I saw this film this evening, and I am in shock. I am very well-known for "liking everything". Hell, I loved the remake of War of the Worlds, and am a complete fan of everything M. Knight Shyamalan, if that gives you any idea.

But this film was SO bad, all I can say is: keep any and all sharp objects safely out of reach while watching this movie... because trust me, you will definitely want to slash your wrists before its painful 80 minutes are up. Honestly, the entire film should be part of the "deleted scenes" extras on the DVD!

Dreadful acting, a completely pointless story, with a thoroughly disgusting Saw/Hostel-like sub-plot, and the ever-so-popular "Blair Zombie Project" hysterical epileptic camera.

The only spoiler I will give you regarding the story is the following: in the end, the zombies all die of starvation... because there isn't one single person in the film with a brain worth eating.

This film deserves a lower rating than IMDb allows.


I had high hopes for this. The trailer shows us what appears to be a very good movie. Tense and exciting. Upon sticking this in my DVD drive I found that the trailer in fact appeared to show a very different movie.

Whilst I found the idea of this movie interesting I found it very very very hard to watch all of it. I liked the idea of trying to show this genre in a more realistic light and I expected more from the Documentary segment but alas no.

Poorly scripted, poorly acted, poorly filmed. The special effects are good. But I feel most of the budget was wasted on them.

Disappointing.


I am a huge fan of the zombie genre, especially Romero's original classics, but it seems to me that the genre has been done to death in recent years and there's nothing much to say any more. This movie just about sums that up. I did have high hopes for it - there are times when a low budget indie-type movie can breathe new life into a tired franchise - but this movie wasn't it. Very poor acting and a weak script, combined with huge plot holes, make for extremely annoying viewing. I mean, the acting is really amateurish - I've seen better in a school play. And there are some scenes where you just hold your head in your hands and wonder "Why the hell are they doing that?!?". Avoid this and re-watch "Dawn of the Dead" if you want to see how it should be done.


When you have a good script, you can rise over the limitations of a small budget. That's not the case with this piece of junk. They could not afford good actors, the bad make-up effects are hidden by the poor image quality (intentionally poor image quality, but still...) and the script does a 360 at the end, branching to a cringe inducing subplot about a couple of serial killers that does nothing to move the so-called script forward.

It's hard to believe that this movie is praised by some horror website when there's so much good stuff around, like the brilliant "REC".

I can't believe I wasted my time on this piece of junk !


There were quotes on the cover saying stuff like "...the best zombie movie ever made!". There is no way in hell anyone (drugged, insane, undead etc), could state such at thing after seeing this "movie". Talk about false advertisement.

I love a good horror flick and a friend of mine had rented 3 of them but we only had time to watch one. I got to choose which one. Well... That wont happen again I tell you.

3 reasons to avoid this film at all costs:

- Horrible horrible story/script. It has the same plot as every other zombie/living dead movie ever made, only devoid of all the interesting parts.

- The horrible horrible 1st person photography. Reminded me of a 10-min zombie movie me and my friend did when we were 14.

- This is not a horror movie. Its a horrible horrible movie in every possible way.

3 questions you most certainly will ask yourself after this movie:

- Why oh why?! - How the hell did this movie end up on a shelf in my video store? - Can I please have that 1 hour and 15 mins of my life back?

(note: Why does IMDb "name" a 1 rating as only "awful"? Giving this movie a 1 is therefor almost an insult to all the awful movies out there.)


The premise of the movie is great. After a zombie epidemic, various video diaries are recovered. These video diaries tell the tales of survival of 3 groups of people whose stories eventually interweave.

Sadly, the acting is terrible. The best acting is done by the zombies. The special effects and makeup appear to have been done by students venturing into their first foray into gore. The best makeup/special effect is the clouded contacts and anybody with 20 dollars and Wal-Mart nearby can pull that off. Some zombies look downright comical, almost as if they are wearing cheap Halloween costumes.

This movie has some of the comedy that has come to be expected in the genre, but it's not intentional. In one scene, a shot from about 20 yards away with a rifle takes about two seconds before the zombies head is (poorly) blown apart.

The camera work is terrible. There is no sense of a "diary" in any of the 3 scenarios. Just groups filming their goings on and there's too much of a random feeling to it. And not random in the good way. More like "Why in the world would they be filming THIS?" There should have been more asides and narrating from the cameramen. Instead of having a sense of "this is a diary that recorded their struggles for whoever may find it", you had more of a sense of "this is a bad class project done by middle school children". The dialogue is forced. Whether it was written or improvised, it smacked of trying too hard to "act", and this totally destroyed the feel of "this is real people reacting to real events".

There are about 3 scenes that could have been very powerful. One of them has been done in almost every zombie movie before and the main difference this time around was the age of the "victim". The other two scenes were more confusing than anything. There's a difference between leaving things opened for interpretation and just totally dropping the ball.

All in all, I was very disappointed. A great concept was ruined.


The thing that annoyed me about this film was the shaky camera movements, it was tolerable at first but became a nuisance after a while, the storyline is very confusing, it even at times felt like there was no storyline, because the characters were never really developed enough for me to care about any of them, they actually bugged the living hell out of me, it also never really built up any suspense, at least not for me, because given the fact that I didn't care for any of the characters the film just bored me, plainly put.

I'll admit that I'm not really a fan of the zombie genre, but I have watched a few of them, and a lot of them are ten times better than this film, so for a non fan of the genre I would actually go for Romero's dead films before I'd consider seeing this again.

3 out of 10.


Just watched the movie and I was really disappointed. The movie focuses on three different groups of people and tell their stories through three different camcorders (one for each group). Never understood why people travel with camcorders and have them on the whole time, mostly shooting the countryside and occasional zombies attacking them in a deadly outbreak. The shaky camera style made the film hard to follow and didn't show most of the action. Moreover, the zombies attacked mostly night-time, so all I got was shouting. I felt sad for the characters who were caught and possibly eaten by the slowest moving zombies of all time. The acting was awful as well. So, avoid watching it and don't be fooled by the DVD cover.

The film however made me thinking about buying a farm in rural England. It is so peaceful, even in a zombie invasion.


In the early part of the 21st century, an unknown virus began spreading amongst the populace. Within weeks of the initial outbreak, the virus had engulfed the entire planet: from the smallest rural communities to the greatest cities. Soon the earth was infested with a new threat - the undead. Three video diaries explore the dystopian world that was left behind - charting the early days of the plague, through to the last days of the apocalypse.

-------------------

Don't let the name fool you. "The Zombie Diaries" is not really a zombie movie. Basically, the zombies are kept in the background and don't really pose a threat throughout the whole movie. They show up every so (not) often and stumble around. That's about it. The rest of the film is full of pointless dialogue and a terrible "Hostel" like subplot that doesn't really make any sense, is totally unnecessary and has absolutely nothing to do with zombies.

I liked the hand-held camera idea but it's not as well done as in "The Blair Witch Project" or "REC". I also liked how all three video diaries are connected with each other...but that's all I liked about the movie.

The acting is awful...really, really bad. The writers make it impossible to care about any of the characters because there is zero character development - the characters themselves could have been zombies and it wouldn't have made any difference. They still would have been mindless idiots.

All-in-all, I was very disappointed with this movie and it does not deserve the good reviews it's getting.

4/10. (I'm being generous.)


I think Zombie Diaries proves how both the genre and cam-corder "shot live" format are running out of steam. Three stories shot on a video camera by three different operators. The real threat of the film is a sadistic bastard named Goke, and, in an odd decision, the zombies are actually an afterthought compared to him. Goke seems like a reasonable chap until he opens fire on those who accept him in their group. The way directors Michael Bartlett and Kevin Gates arrange the stories rather bugged me, truth be told, because they had opened the film with a young news crew heading outside London into the country to film an interview piece, and then completely abandon them. We are introduced to two other groups, a trio entering a desolate, wind-swept village in search of food and supplies, and this unstable collection of bickering people attempting to fend off an endless number of zombies, trying to hold their area outside a forest which keeps producing them. Goke is a member of the latter group and his unpredictable behavior becomes more and more a questionable liability, until an outburst reveals the monster that he truly is. The trio leaving the village have put together a make-shift radio but as we soon realize there are few places to go where you can sit still very long. The lingering question is what happened to the news crew..we get a glimpse into the kind of psychotic Goke is when the camera man(..of the third story)discovers her bound and nude. Their story remains absent so long that when we finally learn about what happened to them, it's impact is lost.

Regarding the camera operators who shoot EVERYTHING..I question how someone could put shooting footage ahead of saving their own skin. Particularly in regards to the trio, where the directors wish to throttle the viewer with a startling development and the use of the camera(..just to capture a murder to someone shooting his supposed trip to freedom from a group of zombies chasing him through the forest)becomes so obvious in forwarding the plot, that the realism they're going for is lost. In other words, the camera is used to show the operator's jovial face as he heads towards who he believes to be survivors who can assist him..it's so orchestrated, you see it coming and therefore it becomes nothing more than a trick. I think the directors were very ambitious in trying to tackle three stories at once, when one would've sufficed. I think back to George Romero's Diary of the Dead, where we follow one group's journey and what confronts them along the way. In having three stories, you never get to know any of the characters that well. They become little more than people shooting zombies with camera operators concerned with getting every minute detail in the shot. There are attempts to provide a human side to them(..one character is bitten, dies, and the camera operator lifts a family photo from his pocket, placing it up to the screen for us to feel pity), little tidbits here and there. Bartlett and Gates insist on showcasing Goke as a menacing thug not to be trusted. There are some gory moments, but I think most zombie fanatics will find this flick to be quite disappointing..besides a scene where a stomach is open with guts sprawled out, and the occasional decomposing body, much of the action has humans shooting the heads of the zombies with minor blood spray. I wasn't impressed at all with many scenes where a gun shoots a zombie(..or innocent victim due to "unfriendly fire")in the head..it was never quite convincing, certainly not when compared to Savini's work. As you'd expect, the camera(..from all three operators)shakes and jiggles, with zombies never quite in focus(..one sequence, within a dark house, shot using a night-light, as the news crew attempt to escape, you can barely make out anything).

I think if the filmmakers had stuck with the crew as they come in contact with their hostile forces, both human and undead, then this could've been quite a success. Alas, so many characters come and go with the initial people we started out with utilized poorly. The finale with the soldiers seems forced and unnecessary.


I am a huge fan of zombie movies, which is the only reason why this movie would land in anyone's hands. But listen, and listen carefully: This was not only the worst zombie film I've ever seen, it may actually qualify as the worst of any film I've seen, period.

For anyone who says this film is realistic, that's hard to measure. If zombies stand there doing nothing while simultaneous scaring the crap out of everybody, then yes, it's very, very realistic.

But I doubt that is the case. They should have named it Zombie Matrix they way they had bullets flying around. I was embarrassed I made my girlfriend watch this.


For every positive review I read for this film, I read at least two negative reviews for this film. I was extremely excited when my girlfriend pointed this movie out to me, but I couldn't find it to rent, so I had to buy it in order to watch it. Of course I was not confident because of the reviews I read prior to buying it, but I thought it would be better to have an open mind and decide for myself if "The Zombie Diaries" was good or bad. Because I really, really enjoy zombie films, it saddens me to say that all of those negative reviews were right, "The Zombie Diaries" was really bad. But make up your own mind and watch "The Zombie Diaries" for yourself. Just know you have been warned.


The poster says: "The Best British Horror Film Of The Year". That may very well be true. But that's like saying "the most successful basketball team England has ever had".

TZD tries to put seriousness back into the zombie genre, but there is one essential catch: no matter what kind of make-up you give them, zombies are still silly, comical creatures. Hence almost any attempt to "documentarize" this genre is bound to fail - especially if the attempt is located on British soil, where bad horror films are made on a regular basis. The makers of this dull turd obviously thought that wobbling the camera enough would create that elusive realistic feel. How wrong they were. All that the shaky camera achieves is make the viewer dizzy and annoyed. I don't know about you, but when watching a movie I'd prefer to SEE the events unfold, as opposed to have to GUESS what's going on on the screen. At times the camera zig-zagged as if operated by a vodka-addicted 4 year-old. Screw von Trier and other pretentious camera-wobblers. If they are your inspiration and influence then you might as well leave film-making to those who do not make the cameraman stand on a large rubber ball when shooting scenes.

The first 15 minutes were painfully slow. Far from getting the feeling I was watching a documentary, I had more the impression I was watching someone's first student film. Things only get slightly more interesting (i.e. less dull) later, but then that awfully stupid ending ruins whatever minimal chances this movie had of being even semi-passable. The filmmakers reserve the ending for a serial-killers-on-the-loose plot, forgetting the zombies, the "stars", of this film totally.

The one positive thing I can say is that the zombies didn't run or talk; at least they behaved like "proper" zombies. However, I didn't understand why these heavily-armed survivors panicked so much nearly every time they were faced with those slow-moving, confused, dumb creatures. Placing a bullet into the head of such undead morons should be easier than stepping on an ant. The way rednecks quickly turn zombie-hunting into a cheerful sporting exercise in "Dawn Of The Dead" (1976) has far more realism, even though that movie was a bit of a comedy, too.

The actors playing the survivors look even more sleepy than the zombies...

I was thinking... What if zombies really did take over the Earth in some silly hypothetical scenario?... Would the Human Rights Watch take their side, as they usually do with all mindless killers?

For my music-related rants, go to: http://rateyourmusic.com/collection/Fedor8/


As I've said before I'm a cheapskate and I'll pretty much watch anything I rent but even I couldn't endure this piece of junk.I've seen some terrible zombie films in my years of watching horror films and this was one of the worst of the bunch.

The film is supposedly camera footage shot by different groups that chronicle their tribulations after London is overrun by walking dead.It mostly ended up being a film that featured a lot of bad actors standing or sitting around trying to emote the horror of fighting off zombies while talking into a shaky camera,ala "Blair Witch",while not being even close to as good as "Blair Witch".

After one moist eyed snotty nosed young man likened his situation to the people in the World Trade Towers on September 11,2001 I'd had quite enough and ejected the DVD from my player as quickly as I could.

Nothing really good to say about this crap-fest....the acting as horrible,the script was lame,even if it was ad-libbed it was still bad stuff.Special effects non-existent,they mainly consisted of newspapers blowing around in the streets.The zombies were those half-ass done kind with just some pale makeup smeared and there and some blood dashed on here and there.Long camera shots of a dead spider on a counter and rain splashing in a puddle were also counted as special effects I assume.Apparently the special effects budget was shot in the opening scenes where a handful of soldiers wearing gear that looked like it was from WWII ran around for a few minutes taking cover behind objects as they moved toward some buildings as though they expected the zombies to shoot at them! Right then I knew this was gonna be a puke of a movie.

No hordes of zombies here,just a few here and there milling around,usually standing in a group waiting for their cue to fall when someone shoots a gun their way.Then the camera holder walks up and shows us the zombie laying there with a splatter pattern of brains and blood fanned out from the head all over the ground looking as though the zombie was shot up through the head from under the chin while laying there.Bleeck!At least get the basic physics right! Don't waste a second on this mess.It's unwatchable.I gave it a 1 and I really wish this website would add some negative numbers to the ratings scale.

What happened to the good old days when people shot homemade porno when they got some camera equipment instead of their own horror movie?


As stated in the subject, I am so mad that there is no 0 rate on IMDb site. Zombie Diaries proves the film theory that today digital movie making world is affordable to everyone. When I say everyone, I mean people that most probably should stay with another profession. This film is a total proof on that and a total mess! There is no plot, no tension, no continuance ... Nothing. Still, the director tries to steal a little bit from several movie blueprints made in last few decades. Movie is made in Blair Witch Project camera style. However there is more than one camera here and the director gets completely lost in first twenty minutes by mixing them. Then, we have Memento moments of going backwards in one part of the film, also parallel actions without interaction as in David Lynch films and all this cheep mishmash is followed by pale and somehow drunk zombies that look like bad navigated extras on the poor stage. Absolute waste. Don't even bother.


So I went to Wal-Mart to pick out some zombie movies, the cover looked great (something like Shawn of the Dead ha ) bought it and my siblings and I watched it....absolutely horse manure! i regret buying this horrific camera viewpoint movie i.e. "Cloverfield" style. There was nothing going for me during the beginning the film. Although once they entered a secluded house that's when tension/suspense started to come in but then it just died a couple minutes later. I like the idea of making realistic as possible but the acting and camera movement is very b-movie like. Dialogue very poorly scripted. Don't even bother renting it I promise you that.


As an avid fan of Zombie movies I checked out this one after reading the positive comments on the box. Was I in for a disappointment.

The movie exist of 3 diaries of people who come in contact with a zombie infestation (newsgroup, young couple who escaped and group of survivors on a farm) that the director tries to connect in some obscure way and filmed in a Blair Witch kinda first person angle.

The first "diary" makes sense (a newsgroup) and is a way to do a movie I can appreciate (Diary of the dead, ReC), but it absolutely made no sense that the guy accompanying the young couple and one of the survivors are filming (to the absurd in the case of the guy with the couple). The director also doesn't give any reason why they would do so. The movie would have worked a whole lot better if these 2 diaries would have been filmed in a normal way.

The introduction/idea of a sociopath/psychopath on the human side of a zombie film (Goke) has merits, but isn't worked out sufficiently enough and the last 15 minutes are a complete mess that raises a lot of questions (what happened to Manny, why and how did Goke end up with the survivors, how and why did Leean end up in that barn (well Goke obviously, but would it have been so hard to let her say her name to the soldier to make it a bit more clear ???)

PS. Don't get me started on the make up and special effects because the average Goth in the street looks scarier than what this director let loose on the world (and that's taking into account the first person camera and the darkness)

In short, I don't really understand why some critics can be so positive about this movie and the current score between 4 and 5 seems about right

other titles I recommend: Diary of the dead, Rec, 28 days later (for the English angle)


A news crew goes out into the English country side to interview some people. They are making a documentary about a virus. Suddenly everybody has the virus.

The movie is presented in the form of a documentary. In this aspect it shares a lot with Cannibal Holocaust, Blair Witch Project, Rec, and Romero's Diary of the Dead. Of all these, The Zombie Diaries most closely resembles Blair Witch Project.

The movie starts well, then gets worse, and worse, and worse. Whilst it is attractively packaged the The Zombie Diaries is a low budget affair with no original ideas, a poor script, and bad acting.


It is called zombie diaries but actually has no ZOMBIES in it. Hardly a recipe for success. More like disaster. This could have been good. The marketing for this film was copied from Blair Witch Project : Make a cheap badly directed badly acted film and then get a few spin doctors to go on the net to start word of mouth. Set up a zombie walk that co incides with the movie, pay an artist a lot of money to design good looking poster art and talk talk talk it up on the net.

The problem with this is that the filmmakers failed the most simple test of the word of mouth method. It actually has to be a good movie to begin with for it to work. You cannot make a success out of over hyped sizzle and a poorly cooked underdone steak.

Do Not Waste Your Money !


I'm glad to see that some people agree with my 1st review. Its getting harder and harder to find a good zombie movie. Now I just got done watching 28 Days Later, which zombie diaries claims to be better than, and I'll watch it again in about a month or so. Zombie Diaries can remain in the trash can I threw it in. I wanted to pull my eyes out with a cork screw the first time I watched it. Pellet guns, come on. How did this movie even get on DVD? Not even all of John Travolta's movies got on DVD. The Experts, remember that one? At least that one was funny. But, yeah I said but, don't stop trying. How many times did Thomas Edison screw up his whole light bulb thing before it actually worked? Then again he was an American:) I'm just kidding! I'm sure they'll do better next time.


This review contains plot spoilers.

The first sign that The Zombie Diaries was going to suck? It's a low budget horror flick filmed on a hand-held camera. I'm not hating on movies filmed as if it's footage from a hand-held camera. I loved Cloverfield and Quarantine. But this movie turned out worse than Diary of the Dead, which is a pretty big achievement.

The Zombie Diaries is presented as a sort of documentary-like presentation at first. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the fact it's separated into three different accounts of the incident is a bit tedious.

The first account, labelled as day one, is of a group of documentary makers. Albeit not very convincing ones. The actors portraying them are abysmally awful, not one of them can act even a little. I'm in no way overreacting here, but their performances are actually cringe-worthy. That being said the make-up on the zombies isn't too bad and the scares aren't too cheap, I did surprised myself when I jumped.

Day two's group of people aren't much better. It's two men and a woman this time, the actors are a bit better this time round, but not by much. There's a bit more zombie action in this chapter and the make-up on the zombies is still quite realistic. Although both of the parts end quite abruptly, they are explored further later on.

The final group is a larger one who have taken refuge on a farm. Much better actors this time around and the cameraman actually attempts to explain what's happening to the audience, something that was sorely missing from the previous two 'days'. Zombie action is highest in this part and I can't help feeling that The Zombie Diaries would have been much better if only this group's story was told.

The film then goes from group to group, concluding each story and eventually links them all together in admittedly quite a clever way. Not that it saves this film though, it's a great idea which, contrary to popular belief, didn't rip-off Diary of the Dead as it was made before it. The film is boring though, to be perfectly honest and the good effects don't save it at all. Avoid.

Rating: ★★½


The Zombie Diaries is set as widespread panic hits England, there's a pandemic sweeping across Asia similar to Bird Flu & the Government is being urged to take action to prevent an outbreak over here. A team of four documentary filmmakers head outside London to a remote farm to hold an interview about the possible pandemic but find themselves trapped & isolated as large parts of London are evacuated because the virus hits & hits hard, the virus appears to turn the infected into mindless flesh eating zombies. Soon there are more zombies than humans & it becomes an everyday struggle to survive & find food while not get eaten or bitten which infects the victim with the virus & turns them into a zombie. All the while this outbreak is going on & civilization begins to collapse it is being filmed & documented by the filmmakers...

This British production was written, produced & directed by Michael Bartlett & Kevin Gates & is a sort of wretched cross between The Blair Witch Project (1999) & The Night of the Living Dead (1968) with a little 28 Days later... (2002) thrown in there to, what it boils down to is that I didn't like The Zombie Diaries at all. The film only lasts about 80 minutes but it's a fairly torturous experience with an amateur feel as the camera shakes around all over the place & the entire narrative is told through little snippets of footage that some cameraman or other has shot, the character's are very thin with no sort of background & various character's just disappear without trace or word of what has happened to them & it's hard to point to a single leading character that stays the distance since there isn't one. The plot was obviously written during the Asian Bird Flu scare & reflects people's nervousness & even has a little dig at the Government as the script accuses them of not doing enough. The patchy narrative told through little bits of footage means there's a slightly fractured feel about The Zombie Diaries & it feels that large chunks of exposition is missing as certain aspects don't make sense or just seem to happen at random (that woman zombie found in a barn for example along with scenes bookending the film featuring soldiers).

The whole look of The Zombie Diaries reeks of a home film shot on a camcorder with some awful shaky hand-held cinematography, there are times when it is literally impossible to see what's going on as the camera is pointed at the floor it it cuts peoples heads off the top of the screen or it just misses the action as it jerks around. This is a real eyesore to watch, the sound isn't much better either with constant muffles or ambient sounds heard that shouldn't be. There's not much gore here, there's some blood & a couple of scenes of zombies eating guts but little else.

With a supposed budget of about £500,000 this was a low budget film & it show's, I just hate films generally that look like they were shot on a camcorder with no real visual aesthetics or competence. The acting is bad, really bad & I'll just leave it at that.

The Zombie Diaries is a rubbishy low budget zombie film that tries to copy the style of The Blair Witch Project but just comes across as a total mess that is pretty hard to watch. Watch George A. Romero's zombie flick Diary of the Dead (2007) instead since it's much, much better.


This atmospheric but abysmal British-produced zombie epic endeavors to conceal its threadbare budget by lensing everything from the perspective of the lout lugging around the video camera. Indeed, "The Zombie Diaries" amounts to another queasy first-person photography movie that may send you screaming to your medicine cabinet for Dramamine owing to its nausea-inducing camera-work. Little distinguishes "The Zombie Diaries." What little value the tremulous first-person photography contributes to this lukewarm chiller is far surpassed by its hopeless shallow narrative. The story consists of three video diaries about survivors of a mysterious virus that has transformed many of their countrymen into blood-splattered zombies. Unfortunately, freshman co-directors & co-writers Michael Bartlett and Kevin Gates clutter up their narrative with too many characters and none make an impression. Furthermore, these static, one-dimensional characters never engage our sympathy. The survival of one character doesn't offset the fact that the villains escape without a scratch. Ironically, the zombies are less lethal toward our protagonist than some other humans. Mind you, a zombie movie where the undead pose less of a threat than humans is rather anticlimactic.

"The Zombie Diaries" is book-ended by scenes of cammo-clad soldiers surrounding a barn. The filmmakers then shift to a series of interviews about the mysterious virus and we learn that nobody knows if the virus is airborne, waterborne, or in contaminated food. Initially, a news crew cruises from London into the country to shoot an interview with a poultry farmer who has had to cull his chickens. When they arrive, the news crew finds nobody at home. Naturally, one of them complains that they have missed the bigger story in London. They find themselves isolated in the sticks and their cell phones don't work. Bartlett and Gates know how to set up a situation, but the pay-off generates no sizzle. Eventually, they return to the chicken farm and discover to their horror that the gut-munching has begun. This is where the first zombie inserts herself into the narrative. The narrative shifts to a month later and we are riding in a car with three characters that bear no relation to the news crew. John, Elizabeth, and the videographer are out scavenging for food because they have run out of anything to eat. They enter a deserted town, hit the grocery, and load up on food before the zombies appear. The third diary concerns four survivors. They are look like they are simply hunting zombies. The third diary shifts back to the second, and a zombie bites John and they chow down on Elizabeth. The videographer and John flee into the woods, but the videographer executes John because the latter is too far gone. About 13 minutes before "The Zombie Diaries" concludes, the narrative leaps back to the news crew as they meet Goke and Manny. By now one of the news crew has gone missing and Goke kills Andy.

Obviously, if you are not a fan of zombie movies, then you should not watch this film. The only reason anybody should waste their time on this 81-minute potboiler is that they are die-hard zombie fans. Nevertheless, even zombie fans may their appetite blunted by the vertigo-inducing camera-work and a needlessly complicated plot. Bartlett and Gates may have been the first to capitalize on this first-person shooting gimmick for zombie movies in the venerable tradition of movies like "84 Charlie Mopic," "The Blair Witch Project," and "Cloverfield." The Spanish film "REC," however, showed more imagination with their application. Unfortunately, very little makes sense and there is not anything dynamic enough about the subject matter or the presentation to warrant more than a single viewing, much less single this saga out for honorable mention. Okay, the Dimension Studios DVD contains two commentary tracks featuring the two directors and the cast. The Bartlett & Gates commentary could serve as a useful primer about the logistical problems involved with movie production. Sadly, this writer/director duo had more potential than they could deliver in cinematic form. Similarly, a decent cast is wasted because we gain no insight into their flat characters, least of all the murderous Goke.

Most of the action has the participants knocking off the zombies as they shamble into sight like a bad nightmare. For the record, the zombies here are old school; they stagger along with little momentum like the zombies in the George Romeo classics. Unlike "Night of the Living Dead" or its sequels, the plague of zombies is attributed here to a flu-like virus, an obvious homage to the half-baked but ultimately superior Danny Boyle movie "28 Days Later." The blood & gore remains minimal, and the worst you see is a zombie munching on intestines. The hysteria that this hand-held, pseudo-documentary approach strives to induce falls short of the mark. Bartlett and Gates show little flair in their use of suspense. The appearance of the first zombie is only mildly shocking. This zombie doesn't lurch at the camera. Instead, it poses for it and our heroes clear out of the room before it can inflict itself on them. Indeed, it looks precisely like a bunch of lads went into the woods to make just another mediocre zombie movie.

"The Zombie Diaries" qualifies as a monotonous film without a trace of humor but more importantly a shred of suspense. The villains get away so there is no sense of closure. One last thing that needs to be discussed is the cover art for the DVD that depicts a man in a vest with a pump-action shotgun. There is no man in a vest with a pump-action shotgun. Moreover, scenes on the back cover show zombies rampaging through London, but no zombies are ever shown in London. The overall effect of "The Zombie Diaries" is forgettable. An infinitely better movie in the same mode is the Spanish zombie movie "REC" that was later remade in America as "Quarantine." These two films were shot looking through a video news camera.


This is the most boring movie i've ever seen.I was unable to make it through to the end.

The first 10 minutes seemed to be OK but then everything fell apart.

I didn't see any of the final of the three "episodes" but what I saw of one and two were bad enough.

The initial actors playing the TV crew were OK but the actors in episode 2 were embarrassing.

Everything about episode 2 is amateurish..the actors, the direction, the editing, the script. I use these terms loosely as I'm reluctant to dignify this suckfest with these terms.

At about the time of the unintentionally funny death I gave up. Its like slow torture. I suppose I could go back and finish it but I really can't face it.


Okay, first let me say, it takes a lot of horrible things in a movie to make me think I wasted my time. I can quite often enjoy a movie even though I know it's pretty bad, because there is usually something there worth enjoying. Somehow, the creators of this terrible film could not seem to do that, and this garbage has absolutely zero interest factor.

The movie starts and you're introduced to a film-crew going around documenting the pre-impact thoughts of a new virus. Hmmm. There's the usual talking and interaction between the crew, in which a normal director would use to establish character development. And after a droll 15-20 minutes of interaction of absolutely no worth, we finally get to see some zombies. Or zombie, I should say. Now is when you'll probably be like "Oh ****, get out of there!", expecting it to viciously attack. Nope. Not at all. It'll just menacingly (or blankly) stare at the camera. NO, STOP! IT'S TOO SCARY!

Now our crew is outside, freaking out at all the blank staring, barely walking zombies surrounding them. That's right, these zombies don't run, or even walk. They stumble. How they get anywhere is beyond me. And now I'll take a break from "spoilers", and just tell you the rest of the movie is JUST. LIKE. THIS. You'll have people freaking out at zombies 150 feet away, moving at .1 mph, screaming not to waste ammo when a gun isn't even needed to kill the reflexless things. Just go club it to death, GEEZ!!

The actions made by these people will have you DUMBFOUNDED. Instead of running over a couple of zombies in a car, this idiot decides to crash the car instead, knocking out a girl in the process. Now, instead of dragging her along (the zombies still wouldn't catch up) or closing the doors to keep her safe, they leave her there, only to stop 10 ft away to film her dying. Way to go, heroes.

The acting is plain terrible, the script is awful, the camera won't stay still, the effects are decent according to the budget, and some parts will make you go "WTF?". Oh, and might I add, don't let the cover fool you. None of that happens. Not even the guy on the front cover.

And in the end, this movie should be avoided at all costs. Into zombies? You won't be anymore after you watch this trash.


This comedy has potential and undoubtedly follows in the vein of "embarrassing situation comedies" dominating our screens nowadays, i.e., the office, curb your enthusiasm, extras; you catch my drift. Seeing as i'm a fan of all of these brilliant comedies you'd think I'd like this sketch show. But unfortunately, there is a fine line between imitating a popular style and using it, stretching it out so far that it becomes tedious and predictable. In short, this sketch show falls among the latter. There are some strong and pleasing sketches but the rest are clichéd. The "comedy" evolves from the actors after a few sketches, however after a while even their performances become tedious and predictable. The only plus side to their performance is their dominance over the script that fails to evoke any comedy. We tend to overlook the writing and focus on them. If anything, their performances save the poor scripts and without them I wouldn't have glanced at this show. If you pull out the actors and focus on the script, it is mediocre and poor. However, thinking back, I may sound self-contradictory because there was one highlight. One that stood out for me, was when Nick Frost woke up from a one night stand, trudges silently downstairs and comes across a picture of him and the lady he slept with, married, including another with a child. Eventually, he realises, it is another liaison with his wife. That, i found funny. But the rest slightly poor. However, i did have some expectations for the second series yet unfortunately, the second series failed to meet these expectations. It is rather inconceivable to know that the show's producer & writer is none other than Ash Atalla, the producer of The Office. Nick Frost & Amanda Abbington are great actors, and frankly they are the only great thing in this show.


I was so looking forward to seeing this film, especially as it was made for the wonderful IMAX format, yet it turned out to be such a let down. If you know nothing about the subject yet want to feel that you are flying with the aircraft then by all means go an see this film. If you know something about the subject matter then you will pick holes all over the place in this film. Whilst not being a pilot I know enough about this to comment.

The film follows the story of a pilot from the 366th Fighter Wing at Mountain Home AFB who goes to the Red Flag exercise at Nellis AFB for the first time. It took me three-quarters of the film to fully establish what aircraft type he flies because of the poor continuity this film suffers from. To start with, it implies he flies an F-15C Eagle but for much of the film we see sequences involving the F-15E Strike Eagle. It was only when I realised which squadron his neck scarf and shoulder patch represented that I knew for sure what he flew in. In the mix are sequences involving F-15Cs from the U.S. Airforce wing based in Japan (look for the "ZZ"s), all seen on the ground when our pilot was being discussed. The film must have been made during two or more Red Flag exercises, as we see Royal Navy Sea Harriers in one shot, and RAF Harriers in another (no, they were not there at the same time!). We have another sequence where the commentator talks about aircraft from other visiting nations, yet fails to mention the Israelis, whose F-16s we are viewing at the time. My view is that if they are too politically sensitive to talk about then don't even show us the images either! We then move to the flying sequences. This has quite clearly been filmed over Idaho: firstly, Nevada is not that green; and secondly it involves F-15s and F-16s from Mountain Home in Idaho, and A-10s from the Idaho Air National Guard (neither the A-10s or F-16s were seen at Nellis earlier). The flying sequences involve both snippets of poor CGI'd aircraft and internal views of a controlling E-3 AWACs, which is quite obviously inside a studio. The ground attack sequences should use the term "Fire for effect" as that is what they clearly are, poor fireworks!!! The one true sequence we see of modern munitions hitting their targets looks very different. I know much of this may seem like nit-picking but the film started out with so much promise, and then it goes on to suffer from "dumbing-down", which is a great shame as several bits are very good, especially one where a camera is slung underneath an F-15 and we get treated to some great low-level flying; and the shot of four F-15Es in close formation at a fairly low-level. I may not be able to review this film as eloquently as others do but that is down to my sheer frustration at a chance wasted here. I feel like the audience is being treated as a fool because of the appalling continuity and dumbing down for effect of this film. Top Gun may have had its faults but it is a far better film than this.


I was excited at the prospect of watching Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag, thinking that it would be a genuine documentary. How wrong I was. The saccharine sweet narration can be rather vomit inducing at times, however in places it is delivered in a dull, lifeless monotone. The documentary aspect of the film is very shallow indeed as it simply glosses over things and never really actually educates or demonstrates anything, we are just treated to some very basic facts figures over the top of some visuals that are, admittedly, stunning.

Some of the cinematography is excellent and I would love to be able to say make the whole experience worthwhile however it suffers from bad editing and staging and a lack of continuity making it obvious that many shots were filmed in various locations nowhere near Red Flag, and during some of the dogfight sequences it's hard to keep track of who is who as the aircraft keep chopping and changing between shots so you have no real idea who is flying what.

There is an excessive amount of pyrotechnics used to stage various explosions making the whole affair feel rather fake and forced. Ultimately this isn't a documentary and it isn't a film. It doesn't educate and it doesn't entertain, and it feels like a huge missed opportunity given the access the film crew had to the Red Flag exercises.


I went to a prescreening of this in early 2005, and it was specifically hyped by one of the featured pilots, Major Novotony, as the Air Force's long overdue answer to Top Gun. Although most of the cinematography was well done for an IMAX theater, there was no real depth to the movie with the audience getting dragged along with a main character that was sheepish and uninteresting--not what people perceive in fighter pilots.

(SPOILERS AHEAD) Although the movie is presented as a pseudo-documentary, it shows the main character in a later exercise mission in a role as a downed pilot involved in escape and evasion from enemy forces, while trying to signal to friendly pararescue forces. This part does not suit the film presentation and feels very staged, as it's unlikely that the opposing forces would not find the downed pilot with all the IMAX crew and equipment focused upon him. Overall, this movie is very sparkly at times, but is composed entirely of makeup with no underlying beauty.


Sarah Jane Smith continues the battle to save the planet in her own way, by writing articles and teams up with children....Thats the initial plot and it just gets worser, the actress Elisabeth Sladen is perhaps one of the worst actresses I've seen, she overacts and underacts, cries...in like every scene and delivers lines with a cheesy smile.

This is supposed to be a kids show so people will argue that it doesn't matter.

YES IT DOES! These kids who watch the shows today will become filmmakers of the future and they deserve to be entertained by the finest...take shows like Young Dacula for example a British show that excels past any other kid show in the last decade of British shows. Just because its part of Doctor Who and has the awful Russel T Davies as the creator doesn't mean it has to be on the air for another pathetic series.


I watched Doctor Who and thought it wasn't too bad. Then I saw Torchwood and didn't think much of it. Maybe because I never liked the character of Captain Jack and couldn't bear watching a whole series dedicated to that flimsy character.

So it was with caution that I sat down and watched The Sarah Jane Adventures. The pilot; Invasion of the Bane, was pretty poor and lacklustre; most of the last ten minutes spent laughing hard at the stereotypes of British youth and Samantha Bond's acting.

The acting was substandard; especially from the stereotype single dad who will no doubt form a love interest for Sarah Jane; which is quite likely as her only other companion is in space somewhere. I think it was explained but I wasn't paying attention. Samantha Bond; well we all know why she didn't have a large part in Bond. She hams it up more than Goldfinger ever did. And the less said about Harley from Footballer's Wives the better.

The local girl's acting was awful from start to end and it ranged from "I've got a hard attitude but I'm only 10" to "I'm going to turn on my mobile phone because I'm hard." yeah right OK. Whatever.

Then the archetype; another candidate for banality along with all the others. Actually no I take it back. There was a good character and it was K9. He was the only one with depth. It looks the BBC are trying to infiltrate the entire country because it's the first success they've had on a Saturday night since Strictly Come Dancing (and no I'm not going to mention Robin Hood). We have Doctor Who for the families, Torchwood for the mature audience and this for the CBBC gang.

Some other things as well before I forget: - Bubbleshock (SJA) = Slurm (Futurama) - Mrs Wormwood (yeah that was also Matilda's mum but no matter) - The map of the Milky Way; according to Wikipedia its from Star Trek: TNG. - In a vain attempt to look "contemporary" it referenced Jeremy Kyle and James Blunt. In two years when no one remembers who these two are it will just make the show look old.

And finally; no one seems to mention that the SONIC LIPSTICK and/or SCREWDRIVER is just the 21st century version of the Batbelt. It can do everything just at that time when it looks like there is no chance for the heroes. Damn. And they say entertainment is evolving.

Rating: F-


A boring wreck of a film, and a terrible waste of the talents of some usually excellent actors. Where can I start? Poorly shot on digital video, with a nearly nonexistent plot, lousy script, poor directorial choices that include jumpy editing and an annoying, extremely repetitious performance by Norman Reedus, who seems to be more interested in chewing his nails or smoking a cigarette than croaking another line of bad dialogue. More embarrassing is a very strange and unnecessary cameo by Sean Young, who really is going to the bottom of the barrel for a paycheck. I really felt sorry for Kathleen Robertson and Michael T. Weiss, good actors in a terrible movie, they deserve better, I just hope they were paid well at least! I saw this film at a special screening in Hollywood, and most of the cast and crew were in the audience and it received quite a tepid response, I guess they suffered a great deal watching it and didn't have enough energy to fake enthusiasm. I would advise you to avoid this movie, but it's so bad, I don't think anyone will put it out.


Craggy Morris Ankrum is just one of a number of familiar faces that populate the still engrossing after all these years Earth vs the flying saucers. The story concerns a rocket scientist (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife (Joan Taylor) who are contacted by aliens from the great beyond. The aliens just want to be friends,they say.Yeah, right. Before long it becomes apparent that just ain't so. Wanton destruction ensues. On the surface, it sounds like the plot of countless other B pictures from the 1950s, yet Earth vs the flying saucers manages to rise above the clutter. Credit Ray Harryhausen's dazzling special effects for much of the film's appeal; the scenes of the saucers zipping through the atmosphere still look great. The acting is uniformly competent and perhaps most telling-understated. There are no hysterical confrontations or tear up the scenery performances. Instead, Earth vs the flying saucers grabs hold from the beginning and never lets go by spinning a tale...and telling it well.


I'm sorry but this movie was horrible. The acting was dismal and other than than the other guy magician, so was the magic. I am a magician so I was really excited about this movie and couldn't wait to see some magic but it was so not entertaining. Danny's magic was stupid, so was that girl's. The other contestant's magic was pretty cool I forget his name but other than that, it was not entertaining. Just think about that last "trick". That wasn't a trick at all. If a real magician tried that at a show, at best he get applause so little, he wouldn't be booed. Like I said, other than the contestant that did Harry Blackstone's floating light bulb, everyone else was horrible.


During this time only W.C. Fields was showing a typical American family as a bunch of good-for-nothing, ungrateful louts, but even Fields' worst can't match a tenth of the so-called Merry Frinks. Dad is a drunken newspaperman who can't hold a job, his mother is a crotchety whiner who demands breakfast in bed while trying to sneak booze away from her son, his oldest son is a Communist constantly spouting off about the evils of capitalism, the youngest son plays hooky from school to go to prizefights and his daughter is having an affair with a married man. The only decent person in the house is long-suffering Mama Frink who waits on them and cleans up the catastrophes the Frinks leave in their wake. Her job becomes even harder when her husband's windbag uncle shows up on the doorstep from New Zealand. The cast is populated with some of Warner Brothers' best character actors of the early 1930's but the result is more outrageous than funny and after a while you just want someone to kill the family and be done with it. Director Green does provide one great camera move as Papa Frink arrives home to be pursued by his nagging relatives while walking through the entire house twice in a continuous tracking shot that must have been difficult to stage. Plus Warner's lab must have been especially bored as this film uses every optical wipe of the time.


'The Merry Frinks' sounds like it's about a vaudeville act. Actually, this is one of the more obscure examples of a comedy subgenre that was popular in the 1930s: a 'wacky' family with several different eccentric personalities all living under the same roof. Well-known examples of this subgroup are 'You Can't Take It with You' and 'Three-Cornered Moon'. 'The Merry Frinks' is more plausible than either of these, but not much.

I really dislike Aline MacMahon. She was an extremely plain-featured character actress whose performances I've always found very mannered and unrealistic. I've never understood why some people value her so highly. In his book about pre-1945 movie stars, film historian David Shipman devotes a chapter to MacMahon ... but she was definitely a supporting actress, not a star, despite what Shipman says. And yet in 'The Merry Frinks' she is cast in the central and largest role, for one of the very few times in her film career. (Another starring vehicle for MacMahon was 'Once in a Lifetime'.)

Hattie Frink (MacMahon) has the thankless task of slaving for her family of oddball no-hopers. These include her husband (the annoying Hugh Herbert), who keeps getting sacked for drunkenness; her eldest son Emmett, a radical lawyer (Allen Jenkins, cast against type in a role that should have been played by Wallace Ford); her truant son Stinky (the excellent Frankie Darro); and her meddlesome mother-in-law.

Rich uncle Newt (the great Guy Kibbee) shows up on the Frink doorstep, expecting Hattie to cook his favourite meal for him. She does, and it kills him ... but he dies happy. Then it turns out that Newt has left all his millions to Hattie, with the proviso that she must leave her family in order to collect the dosh. She scarpers off to Park Avenue and takes up with a gigolo (Ivan Lebedeff). Meanwhile, chez Frink, Hattie's family are forced to fend without her ... and they appreciate her at last.

This story could have been quite funny, but it's too unpleasant. 'The Merry Frinks' reminds me of that intentionally awful Monty Python sketch about the world's most disgusting family. We're expected to empathise with Hattie Frink, but I didn't care about her nor anyone else in this movie. Will Hattie give up her millions to move back home with her ingrate family? The ending is both highly predictable and extremely implausible. On the way to get there, we do see one extremely impressive tracking shot (by the underrated Arthur Edeson) which required a very complicated 'wild' interior set of the entire Frink house. Elsewhere, the photographic effects seem to be more complicated than necessary. This film reminded me of several WC Fields movies (such as 'Man on the Flying Trapeze') in which he's put upon by his entire family, the difference being that in this case the victim is the materfamilias.

I'll rate this movie only 3 points out of 10. At the risk of being ungallant, I'll say that one reason I found this movie so unpleasant is because Aline MacMahon is so ugly. If a more photogenic actress (such as the underrated Ruth Donnelly) had been cast in the main role, I would have found the movie much less painful to watch. There's nothing very merry about the Frinks.


It's hard to imagine a more peculiar choice of director for this sci-fi thriller than Stanley Donen. Donen made some great films in the 50s and 60s (Singin' In The Rain, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Charade), but here he's in disappointing form. Partly that may be due to the fact that the project was originally to be directed by John Barry, but Donen "inherited" the responsibility when Barry quit due to ill health. However, Donen should not be made to shoulder all the blame. The script by Martin Amis leaves the actors to contend with some bad lines and situations. Elmer Bernstein contributes a forgettable music score which is well below his usual standard. And even the actors - all of them talented - seem indifferent to the project. Kirk Douglas, for example, seems to have accepted the role simply to enjoy some saucy nude scenes with sexy co-star Farrah Fawcett.

Essentially, the story is a three-handed thriller (or, four-handed, if you count Hector the droid). Saturn 3 is Titan, the third moon of Saturn (hence the name), and it is here that scientists Adam and Alex (Douglas and Fawcett) live in blissful isolation, developing food supplies for people on Earth. Adam and Alex not only work together - they sleep and shower together too, which is a pretty enviable arrangement for Adam (who is about 30 years older than his sexy assistant). Into this perfect space oasis comes psychopathic Benson (Harvey Keitel), another scientist who has recently murdered a shuttle captain. Benson has brought with him a droid named Hector, supposedly to speed up the workload. However, Hector turns out to be a particularly unstable droid, particularly when the randy robot develops a liking toward Alex. Eventually it becomes clear that neither Adam nor Benson can control the droid, and with Hector determined to kill anyone who stands in the way of himself and Alex, that becomes something of a problem.......

If Saturn 3 is a story of jealousy and desire, then it needs more than a sex-starved droid to generate credibility. If it is a sci-fi actioner, then it needs more action. If it was conceived as a sci-fi thriller then it most assuredly needs more thrills. The film emerges as a rather muddled and unappealing mess, with flashes of eroticism and very sporadic flashes of action. It marks a low point in Donen's directorial career, and is too forgettable to be remembered as a significant sci-fi work. Most of the folks associated with this one probably don't give it pride of place on their CVs.


I had watched this as a kid on local TV in the early 1980s (when only black-and-white sets still existed in Malta!) and, even if I knew it was no great shakes, some sequences from it (Kirk Douglas' nude fight with Harvey Keitel and the climax, for instance) have stayed with me ever since! Still, having come back to it after so long, I was expecting to be greatly disappointed but actually I enjoyed it for what it is: as a sci-fi epic, it certainly brought nothing new to the table (borrowing the plot's essential life-on-a-space-station element from SILENT RUNNING [1971] and its sex-starved robot, an appropriately menacing creation, from DEMON SEED [1977]) but was nonetheless fairly engaging - with a stylish enough look courtesy of cinematographer Billy Williams and production designer Stuart Craig (though Elmer Bernstein's score is curiously forgettable) - and, thankfully, did not overstay its welcome (running for only 88 minutes).

Even so, the two leads - who actually ended up Razzie nominees, as did the film! - weren't exactly inspired (Douglas, by this time, was past his prime and, unfortunately, his stint in the sci-fi/horror genre - which also comprised HOLOCAUST 2000 [1977; the only one I've yet to catch up with, though it's been shown on Italian TV quite a few times], THE FURY [1978] and THE FINAL COUNTDOWN [1980] - is best forgotten!) but, at least, Harvey Keitel brought to it his typical intensity and intelligence - though I'm sure it's a film he'd rather forget. Speaking of which, I recall an article in the British film magazine "Empire" comparing the fortunes of Keitel and Robert De Niro over the years: in the same year Keitel appeared in SATURN 3, De Niro reached his pinnacle with RAGING BULL, but a dozen or so years later the tables would be more or less turned...but that's another story.

In the end, one has to wonder what Stanley Donen was thinking when he accepted such a project - but, then, his career had always been somewhat erratic (including at least a couple more notorious false steps with the homosexual two-hander STAIRCASE [1969] and the bootlegging comedy LUCKY LADY [1975]).


Stanley Donen from the smarmy classic "Singin' in the Rain" directed this sleazy space adventure? What's next, George A. Romero remaking 'Dirty Dancing'?? Less surprising than the awkward director choice, however, is how silly and redundant this movie is... It totally lacks the originality, creativity and  especially  the credibility in order to become memorable science fiction. All it is now is an at times entertaining SF romp with a good cast and a couple of really nice gimmicks, but those hoping for another cool genre milestone will be sorely disappointed. "Saturn 3" stars Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett as a pretty much carefree space couple, stationed in a control base on one of Saturn's Moons. Their jolly lifestyle is about to end abruptly when the grumpy Capt. Benson (Harvey Keitel) comes to build an all-knowing Meccano-robot. In one of the most ludicrous plot-twists ever, the robot (basically made from pipes and wires!!) becomes obsessed with Fawcett's ravishing body. Not that we can blame anybody for wanting to jump Farah Fawcett (she's ultra-hot again!) but this premise is a little too stupid to build a complete, supposedly 'adult' science fiction screenplay 'round. Trained genre fans can play a game spotting all the other (and more successful) titles that heavily influenced the story. The list is rather impressive, with "Star Wars", "2001  A Space Odyssey", "Alien", "Zardoz" and "Dark Star" as the most obvious ones. Some of the dialogues Kirk Douglas has to produce are terribly cheesy and for some incomprehensible reason, Harvey Keitel seems to talk with a dubbed voice. Watching "Saturn 3" isn't a total waste of time, but there sure are better SF gems to purchase.


Quite an unusual cast for a sci-fi action flick. It was amusing to witness 63-year-old Kirk Douglas kick butt and save the day. He simply fails to convince, and should have remained with the usual Westerns and such he's most famous for. A class actor like Harvey Keitel is wasted in this nonsense, and sure will try and forget his role in a movie which proved unsuccessful at the box office.

Farrah Fawcett had abandoned Charlie's Angels after just one season to better herself as an actress and move into the world of movies. Ah yes, an interesting premise Ms. Fawcett, but Saturn 3 was not exactly the route I would have taken. Although stunningly beautiful, Fawcett doesn't take her role as Alex in any particular direction, and seems just like your typical scared easily blonde, but this time stranded in space! These three stars are the only characters in the film (unless you count the robot of course). It's just as well because the script is poor, the acting (Douglas and Fawcett particularly) is laughable in some places, and the special effects are on the point of being disastrous.

Stanley Donen tries hard to prove himself a superior director in the sci-fi genre, but his time and effort was simply wasted; Saturn 3 is complete and utter drivel. Recorded the same year as the superior Alien, it's unsurprising it was largely ignored by film fans and critics alike. Ridley Scott's Alien has the premise to scare and shock, with powerful performances from those concerned, and has gone down as one of the best films of all time. Saturn 3 tries to mimic this movie in a sense, but completely fails in doing so.

Saturn 3 has been 'awarded' (if that's the right word to use) 3/10 from myself. Farrah is the only reason to look at it!


That nasty pack of clichés, plagiarism, terrible acting and really, really, really clumsy plot isn't watchable. I can at least guess, because it's definitely not for teenagers, 'couse they're gonna laugh at almost every scene (for some time, because THIS movie isn't even funny in the way Ed Wood movies can be), older viewers will easily spot all the plot holes, bad acting and terrible idea. I had the doubtful pleasure of watching this flick at late night on the polish TV... and found it very difficult to enjoy it in any way.

Even for a B (C? D?... E?... um...) or DTV movie it's waaaaaay below the bottom line. It is much worse then Steven Seagal's movies. Don't waste your time on such trash.


What Artisan has done here is try to recycle the film Juggernaut. In doing so, they fail miserably. The film is terrible and the acting is worse. The entire 'starring' cast should be banned from Hollywood for several years just for agreeing to perpetrate this piece of trash. Also, the director should be run out of town on a rail for ruining what was a perfectly good movie from the '70s.

But most of all, the people at Artisan should be ashamed of themselves for agreeing to fund such a terrible project.


i am watching this silly movie as i write this and AHHH, its terrible! i couldn't sleep and so i got up and turned on the boob tube.As i flipped on the TV, Brian Kerwins image caught my eyes(if it weren't for him and i just happen to be quite attracted to blond mustachioed white males) i probably wouldn't be watching this crap. So i decided to get on MDB to look up his profile/bio. in doing so i found out that this silly LIFTIME made-for-trailer-trash-movie is based on real events!!! TEE-HEE!!! but anyway, my true gay nature compelled me to watch it through its entirety. Sobb!! but in looking up the archives based on other viewers comments and questions, it appears to me that the Twiggs were real monsters in having tried to win custody over this poor child. Two families in realty were ruined and the child in question ended up totally F'ed up in her young adulthood! thanks a lot selfish inconsiderate adults.


Recently, I am noticing that a remarkably high percentage of those German films that are released on international dvds have as topic the Nazi time. But not enough with this newer productions, one is even eager to re-release older movies about this one and the same topic, which seems to be of such great interest. What are the reasons? Is it the still bad conscience of the Germans themselves which cannot be made responsible for what their fathers or grandfathers did? Or do the sons and grandsons of the "liberators" of Nazi Germany have to indulge now in their past, because the present does not look so glorious anymore? Syberberg's "Hitler" is grandly overrated, in my opinion. It is a pseudo-intellectual work which is pretending much more than what it really is. In almost 8 hours the director scatters the undigested morsels out of textbooks in philosophy, German literature and film history over his audience. Or do you know what Hegel has to do with the Third Reich? Do you know why Oskar Loerke, Ernst Stadler, August Stramm and the dadaists come to "honor" in this movie? Do you really believe that the "Hollywood fascists" ended the carrier of Erich von Stroheim, leaded by Gloria Swanson? This film is crowded with poetic and metaphysical "knowledge" that is just picked up from encyclopedias, mixed with pure nonsensical "interpretations" and randomly spread in the legion of massively overlong monologues. If you watch attentively, the movie presents you a full contents of assumingly every experimental shot that you can find listed in the histories of film technique - of course, randomly used, the absence of any recognizable structure being blamed to the lack of understanding of an allegedly illiterate audience.

Principally, I like the idea of digging out classics of the German New Wave between the Oberhausener Manifest and its end with the dead of Fassbinder. But where, where are the films of Alexander Kluge, Peter, Thomas and Viktor Schamoni, Werner Schroeter, Horst Bienek, Peter Lilienthal, Jean-Marie Straub, Ula Stöckl, Peter Fleischmann, Hans W. Geissendörfer, Ulrike Ottinger, Walter Bockmayer? At the same time when dubious film companies are re-releasing the unrestored and horribly dubbed German pre-New Wave movies, the so-called "Kriminalfilme" and "Lederhosenfilme" and present them to a surprised American audience that cannot have any idea about the background on which these movies had been made, at this very same time the films of the New Wave generation that purposely cleaned up with this so-called "Papa's Cinema", are simply not available on international dvds. And if you buy the German dvds, than you will realize that practically all are not region-free. Well understood, we speak here about several hundreds of films which would be well worth seeing international distribution. However, Syberberg's "Hitler" does definitely not belong to the pearls. Its director released "Hitler" for free on his own homepage and offers region-free copies of his collected works for a dumping price.


I've seen & heard aged Nazis (or their witnesses) - speak on film. However dry, actual Nazi talk and operations data is more POTENT than this gushing "feelings about Hitler" production.

"Our Hitler..." is the extreme example of 1970's

too much talk too little action self absorption (every word we blather out should be preserved- every idea however tangential and unfocused - is precious to preserve ...) film work - but there are still nuggets of visual and verbal power in this way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way too long film.

Near the end (for one of a zillion examples of This Film wandering far far far far off the main point - i.e. Hitler & co) you hear a diatribe about the camera,and its ability to communicate, including a quote from early 20th century film star...they then quote Mary Pickford!!!

Mary Pickford (who has nothing to do with Naziism that I ever heard of) ....and you wonder - Mary Pickford??? mentioned in a film which is supposed to be about "our Hitler".

This film has the grotesque tone/imagery also seen in - CABARET. But the host of Cabaret (played by Joel Grey), tho corrupt, ...doesn't commit the sin in this film of - boring you to death.

The second half of this 7 hour - film cure for insomnia - is slightly more interesting than the first half. ...tho the large Hitler puppet, the stuffed dog doll with a Hitler face, and "Tales of Hoffman" type of scenery .........................are distracting. (Makes me wonder if someone was smoking an illegal substance while writing this script!)

But the second half has some potent quotes from some key Nazis themselves. The quote about Himmler's desire to MILITANTLY enforce his animal protection legislation caught me for a bit, anyway. THAT would have been a potent spot for grotesque images...!

EDIT IT! CUT IT IN HALF!


Thoroughly entertaining performances from Richards, Theron, and Torn can't save this movie from its sub-par direction and formulaic predictability. Richards delivers his lines with the same quirky mannerisms that I found hilarious in Seinfeld, but if you didn't like it there, you won't like it here. Theron shows promise though she has to create her performance as she is given nothing by the material. Perhaps the funniest moment in the film comes when Torn tells his sob story after he puts himself on the stand. I got the impression Jeff Daniels wasn't trying very hard in this film, but you can't blame him given the tired storyline and studio-oriented vision. The script was most likely written by a computer, or more likely a desperate, soulless, sellout of a hack with a talent for gag suppression. For diehard Michael Richards fans only.


This movie does not know what it wants to be, is it a slapstick or romantic comedy?

Michael Richards' character can't get away from the Kramer character. Is he this oddball or a serious actor? He flips back and forth between the two. And in the courtroom, one second, he is fooling everyone with his acting, then the next, he becomes a complete dimwit w/o the ability to improvise through anything.

I'm not sure why the prosecutor would even phrase so many arguments so that it would be constantly objected, given that she has all the legal training.


It could have been so much better, if this lame courtroom comedy had a decent script and at least some inspired jokes. But as it is, lawyer Jeff Daniels and actor Michael Richards accidently switch roles and have to handle a difficult case and two female interests. The latter are charmingly played by tough, but pretty Jessica Steen and gorgeous and likeable Charlize Theron. And even the judge is played by comedian Austin Pendleton. But Jonathan Lynn, who was responsible for the hilarious courtroom comedy that was MY COUSIN VINNY doesn't succeed here. Still, it's not a total BOMB, and Rip Torn is a funny bad guy.


I know this is Canada's first attempt at top model, but you would think after 6 seasons of ANTM they would have taken some notes. The first mistake they made was making Tricia Helfer the host. Yeah, she is gorgeous, but i had never even heard of her, when you think Canadian supermodel, you automatically think of Linda Evangelista. I heard she wasn't able to do it, so Tricia it is.

First off, the girls are just SO ordinary looking. I've seen much more prettier girls at the mall and at school. They also seem so disinterested in modeling, except for maybe one or two, the rest of them seem so unsure. The majority of them had no clue how to walk on a runway, or even take a decent photo.

The probably only exciting thing about the show is that Jay Manuel is in it, (photo shoot director from ANTM). He is Canadian, and you can tell by his facial expressions in the Canadian version, he must have been thinking "These girls really suck". I know they need a lot of practise and training, but the girls they picked are pretty awful. I would say the best picture of the bunch would be equivalent to the worst photo in the American version.

Other than that, the background music will put you to sleep, the house is nice, but they could have added some colours to it instead of just making the entire decorations made out of wood. And Tricia? My, my, she needs A LOT of work, she has to be the most dullest, boring-est host i'v e ever seen. Don't bother watching it!


I am not familiar with what turns Indians on to war, as I have never lived there to fully assess their psychology, in terms of war, patriotism and of course jingoism. The film itself has a Western feel to it, with the bowling alley scene, the easy wealthy living of the leading characters, the nod towards Arnie, the all American action hero and governor of California; Affluent educated "smart kids" leaving India to service the USA.I mean how many Indians live like this surviving on 20 rupees a day ?(80%) Perhaps that is why the movie never made a box office impact in India, because it was too busy pleasing its Jewish sponsors. Because it had no real connections to reality.............the pseudo-Western characters with their Anglicized wiles, and mannerisms......is that what really impresses Indian audiences? Was this film funded by Jews in America? Or the underworld gangsters who run Bollywood?

I am not sure the movie moving back and forth in time worked, it was irritating. The songs silly and irrelevant. How do you have songs in a serious, slightly moody war movie? Just doesn't work in the real world.

The characters are cardboard, real hard cardboard with no depth, clichés of acting, and nothing unique and different.

And as a propagation and sale of the Indian armed forces it could have done a better job.

Perhaps its me, but I find it embarrassing when Indian characters flick back and forth between English and Hindi....stick to Hindi if you are flying the flag; THIS AIN'T A CALL CENTER ADVERT. If your movie really has been funded by Bollywood gangsters and not some outside ENTITY TO WHOM YOU MUST NOD TO in the movie, in those tiring obvious ways then make the overall movie more down to earth, and not have the cadets take their national oath to the nation in English........ If you want to sell yourself, prostitute yourself, then do so a little bit more discreetly, in a slightly more sophisticated manner, with a better story, than the usual angst directionless youth finds meaning in life by joining the armed forces line.

I am giving it 3 out of 10 only because of Preity Zinta, with her dimples. I have seen quite a few war movies in terms of global production.......USA, UK, Germany, France, Russia, Australia, and others and this movie would not measure up to them globally. Just wouldn't.........its weak.Its pop culture cliché ridden. If you are churning out 1100 movies a year and it is 2008, and you are projecting yourself as a global player in movies and much else, you have got to do better than this weak stuff filled with cliché scenes, and poor acting........the scenes which have the feel of 2 minute TV adds, of smart ass cute comments which the average Indian never utter.

I have not seen one decent war movie from India. No songs. decent gritty acting by serious actors in real war situations, fighting real wars, against real enemies.............beautifully crafted, and conveyed.

ON A SEPARATE NOTE: It is a shame that Bollywood is still producing anti-Pakistani movies. This doesn't help the harmony of South Asia, but does assist the elements of "outside" forces to SOW disharmony in this region, essentially brothers attacking brothers.

If you are reasonably educated you should know that Pakistan is a "failed state" number 9 from the bottom, which is managed by...........THE USA/UK. Let me put it another way. The Western trained top Pakistani military brass, who also speak English in their private environment, don't commit to war unless encouraged by the USA/UK. The Pakistani army is a carbon copy of the British army from the late Raj era, which fights its best and most aggressive wars mainly against its own people.

IN KARGIL, it was General Musharaf who initiated the conflict because of his fear that India and Pakistan might FINALLY sign a peace deal (Bhajpayee going to Pakistan as a gesture of goodwill and meeting Sharif............after Kargil Bhajpayee said he felt he had been stabbed in the back). Musharaf used the paramilitary Northern Light Infantry, and irregulars to attack India, not with the objective of winning, because you don't use paramilitary forces against India if you are serious about winning, but rather to scupper the possible peace deal between the two nations. As it happened the peace deal was scuppered, and the two nations became hostile with one another, thereafter. Musharaf on the back of Kargil came to power, and ruled Pakistan for 9 years until he was toppled by the Americans.

The Americans need to soften up Pakistan before they can attack the country in the future possibly WITH India, and it is the Americans who have encouraged India to participate in Afghanistan, against Pakistan. Develop a coalition of the willing in this region.

General Musharaf meanwhile may have to leave Pakistan, given his legacy to the country, and he will head off to Britain no doubt, buy some property or two with his loot in London, and thereafter move on to the USA, where he will be lecturing at American universities.

The Americans want India to attack Pakistan for them, and such films underlay this strategy, and why the movie feels like a copy of an American B-movie, from the 1980's Reagan era. It is not in India's interest to see Pakistan occupied by the USA and especially the UK, with NATO in toe. South Asia should be free of foreign forces.

Shame on you Javed Akhtar, and the directors and ghost writers. You are Muslim's living in India, and I am sure you have gone through some tough experiences, but you don't have to show your loyalty to India in this cheap and crass way. Because ultimately given the overall geostrategy of the region, with whats going on in Afghanistan, you are not helping India and the people of South Asia with such cheap movies.


Is this the same Akhtar guy that directed Dil Chahta Hai ?!! If so, I suppose he began ingesting brain numbing substances after the success of his first movie.

The storyline is non-existent and the dialogues are weak. The desperate attempt at character-development leaves one yawning through the first half, and the direction seemed amateurish at best. In one scene, when Karan (Hrithik) sees the LOC for the first time, he claims being overcome by a feeling of belonging (to India). Nothing in the shot or the music imparts that feeling to the audience. This is a common thread through out the movie where the actors mouth lines that are either totally disconnected with the scene, or they are so obvious that the audience is left feeling spoon-fed.

The battle scenes are very poorly shot. I don't know how they compare with other bollywood movies but to someone who's seen Saving Private Ryan or the Band of Brothers, they look like laser tag. I think the best part of the movie was the location. The visuals were stunning and nothing like I had seen in other bollywood movies. Even there I think Farhan took the audience for granted. In one of the penultimate scenes, Indian soldiers are shown crossing a dense wooded area to get to the base of the peak 5179. The only problem is that such trees do not grow at elevations of 16000 feet. Just nitpicking in a movie filled with stupidities :)


Although this movie tries to tug at the heart strings, it fails to provide either likeable characters or believable motivations for their actions.

Music, script, and acting are on the level of the average porn movie. Regrettably, the average porn movie provides more incentive to watch than Red Shoes does. Don't waste your time with this one.


Well, this movie, to tell the truth, is a total crap. No story, no acting, no mature screenplay... just sex which covered 50% of the movie. The director made a blunt effort to insert some plot with that morphology-changing ability of the villagers but that turned out to be a sheer flop. The actors, especially the child ones, are not worth to mention. Julie Cialini, the "star" of the film did her part, which consisted of nothing hard, well. The cinematography is horrible and senseless. Some childish special effects are also seen.

Two things are worth for a brief notice about the film. One is shooting location, which is nice; and the other is the background music during sex scenes. But if you're going to waste your bucks just for that, I have nothing more to say.


I try to be positive when watching a movie. I usually don't bring many expectations to the table. Generally, I can find something worthwhile in any movie I watch, even when the movie sucks ass. However, except for the ample cleavage, this movie totally sucks in every department.

The acting is very amateurish all around, the writing is poverty-row (at best), the cinematography is quite poor in a lot of places (lots of out of focus shots), and the "special effects" are laughable. Plus, this movie has a couple of the worst child actors I've ever seen! Damn!!!! I wanted to smack them every time they appeared on screen.

I walked into this with an open mind, but for all my efforts, I just ended up getting robbed of money and 80 minutes of my life that I'll never get back!


I got this movie out of the bargain bin for a laugh, and honestly a laugh is all you can get out of this.

The plot in a nutshell: American family re-locate to Ireland, man gets fusty over a hairy mutt and with the added extra of cheap Sinclair Spectrum style morphing the dog changes into a woman, he gets bedazzled by her baps and ignores his family to go off for a romp with her. All is well (unless by this point the cheesy porn music doesn't make you want to pull your ears off)until this hairy geezer shows up, with may I say equally bad acting, he wants to romp with the American's wife, but she is having none of it, in the end you get to see more Spectrum special effects, a woman changing into a robotic style bird with horrendous flapping wings and more crap music. There are more bad mistakes in this film that makes it more funny than making you want to get anything aroused by the woman's gyrating and boobs fwapping all over the place.

For instance, she is supposed to be Irish and not have any luxuaries, yet when she does take her clothes off and actually speaks you can see she has very distinct tan lines and she has a strong American accent.

All in all this film was fun for a laugh and making this review, I recycled the box for another DVD and the disc itself has ended up a rather artistic drinks coaster.


Wolfhound is a supernatural thriller type film. There's plenty of nudity, although the violence was a little lacking. It also seems that the film makers didn't follow through with all of their plot ends or ran short on funds or some other such nonsense (I will elaborate below).

Colum is a young writer with a family. He moves his wife and kids back to his home town in rural Ireland so that he can concentrate on writing a book. As the film drags on (I stress that it drags), Colum's wife begins to realize that her husband has been keeping a secret from her all these years. While staying in Ireland, Colum begins hooking up with an Irish Wolfhound that can transform itself into a beautiful woman (you'll just have to take my word on this one). The woman is trying to help him remember that he is also a wolfhound and that his human form is only one side of him. As a matter of fact, the entire populace of the village are actually animals that take human form. Colum has to realize his animal powers in time to save his wife from the local bully.

The real problem that I've got with this thing is that they didn't really explain some things that they should have. I can forgive not knowing what happens to the hero at the end of the movie and the minutia that is only kind of a cute sub plot. However, in this thing they frequently mention that Colum's parents died in their late twenties and they don't say how or why he moved out of the village. We can assume that his parents met an untimely end. However, they stress the death of his parents being such a turning point and it is never really adequately explained. They also never fully explain the gorgeous woman wolfhound's relationship with him. She mentions that she's been waiting for him to return, but why? We don't know why or when he left, so there's nothing really to gauge his past on. I don't mind ambiguity in films, but still. It looks like they tried to make a modern day Hitchcockian film, but royally screwed up.


A successful author, Colum(Allen Scotti) returns to his ancestral home in an Irish village with wife, son and daughter in tow hoping to rekindle possible memories of slain parents he never knew. What he does discover is that inside him lying dormant is an animal desiring to get out. Threatening his well being is an imposing, gruff villager, Macroth(Brian Monahan)who may very well have been behind the death of his parents. Colum's wife, Stella(Jennifer Courtney), wishes to go home, quite a city gal longing for her hot coffee from Starbucks, having a great deal of trouble adjusting to her new environs. What's worse is that she feels a rift coming between her and Colum whose behavior is questionable. Colum realizes that an Irish wolfhound scouring about his cottage's grounds is in fact the animal form of a beautiful, voluptuous woman, Siobahn(Julie Cialini)who wishes to make passionate sexual contact with him. After succumbing to Siobahn's seductive allure, Colum finds the beast within starting to emerge, while Stella yearns to leave without him if necessary. Meanwhile Macroth eyes Stella causing quite a bit of friction between all involved. What Colum and Stella soon find is that the village folk are not all they appear to be.

Ambitious but lackluster fantasy regarding a village of people who can actually transform into animals. Like Macroth who changes into a wolfhound like Siobahn. Another changes into a crow. The plot resembles the story of Cat People ever so slightly, but I had a problem with how the fantasy element of transformation is handled..it deserves more exposition as does how Colum's parents died. I think a great deal of the film is little more than getting Julie Cialini as naked as possible. Certainly her delicious naked flesh doesn't hurt, as long as she kept her mouth shut, but I didn't think she had that many sparks with Allen Scotti, for whom is her sexual partner during a few scenes. I never thought their love-making provided the right amount of erotic heat which is surprising since chains get thrown into the mix and blue light(..often quite an effective tool for erotica)within night scenes never quite elicits fireworks. The fight scenes between Macroth and Colum never catch fire either and have clumsily inserted dogs growling in the attempts to sell the beasts themselves attacking. The morphing sequences from human to beast leave much to be desired. Special effects in this film just are too cheap to effectively convey what the director so desires and he often has to resort to the use of objects to cloud humans before and during their transformation to, I guess, save on what little budget he obviously had. There's an unnecessary sex scene between Colum and two lesbian women(..Julie K & Regina Russell)that should also be erotic but comes off surprisingly empty because the director fails to establish whether or not they're actually even on top of him! I'd suggest seeing this merely to see Cialini naked, slapping Colum as he's chained to the bed while on top of him having the ride of her life. She also has a rather effective strip scene, removing her gown inviting pleasure. Maybe the problem is the lead actor, Scotti, who fails to generate fire with his new lover or a sense of love with his wife. The character of Stella spends most of the screen time upset with her husband's decision to leave home, feeling distant from Colum, or warding off Macroth's advances.


Professor Blake has a new toy. It seems that his university has just purchased a coelacanthe--a primordial fish species that was discovered to still be alive in the 20th century. Unfortunately for the Doc, he doesn't realize that the fish was preserved using Gamma rays!! This combination causes the fish to have horrible properties--if anyone touches the blood of this dead creature, they, too, become primordial--and dangerous! First, a dog licks the water that the fish came in when it arrived on campus. Because there was blood in it, the dog became vicious and its teeth elongated--almost like sabre-teeth. Later, the professor scrapes his hand on the teeth of this dead fish and he becomes....well, we really don't see exactly what he becomes until later in the film--but we do know he's mean and looks a bit like Lancelot the Missing Link.

Oddly, while this professor is supposed to be super-smart, it took him a long time to figure out what was happening. You see, after becoming a monkey-man, he would later turn back to himself--with no memory of his bestial transformation. Later, when he did seem to understand what was happening, he actually deliberately injected himself to see if it was true--without really providing much in the way of safety of others. Sure, he went to a lonely mountain cabin to conduct this experiment, but sure enough, someone was nearby and ready to be killed. And, by the way, the killing was a dandy (pretty cool stuff) but sadly the makeup job wasn't. The monster we'd been waiting so long to actually see consisted of a cheap rubber mask and rubber gloves and lots of hair. It was very disappointing and showed that the budget for makeup must have been about $9.99--which is sad because the basic story idea and much of the acting was actually very good. Oddly, while the mask was cheap and crappy, the transformation process at the very end of the film was excellent--who'd have figured?

Overall, a decent story idea as far as 50s horror films go. It's very creative and unusual. It's just too bad the creature looked so stupid and the professor behaved, well, like an idiot on multiple occasions.

By the way, in a clever bit of writing, the Professor makes a phone call to a "Dr. Moreau" who lives on an island. This is obviously a reference to the H.G. Wells story about a crazy doctor who dabbles in making primitive creates very human-like (and vice-versa).


A professor (Arthur Franz) of Dunston College comes into possession of a big fish, 300 million years old, long thought to be extinct. The carcass has been shot through with gamma rays as a preservative. Unknown to anyone, this has altered the fish's plasma so that any living organism that comes into contact with it, either by ingestion or inhalation, reverts to its own primitive forebear. Thus, for instance, Sampson the fraternity's dog laps up some fluid from the fish and becomes a sort of savage wolf. You can tell because when the dog growls he bears his teeth and you can see the canine's canonical canines. Bacteria crystallize like some viruses. A normal dragonfly that lights on the fish grows to immense proportions. And Franz manages unwittingly to cut his hand on the coelocanth's teeth and, later, to smoke some plasma-drenched tobacco in his pipe. (Don't ask.) And after this he becomes, well, not any kind of ancestral hominid but rather an ape-headed hairy monster whose idea of decorum is to smash furniture and tear cops limb from limb during his blackouts. The effects are very real but temporary.

Nobody believes his "theory", of course, so to prove it, he deliberately injects himself with the plasma under circumstances that ensure he will be shot and killed by the police. He leaves behind a cute girl friend with a Southern accent (Joanna Moore) and a dozen or so students who are probably happy to get out of his lab periods.

It's all pretty silly. The plot is full of holes, for one thing. How is Franz, a professor yet, unable to link his blackouts with the appearance of the ape-monster? The audience can figure it out right off the bat. How does a normal, healthy young woman die of fright? Why is the unit of measurement of evidence always a "shred"? Why are cops told they don't have a shred of evidence. Suppose they did have a shred. Could they then have two shreds of evidence -- or even three? Could they go to trial with half a shred? How about a nanoshred? I kind of like Arthur Franz. Square of jaw and imperturbable, he's the very model of a pedestrian actor. (He was pretty good in "The Sniper," his best picture.) Besides, he must have a great deal of determination to have worked his way out of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, a city in whose legend brick factories loom prominently.

Troy Donahue, on the other hand. Well. The best performance comes from Judson Pratt (great as the frequently inebriated Sergeant Kirby in John Ford's "The Horse Soldiers"). He's everything that Donahue is not. He's animated. He has the pushed-in face and big ears of a proletarian. And not just a proletarian but a Boston proletarian, with a regional accent so thick that every vowel should have a German umlaut over it.

There's nothing that comes to mind that might have saved this film from it own tedium. I liked the coelocanth, though. It was a real biological find at the time and much in the news. And linking this primitive fish to the appearance of avatars was imaginative, though I don't know what gamma rays could have had to do with it. They're just X rays and they don't preserve anything.

All in all, some silly lines in the dialog aside, it's a dull movie.


This movie, "Monster on the Campus" is a very enjoyable, silly movie from Jack Arnold, made in 1958. The basic premise line is that a scientist played with stoic charm by Arthur Franz, is studying evolution and is accidentally bitten by a million year old fish which then causes the good professor to run amok on campus. The movie has some scary moments and some silly moments, the monster in a flannel shirt comes to mind, but overall it is good fun on a rainy night. The lovely leading lady is played by Joanna Moore, Tatum O'Neal's late mother, she showed promise in this movie, but I can't recall seeing her in any thing else. Enjoy this movie in all it's simplicity.


No doubt not the best from director Jack Arnold, but very watchable. A college professor(Arthur Franz) nicks his hand on the teeth of a prehistoric fish and turns into a murderous man/beast. Parts of this movie can be very chilling and then a few moments later you want to shout "That's pretty funny". Watch this in tandem with one of Arnold's better flicks TARANTULA and you will have a fun and thrilling evening.

Franz gives a great performance compared to the rest of the cast that includes: Joanna Moore, Nancy Walters, Whit Bissell and pretty boy Troy Donahue.


Ughh. I hate Monster on the Campus. Hate it hate it hate it. Hate the stupid plot. Hate how everybody always enters the scientist's office through the door marked "Use Other Door" (or maybe it was "Do Not Enter"...). Hate how the scientist KEEPS MANIFESTING THE MONSTER, despite having no reason to do so. This movie isn't entertaingly bad. It's just bad. Please, spare yourself the brain cells, and avoid it.


I can't believe there are people who like this movie. Of course, their opinion is as valid as mine, but it's hard for me to understand that. What's in this movie? A few pseudo-comic scenes, several references to old spanish TV programs and music hits (if you want to feel nostalgic with all that stuff you can watch a spanish TV documentary instead and that'll be surely better), and a surreal plot only understood by the people who made the film. I must confess I didn't laugh a single time, perhaps I smiled twice or three times during the whole movie. Sorry, Santiago, I don't like it !

My rating is 4 out of 10 (and I'm being generous because I'm spanish).