Basically this whole movie can be summarized in ONE sentence: "Okay, better get going now...why aren't you leaving???????" I see others had the same "WTF's" has I had, so I don't feel so bad about this review: 1.) The whole beginning sequence was laughable, it reminded me of that Simpson's commercial "Canyonero" for their SUV.

2.)I just laughed when they had the music playing over the cop's radio talking.

3.) What is this supposed to be a very sad commentary on our State Troopers? That first of all, she wouldn't get him to get OUT of his car before showing her badge? And that one on one with absolutely nothing else around you could STILL lose your suspect.

4.) They just got Civil War re-enactors to be the extras, right? 5.) Its 28 Days Later in the Old West.

6.) The credits went for around an hour, I think. House of 1000 corpses fan much? 7.) If this IS an attempt to comment about slavery and race relations, why did they make the one "carjacker" in the entire desert a coked-up black guy with a gun? 8.) His gun changed a few times, semi, handgun, revolver...

9.) Some of the slow motion action scenes were tailor made for Conan's Walker Lever.

10.) The people turning into zombies was very reminiscent of the Return of the Living Dead movies, but without the campiness or originality.

11.) Ah yes, our new sort of hero: Coked Up Guy!!! 12.) I agree- I think Bloody Bill DOEs look like Mad Dog Tannen (Back to the Future 3), the McDonald's moon-man and William Sadler as the Grim Reaper (Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey).

13.) When "Eric" set off the grenade, why did smoke come out of only the top floor window, when it was blown off ground level? 14.) Bloody Bill apparently didn't have to do that much. He spent 95% of his time simply standing there.

15.) Gwen sensed something was wrong with the "Eric" in cowboy attire coming towards them, yet she continued to simply stand there, why? 16.) Bloody Bill can tele-transport from place to place- so why didn't he locate himself into the little tiny room they were hold up in? 17.) The end was a total ripoff of the Friday the 13th's, when someone pretended to be Mrs. Voorhees at the end to track the bad guy.

Basically I found myself asking everybody Didn't JUST LEAVE!!!


OK....so we got a ghost-town (literally) with a conferate soldier and a gaggle of zombies guarding the corpse of his sister. Do I even need to tell you the rest? I will say its an original way to promote zombies to have them fully aware of their surroundings as upposed to mindless oafs staggering around, but that's as good as it got. The whole plot was awful and what kind of ending was THAT?? The highlight of the movie was when Earl runs into the room and sees N*GGER written on skulls and says in a high pitched voice "OOH Sh*t, that ain't right!" Speaking of which, it was in the legend that Bloody Bill hated blacks yet he didn't kill the black characters any differently from the whites, so they blew that plot twist completely.

The rest of the movie was awful, don't even bother, no redemption value at all.

2 out of 10 (only because of the opening chase scene prevented it being a 1)


This is the most idiotic horror i've seen lately. Actors are absolute talentless teens and the big drug dealer seems to be at his very first movie, without any reversals. Please, movie makers, spare us these embarrassing productions. I do not recommend this, except to psychopathic little children =)). Extremely low budget, almost no plot (the entrance of Darrel is forced somehow, ... he was hitch hiking and suddenly he is in the middle of the action...). Well, the music was the only good thing about it. Oh, and what's with the "renoir" golden light on everything. To me - at least - golden doesn't inspire terror, but a heavenly atmosphere ... what were they thinking ? Seen session 9 ? GREEN IS THE COLOUR PPL !


That is some damn terrible writing and dialogue. Don't get me wrong, the film looked great and I could even tolerate the mediocre acting. Hell, they even had a bit of fun following some of the Zombie Rules with a couple of the character's story arcs...BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE...take your time and write a decent story and believable dialogue. How plausible is it that one of the male characters would have extensive knowledge of the title character's history and that he would then, conveniently, release this information as needed? And why would one female character ask (FOURTEEN TIMES), "Why won't you tell me what's wrong with you?" to this same over informed male character after he has been bitten by a zombie, meanwhile, he is screaming in pain!!

And STOPPING MAKING BOSS ZOMBIES...I blame video games.


I've waded through lots of zombie movies trying to find some good ones.And since Romero has only made 5 there aren't very many good ones among the loads of stinkers out there.This one was one of the worst pieces of homemade garbage I've seen yet in my quest to find good zombie movies.

A group of what look to be mostly 20 year olds set off in a van on what I think was a going to a trip to a debating contest.Along the way they get hijacked by a dope dealer who is trying to find his partner who has disappeared out in the Arizona landscape somewhere.Anyway the group tracks the dope dealer to a ghost town in the middle of nowhere.Shortly after arriving the kids are attacked by the missing dope dealer who is all bloody and talks kinda funny.

So immediately one of the debaters starts rattling off about the legend of Bloody Bill,a confederate solider ,who ended up out west after the war was over.Legend has it that Bill swore revenge on the town-folk who had killed him for bad stuff he did in the war.How they linked the wounded dope dealer up to Bloody Bill so quick was sort of glossed over and the kid who knew all the details was obviously and painfully reading his lines as we watched flashbacks of how Bill came to be.

Anyway the town soon becomes alive with Bill's zombies who run from one old building to another ,as do the kids,in what sometimes looks like a Benny Hill chase scene without being anywhere near as entertaining.All we needed was "Yakety Sax" as background music.

Speaking of music this film had one,what I took to be,death metal song with idiotic lyrics that was played over and over and over.But really so much was wrong with this film it isn't hardly worth mentioning it all.The zombies were those kind that were just sort of halfway done, no well done zombie make up here. In the flesh eating scenes,which there are very few, we see the cheapo looking rubber stuff instead of the real looking latex standing in for human flesh.In one scene a grenade goes off downstairs but in the shot outside we see the blast and smoke coming out an upstairs window.

One guy runs around and around trying to escape the zombies but all the while keeps one hand on his Kenny Chesney looking cowboy hat to keep from losing it.No one in this film could act their way out of a wet paper bag.The plot and script were terrible and the special effects were as crappy as any I've seen.

In short,this whole mess looks exactly like what it is.....a bunch of lame asses making a zombie movie without one single shred of talent whatsoever.It turns out looking like the homemade junk that it is.

Hey I only paid a buck for this thing at Wal-Mart and I wish I had my dollar back.Yeah it was that bad.


The Asylum has released yet another winner, and by winner I mean a piece of crap that should have never seen the light of day unless it were featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3,000. This movie was so painful that I had to watch it in four separate sittings and still suffered all the way through it. Don't see it.

The poorly placed music in this film alone was enough to completely ruin it but horrible acting, a terrible storyline and no scares all had pivotal roles as well. The only things about this movie that make me not give it a 1 are the okay effects and the bad guy looks decent, but they did show him way too much. I really wish The Asylum would stop making movies.

If you like well done, well written horror film, resist with every inch of your being. You'll be thankful that you did.


I'm reminded while watching Death Valley: The Revenge of Bloody Bill on the sci-fi channel something George A. Romero said recently about certain new horror directors: "They shot Faith Hill's last music video, and they think they're hot s***. Do they know how to handle it? No, they don't. Put 'em at an editing table, and they're clueless." Although Byrum Werner (maybe the coolest name for an exploitation director, I'll admit) probably hasn't done a Faith Hill video, the comparison can still apply. Werner shouldn't be directing anything remotely related to celluloid, from seeing the catastrophe that is 'Bloody Bill', as he tries to compensate for a rote and crappy script with much worse 'style'.

Maybe it's a personal thing, but it's a pet peeve for me when a director uses a specific tint for a purpose that is completely ancillary, where it's more about calling attention to itself than serving any meaningful stylistic choice (Spielberg may be the only one who can get away with it). In this case, Werner uses it to the point of total madness, and not good madness: the tint is actually a lot of the time just on the *top part of the frame*, making it a foolish distraction. This goes without saying that the whole color scheme in general, whether applied by Werner himself as DP or in post, is annoying because it makes it obvious that he doesn't trust anything regarding the actual space being used, or maybe using some natural light or shadows to make atmosphere, instead of splashing on this crude red- often in a blurred vision (FOCUS! I screamed more than once). Don't even get me started on the editing in many instances, where random montage and action is cut as if by an epileptic puppy.

The story itself is rote anyway: a bunch of teens riding out in the desert get car-jacked (!?) by a black guy who leads them to the ghost town of Sunset Valley, overrun by (usually) running zombies led by Bloody Bill, who has a vendetta against someone done wrong by someone and blah blah blah. Point is, a lot of this, however just totally ludicrous it all sounds (Bloody Bill's a confederate- no Yankees or blacks after all), could just be moot if it was at least a halfway decently acted or technically executed effort. It's not, at all.

Watching Death Valley is like getting a checklist for things that could possibly go wrong for a movie and do, over and over again. The music is fourth-rate metal garbage on loan from the boys who've been practicing in the garage next-door; the "performances" are from nobodys (Gregory Bastian goes to lengths to be a bad-ass mutha, but is one of the most ineffectual I've seen in recent memory), this including Bloody Bill's 'actor' who is barely on screen at all; the gore and violence is directed amateurishly, with tomato-sauce blood and eye-liner used for added "effect" during the transformation from living to dead; even the production design, with the sign changing from time to time from 99 to 107 from start to finish is cheesy in an unforgivable way.

It works only up to a completely ironic point; make sure you've got the right friends and good booze lying around and it should make for a chummy Saturday night movie. But good lord, don't go into it expecting any semblance of an entertaining B-horror movie. It's drek of the shlockiest order, and I'd have to be paid more than the actors themselves were (if they were that is) to sit through it again.


So add badly done zombies, a villain taken from the old "House" movies, and cookie-cutter characters. What do you get??? A flick that makes "House of the Dead" look like an art-house film.... First off, there is very little connection between the opening scene. The acting was, of course, horrible. There was the science chick who kept looking for a logical explanation to why her friends were being eaten. There was the redneck. The pretty girl who lives just long enough (but no nudity to make it worthwhile). It looks like the budget was so low, they filmed it during one afternoon. Finally, there is a hybrid scene that combines elements from Scarface and Silence of the Lambs. Unfortunately it was sewn together with a safety pin. A high school film club would be ashamed of this dog.


I rented this from Blockbuster because I could get 3 films for 7 nights for £5. The other 2 were Dead End and Black Knight (I wanted to see some cheesy goldmines). Black Knight and Dead End are cheesy goldmines which made me laugh so I thought £5 well spent until I saw this steaming pile! Truly awful! I honestly believe the guy who did this could'nt direct traffic never mind a film. Please no more - you've had your chance. First of all the music was terrible and boring. The opening sequence my girlfriend fell asleep to. The zombies looked terrible. That Chelsea Jean girl was possibly the worst actress ever. The only decent part was watching the awful characters getting picked off. We cheered when they got it. I only gave it a 3 because of the fact it was on for little over an hour which meant I didn't have to suffer for much longer. I'm handing it back to Blockbuster tomorrow where I will complain that it should be them paying me to watch this tripe!


I could only bring myself to sit through half of this movie, then I couldn't take the pain any longer. I would rather watch my limbs on fire than this movie. IT SUCKS ASS, IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY. If you watch this movie, you will want to die. The acting was terrible, right from the start. The camera-work is completely horrible and lame. Everything about this movie sucks. Everything. The music in unatmospheric and sounds like it was made in someones mom's basement. I just stopped watching it when I saw the "zombie" that was a fat dude with black lipstick on. Really, that was it. Save yourself some time, don't watch this drivel.


This movie may have a lot of zombies running around (yes, running... like they are getting ready for a marathon), but it doesn't matter anyway. They could have put in 100 more zombies, and this movie would still suck. The acting is awful, the zombies are terrible and the story is just lame. I can only assume that the director was waisted when trying to edit this movie, because there are so many scnenes, that has plot holes and errors in them, that you just want to turn of the movie and lie down meditating over your whole existence, and why you ever wanted to waist 70 minutes of your time on this crap. I had to check twice to be sure this was not an Ittenbach movie, because it easily could have been one.

I'll give it 2 stars for Bloody Bill only, because he was OK... at least he was the best actor in this movie, and thats saying a lot.


Members of a debate team, and their adult coach, are heading for a contest in Phoenix when they have this misfortune of happening across drug-pushing thug searching for the partner he believes took off with their money and cocaine. Holding them at gun point, Earl(Gregory Bastien, portraying the stereotypical profane black criminal low-life who finds some sort of redemption towards the end when facing possible death)demands the group drive him to a desert location where his partner's vehicle is found abandoned. A little further ahead lies a literal ghost town, Sunset Valley, containing flesh-eating undead victims claimed by devil-worshiping ghoul, Bloody Bill(Jeremy Bouvet; whose face is rotted away, his lower lip gone, exposing teeth)who avenged the wrongful lynching of his beloved innocent sister Mary. Anyone who walks into the town are cursed just the same as those victims claimed by Bloody Bill's sword. The group, under such dire circumstances, fall under siege and their situation grows worse every moment as the zombie army under Bloody Bill's lead aim to harm them, yearning for flesh. When a victim is killed by Bill or his zombie brood, they become a number in Sunset Valley's population, a new member of the undead with a hunger for human flesh themselves.

The Asylum strikes again with yet another terrible film, this time a zombie movie. These zombies, supposed to be ghosts of those cursed by Bill after he returned from the Civil War broken and defeated, finding that they had murdered his sister, only to be executed by the township, using the notorious killer's own sword, are yet another retread of the George Romero brand where they rip away flesh and drop when shot in the head. Chelsea Jean is the final girl, Gwen, who has the fortune of looking like Bill's slain sister, appropriately finding a photo of Mary, noticing their resemblance, and even reading a letter(..wrote by Bloody Bill)explaining to us just how motivated the racist Confederate killer was to getting his revenge..it's a ploy by the screenplay to assist Gwen and inform us on certain back story elements concerning why all this madness is happening to begin with. Matt Marraccini has the role of Jerry, someone amazingly well-versed in the town's(..and Bloody Bill's)history, poetically telling the story to his friends, foretelling their possible doom because of entering this godforsaken place. Jerry's arm is torn into early on(..his fate mirrors Roger's in George Romero's Dawn of the Dead)and his condition slowly deteriorates as the film continues..he's really a fountain of information regarding this town and Bill, thanks to a screenplay which needs to feed the characters attempting to survive(..and the viewer wondering just what the hell is going on)knowledge. Scott Carson is Avery, the adult guardian of these frightened kids, who tries his best to gain an upper hand in such a disastrous situation spiraling way out of control. Some of the kids decide to scurry off, blindly running for either help or escape from the town. It's established that no matter where you run, those attempting to flee find themselves right back where they started from. Sunset Valley is limbo and to escape this place you must contend with Bloody Bill. The zombies carry the appearance of dried corpses whose flesh look as if baked under the sun, clothes dirty and tattered. The camera speed is turned up a notch and director Byron Werner has his editor cut a lot from one zombie on the prowl to the next. Most of the attacks are rather quickly presented and it's clear during the flesh eating the look of latex, cheap and disappointing. The wound on Jerry's arm is quite a grisly sight, and the rotted faces of the zombies are rather ghastly. Nothing you haven't seen before and there are an army of these low-budget zombie crapfests which churn out the gore more effectively. Some of Gwen's retaliated swings(..at one point using a Jesus statue)towards those charging towards her are absolutely pathetic. The Asylum have built a reputation as the new millennium's Full Moon Pictures, and those who believe this might just be onto something. I felt as I watched this that they were aiming to please the gorehounds, but this flick is just too derivative and under budget to succeed. Little creativity put forth doesn't help matters, either.


Being a glutton for punishment (apparently) I still find myself sitting down to watch Asylum movies from time to time. I know it's a mistake. I know it won't be good. I guess I just have to see if it's at least not as bad as the last one. The problem is that it's usually just as bad or worse. Such is the case with Death Valley (and yes, I'm not going for the full title...this movie doesn't deserve it).

A big reason I popped this in my DVD player is that on the back of the box it proudly proclaims the movie to be "One of the best zombie movies in the last 10 years!" and I had to know exactly how wrong that was. It's so wrong, in fact, that it would be hilarious if it weren't so bad. The quote isn't even attributed to anyone if that gives you any idea what a load of BS it is.

The movie itself has decent production values for a modern zombie movie (which is actually a bit surprising) but it's the same old pseudo-western-meets-zombies-in-a-possibly-parallel-dimension story. Wait...have we seen that before? Even if the answer is no, you'll feel like you've seen this a thousand times before. I particularly enjoyed the fact that whenever someone talks more about the legend of Bloody Bill the whole tone of the dialog changes and they start using words and phrases normal people don't use in everyday conversation to make it sound more dramatic.

I guess you could watch this as an alternative to a root canal...but that's even a bit of a toss up. There's a lot of much more capable zombie movies out there that do way more for way less. Save yourself the time and the desire to pour rubbing alcohol into your eyes.


God.....where do I even begin. Lets list the positive first.

'Bloody Bill' does make for a potentially good movie character. Back story seems interesting. For some reason, I'm a sucker for redneck horror movies such as these (Wrong Turn, 2001 Maniacs, etc.)

*END*

Thats out of the way.

This movie is flat out retarded. The zombies weren't scary one bit. In fact, they were hilarious. When they chase the characters, it reminds me of the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode when they used giant donuts to lure Homer clones into the ravine. The special effects range from cheesy to just sloppy, such as when the redhead was pistol whipping her zombie friends, but it just looks like she's brushing the gun against their face....all in all, don't waste your money or hardrive/IPod space on this....wait for it to come on SciFI and Laugh Your Ass Off


there are few zombie films that are very well ... good.

i mean i love zombies...in fact (as my friends say) i am obsessed with them. yes its sad to say i agree ... any way i read the synopsis of death valley and thought what the hell it sounded fine. so you know i stayed up to watch it and i have to say i was right to.

i thought the acting was pretty cool. the opening scene is a great way to introduce the film, its not confusing (until you've watched the whole scene that is) and the film has the same sort of premise from there on.

as i have mentioned the ending is great... it isn't very believable ... at all. why would bloody bill believe that gwen was his sister and the fact that they look XACTLY like each other isn't very plausible either, and it would have been nice to find out what happened to gwen after she left death valley.

i hope their isn't a sequel as zombie sequels are never good apart from resident evil of course.

all in all, apart from the disappointing ending, death valley is a great film and definitely worth a watch if your like me and love zombie flick


I think people are sleeping on this movie, because I think it will be a cult classic. This movie is a comedy and a horror and the same time, Youn can't help but laugh at some of the parts in the movie. Especially when earl is bit by a zombie and decides to go out like a soldier. The only thing I wish to see is more of is gore. The girl getting her face ate wasn't enough for me. The zombies should had pin her down and ate her eyes, and ate the flesh off her face until you seen nothing but her bones. When I home sitting back and relaxing,I like to keep rewinding the part of earl making a complete fool of bloody bill's zombies. I don't take points off the movie because of the graphics. I think the people who don't like that should support movies like that, so that next time the film company will have enough money to make a movie with better graphics


I completely understand this movie has a low rating here, but still I give it a 10 out of 10! Why? Because it's a must-see for horror marathon lovers! It really has all the cliché's! Ranging from talking zombies to drug addicts who get slayed. From a whole variety of f- and s-words you never knew existed to a big breasted girl who runs trough the forest! It has it all! The soundtrack from Scorpions Ralph Rieckermann (how they got him to perform an entire soundtrack for them is beyond me, he must also be a b-movie horror-fan!) really rocks out and makes the movie even more enjoyable to watch. People I particularly liked in this movie where the drug addict gangster and the lead girl, they all act surprisingly good for this production and I loved it. I loved how the lead girl bit her lip trough tension moments, she was dead-sexy.

This movie is for real metal heads and horror-fans who like to have a good laugh all alike to top things all up they even have a semi-death-counter in this movie so you can see how many people bloody bill has slaughtered. I don't want to spoil any surprises any further, if you like gore, if you are a deep down sadist maniac and you like dark humor this movie is a must see. I suggest you go see it with your friends and have a spliff or some beers with it. It's a lot of fun and you won't be disappointed! If you happen to own a small cinema and are looking for a movie to put in that nights play-list, I highly suggest Bloody Bill.

Oh, I also hope to see more of this production team and also the stars of this movie, they really gave it their best. What I also liked was the way this movie used special ambient lighting techniques that made the gore all the better to watch!


Blood Bill, for what it is, is not a bad little flick. There is lots of gore and the zombie effects are VERY good. The only thing not in this movie is nudity, so there are points knocked off for that.

The movie really should have been titled, "Death Valley: The Revenge of Earl" since I think he steals the show with his cocaine-as-supercharger routine.

I was actually surprised to learn that Bloody Bill Anderson is a historical figure. From the stuff I've read about him on the internet, raising a posse of zombies to chow down on a bunch of college kids seems almost tame.

From the sounds of things on the commentary track, no one took this movie too seriously. You'll find it's much more entertaining if you don't either.

Four out of five stars.


I had the pleasure of playing Darell in the movie(drug dealer in the opening scenes) First: what a great experience to work with that cast and crew, no matter how many times I fell, jumped, got shot, sped out, ate arms, got smothered by a pack of zombies, and snorted powdered sugar for cocaine, and then hear..let's do it again!

I finally had the opportunity to see the movie and I think Byron Werner did an amazing, amazing job as cinemaphotographer. He shot this movie like it was big budget. For an independent horror I say...Well done Mr. Latt and mr. Walker. It's very much worth the rent. By the way, the music in this movie rocked...the score was right on in every scene. It still amazes me how much music adds to a scene. Again, GOOD WORK EVERYONE, I SHALL ALWAYS REMEMBER.

I still think Darell should have come back again....but then again I am Bias...

Dean N. Arevalo(Darell)


A new Horror/Western, thank God. This Halloween brings us a treat within a treat, The legend of 'Bloody Bill' Anderson is true up until today. The first things you notice is the great soundtrack and the film ( camera angles, etc.) itself is engaging. Byron (The Killers) Werner was DP and Director, was trying to nail down has camera-style, very avante gardeMTV2 or NuSkool. The theme is like ' Brigadoon meets Rob Zombie ',or how about 'Gone With The Wind on METH !'These are close, trust meI'm a critic for god-sakes. The cast is very good, with few exceptions- Jeremy Bouvet, 'World Martial Arts Champion' plays the title character BLOODY BILL as a foreboding franchise. Gregory Bastien, steals the show as 'a cocaine as a steroid' anti-hero .One of the funniest names in show business, and She pronounces it in 'making of' segment is Denise Boutte ( say BOOTY) and she has ample. Comments would be, DON'T EAT during this film, seriously, You will regret it, makeup rocks ! Some racial slurs and images (Which I will NOT go into) push the envelope of good taste, and YES , I know It's a Zombie Movie, blah-blah. Some of the religious symbolism, was most welcome. Ending was suspenseful and NEW.


I love this movie. What's amazing is that I've never heard of any of these actors/actresses before and they're amazing at their jobs. The acting was fantastic. And they way they shot the film they made it look like they had a high budget. When most movies have low budgets, the screen is usually dark.. not much color. The music was great, too. My two favorite characters got killed :[. Dean and Denise. If you have not seen it, go rent it act Blockbuster. Better yet, buy it! It is a great movie. I can't wait for Death Valley 2: The Return of Bloody Bill to come out! Sure, it's a low budget film but it's worth.. the what? 12 dollars you would have to pay for it. Trust me, this movie kicks ass! The zombies are cool, too. Bloody Bill is one sexy son of a...


yes, this another one of those treasury sting stories...but the story is solid...the dialogue crisp and intelligent... that's true of most noir films from the late 40's...what makes this special are lloyd bridges and barbara payton...his mild manner of speech only augments the gangster character he plays ..and barbara payton has never looked so beautiful and sure of herself as his girl...the lighting is a darker shade of gray and black, shadows and reflections...people aren't who they seem to be and this common theme explodes at the ending...be sure and add this to your collection of top film noir.


This is a fine, dark, nasty little movie. It's very well directed by Richard Fleischer. It takes place in a scary night town version of San Francisco.

Lloyd Bridges plays a character with the unusual first name Tris. Short for Tristan, I suppose. Real-life bad-girl Barbara Payton is no Isolde. Payton is good as his romantic interest, though.

The film begins with a scene in which someone is discovered to have counterfeit money. Bridges is in prison but is tapped by the Feds to help break up the counterfeiting ring. And it takes off from there.

There are double-crosses, confused identities. The supporting cast is excellent. Crime may not pay but we have some pretty interesting criminals in this story.


TRAPPED is a very good example of the documentary- styled noir film. Lloyd Bridges gives an energetic performance as a greedy and cunning counterfeiter whose brains are not equal to his ambitions. The film also features tragic sex bomb Barbara Payton in her first major role and she also scores as a somewhat naive, yet ruthless, partner to Bridges. Richard Fleischer directs with his usual stylishness and the look of the film will satisfy the diehard noir fan. Very enjoyable.


This was a good movie. Considering that it was probably made on a shoestring budget, it was a very good movie. Personally, I enjoy a good plot and storyline and this picture had it; it was interesting and absorbing throughout. Pacing was good and the picture moved along at a brisk pace. There was very little if any padding material.

Good job by Lloyd Bridges, who had not yet made it big. It had a good cast of dependable character actors. I did not know the sad story of Barbara Payton until I read it on the website, and she was very good as Bridges' girlfriend. It must have been Director Richard Fleischer's first solid hit, as he went on to have a pretty distinguished career in Hollywood.

If it ever comes on one of the movie channels do yourself a favor and see it, even if you're not a cops-and-robbers fan.


Lloyd Bridges stars, and is slightly miscast(he's too good looking), in a tale of forger on the run. Bridges is a counterfeiter doing a stretch of time who is confronted by the reemergence of the bank notes he had been passing that got him put in jail. The Treasury department comes to ask his help and he at first refuses. Later he agrees and is set free in a staged escape. Bridges takes it on the lam and tries to run down the plates he had entrusted with a friend. Dark complex tale is a very good B crime drama. If it has any real flaws its that Bridges is not gritty enough as the lead. He doesn't feel like a tough felon in with a bunch of bad guys. Its far from a fatal flaw, but it's the difference between this being a great drama and a very good one. I also need to point out that the great and long running character actor John Hoyt has a large and very important role as an undercover T-man. Hoyt is a guy who usually plays a villain and usually has tiny roles, but here he gets what amounts to the second lead and he shines. Worth a bag of popcorn and a soda.


"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of 'Trapped.'" That's Hamlet, part-time movie critic for the Elsinore Herald-Gazette, writing his review after watching this reverential dud. Trapped instructs us on the excellence of the U. S. Treasury Department's Secret Service, as its agents track down the near-perfect plates for bogus $20 bills, now starting to show up in circulation. The man who made the plates, Tris Stewart (Lloyd Bridges) is in prison, so he can't be the mastermind. Someone, Mr. Big, has those plates and is starting to use them. The Treasury Department works a deal with Stewart. They'll spring him from prison and make it look like a jailbreak. In return, he'll track down his former partner and find out who's responsible for the new stuff. Stewart, however, has a different idea. He'll go along with the phony jail break, but he plans to hook up with his old girl friend, Meg Dixon (Barbara Payton), cut a deal of his own with Mr. Big, then vamoose to Mexico with Meg and as much money, good or bad, that he can fool everyone out of. Only two things stand in his way. First are the shrewd, brave and dedicated men (there are no women in the movie except Payton) of the United States Treasury. Second is the shrewd, brave and dedicated Secret Service agent John Downey (John Hoyt).

Trapped is one of those documentary-seeming paeans to the government that Hollywood produced in the late Forties. For the FBI, it was The House on 92nd Street and The Street With No Name. With Trapped, we're given a seven-minute civics lesson on the many praise-worthy activities of the U. S. Treasury, with an emphasis on the reprehensible nature of counterfeiting, At the end of this stentorian, no-nonsense, deeply respectful narration honoring our government at work, I nearly wrote a check to add to my income tax payment.

The real problem with Trapped, however, is that it is dull, with journeyman direction and acting. There are one or two solid scenes, including a tough fist fight in a shadowy hotel room and a chase and shootout in the huge shed housing dozens of Los Angeles' electrified streetcars. In between is just one dull scene after another as Stewart tracks down Mr. Big and the Secret Service stays on Stewart's tail. The Secret Service may be always one step ahead of Stewart, but for most of the movie, once we catch on to how good Hollywood is going to make the Secret Service, not much suspense is left.

This was one of the first movies Richard Fleischer directed. He had a long, successful career that wasn't particularly distinguished. On the one hand he gave us such interesting or pleasurable movies as The Narrow Margin, Fantastic Voyage, 10 Rillington Place and Soylent Green. But then we have things such as Doctor Doolittle, Mandingo and The Jazz Singer.

Poignantly, we can see Barbara Payton and reflect on the lives, if they're unlucky, of lush, blonde, shallow starlets. She managed a handful of movies working with the likes of Gregory Peck, James Cagney and Gary Cooper. Within a couple of years she was enmeshed in scandal. She didn't seem to mind along as she was talked about. Another year or two and her career was over, which seemed to puzzle her. Payton's life was a sad, sordid melodrama, finishing at the age of 39 after alcoholism, public drunkenness and arrests for heroin and prostitution. She loved the attention Hollywood gives starlets, but she had little talent other than her curves.


In the fancy Starliner compound in an island near Montreal, a mad scientist tests a parasite in the body of his mistress. He believes that man is an animal that thinks too much, and he develops a parasite to increase the violence and sexual desire of mankind. There is an outbreak in the condominium, with the fierce dwellers becoming zombies of sex.

"Shivers" is the first movie of this great Canadian cult director David Cronenberg, indeed a very low budget trash movie, with a final cost of US$ 179.000,00. The story mixes humor and horror and the effects are very nasty and disgusting, a trademark of Cronenberg. The story is a kind of sexual version of "The Night of the Living Dead", with people turning out zombies of sex. The screenplay of 1979 "Alien" used many concepts of this movie. The interview of David Cronenberg in the DVD is excellent, and it is very funny to know that the actress Sue Patrick asked him to slap her face in the scenes that she needed to cry, and Barbara Steele reaction to this physical assault. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Calafrios" ("Shivers")


An early piece from David Cronenberg, this is his first cinematic exploration of themes which he would continually come back to throughout his career in films such as eXistenZ, Videodrome, The Fly and Crash. to best explain these themes, i must qoute the man himself, "I was saying, I love sex, but I love it as a veneral disease. I am Syphilis. I am Enthusiastic about it, but in a very different way from you." and while that doesnt shed a whole lot of light on the film, it sure is a hell of a qoute :) the plot of Shivers, aka The Parasite Murders, revolves around a parasite which has been bred to heighten sexual desire and other primal instincts while dampening our mental awareness. this parasite has been let lose within a high-tech high rise block thanks to the experiments upon a young girl by an older scientist. the horror begins immediately, as do the social metaphors and ideas of sex and death. it is interesting to note this film was produced before the outbreak of AIDs, but is entirely applicable in our modern world. in some ways this is a tale of warning, of what can go wrong and how we can destroy ourselves. but above all, cronenberg delights in sinking us into the flesh, so the film can also be seen as fable of a world gone mad with life and freedom, which many would not consider so horrific. it defies simple catergorisation, it is not just a story about rampantly sexually active teenagers like so many of its kind. it is a story about every person's desire for safety, and the darker desires which hide behind it. wonderfully directed, intriguingly written, there is little that i can fault this film for, except perhaps its little to obvious reference to Romero's Night Of The Living Dead. while it is obviously partly inspired by that film, and brilliantly reinterprets it for a new age and a new social strata, the tiresome zombies that stagger about like slugs are a little out of place, but fortunately it does not let the film down. a must see.


Cronenberg's directorial feature film debut is built around a now-familiar amalgamation of sex, technology, and medicine gone mad. The Canadian "Shivers" (original American release title "They Came From Within", aka "The Parasite Murders") opens with a slide show advertising a creepily perfect-sounding high-rise apartment building isolated on an island but just minutes away from downtown Montreal. We are told that the complex contains practically everything necessary to maintain a comfortable life- medical and dental practices, clothing stores, a gift shop, a deli, recreation, etc. Ideally, it would seem, the only reasons a resident would leave would be to work, socialize with non-residents, or take a vacation, if that wasn't too redundant. But of course, something terrible is just under the polished surface.

Cronenberg's direction is obviously not as polished as in later features, but we begin to see his signature style translated well into a full-length format.


SHIVERS (aka THEY CAME FROM WITHIN) is another pretty twisted outing from freak-o Canadian director David Cronenburg. SHIVERS is not nearly as memorable as some of Cronenburg's other works (VIDEODROME, THE FLY or my personal favorite - THE BROOD...) but it is still worth a look for anyone that is into Cronenburg's strange cinema.

SHIVERS is about parasites that enter their human hosts and cause them to do all kinds of strange sexual and violent things. Pretty cool concept that is handled well, and the film is both weird and entertaining as only Cronenburg can do it. Again, not the best of his films by any means, but still solid. Give it a shot - 7.5/10


I suppose if you've never seen any of Romero's zombie films, or his "Crazies", or even Cronenberg's "Rabid" and "The Fly", you might be impressed by this film. But for even a mildly seasoned horror fan, there is nothing especially interesting here. Of course it's Cronenberg's first feature-length film, so it's worth seeing for historical reasons, but the script is boring, monotonous, unfocused and it lacks an engaging protagonist. There are some disturbing moments (the opening fight/murder, where we don't even know who the villain is; the barking kids; the bathtub scene), but the film lacks a clear idea of how it wants to portray the "infected" people; most of the time they behave like energetic sex maniacs, but at other times they become the plodding zombies of the "NOTLD" variety. (*1/2)


This film takes place at Starliner Towers, a high rise apartment complex isolated on an island and which is very self-sufficient. A biological experiment gone awry has led to the creation of slug-like parasites that, once inside a human body, turn people into ravenous sexual deviants. The buildings' in-house doctor, Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton) becomes aware that the tenants are going mad, but will he be able to stem the tide of wanton sexual aggression on display here?

This was truly a groundbreaking film, not only for its director, David Cronenberg, who had previously only done "underground" films, but it paved the way for the future of the horror genre in Canada. Cronenberg may have been learning as he went along, making this film and its follow-up, "Rabid", and it's obviously not as polished as his subsequent works, but it's still very respectable, showing early on that he had a definite aptitude for this medium.

It's along the lines of his other early films to deal with "body horror": it's provocative, intriguing, violent, and unnerving. He offers such memorable and potent images as a bathtub scene featuring none other than the iconic actress Barbara Steele, and especially a late scene featuring two children on leashes and behaving as dogs. The films' action leads to an equally memorable "Night of the Living Dead" style finish.

Joe Blasco provides the film with some decent creature creations and splatter that are just fine for low budget fare. With the amount of gore and violence on hand, it goes without saying that this film won't be for everybody, and there was some uproar at the time of the theatrical release that Canadian tax dollars could be going towards making this kind of film.

Deep-voiced, sharp featured Joe Silver is wonderfully entertaining as the character who gives us all the necessary exposition, and the alluring cult actress Lynn Lowry is quite good as the nurse, making up for the blandness of male lead Hampton. Alan Migicovsky gets quite creepy as an early victim, who gets progressively more disgusting as the film goes on, Susan Petrie is cute and likable as his anguished wife, and guest star Steeles' presence is very welcome.

Suffice it to say, this film might not quite pack the same punch as Cronenbergs' later horror films, such as "The Brood", "Scanners", "Videodrome", or "The Fly", but I think it's a solid debut with an offbeat premise and an effective delivery.

7/10


The first big screen flick for Canadian horror master David Cronenberg was this skin-crawling B horror movie.

Residents of a high rise apartment building are being attacked by parasites that are turning them into crazed zombies with nothing but sexual assault on their minds!

Shivers is an effectively disturbing movie, not unlike most of Cronenberg's later horror classics. It's had a good hand in influencing later creature flicks. The story has a good premise and builds some terrific tension as it escalates to a great claustrophobic climax. What's clever about this movie is that most of the horror is suggested, we don't see the parasites much and their elusiveness just helps to create more tension. The makeup effects are decent for a low budgeter and the cast turn in some adequate performances, horror veteran Barbara Steele is a nice addition to the cast.

Shivers is a entertaining slice of B horror that manages to live up to its title well. A must-see for Cronenberg fans.

*** out of ****


Man, what better response to George Romero's newly created zombie archetype could be better? Cronenberg's debut feature, though a little worn around the edges, is a spectacular funhouse, a dire warning, a potent sexualized anxiety creation, and best of all, a whole lotta fun.

The feature starts with an advertisement for a nice, secluded Yuppie apartment complex, sensually (and homoerotically) appealing to live in some paradise high rise removed from the greater degradation of Canadian society. Class, sexuality, fear, and setting are all established in one swift stroke. It's not long before the carnage begins.

See, it seems some mad scientist was using the inhabitants of this virtual Eden to test out some replacement for organ transplants: a parasite that is also "a stimulant and an aphrodisiac". Basically, a person loses a kidney and replaces it with a penis-shaped worm that makes he or she attack and have sex with almost everything in sight... such automatized lust is very zombie-like, but with the added bonus of maintaining language and critical thinking (at least enough critical thinking to not be stopped by doors, for instance). Yesss, it's not long before these worms have burst from the interior of some hapless young man to destroy the entire community into an orgiastic apocalypse.

And seriously, if terms like "orgiastic apocalypse" excite, intrigue, or compel you, this movie is right for your tastes. Cronenberg begins his body horror mentality by mixing sex, death, violence, disease, medicine, and technology at manic levels, something he has continued to do for over thirty years now. The movie is a little different from his usual work in that as an early feature, he used some of the more regular tropes of horror film-making such as monster cam and chiaroscuro (later, he would find he didn't even need these devices as the plots and concepts of his ideas were enough, and most of the horror he'd show would be in a much more direct exposition with much more open and regular spaces). The movie at one point literally becomes a sex/horror fun-house as each door is opened to reveal another act found by the mainstream to be sordid and degraded, from pedophilia to incest to homosexuality and everything in between, the underlying erotic impulses of the community is abjectly revealed.

What's fascinating about this movie is that it's kind of hard, from modern eyes, to see the end result as being too bad of a deal. The troubling part is the sexual violence and the attacks, but once it's all done, it's hard to discern the difference between consensual and exploitative. Do the characters in this movie, upon getting invaded by the worms, start doing things against their will, or do the worms merely excite a repressed desire that they finally act out? "Everything is a sexual act", a nurse says at one point, describing a dream she had to her impotent lover/hero figure. Such a theme will continue through almost everything Cronenberg would later film, as he would become the master of body horror.

--PolarisDiB


Although it's fairly safe to state that David Cronenberg delivered his greatest work during the 1980's (with genuine masterpieces such as "The Fly", "Scanners" and "The Dead Zone"), his 70's films definitely shouldn't be underestimated! Titles like "The Brood" or "Rabid" are solid cult-gems that truly proved that he was a gifted filmmaker whose talent would only increase with every new project he set his intelligent mind to. This "Shivers", released back in 1975, is yet another entirely different chapter in the Cronenberg success tale... It was the director's first long-feature film, made with an extremely low budget, but already showing his large interest in mixing shocking horror with subtle social criticism. Obviously inspired by the style and format of Romero's classic "Night of the Living Dead", the story focuses on the newest invention of some over-ambitious medics: genetically engineered parasites that are entered inside human guinea pigs and supposed to fully take over the functions of ill or dying organs. Naturally, this medical breakthrough isn't as effective as it should be, and all the inhabitants of a luxurious building complex are mutating into sex-craving zombies. In many ways, Cronenberg's cinematic debut feels like watching an authentic exploitation film! It's not just the low budget and the extreme use of gore; the odd casting, the twisted premise and the apocalyptic ending all feel very exploitation-like. Heck, this film even goes by several vicious alternate titles that sound like they only could have been invented by wicked exploitation distributors (for example: "Orgy of the Blood Parasites" or "They Came from Within"). I surely don't intend to make all this sound like it's a negative thingon the contrary! "Shivers" is a truly bizarre and adrenalin-rushing movie containing loads of nasty gore, sleaze and morbid humor. Some of the dialogue is sensational (= "man is an animal that thinks too much" or "dying is an act of eroticism") and the fairly unknown cast does a great job portraying the sex-driven but mindless "zombies". There's a terrific supportive role for Barbara Steele! Nearly 15 years after her best role in "Black Sunday" she still is the yummiest witch queen of B-cinema! "Shivers" isn't exactly brilliant, but it's certainly better than most other contemporary horror films and it's a fascinating oddity showing where and how Cronenberg began his masterful career. Highly recommended!


Cronenberg's first movie of note, Shivers (AKA They Came from Within), is the director's first attempt at tackling a theme that would eventually become his trademark: the progression of man's evolution through technology. The result isn't as polished as his later films, with less considered direction and weak performances from some members of the cast, but the film still manages to impress thanks to Cronenberg's innovative story, some impressive make-up FX (by Joe Blasco) and a few very memorable scenes.

Set in Starliner Towers, an exclusive self-sufficient apartment block isolated on an island, Shivers stars Paul Hampton as resident doctor, Roger St. Luc, who discovers that some of the building's occupants have become host to man-made parasites that heighten sexual desire to dangerous levels. As more and more of the residents become infected, Roger attempts to at first destroy the creatures, then contain the situation, and eventually, when the block is finally completely over-run by sex-mad 'zombies', escape from the island.

Although Shivers might not 'wow' today's audiences with dazzling special effects and technical brilliance, there are still plenty of unsettling scenes that make this movie worth a look, especially if you're a fan of the director's later work: an early death scene sees a man strangling a young woman, before cutting her open and pouring acid into her body cavity; Betts (Barbara Steele) gets a bath-time shock as one naughty, phallic parasite pops out of the plughole and nips up her cooch; Nicholas Tudor (Allan Kolman) wishes he hadn't been getting some on the sly when his stomach begins undulating in a rather uneasy fashion; and a brilliant, downbeat ending sees the horny islanders getting into their cars for a trip to the mainland.


'Shivers' was the first major horror movie from Canadian film maker David Cronenberg, future director of 'The Brood', 'Scanners', 'Rabid', 'Videodrome', and the remake of 'The Fly'. I saw it in 1979 when it played on a double-bill with 'Rabid'. Afterwards, I found I had missed the last bus, and had to walk home three miles along a dimly-lit country road. You have no idea how scared I was! ( film critic Barry Norman said he felt like throwing up in the gutter after watching it ).

Shot in Montreal and on a low budget, 'Shivers' is set in a newly opened posh apartment block. One of the residents, a doctor, is struggling with a schoolgirl. He overpowers her, puts her under anaesthetic, and opens her stomach, before pouring acid into it. He then cuts his own throat with a scalpel.

He has created a strain of parasites intended to replace malfunctioning internal organs but which are now out of control. Resembling big worms, these bugs are passed onto people via sexual intercourse. Annabelle, the schoolgirl, has slept with every man in the building. Once infected, the victims - male and female, young and old alike - spread the plague to others, who then vomit blood and bugs all over the place. A small group of people try to escape but the victims have sealed the exits and cut off the phone lines.

This is 'Night Of The Living Dead' with an interesting, perverse twist. The zombies don't want to eat you, they want to make love to you! In common with many other '70's horror films, the lack of money proved advantageous as film makers had to rely on their imaginations to create terror, rather than fall back on the safety net of special effects. Romero, Carpenter, DePalma, and Cronenberg et al produced some of the finest horror pictures of all time in this period.

The cast of 'Shivers' were mainly unknowns, except for Barbara Steele, star of numerous horror classics such as 'Black Sunday' and 'Pit & The Pendulum'. Again this works in the film's favour. You feel as though you are watching real people in danger.

No special effects as such, except for Joe Blasco's 'creatures' and they are suitably disgusting. You won't eat a Hot Dog again after seeing this film! Despite the somber mood, there are a few touches of humour, such as a bug landing on someone's umbrella, and a man in a laundry room being ambushed by an obese, unattractive woman who wants his body: "I am hungry for love!". Yuck! One idea Cronenberg would not get away with today is the lift scene in which a mother and her young daughter are confronted by an infected man. The intimation is that he has sex with both of them. The leashed girls crawling around on all fours also probably would not be done now.

It is a gripping and terrifying film, but not for everyone - at least one person walked out during the screening I attended in 1979 - and also manages to make a serious comment about the nature of human sexuality. The world the infected wish to create - where everybody makes love all the time - sounds attractive, but what would it means in terms of depersonalisation? ( I know what you are thinking. Who cares? )

'Shivers' should not be remade. It was of its time. I would hate to see it redone with lashings of C.G.I. and all its intelligence removed.


so these leeches get in you and turn you into a sex crazed zombie. that's the plot. this flick has exactly what makes a horror movie good: despair and hopelessness. it leaves you wondering, "how this boy gonna get out of this situation?!" and the hero of this flick, roger, he catches on to what's going' down right away, and acts like a true boy from the word go. what's he do when some hottie tries to get all up on him during the mayhem? knocks her out without a second thought, of course.

cronenberg always delivers. horror fans, watch this, and take some notes.


There was a time when the drive-in was the place to be; it was at the drive-in that one could find gems like ISLAND OF THE DAMNED (an Italian fright film that began with a group of people coming ashore on an apparently deserted island, only to find that all of the adults on the island have been murdered by the children- a film that may very well have inspired the vastly inferior CHILDREN OF THE CORN). For some unknown reason, ISLAND OF THE DAMNED isn't even listed on the IMDb. David Cronenberg's first feature, THEY CAME FROM WITHIN (a.k.a., SHIVERS), is. Creepy in the extreme, THEY CAME FROM WITHIN is the type of grex that Cronenberg may have had in mind when he said this: "Art is the tree of Life, Science is the tree of Death." When Dan O'Bannon and Ridley Scott set about remaking Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (as ALIEN), they borrowed liberally from a number of sources- including the "chest-bursters" from THEY CAME FROM WITHIN. The final scene had great significance for us as we drove slowly out of the drive-in that night, into the waiting darkness...


On Starliner Island, you have luxury high-rise living with deluxe accommodations, including a delicatessen, a boutique, a doctor and a dentist, dry cleaning, and parasitic sexually transmitted slugs that are taking over the population. What more could you ask for? Now, I realize that this is made in 1974, but I don't exactly buy the "luxury" apartment living thing, for this high-rise is the epitome of tackiness, and most of it seems to be furnished in ultra-modern poor taste.

But enough of that, on to the important stuff, as the film opens and an excited young couple come to view apartments. This is interspersed with scenes of an elderly man as he chases a woman in a school-girl uniform around one of these lovely dwellings, eventually captures her, and cuts her open on the dining table and pours acid inside of her. And then, he cuts his own throat. How's that for an opening scene? Well, it seems that this man is a doctor, and he was experimenting with a sort of parasite that was part aphrodisiac and part something else. And Anabelle Brown, she of the school-girl uniform, was his test subject. The problem is, that Annabelle was rather well known (and liked, apparently) by many men within this complex and had frequent visits from them, and therefore she has shared this little parasite with them.

The resident doctor, Roger St. Luc, has visited with an old college professor of his, Rollo (played by Cronenberg regular, Joe Silver), and has found out more of the deceased man's background and what he was up to. And that gives him a bit of insight as to what's going on at Starliner Island, although, not quite enough to deal with the problem. Dr. St. Luc as a rather interesting hairstyle, too, kind of an extreme wind-blown look, perhaps achieved by applying spray after coming in out of a gale.

At any rate, the parasites are moving from person to person & also can survive outside of the body, but are always looking for new bodies to host them, so they aren't outside for long. And pretty soon the whole complex is full of sex-crazed murderous lunatics. Our intrepid doctor is determined not to become one of them and it does seem he's one of the last holdouts, but unfortunately not for long.

And then, after all the fun is over at home, why not take a drive to Montreal? It is, after all, only minutes away.

This is an impressive debut and definitely different and original for the time in which it was made. Cronenberg is rather a master at incorporating the creepy and nasty into "everyday life" and this was just a taste of things to come.

8 out of 10.


Oh, YEAH!!! Now THIS is what I'm talking' about!

If you want to know who established a new direction towards more originality in horror, you almost don't have to look much further than David Cronenberg. On limited budgets, with practically no-name casts (at least in his earlier work), he created some of the nastiest little gems a horror hound could ever hope to skid across! Where Stanley Kubrick's excursions into sci-fi/horror warned that man's faith in technology would eventually betray and destroy him, David said, "Uh-UNHN, baby! Your body will turn against you first, way before that happens!"

He'd said it before quite effectively in his first full-length feature, RABID. Then he took it to the next level with SHIVERS, (released in this country as THEY CAME FROM WITHIN.)

At a swanky (well, for the '70's, anyway) and relatively isolated apartment complex outside of Montreal, a young doctor is about to discover the horrifying price for his relentless ambition, (as all well-intended mad doctors must.)

In an attempt to develop a living organism that would potentially replace failing human organs as a viable substitute, he has instead created a highly contagious parasite, which infects its victims by means of almost any physical or sexual contact and turns them into deranged, sex-crazed zombies! Once the doctor thought he was the master of his creation, but now he is the Host! And for his mistake, everyone else in the complex is about to pay the ultimate price.

Though you could say that SHIVERS "borrows" its influence from movies like William Castle's THE TINGLER or the cult favorites THE FLESH EATERS or FIEND WITHOUT A FACE, Cronenberg has put more thought - and a lot more gore - behind his movie than any of those. Plus you just can't go wrong when a movie allows Scream Queen Legend Barbara Steele to strip down and get naked in a bathtub scene...which is only sexy for about a minute, and I won't say more than THAT.

Well, whatever inspired him to make it, Cronenberg in turn 'infected' countless other filmmakers with his vision of parasitic terror, and many, many horror films since have duplicated the SHIVERS vibe, (NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, THE HIDDEN, SLUGS and most recently the excellent SLITHER, just to name a few.)

Though the low-budget is pretty obvious and some things about it are dated, (this WAS over thirty years ago, after all), Cronenberg still stages some scenes of horror here that will have you open-mouthed with shock and surprise. (Considering the plot of SHIVERS, though, you may want to keep your mouth shut...as much as possible!)


A virulent strain of ugly and lethal parasites turn the residents of a swanky deluxe apartment complex into depraved sex-crazed fiends. Doctor Roger St. Luc (the hopelessly bland Paul Hampton) and his amiable colleague Rollo Linsky (a wonderfully engaging portrayal by Joe Silver) try to figure out what's going on before it's too late. Writer/director David Cronenberg concocts an unsparingly bleak meditation on the horrors of mankind being reduced to sheer psychotic libido impulses (check out the scene with a homely fat middle-aged woman jumping a younger man while exclaiming "I'm hungry for love!") and does a sound job of creating and maintaining a cold, icky tone which becomes more increasingly creepy and unnerving as the grim narrative progresses towards a wild pull-out-all-the-stops climax which plays like a perverted version of "Night of the Living Dead." The acting is rather hit or miss: Hampton barely registers as the insipid would-be hero, the ever-alluring Lynn Lowry contributes a memorably sexy turn as the enticing Nurse Forsythe, Barbara Steele projects her usual sense of class and commanding presence as poised lesbian Betts, Allan Kolman does well as the infected Nicholas Tudor, and pretty Susan Petrie likewise impresses as Tudor's sweet, distraught wife Janine. Moreover, this picture comes through with several effectively nasty moments: the jolting opening with a deranged old scientist murdering his teenage mistress, cutting opening her abdomen, and pouring acid in her stomach prior to slitting his own throat; Betts being violated by a parasite while taking a bath, a parasite attacking Linsky by attaching itself to his face, and a brief, yet startling shot of two little kids on leashes walking on all fours and barking like dogs. Robert Saad's plain cinematography presents a credible evocation of everyday pedestrian reality while the spare, chilling score does the shuddery trick. Joe Blasco's hideously ghastly and gruesome make-up f/x deliver the disgusting goods. Plus there's a wickedly twisted sense of blithely morbid black humor at work throughout. Not peak Cronenberg, but still worthwhile and engrossing all the same.


I own the entire DVD collection for both "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." As a university professor, it is required viewing for my 20th century world history class. All elements of this production are astounding: casting, acting, writing, historical accuracy, filming, locations, not to mention the haunting music.

Many of my students have told me that seeing this series changed their view and motivation of the importance of historical knowledge and the passing of it from generation to generation. They have even formed outside discussion groups because the allotted class time is never enough to accommodate the forum required for voicing and digesting their thoughts and feelings brought on by the film. This is a film for the ages.


I really enjoyed this maxi series. It's too long to be a mini! This and the final portion are a whole lotta video..they total 14 DVDs. The initial smash series, Winds of War, was several more DVDs. So all in all, this was a long series! As I said, I enjoyed the entire "package". However, with 5 years between the first and the second series, much happened and the result was a number of actor/actress changes that make the second series confusing after seeing the first. Major characters, such as Natalie Jastrow-Henry, played by Ali McGraw in the first, Jane Seymour in the second. Aaron Jastrow, John Houseman, Sir John Gielgud. There are some others as well. Robert Mitchum and Polly Bergen reprise their superb performances as Capt. and Mrs. Pug Henry. Overall, despite the change in personnel, the acting remains great throughout the entire series. It's just kinda confusing having two different Natalies, two Aarons, two Byrons, two Janices, etc. I'm rambling, sorry. This series is long, but doesn't PLAY long. It moves along nicely and has enough plot twists to keep the viewers interest. I like this whole thing well enough to have paid to own it from start to finish. At least rent this a couple of DVDs at a time. It's worth your time!


The broadcast of "War and Remembrance", based on Herman Wouk's novel, was a television event. Although recapturing the excitement of watching the miniseries can cost you around $180, it is well worth it. From its beautiful opening and closing score to its unforgettable images and people, "War and Remembrance" is like no other. Because it was an epic miniseries, which cost around $110 million to make, the television powers that be were able to film at various locations around the world and bring vastly different (yet interconnected) stories of the war to the small screen. In that sense, it is like several miniseries rolled into one.

"War and Remembrance" revolves around the lives of two families, the Henrys and the Jastrows. The connection between them is provided through the marriage of Byron Henry and Natalie Jastrow. The Henrys are a naval family: Victor "Pug" Henry serves both as a diplomat and as the commander of a destroyer at various times in the series, Byron Henry serves on a submarine in the Pacific, Warren Henry is a naval pilot married to the daughter of a Senator. Byron's wife, Natalie Jastrow is an American Jew in Europe trying to escape the Nazis along with her uncle, Aaron Jastrow, and her son with Byron, Louis Henry. Aaron Jastrow's cousin is a Jewish Polish soldier trying to survive Auschwitz. Those are just some of the characters whose stories captivate the audience. There are also the experiences of their spouses, lovers, and the relatives of their spouses and lovers.

The audience is also given a glimpse into the thinking of the Nazi leadership, with Steven Berkoff providing a chilling and brilliant portrayal of Adolf Hitler. Here was a look at the Holocaust and the events and decisions leading up to it that was unprecedented at the time that the series debuted in 1988.

It is unfortunate that I have not found many libraries that carry copies of this miniseries on either VHS or DVD, forcing many people to either buy it or miss out on experiencing it. I, for one, have chosen to buy it, and I do not regret it for a day. I also recommend reading the book.


This is one of the most powerful dramas I have ever seen. I read the book over 10 years ago, so when I saw the miniseries at my local video library, I decided to have a look. Seven tapes, about three hours each, but I would gladly have watched seven more.

I'm not a great "war movie" fan, but War and Remembrance succeeds in capturing the enormous scope of the Second World War while also telling the stories of personal sacrifice and heartbreaking tragedy.

One of its many great strengths is the way it brings out the fact that not all the Germans were bad, and not all the members of the Allied forces were good. There were noble, patriotic members of Hitler's staff who were horrified by what he was doing. And there were also shortsighted clowns among the Allied forces and in their political ranks.

*****MILD SPOILER ALERT**********

To illustrate this, Aster's action against the fleeing Japanese seamen showed that the Germans and Japanese weren't the only ones who committed atrocities. I know Aster was a fictional character, but it's very likely that things like that did happen.

It would have been great to have had a closer look at what was going on among the Japanese too, but I guess I'm just being greedy!!

*********ANOTHER MILD SPOILER *********

The acting is mostly good, and a lot of it is outstanding. I loved the narrative voice-overs of the battles and other historical facts. Scary to think how close the Battle of Midway came to being a disaster for the Americans. The war might have had a very different outcome. The combination of "documentary" and "story" really works well.

The portrayals of Hitler, Churchill and Roosevelt were great -- better than most of the "main" actors, in my view! A lot of this War and Remembrance is difficult to watch, especially the concentration camp scenes. But painful as it is, it's right to remember that horrors like that did happen. Again, the film does make the point that it wasn't ALL Germans who advocated for such treatment of the Jewish people.

The only reason I haven't given it a "10" is because there are so many characters that somebody who has not read the book might get confused.

But it's an excellent, praiseworthy film. One that I think I'll be reflecting on for a long time.


I am a WWII buff (and history in general as well). This series (hardly a "mini") covers both the European and Pacific theaters of WWII thru the eyes of the Victor Henry family. Not only is it a very interesting story about the lives of these specific people, but also tells a lot about WWII and it inhumanity. So, on both accounts it is excellent, and depicts most of the WWII major events, although not all equally.

Back in those days, there was no CGI, so what you see is either real life, or models. Obviously, the war scenes are a combination of both, but very well done so you believe you are actually there in the battles, on the ships, or in the planes.

While this series (War & Remembrance) is 6 DVD's (30 hours), I was striving for more when it was all done. I watched it when it was aired in 1988/1989, so it was not new for me from the DVD set. Nonetheless, I was still captivated, and will gladly watch it again. The sound is also updated and very good (DD 5.1).

I would recommend this to anyone who cares to look into WWII and its horrors. It gets a bit graphic with the Jewish persecution and extermination, but doesn't touch on the horrors commented by the Japanese in the Pacific. So, if this sort of realism offends, either skip over those parts or don't watch it. But remember, the name of the book (and hence, of the series) was so designed and selected such that we as a human race never forget all the terrible things that happened and that caused so much world pain and destruction.

Jane Seymour, John Gigliold, and Robert Mitchum are all excellent and make you believe they were these people. I don't know why Jane & John weren't used in the original series (The Winds of War) since they were so marvelous and believable and held true to their characters throughout. The very end is heart wrenching, so have your Kleenex ready!


I actually saw this film not that long ago on History Channel, after seeing the entire Winds of War on network TV when I was down with a back injury years ago. Networks no longer make these sweeping miniseries. In one way, it's good, because so much of the time is spent on inconsequential scenes just to fill time. On the other hand, it's a shame. This particular miniseries brought the horrors of what the Jews suffered in World War II right into your living room, and it was pretty harrowing. Watching it on History Channel was an education, as historians discussed the movie during the break. They agreed that War and Remembrance was incredibly accurate in its depiction of the war.

Of course, having John Gielgud in the cast didn't hurt! He was absolutely marvelous. I can only say that the entire story arc concerning Gielgud and his family was remarkable. The scene where Natalie eats the apple brought to the cattle cars by the Christians was incredible, as was the entire cattle car saga. The concentration camp scenes, the depiction of the commandant and his family, the entire cover-up aided and abetted by the Red Cross, Natalie's will to survive and be reunited with her son -- they are etched in my heart and will stay there forever.

I heartily recommend this miniseries. Look for it on History Channel to get the commentary. This was superior work by Dan Curtis.


As a college instructor of modern problems and history- I am appalled by the total lack of knowledge today's students ( and fellow instructors ) have regarding the issues surrounding WWII. Moreover- many of these same persons have no ability ( or desire ) to make the connection of those years( 1933-1945 ) as to how the world is now formulated. Director Dan Curtis has exhibited both the will and ability to take both Herman Wouk's novel and incorporate it so successfully into this massive, and titanic film. I believe, that both WoW and W & R, along with "Saving Private Ryan " should be required film watching for all graduating high schoolers. Admittedly many of the films realistic and gritty scenes are difficult to watch- but unfortunately reality is often a cruel place. Both WoW and W&R give an honest lesson on the eventual triumph of the forces of good over evil which the world faced in the middle of the 20th century. The side stories of the characters involved and their individual romances and escapades only solidify the historical significance of the film. My favorite scenes involved the accurate depiction of the battle of Midway. Midway probably saved several years of hard Pacific fighting and thousands of lives as a result of the American victory. Grade A+ performances for Robert Mitchum and Jane Seymore. Steven Berkoff was masterful as Hitler and Jeremy Kemp continued his credible role as the sympathetic and loyal General Armin von Roon. Barry Morse also deserves credit for being able to switch roles from the slimy Wolf Stoller in WoW to a wise but challenging General Halder in W& R ( One goof- Halder was not executed in the aftermath of the July 22, 1944 attempt on Hitler as depicted in the film- he survived the war ). Both the Winds of War and War and Remembrance are films that must be seen!


es, I've seen hundreds of WWII/Holocaust films. No other has the emotional impact as well as the realism of War and Remembrance. Of course it is the longest such film ever made at over 30 hours, which gives director Dan Curtis the time to portray everything of Herman Wouk's book. Made as a sequel to the miniseries Winds of War, this is superior in many ways. The first half on this DVD set covers the years 1941-1943, beginning with Pearl Harbor and weaving the Henry family into all the events of the war. Jane Seymour is excellent as Natalie and John Gielgud perfect as Aaron as they play cat and mouse as American Jews stuck in Europe while Aaron's "good friend" Beck keeps tracking them.

With a cast of thousands, an exhaustive list of stars, and on location in ten countries, a lesser director could never have pulled it off, and Dan Curtis rises to the occasion of recreating the events to a tee, including graphic depictions of the Holocaust. A few different story lines run through. Most interesting to me is that of Natalie and Aaron and their attempts to escape Europe. Gielgud and Seymour cannot be praised highly enough for believability and complexity, their plight being the most emotion provoking. Milton Johns gives a chillingly intense portrayal of Eichmann. The next of interest is Slote (David Dukes) as a U.S. official in Europe trying to bring the Holocaust to the attention of Roosevelt, but to no avail. Pug (Robert Mitchum reprising his Winds of War role) has an interesting segment in Russia, but the Pacific War, submarine battles and all, though well done, didn't hold my interest.

Prisoners at Auschwitz attempt to smuggle out film to the Allies, and the depiction of Holocaust events is realistic beyond belief. Volume 1 contains the Baba Yar massacre, Himmler observing a "Special Action", and the digging up of mass graves. Volume 2 is even more graphic. Steven Berkoff as Hitler is great with his over-the-top ranting and raging...hey you can't BE too over-the-top in portraying Hitler. Volume 1 ends after living in relative luxury with Aaron and Natalie being transported to Theriesenstadt. On the way a lady says, "We bought an apartment there with a view by the lake". Needless to say there was no lake.

War and Remembrance towers over Schindler's List in every way. Up to the present W&R is the most realistic dramatic portrayal of the events. Some have learned the lessons of WWII and the Holocaust. Those currently running the world have not.


After reading the book The Winds of War and watching the first mini series in 1983, I waited for War and Remembrance to premier in 1989. I own the tape sets and re-watch them every one in a while! Herman Wouk's novel was GREAT and Dan Curtis was outstanding in both mini series. The ABC television network should re-run both mini series for sweeps week. I bet it would be a hit 2nd time around in the 21st century!


*Very minor spoilers*

This unsurpassed mega-series along with it's prequel "The Winds of War" is beyond stunning, it is shattering. This is a compelling, mesmerizing, heartbreaking yet inspiring epic which towers above all other depictions of World War Two and the Holocaust. In fact this body of work, taken in total is in a category all its own: there is simply nothing to compare it to and nothing remotely like it. Rarely has a work of art affected me so profoundly. It asks, and even answers, some of the biggest questions: what is evil? how can one live a meaningful life in the face of such senseless, brutish evil? What is a full life? How should one live? How should one die? As above, this is in a category all of it's own: while it has flaws they cannot take away from the overall impact of the story. However it is simply flabbergasting at times how the story can shift from casting an intense, even hypnotic spell in its unflinching, devastating depictions of the Holocaust to showing long, boring, drawn out scenes straight out of a daytime soap opera (albeit with superior actors). I must admit I fast forwarded through most of the scenes featuring the vapid, hysterical, and generally loathsome Rhoda Henry (Polly Bergen). Also the amount of drinking and smoking without anyone (except President Roosevelt) suffering any ill effects was odd, given the otherwise brutal realism. At one point a Russian General drinks an entire fifth of vodka in about 15 seconds. Several hours later he is neither tipsy nor showing any ill effects (or indeed effects of any kind) whatsoever. The amount of drinking in this film is simply astounding, but may be historically accurate, I don't know. One thing that absolutely takes away from the overall greatness of the film is it's one-dimensional depiction of anyone non-white. Any Blacks or Asians (even the Japanese Generals) are utter flat cartoons and this is troubling especially in the context of an otherwise powerful anti-racist message. Perhaps if this had been made today such an error would not have been made.

One other odd aspect of this series, which people find jarring to various degrees is that different actors fill major roles in the first and second series. While both sets of actors who play Natalie and Aaron Jastrow are excellent and soon seem natural, I found the switch from Jan-Michael Vincent to Hart Bochner as Byron Henry totally distracting from beginning to end. Mr. Bochner, while talented, simply could not fill the inspired, natural reading of the role by Jan-Michael Vincent. I also found the switch in actors playing Adolph Hitler distracting, but to a much lesser degree. In The Winds of War, Gunter Meisner gave a chilling and serious reading of the evil genius, but in War and Remembrance, I found Steven Berkoff's over-the-top, even clownish, reading of the Fuher to be unfortunate. An excellent companion piece to this would be Downfall (Der Utergang), the film about Hitler's last days in the bunker featuring an astonishing and courageous performance by the Swiss actor Bruno Ganz as Hitler. Robert Mitchum, despite being older than the character the role originally called for, was simply perfect as Captain (Later Admiral) "Pug" Henry: I was not overly familiar with him and am pleased to have found a new favorite! One other minor quibble was that some of the Nazis had ridiculous Colonel-Klinkish accents while others spoke like Oxford-educated Americans, depending on how "evil" they were. This was silly, but easy to overlook given the overall greatness of the piece.

I am a student of history and the historical accuracy in this piece is far beyond anything I have ever seen in a work of fiction. There is a time commitment in watching this: over 30 hours, all told, but it is more than worth it. In fact, I plan to revisit this monumental, tour-de-force, this unbelievably touching, yet oddly uneven masterwork more than once. Rent it. See it. Love it.

Warning: this is not for the innocent. Unless you are ready to let your children start to let go of childhood and begin to ask very deep, very troubling, and very adult questions don't let them watch it. This is absolutely guaranteed to give younger children nightmares, and very likely to seriously traumatize them.


I have had this on VHS and now on DVD for a long time, I love it and have re-watched it a few times. I must say that Jane Seymour was preferable to Ali MacGraw as was Hart Bochner to Jan Michael-Vincent. I have both Winds of War and War and Remembrance so I can say that I prefer Hart and Jane as I have seen both series. If you are going to watch this series do watch Winds of War first. The scenes in the concentration camps are horrifying and terrible, but this adds to the excellence of the program because you want to be able to emphasize with what is happening to these innocent victims and feel their pain, anguish, confusion and bewilderment.


If you want to measure how much television production and mass entertainment has regressed over 20 years you should check "War and Remembrance" and compare it with trash aired on television and theaters right now. Characters straight from Herman Wouk's original novel are dramatic , have feelings , fears , struggles , personal agonies , accomplishments and failures. They are real as much as they can be in fact too real in stark horrific reality of wartime. We see two families Henry's , Wastrows and people around them living , struggling , trying to survive and move on in these extraordinary conditions of greatest war mankind ever made. Meanwhile we witness main events and personalities of war , battles , diplomatic events etc. And yes best produced holocaust scenes ever made in television. Horror of what Nazis had done to Jews , Slavs , Gypsies , Communists and other undesirable minorities were sampled and brought to screen with dramatic acting , intense detailed production values. I fact same high production value standards is in entire miniseries itself. From cold bitter merciless concrentation camps to wartime America , from occupied France to Germany to naval battles at sea everything has an authentic look of 1940'es. It is very informative in historical sense.

Although characters are depicted like in novel not all characters are well written ( both in novel and in miniseries ) Romance story of Captain Pug Henry with Pamela Tudsburry who is half his age is very unconvincing and compared with stark brutality of what Jastrows enduring at hands of Nazis it is just pointless and trivial. Same thing can be said for Polly Bergen's character , Rhode Henry , Pug's drunk wife and her relationships and manners in comfortable US. Instead they could give us some more battle scenes and other stuff about war and contribitions of characters. Fortunetely rest of casting and character writing is very very good. Jane Symour and John Gielgund are just awesome as Aaron and Natalie Jastrow , Jews who are trying to survive in Nazi occupied Europe. Hart Borchner is also giving a good performance as US submarine officer Byron Henry who is trying to reach his wife Natalie and his child trapped in Europe. Victoria Tenant , Robert Morley are not bad either. Rest of cast and supporting characters are also showing very admirable performances. Stefan Berkoff as Adolf Hitler is quite entertaining to watch for example.....


I was not at all happy with the replacement of Ali McGraw with Jane Seymour; Jan Michael Vincent with Hart Bochner and some of the other changes. Thank God they left Robert Mitchum alone despite his age. I really missed John Houseman in his role as Aaron Jastrow and while I consider the late Sir John Gielgud to have been a superb actor, I kept looking for Houseman. Unfortunately his health prevented his reprisal of that role. I have nothing personal against Ms. Seymour but I much preferred Ms. McGraw in the role of Natalie. I also preferred Mr. Vincent over Mr. Bochner as I believe he portrayed Byron much more convincingly. I gave War and Remembrance a seven (7) rating as opposed to the ten (10) for Winds of War. Why? Precisely because of the change in actors. While I could understand the change from Houseman to Geilgud, I think there were too many changes. I am thankful they left Jeremy Kemp in the role of Gen. Von Roon however I was more impressed with Gunter Meisner's portrayal of Adolf Hitler in Winds of War over Steven Berkoff's portrayal in War and Remembrance. Ralph Bellamy did a masterful job as FDR. As to the critics of historical accuracy, the author was not presenting his work as a non-fiction textbook; but rather a novel set against the background of events leading up to and including World War II. And yes, there were some changes from the novel to the screen, but again, this is a great work of fiction that remarkably included real life events!!!


I doubt anyone could afford to produce this miniseries today. I saw it when it first aired and I watched it again this month on DVD and it is amazing how well it holds up. The only possible improvement would be to the special effects in the naval battle scenes because of how far we've come in 20 years with CGI graphics; but that's it! This is a masterpiece and I include the "Winds of War" in that category. The attention to detail of the period, the vehicles, costumes, locations, and interiors just take your breath away.

The cast was superb and right down the line. I can't think of a weak link among them. I did see a comment here about Robert Mitchum being a "lazy" actor in this role as "Pug" Henry but I think he played it just right. He was first and foremost a dedicated military man, not a Lothario. For an interesting contrast to his on-screen relationship with Polly Bergen as his wife Rhoda Henry, you should see the chilling dynamics between the two in 1962's "Cape Fear". By any measure Mitchum was a great actor.

Although other actors in this miniseries have more on-screen time than does Mitchum, Mitchum is clearly the anchor. And, although the performances throughout the entire cast were stellar, I have to mention that John Gielgud's Aaron Jastrow was absolutely brilliant. John Houseman, who played Jastrow in "Winds of War" was magnificent in his own right but John Gielgud made Jastrow his own in a way that I doubt even Houseman could match.

There are very few guarantees in life but "War and Remembrance" is worth every viewing minute. Just be sure to watch the "Winds of War" first.


It is long, but it is a true epic saga of the most momentous conflict in human history, The length allows time for the multiple story lines of the various characters in all their complexity, to unfold. The story of WW2, in all its courage, profundity, terror and tragedy could never really be told any other way. TV, of course, does have its limitations as a tool for teaching history, but with a production like this, it comes close to transcending them. The acting, particularly by Mitchum, Seymour and, most especially Gielgud, is consistently excellent. By my own measure this may even be the most profound role of Gielgud's long and illustrious career. Anyone interested in quality historical drama - or simply in the human tragedy of WW2 - should put this production on their "must see" list.


I looked forward to watching sequel to 'Winds of War'. I must admit that it was not as good as 'Winds of War' The scenes are well done but the viewer seems to be just getting a narrative of all the major events in World War II including the Holocaust.

Whereas 'Winds of War' arouses deep feelings and emotions but this one doesn't. Maybe I expected too much.

On the positive side, Jane Seymour is much better then Ali McGraw in every aspect. So is the guy who played Hitler.

In conclusion, these two series (Winds of War and War and Remembrance) should be very good for history students and scholars


The cast changes made between the series were perfect. I enjoyed Winds of War, although I didn't really care for Jan Michael Vincent as Byron or Ali McGraw (who I never found attractive) as Natalie. Hart Bochner is excellent as Byron and a much better actor than Vincent, and Jane Seymour as Natalie delivers the performance of a lifetime. The scene where (SPOILER!!!) she eats an entire apple, seeds, stem and all, on the train car taking her to Auschwitz is stunning in its power, its portrayal of true hunger and of Natalie's indomitable will to survive and see her son again.

John Houseman is a fine actor, but rather cold and unreadable, so replacing him with Sir John Gielgud, with his warm and expressive grandfatherly face, was a smart move. And anyone with a lick of sense would have replaced that comical, cardboard cutout of a Hitler from the first series. Steve Berkoff does a pretty good job in that role. And Sharon Stone is ... hmmm ... delicious as Janet. You can understand why Byron is so attracted to her.

I guess they couldn't replace Bob Mitchum as Victor Henry, and he does a fine job, but I kind of wish they had chosen a younger actor for the role originally. Mitchum was in his 70's and in the novels "Pug" is in his early to mid 50's. Still, he does give the role a gravity that perhaps not many actors in their 50's at that time would have been able to pull off.

Anyway, after Winds of War I remember someone saying in an article in TV Guide or someplace that they would never make War and Remembrance because it was just too big. Then a few years later here it is (I wasn't even aware they were filming it ... that would never happen today with the Internet, lol). I was so excited when I saw it was coming to television (I was in my early 20's at the time) and I watched every minute of it and taped most of it. It is one of the most amazing productions I have ever seen. I was mesmerized.

The death camp scenes, shown without commercial interruption, are graphic and gut-wrenching to watch. War may be hell but this deliberate, calculated, methodical "processing" of men, women, and children plumbed the deepest depths of human evil. What is truly terrifying is that the Auschwitz commander, Rudolf Hoess (Gunther Halmer) is never portrayed as an out-and-out "evil" man. He feels some guilt for what his job calls on him to do but feels he nevertheless must do it as best and efficiently and "humanely" as he can. He is just another fellow, a family man, trying to do his job and get ahead. It just so happens that his "job" is presiding over a mass slaughter of helpless men, women, and children whose only crime was being Jewish.

Other standout scenes for me included the submarine battles, which were every bit as suspenseful and terrifying and claustrophobic as "Das Boot." The final scene is perfect in every way--I've watched it dozens of times. It's done a little differently than in the book but the changes are just right. I won't describe it but it will lift your heart and make you cry like a baby at the same time. Powerful and deeply moving.


War and Rememberence is a definite masterpiece of a saga ever to be shown on television. Since after it was aired there has not been a mini-series in production. It had reached its high water mark. The secret to this min-series success was that it incorporated the fictional characters of Henry family for the "Winds of War" novel and aka television "prequel" with real history; real events; real facts. How it impacted the Henry family, and showed us why we should care about them now than the first series. It had showed us about events of World War II, an all the horrors of a world at war. Why we, no matter when you were born, should never forget. It had showed us background of historical facts not taught in school or openly lectured by mainstream historians. I am very much surprised that the History Channel or A&E has not showed this on their stations already.


This movie is quite simply one of the best I have ever witnessed. The historical events portrayed in this film are extremely accurate and provide the viewer with a window to the past without actually being there. But just like any other movie, it is also very entertaining and keeps you in your seat from beginning to end. I have seen all the other war movies, and along with "The Winds Of War", "War And Remembrance" is a very good history lesson and by far the best movie depicting World War Two you will ever see.


..truly the most magnificent, majestic ..tv masterpiece of all time. It baffles me that it hasn't been re-released on DVD. In a day an age when the market place is swallowing movies with meaning and history this should be an instant success.


After watching the Winds of War, I looked forward to War and Remembrance. I found the sequel far more depressing and less entertaining than the original. Perhaps that was its intent but it is difficult for the average viewer to sit through so many hours of endless anguish. Not for the faint hearted. That having been said, the acting is excellent and far superior to the original. I could not see the wise cracking Ali McGraw playing the holocaust scenes in the camps. Jane Seymour was superb and it is probably the finest thing she has ever done. John Gielgud demonstrates why he was one of the foremost actors of his century. Mitchum was effective in serious scenes involving war and politics but unconvincing and without passion in his scenes with the very desirable Victoria Tennant. I thought the portrayal of Hitler, as in the original was a characterture and clownish and difficult to take seriously. Hardy Krueger was more realistic as Rommel and a pleasant contrast to all the stereotypical German villains. While I recognize it is difficult to accurately portray military events of WWII in the 1980's, some obvious inaccuracies were evident to any WWII veterans or history buffs. A scene of Roosevelt aboard the cruiser Baltimore was obviously filmed on a battleship. As a former submariner, I found the interior submarine scenes accurate and realistic. However, the exterior scenes showing depth charges repeatedly exploding within feet of the submarine would have been unsurvivable. The final surface engagement between Bryan's submarine and a Japanese destroyer was totally ludicrous. No attempt was made to fire any torpedoes at the approaching destroyer and choosing to exchange broadsides under those circumstances would have been suicidal. The submarine did more damage with one shot from its deck gun than the destroyer was able to do with far more firepower. As the submarine blithely sailed away from the burning destroyer, it strains credulity as it ignores the considerable talent and élan demonstrated by the Japanese navy throughout the war. The death of Bryan's former skipper was an accurate portrayal of an actual incident as was the machine gunning of Japanese survivors which did occur during the war. War and Remembrance might be an informative narrative for a history student unfamiliar with that era, but it is not for the squeamish seeking television entertainment.


I loved the Herman Wouk novels THE WINDS OF WAR and WAR AND REMEMBRANCE. They are brilliant books and are among the finest fictionalized accounts of war available (i.e., the places and events are real but the characters are fictionalized amalgams of real people). Each book is about 700-800 pages long and it was wonderful to see them brought to the small screen instead of the theaters. That's because some magnificent person at the TV networks decided that the books MUST be made into 2 separate mini-series mega-events. And, even more impressive is that the movies are so true to the books and fascinating. I loved how the series bounced back and forth to the different characters and locations. In this followup series, the movie bounces from the sub war of the Pacific to diplomatic meetings throughout the world (particularly in the USSR) to the horrors of the concentration camps. It really was a major work of love that probably will never be repeated again. Brilliant and wonderful throughout--my highest possible rating. The only MINOR problem you will find is that the actors playing several key characters changed between the two series. Also, do NOT watch this until you first watch THE WINDS OF WAR to set the context for this miniseries.