Tarentino should be ashamed to be involved with this awful film. The acting, directing and script are all third-rate - with the entire film playing out like an excuse for writer/director/star Larry Bishop to get laid. The only reason it was made at all is most likely due to his association with QT. The plot of the film is pretty flimsy, and basically tries to survive on not-so-obscure references to older B-movies and some cameos from guys like David Carradine, Dennis Hopper, and Vinnie Jones. Each one is listless in their performance, particularly Hopper who is in full-on paycheck mode at this point in his career. The saving grace, if there is one, is that the script is so laughably bad that it can be entertaining. Bishop tries so hard to get that trademark Tarentino banter and just fails miserably, which can be pretty humorous at times and grating at others. I'd only check this one out if you love bad movies...or if you're really into biker films.


Because that's what Hell Ride pretty much is. Larry Bishop and Tarantino partying on the Weinstein's money with the promise to deliver a movie sometime down the line. I'm all for fake boobage and booze as much as the next guy but did we really need the movie? Really there's nothing worse than the reheated second-hand leftovers of an old trend. And I'm not even talking about 70's grindhouse cinema because Hell Ride has none of the raw and unpolished feel of the era it purports to pay homage to. No, this is slick and glossy MTV Hollywood through and through. The old trend I'm talking about is the self-consciously pseudo-hip quirky cinematic world where Tarantino meets Guy Ritchie and Robert Rodriguez. All three guys were at least talented and found success for a reason. Hell Ride is just a second-hand copy, fickle and uninspired, polished to the max when it should be raw, the "supercool" aspect coming off forced and silly.

There's no reason for example why such a simple and utterly inane story has to be told in convoluted, back-and-forth in time fashion. It's just a post-Tarantino quirk. There's also no reason why the dialogues have to be so mind-numbingly pointless, people flapping their gums while saying NOTHING: at least when Travolta was talking about cheeseburgers in Pulp Fiction it felt fresh. Dialogues here amount to little more than pseudo-macho posturing. There's also no reason why a grating rock'n'roll guitar has to twangle aimlessly over the entire movie. Perhaps the lowest Hell Ride hits is when it tries to be quasi-existential. There's a hilarious dream/illusion scene in the desert where Bishop eats peyote and sees colours. I was half-expecting an old Indian to come out and offer nuggets of wisdom.

The only saving grace of this abysmal turd is the boobage and Vinnie Jones' monologue about his wings tattooes (and maybe some of the desert exterior shots). Lots of boobage and hot scantily clad babes. Now that's something I can get behind but a movie they don't make. Everything else is just an empty shell, an imitation of other infinitely more talented imitators.


Director/lead Larry Bishop tried way, way too hard with Hell Ride. The movie wants to be edgy, witty, provocative, outlandish, biting all of this, seemingly in a Quentin Tarantino/Rob Zombie style. But it's not edgy. The references seem forced. The dialog tries to be clever and fails. The humor is never funny. Nice try setting a gritty tone but we'd have to care about the characters or the story for it to remotely succeed.

What you're left with are cool Harleys and pretty girls surrounding a bunch of tired, old and out of shape "bad boys" in what looks like an attempt to do a modernized Sergio Leone western. If this movie can make newer generations interested in 60s and 70s films, kudos for it. But on its own, it is rather boring and irrelevant. I do believe there is a place for style over substance. But this movie is not it.


I have had more boring stretches of 80 minutes in my life, but none are coming to mind right now. Hell Ride is based on the retro cult 70s theme that Tarantino brought back, and did right, in movies like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. The problem with Hell Ride is, unlike PF and RD, the story is garbage and so is character development. How many movies does Bishop think he can blatantly steal from? The brief case in Pulp Fiction, the air gun in No Country, etc. etc. Speaking of Bishop what the hell is he doing acting in this movie? I couldn't help but laugh at those scenes where he's standing with his pelvis trusted out, desperately trying to seem like some hardened biker. Nothing in this movie is believable. And why Dennis Hopper? Did they really need the Easy Rider motif too? I blame Larry Bishop, for his horrible plot and dialogue, not to mention his failed attempt at the leading role. Don't bother watching this movie, it's a waste of time.


Larry Bishop directs, writes, and leads this soft core porn, plot less biker movie about nothing to do with anything. To call this one of the worst movies of 2008 is being kind to the garbage that I spent money on while in theaters. Its one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I felt sorry for the girls mostly, who probably think they're in the making of a feature film, when in all reality they're making a porno. They walk on the set for four days, say some sexual lines to disgusting old men -- thirty years older than them -- then take off their cloths, and run around naked for the four days they're on set. I can only assume this was Larry Bishops only way to get laid. You see shot after shot directly on a girls asses. Shot after shot of Bishop walking up to some random chick and grabbing her most intimate parts, as if he were shaking her hand. How this crap was even funded is beyond me. Why Tarantino has his name on it is beyond me, but he's been slowly fading away since 1994, so I can't say I was surprised.

After 15 minutes, you get that awful feeling that only horrible (and I mean horrible) movies give you. When you see it in theaters, the pain you feel is amplified. After 15 minutes, I wanted to cry for being so stupid, and wasting, not only my time, but my hard earned ten dollars. There isn't one redeeming quality, or one moment in the movie that creates any kind of reaction or shows any kind of inclination that these people had any idea of what they are doing. If you don't see naked women all that often, then I guess this movie would be for you. If you're eleven-years-old, you will probably like it. You can't even laugh at it, because every idiot making it was laughing about the crap they were making. The acting is awful, the writing is awful, the production is awful, and the directing is awful. It's not even worth your time renting it to see the car crash. Stay away, stay very far away. You shouldn't even be reading these reviews. I shouldn't even be writing one.


This film is so bad it's hilarious. I watched Hell Ride half thinking it was a comedy, although I couldn't quite work out if they were actually taking the p*ss, or if this really was a serious attempt at making something decent. I notice it isn't listed here as a comedy so they must be serious! It's basically seems to be about a gang of pensioners who ride round on motorcycles shooting at each other and exchanging the most hilariously bad dialogue you can imagine. One scene inexplicably has two characters smashing bottles over each others heads, then showing each other 'get out of jail free' cards that they've made! Also check out Vinnie Jones' accent, where the hell is he meant to be from?!? Oh and there's a load of naked girls in it too, who for some unfathomable reason seem to want nothing more than to have none stop sex with these leathery skinned b*stards! The guy who wrote and directed it - a Pee Wee Herman lookalike with a Greeshan 2000'd beard and an orange sunbed tan - has for some reason cast himself in the lead role, maybe this is part of the joke, I don't know. Actually, the more I think about it the more I'm sure this film is a p*ss take. It's produced by Quentin Tarantino and it's possible he's released this in humour as a bit of a laugh. It is a total rip off of Tarantino's style, but just done really really badly. It is very amusing though, and I guess either way it could go down as a cult classic, either from being an amusing parody of the Tarantino/Rodriguez style, or something that is very very unintentionally funny. Has to be seen to be believed.


When a movie called Hell Ride comes out you expect a certain amount of biker cliché. With character names like "Pistolero", "Comanche" and "The Gent" I braced myself for the worse and was punch in the face by just that. The dialogue, soundtrack and shooting style are standard for biker movies. Dusty desert blurred from the heat as bikes coming tearing down the road while "CC Rider" plays and they talk about sex and violence. Yawn! The three leads were just ridiculous and unbelievable. Seeing old men like Bishop and Madsen (in a freaking ruffled shirt) riding down a dusty strip of desert highway reminded me of two men trying desperately to relive their youth. Poor Eric Balfour tried his best but with such poor material it got lost. Even an appearance by Dennis Hopper in full Easy Rider swing, couldn't save it. And let's talk about the store bought tans shall we? Many have compared this to Tarantino's work. It is not even close. What makes Tarantino's work so brilliant is he knows it's over the top so he just goes balls out and takes it as far over the top as possible. Bishop took this film so seriously that it became nothing more than a poor copy of the exploitation genre.


That's what I kept asking myself while watching this film. I mean the amount of nudity and sex was one thing but another part of the movie which gave its genre to the adult industry was its lack of storyline. Really I just wanted to get up and leave during the whole movie, but I persisted. I persisted in the hope that maybe the storyline would get better, that there might be a good twist at the end. However I couldn't have been more wrong. In the end I persisted because I figured I could write a bad review for it if anything after watching it.

I mean don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with beautiful, sexy and vibrant women, but when the director only shows that along with a shitty story thinking it's what the viewer wants to see, it insults us all. To think we are all so shallow to only want to see burlesque from rep ratable, big movie industry players is preposterous. My advice: hire a different movie.


The worse film i have every seen. Like the other honest reviewers, it is just an excuse for getting naked birds with their juggs out. Don't get wrong, naked women isn't a bad thing but there is another film genre for that.

Boyfriends beware. I sold this to my girlfriend as a classic bike gang fest (due to reviews) to be greeted with every other scene full of naked women gyrating about the place. Slap in the chops for me.

What makes me laugh the most is all the dogey bike dives they went to in the film were full of models with the works cosmetically - what biker bars have these? They are usually slightly haggard with tattoos and far saggier juggs! Completely unrealistic.The acting is terrible, loads of pointless swearing and a complete waste of time storyline.

Did anyone check out Vinnie Jones's attempt at an American accent? Its as embarrassing as his football skills.

Avoid like the plague. The only reason you would watch this film is if you are a young lad who cant access p@rn and have nicked it from their parents movie collection for a few pervy kicks!


Larry Bishop is 60-years old, dirty and not good-looking YET in this movie he's like a drug towards the women in their twenty's.

A lot of movies have been claimed to be sexist but if any movie deserves that title it's this one.

I can't even count how many boobs there were shown in this movie, probably more then hours Larry Bishop spend writing the script.

The script is ridiculous, Bishop and his gang argue, bike, party, have sex, kill people and the next day they argue, bike, party, have sex, kill people and the third day, well you get the idea.

I like ERIC BALFOUR and considering what he had to work with, he did pretty good as Comanche.

Unfortunately this movie is about Larry Bishop's character Pistolero who is so one-dimensional it's not even funny.

He's also a horrible actor, and apparently he never intended to do the lead himself but everybody he asked said no so what was he to do? Once he realized he was gonna do the lead himself, he probably did a re-write of the script so that he could touch up more ladies.

Although visually it's kind of good-looking, at least the biker-scenes and Eric Balfour isn't half-bad this movie is just a big mess.

I hope to never see Larry Bishop in front of the camera again.


Okay, so writer/director Larry Bishop obviously has some important connections and knows the right people in Hollywood in order to produce his own film and fill up the cast with eye-catching names. Good for him! Now what he really still needs is inspiration and talent in order to come up with an actually worthwhile scenario rather than the overly pretentious and wannabe convoluted crap he penned down here. "Hell Ride" isn't a movie; it's a hectic and hopelessly inept fan-boy endeavor to bring homage to the notorious biker-flicks of the 60's and to the recently revived Grindhouse cinema formula in general. With "Hell Ride", Larry Bishop embarrassingly fails in his set-up and there are many obvious reasons for this. He hasn't got a story to tell  or at least not a very interesting one  but gravely tries to cover this up through numerous redundant plot twists, loads of gratuitous and very women-unfriendly sleaze, overlong and piteous dialogs aspiring to be cool and giant amounts of senseless violence. The plot looks complex but can actually be summarized in one sentence. The ancient vendetta between two rivaling biker gangs flares up again with the arrival of a new member; a boy who may or not be the long lost son of a double-crossing wench that got executed back in 1976. That's it, seriously! All the rest, going from betraying gang members over to the recruitment of old timer members over to toying with his nymphomaniac informant girl, is all completely pointless and confusing padding material. Another major problem in "Hell Ride" is Larry Bishop's very own tremendous and seemingly insatiable ego. He definitely shouldn't have rewarded himself with the role of tough and relentless gang leader, as that only comes across as incredibly pretentious and narrow-minded; especially when there are so many other and more experienced stars in the movie. Granted, Bishop starred in a couple of genuine 60's biker exploitation movies (like "The Savage Seven" and "Angel Unchained"), but that was a long time ago and he honestly isn't any good as an actor. Maybe it simply was Bishop's life-long dream to play a character that always outsmarts his enemies and for which every hot babe sexually craves, and just wrote a whole screenplay around it. The veterans in the cast, like Dennis Hopper and Michael Madsen, don't really bother to leave a plausible impression and I can't say I blame them. This whole production is lame and pathetic and I can't bring myself to recommending it to anyone, regardless of many beautiful babes parade around with bare breasts and naked butts.


This is easily one of the worst movies I've seen in a long long time (and I've recently seen Starship Troopers 2!!!). I could find nothing to redeem this film. The acting, which is probably the best aspect of the film, is fair at best. Michael Madsen hams it up in his standard character persona. Denis Hopper doesn't seem to know what he's supposed to be. Vinnie Jones accent is bizarre. One positive thing is that Leonor Valera looks fantastic. Her acting is pretty poor but I doubt that's why shes there.

The dialogue is truly appalling. It is quite simply rubbish. I don't know who signed off on this but they really need to get professional help next time round.

This film is the reason IMDBs rating system should be able to include zero stars out of ten. Avoid at all costs.


This movie makes "Glitter" look like "Schindler's List." Tarantino and the Weinsteins really need to consider more carefully before putting their names on a product. Green-lighting a P.O.S. like this, regardless of the friendships involved, is just bad business. Larry Bishop needs to be kept away from a movie camera at all costs. Writer/director/producer/actor Bishop shows that his skills are inadequate for any of those jobs. A vanity project gone south, "Hell Ride" allows usually good actors to chew the scenery... at least when the camera isn't centered on Bishop's feeble attempts to steal every scene he's in. (Which is virtually EVERY SCENE!) My final three words on "Hell Ride" are STINK, STANK, STUNK.


This film Oh my god this film is so poor , I'm amazed I managed to watch it all ..

First off Id like to say that Vinny Jones should only play a London thug period that's it end of story ..

Pisttolero is so unconvincing its almost comedy.. Banging in Dennis hopper and David Carradine did not save this film .. in fact I think its a total comedy and as a comedy it deserves its 1 star..

Avoid at all costs .. Vinny Oh my god I thought I saw it all when he played that Irish Tinker :P

I think the average viewer will realize that this film is maybe just a never will be type of film.. I cant see how anybody could actually fall this crap


This is my first "awful" rating ever on IMDb and I couldn't think of a more deserving film to honor it with. I hoped for entertaining trash and found trash of the saddest, dullest kind. I found a film which no one can possibly have cared a bit about, including its creator.

"Hell Ride", directed, written by and starring Larry "Friend of QT" Bishop, has a simple plot about a hidden treasure and a trio of keys, two bands of bikers and a gruesome murder in 1976 which has yet to be avenged. Larry seems fiercely determined not to tell this story, focusing instead of putting his swaying, strangely grimacing main character into situations where he can fondle women who pretend to like it. He also has a dialog containing enough horrible fire puns/metaphors to put one off the word "fire" for life.

Dennis Hopper escapes complete humiliation, others are not so lucky. Sometimes they hit the road on their bikes, making one feel even more sorry for Michael Madsen, since his high handles seems to add insult to the injury of having to appear in this film. There is plenty of silicon-enhanced nudity, but fairly little action and no humor whatsoever, making one wonder just what kind of an audience they had in mind.

My guess is that most people who watch this film, including fans of trashy 60s biker movies, will feel cheated. Do yourself a favor and revisit the real stuff instead.


Once upon a time Quentin Tarantino was a relatively successful filmmaker.

Now, unfortunately, he not only makes terrible films, but puts his names to ones like this.

A supposedly cool retro flashback to biker movies of the 60s and 70s, this plumbs new depths.

Believe you me, I enjoy it when a blouse falls off in a film more than the next man but even I felt kind of sleazy watching this. To use a word I never thought I would, its msysoginistic (you see, I can't even spell it.) The plot (in the vaguest sense of the term) is as incomprehensible as Vinnie Jones' accent, the fact his terrible acting does not stand our particularly is as damning a testament as one can think of.

This is just terrible. Shocking. It almost made me cry. In horror.


I would not recommend it whatsoever. It was like getting stuck in the middle row of a theater, so I couldn't leave, and watching a part porn movie (except they didn't take their clothes off - it was the body language and definitely the language). I have to say I was embarrassed. Filming was very low budget, no good dialogue. Yuck. Actors stunk except The two best characters who got killed off (?) and they were David Carradine and Dennis Hopper. It did smack of Kill Bill and that old movie with the two guys who ride the dessert on their chopppers. You know what I mean. blablabla. The filming was grainy and just a very low quality. There was nobody in that theater that liked this movie, and the people around me were younger and tattooed.


Larry Bishop, the Writer/Actor/Director, focuses too heavily on the camera, music, and visuals. The film resorts to meaningless ramblings and vulgar monologues, which seem to have no purpose other than boring and irritating the audience. The actors experience a bumpy ride, from the film's start to finish, and are caught in one terrible smoke screen. The hell with the ride. The film is a bomb.

The Victors are presented as weathered vigilantes, who seek their own form of justice for what they see as lawlessness. They are bikers, anti-heroes, and protagonists. Pistolero, played by Larry Bishop, is the revengeful leader of the pack. The Gent (Michael Madsen) is trapped in his own crossfire of chaos and psychosis.

Comanche (Eric Balfour) is loyal, but mysterious. Deuce, performed by David Carradine, should have passed on the ride, and so should the ticket-buyers (if you decide to see the film, you'll be sorry, but you'll find out why). Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones) is a lewd and venomous character, completely filled with disdain.

What puzzles me is how this film, with all of its continual ramblings and vulgarity, ever got anybody to invest in a ride that absolutely goes nowhere. Ticket-buyers, take my advice: don't pay for the ride. Please don't make the same mistake as the investors.

The first fifteen minutes, or so, of the movie is confusing and unintelligible. The dialog, which rapidly turn into meaningless monologues, doesn't make any sense. The entire film is hell bent on going nowhere. Poor Dennis Hopper is caught in the middle of a real mess. He, too, should have passed on the ride. There are decapitated heads, slashed throats, and nude females wrestling. It is clear that Bishop doesn't know where he is going with the film. He gets entirely lost. But, by the end of the ride, you just won't give a damn. Mama Mia! Stay home. And, by all means, don't take the ride. I rate this film a 1 out of 10, but this movie is so awful it deserves a zero.


This movie is juxtaposition of various super bad tough guy biker characters, loosely connected but with no real storyline. Some of the scenes are nicely filmed. If they took the same cast and crew, and made a movie called the Gent who was the coolest character in the film and came up with an interesting and continuous story maybe it could be decent. As it is, prepare for a lame series of tough guy character intros, all of whom do nothing but ride bikes around the desert all day and cause trouble while all staying never getting sunburned and keeping their hair and clothes perfect and never needing to look for a home or money, etc. There was a sort of background story about the characters pasts various people that were killed and a treasure that was probably supposed to be the plot.


There are a lot of 'bad' films out there. Tune in to Channel 5 every night of the week and you might just be treated to a daily, shocking effort from one filmmaker or another. There are possibly films that have caused me more pain - were harder to sit through - than this, but in terms of writing, acting, direction, cinematography and the bare basics of cinema Inbetweeners is a truly, truly appalling effort and should be avoided at all costs. The only laugh it gave me was in the behind the scenes documentary on the DVD, in which the film's geeky director Darren Fisher explains how it was his script that attracted the 'talent' to the project! Never underestimate the power of self-delusion.

Darren Fisher - Britain's answer to Edward D. Wood Jr.!


This is possibility the worst and most disappointing film I have ever seen. I've spent four years at two universities and know that there must be a good film to be made about the experience. This isn't it. The "acting" is god awful and the plot non-existent.

Here are a few incidents from my one year in halls of residence.

1) A posh lad that unknowingly got off with a transvestite. 2) The best friend pairing of two girls - one with huge breasts and the other with the nickname "the brick". 3) A couple that shag too loudly. 4) The lad who gets all the girls 5) The lad from Northern Ireland who is very difficult to understand. 6) McDonalds in bed 7) Curry every night for a week 8) Student bashing, couple of my mates ended up in hospital 9) The discarded joint that started a fire. 10) The flood 11) The lad who wakes up on his floor to find that every item of furniture has be taken from his room.

And if I can come up with that list in 5 minutes and from real life, I'm sure a couple of script writers can do better, a lot better.

And for a film named after a Sleeper song, where is the Britpop soundtrack?


Well, I have been to a British University, in fact I went to the one in this very film, and it was nothing like that. This is a horrible, badly made and acted film. Worst thing is, it could have been really good, if they bothered to spend more that 12p on it, in fact if it really wanted to represent true British Students it should off acted like one and took out a 15 thousand pound loan. It says nothing about Uni life, where was the bush diving, the tea drinking till 4am, the endless chats about group dynamics??? Where was the diversity and fun? Maybe I'm just being romantic, but I don't remember Fresher's Week being that awful, and I'm teetotal. And in the end the question still remains...a bed or a wardrobe?


A very bad film, an amalgam of clichés and historical inaccuracies. A few examples: in an early scene Soviet infantry are attacked by the Germans; instead of staying in their trenches to shoot at them, they advance into open ground to fight them,contrary to all infantry tactics; Kate, one of the central characters, is supposedly the daughter of a White Russian and obsessed with her Russianness, yet she does not speak Russian; a guilt-stricken German airman attacks an anti-aircraft gun- the gun, however, does not fire shrapnel shells but scores a direct hit on his 'plane, which doesn't look much like a German 'plane of WWII. In fairness, when they could escape the preposterous plot and the consequent absurdities there are some genuinely powerful moments- the depiction of people slowly starving to death is convincingly done and moving, but these only show up the rest of it even more. A film to be avoided.


Hi! I'm Sheena, an African (yet white!) jungle tribal princess who possesses the incredible ability to transform into the cheapest, unscariest monster in the world (think 60s Star Trek aliens) by rolling seductively in mud! When I first found myself in this horrible position, I took the only logical action: I made myself a torn-apart jungle bikini in which to perform my badly-acted antics. I enjoy romance novels and tearing apart the occasional unimpressive African warlord. And I would be remiss if I did not mention my (white, of course) sidekick Mr. Cutter, an American ex-military man who seems to have fled the U.S. after his divorce. Can you say "ducking alimony"? Anyway, he provides the occasional distraction from my difficult life. I mean, how many idiot blonds do you know who are also an endangered species of flesh-rending monster? Despite my many hardships (acting is so hard! *whine*), I haven't given up, and after much soul-searching, I have finally discovered my role in life: to terrorize insomniatic late-night television viewers who are so unfortunate as to not have cable or satellite.


Publicity for this film suggests that it is shocking and sensational. Well, we opera lovers see some strange sights in opera houses so we are not shocked by the Duke of Mantua urinating during his reprise of La Donna è Mobile, nor is it sensational to see Gilda sing Caro Nome in the bath. It is just crass and boring. What stands out about this film is its lack of imagination. Director Corina Van Eijk sets the Duke's palace in a seedy swimming pool. In fact, he is not the Duke, he is just a character named Duka, so it's difficult to see why he has lots of hangers-on and his own jester, Rigoletto. Rigoletto lives in a council flat that is furnished with the orange sofa and decorated in the spotted wallpaper that is de rigeur among avant-garde directors.The Duke's, sorry Duka's heavies ride around on motor scooters (Yawn).

Concepts imposed on an opera like this can produce unexpected, and unintentional humour. What can we make of the fact that Gilda has a maid, even though she lives in a council flat.? When the call goes out that Monterone is being taken to prison we see him being marched out of the swimming pool by two attendants in pink shorts. One imagines that he is going to be charged with urinating in a public swimming pool.

It was common for opera films to be lip-synced 20 years ago but there is just no excuse for it today. A dubbed opera is like soft porn. You don't believe in what is happening because the performers are not making enough effort. The actress in Gilda's role does not seem to have learned her lines properly. She barely moves her lips when she is supposed to be singing. When she sings Caro Nome in the bath she lies back with her legs slightly parted. It is difficult to tell which orifice the sound is supposed to be emanating from. The Duke, later caps this by singing while engaging in cunnilingus with Maddalena, giving a new meaning to the phrase yodelling in the canyon.

The ambiance of the sound never seems right with the orchestra sometimes sounding as though it is being played through a transistor radio. Fairly slow, rumpity-tumpity tempi are preferred so that the overall effect is of a karaoke in your local pub.

This is a film of a production by Opera Spanga. Spanga is a village in Friesland in the Netherlands. They normally perform in a tent in a field. If I had been watching this performance in a tent in a field in Friesland I would have been fairly indulgent. By filming this production and giving it a worldwide audience, the villagers also hold themselves open to worldwide ridicule.


Rigoletto is Verdi's masterpiece, full of drama, emotion and powerful, memorable music. The maestro must have rolled in his grave when this bawdy travesty of his work was released with its needless frontal nudity and cheap copulating and its portrayal of the naive but principalled Gilda as a horny ditz. Opera certainly can be adapted to cinema --- look at Zeferelli's magnificent La Traviata --- but when a work is as superb as Rigoletto, it doesn't need cheap gimmicks. It might even have been acceptable if the dubbed in music had been good but it is a mediocre rendering of the libretto with second rate sound quality at that.


As I mentioned in other comments, I became a real big fan of David Bradley ever since I saw him in "American Ninja 3". The guy is great doing martial arts, has some kind of charisma and is a cool looking dude on screen. Sadfully, he went to the DTV department ever since his debut and has remained as one of the king of TV movies until 2001 where he apparently stopped making movies. Now, one thing is watching Cyborg Cop or Hard Justice which are crappy clichéd movies but real fun to watch (coz they're entertainingly bad if that has any sort of meaning) but another thing is watching a tasteless piece of boredom like Total Reality. I mean, this and Crisis are the two biggest pieces of horse-dung this guy ever did. I wouldn't recommend this not even to the biggest Bradly hardcore fans. If I had known this and Crisis were going to be so f*****g crap, I wouldn't have spent the 3 or 4 euros they cost me. Total Reality is just as boring as Crisis although funnily, it starts promising. A group of military prisoners in the future are given a chance to stop some kind of disaster in the past (I'm sorry, I didn't really pay much attention to this atrociousness) and they only have 24 hours to get back or something like that. If they don't, they're stranded there forever. The poor director who oversaw this, "tries" some humorous (?) clichés like the convicts arriving on Earth and not knowing what a truck is for example (wow, hilarious...). The movie follows up with David Bradley teaming up with some Earth girl for the rest of the flick. This bored me so much that I had to force myself to watch it in like 3 or 4 installments to at least make use of the 4 or 5 euros it cost me. That's coz every time I tried, I fell asleep. And if you get a movie with David Bradley with just one crappy 10-second fight scene in it, then that's the final touch which would contribute to you throwing it off a hundred foot cliff so as never to see it again. I wish I could meet the "director" of this pile of poo on the street and I swear to God I'd ask him back for mi 5 euros. I'd also love to meet David Bradley to ask him why in God's name did he choose to star in this poor excuse for a movie. Don't even bother with this film, I mean it from the bottom of my heart, not renting borrowing it and specially not buying it.


don't buy this film for comedy value like I did, I didnt find it one bit funny, but so f****** miserable and lame it's unbelievable. I gave it to a friend for christmas which was pretty funny (on my side) I recently heard that he watched it and told me what an a**ehole I am!

There is nothing more frustrating than watching an over-lit, over dramatic, poorly scored scene in which the camera is sat there on a tripod and doesn't move... the film work is truely pathetic, and I can only say DONT WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!


There is no reason to watch this film.

Why? Many reasons. First up, the acting is awful. There is hardly a line that isn't misread - but that is hardly surprising given the banality, stupidity, and repetitiveness of the dialogue the actors are asked to mouth. It is awfully written. One of the most annoying things about the script is that the writers only seem to know one way of keeping their characters talking after a certain point and that is to have them repeat the most important words of the previous character's line.

"Repeat?"

"Yes, they repeat it. For the whole movie."

"The whole movie?"

"Yes, the whole movie."

Etc.

In movies like this you generally know who the bad guys are and what they are after. (All the good guys usually have to do is stop the bad guys. Setting up a good "Mwahahaha! with X in my grasp I will rule the Universe!" villain is the first stop in any cheapo SF plot) but in this turkey? - you tell me.

As I understand it our "heros" are a bunch of mass murderers sent into the past on a Dirty Dozen type mission. They are sent by a fascistic totalitarian state to stop some other mass murderers from altering the course of history. The new history would not include the rise of totalitarianism, and a war that kills 30 billion people and leaves the Earth a dead planet (we know all this because this movie has one of those handy long on-screen situation reports just before the action starts, telling you who is who and what is what. It's an indication of who the producers think their target audience will be, that it is narrated as well as appearing on screen - just to save the audience from taxing their brains too much by doing a lot of reading.) So just who are we supposed to be rooting for here? I guess we are asked to believe our hero undertakes some sort of journey from totalitarianism to love, peace, and understanding while shooting loads of people - but that doesn't work as an arc because we are shown he is a decent(ish) human being right at the start when he tries to rescue all the civilians aboard the rebel station.

I guess the makers were aiming at some sort of deeper than normal complexity in this film but they just ended up with an unholy mess with more plot holes and logical inconsistencies than a dozen or so of your average crap SF movies.

The opening credits were nice.


This film is striking only in its banality and use of cliches. Sadly it was obvious throughout up until the ending. But don't be mistaken into thinking that it ended strongly. Only a little unexpectedly, though nothing worth watching the thing through for.

From the taciturn and wronged hero, to the Germanic baddy, to the expendable team, the characters were entirely wooden and obvious. The two FBI agents Smith and Wesson (geddit?) gave some hope of humour, but that came to nothing.

I am a big science fiction fan but it is hard to find any redeeming quality in this film. A turkey!


I rented this movie for about $1.50 - the most complete waste of money (and time) I have ever spent. It's LAME! I couldn't believe how they could come up with something like this.

The plot... there is no plot. Everything you'd expect to happen, it does, only in a worse way. The acting was horrible. My dog could've done better. The special effects have no effect whatsoever - except inducing complete disbelief. And the cheesy lines.... I mean, why even bother?

The only credit I can give this piece of sh*t are the opening scenes. They were actually quite pretty. And one of the reasons why I decided to rent this. The graphics shown there are probably the best and most realistic CG of the entire film.

Total Reality gets 1 out of 10 for not being able to mark it lower.


This is a strong recommendation to anyone who reads this review who has never seen the film Total Reality, don't waste your time and money renting this poor excuse for a film. This is, without peer, the single worst movie that I have ever seen in my life. I had nightmares of this movie ever since I saw it. The acting was terrible, and any amateur film maker could make a more decent film. The film blatently rips off far superior sci-fi films, such as TimeCop or Total Recall (where the title seems to have been derived from). I'm sorry, but I just think that there is more entertainment value in watching the side of a cardboard box for two hours. If you already have seen this movie, I feel sorry for you for going through what I did.


Ben Affleck, about to be married, is shaken up by a plane accident and gets involved with one of the other passengers (Sandra Bullock, forcing herself to act insane). Who is to blame for this inept, ugly morass? It is so badly edited, when I looked in the credits it wasn't to read the editor's name--it was to see if the person actually took the credit! Rife with clichés, contrivances, and Sandra Bullock in raccoon eye-makeup, the movie doesn't even concern itself with creating chemistry between the two main characters. Laughs are non-existent: the scene in the gay bar with Affleck might have gotten a big laugh if it weren't so stupid (the bar patrons--a big rowdy bunch of them!--shout for Affleck to strip and start digging out their cash). It's not supposed to have any significance other than getting Ben to loosen up a little, but the direction of the whole scene is wrong-headed, and the outcome is unseen because the idiot editor cuts away...or was that all the film he had? It's a small moment but it's typical of this film, an amateurish piece of pop-goods that wants to be an edgy modern comedy but doesn't have any guts. It is tailor-made for the bottom shelf at your video store. * from ****


This movie seems as if someone had a cute idea for a movie, thought of two or three funny possibilities, hired a good cast, then turned the whole thing over to a really bad screenwriter and even worse director. The director filmed a screwball romantic comedy as if it were a dark, artsy film---weird camera angles, blue filtered shots, lingering, close up looks at raindrops. Steve Zahn was good, as always. Ben Affleck was charming, sweet, almost shy; he was perfect for a romantic comedy. Sandra Bullock struggled along valiantly with a character who was supposed to be zany, but whose wackiness consisted of things like madly kissing a husband she hated, abandoning her child, going on carnival rides, offering to strip for money, and bumming a ride with a fellow airline passenger. The script had very few funny lines; there was no physical comedy; it was boring. It introduced potentially funny situations, then cut them off before they could develop. To top it all off, the "twist" at the end was a slap in the face to anyone expecting a fun romantic comedy. If you saw the trailer for the movie and liked it, as I did, my advice is: don't go to the movie. It will only spoil a nice trailer.


This is one of the worst Sandra Bullock movie since Speed 2 But not quite that bad. I really lost it with those out of the blue not so "special effect". Guys, If you're an insomniac go with your girl to see this movie. I give it three sleepies!


There were some decent moments in this film, and a couple of times where it was pretty funny. However, this didn't make up for the fact that overall, this was a tremendously boring movie. There was NO chemistry between Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock in this film, and I couldn't understand why he would consider even leaving his wife-to-be for this chick that he supposedly was knocked out by. There was better chemistry between him and Liv Tyler in Armageddon. Hell, there was better chemistry between Sly and Sandra in Demolition Man.

There were several moments in the movie that just didn't need to be there and were excruciatingly slow moving.

This was a poor remake of "My Best Friends Wedding". Wait until it's been out for a year and a half on video and rent it in the .49 cent bin if you've got nothing else to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and you can't think of any better movies to rent.


It seems on the surface to be a romantic _planes, trains and automobiles_ but at times tried for something more, where it failed miserably. Some may like the nontraditional ending, but the attempts at "deep insight" into the world of marriage flopped around not really going anywhere.

But if you were interested by the story, the movie tried other methods to distract you. The unnecessary special effects, of which the falling rain was the most obvious, served to do nothing but annoy. The camera-work is erratic at best.

One note of caution, however. My movie experience as a whole was less than satisfying, sitting in the first row with a group of young'uns around...


This was by far one of the worst movies Sandra Bullock has starred in. Ben Affleck should stay behind the camera and continue writing scripts. This is definitely his forte and acting is not. I actually lasted 54 minutes into this movie before I was so bored with it I felt compelled to leave the theater. It's a bore from beginning to, well 54 minutes into the film anyway. The premise of "Guess what happened to me on the way to the ...." has been done over and over to death. Somehow there just doesn't seem to be anything funny, or romantic about people cheating on each other. Parents should be aware that this may not be a suitable film for your teenage children especially impressionable ones that may view Sandra as a hero. There is a scene where the writers/producers/directors thought it would be nice to show how "acceptable" it is to smoke a joint .... while driving .... and then have no consequences at all when caught. I'm no prude, and I smoked my share when I was younger but I guarantee you I won't take my teenagers to see it and they're solid A & B students. If you want to see a good Sandra Bullock movie, rent "The Net" or "Hope Floats" which I believe are two of her best works.


Possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. Pathetic in almost every way.

I threw the DVD straight in the bin - I didn't even think it was fair to give it to the local thrift shop.

The effects are beyond a joke. The dam control room looks like cardboard. The water looks way out of scale with the backgrounds - nothing works.

Then there is the limp plot - about as much depth as a Scooby Doo cartoon.

I couldn't wait for them all to drown.


Killer Flood: The Day the Damn Broke: 1/10: Finally a movie whose title is spoiler proof. Even by the low standards of disaster movies, excuse me allow me to correct myself, even by the low standards of made for TV disaster movies this is truly awful. Where do I begin?

The dam modeler may have once seen a photo of a dam but I doubt it. Most dams, especially large ones that generate electricity have oh I don't know a power plant nearby, some sluice gates for water to run through, heck even a high tension electrical wire or two.

The dam is also somewhat understaffed. Two, count them, two employees staff the entire dam, all three shifts. And the employees were apparently imported from a clichéd ridden world war two film, as they heroically and rather needlessly have long eulogized death scenes complete with photos of grandchildrenn floating by. Heck one of them manages to get shot by the dam itself in a way that defies description.

The special effects consist of flowing water superimposed on photo's of the town in a method that makes a sixties Godzilla film look like the Matrix. A three-year-old drawing with a blue crayon on the film stock would have yielded better results. Since the disaster money shots are worthless how is the rest of the film?

Needless to say the script and acting follow the special effects lead. This is no diamond in the rough. This is the rough. So is it a guilty pleasure? Killer Flood is awful enough to generate some laughs and the film itself has that earnest incompetence that makes a good cult classic, but bad disaster films need to age like a fine wine. (Avalanche, The Swarm, Meteor) It is also doubtful that Michelle Green hiding from the flood in a dumpster with a golden retriever will ever match the great Henry Fonda being pelted by raisins that are supposed to be killer bees. Check back with me in 2024.


What a dreadful movie. The effects were poor, especially by todays standards, but that was forgivable. What was unforgivable was the terrible rehashing of every flood/dam breaks disaster movie ever made into this piece of trash. The acting was awful and I mean AWFUL. The point in the story where Michelle Green stops to rescue a dog from the approaching torrent was hilarious. They see the water approaching and run for their lives. (By the way they had to find a very old fat dog so as to not make Ms Green look to unfit). They manage to outpace the water for some time before taking refuge. What speed! Later, a speeding car is not fast enough to escape the torrent. God, she and that dog did run fast! If you want to watch a good movie about a dam breaking - this isn't it. Porchlight Entertainment turn out some good family films but this time they just missed the mark.


This is one of those made-for-TV B movies that is so awful it kind of endears.

Bad acting, predictable script and cheesy special effects that were pretty much some of the cheapest tat seen make you have to keep watching to see if it gets any better.

It doesn't!


Even a awful 1 is to much for this film, everything form start to finish made you cringe. I don't think it would be possible to cram more overly clichéd moments, into one piece of mind numbingly numbingly waste of film.

Prisoner cell block H meets Thunderbirds, hell even Virgil's expressions were more life like than his son.

I haven't even finished watching this and I'm on here now.... Oh no, the cheesy clapping of 3 actors and a backdrop done by a child with adobe premiere. This truly is the end of my "I've started so I'll finish watching it" phase.

Oh joy, the credits have come to rescue me. (and relax)


the director of this movie must have been mentally ill or even high ... when he accepted to direct this movie... ... i'd rather stare at my ceiling for 5 hours straight instead of being ... punished to watch that stupid movie ... my parents make me watch it as punishment...... ... Don't WATCH IT !!! the director of this movie must have been mentally ill or even high ... when he accepted to direct this movie... ... i'd rather stare at my ceiling for 5 hours straight instead of being ... punished to watch that stupid movie ... my parents make me watch it as punishment...... ... Don't WATCH IT !!! the director of this movie must have been mentally ill or even high ... when he accepted to direct this movie... ... i'd rather stare at my ceiling for 5 hours straight instead of being ... punished to watch that stupid movie ... my parents make me watch it as punishment...... ... Don't WATCH IT !!!


when i first saw this movie i was literally rolling around on the floor laughing (especially when they were getting chased by the water, and when the guy drove through peoples gardens, i mean would it hurt to drive around the washing line?) the special effects! this movie clearly didn't have a big budget. either that or the guy left his toddler in charge of the controls. the water coming out of the damn looked like a close up of a can of beer that had fizzed up. what were the actors thinking? did they actually believe that it was a good movie? or did they just really need the money? not that they would've earned a lot. when i first saw this, i was like 'god, how old is this?' when i looked on the info about it and saw that it was made in 2003, i thought my TV was broken.

this really is a disaster movie, in more ways than one.


This movie doesn't even have the saving grace of being so bad that its good. It is truly appalling. Its closer to a tongue-in-cheek parody than a disaster movie, but alas they were serious. Made for TV, but not worthy of even that. It contains every cliché and cheesy plot moment you can imagine. Oh will he save the town from the flood? Will his wife admit that she still loves him? Will they escape before the flood drowns them? I cant explain how bad this is. Awful predictable plot that makes you wince it is so cheesy. Bad Effects (although to be fair I have seen worse super-imposed bubbling water). Bad script. Woeful acting. Hideous. So bad in fact that you probably should get drunk and watch it.


Why can't there be better TV movies made I was at a loose end today and watched this film on a satellite channel in the UK. What a terrible waste of my time it was . Poor sets, Poor acting & Oh my god what a terrible flood . Blimey that woman can even outrun a torrent of water too!.

I really wish that people would make TV movies using better effects, better or at least more believable plots & far better acting. Killer Flood is well up there with poor acting. A few bits of ham couldn't act any worse.

1 final thing I really agree with the comment about the dog, but I believe it would of already scarpered in real life!


Right... so you have a dam, tons of water (that seems to flow really really slowly) and a small town that happens to be right underneath the dams path of destruction. Throw in a profiteering glutton, an apparently mentally unstable and disgruntled architect and his son, and then to spice things up you add a weak plot and bad acting. All in all, when you have a look at this film from a paying customers point of view... I would feel extremely peeved off if this was a pay-per-view film. If you want a laugh... then you really need to watch this film.


i though this film was okay.i din't think it was great.it was a bit too slow for my taste.lots of drama,but not very much action until close to the end of the film.this movie was basically a dramatic film,with the payoff,if you can call it that,not until near the end.to me,the scenes of the dam bursting and the water flooding the town,were okay,but much too brief.the film itself is done okay,the acting is decent,but it just didn't do it for me,in the long run.think it had something to do with the fact that there was very little suspense or tension built through the whole movie.at least that's what i think.the other factor is that i had just recently watched '10.5' and its sequel '10.5:Apocalypse'.these are 2 big budget "event movies,which,in my opinion, are a very hard act to follow,in terms of special effects and scenes of destruction.as a result,i have to rate Killer Flood:the Day the Damn Broke at 4/10


I went to see this movie to kill some time. I remember Cole Hauser in "Tigerland", and although his acting is wooden, he does portray a tough "leader" character. Same here. This movie was about a bunch of young, hot scientists and divers exploring a cave in Romania that one has to dive to see. The beginning scene was very interesting, with a bunch of Romanian or Russian men exploring the cave in search of booty. Flash forward 30 years, and we have a team of divers called in by some scientist and his crew to explore some cave for some unknown scientific purpose.

There is a lot of clichéd, useless talk. The women are too hot for their jobs, let's face it. I hate to watch the lips of these women talk about the guys while drinking beer at the pre-cave exploration party. I mean it was like we were at some bar with frat and sorority types talking about the opposite sex--not a group of scientists and divers. Every character had ZERO personality, with perhaps exception of the scientist, who at least wasn't one of the young and beautiful people. So, the acting, although workmanlike, was not inspiring.

The dialog was pretty bad. At one point in the movie, Cole Hauser ("Jack"), the lead diver--his irises morph into the Cingular wireless symbol, and stay like that. We are led to believe that, since he was scratched by one of these monsters, that he is turning into one of them. Fair enough. But first of all, nobody says the obvious thing to him: "What is up with your EYES, dude??" No. Everybody just talked about how he's "changed" and that he should not be the leader of the group anymore. And then this guy says, "you see how he's not HUMAN". Huh? If they really believed he was a friggin' monster, then why not act like it? Instead, the group splits in two--those who go with Jack, and those who go their separate ways, I guess thinking him to be a monster. It makes no sense.

The best scene in the movie was this blonde diver woman crawls up a cave wall, and gets attacked by this goblin. Her scream really sucked--but she fought like hell to dispatch the goblin.

The photography was fine when the camera was STILL. But any action sequences, the director found it useful to confuse the hell out of us by flashing bubbles, flashlights, dark space, god knows what. I wish they would just show us a scene straight once in awhile. Just because you move the camera all over the place doesn't make the movie any SCARIER, folks.

This movie could have been a lot better if the following changes had been made:

1. every actor was replaced by someone who looked real. Let Cole Hauser be the lead, it's OK to let him be the good-looking one. I'm getting tired of seeing 20-something supermodel scientists. Give me a break, people!

2. The cinematographer was fired, and replaced by one who just pointed the camera and sat still. This could be the director's fault, I don't know. Jumpy camera (as in Constant Gardener) is getting old, folks.

3. We got to see the goblins actually devour the people. How bout some gore? There's not much else in this movie. We barely got to see the creatures--I felt a little ripped off about that.

4. The ending was pretty lame. During the denouement, the sexy British scientist has a secret...guess what that is? It's a bit canned. The ending would have been better if they all died instead of the Black guy (Morris Chestnut), who seemed to breathe a little sympathy into his character just by his worried expressions. All the other actors had NO expression.

I gave it a 4 out of 10, because after all, the acting was without noticeable errors, and the concept was fairly original. I'd like to see Cole do more military roles--he's good at it.


The scariest thing about this horror movie is that the end alludes to a sequel. 'The Cave' is really a disappointing action movie. A team of cave and undersea researchers go to Romania (one of these inexpensive places to make a movie, for now at least) and following a destroyed church enter in a cave that proves to be a realm of underground monsters. Or are they daemons? The movie never decides if it wants to be action, science fiction, or horror, it is a mix of all without salt or fun, and acted in a wooden manner. The best thing about the movie is the cinematography, but even the dark landscape of the cave becomes soon boring, because the film lacks pace and the characters are simply not interesting. Waste of time.


How unfortunate, yet also fortunate, that two films about pot-holing -The Cave and The Descent - should arrive at much the same time. Sadly for The Descent its release in the UK on 7th of July coincided with the very day of the London underground tube/metro terrorist atrocity that killed almost 60 and injured hundreds - not a particularly good night/weekend to pop out to the cinema, especially to see a scary-as-sheesh film about likable women being trapped in a deep, dark, claustrophobic underground caving system. The two movies have virtually the same elements - a half dozen or so characters, lost in a previously unexplored caving system, with no-one outside aware they are trapped down there. Lots of water, caverns, danger... then ultimately some vicious human-like or human-derived creatures determined to prey upon them. Where the two are so different is that The Cave is unreal, entirely unbelievable, more Alien-esquire sci-fi fantasy adventure than horror, or drama. The comparatively minuscule-budgeted British film (filmed in southern England though set in the Appalachians) is five-pair-of-pants terrifying, a heart-stopping shocker so stomach turning that people walk out of screenings early in shock. It knocks off the girls in any old order - you genuinely have no idea what to expect next - surely not her! The Descent is also lit in naturalistic manner, making it all the more scary, unlike the laughably lit Cave which resembles a giant magical Christmas Santa's grotto, with cathedral-sized room after room dazzling in gloriously blue light from... who knows where, while the cavers torches are employed exclusively in artistically lighting up the granite-jawed heroes (each more puppet-like than any Team America / Gerry Anderson / Thunderbirds creation). Fantastic amounts of equipment are carried too, yet despite this the impossibly deep-voiced actors clearly forgot to pack any sense of impending danger, drama, or anything worthy of a horror film - it's strictly PG rated. And in this instance the actors peg out in exactly the order that everyone expects them to - i quickly wrote a list after being introduced to each character, only getting Piper Perabo out of sequence. The Cave script is entirely by-numbers, unlike Shakespeare a room full of chimpanzees would eventually write it in under a week... Take a typical exchange between the 'good buddy' white and black leads that goes; "how many times have we been in this situation before bud?" - "too many" (replies Morris Chesnut). I swear, you could hear my suburban London audience gasp at the obviousness. The scariest thing about The Cave is that at the end there's a clear opening for 'the sequel' - 'The Cave 2: Overground' or whatever. Be afraid, be very afraid... Or instead catch The Descent and be truly afraid, very very very afraid. RR


I rented this film from Blockbust because of the Cover and Title! Sounded intriguing!! This movie suffered because of the writing, it needed more suspense. The "monsters" needed more face time. We needed them to have some sort of special power and definitely more "Oh Sh--" moments. The photography didn't bother me except for the scene where a re-breather blows up. There were too many close ups. But other than that the movie seemed to drag and the heroes didn't really work for their freedom. Overall, I would say everyone put in a lot of time even the writers. But this movie is definitely a below average rent.

There are definitely better picks. I would recommend Anacondas 1 or 2 over this pick.


Mixed group of "experts" (explorers, divers and scientists) venture a mile underground and go another 2.4 miles underwater to a spot even more remote, where they find salamanders, giant albino moles (??) and some big, razor-fanged, winged, computer generated creatures lurking about. The cave is sealed off by a rockslide and then the monsters attack and start killing everyone off as they search for an exit. And that's all she wrote with this low-aiming effort that even fails to combine action, science fiction and horror on the most elementary of levels. Imagine if someone gave the folks at the Sci-Fi Channel 30 million dollars to make a monster movie. That's precisely what THE CAVE is like; almost startling in its ineptitude at times, full of clichés and almost entirely dependent on the special effects to entertain. The only difference is they had more money to build sets, more money to polish up the monsters and more money to hire supposedly professional actors who give awful performances anyway. Otherwise, it's business as usual. Some of these movies are still fun to watch. This one is not and there are loads of reasons why:

1.) It takes itself far too seriously and has no sense of humor whatsoever. So you get a completely unoriginal and predictable movie that doesn't even recognize how unoriginal and predictable it is.

2.) The opening sequence serves no purpose whatsoever other than killing a few minutes and adding to the redundancy.

3.) Unoriginal looking CGI creatures are not impressing anyone in this day and age.

4.) Utilizing shakycam and quick-cut editing for your horror scenes is simply lazy, unimaginative film-making. And why further obscure the action by making things too dark AND adding annoying distractions, such as fire and explosion of bubbles? It makes these scenes not only difficult to see, but also impossible to enjoy even on a no-brainer action level.

5.) Even though it wants you take to it seriously, the script is full of clichés, the dialogue is awful and there's no attempt whatsoever at characterization. Casting 25-year-old-looking model types in roles as brilliant scientists and gruff veteran explorers might provide some eye candy but it completely kills the credibility of a movie that otherwise plays out completely straight. Sorry, you can't have it both ways.

6.) There were two exceptions to the model rule, as they did decide to cast an old guy and an average looking Joe. These were the first two characters killed off.

7.) For a little diversity, they also squeezed in a black guy and a Chinese guy. Strangely, neither are given much of a voice in this film and basically stand in the background as whitey discusses what their next move will be. Insulting.

8.) Furthermore, how many movies have to be made where a black character sacrifices his life at the very end just to ensure Hot White Female Lead and Hot White Male Lead end up together at the end? Ugh. Give me a break already.

9.) Much of the acting was HORRIBLE. Cole Hauser's performance was completely laughable. The other male lead looked like he just walked off the set of a Soap Opera and coasted by using the patented dimpled-smile-makes-all-the-ladies-swoon technique, which is the PG-13 gender-switch equivalent to my-large-breasts-make-all-the-guys-swoon technique often used by ladies in R-rated films. Either way, his performance was completely phoned in. Daniel Dae Kim (from the TV series "Lost") and Piper Perabo also stunk up the room with their stilted and monotone line delivery.

10.) Was the ending a joke? Absolutely terrible. Please God, we do not need a sequel to this garbage.

So basically I wouldn't bother with this one, unless you've never seen a monster movie before or if you're just really desperate and the only other thing on is "The Simple Life." The sets were good, the blue-tinted photography is OK and a few of the actors (Lena Headey, Marcel Iures...) tried their best, so I decided to boost the rating up one notch to a "2."


I think that most people would agree with me if I were to say that the movie Alien pretty much set the bar for atmosphere. I've seen quite a few movies match that bar but none have ever exceeded Alien's eerie tunnels and darkened halls. The Cave is a film that tries very hard to reset the bar. I believe the trailer even mentioned something about being as scary as Alien yet not once throughout the movie did I ever feel even the slightest bit scared, or thrilled for that matter.

So now that we got the ball of negativity rolling I might as well explain why the Cave's main hook (the atmosphere in case you weren't paying attention) fizzled into a waste of my time. I'll say right now that most of the sets were gorgeous and nicely lit but what we hear and what we know is there tend to ruin what we see. The music for one is terrible. We either get corny rock music or over exaggerated haunted house music. Okay maybe that's pushing it a bit but I couldn't bear it. The many underwater scenes were bad enough (it's a well-known fact that underwater scenes are always boring as hell) I didn't need rock music blaring in my ears while they were simply swimming through a cave. This actually produced a lot of unintentional laughter that was then amplified by the following watercraft crash scene.

Anyway as I already mentioned, it wasn't just the music that killed the atmosphere, heck no. The creatures hiding amongst the darkness are supposed to invoke horror. I'm supposed to be worried that they are going to appear and merely a glimpse of them is supposed to make my blood turn cold. The Cave does wisely take a page from the alien handbook by not showing the entire creature for very long and leading up to the reveal with only glimpses but it just doesn't work because the creatures are so lame. I guess it would be rude to spoil the specifics but they are basically the aliens with wings.

I guess you get the point by now. Atmosphere ruined. Yet I know plenty of people who will still see a movie if it's exciting. I'd like to say that about the Cave but I'd be lying. This movie is slow to get to the action and once we get there we sort of wonder when the thing is going to finally call it a day. We've seen all this done better before with the exception of a few neat scenes (the guy impaled on stalactites, the eel and the rapids) so you really don't get any thrills from watching people running from uninspired alien knockoffs in endless tunnels.

Ah but no the pain doesn't end there. We must also take the characters and acting into account. Well I can't remember a single line of dialogue other than "run!" and the only character's name I can remember is Jack but that's only because it's placed in almost every other line near the end of the movie. Perhaps the actors were capable but the script didn't allow them to do anything other then run and argue. They had almost no background and whenever somebody died they simply shrugged it off. It's pretty sad when you consider that the CGI eel puts on the best performance in the film.

Speaking of CGI; there's plenty of it, most of which is terrible. I do commend them on using suits (at least I THINK they were suits) but nothing truly meshes with the environment and as a result most of the effects end up looking pretty hokey.

So I guess to wrap it up, the Cave is bad and has very little going for it. Had the film been a SciFi channel premiere movie or low budget direct to video release I might have a bit more love for it but this film was a theatrical release. With more wit and talent this might have been a frighteningly fun movie but as it stands this film is about as scary as going into the basement and that's not very good.

My review from Frider Waves: http://friderwaves.com/index.php?page=cave


The mission to see the movie "The Cave" was a dream of a friend of mine after witnessing the highly dramatic trailer, full of flashes of a creature lurking in a cave, some young cave divers, and not much else. It's too bad that the movie didn't change much more than the trailer did.

The immediate allure of a movie like this is the creature. What's he going to look like? Why does he live in a cave? How is this one supposed to be different from the other creatures we've been shown in movies like Alien and Predator and the Relic? The cave "demons" do not look far from the skeletal creature in Alien: Resurrection and even has the sight of Predator. Shame that's a total ripoff...

Well, let's look at the plot: very confusing and jumps to more and more totally improbable twists as a team of cave divers is sent to find a cave and its dwellers in the Carpathian Mountains. The casting was very much clear that we want young, hip, tough chicks, chiseled guys, and the girls who have brains also have to be hot. We also have to have one of every racial background in case the audience thinks that the film-makers are biased to a certain viewpoint. Totally been done, and I'm totally tired of it.

The other main problem was the ending, as if to say there might be a sequel. Plase shoot me if there is one. The tagged on ending made me wretch.

I gave this movie 3/10 stars. The points that it did get were more or less appreciation points towards the creature-builders for their high-quality job spent on the costuming and design for the monsters who dwell within, even when they looked totally ripped off. And there's an interesting (yet labored) documentary on the DVD on underwater cave diving. Go check it out only if you love new creations of monsters and creatures, but be warned that you've probably seen this movie before, and it was better the first time.


Dire! Dismal! Awful! Laughable! Disappointing!

Right, your trapped in "The Cave" with several "hard" Men and a Woman or two, your being systematically killed by "Something" and you STILL don't get to hear ANY naughty Grown Up words!!! A 15 Cert' here in England, and you could tell!

The Egos of the "Macho Men" was just too much, pass the bucket I'm going to be sick.

This movie should never be exposed to daylight and ironically, be kept in the darkest, deepest hole in the ground and be forgotten forever. I have a feeling that this description isn't the first time to pop its his head from a hole in the ground.

Just like the film The Cube, it looked like a good concept but was just let down at the last post by, well its self.

This Comment contains Spoilers alright, its called The Cave.

Thanks Bruce.


Its perhaps unfair of me to comment on this film , because , for the first time ever , I switched off a movie because it was so bad. I can watch anything , but this movie was so very boring. I was bored before I put on the DVD and thought this might be a laughable action horror/ action movie to lighten the mood. It is not even that , it is a device which increases the level of boredom by the power of 100. Had to switch it off after 45 minutes because all that had happened in that time was some people had been scuba diving , and a big mole had been discovered. Seriously , this movie is not worth the time, even if you can enjoy a bad movie like i can , avoid this film like the plague.Worst thing I have seen in years.


Some sciencey people go down in a cave for some reason and there's some sort of creature that's killing them.

I usually give a more detailed plot, but I wasn't paying too much attention to this. Overall, it was dull and the only time you'll be really paying attention is during the action scenes, which the director did wonderful on.

The acting is alright, but the characters are so dull and forgettable they blend in your mind. You'll forget who lived and who died for 2 reasons: 1. The kills are boring 2. The characters are boring.

The ending might have shocked me more if I knew who was who.

So you're looking for a creatures-in-cave movie? Check out The Descent instead.


"The Cave" got released more or less simultaneously with the English film "The Descent", directed by Neil Marshall. Both movies share a similar premise; only "The Cave" is dreadfully unoriginal, unexciting and incompetent compared to the splendid horror adventure that is "The Descent". It feels like Neil Marshall realized that the basic story was too poor and instantly added ingenious ideas, depth and a personalized style, whereas "The Cave"-director Bruce Hunt simply went for the most rudimentary elaboration of the screenplay that was thrown on his desk. The result is an unbelievably mediocre film that features every single horror cliché you can think of and in which most of the violence happens off-screen. And we all hate that, don't we? The story introduces a clique of insufferable cave-divers that become trapped in a completely undiscovered Romanian underground ecosystem. Hideous winged creatures, that also happen to be parasites, soon attack them and escape seems impossible due to a landslide. The first half hour is still mildly entertaining if you keep yourself busy with spotting all the clichés and listening to the cheesy textbook dialogs, but the whole thing just gets too dire. None of the events are even slightly plausible and it looks like the entire cast is competing with each other to deliver the WORST performance. I've seen better special effects in anonymous B-movies already, the filming locations aren't used to the fullest and the ending downright sucks! Very much NOT recommended!


I can't help but forget that incredible scene in Alien, when the extra terrestrial burst out of one of the men's chest. Or even in Predator when the invisible monster snuck upon the bewildered soldiers and cut them to pieces. Both these movies expressed fascinating ideas on the run-of-the-mill creature feature. Back track to the era of cheesy B-movies and watch big men in phony suits parading around killing people in small towns. Now recognize that the two movies above revolutionized this genre. The Cave does nothing to improve on it. It tries nothing new, and worst of all, The Cave doesn't even have good gore. Shame on them, shame on them all.

Parading around in sexy spandex are the one-dimensional characters of The Cave. All of which seem to not care when they witness the death of their colleagues. They just stroll along, unbeknownst to the evil creature lurking in the darkness. The plot is very easy to understand. So you got the two brothers, the black guy and the sexy female scientist. The rest (by the rest I mean all of those meet grisly demises) are even more unexciting then the others. We have the Korean assistant, the risky outdoor chick, a Russian scientist and two divers, both lacking a sense of emotion and are stupid enough to wander off by themselves. This movie exceeds to be extremely clichéd, since everybody but the black guy, one of the brothers and the female scientist meet an end. It also seems only Americans can survive the terror, since the Russian and the Korean die. Don't be offended if I give away details. There's no real surprise anyway.

To be straight forward they find this cave. They go in the cave. They get stuck in the cave. They start dying in the cave. One of them gets infected in the cave. More die in the cave. They get out of the cave; only to discover that one of them has a parasite that will turn them into a ghastly monster, which really doesn't seem to bother them. That's the simplicity of the lackluster plot. It doesn't even try to be original. It even has the part where they decide their leader isn't capable and split up. We have just seen this way to many times before.

I know in a movie like this, people don't care about the performances but it's worth mentioning how bad they were. Everyone is just so dreary. Cole Hauser was especially unsophisticated and don't get me started on Eddie Cibrian, who is frequently a lot better. Morris Chestnut is hands down the best thing in the movie. His performance is actually decent. He portrays the guy who calms everybody down. All the other actors are average at best. In a show like this, that's really not a bad thing.

Now to the reason we go to this genre of film; the action, of course. Well, to my regret, the action was dull. The death scenes are all boring, hell the whole movie was. There is barely any blood at all. It's either they disappear and found later or they are attack and die without a bruise. Seeing the Koreans man's death was the only exciting action I could find.

It's pretty amazing. The bad things over shadow most of the things that are good. A good example is to say the special effects were well done, which they were. The only thing wrong is that since everything takes place in a cave, it's going to be dark. I found it extremely hard to distinguish between the cave walls and the monsters. So it was pretty hard to even see the creatures. Although I liked the special effects, there was nothing original about the monsters. They all resembled each other and they weren't frightening at all.

The Cave marks the directorial debut for Bruce Hunt. I don't see what he was trying to accomplish by making this film. He obviously made a huge mistake. Almost everything about this movie stunk like a stink bomb. A stink bomb is probably even more pleasurable than watching this mess again. Only the most forgiving moviegoer will find this forgivable. I gave up all hope in the middle of the film when I heard the phrase "what the hell was that", for the third time.


The movie "The Cave" has got to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. There was no plot, no story-line, and the lighting was terrible. For most of the movie, I was unable to make sense of the scenery as it was being highlighted by flashlights. The persistent 'grey' spaces throughout the movie were irksome. The only scene that really came through clearly was in the cavern lit by what appeared to be a bad simulation of the conditions to be found in Hell. All in all, the movie was not really worth watching. If the producers cannot come up with something better than this, they should find another occupation. The underwater scenes were particularly awful, being mostly made up of bubbles and flashlights, with the occasional look at the actors. In summation, a really awful movie with bad lighting, extraneous flashes throughout.


I totally agree. This is "Pitch Black underground" and a well worn plot. The best scenes I thought were the divers exploring the caves, going through impossible subterranean passageways, some of them were heart pounding. The scenery was great. Had they dispensed with the staple "alien" toothy CGI badboys entirely the movie would have been much better. All they would have had to do is never show any monsters at all but have everyone wondering, and follow Jack's descent into madness, and this might have been a top rate hitchcock-style thriller, maybe award material. The acting isn't bad. But those rubber bats just reduce it to standard fare.


Take your video camera, turn out all the lights in your house and film people running around with flashlights for an hour and a half and you've got the basic idea of what this film looks like. It is very irritating to watch this kind of movie. To be fair, there are scenes of daylight at the very beginning and very end of the movie. I like scary movies and creature features but this one just didn't do a thing for me. So sorry. I really tried to like it. There didn't seem to be much of a plot other than we've got to find a way out of here. Didn't learn too much about any of the characters so it didn't matter if we lost one or two along the way. This isn't the worst movie in the world. "Open Water" holds that title for now.


That's how I was when I walked (staggered) out of this "film". I couldn't leave, because it was at a film festival and the cinema was full of people. I was stuck in the middle. Trapped.

The tiny fragment of original footage which attempted to bind this film together features some of the worst acting ever to grace the big screen. The daughter was a stand out performance - stand out in the bad sense.

Thge cinematography was hideous, consisting of disjointed framing and some of the oddest lighting I've witnessed.

As for the stock footage... well at first one...

Wait.

Why am I reviewing this film? Why do I acknowledge its existence? Please, don't watch it. Do something useful with two hours of your life and go watch some paint dry.


OK, I saw this film through Mystery Science Theater 3000, but I did see the movie, so I figured I would leave a comment on it. I just love once again how Joe gets stuck with the crummy roles while his brother and nephew's are just getting the Oscar winning roles left and right. Soultaker is technically what you would call the movie that was meant to be good. It seemed like the director and actors just took this movie extremely seriously and had very cheesy effects, a story that didn't make much sense, and not to mention pretty crummy acting abilities. This is one of my favorite MST3K episodes, simple because a lot of what they mention is what we are thinking throughout the film and I'll explain why in a moment.

Natalie and Zach are a couple who broke up and are now trying to work things over. But since Zach is in upper lower class and Natalie is in middle class, it just ain't gonna work. But on the way home, they and Zach's friends get into a car accident and now the angel of death/Soultaker is after them to meet his quota of soultaking. But also it seems like he's had some kind of other life relationship with Natalie and just can't seem to move on. So now Natalie and Zach must race against the ever appearing five million times a minute clock to save their souls and lives.

Well, I guess Zeppelin was wrong when he sang that there was a stairway to Heaven, I wonder if Black Sabbith was wrong too, lol. Basically there are a lot of plot holes in this movies, like no one can see the characters and they can't be killed, yet somehow they can still press buttons and open doors? The Angel of Death had a very strange face and was a bit distracting from the story itself. Soultaker was just a lousy film that was rushed and makes you just feel so bad for Joe, the under-appreciated Sheen/Estovez brother.

2/10


OK, I read the director's comment about this movie (featured as the 'frontmost comment'), and I have to admit that I can identify with his position.

Micheal, I hope your career recovered from this particular setback and you went on to other, better things. I've seen this movie in the MST3K form. Even with all the chopped continuity and snotty remarks being tossed out by the robots, I saw a potentially decent movie with an ambitious set of ideas trying to struggle out from under the limited budget and limited actors available to it. And this is one of those films ("Mitchell" is another) where the MST3K crew took a lot of cheap shots at the lead character even when she actually deserved better. You know they had some unfair fun at the actress' expense because it made for a livelier episode.

IMO, the fact that the movie actually tried to be ABOUT something, and had a few decent, effective moments here and there, should keep it out of the 'Bottom 100' ("Tangents/Time Chasers" is another movie with a plot and a heart that doesn't deserve to be there either).

But it is still not a very good movie. I don't blame the writer/lead actress for being who she is. It's just that her acting and writing skills needed a few more years to mature before she could pull off a vanity project such as this or carry a feature film. The writing and characterization is amateurish and slapdash, and the dialog is often barely up to ABC Afterschool Special standards. The cast sincerely gives it their best effort, and the acting in general is definitely head-and-shoulders above abortions like "Future War" or "Space Mutiny", but there aren't any really professional level performances here, with the exception of 'Big Joe' Estevez, who is hammy but suitably intense. I never saw the full original cut, but MST's sampling of "Soultaker" was representative enough to make these facts plain.

Oh, and the film has Robert Z'Dar in it. That is, IMO, a real 'Kiss Of Death' for any movie that hopes to be taken seriously. Yes, he's big and scary looking in his role, but I just hate the guy as an actor. (In real life, I wish him well and hope he is financially comfortable).

There were little things I liked about the film. For instance, the camaraderie between the male lead and his dead buddy added some warmth and humor to the movie and made it a lot more watchable. The idea of an elevator in the hospital that opened its doors to the Afterlife was an inspired way to invoke some spooky vibes without springing for special effects, and I respected whoever worked that into the script in attempt to keep the budget manageable. It didn't really work, but it might have with just a little more tweaking.

So anyway, Mr. Rissi, better luck with your other projects - your involvement with this misfire wouldn't keep me from watching something else you did if the 'buzz' was good. And Ms. Miller has nothing to be ashamed of - she was young and ambitious, and the movie wasn't THAT bad.


Okay, to be fair this movie did have an interesting concept. Given a few script rewrites, some decent actors and a budget, this might have been a fairly decent cult flick instead of the MST3K fodder it turned out to be.

Still, it was better than "Armageddon."


Now I did watch this when it first came out on VHS, and all my friends and I thought it was a pretty good movie, but then again, we were teenagers. But honestly, not that good of a movie in retrospect. Sort of a hair metal, Dokken version of Carnival of Souls. But a bad movie does not exactly mean it is unwatchable; however, this one seems to lack the charm a lot of the regular Mst3k fodder usually contains. But if it was on cable, and I was bored and drinking beer--sure, I'd watch it again. But then again, I've watched Howling VII about five times now, so maybe you really shouldn't be listening to me.

Anyone else think it kind of sad that the director supposedly commented on his own movie? And why did he feel the urge to use caps lock so much?


When a movie's claim to fame is that Martin Sheen's younger, less known brother stars in it, you know it's not gonna' be a real good one. "Soultaker" is a low budget, silly film about a group of 20-something year olds being pursued by an angel of death. It's a stupid movie, but it is pretty entertaining, and even somehow slightly likable in it's stupidity.

The plot in the film is very small, and it's stretched about as far as it possibly can be. Joe Estevez isn't much of an actor, so luckily for the audience, he has very few lines and his role in mostly just him walking. This movie really feels like it was trying to be a horror/fantasy franchise, considering it has the same plot layout as a slasher. 4 characters, each dies one at a time...will any live? Who really cares. Though it sounds like I hated this, I didn't. I just didn't like it very well, but I was interested through most of it, so I guess that counts for something.

My rating: * 1/2 out of ****. 90 mins. PG-13 for language, violence and nudity.


The film Soultaker is essentially an older form Final Destination in which several car wrecked teens have their souls separated from their bodies and must cheat death who is chasing them... The film has its moments, and its concepts, the idea of disoriented souls being separated from their bodies is a pretty nifty idea... If this movie were remade with a few good actors/actresses and some awesome special effects it could turn out to be extremely awesome... As for the actual film, I recommend watching the MST3K version, the pure version might be too boring to sit through, unless you love bad movies staring Martin Sheen's brother...


Soultaker was written by and starred Vivian Schilling. It also starred Joe Estevez, Gregg Thomsen, and Robert D'Zar as the Angel of Death.

The story begins with introduction to Soultaker, played by Joe Estevez. We quickly learn what Soultaker's role will be in this movie.

Next the college aged young people are getting ready for a summer festival, aptly named "Summerfest". In this film, the battle of the classes is omni-present throughout the film. The girls come from a wealthy class, and the guys come from roughly middle or lower class. The class roles seem to play a role in the film for some reason which isn't really clear or pertinent to the story.

At Summerfest we learn more about the apparent class struggles of why Zach isn't encouraged to date Natalie. Soultaker makes an appearance as well, with apparently his boss the Angel of Death. Here D'Zar's character points out who is to die and who's souls are to be taken. It's revealed as well, that Soultaker will have a character conflict regarding Natalie, and how he deals with her because of someone in his past.

Meanwhile Natalie is ditched by her ride to Summerfest, and Zach convinces her to ride home with them. During the ride home, Soultaker takes an active role causing them to wreck horribly at high speeds.

The rest of the story surrounds the Soultaker collecting the souls of the dead passengers, and Zach and Natalie trying to outwit him to return to their bodies so they can continue to live. The class and character conflicts lay in the story, but are really never brought to the forefront or resolved.

There's an attempt towards the end to drag out some of the drama, there's a lot of chasing and running which does tend to be really boring. It's not really acceptable, and it would've been nice had this been dealt with differently, somehow to maybe increase the drama but not bore the audience.

The story and acting are decent. The soundtrack is OK, and even the production values are good.

Robert D'Zar in his brief on screen appearances does a nice job as the Angel of Death. Joe Estevez does OK, however sometimes his role acting a bit flat. Vivian is pretty and does a decent job as Natalie, although perhaps over acting a bit in a few scenes.

This may sound odd, but this movie definitely could've benefited from some pointless nudity. Vivian teases us a bit but that wasn't enough.

In my opinion this was a pretty serious attempt at making a movie. The results, it's worth watching. Just don't expect a perfect production.

3/10


The plot of this movie is dangerously thin and the only "star power" if we can call it that consists of Joe Estevez. I don't know what is more shocking. The fact that this movie was made or the fact that some people actually gave good comments about it. If you ever see the cover of the video you'll be able to read them. Someone even went as far as saying that the actress/writer could be the leading lady of the 90's. Yeah! And Joe Estevez could have more money than his brother Martin. If you want to check it out anyways I highly recommend watching the MTS version of it. At least you'll laugh a lot without going insane.


But at least this movie got what it deserved - to be sent to the Satellite of Love to be ridiculed on by Mike, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot from Pearl Forrester on "Mystery Science Theater 3000!" "Soultaker" is one of those long lost, forgotten movies that are so bad you'll be guaranteed to have nightmares or depression later on in life. Even though the movie is not that old, it's still a very forgotten type of movie. If it had never been for the intelligent minds at "Mystery Science Theater 3000," the movie would not only seem like it was never made, but the movie wouldn't be very enjoyable by us moviegoers.

In real life: this movie is really bad. In the Satellite of Love: this movie is excellent!


It's the Sooooouullltakaaaa!

Wow. What a skin peeling bad movie. Honestly, this is one of my favorite episodes of MST3K.... Just some things to point out...

1) The incestuous lesbian mother-daughter exchange was weird. I do need counseling now.

2) There is no God, there is just Dude.. I love that quote from Crow.

3) Whatever did happen to the Nuns that took the bus home, will we ever know? I have a horrible emptiness in my stomach.

4) Lastly, don't watch this movie un-MSTied... It has Joe Estevez as the main star.. Yikes..

1/10 for un-MSTied 8/10 for MSTied.


This crock of doodoo won a award? They must have been desperate for giving out an award for something. This movie reeks of teeny bopper stuff and it made me sick. Thankfully I watched it alongside MST3K's Mike and the bots so it made it bearable. Horrid acting, unsettling mother/daughter moment, silly premise, if you want a bad movie here it is. Be warned though watch it with Mike and the bots or you will suffer.

1 out of 10. I still can't believe it won an award, and the director is defending this *&&^$$#$^&& piece of ^%^%$^$#%@$#@ movie!


First off, I've read the comments by the director further down and I'd like to thank him for offering his opinion. I've always wondered what the makers of the films lambasted on MST3K felt about their works being shredded (not to mention how Best Brains acquired the rights). Rissi's comments make me curious, however, as to how much Sci-Fi could have cut the film to make it seem different (now I'm thinking I might rent it from NetFlix). Of course, I've never seen the uncut, non-MST3K version of this film but even having seen it on MST3K, I never thought of it as a bad film or something unwatchable (though I did think it was a pretty funny MST3K episode); certainly not, as Pearl describes it, "skin-peelinging awful"; not after seeing the likes of "Future War" and "Hobgoblins."

As far as cutting the film, it's been done before on MST3K, at least once. Case in point: the Joe Don Baker flick, Mitchell, in which the subplot involving John Saxon's character is cut in the MST3K version, yet Joel and the Bots comment on Saxon's absence after his appearance in the beginning of the movie. If I may submit a criticism of MST3K, if you need to cut the film for time considerations, fine, but be fair to the film being cut (even if it is a film as lousy as Mitchell). Of course, such criticism is rather pointless what with the show being over, but I think that aspect of the show was kind of unfair. But anyway, if it's the case with Soultaker, it gets my sympathies.

Still, I maintain that it's an enjoyable MST3K episode though the movie itself, even the version that's been "hacked" in MST3K, is no where near terrible.

As a final note, in a weird coincidence or perhaps a case of Synchronicity, I happened to watch The Hudsucker Proxy the day Soultaker aired and wouldn't you know it, the guy who played Vivian Schelling's father had a bit part in that movie; one of his three other credited roles, actually. I thought that was kind of weird.


that got destroyed quickly by the poor quality acting, cinematography, numerous pointless scenes and a terrible villain. Well let's see Joe Estevez is bad (as usual) but he isn't the only casting problem, writer Vivian Schilling is no great actress, in fact, well she sucks. Her script isn't so bad, it's just bad directed. In fact if the direction had been better and if better actors had been cast, this could have been a really good film.

 But alas, with all of these problems "Soultaker" fails to be even kind of passable as a horror movie, plus the pacing is just awful too.

 The MST crew had some fun with this one but it definitely wasn't one of their better efforts. 5 for that, nothing for the original.


Seems to me that Joe Estevez spends most of his time hidden under the shadow of his rather successful brother and appearing in really bad movies. Joe spends most his time walking around dressed in black and looking quite moody. He takes orders from a puffy faced angel of death, who you might recognize as the puffy faced villain from Tango & Cash and as the puffy faced cyborg from Future War. Well, Joe and Puffy have a job to do and it involves taking some souls of some kids in a big car being driven by a dumb galloot who questions Led Zeppelin. Well, the car crashes and the chase is on. The lucky kids to escape Joe look like Tonya Harding and Rick Springfield. They're chased around town, break things and Tonya gets leered at by her mom while she's undressing for a bath. The action winds up at a hospital where we learn that heaven is an elevator ride away. In the end, some green lights flash, Joe shouts and Puffy vanishes without a trace. Wish I could say the same for this movie. Watch it from the relative safety of MST.


First of all, since I'm one of the people who never saw the MST3K chopped up version of this movie, I can't comment on that.

However, I DID see the original version of this movie on the Sci-Fi Channel and I thought it was just as good as anything else on that Channel. In fact, I thought it was one of their better offerings.

I've noticed in perusing the comments here that the people who write in detail about SOULTAKER with a modicum of intelligence, thoughtfulness and maturity tend to like at least a FEW things about this movie and rightly so. In it's original cut, most reasonable people I think would probably rate it at least 4 or 5 stars out of 10. Five is average to me and I think this movie is about average for a Sci Fi pic.

In contrast to the above, I've also noticed that the reviewers who seem immature, dull and flip and as a result come off as boneheads from where I stand, are the same ones who can't find anything good about this movie and basically trash it without cause based MOSTLY on seeing it chopped up and fricasseed on MST3K. Or if they have seen both cuts it seems they were greatly prejudiced by the MST3K viewing to begin with.


I have seen both the MST3K version and the uncut version. I rather enjoyed it. Either way, it wasn't that bad of a movie. Sure it moved a bit slow at times. I liked it.

As far as MST3K goes, they only did the movies they could get the rights for. Not all the movies they ripped apart where bad movies, it was just so easy to make fun of them. Take SoulTaker for example.

Joe Estevez and Robert Z'Dar's characters where so inanimate and boringly silly I couldn't help but laugh. I couldn't take them seriously. It really created a unique feeling though.

Vivian Schilling did an excellent job with the script. A world better than 95% of the garbage in the theatres today. Her role was played well. Not too screamy not to masculine but just right. The camera really likes her in this movie. I would have casted her in that role after ready the script.

Anyways, this movie deserves a bit more credit than it is given. Please watch the uncut version if you see the MST3K. It deserves that much.


The Camals Are Coming is a rather disappointing British comedy from 1934. I purchased this because I like desert adventures and states on the box that it is a drama. It certainly isn't.

It is about a couple who head for Egypt to capture some desert drug smugglers.

This would have been much better if it had been done as a drama instead of a comedy, which lets it down a lot. It is quite silly in parts. Depsite this, there are some good action and location scenes.

The cast is lead by Jack Hulbert with Anna Lee as the love interest.

One viewing is enough for this movie. Overall, a disappointment.

Rating: 2 stars out of 5.