Starring Lorenzo Lamas, Brenda Strong(Seinfeld's braless wonder) and Frank Vincent, Undercurrent is an intense, sun-splashed, psycho-sexual thriller filled with intrigue and an array of cagey characters. The film has plenty of twists and unexpected scenes. Great locations and cinematogopry capture the fascinating urban locations of historic old San Juan, elegant hotels, palatian homes, picturesque seascapes, and even the cockfight colleseum. This is a change of pace film for Lamas and he carries the role very well.


Mike Aguayo(Lamas) is a strange combination of naive friend and ex-cop,ex-con. He's got a good heart but he's a little weak on the moral issues. There is the friend(ex-partner) who is setting him up for the second time. There is the girl who loves him and the woman he is being paid to seduce but who he would willingly follow on his own without any kind of encouragement. In fact, the harder time she gives him the more he has to have her. But she is the one who has him just where she wants him. Thank God for a fair minded police detective with even better instincts who is willing to put himself on the line to find the truth! It would be wrong not to mention bedroom scenes with both women. I'm still trying to figure what it is they are doing in the first one!


What is terrific about this film is that it is not a basic blood & guts Lorenzo Llamas story. Llamas actually does a very effective job as an almost naive nightclub manager in Puerto Rico, who soon finds himself in over his head in a cleverly plotted story filled with unexpected twists and turns. I love the photography throughout the film, and particularly the wonderful scenes shot in Old San Juan and the terrific seascapes that the director used as a backdrop. Brenda Strong is an exciting femme fatale and counterpoint to Llamas. You may remember her as "The Braless Wonder" on Sienfeld in which she had a recurring role. She is certainly more than braless in this film! I thought that the supporting cast all fit their roles perfectly: particular kudos to Christianne Gout (what a body); Frank Vincent (everybody's favorite bad guy from Scorsese film fame, e.g. Casino, Goodfellas); and my personal favorite, Daniel Lugo who played a Latin Columbo-type. Overall, the film exceeded my expectations from both story, photography, directorial approach and acting. Afterall, Hollywood doesn't make B-film thrillers like this anymore.


This movie is misguiding, since this is not your brainless action flick Lorenzo "I have a father and a mother too" Lamas is associated with. The problem is that, instead, we get a boring, slow-moving, predictable "suspense" with a plot straight out of zillions direct-to-video movies, where Lamas' "interpretation" of his "character" sinks it to new depths (who ever asked him to be an actor anyway ?) The only good point for this turkey are the competent diirection and good cinematography - plus the fact that the French video wasn't pan&scanned.


Mèxico, being an almost 100% Catholic country produced several nunsploitation flicks in the 70's. Before censorship took a big role in Mexican movies, there were many, many exploitation flicks for different tastes. I must admit that this isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it is a movie that deserves a chance and will please fans of gore and sleaze.

Many Mexicans tend to easily "scare" with plots like the one in "Satànico Pandemonium" because it deals with two restricted topics in Mexican society : sex and religion nastiness.

"Satànico Pandemonium" does not rank high on the exploitation Heaven but it manages to deliver quality intense violence and disturbing images for those who enjoy this kind of cinema. The language used in this movie is macabre and it's very relevant for the plot. If you speak Spanish you might enjoy it more than if you watch it with sub-titles because most of the words have no exact literal translation.

The raw acting is a key factor in the movie. For example, the afro American nun that cries all over the convent because of her depression for being black is something that may seem random; you just watch her cry and suffer. The scene takes relevance as the plot develops (she's "aided" by Sister Maria who convinces her to commit suicide).

Many situations like that one make you think "where's the coherence with these Mexican film makers?" but that's just to add tension. Also, the convent is very creepy mainly because of a great art direction. The atmosphere in the convent is sinister and the fact that the Devil is prowling outside, makes it even more a scary place. I praise the cinematography because the movie is visually stunning. The events take place at noon at night and the movie still looks sinister.

The music is also convincing and very disturbing. The director knows how to create a disturbing, scary setting with the correct use of light, sounds, and suspense. The acting is not that good because most of the main actresses were amateur, except for Pezet who delivers a brave, solid performance. She's a beautiful woman with nerves. She was perfect for the role because she's extremely pretty, has an angel face; the perfect prey for Satan. She deserved more leading roles in her career. Too bad that this was her last movie. She was just too beautiful to be involved in Nunsploitation flicks! Veteran t.v. and movie actor Enrique Rocha gives a strong performance as the Devil and his voice is scary alone. He was great. The rest of the cast is just plain and dull.

The movie goes directly to the point immediately after it starts. After the opening credits, Satan seduces Sister Mary and then the Horror starts immediately. She is tempted in several scenes, and finally, when she falls into Satan's tramp, she starts a rampage of sex and murder. Thank you!

Maybe Europeans aren't easily scared with topics like The Devil seducing or torturing nuns,but here in Mèxico it's a different deal. The Devil is by far the scariest character in Mèxican culture. Now, if you mix him with religion (which is something very delicate here) you have a terrifying experience. In the first minutes there is auto flagellation (good gore) , lesbian nun sex, and Satan. Mèxico created this interesting premise which sadly, in the 80's and 90's was heavily banned because of a censorship campaign against violence in cinema. I'm glad that these movies get DVD releases for Europe so they can recognize the country's talent in Horror.

The main problem with this movie is the lack of continuity and coherence in the plot. First, we only know that the movie takes place in the inquisition times because of the tombs of the nuns. So, the movie is set in the mid 1600's. Then, what should we realize about the ending? It's too easy to blame the Devil! but it does no makes sense.

Anyways, "Satanico Pandemonium" has become somewhat a cult nunsploitation movie; it was even referenced in "From Dusk Till Dawn". The weak point of the movie is that it hasn't aged very well. The veteran director is heavily influenced by classic theater techniques and acting and does not gives a dynamic mood to the movie. The camera angles are boring at some points, and some events truly last longer than they should. For example, when Sister Maria takes care of the sick cow, or when she realizes she's been tempted by the Devil.

At some point it looks like a very old Horror movie but with lots of gore. Talking about gore, the movie has two highlight gory scenes in my opinion. First, when Sister Maria seduces and later stabs Marcelo to death. The scene is weird because it makes you wonder how would it be if a nun "like that" would seduce you, and later, it grosses you out. I felt sorry for Marcelo's tender grandmother. The other scene, is when Sister Maria is stabbed to death by the other nuns. The gore is great in this movie. Expect stabs, self punishment, and a glorious flashback sequence involving the inquisition (excellent for those who like gore).

Mèxico is not all about raw, cheesy, gory flicks involving wrestlers, with no plot. Mèxico had a HUGE potential in the genre but as many people know, politicians and Constitutional Presidents banned the rise of Mexican exploitation. Sure, it came back in the 80's but not as a Horror sub-genre; it came among low budget Action movies and the typical Valentìn Trujillo flicks.

Give a try to "Satànico Pandemonium" because it offers blood, gore, a scary plot (for us who respect the religious factor), and a dark atmosphere. Buy it for all of it's goodies. I believe there's an unrated version.


This is really a 3rd rate, made-for-television mess. First of all, there is NO 'Laughter on the 23rd Floor' or any other floor - and for a Neil Simon play that is shameful. Nathan Lane is, Nathan Lane, a short loud mouthed Jackie Gleason sounding caricature of Sid Caesar during Sid's Show of Shows era. It's supposed to be manic and inspired, but it's just loud and pointless. All the reviews here seem to imply that a great cast of fine character actors stood behind Lane and help boost the show along  I don't buy that at all. None of the assorted 'fine character' actors helped anything, all their words and actions are forced to the point of being painful, their lines were very poorly delivered and none of them were believable for even one second  for which I blame director Richard Benjamin. An almost insulting attempt at adding substance to this train wreck is the tossing in of Edward R. Morrow's legendary Joe McCarthy Show underneath and in between the overacting of Lane's lemming running toward the sea character. Then it's all tossed aside for a nice tidy and gutless ending  My mother could write better than this. The one, single redeeming element in this claptrap is the very deftly played character of Lane's brother (Harry Price) played by character actor Richard Portnow. None of the other reviews even mention this guy but his is the ONLY performance worth a plug nickel in the whole show - everybody is running around frantically overacting their asses off to keep up with Lane and this guy steals the whole film out from underneath them with a quiet nod and a sheepish grin. If for some reason you feel compelled to waste your time watching this  Don't take your eyes of off Portnow, he is the ONLY reason to sit through it!


Thanks, mercutio-8 for the information that it was based on a play, that helped me to understand that there might have been something to it once... But now there is almost no plot at all, just a couple of scenes with heavy bantering (sometimes somewhat funny) and some very unstructured criticism of the McCarthy era.

There has to be more to be made out of this concept - comedy under the strain of self-imposed (?) censorship during McCarthyism, rivalry and yet comradeship between writers, the actual process of brainstorming, the early TV-market economy demands from media barons vs. artistic freedom. I think there was an ambition to show these different themes - although the director accomplished none of the above.

No shadow should fall on the actors though - they're all top of the line. But when they get such a lousy script to work with, what can they do?


For those who have not heard much about Filipino cinema, it must be made clear that Laurice Guillen is a respected figure of Filipino film industry.She has played many memorable roles as its leading film actress.As a matter of fact her popularity and fame is not at all different from that of the other master woman director Marilou Diaz Abaya.As far as this film is concerned it is weak in many ways. For example-there is something fundamentally wrong with the narrative pattern which has overlapped many themes such as religion, greed and the need to be over ambitious.The good thing about this film is that it can make viewers aware of the tremendous pressure an average Filipino has to face when he or she is confronted with issues like religion and money.Juding all these facts, one can arrive at the conclusion that Santa Santita is an average film about globalization and how it has touched lives of certain individuals.


The last time Unitel Pictures released a film it was the award winning Crying Ladies, which took in many awards during the Metro Manila Filmfest of 2003. Well the company has made a rather drastic change for it's next project in Santa Santita. Here we see a more dramatic film with a more serious storyline. This time it is Laurice Guillen who is directing this movie.

My very first reaction when I found out that Angelica Panganiban was to star and given the plot I thought that she was miscast due to her age. But to my surprise she is already 18 and therefore fit the profile. It seemed only yesterday that she was playing kiddie roles and it was quite a shock to see her in such a mature role. Overall I think she did a good enough of a job. There were times that she was found lacking but overall it was OK. There were also some good performances from the other characters in the film. However it seemed as if the other characters such as Sister Dolor seemed out of place or to a degree completely useless.

In terms of the storyline, I was rather interested to see how events would play out given that this theme on faith healing and religion is a largely unexplored here in the country. I thought the storyline was interesting enough. I just wish they had emphasized more regarding the "powers" of the lead character as they only presented a few examples of such.

With Guillen at the helm of the film you can expect that there would be a very strong aspect to the film. That's certainly just what we got in the film.


Santa Santita is another movie about faith, just like those old movies with similar topic -- Himala and Ang Huling Birhen sa Lupa. The acting is above average, the directing is fine. The story is just plain. While the love scene of Angelica and Jericho was much hyped, there is nothing to arouse the viewers (if that is what you are looking for).

The movie got an rare A (excellent) rating for a review board, but was snubbed by viewers. Too bad, it was released (on theaters) the same week with Bcuz Of You, a badly made movie but a commercial successful flick.


I had read about this film on a site about time-travel movies ( my favorite type of films) and had been waiting for it to come out on DVD. This has happened in the USA, and also in the UK and Belgium. Not so in France, however, where the film is TOTALLY unknown, a strange state of affairs for a country which is only now trying to atone for its treatment of its Jewish population of 60 years ago, whereas in most other countries, all that is past history.

I have read other comments about this film and there seem to be equal amounts of negative and positive comments. For my part, I firmly come out IN FAVOUR of the film. Picture quality is excellent, so is the acting. I do have qualms on certain issues ( the camps seem too clean and too small, the Nazis don't seem evil enough ) but this is a very subjective judgement, and all really depends on what the spectator is "looking for". Obviously he/she who prefers "the more sordid and the more violent (and therefore supposedly the more realistic - though that's a question for debate ) the better" will be disappointed. True, the film is somewhat sanitized. But this shortcoming, if it can be termed as such, is secondary. I see the film not as a documentary on the holocaust, nor a piece of anti-Nazi propaganda, but rather the journey of a young lady thru time into a fantasy world where she is "taught" the importance of her heritage. Other people have made the point, which I agree on, that the film is an "efficient" way of introducing the holocaust to children who may be ignorant of it - and on that score alone justifies its' having been made.

Obviously there is a moralistic tone "you-don't-care-about-your heritage-so-I'm-going-to-teach-you-a-lesson-you-won't-forget' but beyond that it's interesting to see how the young protagonist passes from modern life and body tattoos to completely different surroundings and somehow adapts to it. It is like someone being suddenly whisked from this life, for example, blown up in an explosion, and immediately reincarnating another body in another time frame. Of course, each and every one of us would react differently to this situation, but the film on that level at least seems highly plausible though obviously no one really knows what the experience would be like.

The film then, should not be taken as a documentary on the holocaust (there are plenty of those around with far more realistic (and gruesome) pictures). But it is a journey into fantasy and will doubtless please the school of thought that maintains that one's heritage is all-important to be able to appreciate one's life today.

The fact that in 2005 we are commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the camps of death may have something to to with this film suddenly being issued on DVD in a certain number of countries.


I believe that this movie was well acted as well as well thought out. The Question really is;"How do I tell young people about this terrible tragedy without being to graphic and still holding their attention. I think that the movie answered that question admirably. Kirsten Dunst is a great actress that showed her ability to tell a serious story with a sense of lightheartedness. Let's not forgot Brittany Murphy. She is a highly underrated actress who just barely broke the surface of what she can do in this movie. overall, if your looking to tell/show a group of preteen/teens the story of the holocaust without the brutality then this is the ONLY movie to show them.


The point of this film was not as much to be "great art" as it was to educate people about the Holocaust. In that sense, I think that many posters here are unfairly blasting it, holding it up to some high artistic standard. Believe it or not, there are many in this world, especially younger people, who have not clue one about the atrocities committed against the Jewish people. This film would be an excellent introduction (along with other films such as Diary of Anne Frank) for young people into this very real and recent historical nightmare. To read comments here about how bad the German accents were and how the Germans deserve better than this, lead me to suspect the sincerity of those posting them.


I thought this movie was wonderful. Kirsten Dunst was awesome as Hannah Stern. I really believed that everything was happening to her. She is a very gifted and talented actress and made this beautiful and moving book come to life.


We all heard of the Holocaust. We all know about the evil Nazis and the atrocities that happened during that horrible time, but none of us were there. It's hard to imagine what it was like and what those people went through.

This is the story of a modern girl in a Jewish family. She is not interested in hearing the stories of her relatives who survived the concentration camps because the idea is so foreign to her it's almost laughable.She reluctantly attends a passover seder with her parents where her aunts and uncles talk about "the camps" and she just dismisses the conversation. When she goes to put out the ceremonial cup of wine for Elijah, the profit she is transported in time to a village in Poland (I think it was poland). Everyone recognizes her as Hannah (her ancestor she was named after). She wakes up in a surreal "wizard of Oz like" setting where she is awaken after an apparent illness. Her "cousin" Rifka (played so sweetly by Brittany Murphy)tries to help her jar her "memory" of being her "cousin from Lublin" who is visiting". They walk through their quaint village as everyone is preparing for a wedding. Hannah is confused, but seems to just go with her new reality without too much question.

After the wedding is over several cars pull up to the village with Nazis with guns and trucks to transport the Jews to the camps. The people are scared and confused, but Hannah is the most terrified as she has the terrible forsight of what is about to happen.

She tries to figure out what is going on, whether she is dreaming, hallucinating, or what, but eventually realizes she is now a Jew in a concentration camp during world war 2 like it or not and she has to let fate play out.

This movie is powerful. To see the holocaust from the perspective of someone who already knows what has happened is chilling. From the time they arrive at the camp and are stripped of their clothes, dignity, money, possessions, have their hair shaved, are forced into slave labor and eventually murdered. Obviously the girl (hannah's) life would be changed forever if she ever woke up from the nightmare.

Great film.


I just have watched this film and I must say: "I didn't like it". OK, the idea behind it is good, but that is not enough. The film hardly shows nightmare of the camps. I was in Auschwitz, in Majdanek, in Treblinka. For me it seems like director have never seen any of them and only heard about.

The film also simplifies everything. There is no background. We know nothing about situation. Someone told before that during WW2 6 million Jews died. Yes, that is true, but during this war also 6 million Poles died... And what is important: half of the killed Jews were Poles (which means that half of the killed Poles were Jews). I personally know people who survived war in Poland. In their tales almost nothing is black or white. Everything is gray... Sometimes Jews killed Jews while Poles, risking their lives, helped Jews. But sometimes Poles killed Jews while German officers helped Jews. These were dark times and this film doesn't show the tragedy of the second world war or the Holocaust.

The film hasn't moved me. I was not far from turning my computer off before the end of the film. I think that we can't understand what it was like in the camps. I believe though, that film (as part of mass-media) has tools to show everyone that it was so terrible, that it's not understandable for us. This film didn't make use of this tools.


i watched the film last night for the first time and i was was impressed by it. i myself grew up watching Schindlers list. I don't normally enjoy many historically themed films anymore but i think this one was a good take on the subject. yes the main character went back in time but it just show how much my generation takes for granted. for example in the film she wanted a tattoo when she got one in the camp it had a completely different negative meaning. also she wanted to be with her friends the past made her realise how much she needed her family. on another not i did notice the woman in the film in the red jumper, is it just me or does this correlate with the young girl in Schindlers list?


I thought that the book was better than the movie. I felt like i was in the 1800's most of the movie. Some of the characters were not included in the movie. Though there was many negatives in this movie there was also some positives. These positives were. The movie had a good story line. A great climax, and rising action. It showed what the Jewish people had to go through. out of all the positives and negatives i give this movie an over all rating a 4 out of 10. I would like to thank some people as my closeing statement. I would like to thank my teacher Mr. Pagogna for introducing me to this title. I would like to thank the author for writing a great book. it grabed my attention right away.


While obviously this isn't a perfect education of the horrors of the Holocaust, it's not meant to be. This movie was based on a Young Adults' book, and it's transformed into a Young Adults' movie. It's not supposed to be a perfectly accurate portrayal, and it's not meant for historians or anything. But it is a touching film and excellent education for people to understand what it was like then. There are many powerful moments in the movie. A particularly impressive part, to me, was when Kirsten Dunst's character points to the number branded on her arm, and cries, "I wanted one of these!" referring to a tattoo. I think the highlight, however, was Brittany Murphy's incredible part. She was virtually unrecognizable, and her acting was superb. She literally threw herself into the part, and she shines. She truly is one of the greatest things about this movie.


A unique view for a Holocast movie and a good introduction for children, many who probably have read the book at school ---- they probably will not mind watching it if Kirsten Dunst and Brittney Murphy are in it. Good location work, excellent acting and no glossing over what happened in the camps --- a bit scary for the younger set but a good introduction to films of a more mature theme such as Schindlers List et al.


I completely disagree with the previous negative review of this film. It is one of the better Holocaust dramas I've seen, as it portrays what a modern American Jewish girl goes through as she experiences the Holocaust in a vision/hallucination: what is better, knowing or not knowing what is happening, as events unfold? Certainly there are some liberties taken with the exact nature of this vision, and how she experiences actual historical events, but I think that had this film looked slick, it would have taken away from the raw experiences the film depicts.


As one of the aforementioned "kicked around Jews" I take sincere offense to the ignorant and unnecessary comments. There are many other cultures who embrace their history, African Americans, Irish, Italians, Greeks, Somalians etc, all whom have had a tainted past filled with atrocities befallen by other cultures. Should the Jews not be begrudged their past simply because its been "done before"? How about the many Jesus movies that I've had to sit through?... the Robe, Jesus of Nazareth... the Passion of the Christ, for Pete's sake, where once again, Jews are demonized and another wave of stereotypes must be knocked down; a new generation of ignorant people who also probably believe Jews have horns (we don't), killed Jesus (we didn't, check your history) or worse, are the all encompassing "stereotypical Jew" with our money, our fame, our power, our jewelery, our incredible banking/jewelery making/doctoring/lawyering skills. Sorry if we're an intelligent society that focuses on education. Sorry we were forced to take up these trades BY CHRISTIANS in the 1400's or face death. Sorry we CREATED the basis of your religion and you stole many of our customs. To write that another "Jewish Holocaust" movie is trite and wasteful, only shows just how lacking in intelligence most of this country is. Yes, 11 million died, 5 million of them made up of Gypsys, Poles, Political Prisoners, Handicapped, Gay, and the other 'outsiders' were massacred, this I will not dispute. However, to trivialize the plight of our Six Million martyrs, a million and a half being innocent children, to say "enough of it", is a slap in the face of history. As a teenager I journeyed to those camps shown in The Devils Arithmatic. I heard the stories of the survivors like Aunt Ava, I saw with my own eyes evil at its finest. I saw and touched the 7 TON VAT OF HUMAN ASHES left in Maidjanek for the wind to spread to the four corners of the world. This movie is the first one I have ever seen (and believe me, I have seen a lot) to do any sort of justice for the plight of our martyrs. This movie joins the ranks of Sophies Choice, Schindlers List, and Life is Beautiful, that truly shows what the Holocaust did to our people and the world. So please, to the general public, disregard the previous comments made purely based on ignorance. It's not the authors fault, it's society's for letting people have that notion and allowing them to continue on breeding ignorant people. Rent this movie, watch it if you can. It is graphic and heart ripping, it is a movie EVERY teen should see so that they can relay the message of Never Again, because next time it may not be The Jews, it could be any culture. Next time it could be yours.


In light of Brittany Murphy's recent and tragic death, I decided to watch some of her movies I'd never seen and I found this one. "The Devil's Arithmetic" is the kind of movie that would be good for middle-schoolers who don't know much about the Holocaust. It doesn't dumb down the atrocities of a concentration camp, but it doesn't focus on depicting them in graphic detail, either. While there are several deaths, many happen off-screen, and those we do see are bloodless but blood-chilling.

Fans of the book, which I read several times in middle school and early high school, will probably be disappointed; there's no Gitl, Rivka is Hannah's cousin, and some of the more suspenseful episodes of the novel are gone. However, if you've never read the book or can set the book aside, the film has an interesting story and does a good job of establishing a culture that will be unfamiliar to the viewer. Brittany Murphy is probably the best thing about this movie, and I don't say that out of pity; she plays Rivka as a sweet, kind, devoutly religious young woman who is the movie's emotional backbone. Kirsten Dunst is, well, Kirsten Dunst. She isn't bad in the part, but she doesn't make herself terribly memorable in it, either.

Older audiences might think "The Devil's Arithmetic" sanitizes the Holocaust, but I'd have to disagree. It doesn't whitewash what happened - it just presents it in a way that won't cause twelve-year-olds to have vivid, gory nightmares. If the film has a large flaw, it's that Hannah never develops much of a personality beyond a bratty kid who has to adjust to life in the camp. That was the flaw of the book too, I think. At the same time, that blankness allows viewers Hannah's age to imagine themselves as Hannah and react and learn as she does.


I thought that the book was better then the movie. If the movie was more like that book i think that it would have been better. The movie had left out some details from the book that i think were pretty important. For example in the movie Rivka was Hannah's cousin and in the book Rivka was just a girl that Hannah had meet in the camp. Another thing is that in the book there was a few chapters on how they were stuck on the train for 4 days with out anything to drink or eat and in the movie the left out that whole part. That's why i think that the book was a lot better then the movie. I think that if they had made the movie just like the book it would have been a lot better.


I liked this movie much better than Schindlers List. To me that movie was way too violent. Plus I really like Kirsten and Brittney. It's about this rich girl who doesn't want to celebrate the Jewish holidays with her family and drinks to much wine at her aunt's house. When she is asked to open the door for Elijah she goes back in time to learn about what really happened to the Jewish people. What was really sad was how her character died to save her friend that was sick and was said to be sent to the gas chamber. I think it is very sad what they had to go through. Much worse than what blacks had to go through and you don't hear them whining. I would recommend this movie along with The Diary Of Ann Frank. You won't regret it.


I think it is a really good movie, though the ending was a bit too short and too fast, I would have liked them to spin some more drama and emotions on the fact, that Hannah had the experience she had in regards to Aunt Eva. I was a little disappointed by that. Like the feeling of something not ended. Too bad:), but otherwise a really good movie for people who like the more thoughtfully, slow and emotional movies. I really like the way Kirsten plays the role of Hannah. I'm not really familiar with her acting besides Spiderman, so it was nice to see her in another kind of role.

I will definitely consider to read the novel, which the movie is based on. I'm sure it must be worth reading.


I've been a fan of Kirsten for quite a while. Her acting is always excellent though the scripts are usually failing. Not this time. This movie is probably one of the better movies about the holocaust targetted at youths. The movie starts of weak, with a silly timetravel only to become so much more. I almost touched me as much as Schindler's list did. See it. I also must recommend the book. Very good indeed.


I've been a fan of Kirsten for quite a while. Her acting is always excellent though the scripts are usually failing. Not this time. This movie is probably one of the better movies about the holocaust targetted at youths. The movie starts of weak, with a silly "timetravel" only to become so much more. I touched me as much as Schindler's list did. See it.


I found after I watched this movie I was just speechless! I couldn't believe what had happened to the Jews its so sad. I found that the storyline was great and Kristen Dunst was outstanding as she played the main role as Hannah.This movie isn't just a real life event but we also influence others on how not to treat people. I found as a teenager that this movie has influenced me so much I mean you can read books and everything but when you see such a terrific made movie your just speechless. I watched this movie in my English class after reading the book "Night". this movie I really recommend for any high school class you learn so much!


Unbelievably bad acting. This is an overly sentimental piece of drivel that was made purely to cash in on a traditionally easy theme to make money on. The Holocaust/WWII. Using the time travel thing just made it even cornier. That was done as far back as the Twilight Zone in the 60's. There were zero original ideas in this movie and many blatant scene copies of better movies. It's painfully obvious the makers neither cared about the history or the people that survived and basically slapped them and Germany in the face with this poor recreation.

Personally I found it insulting to watch and soon after they arrived at the death camp I had to turn it off. The bad uniforms and pathetically poor German accents were painful. Kirsten Dunce's overacting was embarrassing.

The Jewish league should sue for being shamelessly exploited in a bad TV movie and get whatever profits came from this movie, then give anyone who voted higher than a 2 for this movie a free trip to the Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC, Auschwitz, the Wiesenthal Center or the Imperial War museum. The German government should sue and get whatever money it can from the producers for beating this dead horse long after it's expired. The German government and people deserve better than this. If you are going to drag them through the mud again at least have the decency to do it right. I mean seriously, there are much better and more accurate movies out there. Why did they even make this?? Most of the others have been edited and shown on television so it can't be that there was a need to get a movie out to that audience. I wouldn't want my kids to see this version because it dumbs the whole tragedy down so much they won't understand the brutality and scope of the holocaust from this. To me it just looked fake. At one point I even found myself thinking that it didn't look like they had it that bad. I found myself laughing at the stereotypes, bad script and poor editing. Let's not even discuss the cinematography. My kid could do better with a Sony hand-held. I am thinking the budget on this move must have been dismally low.

If you're too young to understand the violence of the event then wait till you're older. If you think that dumbing down the holocaust just to get the message out on TV is acceptable, you're selling yourself and mankind in general short. Giving this movie a high mark just because its about the holocaust is like giving George Bush an A for effort in Iraq. You should just watch the history channel if you want to know more about this and are too lazy to open a book.


I essentially agree with Anonymous of Raleigh, NC below.

The Holocaust is of course the most saturation retold story of modern media history. This version is way weaker than many, and adds nothing to the genre. It doesn't succeed in making us care especially poignantly about the victims. In fact it's much weaker than many other Holocaust films in that.

The two strongest Holocaust films, at least of recent vintage, are the inimitable Schindler's List, towering above all, but also "Jacob the Liar". "Life Is Beautiful" is also poignant.

This one is dreck.

I only saw it for Kirsten Dunst. She too is disappointing here, probably largely because the character she is asked to play, a spoiled affluent brat, is fundamentally unappealing and unidimensional, until near the end.


During the course of the movie, you are acquainted with this girl who is every bit alike the modern teenager's views on things. She's selfish to everyone whom she comes in contact with everyday. She transitions into the Nazi Camps as her aunt's best friend. As she endures the camps, she realizes that the person she has become sacrifices her life for her aunt. And thus, she does.

An excellent movie. I commend the whole theme and main story line. I am a sucker for the "sacrifice" theme, and I enjoyed this plot very well. Excellent characters, the whole variety of camera angles and dramatic emphasis upon the two main characters is naturally sophisticated. Even in the end, love triumphs.


If you have the chance to watch the movie or read the book, I highly recommend that you do so. Both are extremely moving and touching works of art that should be respected, no matter what the subject matter is. People need to be educated on what happened and not just brush it aside like any other event in history. When I watched it the first time, I had to stop it and come back to it later in the day because it was so intense. Once you get into it, you can really connect with the characters and it's almost like you feel what they felt.

Every time I watch this movie or read the book, I cry without fail. That is what makes it an excellent piece of art.


For my school's One-Act (Fall) play, we chose to do a Holocaust play and compete with it at region competition. To get into the spirit of the time, we watched Holocaust films and traveled to the Anne Frank museum. This was one of the first films we watched, and it was so amazing. Usually when watching films, you can easily reassure yourself that everything's going to be OK, and that it's all fake anyway; or that it never happened. That's not possible in this movie. It did happen, and being aware that it did and remembering will help heal the lasting wounds and make sure something like that never happens again. This movie makes us all think about the past, the present, the future, and life in general.The finer things in life are not material possessions, but family, friends, and love that should be the foundation for anything.This movie is simply amazing and so profound.


This was a very heartbreaking story of human beings, Children of God, being tortured on a daily basis by people without any souls and heartless beasts, called Nazi's. It is easy for the Nazi soldiers to say," Hitler told me to do it," but deep down in their own hearts they all knew it was wrong to treat any race or religion in this fashion. Kirsten Dunst, (Hannah Stern), "Elizabethtown",'05 played the role of a Jewish gal who had a mind of her own and wound up in a concentration camp in Poland and was placed in a camp for women only. Unfortunately, there is a baby born in this horrible place and the women did everything in the world to save the child's life. There is a scene which really shows how the Nazi's killed innocent beaten down human souls. A film you must tell the younger generation about and NEVER FORGET and never let anyone tell you it NEVER HAPPENED ! It sure DID !


I thought this was not a very good remake of the book this movie was based on. It changed so many things that would have made the story link together more and I was confused at the beginning when Hannah's Auny Eva told her she looked like Chaya. This didn't make sense till I saw the part were she went back in time and she wasn't with Gitl and Shmuel,she was with Rivka and someone else who I don't know because it confused me. I think they could have made it almost exactly like the book and it wouldn't change the length at all...maybe only make is about half hour longer but it's not that long to begin with so it wouldn't make a difference. Within the first 30 minutes they could have shown her with a brother and cut out most of the rest of the family that was at the Sader dinner. Also they could have added what I thought was a key point from the book, when her Grandpa Will is mad when he is watching the news before the dinner. The whole part when she first went back in time was completely different...the only part that was right was that Fayge(Leah) and Shmule were getting married. In the book they didn't even get married. The Nazi's were at the place where they were having the wedding and the Nazi's took them when they all arrived. In the book she woke up and Gitl was making bread, Shmuel was there and they were talking, then Gitl helped Chaya(Hannah) get ready for Fayge's(Leah) and Shumuel's wedding. When she leaves for the wedding she finds a few girls and starts telling them stories of the future. When they arrive at the Synagog (don't know exact spelling) there are Nazi's waiting there. They talk and explain that they are being relocated but Chaya(Hannah) know that they are going to take them to the concentration camps. There was never a violent pushing and shoving of the people going into the trucks. I thought the movies was acted well but they could have cut out that part when they go get the picture taken and things like that.


This movie does just the opposite of what it means to do (affect a change in the audience like the one in Hannah), partly because the audience (I, anyway) don't need to learn Hannah's lesson. What it does, instead, is to create a Holocaust in which you don't care much about the victims because you don't get to know them. The only person we really know is Hannah, and from the beginning, she is a brat. She supposedly changes over the course of the movie, but somehow I can't believe it. And the commandant reminds me of Dr. Evil. It's hard to take seriously. What happens is predictable; I just wish it could've happened faster. And the lack of graphic violence is an insult to the victims. Despite its intent, it doesn't begin to convey the horrors of the Holocaust, even compared to other movies.

Also, if camp survivors are supposed to remember who they are (they say this over and over in the movie), why does Rivkeh change her name? Isn't this a victory for the Nazis?


Before there was "In The Company of Men", there was "Patti Rocks". David Burton Morris's raw, honest, perceptive exploration of the open sores that exist between men and women is a neat two-hander. Chris Mulkey and John Jenkins hit the road to visit Patti Rocks, a woman one of the guys has knocked up. Their road trip becomes a fascinating dialog on the way men perceive women and women fail to understand men. The film was slapped with an "X" rating for language originally, but earned an "R" on appeal. These days, you'd probably hear similar chat on an HBO series, so the language is no big deal, but the script is very well written and the resolution is novel. For the saltiest X-rated language these days, look no further than a Max Hardcore video (preferably an uncut Euro version). Happy hunting.


We whine about extravagant cute foppishness by the brothers Coen, but bury straight sweet refreshing slaps in our supersilly faces like this $350,000 wonder, also generated in/from the northmidwest? Why? Superficially woman-unfriendly, but at least two females have watched it all the way through & rated it for imdb, granting an average of 8. I would go a little higher than that, but wonder how much how we REALLY seem/act/are interests us. Viewer inexperience in working class taverns may limit appreciation/recognition. A gem.


"Patti" is a strange and gutsy little flick with dialogue that sounds improvised, but in a good way - this is how real people talk. Give credit to the actors for getting naked, too...appropriate in a film about stripping down barriers and getting to the core behind the ugly things we say.

Besides, it's kinda fun, and short enough to hold your attention. Nice one when your date bails on you.


I saw this movie at 2 AM late one night in 1997. At first I only kept watching because there was nothing else on, and it looked a little slow for my tastes. As the movie went on, I was drawn into the drama of the girls being kidnapped... but the moment that Laura pulled up to her house, saw the infamous black car moving toward her daughter, and I suddenly remembered the mechanic at the beginning of the movie mentioning that all he had to repair the bus with was a racing engine and transmission, I was glued to my seat. The pacing of the movie was perfect, even when introduced to that sudden twist and chase scene. I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes either social dramas or car chases.


I love 'killer car' movies (as people who've read my other reviews will no doubt know by now) so as soon as I read about this film, I just had to see it. Living in the UK, though, it was near impossible to find, especially since the WHEELS OF TERROR Amazon.co.UK has is actually the 1987 film THE MISFIT BRIGADE, which they mistakenly claim is this film as MB had the alternate title WHEELS OF TERROR. But finally, after going to a second-hand video shop and asking them to use their internet search engine, they found a copy of this film, the genuine article, for me.

I must say at the outset that it was well worth the wait to finally see this excellent film. Yes, I can see how the plot could be considered a DUEL rip-off, but it manages to be original by throwing in a plot about a real horror we must face in real life: that of a perverted and mysterious child killer. Said killer is never actually seen in the movie (not even a glimpse, unlike the DUEL truck driver whose feet and hands on the steering wheel are seen at certain junctures) but is represented by his omnipresent '74 Dodge Charger, one of the most menacing vehicles ever seen in a movie. I said to a friend recently that I always think black Chargers make excellent 'villain' cars, which is why I'm glad Tarantino is using one in his DEATH PROOF segment of GRINDHOUSE.

Joanna Cassidy is brilliant in her role as divorced bus driver Laura, trying to raise her daughter in Arizona, and eventually having to save her from the unseen child molester after she is kidnapped. I admit I haven't seen many films Ms. Cassidy has made but in the few I have seen (WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, BLADE RUNNER and GHOSTS OF MARS), she has been absolutely wonderful. Her desperation and determination to save her daughter and ensure the pervert never harms anybody again are very believable. The rest of the cast are okay, though apart from Marcie Leeds as Stephanie, Laura's daughter, very few of them are on screen long enough to make much of an impact. I agree with some reviewers about the whiny kids on the bus during the big chase sequence being annoying, but at least Laura lets them out to call the police. And in case you're wondering how the school bus can keep up with the murderous muscle car, there's a gratuitous info-dump scene near the start where Latino mechanic Luis points out that he put a racing engine into the bus. Why he would do that I don't know but it explains how the bus is able to chase the Charger.

As you can see, I do believe the film has faults, other main ones being the over-use of slow motion shots in what's supposed to be a climactic car chase and Stephanie somehow not noticing that a creepy-looking car is following her down the street at one point. But apart from those minor gripes, I would rate WOT as one of my all-time favourite car chase films and I hope that it gets the DVD release it so richly deserves. Strongly recommended!


This TV movie, "Wheels of Terror", was released to the small screen in 1990 (TV movie). Starring Joanna Cassidy and Marcie Leeds, this freaky and sadistic thriller is about a young lady (played by Cassidy) who works as a school bus driver and her young daughter (played by Leeds). They had moved to the country to get away from being city folks. This story is about a very sadistic, evil, and scary looking black car (the driver's identity is anonymous) that abducts, molests, and kills young girls. What was really shocking was the bus driver's daughter being taken right in front of her mother's eyes, and she begins a desperate attempt to track down the hideous car and get her daughter back safe and sound and hopefully unharmed. The scariest part is at the end of the movie where the mother and daughter are embracing and Mom is telling her that the ordeal is all over, but not quite yet! They hear the sound of the evil car's motor coming, and they hurry back into the bus (so smashed up from the road rage) to get away, but the bus won't start and the Mom and daughter are panicking fearing a replay of the evil that they thought was officially gone was happening again. After a few seconds, the bus finally starts up JUST IN TIME and they get away and the evil car takes a dive off of the cliff and finally the evil is gone and wiped out. That ending scene really scared the (you know what) out of me because I feared that the mother and daughter were going to be hurt even more, possibly killed. I had seen this movie twice in '90, but have not seen it on TV anymore. This is not one of my favorites, and I would not recommend this to other people (who have kids that ride the bus to and from school). Joanna Cassidy and Marcie Leeds are great actresses, but this is not a good story; this seems to be a modern day "reprise" of Spielberg's Duel from 1971. What were the creators of this '90 flick thinking, anyway??? There are other great TV movies out and about, but this one should not have been made. Sorry folks!! My grade for this movie: D-


'Horrible' is an apt description of this bomb of a movie. (Actually, it's insulting to all other movies, just to call it a "movie"!) I would be embarrassed to have my name associated with this waste of time -- it's nothing but a ridiculous plot, with bad acting and ludicrous scenarios. A driver-less car? Flying off of cliffs, only to return to torment (us the viewers, I presume?). No other cars on the road? ANYWHERE?! A 12-year-old kidnap victim is magically a stunt person with acrobatic skills? PLEASE!!! And in case you're waiting for an explanation of the 'plot' in this drivel, give up. It never happens.

If this waste of time shows up on a channel in your area, you'll have the perfect reason for throwing out your television.


Possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I did sit through the whole thing but only because it became so humorous because it was so bad. The acting was god awful. There's no real resolution, just a big explosion. Lame.


This movies bad. The worst part was after the long chase near end where the 'Evil black Dodge' takes a nose dive off a cliff to its death. Then it comes back seconds later (In near perfect running condition) only to drive off again, this time into a box of explosives. Its like the people who made this movie, had an extra Dodge laying around and wanted to get rid of it. Wheels of Terror is only worth watching for a laugh.


This movie has a storyline that is strangely perverse for a made for TV movie. It is about a stranger in a black car who roams a small desert town, kidnapping, raping and finally killing a series of young schoolgirls.

Joanna Cassidy brings her young daughter to a small desert town to get away from the violence of the big city. But shortly after she arrives to take a job as a bus driver for the local school, a stranger in a black Dodge Charger begins to kidnap, rape and eventually begins to kill a number of the young schoolgirls.

Poorly directed, poorly paced and with far too many slow motion shots for the kind of movie that it is. This movie is a good example of the kind of movie that should not be done to TV because of the limitations of the medium. An unrated film of this nature could have gone far enough with the type of storyline, and that would make for a flat out NASTY horror film!


Pretty dull thriller. The director chooses an "arty" approach with lots of slow-motion sequences, "poetic" music and minimal dialogue, and it doesn't work. The characters have no personality, the script is virtually non-existent and the suspense is deflated by the fact that the "evil" car's driver (or the evil car itself) has plenty of opportunities to get away from the heroine who chases him, but keeps returning to do battle with her as if he has some scores to settle (we never find out what they might be). While you're watching this movie, don't be surprised if your mind starts going elsewhere, like into thinking what's for dinner or the next day's chores. (*1/2)


O. My. God. Is. This. Movie. Horrible.

That about illustrates what about 90% of this bit of telecinematic roadkill plays like. Slow-motion camera, used normally, acts as a kind of exclamation point to an action scene. Here it's used so much that it becomes and ectoplasmic sludge of periods and ellipses. Here are some of the things this technique manages not to render in stark dramatic relief:

1) Lots of things exploding.

2) Joanna Cassidy screaming.

3) Joanna Cassidy's daughter screaming. ("Mommyyyy!!")

4) Joanna Cassidy's school bus careening around the desert.

5) An "evil-looking" *snicker* black Dodge Charger careening around the desert after Joanna Cassidy's school bus.

6) More things exploding.

7) Everything in between the above items.

Needless to say, not a whole lot going on here. Probably a good 20 minutes of action footage in real time, along with a requisite but lame set-up story. What our brilliant director has done is take an action sequence and stretch it out enough to fill two hours of precious USA Network airtime. Not pad it out...STRETCH it out--literally, like a piece of Silly Putty, till you can see right through it. I guess the framing storyline qualifies as padding, on second thought, since it does fill out the allotted time, adds some exposition, and is absolutely inconsequential enough that it doesn't stick in my memory.

The only thing about the acting that I do distinctly remember is Joanna Cassidy screaming in realtime on the soundtrack while screaming in slow motion on the screen; I remember the scream sounding ridiculous, as if the dubbing director was giving her a wedgie. Or maybe it was a tooth being pulled. I doubt she was nominated for any Emmys for her heroic effort to get through this movie with a straight face.

The only things (besides the slo-mo and the endless explosions) I remember about the production are the awesomely retarded customization job on the Charger (huh huh, the grille looks like mad eyes, huh huh, diabolical, dewd) and the shot of the cop getting creamed by same at the beginning of the movie (actually kind of a neat effect--his boot goes flying off his foot).

I don't want to give away the nail-biting denouement, but I will give you a hint: something explodes. And something doesn't start. Until. The. Last. Possible. Second. The. End. Burp.


Wheels of Terror is exactly what it sounds like. A cheesy after school thriller special that is meant to be laughed at. At least I HOPE it's meant to be laughed at. You have a scary looking car that seems to be terrorizing kids at their school, so one of the staff members decides that, instead of calling the police, she'll take matters into her own hands and chase the man down herself. It's good to see a woman taking the initiative like that in the movies, but then what do they do? They have the chase scenes take place with her in the 'short bus.' A laughable story, routine direction, no acting, and an absolutely pathetic ending all come together to make Wheels of Terror a perfect movie to never watch.


If you loved Bullit, Gone in 60 Seconds, Mad Max, Christine, then you'll love this chase. Basically, you get to enjoy seeing a flat black '74 Dodge Charger terrorize a small town. In a combination between Steven Spielberg's "the Chase" and Carpenter's "Christine".


Bad editing, over use of slow motion, horrible script, and bad plot all make for one terrible movie. 1 out of 10.


I like this movie--loved it as a kid, and would beg my mother to watch it with me. I also remember watching it in the hotel lobby when we had to move somewhere when i was nine or ten years old. Gosh, i hope I can find it--do you guys and gals out there get into the mood of watching old movies you haven't seen in a long time? That's me-- i will watch any movie that comes to mind that I loved watching when I was a little kid... I am a big movie collector, but ironically, i don't like watching much TV, weird huh? So now i tried to post this message and i have to go to ten lines thats weird because the last post i did didn't have ten lines and it posted, so i guess here we go with the tenth line here!


One of the worst movies I've ever seen. The plot consists almost entirely of a really, really bad chase scene between a scary black Chrysler and a mini schoolbus (you know, the 'special' bus). Somehow, when viewed in the wee hours of the morning, though, it almost becomes watchable. Almost.


I admit, it is not as good as the original Looney Tunes cartoons, not even close, but it isn't that bad. For one thing, the animation is very nice. Second, the theme tune is sweet and memorable. Third, the voice acting is great, especially June Foray as Granny. Fourth, I liked seeing the Looney Tunes as babies, and they are so cute. I loved seeing Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester and Tweety, however instead of seeing Porky, Elmer and Foghorn, we see Taz. And I confess, Taz isn't a favourite of mine as such, not like Porky and Elmer. I know there are some complaints about Granny not being the same, seeing as in the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, she is seen hitting Sylvester whenever he picks on Tweety. But somehow, I liked her very much here, and I seriously cannot see her being mean to those babies. She is like a benevolent mother figure, I liked that side to her. The stories are very predictable though, and the dry wit and manic mayhem that made the original Looney Tunes cartoons so brilliant is missed here. In conclusion, a good show but not a great one. 7/10 Bethany Cox


I will agree with the majority of the people on this comment database that this show is intended to guide children in young ages and teach them lessons and politeness and what and what is and isn't right. But, they could've selected another group of characters to use instead of the Looney Toons.

The Looney Toons are obviously an old cluster of cartoon shows dating back to the 1930's to the 1950's, or around that generation. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester and Tweety and the Tazmanian Devil are some of the primary characters out of the Looney Toons. I know who Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn and Porky Pig are, but they are slightly less popular. But who in the world are these girl characters? The girl bunny, the girl pig and the girl duck? I have watched my share of Looney Toons shows even though I was born in 1993, and I know enough to know, that these feminine characters only appear once in a great while on the Looney Toons. Usually these girl characters were used as an attempt to trick or daze another character. Most of the time, the girl characters were actually male characters in disguise.

What makes me mad about this is, the generation today is filled too much with rules and regulations that aren't exactly and necessarily fair. While it is in good nature to include females in television shows and other activities such as votings and protests, it is getting a little ridiculous to include so many girls into the Looney Toons group. These female characters hardly existed, no-one knows who they are. Also notice how they are the same type of animal as the male characters. The female bunny is obviously the counterpart to Bugs Bunny. The female pig is the counterpart to Porky Pig and the female Duck is the counterpart to Daffy Duck. These female characters just completely ruin the show for me, completely turns me off. They are not humorous, they are not even special in any way shape or form. They are just THERE, and I wish they wouldn't be.

Also, as someone else stated, if this took place when the Looney Toons were babies, it would've been around the 1920's or 1930's at least. Laptops, modern phones and televisions would not have been thought of yet. More common sense was apparently needed before the airing of the show.

And lastly, it is annoying that "granny" gets the role of a lovable old woman in charge of these, claimed-to-be, adorable little baby animals. This "granny" character was originally a mean old witch who protected Tweety Bird and beat Sylvester when necessary. I cannot even think how many times "Granny" nearly killed Sylvester in the original Looney Toons. Talk about a change of attitude in these children's adolescence.


Why do some people call this television series a disgrace to the Looney Tunes? I think this show is great and it is worth watching.

Other than that, some comments on this site state that Lola Bunny should not be in the show as she was introduced in the movie 'Space Jam'. Some comments also state that Granny should be younger when the Looney Tunes were toddlers.

But in my opinion, we should not think about these issues. Instead, we should consider if the plot and the quality of the show are good or not.

Other than that, I feel this show educational and taught young children about caring and sharing.

I had watched some episodes of the show. Well, my opinion is this: It was a great and meaningful show. I am willing to use the 30 minutes of my time to watch this show.

Such as a good show should not be criticized!

My Rating: 70/100


I'm sorry, it may seem like a cute idea, but there are a numerous amount of things that bother me about the show. First of all, I have to agree with one of the earlier comments that the show is just a lame a rip off of Jim Henson's "Muppet Babies" (without the funny fantasy segments). This especially goes for Granny, who I used to admire before this show. She had quite a personality in the old Looney Tunes cartoons, but here, they've turned her into a bland care-giver.

If that isn't bothersome enough, all the characters are friends in this show. It really makes you wonder what caused them all to be enemies when they grew up, and it had to be more than just animal instinct. And above all...WHERE'S PORKY PIG?! I see Petunia on a few occasions, but no Porky. This show is just a crying shame.


In the style of Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour, Inner Sanctum is a cheap little film noir, and one that gains all of it's successes from its plot rather any technical elements. The main problem with this film, therefore, is simply that there isn't enough of it; and while the plot and characters that we get introduced to are good, they could have been a whole lot better if the film had more of a budget to play with. The plot focuses on the idea of guilt and its effect on a man that has killed someone. We follow Harold Dunlap, a man that decides to stay at a boarding house after killing a woman at a near-by station. The plot focuses on the interloper, as well as the people already living at the house; and all the thrills are garnered through that. The film is tense and exciting, and it's also a good indication of how times have changed; I mean, would you let your kid sleep in a room that is currently being inhabited by a male guest that you've only just met? Well, you would if it was this kid; as Inner Sanctum features what is probably the most irritating child performance of all time. But aside from that, the cast is strong and the film is well directed by Lew Landers, who also directed Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in The Raven some years earlier. Recommended to noir fans.


******SPOILERS****** Solid "Film Noir" about murder guilt and justice and how events can't be changed even if the one who's effected is told about them in advance.

The movie "Inner Sanctum" begins and ends on a train that pulls in one night in the little town of Clayburn. Harold Dunlap tries to get away from his overbearing and demanding fiancé Marie who sees him trying to leave her and runs out of the train and has a confrontation with him.

Pulling a nail file from her purse Marie tries to stab Harold who in turn takes it away and kills her with it. With the train about to pull out of the station Harold picks up Marie's body and dumps it on the train and with no one around thinks that he's gotten away with what he did, Harold thought wrong.

Looking to get lost Harold tries to hitch a ride out of town and lose himself in the darkness of the night. Like he thinks that his connection to the murder will get lost along with him. Fate and destiny, like a magnet, has other ideas about what's in store for Harold and pulls him back to face justice for what he did.

Tense creepy and well written and acted movie that shows what Harold should have known right from the start: crime doesn't pay and the only one who does pay is the one who commits it.

Tightly edited and suspenseful film that doesn't try to fool the audience about who's guilty of the crime, you see Harold kill Marie at the start of the movie, but does have a twist to it that's as good as any whodunit.

The movies somewhat uneventful beginning with a sharp turn on the rail and a man who can tell what time it is without a watch with the mysterious Dr. Valonius seems a bit slow but it ties all the loose ends together at the end of the film. "Inner Santcum" is a movie, that by the time that it's over, you know will never end.


Since this black and white B flick is only under an hour I doubt that it will ever see the light of day on video. It's too bad since it is an unusual and tidy little mystery of the late 1940's. A Seer (fortune-teller) brilliantly played by Fritz Leiber predicts that a young girl (Mary Beth Hughes) will encounter tragedy on a train. It all comes together when a man (Charles Russell) fleeing from the law for a murder hides out in a boarding house. Other than the gorgeous Miss Hughes and handsome Mr Russell the boarders include the delightful Nana Bryant, feisty Lee Patrick, freckled faced kid Dale Belding and Billy House. Above-par B film fare especially for Noir fans.


The movie begins with Harold (Charles Russell) killing his girlfriend and dumping her body on the train. Mike, a loud little kid (Dale Belding), witnesses him. Harold tries to kill him, but is distracted and Mike runs away.

Later, Harold ends up in a hotel/boarding house (?) in a small town where he runs into Jean Maxwell (the fabulous Mary Beth Hughes), a beautiful loser who will pretty much latch onto any guy who will get her out of that small town, as well as Mike and his mother, Ruth (Lee Patrick). There are also some semi-drunk old men who provide some comic relief that seems really out of place in such a dark film.

Harold recognizes Mike and is constantly trying to off him, but is alway foiled. Soon, the story of the dead woman found on the train is all over the news, which makes Harold even more nervous.

In the meantime, Jean continues to make advances at Harold, but he more or less ignores her and tells her she shouldn't be hitting on him. Also, Mike comes close to ratting out Harold, but is always cut off by his noisy, impatient bitty of a mother. This gives Harold even more reason to get rid of him.

Then one night, Ruth sends Mike up to Harold's room to keep him company. Harold ties him up and stuffs him in a closet then tells everyone that Mike ran away out the window. Everyone goes to look for him but Jean, who can tell that Harold was lying about something. She goes up to his room, looking smokin' hot in fancy dress. She soon discovers Mike in the closet and finds out the truth. She tells Harold he can't hurt Mike, regardless of the fact she wants to run away with him. He punches her and she's out cold on the floor.

But eventually, everyone finds out the truth about Harold and he's resigned to his fate. We flash back to a fortune teller on a train. He has just told this story to a young lady and warns her not to leave the train. She laughs and leaves anyway. She's the woman who Harold kills at the beginning of the movie. Silly dame should've stayed on the train . . .

The film is strange because of all Harold's brutality towards a the kid and all of the humor that shows up throughout. Harold is so bent on killing the kidit's pretty dark.

All in all, this is an entertaining, suspenseful b-grade noir movie. Mary Beth Hughes is fantastic as the sassy-mouthed hopeless loser. I'm so glad to see this movie on DVD!


A psychic predicts that a sultry young blonde will meet with tragedy on a train...A handsome young man murders his wife, then takes refuge in a sleepy small town...A young boy witnesses the murder but keeps it a secret... The blonde, the young man, and the boy all wind up in the same boarding house, sharing close quarters, and trying to cover-up their unsettling secrets. Plot turns and twists ensue, building to a shattering, unexpected climax.

Superior, low-budget 'film noir,' quietly but steadily gripping the viewer with unusually subtle characterizations and solid acting. Amazingly "adult" for its time. The ravishing Mary Beth Hughes and the charismatic Charles Russell strike palpable erotic sparks. And the relationship between Russell and the young lad who witnessed his crime but hero-worships him all the same has implicit "homoerotic" undertones that must have eluded the napping censors.

Running a mere 52 minutes, "Inner Sanctum" was easily sandwiched into local TV stations in the late '50s in 60-minute-including-commercials slots.

It has long since disappeared into obscurity and deserves a cable-TV or VHS revival and restoral. The notion of doing an updated, R-rated remake is tempting but should be avoided. This little-known treasure is perfect just as it is.


`Different' is probably the word that will spring to mind after a viewing of Inner Sanctum. It's unusual in its choice of milieu and subject matter (even its choices within that subject matter); unusual in its slapdash mixture of tone and acting styles; even unusual in its length of merely 52 minutes. It also leaves viewers in an unusual disarray of responses.

The film's most horrifying moment is its very first: A man (Charles Russell) stabs a woman on a railroad siding and dumps her body like a sack of meal on the observation platform as the train pulls out. Alas, a bratty little boy (Dale Belding) is hanging around the tracks this stormy night and witnesses some of this; since Russell doesn't know how much, he tries but fails to silence the kid with a crowbar.

The storm has washed out roads and bridges in the Pacific Northwest, so Russell hitches a ride to a town so little that there's no hotel, only a rooming house where it turns out the meddlesome boy lives with his harried mother (the wonderful Lee Patrick, midpoint between The Maltese Falcon and Caged). Another resident, Mary Beth Hughes, spots that rarity, an unattached slab of male flesh, and comes at him in sections, to get him to take her away to San Francisco. But Russell, like a cunning beast of prey, only has eyes for the kid....

In its crummy look (the sets consist of the railroad siding, the boarding house, and a back-lot park) and creepy story, as well as in its ultimate surrender to an all-powerful and malevolent Fate, Inner Sanctum most resembles Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour of three years earlier. But Lew Landers doesn't quite have Ulmer's touch (or, for that matter, Ann Savage). The movie also recalls Detour in that it seems to have been cobbled into coherence from footage already shot once the meagre budget ran out.

So the final scene is a reprise of the one that opens it, and both of them stand as gargoyle-bookends to the story that they frame. At the end, however, the murder is prefaced by a cautionary tale  even a prophecy  told to a young woman on the train by an old blind traveler, whose last words are `Don't get off the train!' The tale, of course, is the movie we have just watched, evoking an ever-repeating, inescapable loop of Fate.


INNER  is exactly what it promises to be--yet somewhat better. Mrs. Hughes and Russell are good and even, though morally objectionable, likable leads. It's made with some sense of economy, varied and suspenseful. The supporting characters are well sketched. INNER  starts confusingly, with a succession of scenes given backwards (the descending from the car, THEN the picking, AND THEN the railway station episode); anyway, the device is nice. For its time, INNER  is disturbingly violent; the atmosphere is caught with great gusto, and, if Russell's character remains unexplored and unexplained, blank, as it were, he nevertheless functions in the flick. Thou may not like this kind of movies, so unpretentious and modest; but you can not ask them to be something they are not meant to be.


This "Twilight Zone" like story is of a man who kills a woman and dumps her body on the back of a passenger car on a train leaving town. Weather conspires against him and he ends up in a boarding house, biding his time. Unfortunately, there is no way out of town and the boy living at the same house saw him dump "something" on the train. Pieces begin to be put together and he must start covering his tracks. The boy is no fool, but starts by feeling an alliance with the man. Once news of the murder gets out, lots of stuff happens. The problem is the old word "verisimlitude.' It's just hard to believe that the events could transpire as they do. There is a relationship with a restless woman which confuses things, and, of course, this boy is going to be hard to silence. There's also a story within a story, where the young woman who is eventually murdered is being counseled by an old psychic man aboard the train. I won't say any more. It's a reasonably good movie with some nice twists and turns.


As I watch Charles Russell in the lead role, I get the nagging feeling that I've seen him before, but I know I haven't. With a limited film career spanning six years, I begin to wonder if he could have gone on to bigger and better things if he hadn't been so one dimensional as he appears here. Then it hits me, the part could have just as well gone to someone like John Payne or Rory Calhoun, virtual Russell look-alikes who were on the way up around the same time who eventually wound up in classic TV Westerns (Payne in 'The Restless Gun' and Calhoun in 'The Texan').

As film noir, this one works pretty well if you get beyond some of the quirks in the plot. Russell's character, Harold Dunlap, seems hell bent on dispatching a young teenage witness (Dale Belding) to the inadvertent murder of his fiancée. The cover of night and out of the way location provide the perfect opportunity, but Dunlap misses the chance when the kid turns around and looks at him. Now I ask you, if you're determined to kill a kid with a crowbar, why would his seeing you make any difference?

The follow up to all this is that Dunlap and Mike the Kid play a game of second guessing each other's identity and real intentions, and Dunlap winds up looking like a sap by the time it's all over. In essence, he winds up being the most inept hoodlum ever, to the point where he doesn't even care if he gets caught or not. And by the way, is he blind? Mary Beth Hughes goes from coyly demure to smoking hot 'come on boy', and Dunlap just brushes her off. Now I know she was never meant for anything but trouble in this picture, so you think Dunlap would have obliged.

But even with the criticism, this was an interesting flick that had one of those neat hooks that happened to bookend the story. You should have seen the ending coming, and because you didn't, it didn't leave you feeling blind sided like the 1953 film "The Limping Man". Just don't get too caught up in the way the story arc progresses, or you'll wind up going loop-de-loop well after it's over.


This black and white movie has many fine moments but it does not have the top box office cast which could have made it a classic. It has a small town feel similar to Picnic with William Holden but it did not have William Holden and Kim Novak.

The lead actors do their scenes well. The guy and gal just aren't quite right for a feature film. The female lead is beautiful enough to be in any movie in any role. She also was great in her scenes. But this movie just needs a Bogart and Bacall or Tracy and Hepburn or Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. The rest of the cast is fine.

The boy who plays Mike is the best part of this movie. There is a bedroom scene with him and the villain which rings so true for its era. Watch as the male lead plays some word games in the dark with the kid. Innocence and terror side by side. It was common in the 1940s to have two guys sleeping in the same bed in movies, especially in comedies, but also in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. In this movie the guys sleep together in one room but with separate beds.

This is a very good movie but it could have been great. This might make a good double bill with Picnic or Strangers on a Train or The Lady Vanishes.

I hope Dale Belding (Mike) is still alive and well.


This rather dark film noir with its uneasy comics (Roscoe Ates, Nana Bryant, and Billy House who even repeats his checkers trick from The Stranger) and desperate heroine (Mary Beth Hughes), is further strengthened by the forceful performance of Charles Russell who manages to make his rather ambivalent drifter somewhat sympathetic. Admittedly, he is helped in this goal by the obnoxious loudmouth and light-on-brains Mike, who, whether by accident or design, is made even more repulsive than the screenplay requires by the over-enthusiastic acting of Dale Belding. Fortunately, when the script gives her a chance, Mary Beth Hughes comes to the rescue with her animated portrait of the girl who wants to escape her small town "prison".

In keeping with the nocturnal atmosphere of the radio series, most of the action takes place at night. However, although the picture is big on atmosphere, despite its obviously limited budget, it is somewhat deficient in characterization and motivation. The screenplay overstates the one-dimensional comic interludes, but dwells little on the forces that drive the main characters. Why does Russell murder the girl? Is it an accident? Self-defense? The script hints at these factors. But why hint? And what is the background to this meeting? So many questions remain unanswered.


"I could tell you of a forceful woman," says Doctor Valonius, a white-haired old man who can tell the correct time without looking at a watch, to the spoiled, impatient, well-dressed woman seated next to him in the club car of their train. "She knew what she wanted...and thought she knew how to get it."

"Sounds like me," says the woman, with a satisfied smile. "Was she warned of some danger?" Her fiancé has remained in their compartment, staring out of the window as trees flash by in the night.

"Yes," says Valonius. "She was on a train. She was warned to stay on it, but..."

And with that we start a journey of our own in this clever low-budget noir, a journey where we will see how destiny cannot be changed, and how fate can really wear a guy down.

When Harold Dunlap (Charles Russell) uses a cuticle blade to kill his fiancé at a station stop ("Her heart was given a manicure," says a newspaperman) he finds himself trapped late at night in a small town isolated by a flooding river. Worse, while he dumped the woman's body back on the train before it left, Mike Bennett (Dale Belding), a kid who likes to get away from his mother and have adventures, saw him Even worse, after Dunlap gets picked up while hitchhiking and realizes he can't leave the area because of the flooding, the friendly driver lets him off at the only place to stay in town, a boarding house. And among the people who stay there are...you guessed it, young Mike Bennett and his mother. It's not long before Mike starts to figure things out. At the same time, Dunlap already has figured out that Mike, the only witness, has to be disposed of. It looks like things are going to get rough for Mike, especially when he has to share his room with Dunlap.

And then a dame enters the picture. Jean Maxwell (Mary Beth Hughes) also stays at the boarding house. She's a blond pudding, with loose, plump lips and eyes that stare at a man's mouth. She's not trouble exactly, but she has a taste for the wrong kind of man. Harold Dunlap now has to find a way to kill Mike, get out of town as soon as the bridge reopens, and stay clear of Jean Maxwell's easy-going virtue. If one believes in destiny or in the Hayes Office, is there any doubt who lives, who may die and who just gives in to fate? In a nice circular twist to things, we end up back in that train's club car with Dr. Valonius and the spoiled, impatient woman trimming her nails.

This well-made, unpretentious film packs a great deal of uneasiness into its 62 minutes. Unusual for a noir, it puts a lot of emphasis on humor through the comedy characters who live in the boarding house. There's the efficient owner, there's Mike and his fluttering mother, there's the warm and seductive Jean Maxwell and there are a couple of aging drunks who bicker a bit. I think it's the boarding house humor that makes the threat to Mike so effective. We might have some sympathy for Harold Dunlap at first, but then we realize he's dead serious about turning Mike into a corpse...and whom can Mike go to for help? There's just this odd collection of boarding house denizens. Charles Russell does a fine job as an ordinary man who proves more murderous than either he or we thought he'd be. Dale Belding playing the twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy is no embarrassment. He's reasonably natural in his acting and looks just like Hollywood's idea of an all-American kid, tow headed, generously freckled and with a small gap between his teeth. Mary Beth Hughes is something else. She looks so sweet...until we notice those lips and what she does with them.


Quiet thriller with great acting from Meryl Streep, taken a slightly different route with the paranoid performance from Roy Schnieder. Unfortunately some other of the other performances are quite poor, with the standard dumbed down cops. Slow to pick up, it's worth sticking with past the stock plot setup routines. There's some neat camera work to strengthen the guessing game and make you feel the paranoia and fear of the doctor. There's a fantastic sequence in central park where the Doctor follows a mystery woman, losing her beneath the light \ dark pools of street lights. Using the sound of her footsteps to pull your attention forward to a tunnel. The final moments of that sequence are brilliant. Throughout the lighting is used to great effect with all other senses and even performances extremely restrained. A good film which I'm sure has influenced many others of this genre.


I remember trying to get into this film in New York City on a Friday night, and it was sold out. IMDb doesn't list its box office, but I remember that it was quite popular. It was around the beginning of Meryl as Goddess - this was her 10th film and before "Sophie's Choice." The rest of the stars are Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy. Scheider gets drawn into the murder of one of his patients after a visit from a mysterious woman (Streep) who worked with and had an affair with the victim. He goes back in his mind over some of his sessions with his patient, including a vivid dream, and finds himself living it.

If you know and love the big guy, Hitchcock, as much as I do, you'll enjoy this film just picking out all the Hitchcock touches. Others on this board have mentioned the cool blonde (Streep, looking gorgeous), the psychiatrist mother and the dream (Spellbound), a shot reminiscent of Rear Window, the presence of Jessica Tandy (The Birds), the ordinary man drawn into strange circumstances, the auction scene (North by Northwest), and of course, the Shadow of a Doubt reference - Scheider's Uncle Charlie.

"Still of the Night" is gimmicky, cold, and strangely memorable. Look at the various posts and see how many people remember where and when they saw it. Streep is excellent in her cool blonde role, though it's not a great part; however, her monologue toward the end of the film is very compelling. Scheider is just right as the psychiatrist, and Tandy is wonderful as his mother, though her role is too small.

Others mention that the film moves slowly until the end. The ending is very suspenseful and exciting, but I didn't feel the rest of the movie was slow - I felt like I was being set up for something. As it turned out, I was.

Recommended for lovers of Hitchcock and those who have not seen much early Streep.


(Minor Spoilers) Director Robert Benton borrows from at least seven Alfred Hitchcock films: Spellbound (1945) Rear Window (1954) Vertigo (1958)North by Northwest (1959) Psycho (1960) The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964) and comes up with a pretty fair Hitchcockian thriller of his own in "Still of the Night".

The film centers on Brooke Reynolds, Meryl Streep, an antique dealer at the Crispin Antique & Auction House in New York City. Brooke's fellow dealer and lover George Bynum, Josef Sommer, was found murdered the night before and he was a patient of Dr. Sam Rice, Roy Scheider, his psychiatrist who she went to see to give him a watch that George left in her apartment.

Brooke wants Dr. Rice to give the watch back to George's wife in order for her not to find out that she was having an affair with him. Dr. Rice agrees to return it to Mrs. Bynum but can't get over the alluring and beautiful Brooke and slowly falls in love with her which gets him involved with his dead patient and Brooke's lover George. Dr. Rice is trying to get over an failed marriage himself and Brooke coming into his life at this important time seems to be just the right medicine for him but it's the baggage that she carries with her, her lovers murder, that puts him in danger as well as Brooke herself.

"Still of the Night" is a very stylish thriller with almost no action at all until the final scene and thats what makes the movie work. Roy Scheider is perfect as the meek and troubled psychiatrist Dr. Sam Rice who takes it upon himself to solve his patients murder as he falls in love with Brooke who may have had something to do with it.

The usually two-fisted and tough Roy Scheider is very good as the withdrawn and inoffensive Dr. Sam Rice who's driven to solve George's murder in order to clear Brooke from being blamed for it which seems to be whats being made to happen by George's killer. Dr. Rice is also somewhat of a mama's boy with his psychiatrist mom Grace, Jessica Tandy, giving him advice on his breakup with his wife and the solving of George's murder.

There's a very good dream sequence in the movie "Still of the Night" much like the one in "Spellbound" that bring out what was really going on between George & Brooke as well as Brooke's dark secret that the killer somehow found out about and was using it to set up and implicate Brooke for George's murder.

Meryl Streep, who known more for being an excellent Academy Award winning actress then a beauty queen, was never more beautiful as well as classy as Brooke Reynolds, the mystery woman with a secret who knew much more then what she lead Dr. Rice to believe. Miss. Streep is such a turn-on in the film that even with all her clothes on she had more sex appeal then both Britney Spear and Madonna put together with their clothes off. In fact the only scene that Meryl Streep was nude had nothing to do with her affair with Dr. Rice but when he came to her apartment and was startled to find her getting a rub-down from her masseur Mr. Chang, Hyon Cho; WHAT A LUCKY GUY HE IS.

"Still of the Night" turned off a lot of movie viewers because of it's slow pace and lack of any steamy scenes between Dr. Rice and Brooke Reynolds as well as it's almost total lack of action until the very last minutes of the movie. But it substituted all that with a well thought out story and as for the lack of sex thats exactly what made the movie, or better yet Brooke Reynold, so sexy. Brooke was so gorgeous that she came across as being almost untouchable, and rightly so. A woman as attractive as her should only be looked upon with awe and admiration and not be manhandled, at least until the lights are turned off.


This film has received quite a few negative posts. I also read Leonard Maltin's review, in which he said that it was full of holes and was a weak Hitchcock homage. I really think people are all wrong about this one; it's full of some very good old-fashioned suspense, and I love all of the Hitch touches many here have already noted. As well, it must be recalled that Hitch dealt in many implausibilities in his films. He hated those who constantly pointed out that "that could never happen in real life." It's not real life, it's a movie! That's one of the ways I thought this film succeeded, was in reflecting (or even gently parodying) Hitch's use of things that would never happen in real life. Loved the chemistry between Meryl and Roy, not to mention the lovely mentor/parent shrink/shrink relationship between Roy and Jessica. Nice work from Robert Benton. I love this film. --Matthew Hays


I remember being entirely taken with this film, seeing it several times when it was originally in theaters, way back in '82. Its creator, Robert Benton, freely admitted at the time that he intended this to be an homage to Hitchcock, and he's largely succeeded, right down to the cool, mysterious blonde female with a troubled past and the detective who is drawn to her, and the balletic, deliberate pacing that accentuates the suspense and tension, almost to a fault. Unlike Hitchcock, this film is strictly serious business, with nary a moment of lightness, which, alas, means something less than 'fun'. Hitchcock ALWAYS utilized humor, no matter how dark it may have been, recognizing that it, too, can actually heighten the suspense by putting people off their guard. This film would be richer for that sense but still it remains a good, solid mystery. As I've said, the story is pure Hitchcock: a murder takes place and a cool, mysterious blonde (Streep) may be the prime suspect, something that draws New York City detective Scheider towards her. One comment here said, "They don't make 'em classy like this anymore" and he couldn't be more right: from the restrained, low-key performance of Streep (accent-free but looking perhaps more beautiful here than in any other film she's done; she nearly resembles those women in a Dutch Renaissance painting), balancing the "livelier" performance of Scheider, to the lovely muted blues, browns, greys and blacks of its cinematography. There are a fair number of jolts and a satisfactory wrap-up, too. If there is any one fault with the film, it is, as one user has already commented, how slight the script is - it's nearly a puff of smoke! Another asked if we really needed ANOTHER homage to Hitchcock since De Palma's been doing it for years; however, one look at De Palma's films and THIS film and the difference is night and day: De Palma's films, which could be considered almost a Hyper-Hitchcock, are almost TOO jokey and slavish to its directors flights of fancy, while Benton's film exhibits the cool reserve, almost detachment, of its sophisticated New York settings. Hitchcock was THE undisputed master of thrillers and remains so to this day; it's wonderful to see other, modern directors try their hand at the lost art of the classy thriller/mystery. "Still of the Night" is definitely worth discovering, no matter its minor faults.


No director has been imitated more than Alfred Hitchcock, and Still Of The Night is yet another in a seemingly endless line of homages to the Master's work. After the gory excesses of suspense movies like Dressed To Kill, it is quite nice to get back to a style of thriller-making that is comparatively subtle. Still Of The Night doesn't particularly rely on buckets of blood and graphic violence yet, thanks to skillful direction, atmospheric music and clever writing, it is genuinely jumpy from start to finish. Robert Benton, fresh from his Best Director Oscar for Kramer Vs Kramer, has fashioned a very effective thriller in which a few loose ends in the plotting are papered over with an air of sustained tension.

Psychiatrist Sam Rice (Roy Scheider)is going through a mid-life crisis and really only has his work to cling to in order to maintain a semblance of normality. Among Sam's patients is a guy named George Bynum (Josef Sommer), an antiques dealer, and it is the gruesome murder of George that plunges Sam into a life-threatening mystery. Shortly after the killing George's neurotic mistress Brooke Reynolds (Meryl Streep) turns up at Sam's practice seeking psychiatric help. With his own emotions hardly at their sharpest, Sam quickly finds himself drawn to his new patient.... but is he playing a dangerous game with his own life? Sam's mother, Grace (Jessica Tandy), warns him that he should not trust this alluring stranger. The detective investigating the earlier murder, Joe Vitucci (Joe Grifasi), points up evidence that may indicate Brooke is actually the killer. Sam is convinced that she is innocent, but as the mystery unravels he finds himself in increasingly perilous danger....

As in any good suspense movie, the solution is kept well-disguised until the very end. Benton delights in leading his audience up various blind alleys, adding layers to the mystery and generating constant tension about what will happen next. The actors are uniformly excellent: Scheider convincing as the weary shrink, Streep twitchy and suspicious as a potential killer, Grifasi likably plodding as the detective on the case, and Tandy brilliant (as always) as the hero's worried mother. The film is shot in grey, dull colours that link very nicely with the dreary dead-end state that Scheider's character has reached in his life. This low-key approach also heightens the film's suspense, placing the frightening events into an everyday context that everyone in the audience can relate to. With its 87 minute running time, the film sticks closely to what is necessary and doesn't get lost amidst tons of extraneous detail. The lapses in logic prevent Still Of The Night from being a truly outstanding movie, but on the whole it remains a solid and very commendable thriller. Those who like these kind of movies will, I'm sure, thoroughly enjoy this one.


" Still of the night " is terribly underrated thriller from very good director Robert Benton.The Ending is truly shocking and some sequences are very good ( Central park and dream-like sequences ).It Reminds me some of best Hitchcock's films as Rear Window , Vertigo , North by Northwest or Marnie.Meryl Streep and Roy Scheider are memorable performances.Nestor Almendros photography is very stylish and memorable , especially in end parts of the movie.There are also some great lighting effects and complete lack of Gore.Music of John Kander is highly suggestive and fit to the rest of the movie. " Still of the Night " is one of better's thrillers 80s.Highly recommended


A mystery should not create a situation where the decisions of the characters are more moronic than the audience response. When the audience can issue warnings a mile away for the protagonists NOT to put themselves in dangerous situations foolishly, and the plot repeatedly puts the characters in harm's way, impatience with the film direction and pace only increases. A great idea and genuine mystery (like this story) should unfold logically and with subtle clues. Instead the movie undermines itself by lowering the I.Q. of the characters so that the number of danger points can lengthen the movie. The plot is strong to keep the audience guessing, but is weak because of the repeated foolish decisions of the lead character. Perhaps this is to show that love makes us blind, but it was not satisfying as a thread to keep the movie going, and going, and whew--it's finally over. Please, what took the director so long!


"Still of the night" is indeed a very silent and dark movie. A few remarks : 1) The characters move from from strange places (an auction room's warehouse, an isolated laundromat) to even stranger places (a tunnel in Central Park, a ghostly villa on a cliff). 2) The significant events only happen at night. 3) The main characters seem totally unable to communicate one with another. 4) They all seem to hide shameful psychological cracks. For all these reasons, I would say that SOTN is an impressionist movie: apart from the finale, all is suggested, more than described.

In a way, SOTN is also a fetichist movie. The real heroes are the objects; the characters are their slaves. If you think I'm going too far, watch the scene in which Meryl Streep holds the vase in her hands.

Of course, SOTN is a tribute to Hitchcock: for instance, the villa is an obvious reminiscence of "Psycho". But it is intelligently done and contains enough twists to help you forget that (yes) it's been done before.

8/10.


If director Robert Benton thinks this whodunnit is supposed to be an homage to Alfred Hitchcock, he'd better think again. It's closer to William Castle! Benton comes nowhere close to the subtle, nail-biting tension Hitch provided in his heyday. Where's the inventive camera style? The exciting, pervasive musical score? Where's the finesse?. Roy Scheider plays a psychiatrist who is drawn to a shady lady who might have murdered one of his own patients.

Improbable and tedious to no end, it features an OK Roy Scheider but Meryl Streep gives the most annoying, neurotic, unfocused performance of her otherwise luminous career. Just count how many times she plays, brushes away or toys with her hair. That's her acting style here. More Geraldine Page than Grace Kelly. The rest of the cast...oh, who cares?

Proceed at your own risk.