Title: Dracula A.D. 1972

Director: Alan Gibson

Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Stephanie Beacham

Review: Sometimes movies can be time capsules that transport you back to any given time. In this case...our time capsule is Hammers Dracula A.D. 1972 which transports us back to a time in which Austin Powers would have felt right at home.

The story is about these group of kids (were not a gang! were a group!) that love to hang out at a café shop called "The Cavern". One day, Johnny Alucard (hmm strange last name...wait...it spells Dracula backwards!) a new member of the group offers the group a new way to get their kicks. He offers them a night of black mass and black magic. To which they also say "sure why the hell not, it could be fun!". So in no time flat, the find themselves resurrecting Count Dracula from the ashes.

This movie opens up with a swinging party at some rich doofuses home. He knows non of the people at his party, yet there they all are partying the night away in his house. Doing drugs, making out and dancing on top of tables. The filmmakers made sure that this sequence was completely engulfed in whatever young people considered cool at that time. Everyone says words like "way out" and "groovy" and they finish many of their sentences saying "all that jazz". So yeah, its pretty evident that this is the 70s. To top it all off, there's a band that sounds something like "Jefferson Airplane"...I mean you'll be drowned in all things 70s. And as I watched this I kept asking myself "how the heck is Dracula with his black cape and get up going to fit into all this?" And thats exactly what happens. Old Dracula feels out of place amidst all the partying and the rock and roll and drugs. Many of the scenes in the film are great....but sadly the music they decided to add to the proceedings doesn't fit at all and completely takes you out of the mood of things. Something horrifying or scary will be happening on screen and suddenly a bunch of loud trumpets and congos start to beat and your just completely taken out of the horror element. That sucked out the atmosphere right out of this movie for me.

But all in all, putting all the distracting 70s music aside (an illness that Satanic Rites of Dracula also suffered) the movie was pretty good. But I will mention this. The story was just a re-hash of what we had seen before in Taste the Blood of Dracula. In fact the story is damn near identical. Lets see...a young lad inherits Draculas ring and ashes...check. He then decides to bring Dracula back to life with the help of some people who know nothing about what they are getting into...check. Black Mass to bring Dracula back in a desecrated church...check. The list of similarities goes on and on. So this movie ain't very original if you ask me.

There are a few things that make this movie worth while though. For example the fact that the movie is a time capsule to London in the early seventies makes the film entertaining. I kept giggling and laughing every time someone spoke in 70 jargon. I couldn't believe some of the clothes these people wore and the cars they drove! It made the movie fun for me, but we are here to get spooked, were here to see Drac kill a few virgins and take his revenge on the House of Van Helsing. Did we get any of that? Well yeah. There's a few good sequences squeezed in there to satisfy old school hammer fans. First off, there's the Black Mass sequence which was above all things satanic! They mention the name of many a demon and lots blood is spilled. That sequence was awesome but it was messed up by the music in its most crucial moment. Then there's Draculas actual resurrection which Ill admit was great from a visual standpoint. Some mist comes out of Draculas grave and slowly but surely Christopher Lees silhouette and face emerge from the fog. Cool shot! I loved it! We have a Cushing and Lee face off at the end. And I couldn't help to laugh at one point when Dracula hurls a piece of furniture through the air. I laugh because he has done this in every single film since Horror of Dracula. Its this Hammer tradition where the characters start throwing candle sticks and chairs at each other. And I think to myself, aren't their more exciting things to show then a bad guy throwing a candle stick at our hero. Oh well, anyhows, Draculas demise in this one is very similar to all the other Hammer Draculas before it, vampire gets slaked and then we cut to a series of frames until there's only ashes left.

All in all, an unintentionally funny Hammer Dracula film. Its trapped in the 70s and though that makes it a fun watch (and its not as horrible as Satanic Rites of Dracula) it still doesn't gel well with the Dracula universe we had come to expect from Hammer.

Rating 3 1/2 out of 5


In this desperate and thoroughly silly attempt to keep Hammer's Dracula franchise alive despite having lost most of its power long time already, our legendary vampire is brought back to life in the swinging London of 1972. Exactly hundred years after he was destroyed by his archenemy Van Helsing, an occult disciple named Johnny Alucard (get it? get it?) gathers his flamboyant friends in an abandoned church, among them Van Helsing's great granddaughter Jessica, and performs a satanic ritual that resurrects Dracula in a haze of smoke. Dracula's only mission is to wreak havoc upon the entire Van Helsing lineage and fragile Jessica is the ideal victim to achieve this. This is probably the only 70's film that goes immensely over the top in trying to look likea 70's film! Considering the previous six Dracula films were all set in the Victorian era, director Alan Gibson really wants to stress the fact we're in the 20th century now and thus he stuffs his film with insufferable hippie-characters, hideous 70's fashion trends and awful 70's music. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing seem hopelessly lost in this setting and their performances regretfully show it. The opening sequence (a flashback) and the showdown climax are fairly enjoyable, but everything in between is painfully boring and the complete opposite of scary. The greatest elements in this series of films have always been Dracula's dark castles and the exhilarating coach races and, obviously, this installment lacks all of that. Luckily for the fans, Hammer Studios contemporary released other films revolving on vampires that are much better ("The Vampire Lovers", "Twins of Evil", "The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires"). Not recommended.


Film starts off great in 1872 with a violent, bloody fight between Dracula (Christopher Lee) and van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Dracula is impaled and dissolves to dust--van Helsing also dies. Somebody gathers Dracula's ashes and buries them in the grounds of a church. Cut to 1972--here's where the film falls apart.

We are instantly hit over the head with loud, bad 70s music, HORRIBLE fashions and silly dialogue. When this was made Hammer was losing money and decided to try anything to get a hit. Putting Dracula in the 1970s was NOT a good idea. The fashions, music and dialogue date the movie horribly. We're introduced to a bunch of annoying kids in their 20s who decide to have a Black Mass--"for a giggle". Naturally they have it at the church (now abandoned) and naturally revive Dracula. It's a good thing a descendant of van Helsing is around...but Dracula goes after his niece (Stephanie Beacham) in revenge.

Lee and Cushing are great as always in their roles and whenever they're on screen the movie gets a much-needed shot of energy. The opening and ending battles are the highlights of the film (although the ending is spoiled a lot by playing lousy 70s music). Also the main ringleader of the kids is named Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame)--a truly stupid name that dates back to the 1940s. The film also has scream queen Caroline Munro looking absolutely great. The film is well-directed and pretty well-acted but the plot is stupid, the constant barrage of 70s fashion, dialogue and music gets annoying real quick and I was basically bored silly.

Most Hammer fans agree--this was one of the worst Dracula movies--it's followup (Satantic Rites of Dracula) was THE worst--and the last Hammer Dracula film. This gets a 2--just for Cushing and Lee.


If you first saw this movie with Mary of the Fourth Form, then it's perhaps possible for the haze of nostalgia to encourage your charitable side. If not, it doesn't stand a chance. The young things' hipspeak is complete nonsense, people may have used the occasional word you'll hear here, but not huge batches of them in sentence after sentence. It doesn't so much date Dracula AD 1972 as blow it to pieces, from the moment anyone under thirty opens their mouth it's impossible to take the film seriously and as for it being a laugh, it's not even a smile. The idea of throwing Dracula into modern times is a good one and worthy of a far stronger script than Don Houghton can provide. The River Thames and Chelsea Male are no match for puppet bats, model castles and terrified extras, but you can't help but feel that with better writing it would have been so different.


The idea of bringing Dracula to contemporary times isn't bad--after all, it might revive the series a bit by injecting a new story element into a series that Hammer has all but exhausted in a long series of generally excellent movies. However, because the present day turned out to be the crappy early 1970s, the results were pretty silly and looked more like LOVE AT FIRST BITE (a deliberate comedy). Seeing Christopher Lee in a film filled with 70s hip lingo and electric guitar chords and laughable rock music just seemed beyond stupid. To make matters worse, the acting is much more over-the-top here--with an intense and silly performance by "Johnny Alucard". I also thought it was really funny that it took Van Helsing's grandson to notice that "Alucard" is "Dracula" spelled backwards--no one else figured this out for themselves! Wow, what cunning!!

So because so much of the movie was bad, why did it still earn an almost respectable score of 4? Well, when the story came to the expected showdown between Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Drac (Christopher Lee), it was exciting and ended very well. Additionally, and I know this will sound very sexist, but if I had to watch a bad film, at least Stephanie Beacham's character wore some really nice outfits that revealed her ample...."talents", so to speak. So at least it was a pretty film to watch.

By the way, the film ends with the phrase "may he rest in FINAL peace" at the end, though this was not the final Hammer Dracula film with Lee. He returned for "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" just a short time later and it was in many ways even worse than this dud of a monster film.


Veteran British television director Alan Gibson's "Dracula A.D. 1972" qualifies as one of the least appetizing entries in the Hammer Studios series about Bram Stoker's immortal bloodsucker. Actually, this represented the first time since Terence Fisher's memorable "Horror of Dracula" (1958) that Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing fought each other as mortal enemies. They would reprise the same roles a few years later in the final Hammer Dracula: "The Satanic Rites of Dracula." Further, it was the second-to-last Dracula for Hammer in which Lee performed as the infamous fangster. For the record, "Dracula A.D. 1972" was the seventh Hammer Dracula.

The exciting prologue from 1872 prepares you for something vastly different than what the rest of this disappointing horror flick yields. Eternal rivals Count Dracula and his nemesis Professor Lawrence Van Helsing are literally at each other's throats atop a runaway carriage in London's Hyde Park for a vigorous opening scene that makes everything else look comparatively anticlimactic. The carriage crashes, and Dracula emerges hugging half of a wooden wheel with its shattered spokes embedded in his chest. Of course, Christopher Lee has to grip this broken wheel against his body, but the imagery is striking enough in its own way to pass muster. The Count expires and so does his opponent Van Helsing. However, one of Dracula's disciples snatches the Count's ring and scoops some of the vampire's ashes into a vial for safe-keeping.

Don Houghton's screenplay hurtles the action ahead a hundred years to swinging London in 1972. We meet a smarmy young man, Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame of "No Blade of Grass"), who loves to raise hell with a group of hippies that crash parties and drive the British police with their antics. Alucard happens to be the descendant of one of Dracula's servants. Now, Alucard has the Count's ring and a vial of his dehydrated blood. Alucard chooses the sight of a desecrated church to arrange a black mass. He invites his trendy friends, among them Laura (super sexy Carolina Munro of "The Spy Who Loved Me"), Gayner (Marsha Hunt), and Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham) to attend this black mass because it offers them something different. Not surprisingly, they resurrect the Count, and the evil bloodsucker sets his eyes on Jessica. Meanwhile, after Laura's body is discovered drained of blood, Scotland Yard Inspector Murray (Michael Coles of "Doctor Who and the Dalkes") solicits help from Van Helsing's modern day offspring Lorrimar (Peter Cushing). Dracula wants to exact revenge on Van Helsing by taking the latter's granddaughter as his bride. Lorrimar tracks down Alucard; they fight in his Chelsea apartment, and the young vampire drowns in a tub of water. Remember, running water is just as lethal to vampires as sunlight and crucifix. Van Helsing finds Dracula in the deserted church with his daughter awaiting the Count. Van Helsing and Dracula tangle. Van Helsing flings Holy Water into Dracula's face. The vampire falls into an open gravesite with a stake awaiting him and he decomposes again.

The chief problem with "Dracula A.D. 1972" is that we don't get enough of Lee as the Count, though we do get considerably more of Cushing as Van Helsing. Furthermore, scenarist Don Houghton keeps Dracula confined to the ramshackle church and never allows the vampire to venture out into the city. Despite its low budget, "Dracula A.D. 1972" could have been a lot better. The scene where the contemporary Van Helsing has to jot down Alucard and spell it backwards to get Dracula seems almost laughable. You'd think that he'd know about this backwards spelling trick. Unless you are afraid of horror movies, this one will make you yawn. Occasionally, Gibson presents us with a superb close-up of Dracula with his bared fangs and blood-shot eyes, but this is about as scary as this chiller gets, and that isn't saying much.


Though I had sort of enjoyed THE SATANIC RITES OF Dracula (1974), I knew I shouldn't expect too much from its even more maligned predecessor! Surely the least of the Hammer Draculas (Marcus Hearn on the Audio Commentary for THE CREEPING FLESH [1973] even goes so far as to call it the studio's nadir!), the film really flounders due to its totally unhip - and now embarrassingly dated - updating of the myth (the modern-day setting actually suited SATANIC RITES rather better)...even if, truth be told, it's still vastly preferable to dreck like Dracula 2000 (2000) or VAN HELSING (2004)!

Despite Christopher Lee's vociferous bashing of the film, he still cuts an undeniably striking figure as the undead vampire (even if he appears very little and is inexplicably confined to one setting); likewise, Peter Cushing delivers his usual committed performance. The only other noteworthy acting job in the film is that given by Christopher Neame (son of director Ronald) as Johnny Alucard(!) - even if that's only because of how unbelievably hammy it is! Unfortunately, the two best-known female members of the cast (both of them horror regulars) - Stephanie Beacham and Caroline Munro - can't rise above their physical attributes.

The camera-work is by Dick Bush (who had shot THE BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW [1971] and, for Hammer, WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH [1970] and TWINS OF EVIL [1971] - but is perhaps best known for his longtime association with Ken Russell) which manages some nice atmosphere throughout, especially during three crucial sequences: the carriage-ride scuffle at the (properly Gothic) beginning; the hysterical Black Mass sequence, followed by the resuscitation of Dracula; and the final confrontation between Lee and Cushing's Van Helsing.


Being too young to have experienced the Hammer films when they were fresh and new, I am discovering their hallowed horror films as I find them on DVD. I know it was almost a decade and half between them but it's hard to see much of the magic in the original Hammer Dracula in this late entry to the Christopher Lee series. The original Hammer vampire story had lots of atmosphere and a terrific story to get involved in. Lee was a great Dracula, a vibrant vampire if that possible, in the early outing but here he is nothing more than a cardboard character that mostly stands around and looks threatening. The modish young people talk like cartoon characters (even though my aunt lived in England during the 1970s and she says people actually talked with those awful clichés). I had no interest whatsoever in who lived or died amongst the younger crowd. They were all pretty terrible characters anyway. I did enjoy seeing a young and charismatic Caroline Munro; but she leaves the story too early. Lee and his historic nemesis Peter Cushing add an air of authenticity to the film but they can't draw blood from this empty film. It's D.O.A.


Proof, if ever proof were needed, that Hammer should have left their vampires firmly in the Victorian age. After all, vampirism is all about repressed sexuality, so the concept is irrelevant in 1972's London, with its thirty-something thesps pretending to be randy teenagers.

Remember, by this time, Hammer was floundering badly. The public had tired of the drawing room horror of the 1950s and 60s, so the studio was trying everything to bring them back, including ample nudity (LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, et al) and updating their characters - neither of which apparently worked as Hammer was pretty much resting in it grave just two years later. Shame ...

But I still have a great fondness for the classic Hammer period from 1957-1965.


Of all the adaptations of books by Alistair MacLean, I feel that this qualifies as the worst, but don´t blame MacLean!. It would appear that all that this film shares with the novel is the same title. We have no suspense, no sense of foreboding of mystery, no chance to really empathize with the main characters. We spend the entire duration (or at least I did) waiting for Charlotte Rampling to shed her clothing (for Charlotte, this appears to take a remarkably long time!). Still, a glimpse of Charlotte Rampling´s tits really can´t save this disastrous film. MacLean has once again been kicked into the gutter to endure the sniping of those bitter hacks and nit-pickers who would appear to blame him for all the ills that befall attempted filming of his books. Poor old Alistair must have crawled into a corner and whimpered when this one came out. At least "Bear Island" - which also uses the Maclean name but apparently none of his novel - was a LITTLE exciting. The excitement here is in waiting for the final credits.


It's a shame that such a lame plot should be hung on such picturesque locations, with some documentary style reportage shoved in for extra length. A shorter film may have held the tension a little more, and a more charismatic lead may not have mangled his lines so much. The female lead also, was not allowed to do enough resulting in a pretty but boring affair. It builds towards the end but the lead actor's own redemption is too little too late and should have been revealed earlier in the film. Not awful, just a pity. Unexciting but nice enough to grace TV schedules of the early hours.


A lot of Alistair MacLean's books have made it onto the big screen. Some of them (The Guns Of Navarone, Fear Is The Key, Where Eagles Dare) have been translated rather well; some (Breakheart Pass, Ice Station Zebra, The Secret Ways) have been passable enough; a few (River Of Death, Bear Island, The Way To Dusty Death) have been pretty rotten. Caravan To Vaccares is another movie based on one of MacLean's perennially popular bestsellers, but alas this is yet another that deserves adding to the "rotten" list. Peopled by uninteresting characters who get into uninteresting situations and escapades, Caravan To Vaccares is an absolute failure, both as a thriller and an entertainment. Its only semi-redeeming qualities are: a) that it is filmed on very attractive Provence locations, and: b) Charlotte Rampling looks utterly ravishing (with fully nude scenes to boot) as the main female character.

Disillusioned American drifter Neil Bowman (David Birney) is travelling aimlessly through France when he meets British photographer Lila (Charlotte Rampling). They decide to accompany each other, and during their wanderings make the acquaintance of mysterious nobleman Duc De Croyter (Michel Lonsdale). The Duc persuades the pair to aid him in protecting and escorting Hungarian scientist Zuger (Michael Bryant), who is sought by various shady parties because of some information that he is carrying in his head. Kept secret from Bowman and Lila is the fact that Zuger has discovered a secret formula for using solar power as cheap, economical energy. The Hungarian needs desperately to get his formula to New York, but hired guns have been put on his trail to capture him  presumably so that he can be taken back to some ruthless criminal lord and tortured into revealing his priceless secret, which they can then sell on to the highest bidder. Bowman and Lila find themselves and their terrified fugitive on the run in the French countryside from their deadly adversaries.

The film seems terribly cheap and amateurish, almost like an ultra low-budget independent film made by a non-professional cast and crew. Yet a fair sum of money was actually thrown at the film, and all those involved have, at various points in their careers, done much better work. Therefore, one has to assume that the film is bad simply because it has been written, acted and directed with a distinct lack of care and interest. The pacing is deadly slow, and the plot points become so laborious that the viewer has to put in too much unrewarded effort to keep up with the story. Birney's performance is uninvolving, and Rampling only creates a stir due to her nude scenes  the character itself is an absolute bore, and the actress looks rightly bored by it. For those who manage to stick with the film right to the very end, there is an unusual scene featuring some deadly rodeo clowns and a fierce bull (!) which, while not particularly exciting or well executed, is at least different to the norm. Caravan To Vaccares is a very disappointing film in most respects, and once more a strong novel by the prolific author has suffered during its transition onto the screen.


It's weird, this film; you get the impression that the makers of this snooze-fest spent more time in the local bars than on set. In fact, it's a surprise not to see Harry Alan Towers' name on the credits; it certainly has the flavour of one of his tax-shelter productions but here the motivation behind the project seems to be for all involved to enjoy a prolonged stay in Provence. Despite the fact that the film is supposed to take place all over the region, Les Baux and the area around it stands in for almost everything.

David Birney makes for a spectacularly colourless hero - as Michael Lonsdale says at one point "you're a walking cliché". What Lonsdale is doing in this is anyone's guess. For some reason, the most interesting character, played by Rampling, is sidelined, whereas, regardless of the book, she should have been the central figure because she clearly has the skill to carry the movie (which would have been dull anyway, but at least we'd have got more of something pretty to look at).

All in all a pointless affair that is only worth watching to see how action-less an action movie can be.


This must rank as one of Cinema's greatest debacles. I was wandering Europe at the time and had the misfortune to stumble upon the crew making this movie in what was, even then, one of the world's idyllic, unspoiled settings. I was enlisted as an extra, and what followed was an exhibition of modern day debauchery. Forget all the accusations you've ever heard of Peter Mayall's intrusions on this rare piece of French life- Geoff Reeve and his cohorts embarked on a level of revelry at the restaurant at Les Beaux that left the Maitre'd slack-jawed in disbelief. They were, quite simply, awful, uncultured and undeserving of French hospitality.


A man comes to the office of the psychiatric Dr. Sammael (Joan Severance) claiming to be the demon Asmodeus (Kane Hodder), the torturer of the 13th level of the hell, and he would like to tell weird things. He tells that he had made a deal with Lucifer to become human again. He should knock-up his virgin sister Mary Elizabeth (Alison Brie) on the day that their mother died and she should kill six people and deliver the Anti-Christ, and then he would escape from the pit and reborn. When Mary Elizabeth gets pregnant, her stressed and abusive sister Catherine (Denise Crosby) does not believe that she is virgin, but their father and former obstetrician Albert Martino (James Callahan) examines his daughter and sees her intact hymen. Meanwhile the Church discovers the truth about Mary Elizabeth's pregnancy and sends the priest and former military Father Anthony (Eddie Velez) to spy Mary Elizabeth. She is dominated by the fetus and forced to kill a truck driver, Lars (Jorg Sirtl), who is the lover of her tenant and friend Jennifer (Azalea Davila), and Jennifer herself and eat their hearts and drink their bloods, but she believes that she has nightmares. However during the ultrasound, she realizes that she is carrying a monster and she asks her father to stop her pregnancy. But it is too late.

The awful "Born" is a B-movie (actually a Z-movie) that believes that is a great movie. The result is a pretentious and disappointing production, with an incoherent and absurd story without humor and terrible acting and direction. The plot is a complete mess: there is a priest that is a hit-man and former soldier; a demon in existential crisis going to a psychiatric; a father that examines the virginity of his daughter; two female-demons (succubus?) that stand naked like a statue with both hands covering their sexes; a character that is a slut, and only exists to expose her beautiful body. There are many scenes with free and cheap nudity. But the worst is the acting: the unknown lead actress Alison Brie is histrionic, with ridiculous voices and grimaces. Sorry, Ms. Alison Brie, but I hated your annoying performance. I have not recognized Joan Severance, who has a good performance, since I still had the image of her youth. Denise Crosby performs a hateful character and like everybody, she got older but she is still a good actress. I believe that if the writer and the director had included some dark humor and assumed that this movie is a B-movie, the story might have worked better and better. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "O Anti-Cristo" ("The Anti-Christ")


I just watched that movie, and was pretty disappointed. I didn't expect much to begin with as the premise of the movie doesn't suggest greatness anyway. Sadly, it doesn't even manage to deliver just as stupid entertainment. The main problem is probably the acting. While I've seen far worse actors in far worse movies, the story would require some people to act out as violent maniacs, some others as people caught a in really stressing predicament, and they fail to deliver that. Although I watched the German release I watched with the original audio, so it's definitely not just bad voice-overs or anything like that. Added to that, the German DVD release seems to be cut, the killings are all pretty much left out, meaning that except for a few semi-gory scenes closer to the end the German release doesn't deliver as a movie for "gore-hounds", either. Can't comment on that for other releases of course. The plot has some stupid moments thrown in here and there and the beginning is just hilarious (ever heard of a demon visiting a psychiatrist?). Too bad the movie takes itself far too seriously, if it was filmed as a horror-comedy and changed a bit here and there accordingly it might have worked better. The ending is just a huge disappointment.

If you've got really nothing better to do and just can't stand the boredom anymore you might (and it's really a weak "might") consider this movie. If there's anything else available to watch or do: Pick that alternative.


Just to save you money and time I will go ahead and tell you that this movie is absolutely not worth the match and gas it would take to burn it. Don't waste your time. As a matter-of-fact you would be better off forgetting you ever thought about watching it. I have seriously seen better B movies in a language that I can't understand. Who ever gave permission for this to be made needs to be sewed. The only positive thing I can say for this movie is that with a new script and the right director and actors it could be a great story. Let me break it down; A virgin gets pregnant by a demon, the baby while inside her womb wants to feed on people. They try to make up for the fact that this is possibly the worst movie ever made with cursing and pointless nudity. All in all Totally not worth the dollar it took me to rent it.


This movie was by far the best ever... I think whoever shot it with the Sony hand-held camera was a genius and the special effects were spectacular especially the chicken breast heart...thank goodness this movie only cost me a dollar to rent.. Also the green toxic boob discharge was amazing......I could have shot this movie with my friends in high school. .................................................................... I would not recommend this movie to anyone ... you might want to kill yourself instead of watching it..... I also feel like this was a move for porn stars trying to make it into the legitimate movie business............give it to her Larz


Seriously, all these Satan comes to Earth movies always involve the Catholics. Why doesn't Lucifer ever mess with the other denominations.

The plot is that Asmodeus (Played by former Jason Vorhees Kane Hodder) has a plot to become human (but wasn't he always a demon) by getting this young girl who is his sister pregnant with his child. Except maybe she isn't his sister. The plot isn't clear on this, and they inter-splice these scenes where he is seeing a shrink about his problem.

The lead girl gets pregnant while still a virgin, with an incredibly creepy scene of her father giving her a gynecological exam to prove her hymen is still intact.... Eeeewwwwww. Her sister (played by a washed up and looking much worse for wear Denise Crosby) concludes that this is a sign from heaven. Praise be!

Well, the demon baby takes mom's body for a joy ride and picks off, in order, a truck driver, her friend's boyfriend and her friend, all being watched by an ex-military priest whose mission is to kill the baby when it is born. We discover that Asmodeus is actually a Catholic Cardinal who is running the whole thing.

The ending is pretty much incomprehensible, and if you could make it that far straight through, you have a stronger stomach than I did. (I paused the film a couple of times, it was so awful.)


Wow. I thought, Eskimo Limon was the most awful and embarrassing first-sex movie ever. But I had forgotten that Germany always tries to compete. In this case, the well-known German film producer Bernd Eichinger was successful in producing even worse crap. Harte Jungs is stupid, not believable and predictable, and above all: not funny. It's almost a tragedy that so many kids went to see this in Germany (and, I'm afraid, also Austria).

Tobias Schenke, 19, looks too nice to have no girlfriend and too ripe to be 15, and his character is too dumb to be true. Schenke tries real hard to make us believe that he doesn't know ANYthing about sex, but that doesn't help. Harte Jungs seems to be made by someone who watched Al Bundy and took him too seriously.

The best actors in the movie are Sissi Perlinger and Stefan Jürgens who play Schenke's semi-liberal parents. Perlinger and Jürgens are stand-up comedians who are not particularly talented in movie acting. Still, their performances are the `best' and `funniest' in comparison.

A complete failure.


In a up and down career with all sorts of movies, this is Altman's one try at science fiction, and it clearly shows that it's not his forte.

The film is practically incomprehensible. It seems a disastrous combination of experimental theater pretentiousness and a major studio trying to jump on the post-Star Wars bandwagon (not that this film is at all modelled after that one, but you can imagine that the studio signed on hoping for a much different Paul Newman sci-fi film). The story is nonexistent, the characters remain strangers to us all the way through.

Altman has packs of dogs feeding on dead bodies throughout the movie, obviously straining to make some sort of POINT. But since the movie is so poorly thought out, starting with the lack of plot on up, it really isn't about anything at all.

The production designed is confused, the photography is undone by the blurs on the edges, and the score is terrible. However, "Quintet" does have one redeeming feature. Not only is the movie clearly filmed out in the snow and ice, but the interiors are kept cold as well. You see the actors' breath in every scene. You really FEEL the cold.


Altman's Quintet has to be considered more than just flawed: As so many other reviewers have pointed out, the ideas behind the film, even some of the choices in depicting those ideas, ought to work--and yet very little in this difficult film does. The partially fogged camera lens--I remarked to my wife that it has to be the most distracting directorial conceit I've ever seen--never allowed me to get "into" the film's world.

In general there are serious problems with the mise-en-scene employed here. It's clear that no small amount of thought went into factors like costume and production design, but neither is very effective in evoking a believable world. Perhaps it is a matter of scale; the film is so stage-bound that I laughed out loud once it was mentioned that "five million" people lived in the city. (Yes I understand the constraints of the film's budget. Matte paintings here and there might have helped.) In all the most disappointing Altman film I've ever seen. Great ideas and grand metaphors do not always come through in art--it's just part of the game.


Watching QUINTET is not unlike watching a group of people playing a word game in Portuguese, or some other language you do not understand. You get the idea that they are playing a game, and if you watch closely enough, you may just begin to understand the rules. But, why bother, since it is clear you can't join in and you wouldn't want to if you had the chance.

Director Robert Altman is not one to beg an audience to like his films, let alone understand them. Sometimes he lets you slip into the picture to be a part of the crowd, like in M*A*S*H, NASHVILLE and A WEDDING, films so full of hubbub and orchestrated chaos, one or two more bodies in the scene wouldn't make much of a difference. And other times, he seems to resent the fact that someone might even be watching his film; as in IMAGES or THREE WOMEN, where the stories are almost personal monologues made for an audience of one, Altman. With QUINTET, Altman seems to purposely dare anyone to become involved with the narrative.

You can't depend on Altman to do the logical or the expected, which is sometimes the thing that makes his films so remarkably iconoclastic. But sometimes doing the unexpected isn't daring, just dumb. For instance, in QUINTET, we are introduced to a young woman who is apparently the last person on earth capable of getting pregnant, and she is, indeed, with child. This last ray of hope in a decaying society is almost immediately extinguished; Altman doesn't even wait until the end to play his last depressing card in this elaborate nihilistic and pessimistic tale. He lets us know how empty and meaningless life is right off the bat. Brave? Maybe. Stupid? Definitely. Devoid of a purpose, he tries to build a story on a rapidly melting iceberg, all the while reminding us how pointless the effort is.

For the record, QUINTET, can at least claim to be prophetic. The story is centered on a treacherous game played by the various bored characters. It is a form of TAG (the assassination game): a handful of people target each other for elimination, each as a would-be assassin and each as a would-be victim. Two or more can form alliances to kill a third. As they die off, new targets are assigned. Whoever lives, wins. All of this happens at some exotic, inhospitable wasteland. It is, to a great extent, an extreme, sci-fi version of "Survivor" -- minus the commercial plugs and faked "reality."

It is not a bad concept for a sci-fi epic. A post-apocalyptic setting, a microcosm of the world (the cast is pointedly multinational), a game where no on can be trusted or least not for long, and where no one really wins. Literally a cold war. A steely eyed director with a taste for dark humor and violent invention could have a field day. The mystery in QUINTET is not in the game or how it is played, but in why it exists it all. If the game "Quintet" is a metaphor for life, then Altman, seems to see nothing in the material but a chance to show life to be an empty, meaningless game -- a conclusion as obvious as it is untrue. Given the lively, albeit cynical nature of the rest of his diverse films, I don't believe that Altman believes in QUINTET either. And if Altman has no faith in his material, why should we?


This movie was sooooooo sloooow!!! And everything in it was bland, the acting, the plot,etc. It was such a disappointment, since the description looked so good! Do not be fooled! This movie is not worth the time it takes to watch it!!!


The earlier review is pretty much on target, which Altman was NOT with this film. I haven't seen it since its original release but I have seldom spent two hours in a theater feeling as miserable and disappointed as I was with this film. If some pretentious community theater attempted a sci-fi version of a Ingmar Bergman film, it might come off like this. I can't bring myself to give anything Altman has made a "1" but this is probably the nadir of a career that has had some remarkable highs and lows. I would have walked out, but as a paid film critic I couldn't. (Think about that the next time you envy movie critics.)


Robert Altman's "Quintet" is a dreary, gloomy, hard to follow thriller where you finally give up after awhile because it's so complicated.

I remember seeing this at my local twin on opening weekend with a full house. By the time the picture ended it was less than a quarter full. Never have I witnessed such a mass exodus without there being an emergency to drive people out. That should tell you how bad it is. I believe it to be the worst film ever made involving such major talent in front of and behind the camera.


"Quintet" is definitely not a film most people would find amusing or even interesting for that matter. There is no scene, dialog, acting or plot development that would light a spark. The icy world is one thing, but muddled plot is something you really can't bear. The characters are not only three-dimensional, they're not even one-dimensional, there is no emotion and there is no sense in anything that goes on. There is a world encased in ice, where nobody is doing any meaningful work, except playing Quintet, and the rules to the game are never even hinted. The homes are not heated, even there is electricity, but who and what produces it? There is wood, but there are no animals, except dogs, so where do clothes come from, or shoes for that matter, since, apparently there is no industry, and everybody is dressed as in 16th century Europe, which is in odd contrast to not so futuristic pavilion backdrop. The entire movie seams to be stuck inside Altman's imagination, and he never bothered to share his ideas or his vision with audience. Desolation or hopelessness have nothing to do with lack of appeal to this movie, the world of George Lucas's "THX1138" is no brighter place and characters are no more fun, but the story has it's path. In Quintet, there is no obvious or even hinted path, and in my opinion it doesn't even provoke thinking about the idea behind it all, as, for example, similar film, John Boorman's "Zardoz". It's not even done in Altman's unique style, so it doesn't appeal to his fans,either, and I'm one of them. All in all, Robert Altman had a dream, and he woke up without telling anybody what it meant, not even to him.


The things that I find irritating on screen, the things I nitpick about and annoy the people who try to watch movies with me are those moment where the writer, director, set-designer, on screen caterer, or whoever, doesn't think it through to the end and, by a single act of omission - or commission - undoes all the other work done by everyone else who has worked on the movie. That moment of "Wait a bloody minute.... What just happened?" that stops the narrative dead in its tracks. (Not that this film's narrative needed a lot of stopping, because anyone who has ever seen it will know that Quintet's narrative drive has pretty well frozen solid before the end of the opening shot.) There are several of those moments in this movie. And you get so long to think about them too. The film is two hours long and the scripted dialogue probably ran to five pages. There's a lot of time to ponder its deficiencies.

The movie is set in a frozen Earth. Another ice age has set in and the whole world is dying. It's cold. Very cold. It's actually very cold on the screen. The movie was shot in Canada in winter and there are icicles and real snow and people's breath misting from their mouths in every scene. Time and again we are reminded how fecking cold it is. People wear big hats and layers and layers of clothes and waddle around like over-dressed Weeble people. Must have been a horrible shoot. My nitpick comes in a sequence when our hero checks into a room of a hotel. Woken up in the middle of the night by voices coming from the room next door, he overhears a conversation of vital importance to the meagre plot through an large grill in the wall dividing the two rooms. I'm not questioning why there is a convenient grill in the wall between the two rooms. What got me annoyed was the fact that the grill had not been blocked up by the long term tenant with the noisy visitor. If you are trying to keep warm the last thing you need is a huge gaping draughty hole in your wall that leads into an unoccupied unheated room. Trust me. I live like this, I watched this film sat on my living-room sofa under a duvet with a hot water bottle. My breath was misting as much as the actors'. If that whacking great hole was in my wall I'd block it up with something. Maybe not the best choice of movie to watch in an unheated room in midwinter but boy did it make me notice the lousy insulation in the film.


The best thing I can say about "Quintet" is that it's not quite as bad as I remembered it being on my first viewing.

But that doesn't mean it's good.

This weird, sci-fi thriller is not quite like any other movie I've ever seen, which I guess at least gives it the stamp of novelty. But it's a borderline disaster of a movie, and one of the worst Robert Altman ever made. On the DVD special feature about the making of "Quintet," it's clear that even Altman didn't know what the hell the movie was supposed to be.

It's set in some distant future when the world is in the grip of another ice age. The film was shot at the abandoned site of the Montreal Expo '67, and I do have to admit that this gives the movie some interesting production design elements, even if much of it looks like it's being filmed in an iced-over shopping mall. Paul Newman, looking zonked out and absolutely disinterested in anything going on around him, and Brigitte Fossey, play drifters who wander into this futuristic city looking for Newman's brother. Soon Newman is caught up in a deadly game of "Quintet," which all of the bored inhabitants play for lack of anything better to do, and the rules of which are never made clear to the audience. All we know is that the object of the game it to kill everyone else you're playing with and remain the only person alive. This gives these nihilistic inhabitants their only thrill, because as one of them says at one point in a psychobabblish soliloquy, only by being near to death can one appreciate being alive.

The movie is slow, ugly and actually uncomfortable to watch due to its unrelenting gloominess. It's almost as if Altman was purposely setting out to make a movie no one would want to sit through. There aren't characters -- oh sure, actors walk around speaking lines, but none of the lines really means much and the impressive list of international actors Altman assembled for this register not a whit. Only Bibi Andersson gives the closest thing to a memorable performance as could possibly be found in a movie like this. But nevertheless, it does succeed in establishing an atmosphere, even if that atmosphere is one of pure awfulness, and it is oddly fascinating in the way that watching a man slowly starve himself to death would be fascinating.

Altman really hit a dry spell after nearly a decade of superb films. "Quintet" followed close on the heels of the atrocious "A Wedding" and was followed in short order by the not bad but mostly forgettable "A Perfect Couple," the by-all-accounts terrible "Health" (which I've never seen because it's not available anywhere TO see) and the disastrous "Popeye." Thank God he rebounded.

Grade: D-


Quintet marks the only venture of both Paul Newman and director Robert Altman into the realm of science fiction. It was said of Newman that he could not do comedy, but he tried until he finally scored a real success in that genre with Slap Shot. But the failure of this film left him gun shy and he never tried it again.

This is one of the biggest downer films I've ever seen. It's a futuristic ice age, brought on by who knows what, but presumably it's a nuclear winter. Even during the ice age of thousands of years ago, the equatorial parts of the earth still sustained animal and human life, but apparently not here. Seals have survived and Paul Newman is a seal hunter on the outside.

But hunters do need a little R&R and Newman goes to a futuristic city where things are so boring the natives have some kind of game played with six people and it's a kind of Russian roulette. To win you have to kill five other participants in your game.

It's a sad turn to see what man has come down to. Which is one of the reasons I just could not get into this story. The atmosphere is bleak, the story is bleak, the people are bleak, it's all so bleak. No wonder this thing came up short at the box office.

It's a film that just about everyone thinks is never going to be on the top ten list of Paul Newman films, including me.

This is man's future, what a bummer.


Legend has it that at the gala Hollywood premiere screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, about 20 minutes into the film Rock Hudson yelled out "Would somebody please tell me what the hell this movie is about?" Well, I have Rock beaten by about 19 minutes, 59 seconds. This movie made absolutely no sense at all. Who were those people? Where were those people? What were the rules of the game called Quintet? Are there any rules to Quintet? Were Robert Altman and his cohorts making the movie up as they went along? What was Paul Newman thinking when he signed on to this? Maybe ol' Fast Eddie saw Zardoz and thought "Well if Connery can get involved in a futuristic film that makes no sense, so can I." Maybe the good stuff is on the cutting room floor and all we get to see is the incoherent stuff. Also, did all the cast get to keep their individual funny hats? You never saw such bizarre looking hats all in one place in your life. Quintet just confirms what I've always thought: when Altman's good he's superb, but when he's bad, he makes stuff like Quintet


I supposed I was actually expecting a Bollywood remake of "The Fog", from the title, but this is actually more of a Bollywood remake of "I Know What You Did Last Summer", with some elements of "Scream", kind of, sort of, and not a very good one either. Apart from a couple very entertaining song & dance numbers, this is pretty terrible. It's obviously got a decent budget & yet it's wasted on reheated leftovers that weren't that tasty to begin with. A young woman is threatened by a creepy guy to not enter a beauty contest, because he wants his sister to win (she, thankfully, doesn't look as creepy as her brother), but she enters anyway and wins, and of course the creepy guy comes after her, and is killed, after which comes a rousing game of "hide the body". Of course, the body disappears and no one seems to know why, but someone knows, and they're waiting for the end to reveal a ridiculous plot twist. Interspersed with all this tired rehash are a few nifty dance numbers, especially the celebratory dance number at the party for Simran, the girl who won the beauty contest...it's highly colorful, it's well done & downright fun, and utterly wasted in this terrible film. I would much rather watch an old Ramsay brothers movie than this piece of crap, although someone has deemed that these don't need to be made available, for the most part, which is a crime in itself. But not as big of a crime as this film. I took one for the team watching this one, so take my advice, don't bother. 2 out of 10.


To call this film a disaster will be an understatement. I don't even know where to begin! I have questions though, and lots of them. I would like to know who conceived of this script? Who gave them money to make this film? Who was in charge of casting and costuming? They should all be sued! I saw this film in my local library's catalog and I thought "Hey! great!" I had just seen the two FOG movies that Hollywood had produced and then realised that Bollywood had a version. Unbeknowst to me, that it would turn out to be a total and utter crap-fest!

Dhund - the fog, is a film about four friends (actually just one of them but you should know that there are four friends), one of them is a beauty queen (played by India's 1st Mrs. World, Aditi Govitrikar) and the director spares no expense at letting you know this. The script even claims that she (the character's name is Simran) has Aishwarya Rai eyes, Kareena Kapoor lips and Rani Mukherjee hair. Feel free to barf if you want to, at least at this point you haven't seen the film, unlike poor me. :*(

Anyway, Simran receives a death threat one day from one of the contestants' uncle, who tells her to drop out of the contest so that his niece would have a better chance of winning, but Simran's boyfriend doesn't allow her to do this and thus she participates in the pageant and wins. This causes the crack-cocaine-sniffing uncle of her former college classmate Tanya to come after her. But with the help of her cousin Kajal, Simran drowns the culprit and they enlist both their boyfriends in the task of getting rid of the body. It's tough but they eventually get around to doing it.

In a scene that borrows from Hollywood's film Diabolique, the pool where the dead body is hidden is drained only to reveal that the body is missing and this begins a conundrum of Whodunit and Where-is-it? By the time the film is over, the film successful steals scenes from 'I know what you did last summer, I still know, Scream 1, Scream 2, Scream 3, Murder she wrote episodes and not to mention, Columbo and Scooby Doo'! Shameless, I tell ya!

Inconsistencies and problems within the film include but are not limited to:

1. A scantily clad Simran answers phone-calls three times from her would-be-killer, the camera shows her drop the phone off the hook yet the phone is able to ring again each time and she picks it up to answer.

2. Tanya tries to kill herself because she doesn't win the beauty contest? WTF? Even Aishwarya Rai who is ten time more beautiful did not attempt suicide when she didn't win Miss India!

3. In the pool scene, the kids who come to retrieve the ball that has fallen into the pool conveniently disappear as soon as the police arrive. And the ball disappears too.

4. The cliché blue contacts lenses of the killer change from blue to brown in the drowning scene, yet when his corpse surfaces again, his eyes are blue.

5. Nobody who dies in the film is mourned (strange, especially for Indian society).

6. When Vikram jumps into the dirty murky pool, an underwater camera shows us his actions and miraculously the pool is transformed to Olympic size and is clean and clear as day.

7. Sexy belly-dancer performs a pseudo-orgasm drenched song and dance number about coming of age. That would have been cool for some bachelor party, but they were celebrating Simran's pageant win! Hello!!!!

8. Kunal, Sameer, Simran and Kajal can neither dance nor Lip Synch properly. But don't blame them, just accept that there was no choreographer for the dance numbers.

9. Nothing within the film was choreographed, it was like they just told the actors to show up and do whatever the want.

10. The film played out like there was no script. Either that or the director was high and drunk when filming this junk!

11. When Simran's picture was published without her consent in a magazine, she flew to the police headquarters to have the photographers arrested, yet she receives death threats and never bothers to alert the police.

Just to mention a few of course. This film was a painful experience for me and I advise everyone to skip it by all means necessary and possible. Bollywood should be terribly ashamed of this kind of film-making.


Ramsay  the kings of comedy (or was it horror, whatever) wake after years of hibernation. And yes, I did get scared. No not because of the horror element (of course I am not that squeamish) but because rats were constantly dancing on my feet in the khatmal-chaap theatre (where else do such movies run).

So check the plot. A man is repeatedly stabbed, choked to death, stuffed in plastic and dumped in a pool. But he still returns to take revenge. Now was the film a thriller or a horror? That itself is the suspense for you to discover. And the end turns out to be another mask mystery. Remember those trademark Ramsay undercover agents  men wearing some stupid horror masks. Only here the mask is of a human. I suppose, no more detailing is required to skip this flick.

Amarr Upadhyay tends to get over-dramatic and theatrical, forgetting the difference between cinema and TV soaps. A cheaply and skimpily dressed Aditi Gowitrikar in her typical pink lipstick looks like .. (Uh! you know what).

The background score is a straight lift from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Not a single department of the film, whether technical or creative, is worth commenting. Novelty lacks both in story and execution.

Dhund certainly fogs your senses.


When I think Bollywood. I think of lite feel good musical dance numbers, with gorgeous outfits on the men and women. And catchy tunes. Horror, Thrillers, Mystery and Suspense, don't come to mind though. And this, to my Western eyes, is like an abstract comedy.

I think it would have been a better movie, shorter even, if the writer and the director had made a definite choice. Either gone for outright Thriller-Horror, Comedy-Mystery, Supernatural-Suspense or Musical-Romance, instead of an awkward mixture of them all.

I'll have to say more than once I thought the director must have seen "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and tried to give it a Bollywood twist. My first film was Bride & Prejudice. Which I thought was acted well.

This seemed like what a Western Audience would consider a straight to video cheese fest.

The acting was over the top, at times it felt like they were intentionally trying to parody western thrillers, but when you saw them try to inject the dramatic crying, screaming or fear, it felt out of place.

The viewer was left wondering when one of the actors would wink at the camera. More than a few times when the audience was supposed to be horrified, we could only snicker a the absurdity.

I watch a lot of foreign films, and even though I don't know Hindi, I have to say they did a poor job subtitling the film. Sometimes it was difficult to read the white lettering against the bright background.

The villain was particularly amusing, at least to me, because he came with his own mood music. The supposed surprising twist, actually felt like a cop out.

The lead couples were handsome/pretty enough, and the musical numbers made it worth my rental fee. I'd suggest it to someone as a musical- comedy, but I'd tell them to just fast forward the rest of the movie, because it wasn't worth the effort of reading. If you're determined to read a whole subtitled Hindi flick, then check out the superior Romantic Drama 'Namasteay, London'.

But I was not scared..unless that's really what they think is horrifying in India. 1 out of 10 for what it's being touted as. 6 out of 10 for it's unintentional quickness & ability to illicit lots of laughs, and it's musical/dance numbers. Enjoy :)


This tatty am dram adaptation scrambles soulessly through the plot of Dickens' wonderful book, replacing the emotional impact with hurried transitions and any exterior locations with drawings. It's not the fault of the actors and the production team that the budget is so low, of course, but you have to question the point of making this in the first place when there's neither the time nor money to do it justice. Michael Hordern's Scrooge is far too gentle at the outset, making his transformation lack power, and this isn't helped along by a lack of reaction from him as he watches the visions. The other actors range from acceptable (Clive Merrison, Paul Copley), to non-committal (Bernard Lee) to seeming like they're about to forget their lines (John Le Mesurier). It doesn't even score points for effort, to be honest.


I watched part of the first part of this movie, and tiny little bits of other parts. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't think this movie is really worth watching. The odd characters and happenings does catch your attention and is rather interesting, but there are bad things in it as well, and some gross things. The magic and mythical side of it turned me off, and for most Christians this movie would not be very suitable or worthwhile to watch.


Director Lo Wei was known to read the racing papers and take naps on the set - tells us something about his "approach to film-making, huh? The reviews I've read fall into two categories: 1) this is a film so bad it is funny, or 2) this is a film so bad it is boring.

So let's get to the point we all agree on - this film is really bad.

I vote for category 2). The story is almost incomprehensibly complex, and it is further shredded and twisted by the remarkably poor camera work and editing. Yet Lo Wei was so in love with it that he slows the pacing so we can all have a long look at it, whether we want to or not.

Maybe Lo Wei was upset the day (or two) this film was made - he just wanted to make everybody suffer, cast, crew and audiences alike.

Spare yourself the agony.


Early Jackie Chan film where there is no sign of the Chan persona we know. This is Chan in a full on traditional revenge tale of the sort that was cloned and re-cloned by countless producers and studios all through Hong Kong Taiwan and Mainland China. Its a very serious story that shows none of the humor and warmth that would catapult Jackie Chan to super stardom. Its also clear from watching this that had he not reinvented himself odds are we would never have known him because his career would have been painfully short. As a film on its own merits this is a good looking but pretty unremarkable movie. I was watching it, in the midst of an all day marathon of martial arts films and it would have blended together with every other film that I watched that day had I not noticed Jackie in the film. Honestly I don't think the film is really worth bothering with (there are too many other better variations) except if you're interested in seeing where Jackie Chan started.


Yet another Lo Wei production to completely waste the talents of a young Jackie Chan, To Kill With Intrigue is a strange mix of wuxia, melodrama, supernatural action, and plain old-school kung fu fighting that is pretty dull despite featuring several surreal WTF moments and lots of laughably bad dialogue.

In an effort to protect his pregnant girlfriend Chin Chin from the Killer Bees, a gang of ruthless killers that are about to attack his home, Cao Lei (Jackie Chan) pretends to be a heartless cad, driving her away, and thus saving her from danger.

During the attack, Cao's relatives are all killed, but he is left relatively unharmed by the gang, whose leader, a scar-faced woman, seems to have the hots for him. Cao then goes in search of Chin Chin, whose safety he has entrusted to his close friend Chu Chuk.

During his quest to find his true love, Cao befriends the head of a courier company whose precious cargo has been stolen by the leader of the evil 'Bloody Rain' clan. Eventually, after being injured in a fight against members of the nasty clan (a fun scene with lots of silly weaponry), and then nursed back to health by the scar-faced Killer Bee (who shows her love by burning his face!), Cao ultimately learns that he is a lousy judge of character: his friend, Chu Chuk, is none other than the power hungry head honcho of the 'Bloody Rain' clan, who has plans to marry Chin Chin himself.

Cue the drawn out climactic battle, with Cao getting kicked in the face repeatedly before eventually choking his traitorous ex-pal to death with a scarf.

Even die hard Chan fans will find this one a chore to sit through, with only the final fight managing to showcase some of the star's amazing acrobatic abilities. Fans of general Asian weirdness might dig the spooky appearance of the Killer Bees at the beginning of the film (with one character inexplicably demanding back his severed hand!), or the moment when three men float through a window to attack our hero, but, for most, this film will have very limited appeal.


As many have detailed here with a level of seriousness that I find amusing, this is *not*:

A FILM. (cue dramatic music)

It's just a so-bad-it's good, totally surreal, Jackie Chan stunt-for-all. The women fighters are totally kick-butt and Jackie is definitely put in his place.

This is the movie you want to see with some good friends on a Sunday afternoon -- surrounded by munchies, ready to roar with laughter, cheer on the good guys, boo the bad guys, and continually yell, "WHAT?" when something totally bizarre happens. Great fun!!


I found this film to be a bit too depressing. I don't mind dramas, but this was a bit too much for me. Luckily, there does seem to be somewhat a decent outcome. I suppose it was well done. I'd watch it again, but it's nothing to rave about.


This movie is a waste of time. Though it has actors who have the potential to do something decent, the acting in the movie is sub-par, and has a cliché point. "You never know what's going to happen tomorrow, so live your life to the fullest and do what makes you happy." That sentence saves you from wasting hours of your life on this movie. People who like this movie are the same people who would enjoy sitting for two hours before finding that the entire movie was a dream sequence. If the most important part of the movie isn't even going to happen, at least make it enjoyable to watch and captivating. There's a reason this project didn't make a theatrical release, and though indy films can turn out very good, this one does not even come close.


"Stealing Time" actually dates back to 2001 when it was mysteriously titled "Rennie's Landing". Which explains how director Marc Fusco was able to afford this cast of now established television/movie actors in what is obviously an extremely low budget production. About ten minutes into the film you understand why this thing never got a theatrical release after it made the film festival rounds several years ago.

Its recent distribution by Franchise Pictures probably reflects a perception that the rising popularity of certain cast members can be milked to recover some of the modest production costs. Although not a great addition to anyone's resume, young actors have done worse things when they were desperately seeking acting work of any kind.

Peter Facinelli, Ethan Embry, Scott Foley and Charlotte Ayanna play college friends who do an early "Big Chill" reunion and compare war stories about the failure of reality to measure up to their dreams.

Unfortunately nothing else happens, absolutely nothing. Yes Alec (Facinelli) dreams about a liquor store holdup and a bank robbery, which are then "cheaply and lamely" staged to completely inappropriate music. It is the least suspenseful bank job since W.C. Fields was the guard in "The Bank Dick".

If anyone can point to any moment in "Stealing Time" where something "actually" happens I would like to know about it, because as far as I can tell, not a thing happens in the whole film. Perhaps Fusco, through incessant visual reflections, is trying to say something profound about taking control of one's life before it is too late. Like "St. Elmo's Fire" the movie is littered with every profound thought ever uttered by a young adult who has left the ivory tower to experience the real world for the first time.

I felt Fusco was going for a kind of Howard Hawks Young Professionals in Action "Only Angels Have Wings" motif. Then again, I'm sure I was reading much too much into the film. After all, things actually happen Howard Hawks films.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.


This film is a hodge-podge of various idiotic cliches. For instance, boy-meets-spoilt-rich-girl and gets her to fall in love with him by harassing her in college (an over-used backdrop in recent Indian commercial films). A male chauvinistic glorification of sexual conquest. The climax is predictable (having been used ad nauseum in several other films). As with many other recent commercial Hindi films, the film abounds with the incongruous insertion of songs, which probably contributed to the film's success more than anything else.


The breadth & height of the scale of this movie overwhelm me. About a week ago I posted a commentary on the 1926 silent epic MACISTE IN HELL referring to it as "staggering". Then I encountered the Pollonia Bros. BLOOD RED PLANET. Wow ...

It's all about the scale of the thinking behind it. The Pollonia Bros. and colleague John McBride were thinking so big that the musings of Arthur C. Clark & Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODESSEY is lucky it was released thirty-two years before this sweetheart. As a matter of fact, Kubrick had it easy with modelers, a budget, actual actors and major studio backing for his little "Star Trek" ripoff, and all that Arthur C. Clarke had to do was write the damn thing. What's so hard about muscling around a typewriter? The Pollonia brothers on the other hand had to think radical, outside of the box, and quickly. They recruited a half dozen of their friends & colleagues -- including a hot lookin' chick -- bought a bunch of colored lightbulbs, raided old office supply dumps for every keyboard, monitor and hands-free phone headset they could find, got everybody identical black turtlenecks, made off with every cupcake tin in the county, learned enough 3d modeling & texture skinning to animate a couple of space ship fly-bys, spent a couple hours drumming up a script, executed what is easily the most frightening space monster puppet since that horrible little monster Jabba the Hut carried around with him was fried by R2D2, spent literally days working with a VHS camera and an Amiga to shoot & edit their film, and came up winners. This is the best D.I.Y. direct to home video fan movie space epic I've ever seen, and in proportion to the amount of talent & resources at the disposal of the filmmakers dwarfs even LOGANS RUN or BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA (the original series) as being a chilling look at our future, right down to a newscaster wearing a mis-matched, ill-fitting 2nd hand suit. As a species, we are doomed.

Seriously for a minute, though, it is a vast improvement upon such later epics as THE DINOSAUR CHRONICALS or PREYALIEN: ALIEN PREDATORS, which is funny since it was made before either of those masterpieces. Somewhere along the lines the Pollonia's started taking it easy on themselves: This film is executed with a certain conviction that gets you to believe that you really can breathe in a vacuum wearing a dust mask and two biker squirt bottles. And the scene where the alien beast consumes a miniaturized crew member made me immediately think of where I'd seen that before: GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER, where the giant rampaging monster crab skewers two canoers and eats them on camera. That made me cry when I was a kid.

This made me cry as an adult because here I am wasting my time trying to be some sort of critic or writer or writer/critic and these guys get to have all the fun, actually making a real feature length sci-fi epic with lots of cool colored lights, a hot chick and a talking slide projector named KAL. One of the flight crew even gets to wear his black space baseball cap backwards & glower with his goatee like that clown from Metallica. Is this supposed to be a joke? No. It is an epic statement about humanity, from humanity and for humanity that deserves to be seen by anybody who has the capability to not take any of it too seriously. Look for it on a 2 disc box set called GALAXY OF TERROR in your favorite discount retailer's cutout DVD bins, which is probably where it belongs, but how many of us can say "Yeah, they have a couple box sets of our movies for sale at Best Buy."

4/10: Anyone lacking in a sense of humor might want to try SILENT RUNNING or maybe TRON. But someday an alien civilization on the other side of the galaxy will intercept a transmission of this movie and decide that we actually are not to be messed with. Good work, guys!!


Occasionally funny but generally boring. I did recognize Robert Hegyes from Welcome back Carter (aka Epstein) as the ex-celebrity criminal. There is a knee slapping, gut busting scene with the French lady having a bad reaction to American food. S. Baio, S. Kellerman, and Tom Arnold are billed but have only minor roles. You never get to know the characters and it's hard to care what happens to them. Not recommended.


"Bar Hopping" seems to be trying to be about the stereotypical bar tender and lay "shrink" serving up pearls of wisdom followed by example vignettes played out by the cast. However, this turkey is a jumbled mess with a script full of simple-minded cliched nonsense: Hard to follow, herky-jerky flow, unsatisfying, and not worth the time. (D)


For me it's a case you'll never understand if you didn't live it.. so read this to know why would i have such unlimited anger..

I heard a lot about (Bruce Lee).. my father loved him.. my mother who hates any minor shot of violence loved him ! and how she talks till now about his " The Big Boss" aka "Fists of Fury" , and the experience of watching it at the Egyptian movies 1973 with all the gigantic success.. further to that I watched a real good movie about him (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story - 1993).. so I found myself crying : where are your movies Bruce ?!!

I went to the video store.. and it was dumb move.. (you'll know why !).. and waw.. I found a lot of Bruce Lee movies.. I selected one named (Bruce Lee in New Guinea)

I did it to myself and watched that one.. OH GOD please forgive your servant.. I harmed myself but with no intended decision.. I wouldn't do it if I knew its evil damaging !! its mythical level of hideousness !!

After that I didn't understand at all what's the big fuss about Bruce Lee as a great immortal star ???.. why anybody would care whether he is here or there.. this hero (whom I've watched !) is not that gifted and not that genius and of course is not that sexy ???

Until my father saw THIS star and he asked me to pause at any of his close ups and after he examined his face a little.. he told me in a very definitive way "this is not Bruce Lee" ! so I became too confused to ask : who's this silly guy anyway ??!!

It was 2001.. 2 years after my first entry to the IMDb database.. therefore I tended to it immediately to know who the hell is that man.. and I discovered the truth.. he isn't Bruce Lee.. No my dear friends.. he is Bruce Li !!!

And what a huge.. so huge difference !! I just want to know who can love that bad clone ?? Or god forbid .. love his repulsive movies.. I watched 2 of them and couldn't bear finishing the third !

After that I ignored all our video stores because its cheap cunning (writing on the posters that THIS IS Bruce Lee !??).. and I've got the original.. The one and only Bruce Lee who is such a great star indeed and Oh BOY he certainly had the right to immortality.. and no less.


After looking for this Bruceploitation for months, and then accidentally buying it cheap, it was disappointing. I heard about it on a DVD-R site, and it sounded crazy.

But no, what I got was a pretty bad martial arts movie. The kung fu-ing wasn't too bad, but the rest of the movie was pretty awful, and made the movie seem really, really long, much longer then it's 85 minute runtime.

On a positive note, the ape was funny for a couple of seconds (especially when I think they took the only close up of it's face from another movie), and the black guy who pops up half way through was funny because of the one line he said, which singlehandedly made all black people look like complete simpletons.

But it wasn't enough, sadly.

4/10


There are a number of movies that my high school friends and I used to joke about. They are mostly the campy works of the 50's that showed up on television on the late show. This was one of our favorites. The soul of a fallen native being brought to life in a tree stump with a scowl on its face. Now my friends claimed that if you looked carefully, you could see the thing had shoes. I never saw this. What is most striking to me is that the natives seemed to be white men with black grease paint on their faces; some looked sort of Italian. They also spoke with the strangest timbre that didn't seem to fit their situation. Like the mummy movies, the mobility of the thing didn't seem to offer much of a threat. In a confrontation, one should only have to walk fast; I guess it's the old element of surprise. If you see this, don't take it too seriously. Be happy that we have a battery of old horror movies that gave us such joy.


Huge, waddling, grimacing tree trunk menaces fake "natives" on a "Pacific Atoll" (looking suspiciously like Southern CA...), reaking havok and revenge. Unlike the silly stumps in "Navy VS The Night Monsters", the Tabonga is actually a full-grown man-tree. Well, grown in 2 days: moost have od'ed on those Miracle Grow spikes...Anycow, it comes not from Hell, but from the grave of a fake native, Kimo(Greg Palmer, "The Zombies of Mora Tau"), murdered by the native elders for hanging out with those awful American scientists. The scientists include Dr. William Arnold (Tod Andrews, "Hang 'em High", "Beneath the Planet of the Apes") and Professor Clark(John McNamara,"War of the Colossal Beast"). Rounding out the cast is Linda Watkins("The Parent Trap") as the obnoxious Mrs. Kilgore, the obvious comic relief spurting out an obvious fake "cockney" accent. A stellar cast indeed!! Anycow, because his doughy, vacant wife, Korey, played amateurishly by Suzanne Ridgeway("Love's A-Poppin'"), helps set him up, Kimo declares his revenge on her and all of the elders. Then, the dopey American scientists uproot the tree, bring it back to life "in the name of science", & allows it to SLOWLY amble about the island, killing off everyone who has done him wrong. Of course, we all know that evil monsters carry off fair maidens, so the Tabonga grabs plucky female scientist Dr. Terry Mason(Tina Carver, "Hell on Frisco Bay") & waddles off with her. Vine-ally, a good shot with a Remmington hits a knife lodged in the Tabonga, and it falls over dead into the quicksand. This laughably foolish cowncept is one of the all-time cheesy howlers. The Tabonga is arguably the slowest monster in moovie history, right up there with the clanky, over-built robot from "Robot Monster vs the Aztec Mummy" and the perversly slow carpet monster from "Creeping Terror". Try not to laugh as you watch the Tabonga toss fake natives down hills & into quicksand, dodge spears, and lumber slowly about the "island". Shady writing, wooden performances, and sappy direction all point that this pulpy fertilizer has far mooore bark than bite. This tepid pile of wood chips was the last hurrah from long-time editor-turned-director Dan Milner, who quickly vanished into well-deserved obscurity following this film. You herd it through the grapevine from the MooCow first: "From Hell it Came" is a compost classic!! :


I saw this movie one time at a kiddie matinée at the North Park Theater in San Diego in 1959 when it was released and I was 11. It was one of three features that were shown that day.

I have not seen it since but have wanted to because I am a film buff and appreciate the terrible along with the great, good and average films.

What I remember most vividly is that the more sophisticated audience members, consisting of children between 8 and 15, howled with laughter at the tree monster.

A triple bill at a theater showing 3 adventure films is something an 11 year old does not forget, but I can't remember the names of the other 2 films. (One did star George Montgomery and David Farrar.)

UPDATE: The other 2 films in this triple bill were much better. They were "Watusi," 1959, with George Montgomery and David Farrar starring and "The Angry Red Planet," 1959, with Gerald Mohr and Naura Hayden staring. Ms. Hayden has written a couple of books on health and fitness also.


Native Chief's son is wrongfully accused for the death of his father. The evil Witch Doctor orders to execute him. He then comes back as a murdering tree(!), Tabanga. Well, what can you say about such a "film"? If it was intended to be a horror film, there obviously was some sort of bad judgment involved. And for a comedy, it still isn't funny enough. I don't know why people make films like this. I guess you have to be in a really silly mood to watch it. Or you might want to see the incredible "monstrous" tree, which gives a new dimension to "a slow death". Or maybe you want to check out the great acting skills by all involved. (Ms. Kilgore!) Or the dialogue and screenplay, which were strangely ignored at the Academy Awards that year.

"Shouldn't we try psycho-analysis on that tree? Maybe its mother was afraid of oaks." 2/10


I know it's not original, but what the hey? What else can be said about it? I feel unutterably silly just paying any attention at all to "From Hell It Came". The movie makes the important political and social issue of fallout from atmospheric atomic tests seem a matter for joking and dismissal, not the concern and alarm being raised by scientists all over the world at the time.


**May Contain Spoilers**

A luckless South Sea islander is executed by other (Caucasian-looking) natives after he befriends visiting scientists Tod Andrews and Tina Carver. The meddlesome scientists dig him up and find that he has taken the form of a humanoid tree. He comes to life and goes on a rampage and sure enough, that Fifties boogeyman, the A-Bomb, is blamed for this aberration. To state that this particular monster walks like it has a stick up its a** would be redundant. Suffice it to say that the critter lumbers along, like the film itself, throwing his enemies into some handy quicksand and giving the main characters one more thing to make stupid comments about. Paul Blaisdell created the tree-man suit and it's hardly his best work. Over the years this flick has been sujected to many comments like "To Hell it can go!" Personally I think it's the best walking-tree movie I've ever seen.


How many monster tree movies can you see in a lifetime?Well I'll go out on a limb and say one.This movie is better watched late at night,with a 12 pack of beer, the sound off and you and your friends making up the dialogue.

On a Pacific Island a young man is sentenced to death for consorting with the "evil Americans".(Seems his loving wife has been sleeping with the witch doctor and they set him up to die so the doc' can be king).Well he vows to come back and wreak revenge.

Before you can shake a stick the goofy natives run to the American scientists' hut screaming"Tobanga come!"

It seems the young corpse has done just that as Tobanga, the walking tree monster. Yes his revenge is terrible (and so is this movie).It seems that these natives cannot run from a lumbering tree so he tosses them in quicksand,rolls them down hills etc.Pretty soon the new king wants to trade his woman or kingdom for an axe or a chainsaw.

General problems with this movie are numerous. The comedy relief is an obnoxious woman with a Cockney accent (like this movie needs comedy).You want her to die upon her first appearance.The leading lady is whiny.The leading man is a boor.The acting is wooden (pun intended).The dialogue is stiff and lumbering.The natives have Brooklyn accents.The monster suit is pure giggles.

While this is a bad movie it still is fun to watch.It gets a 3 on unintentional laughs alone.Your dog may rate it just a bit higher but only if the tree wasn't mobile.


Did I waste my time. This is very pretentious film. In the beginning you will think there's something going on but by the time some 30 minutes go by you realize nothing is happening. I waited for another 20 minutes and by then i was so frustrated that I started reading reviews on IMDb and realized that the director has wasted precious time of so many people.

Unbelievably boring pointless film. Stay away. So many good soundtracks. I will give one point for the police inspector joke because that worked for me. I laughed for a long time but otherwise a very bad film. Stay away.1 on 10.


It's not plot driven, OK; it's not a character study, fine; there's no action, alright; there's no point, hmmm...

Maybe it's supposed to represent the boredom and absurdity of living in Palistine and parts of Israel these days in a state of violence, petty disagreements, deep rooted hostility, etc. But mostly it's long, long scenes of nothing happening - or things which look like they're dripping with meaning (a checkpoint tower crashing to the ground, an Arafat balloon floating into Jerusalem, a crouching tiger women deflecting bullets into a halo) but when you try to derive some meaning, there's no there there.

Bonus: you can watch this film in fast forward and it will make absolutely no difference except that it might be slightly less boring.


This was one of the most dishonest, meaningless, and non-peaceful of the films I have ever seen. The representation of the other, of the Israelis, was racist, backward, and unfair. For one, the song played on E.S' car radio when pulled up alongside a very right-wing Israeli driver was "I put a spell on you" by Natacha Atlas. The song's style is quite Arabic, but it was released on an Israeli compilation CD, and I have even heard it on the radio in Israel. Many Israeli songs (as well as architecture, foods, and slang) are influenced by Arabic culture, and there is no reason an Israeli Jew would be offended or angered by a nearby car playing that song. The way E.S. appears so calm and collected with his sunglasses and cool glare, via a long, still shot, is meant to force the viewer into seeing the Jew as haggard and racist, and E.S. as noble and temperate.

I have traveled all over Israel, and I have never seen an IDF recruitment poster, since service is mandatory. But in the film, not only is there a recruitment poster, but it depicts a stereotypical image of an Arab terrorist and the words "want to shoot?" This is an extremely inaccurate depiction of the mentality of the majority of Israelis as well as Israeli soldiers, and such an "advertisement" wouldn't even exist on a random Israeli highway. In including it, the director aims to convince the audience that Israel is a society of anti-Arab racists hell-bent on murder.

The ninja scene was gratuitous and needlessly violent. A Hollywood-style action scene involving Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinians would be just as unwelcome in an Israeli-directed film as the ninja scene should have been. But for some reason, images of an unrealistic, non-comic, and violent scenario manage to elicit applause from the audience since the director has smeared the Israeli side so much beforehand, that any shot of Israeli soldiers being killed would be welcome. The director shows absolutely no attempt at building bridges, portraying the "other" as human, or working towards peace; violence is made to be the only solution. This is furthered by scenes of exploding tanks, falling guard towers, and other random acts of destruction. One of my best friends serves in the Israeli military, and the targets in firing ranges are never Arab women dressed in black, or any other quasi-civilian on canvas. Soldiers at checkpoints are instructed not to fire at the head of an approaching Palestinian unless it is clear that their own lives are in danger; the method, according to my friend, is to provide a warning shout, fire into the air or around the area, and then if all else fails, shoot in the leg and then interrogate and hospitalize. Arbitrarily targeting a woman in the head, as shown in the film, is not the proper procedure.

Besides these inaccuracies, the directing style was also poor. Repetition became repetitious, and no longer captivating. Symbols, such as the balloon with Arafat drawn on it, are forced outside any plot structure or effective integration in the setting; the balloon is Palestine penetrating and regaining Jerusalem, and it is created for no reason by E.S. The ambulance being checked for permits by Israeli soldiers followed by subsequent Israeli ambulances flying past the checkpoint is an overly-overt claim of an Israeli double standard by the director. The attempt by the director to show life in Nazareth as dreary and pointless is done with overkill; showing the routines of random people over and over again, even with a slight change each time, and emphasizing that not one member of the cast ever smiles and is minimalist in dialogue almost screams out the purpose of such scenes, the dreariness of life, without allowing much room for personal interpretation. By contrasting one "section" of the movie, daily life in Nazareth, with the second section, the checkpoint between Ramallah and Israel, the director subtly blames this dreariness on Israel, but never provides any direct evidence as to why such blame can be properly argued.

I spent hours trying to figure out why music ended abruptly and began abruptly, and why many modern fashion-show-like and metal-action tracks were included in the score. I still cannot come up with an answer. I felt that the music was out of place in this film; the contrast between more silent scenes and intense scenes was actually annoying and not affecting or thought-provoking. I can understand if the director intended for the music to provide some comic aspect to certain scenes, but I found that there was nothing comic to be found in Israeli soldiers shooting at targets or fighting a ninja, or a woman having to suffer another walk through a checkpoint, albeit defiantly. In fact, I was tempted to close my ears during intense scenes, and annoyed by the lack of a score during quiet scenes. Whatever the director's intent, it provided only an audial displeasure throughout the film.

This film has no legitimate political message because it provides an inaccurate and extreme representation of the other, and neglects to actually address any issues. It is a propaganda film, because the director intends various symbols, styles, and scenes to draw sympathy for the Palestinian side, while displaying the Israeli side as cruel and inhuman without exception; the vibrant atmosphere of an action-packed Hollywood scene or of intense music is displayed in every act of violence by Palestinians against Israelis, such that the almost inevitably positive and thrilled feelings the music and cinematography elicit from the audience are directed to one side. There is no thought, reflection, or deepening of the understanding of the conflict by the audience; emotions are simply pulled to one side, and kept there, in a "good vs bad" cliché scenario. I believe this film lacked the depth, quality, and power of other Palestinian films, such as "Paradise Now" and "Wedding in the Galilee."


I really wanted to like this film for all sorts of reasons -- the subject matter is inherently interesting and is probably the major issue facing the world today and has thrown up fascinating works (e.g. Linda Grant's When I lived in modern times)usually from the Israeli side of the fence. Also, a bloke I like told me he thought it was the best film he'd seen all year, so with such a recommendation...

HOWEVER I actually found myself nodding off at points! Admittedly i was tired and the cinema seats comfy but I found it too much hard work trying to identify with the characters. Once I'd got my head round the idea that it was a series of vignettes, I went with it, but this made it disappointingly like a sketch show rather than a film. I liked the concept of a restrained, almost silent mise en scene contrasted to these utopian moments - the sexy girl, the red balloon and the ninja Muslim fighter. But personally i think the film has been over hyped. I'm not saying narrative and plot is everything (it's definitely not) but even a little more dialogue would have helped.


I was very concerned about this film, it was scheduled to play at a Jewish Film Festival, and was reported to be very hostile to Israel, while using clever humor and irony.

I was relieved that the film was not a diatribe, however as a work of film it was deeply disappointing. The film was full of random events, some of which eventually connected, most of which did not. Some of the events were very clever and funny, but some were merely random and pointless.

There are repeated scenes between two lovers where they sit in a car, wordlessly, and play some handholding game. Perhaps in some cultures this is erotic, but it's like watching thumb-wrestling. After the third time, it really became tiresome.

I have always found David Lynch to be gratuitously bizarre, using strange stories and images to cause audiences to think that he is SO sophisticated that they don't grasp his work; in fact, there is nothing to grasp. The same is true here, the stories do not add up to anything, and there is not much of a political point being made (in one scene a boisterous Israeli soldier humiliates Palestinian drivers at a checkpoint. That's news?)

I don't understand why this film has garnered controversy, nor why it has garnered attention. It is an inferior work and seeing it was a waste of time.


A Brazilian cable television is presenting "Yadon Ilaheyya" this month in its "Cult" channel. I saw the trailer and listened to the advertisement, and decided to see this movie. Indeed it is an absurd boring pretentious dumb pointless disconnected crap about the conflict in the Middle East, and together with "Soultangler", they certainly are the worst movies I have tried to see. I really wasted forty-three minutes of my life watching the first half of this crap, highly indicated for torturing enemies. How can this movie be awarded and nominated to prizes inclusive in Cannes? My vote is one (awful).

Title (Brazil): "Intervenção Divina" ("Divine Intervention")


This is like a school video project and a propaganda film that puts the whole class as well as the teacher to sleep.

Utterly boring long silent(yes, silent) strings of unrelated video clips.

Instead of this movie watch the paint dry or the grass grow- it will be more interesting unless you enjoy seeing Arabs being malicious to everyone around them.

Sulieman (the Director) should be embarrassed of this lame waste of film.

It deserves a one for the movie quality, a zero for the ridiculous propaganda message and a negative number for the script (or lack thereof.)


Won't be long on this movie. The first half an hour was one of the most boring i have had to face since i've started watching movies. The story didn't advanced, nothing was explained about any of the characters. It felt like a non-movie. (A lot of people had already left the audience at this point).

A lot of the scene were totally unjustified and unexplained.

The director should have studied film a bit more to know that each sequence, each scene, has to make the story go forward. He never did that.

The supposedly funny moments were contrived, and only a few people laughed (people with a weird sense of humor, i guess).

Prize of the Jury in Cannes 2002.....don't know what the jury was thinking about....probably the "politicly correct effect".

I would have loved to love it, the disappointment was therefore even bigger.

You have to see it to believe it. But wait for the video.


The Palestinian situation is fertile and as-yet largely fallow soil for film-making. 'Divine Intervention' tries hard, and gives us an insightful peek into the almost surreal life of those caught up in the troubles, but the film amounts to little more than a handful of (admittedly lovely) visual jokes thrown onto celluloid, while the links between them become increasingly obscure as the film progresses. A missed opportunity to say something more coherent about a very topical issue.


National Lampoon's Dorm Daze is easily the worst movie I have ever seen, and I've seen the movie Kazaam. Anyone reading this who thinks this movie was good in any way, shape, or form has no idea what a good movie is, and should never watch another movie again because they are indeed so stupid.

Its hard to name everything wrong with this movie. First off, the plot is all over the place and can't follow all the multiple "misunderstandings" very well at all. The acting is awful to say the least, and the whole thing was poorly made. Any and all who worked on this movie should not be in another movie of any kid Ever Again!

It is too hard to sum up this movie in just a paragraph or two, because it is so bad, but for anyone out there reading this please DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE!! If you want a good movie to watch, go turn on anything else on television. Even U.S.A. has better movies than this.

_friend.


jeez, when i heard this movie was a NATIONAL LAMPOONS i thought it was going to be awesome, but i really got a say it was a rather disappointment. I have seen the most movies they've made, from Christmas vacation to van wilder, and this movie is the worst movie in their name,, really bad actors and a to much intense movie. this movie is probably good to watch if you are watching it with a crowd of worked up people and the ability to laugh at it, but if you are into good comedy's like i am, i do not suggest this movie, i would much rather watch van wilder a second or third time, than to watch this movie... you have been warned.


This movie can best be described as a very long episode of a very bad sitcom. How many vaguely humorous misunderstandings can you cram into just one movie? Notes are misplaced, bags are switched, conversations are misheard, people get mixed up, situations are misinterpreted, and somewhere along the line people are supposed to laugh about something. The writers are really struggling to keep everything going, which makes the dialogues feel really forced. If anyone in this movie acted like a real person all this would be resolved in around two minutes or so and everyone could go back to their lives, but they have to keep the misunderstandings going. At times this movie also tries to go for some juvenile laughs, but all those do is remember you about how funny "American Pie" was. The scene with the nerd telling the hooker (who he thinks is a foreign exchange student) to "eat his sausage" goes on forever, not one second of it is funny. I've got to give this movie some credit though: because of the subplot about stolen money, it's not as boring as it could have been. It also has a laugh here and there, but then sadly goes back to yet another character misunderstanding stuff. Overall this movie is just way too lame.


This has to be one of the biggest misfires ever...the script was nice and could have ended a lot better.the actors should have played better and maybe then i would have given this movie a slightly better grade. maybe Hollywood should remake this movie with some little better actors and better director.sorry guys for disappointment but the movie is bad.

If i had to re-watch it it would be like torture. I don't want to spoil everyone's opinion with mine so..my advice is watch the movie first..see if u like it and after vote(do not vote before you watch it ! ) and by the way... Have fun watching it ! Don't just peek...watch it 'till the end :))))))))) !!