull off like a bad actor. Nick Cage who be brilliant in a role as a bad actor. Heck nobody could do it better.

The search begins for Nick's contract with Lucifer or was it Lou Cipher from "Night Train To Terror".


Wealthy horse ranchers in Buenos Aires have a long-standing no-trading policy with the Crawfords of Manhattan, but what happens when the mustachioed Latin son falls for a certain Crawford with bright eyes, blonde hair, and some perky moves on the dance floor? 20th Century-Fox musical has a glossy veneer yet seems a bit tatty around the edges. It is very heavy on the frenetic, gymnastic-like dancing, exceedingly thin on story. Betty Grable (an eleventh hour replacement for Alice Faye) gives it a boost, even though she's paired with leaden Don Ameche (in tan make-up and slick hair). Also good: Charlotte Greenwood as Betty's pithy aunt, a limousine driver who's constantly asleep on the job, and Carmen Miranda playing herself (who else?). The stock shots of Argentina far outclass the action filmed on the Fox backlot, and some of the supporting performances are quite awful. By the time of the big horserace finale, most viewers will have had enough. *1/2 from ****


"Tokyo Eyes" tells of a 17 year old Japanese girl who falls in like with a man being hunted by her big bro who is a cop. This lame flick is about 50% filler and 50% talk, talk, and more talk. You'll get to see the less than stellar cast of three as they talk on the bus, talk and play video games, talk and get a haircut, talk and walk and walk and talk, talk on cell phones, hang out and talk, etc. as you read subtitles waiting for something to happen. The thin wisp of a story is not sufficient to support a film with low end production value, a meager cast, and no action, no romance, no sex or nudity, no heavy drama...just incessant yadayadayada'ing. (C-)


Being a long-time fan of Japanese film, I expected more than this. I can't really be bothered to write to much, as this movie is just so poor. The story might be the cutest romantic little something ever, pity I couldn't stand the awful acting, the mess they called pacing, and the standard "quirky" Japanese story. If you've noticed how many Japanese movies use characters, plots and twists that seem too "different", forcedly so, then steer clear of this movie. Seriously, a 12-year old could have told you how this movie was going to move along, and that's not a good thing in my book.

Fans of "Beat" Takeshi: his part in this movie is not really more than a cameo, and unless you're a rabid fan, you don't need to suffer through this waste of film.

2/10


This German horror film has to be one of the weirdest I have seen.

I was not aware of any connection between child abuse and vampirism, but this is supposed based upon a true character.

Our hero is deaf and mute as a result of repeated beatings at the hands of his father. he also has a doll fetish, but I cannot figure out where that came from. His co-workers find out and tease him terribly.

During the day a mild-manner accountant, and at night he breaks into cemeteries and funeral homes and drinks the blood of dead girls. They are all attractive, of course, else we wouldn't care about the fact that he usually tears their clothing down to the waist. He graduates eventually to actually killing, and that is what gets him caught.

Like I said, a very strange movie that is dark and very slow as Werner Pochath never talks and just spends his time drinking blood.


A funny thing happened to me while watching "Mosquito": on the one hand, the hero is a deaf-mute and the director is totally unable to make us understand why he does what he does (mutilating mannequins...er, excuse me, corpses) through his images. On the other hand, the English version at least is very badly dubbed. So I found myself wishing there had been both more AND less dialogue at the same time! This film is stupid (funny how this guy has access to every graveyard and mortuary in his town) and lurid (where would we be in a 70s exploitationer without our gratuitous lesbian scene?). Not to mention the "romantic" aspect (oh, how sweet!)...Miss it. (*)


Brass pictures (movies is not a fitting word for them) really are somewhat brassy. Their alluring visual qualities are reminiscent of expensive high class TV commercials. But unfortunately Brass pictures are feature films with the pretense of wanting to entertain viewers for over two hours! In this they fail miserably, their undeniable, but rather soft and flabby than steamy, erotic qualities non withstanding.

Senso '45 is a remake of a film by Luchino Visconti with the same title and Alida Valli and Farley Granger in the lead. The original tells a story of senseless love and lust in and around Venice during the Italian wars of independence. Brass moved the action from the 19th into the 20th century, 1945 to be exact, so there are Mussolini murals, men in black shirts, German uniforms or the tattered garb of the partisans. But it is just window dressing, the historic context is completely negligible.

Anna Galiena plays the attractive aristocratic woman who falls for the amoral SS guy who always puts on too much lipstick. She is an attractive, versatile, well trained Italian actress and clearly above the material. Her wide range of facial expressions (signalling boredom, loathing, delight, fear, hate ... and ecstasy) are the best reason to watch this picture and worth two stars. She endures this basically trashy stuff with an astonishing amount of dignity. I wish some really good parts come along for her. She really deserves it.


Not even the Beatles could write songs everyone liked, and although Walter Hill is no mop-top he's second to none when it comes to thought provoking action movies. The nineties came and social platforms were changing in music and film, the emergence of the Rapper turned movie star was in full swing, the acting took a back seat to each man's overpowering regional accent and transparent acting. This was one of the many ice-t movies i saw as a kid and loved, only to watch them later and cringe. Bill Paxton and William Sadler are firemen with basic lives until a burning building tenant about to go up in flames hands over a map with gold implications. I hand it to Walter for quickly and neatly setting up the main characters and location. But i fault everyone involved for turning out Lame-o performances. Ice-t and cube must have been red hot at this time, and while I've enjoyed both their careers as rappers, in my opinion they fell flat in this movie. It's about ninety minutes of one guy ridiculously turning his back on the other guy to the point you find yourself locked in multiple states of disbelief. Now this is a movie, its not a documentary so i wont waste my time recounting all the stupid plot twists in this movie, but there were many, and they led nowhere. I got the feeling watching this that everyone on set was sord of confused and just playing things off the cuff. There are two things i still enjoy about it, one involves a scene with a needle and the other is Sadler's huge 45 pistol. Bottom line this movie is like domino's pizza. Yeah ill eat it if I'm hungry and i don't feel like cooking, But I'm well aware it tastes like crap. 3 stars, meh.


First of all I hate those moronic rappers, who could'nt act if they had a gun pressed against their foreheads. All they do is curse and shoot each other and acting like cliché'e version of gangsters.

The movie doesn't take more than five minutes to explain what is going on before we're already at the warehouse There is not a single sympathetic character in this movie, except for the homeless guy, who is also the only one with half a brain.

Bill Paxton and William Sadler are both hill billies and Sadlers character is just as much a villain as the gangsters. I did'nt like him right from the start.

The movie is filled with pointless violence and Walter Hills specialty: people falling through windows with glass flying everywhere. There is pretty much no plot and it is a big problem when you root for no-one. Everybody dies, except from Paxton and the homeless guy and everybody get what they deserve.

The only two black people that can act is the homeless guy and the junkie but they're actors by profession, not annoying ugly brain dead rappers.

Stay away from this crap and watch 48 hours 1 and 2 instead. At lest they have characters you care about, a sense of humor and nothing but real actors in the cast.


This is an example of why the majority of action films are the same. Generic and boring, there's really nothing worth watching here. A complete waste of the then barely-tapped talents of Ice-T and Ice Cube, who've each proven many times over that they are capable of acting, and acting well. Don't bother with this one, go see New Jack City, Ricochet or watch New York Undercover for Ice-T, or Boyz n the Hood, Higher Learning or Friday for Ice Cube and see the real deal. Ice-T's horribly cliched dialogue alone makes this film grate at the teeth, and I'm still wondering what the heck Bill Paxton was doing in this film? And why the heck does he always play the exact same character? From Aliens onward, every film I've seen with Bill Paxton has him playing the exact same irritating character, and at least in Aliens his character died, which made it somewhat gratifying...

Overall, this is second-rate action trash. There are countless better films to see, and if you really want to see this one, watch Judgement Night, which is practically a carbon copy but has better acting and a better script. The only thing that made this at all worth watching was a decent hand on the camera - the cinematography was almost refreshing, which comes close to making up for the horrible film itself - but not quite. 4/10.


When all we have anymore is pretty much reality TV shows with people making fools of themselves for whatever reason be it too fat or can't sing or cook worth a damn than I know Hollywood has run out of original ideas. I can not recall a time when anything original or intelligent came out on TV in the last 15 years. What is our obsession with watching bums make fools of themselves? I would have thought these types of programs would have run full circle but every year they come up with something new that is more strange then the one before. OK so people in this one need to lose weight...most Americans need to lose weight. I just think we all to some degree enjoy watching people humiliated. Maybe it makes us feel better when we see someone else looking like a jerk. I don't know but I just wish something intelligent would come out that did not insult your intelligence.


I occasionally let my kids watch this garbage so they will understand just how pathetic the show's "contestants" are. They are pathetic not because they are fat, but because they whore their dignity for a few minutes of fame and fortune.

For anyone to appear on National TV and blubber, sniffle, and whine about being fat (entirely their own fault) is nauseating. What does this say about us as a nation? Does it suggest that your lifestyle choices, and the consequences of them, aren't our responsibility?

"The Biggest Loser" is an appropriate title, but it has nothing to do with one's weight.

Absolute trash.


Awful, awful, awful times a hundred still doesn't begin to describe how crappy "Biggest Loser" is. Picture this: take two fat couples with nothing interesting to say, humiliate them, and let them work to lose weight, all on prime time television. Am I the only one who thinks that this isn't something people with IQs in the 3-digit area WANT TO WATCH? Everything drags on forever, with the lumps of lard whining on about how losing weight is going to mean so much for them and their lives. Does anyone care? Do they think we care? Do they care if we care? Probably not. I think I'll videotape myself doing crunches and sell it to some major television corporation. If this passes for television, then so can my workouts!


This is one dreary, inert, self-important bore. When the only thing that suddenly gives a film life is a hanging, you know the venture is botched. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Truman Capote as a narcissistic, tic-ridden, self-indulgent, cartoon-voiced, insect-like caricature. Why he is this way is never explained and we get scant background information. The script focuses on Capote's writing of 'In Cold Blood' and his attachment to the damaged brothers who murdered a family of four. The acclaimed writer of 'To Kill A Mockingbird', Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), accompanies Capote in his initial inquires into the crime, and her presence immediately suggests a far more interesting subject for a biopic. Unfortunately, Lee is quickly sidelined in favor of endless scenes of Capote bemoaning his pained existence. Watching him is like watching Dr. Smith from 'Lost in Space' complain about his "delicate back" to anybody who will listen for two hours. The difference, however, is that Smith was fun to watch while Capote is not. The film's precious self-importance kills it, as does director Bennett Miller's reluctance to add any kind of shading. Like the morose piano score, the film is a one note wonder, providing no contrast, no emotional coloring, and no intimate drama. If Capote really was this irritating, why make a film about him and expect audiences to watch it? Though the supporting roles are well performed (Chris Cooper is his usual stalwart self), they serve such little dramatic purpose because, ultimately, it's all about Capote(!) Director Bennett and screenwriter Dan Futterman fail to emotionally engage their intended audience because they were clearly overwhelmed by the cultural baggage of Capote's "legend". Their product is stillborn Oscar bait...and is more evidence that one great genre pic has more "truth" in it than a dozen piles of oh-so-sincere crap like this.


many people said this was a great movie with Hoffman delivering a great performance. i went from suspended disbelief, to fidgety boredom, to almost walking out. there is no there there.

Hoffman does go all out. he is committed to the performance. but sometimes him playing an affected man looks just like affected actor chewing on the scenery.

no characters in the movie other than capote are much more than placeholders - nell, jack, perry, shawn, the sheriff are all one-dimensional.

yes the film shows the manipulative, preening, dishonest sides of capote. it shows them so many times i started to wonder why -- do the filmmakers think we need to have everything spelled out? and again? and again? it refers often to capote's genius but does not show it. it shows him surrounded by fans and flatterers but never convinces us why.

but my goal is not to deconstruct the film. i am sure others will have other interpretations. for me, this was a two-hour movie that felt like five.


In this film, we're invited to observe the descent into a moral and emotional funk of someone who isn't likable to start with. What was the point of making the film, then? To show that it would have been better not to have had IN COLD BLOOD - a book I admire, incidentally - in order to have kept our hero's integrity intact? Hardly. He behaves at the party at the start of the film exactly in the same way he behaves after his triumphant reading from the book, so his degradation is a matter of degree. Are we supposed to care enough about Capote to take seriously his claim that he and murderer Perry Smith are kindred spirits, with the former having had all the breaks while the latter had none? Mr Capote's plight didn't touch me at all, I'm afraid, so if that was the central idea it was wasted on me. But even if I could fathom why the filmmakers visited this pointless project on us, the clunky storytelling would still have bored me as it did. Hoffman gives a bravura performance to no emotional effect, while Keener and Cooper are so warm and interesting that I was yearning for more of them. Dreary beyond belief.


As I read the script on-line, I thought "Capote" needed a trim. Having just seen it on PPV, I can tell you it wasn't trimmed, it was butchered like that poor family! Example: in the script, Truman dubs Shawn "Adorable One"; here, he is "Mr. Shawn".

Bad enough the amateurs behind this movie de-flame Capote and bash his circle (are we to really believe they thought so little of Nelle, they mangled her little opus like an obnoxious in-joke?), they turn Perry Smith into this oh-so-sensitive victim, even as he's shown dispatching the Clutters. It's one thing to fudge the facts, it's another to drop the ball: the executions were carried out between 12:45-1:19 AM, April 14; Truman is shown at the prison 22 HOURS LATER!

I was totally underwhelmed by the "acting". Keener doesn't even try to sound like an Alabama native. The way Cooper kept shouting "Alvin!", I was waiting for the Chimpmunks to show up! Hoffman gives us not the charming gadfly, but a pathetic suck-up who sees an horrific act as his ticket to the big time. When Hoffman whines about being "tortured" by the endless appeals, I wanted to give him a shotgun so he could do us both a favor and blow his brains out!


Some describe CALIGULIA as "the" most controversial film of its era. While this is debatable, it is certainly one of the most embarrassing: virtually every big name associated with the film made an effort to distance themselves from it. Author Gore Vidal actually sued (with mixed results) to have his name removed from the film, and when the stars saw the film their reactions varied from loudly voiced disgust to strategic silence. What they wanted, of course, was for it to go away.

For a while it looked like it might. CALIGULA was a major box-office and critical flop (producer Guccione had to rent theatres in order to get it screened at all), and although the film was released on VHS to the home market so many censorship issues were raised that it was re-edited, and the edited version was the only one widely available for more than a decade. But now CALIGULIA is on DVD, available in both edited "R" and original "Unrated" versions. And no doubt John Gielgud is glad he didn't live to see it happen.

The only way to describe CALIGULIA is to say it is something like DEEP THROAT meets David Lynch's DUNE by way of Fellini having an off day. Vidal's script fell into the hands of Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione, who used Vidal's reputation to bankroll the project and lure the big name stars--and then threw out most of Vidal's script and brought in soft-porn director Tinto Brass. Then, when Guccione felt Brass' work wasn't explicit enough, he and Giancarlo Lui photographed hardcore material on the sly.

Viewers watching the edited version may wonder what all the fuss is about, but those viewing the original cut will quickly realize that it leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. There is a tremendous amount of nudity, and that remains in the edited version, but the original comes complete with XXX scenes: there is very explicit gay, lesbian, and straight sex, kinky sex, and a grand orgy complete with dancing Roman guards thrown in for good measure. The film is also incredibly violent and bloody, with rape, torture, and mutilation the order of the day. In one particularly disturbing scene, a man is slowly stabbed to death, a woman urinates on his corpse, and his genitals are cut off and thrown to the dogs.

In a documentary that accompanies the DVD release, Guccione states he wanted the film to reflect the reality of pagan Rome. If so, he missed the mark. We know very little about Caligula--and what little we know is questionable at best. That aside, orgies and casual sex were not a commonplace of Roman society, where adultery was an offense punishable by death. And certainly ancient Rome NEVER looked like the strange, slightly Oriental, oddly space-age sets and costumes offered by the designers.

On the plus side, those sets and costumes are often fantastically beautiful, and although the cinematography is commonplace it at least does them justice; the score is also very, very good. The most successful member of the cast is Helen Mirren, who manages to engage our interests and sympathies as the Empress Caesonia; Gielgud and O'Toole also escape in reasonably good form. The same cannot be said for McDowell, but in justice to him he doesn't have much to work with.

The movie does possess a dark fascination, but ultimately it is an oddity, more interesting for its design and flat-out weirdness than for content. Some of the bodies on display (including McDowell's and Mirren's) are extremely beautiful, and some of the sex scenes work very well as pornography... but then again, some of them are so distasteful they might drive you to abstinence, and the bloody and grotesque nature of the film undercuts its eroticism. If you're up to it, it is worth seeing once, but once is likely to be enough.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer


It's rare to see film that strikes out in every aspect but "Caligula" surely must hold this title. I'm not sure what is more horrendous; the violence, the sexual perverseness, the acting or the plot (or severe lack thereof).

The two and a half hours basically follows the ascension of the infamous Roman Caesar "Caligula" to to throne in 37AD and shows the atrocities and perverseness he supposedly committed whilst in power. The acting is lifeless and dull - but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Obviously knowing that this film was severely lacking of anything legitimately interesting, the directors decided to throw in as much nudity and orgy scenes as was conceivably possible. But don't be fooled, these scenes don't ease or take focus away from the hideousness of this film. The camera work is shoddy, dialog is laughable in fact you'd have to congratulate Malcolm McDowell (playing Caligula) for keeping a straight face through such farcical lines. And then there's the violence....

If you are about to see the film be prepared. Some atrocities are committed in the film (not just through the writing) but through disgusting violent acts which are of little point or purpose other than to repulse the viewer. This is only objective this movie achieved. One must wonder how the makers of this film thought that bestiality, necrophilia and castration (just to name a few) would be appealing to anyone. When it belatedly ends after two and a half hours you take nothing from this film other than some disturbing images and the knowledge that you may have witnessed the worst film ever.

You've been warned


I saw this film at the tender age of 18 with a group of friends. Its reputation had preceded it, and though all my friends were also of legal age, I alone had the courage to enter the video store and actually rent it. We gathered at a house where the parents had left town for the weekend. Though we sat in close proximity to each other, we did not speak or otherwise acknowledge each other's presence. As it turned out, the film both merited and did not merit the anticipatory shame we felt. It did not disappoint in terms of sheer gratuitous content, but it disappointed in every other way.

Caligula attempts to transcend genres by combining a historical epic with a brazen porn flick. It fails miserably in its ambition, subjecting the audience to the worst of both worlds. The film's obvious selling point is its pornographic aspect, and it does indeed provide far more than its share of real, graphic sex. But in setting this sex in the context of Caligula's depraved reign, it dignifies the act even less than the average adult movie. Sex without context might at least be physically pleasurable for the consenting adults involved, but pleasure and perhaps even consent are largely absent from the world of Caligula. In it, sex at best serves as an idle pastime and at worst as an instrument of sadistic domination. In the present day, it is somewhat common to hear words like "sin" and "depravity" used facetiously to describe acts which are enjoyable yet considered taboo according to certain moral or religious perspectives. Caligula takes the viewer beyond the facetiousness by depicting true depravity and demonstrating that no joy or pleasure comes from it.

The historical portions not only fail to meaningfully contextualize the sex, they fail to entertain, enlighten, intrigue, or interest the viewer in any way. They only provide lengthy stretches of unremitting tedium. Rarely has a film proved so boring. The sex, after the initial shock and astonishment fades, only contributes to the overall monotony of the picture.

Rarely do discussions of this film involve its violence. While many films more violent than Caligula have been made, few can rival it in terms of the shock value of its violence. Apparenly, unrelenting barbarity as well as hyper-depraved sexuality characterized Caligula's emperorship. The violence is even less for the faint of heart than the sex.

A review like this will likely generate as much curiosity as it quells. I understand why someone would want to see this film; after all, I myself succumbed to the same curiosity. I simply hope that my review, by plainly describing its lack of redeeming value, will at least give potential viewers the knowledge to make an informed decision about whether to see it or not. My high school criminal justice teacher described police work as "hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror." This statement perfectly describes Caligula. You have been warned.


It's a rare sensation to come across a film so embarrassing that you feel an urge to turn away from the screen. But when you see a noble actor like Sir John Gielgud surrounded by naked, copulating couples that's just what you'll want to do. Add to that Peter O'Toole as syphilis-ridden emperor Tiberius and Malcolm McDowell sticking his finger up a male victim's anus, and you begin to appreciate that Caligula is solely of interest to addicts of sick/outrageous films.

The film charts the life of notorious Roman emperor Caligula (McDowell), a highly disturbed individual whose story is told through a series of sexual encounters, decapitations, betrayals, murders, incestuous relationships and lesbian sex scenes.

Although Caligula was totally mad in real life, and probably did succumb to his base instincts more often than not, the film is still inexcusable filth. The sex in the film isn't used as one aspect in a multi-layered story - the sex IS the story. After a while, all the nudity, hip thrusting and nipple sucking becomes tedious due to sheer repetition. The performances are totally undisciplined, particularly McDowell who throws caution to the wind and gives a performance that is all wild-eyed posturing. O'Toole seems to be treating the script with the contempt it deserves (surely he's in it purely for the money?!). Rumours abound that additional pornographic scenes were added without the director's consent during post production, but in truth there isn't a single minute in Caligula that is dignified or well-made. It is doubtful that this amount of time, talent and money will ever be thrown at a porno film again, so in that sense Caligula is a one-of-a-kind experience... on the other hand, it's so monumentally awful that perhaps the fact it is "one-of-a-kind" is a blessing in disguise.


I'm currently slogging through Gibbon's 'Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire , so I've had all things Roman on my mind. I'm not very far into it yet, maybe two hundred plus pages, but it is amazing just how many of these Roman emperors were killed. I believe I've read through maybe 15 emperors so far and only Antonius, Trajan, and Hadrian haven't been killed or at least suspected of having been killed. I have also been fascinated by the mad excesses of many of these princes of Rome. Not the least practitioner of these was Caligula. This brings me to reviewing this film. I'm thinking of the film on a historical basis as far as I understand it from Gibbon's explanation of Rome,as well as other research from some good web sites and some fiction novels dealings with the period.

My point is I do not think that this film is what it is thought to be by many of it's proponents. I do not think the depravity shown with the sex and horrendous violence of this film qualify it as accurate. The general ideas of the film seem accurate. Caligula is raised on an island ,exiled with his family and in content fear of being murdered by the increasingly mad, suspicious and strange emperor Tiberius. He grows up paranoid and afraid and can never shake the cutesy nickname given him by his guards, Little Boots, this helps him grow up feeling abused and powerless. He is handed the empire after Tiberius dies, the senate hoping he will steer away from the informer squads which brought death by whim of the former delusionally paranoid tyrant, and lead Rome away from the madness that dictator had settled it into. Caligula begins as a decent if hands-off emperor, but gets sick, almost dies, and comes back from the brink of feverous death a true monster. His perversities with his sisters do begin here, if not before. He does have Macro killed and many others who were his originally supporters. The acts of madness seemed not to be the murders of Caligula as much as his new thinking of himself as a living God. Him seen talking to the statue of Jupiter as an equal doomed him. His violent mad excesses would have doomed him anyway, and three years seems to have been quite a decent run for the successors of Tiberius. Well the film basically sticks to these lines while it manages to be coherent, which is not common through it's entirety, it does so while trying to shock the audience at all turns, in every single scene the film begs you to be disgusted by the depravity of ancient Rome. The shocking scenes are what this film is built entirely upon and where it entirely fails. It is just too much to see successive rulers have man after man murdered, raped, tortured for no reason but fancy. The depictions of the violence are possibly, but not probably, accurate. Murder certainly was the order of the day in Imperial Rome, torture beforehand was rote. But the director's visions of these deaths and the bored amusement of their protagonists, while the bystanders watch with nonchalance, I just don't see it having gone down exactly like that. The death machine, the beheader, is certainly something like you've never seen in movies, and something once seen you shall probably never forget, even as I, you wish you could. The wine drinking while the penis is roped off is the same, once you've seen this shame it is yours forever. These things strike me the director's and that porn magnate's fantasies. They sprung from their sick imaginations and not from any proved record.

The acting is pretty good. I actually think Mcdowell is the weakest link here. Mirren is always something to behold, and here in her youthful years she is formidable and beautiful. The portrayals of Nerva and Tiberius are done very well by their respected actors. The film could have done so much better story telling, it is such a failure that way its just a whole other layer of what a shame this thing was. For example it could have given opinion on how and why Caligula went mad, or shown that he was mad, paranoid before his illness and that fever then broke the mental restraint he had possessed previously. It could have shown the weakness of Claudius and the miracle it was he survived Caligula. It could have these and many other things but it stuck to it's sad nightmares.

Finally about the sex. It is porn. It shows these sex acts being done all over the palaces by many people. Male on male, female on female, male on female. It is passionless, disgusting sex. Sex that if your point is to get off on it, I seriously doubt you could. Both Tiberius and Caligula may have been sex addicts, and orgies may have been common enough but the visions in this film seem to recall more a Greek time than a Roman. I don't think that kind of acceptance of homosexuality or orgies right out in the open were common until the the strange, depraved reign of Elgabalus, and he was killed for it.

This film should probably never be watched, if your curious about it , let it go. It is something, as I said earlier, if you do watch this you will unfortunately retain it's sick visions in your minds eye for years to come. I don't think its an accurate historical picture in particular, even if it is historical in whole.


Incomprehensibly dreadful mishmash of the probably most notorious of all Roman emperors who went insane, leaving infamous party orgies and ruthless killings in his path... I know there are several versions of this, and this is based on the 102 min' one that I watched - but I can't fathom how that possibly can make any difference to lift the rest of this movie out of the muck!

I'd heard for long about the alleged "shocking" content of sex/nudity (which honestly there isn't much of here at all - and boring when there is) and blood, but beware - it's the technical production amateurishness that well and truly shocks here: Everything looks plain and simply like a junior film school flunk project! Camera-work is hopelessly inept, full of strange zooms, failed framing and confusing pans (to and from what mostly looks like a huge theater stage!) complete with a grainy, cheapish photo quality. Lighting and color schemes are terrible and uneven - is it day or night? Are they in- or outside? Have they changed scenes? Who is, or is meant to be in the shot? Editing is the final sin here, making a confusing mess of everything with randomly jumpy cutaways, continuity flaws and random transitions that destroy any chance of momentum, story progression - and involvement. There is potentially interesting dialog and an equally interesting true historical story... but these faults distract so much it's tragic.

A story with SO many possibilities to be great is just one gargantuan, burnt (and Fellini-like) turkey that's only good for a few gobble-laughs and Peter O'Toole, who makes a most memorable Tiberius. Oh yes, which brings us to the big-name actors. I'd like to line them all up one by one and just ask: Who did you get free access to bonk in the orgies to be a part of this? There, I've wasted enough lines on one of the truly worst films of all time - period!

1 out of 10 from Ozjeppe


As an ancient movie fan, I had heard much about the controversial movie CALIGULA assessed ambiguously as one of the most realistic epics by some and as one of the most disgusting porn movies by others. I decided to see it in the entire uncut version to evaluate it myself hoping to find something positive that would make justice to the many accusations towards the film. I sat down in my chair one autumn evening and started to watch. The beginning quotation from the New Testament shocked me a bit and raised the first controversy in me...why to entail a sentence from the Gospel by Mark in the movie about pagan Rome? But the prelude pastoral scene with a young half naked couple (Caligula and Drusilla) running hopelessly through meadows seemed quite sentimental. The music which sounded memorably whilst the credits also provoked me in the positive sense. Yet, the negative feelings raised in me quite soon, particularly at the death of Tiberius. The cruelty seemed very intense and sexuality exaggerated. However, it was not that horrific to the middle. During the second half of the film, I felt as if I watched no historical epic but an extremely disgusting porn. In the end, I said to myself "This is one of the movies that one may really hate" ... I am aware that a movie may be controversial but I had never expected that CALIGULA would go that far in removing all limits of taste. I hate this film due to many reasons, but particularly one.

CALIGULA does not serve a purpose of an ancient epic (which it claims to be), but Bob Guccione, the director and the founder of Penthouse pornographic magazine, aims at combining film art with porn. That is, I think, the most serious matter the film may be accused of. Movie is an art that should be reigned by taste, by message, by some feeling of epic grandeur whereas this movie kills all limits of good taste. CALIGULA shows the most bestial side of human being in the most wicked, decadent manner. Some scenes are so disgusting that I don't think there are any people whose psyches will not be affected by them. Some say that the Rome under Caligula's reign was so brutal. Yes, it is true. Corruption bloomed at that time, various sexual deviances were preferable to Roman citizens. Yet, I do not think that it is right to focus on these deviations so strictly and make it constitute an emphasis of an ancient epic. I believe that it rather proves the bizarre psyches of the producers and their strange tendencies...

HUGE HISTORICAL MISTAKES: The screenplay by Gore Vidal is notorious for inaccuracies. It is noticeable, for instance, with the figure of Proculus (Donato Placido), a historic Roman senator. Yet, the film shows him as a simple soldier on whom Caligula forces his most decadent ways of tortures and rapes. Moreover, Livia was not Proculus wife raped by Caesar on her wedding. What lies behind changing the stories of historical characters into the stories filled with unbelievable vulgarity and violence? Another example of historical travesty is the figure of Caesonia portrayed by Helen Mirren. She is presented as Caligula's wife together with Drusilla, his sister. In fact, Caligula married Caesonia long after the death of his sister. The sexual abuse on his new wife in the temple is a hilarious scene with no historical bases. I also hated the moment with the killing machine - a pure imagination of the director that has nothing to do with historical facts.

TECHNICAL ASPECT AND CAST: From the technical point of view, the film is nothing special. The cinematography cannot boast to be exceptionally fine and the sets together with costumes are as well nothing outstanding. Yet, the only strong point of the movie are the performances, particularly the one by Malcolm McDowall as Caligula. He does a perfect job in the main role portraying madness and cruelty of the emperor. McDowall raises the value of the film. If everything bothers you in CALIGULA, you may at least admire his performance. I also fancied Helen Mirren as Caesonia and Teresa Ann Savoy as Drusilla (yet the film is based on a gossip by Suetonius that Caligula made love to his sister). Sir John Gielgud as Nerva and Peter O'Toole as old Tiberius are also memorable. O'Toole does his finest piece of acting in the Capri Grotto sequence portraying the decadence and the exhaust of the old emperor. Yes, I admit that THE ONLY THING I like about CALIGULA are the performances. Therefore, I don't rate the movie 1/10.

LAME CONTINUITY: The historical inaccuracy of the film also goes in pairs with poor continuity. Let us analyze just the beginning: Caligula comes to Capri Grotto where he sees the awful pleasures of old Tiberius. Then, after about 15 minutes, the action moves to Rome where a black bird near Drusilla and Caligula's bed constitutes a bad omen. And immediately the characters are again in Capri where Nerva (John Gielgud) is dying...?

All in all, I don't recommend to see CALIGULA to anyone. If you want to know the story, read Robert Graves' gorgeous novel I, CLAUDIUS and CLAUDIUS THE GOD or watch Herbert Wise's mini series with the magnificent performance by Derek Jacobi. CALIGULA is a sick film the most serious crime of which is the destruction of art. It is, in its most part, a porn movie that should never be called an epic.

There are movies that are truly artistic and sharpen people's taste of beauty,

there are movies that are average entertainment; yet they have something to offer,

there are movies that show extreme violence; yet they still convey some moral,

there are, however, movies that show sickness and decadence for their own sake and consequently harm people's minds,

CALIGULA unfortunately belongs to the latest group


I found the movie at my local video store and I was surprised to see it on DVD. I had heard about the explicit sex scenes, gruesome violence, and the notorious debauchery. I sat and watched and I began laughing! The set decorations and art direction was cheap and fake; the nudity was sardonic and incredibly unsexy; the story was poorly written and it was just a parade of incredibly beautiful and talented actors being held hostage to quote the worst dialogue ever written! The incestuous relationship between Caligola (Malcolm McDowell) and his serenely beautiful sister Drusilla (Theresa Ann Savoy, a vulnerable beauty) can't be taken seriously...it's not even shocking or repulsive! Peter O'Toole and John Geilgud were obviously held hostage during the making of this film luckily they die in the first thirty minutes of the film. The cinematography was a joke and I was even more amused when they used a quote from the Bible! The book of Mark no less. If you are looking for shock value, this movie will disappoint you. If you are looking for camp cult value, you will be even more disappointed. I know I was. I have seen shocking and this is two hours of your life you will never have back.


Although its plot is taken from the history of ancient Rome, 'Caligula' is not made in the style of sword-and-sandal epics like 'Spartacus' or 'Gladiator'. (That style of movie-making was out of favour in the late seventies). Rather, it more closely resembles a cross between a soft-core porn movie and a video nasty. At least, the shortened 150 minute version does. I have never seen the full 210 minute version, but to judge from the descriptions of it on this page, it would seem closer to a cross between a hard-core porn movie and a video nasty.

As one would expect from a film produced by the publisher of 'Penthouse', there is much naked flesh to be seen, and the film lovingly catalogues Caligula's sexual perversions, including his incestuous affair with his sister Drusilla. What is perhaps unexpected from the publisher of a magazine so closely associated with the heterosexual male lifestyle is that there is as much male flesh as female on display and distinctly homoerotic overtones to many scenes. The obsession with sex is balanced by an equal obsession with violence, as though Bob Guccione, Gore Vidal and Tinto Brass were trying to kill two taboos with one stone. (It is a remarkable coincidence that the director of such a brazen film should be called 'Brass' and the scriptwriter of such a gory one should be called 'Gore'). Characters are put to death or mutilated in a variety of sadistic ways, and there is a charming scene of homosexual rape.

The Emperor Caligula and his predecessor Tiberius were certainly known for their debauched lifestyles, so the film's concentration on sex and violence is not necessarily historically inaccurate. I do, however, question whether such a concentration is necessary to help us understand this period in Roman history. Both 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' and 'Gladiator' were set during the reign of Commodus, an Emperor quite as cruel and licentious as Caligula. In neither case did the filmmakers find it necessary to turn their film into a mixture of 'Up Pompeii!', 'Emmanuelle' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', and both those films are artistically far better than 'Caligula'.

The acting in the film is not particularly bad, with a few exceptions such as the horribly wooden Teresa Ann Savoy as Drusilla. Malcolm McDowell makes a suitably insane Caligula. (Suitable, that is, in the context of this film. The real Caligula was doubtless both cruel and eccentric, but historians have debated whether he was actually mentally ill). The great mystery is exactly why so many distinguished British actors should have agreed to take part in such a trashy production. In the case of Helen Mirren (the only Dame of the British Empire with a past as a porn star) it was probably connected to her rather regrettable tendency to alternate between the highbrow and the sleazy, but heaven alone knows what Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud thought they were doing. Unlike some other famous stage actors, such as Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton, Gielgud did not always look completely at home in the cinema, but here he gives a dignified interpretation of the role of Nerva, a decent and honourable Senator of the old school. Unfortunately, in the context of this film any attempt at dignity is as out of place as a pearl on a dunghill.

Guccione clearly succeeded in his ambition for this film to become something of a cult classic of decadence. (Whether Brass and Vidal had quite the same ambition for the film is open to question). The film does not, however, succeed upon any other level, either as art cinema or as a study of the politics of dictatorship. Even seen as erotica it is second-rate. 4/10


I've seen several stage and film adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and this one has to take the cake as the absolute worst. My family bought the DVD unsuspectingly and couldn't even make it through the first half. I later went back and forced myself to watch the whole thing (it had been a Christmas gift to me) and was just appalled.

The only redeeming factor (and it's hardly redeeming enough to save the whole show) is Mark Lin-Baker playing the Mock Turtle with a Yiddish accent. It's one of the few moments in the piece that has some real charm and can be taken somewhat seriously. Other than that, the songs are half-songs, the melodies are half-melodies and even Meryl Streep cannot make this direction look good.


Sammi Cheng & Andy Lau are coupled yet again in their 3rd film -- YESTERDAY ONCE MORE -- directed by HK's actioneer Johnnie To...fans of To's action films will be disappointed to find not a single gun was used in the filming...furthermore, fans of Cheng & Lau's previous films, NEEDING YOU & LOVE ON A DIET, will also be disappointed to find that YESTERDAY is no where near as funny or endearing...

Mr. & Mrs. To (Lau & Cheng) are a divorced couple...both affluent HK citizens...both incredibly mischievous...both just happened to be professional thieves -- 'two birds of the same feather'....A couple years earlier, they divorced over an inability to find middle ground on splitting the loot...Now she's remarrying...to the son of a rich heiress -- a total momma's boy (Carl Ng) through & through...The soon-to-be mother-in-law (Jenny Woo) is suspicious of Mrs. To's past & thinks she's only marrying her son for the family jewels -- the heiress' priceless ruby necklace...

The necklace is stolen...is it Mrs. To's materialistic eye that gets the best of her?... or is it her ex-husband, Mr. To's way of sabotaging the marriage to steal the jewels for himself?...

This is not a movie about two pple falling in love or rekindling a love...its about two pple who have always been in love but have somehow been to foolish to realize it...they let pride & greed overwhelm them...

Overall: YESTERDAY is one part caper/heist film & one part homage to classic Hollywood glamour from its golden years -- i.e. Cary Grant & Grace Kelly's TO CATCH A THIEF...Johnnie To is riding too heavily on Cheng/Lau's chemistry from their previous films...hoping Cheng/Lau's immense popularity & fan base will be enough justification for this third film....I think Sammi Cheng is one of the most likable/charming entertainers working t'day...& Lau is definitely the Tom Cruise of Asian cinema...

I really enjoyed their first two films & consider the Cheng/Lau pairing comparable to those classic Hollywood couples of the 40's & 50's...but YESTERDAY falls very short of expectations...terrible writing, ridiculous situations, product placements galore, & all the subplots & supporting characters were unnecessary...come to think of it...this film was unnecessary...unless you just love celebrity watching...