When Olivia DeHavilland played the title role in The Ambassador Daughter you have to ask yourself what in the world was she doing with parts that Audrey Hepburn should have played if she wanted it?

Back of course in her salad days at Warner Brothers, Olivia would have definitely had a part like this, Jack Warner would have seen to it. Back in those days I could see her being cast with Errol Flynn as the young soldier. Of course back then there was no North Atlantic Treaty Organization and no American soldiers stationed in Europe. But that's indeed another story.

John Forsythe is the young GI here and he's being used as a guinea pig in an experiment concocted by United States Senator Adolphe Menjou who's deeply concerned about the behavior of our GIs on leave in Paris. I sure hope Menjou's constituents were watching this movie and sent him packing post haste after the next election. Edward Arnold as the U.S. Ambassador to France and General Minor Watson are all in on this foolishness. This was Arnold's last film, not a good way to exit.

Myrna Loy has a supporting part as Menjou's wife and she at least keeps a dignified front. What a shame that two giant cinema icons like Loy and DeHavilland should do this piece ridiculous fluff in their only joint screen effort.


The 1 star rating is for the DVD which may be the worst I've ever seen, and my first DVD was the original "Blade Runner" release. The print is sadly faded and filthy--scratched, blotched, lined. It jumps, it skips, it ripples, it does everything but the hokey-pokey. Even worse, this early Cinemascope release (2.55) is given a full screen presentation so every blemish is emphasized. Even panned and scanned would've been an improvement. Instead all we're given is the center of the ultra-widescreen image at all times. The result being that in most scenes part or all of the speakers are off screen and sometimes the featured action as well, while most of the image is left empty. Beware Education 2000, who released this abomination--they have no regard whatsoever for their product. If you want it, and it does have its charms however slight, get it off TCM. Their print is lbx'd and in good condition.


What were they thinking? This movie's script is terrible (cliche after cliche), and it's doubtful that even appropriate actors could have rescued it. Olivia de Havilland looks about 50 here (Myrna Loy is supposed to be decades older, but they look like contemporaries), rather than the ingenue the role calls for. Compare this to Roman Holiday, made about the same time--a wonderful script, marvelously appropriate actors, and enchanting use of its location. This movie represents the worst of 50's film-making--a huge waste of talent.


I picked this movie up in the Walmart $5 bin as a present for a friend. I couldn't help myself and I opened it and watched it. This has to be one of the hardest movies to sit through ever. The only good part is random nudity, but it doesn't make up for the crime that the producer committed against the viewer. Painfully bad to watch. I thought I might get some cheap laughs from it, like the laughs you get from watching Point Break. I just felt insulted. I normally think it's funny when someone tries to create the surfer lifestyle and completely screws it up. This is just sad. I don't believe that any of the characters surf at all in this movie.


Melvin makes a lot of good points in this movie, and it becomes painfully obvious that in cinema, racism has festered over time. Lately, the casting and representation of blacks in films has improved greatly. However, the tone of the film was too bitter. I could easily mope around and lament about how upset it makes me that the white actor was always portrayed as a wealthy landowner or action hero, and cite just as many examples as he does. After I saw this film, all I could muster was a "Yeah, and...." I guess my point is that Van Peebles is trying to muster up sympathy for black cinema actors while pointing the fingers at the mostly white movie studio and casting executives of that time, and, taking from his example, I could make a film which musters up sympathy for the white actors that were portrayed as extremely racist or prejudiced landowners or business people or action stars or in any other bad light just as easily.


I got this movie, looking for what it was advertised as - a dark comedy. It had its dark moments, but it got more winces than chuckles, and no laughs at all. This is much more a drama, if a drama of the absurd. The sidebar text bits actually worked pretty well, and provided almost all of the humor that the script offered.

The acting was, indeed, well-done - which leads me to assume that there was some good direction happening as well. The primary failing here was the story.

Plot synopsis: People do silly, destructive things to each other. People make bad choices. People hurt each other. Abortion is hurtful, and giving a child up for adoption can be pretty crazy-making, too. Ain't life funny? All in all, not a painful movie, but certainly not the comedy I'd expected. It does have the feel of a sitcom or soap opera - if you like watching those, you may well like this more than I did.


An unsuccessful attempt is made to tie all these loose threads together into one coherent story. Even more irritating than the film's third act triumphs is its lack of faith in moviegoers' intelligence. The surface smoothness can't make up for the deeper flaws...it fails signally in establishing any solid emotional connection with most of the people it portrays. Trouble is, every character is having problems in a homo-hetero-Angeleno world but they lacks substance, each little more than a composite of quirks and one-liners. Happy Endings is the kind of self-conscious puzzle picture in which characters behave in ways that serve the plot but in no way resemble things that actual human beings would be likely to do.


Intertwining stories cover a group of characters, many of them gay, in Los Angeles. The characters are uninteresting and the script is a dreary bore. Kudrow is a limited actress who lacks the star presence to carry a film. The rest of the acting is not bad, with Arnold surprisingly effective as a rich man with a gay son. Roos wrote and directed but shows little aptitude for either task. The plot lines are ludicrous, especially the one about a gay couple and a lesbian couple arguing about whether the latter used the former's sperm. Most annoyingly, the screen is sporadically split in half and some random, trivial information is displayed about the characters.


Is there life after Friends? The only reason I watch movies starring one of the six main cast members of the show is the hope that some real talent lies there. Until now, I must have seen everything except talent. But in this film, Lisa Kudrow tops it all. I don't think I've ever had to endure such awkward acting, obvious even as she walks into a room without saying a single word. I'm not sure if she was just putting in too much effort trying not to look and sound like Phoebe or if Phoebe is simply the only character she can play. Either way, it was quite painful to watch.

The film is basically three loosely connected stories and for some unclear and baffling reason, it opens with a scene from the end as Mamie (Kudrow) is hit by a car. We are then reassured by the writers - through text that constantly and randomly appears on the screen in the middle of conversations - that she will not die because this movie is sort of a comedy. Flashback to 20 years ago, step-siblings Mamie and Charley (Coogan) have sex and Mamie gets pregnant. Flash-forward to now, Jesse (Bradford), a young documentary filmmaker, approaches Mamie with knowledge about her son that had she given up years ago. If she agrees his filming the encounter between mother and son, he will lead her to him. He needs this to get into film school. She refuses, and in a scene lifted from an 80s sitcom, offers him another story instead: Javier (Cannavale), an illegal immigrant turned sex worker. Javier is actually Mamie's boyfriend, a masseur who seems to give out happy endings to some of his female clients.

Story number two is about Charley, who now runs a restaurant and is actually gay. His lover, Gil (Sutcliffe), had given his sperm to their lesbian friends Pam (Dern) and Diane (Clarke) because they wanted a baby. According to Pam and Diane, they didn't use his sperm but in fact resorted to another source to get impregnated. Charley is almost certain that the couple is lying because they don't want to share their child with them.

In the third story, freeloader Jude (Gyllenhaal) buddies up to Otis (Ritter) because she found out his dad is filthy rich. Since Otis is gay (and in love with Charley), Jude finds her way into the dad's arms (Arnold), with whom she unwillingly and unexpectedly falls in love.

Kudrow's pathetic performance aside, the movie was simply pointless. I don't believe that stuffing the cast with gays and lesbians gives any more dimension to a badly written, badly performed, non-sensical script. I seriously couldn't have cared less about any of the characters, whether Mamie would find her son, or if Gil is the biological father of the baby, or if things will work out for Jude. Give this one a miss for sure.


When they came up with the title, if the filmmakers meant the seemingly endless stock of poor genre films that are being pumped out in the wake of digital film-making, then this is indeed "one of them". This cheap, irritating and boring "horror" film tries to be a combination of Final Destination and the Skulls.

Viewers are treated to horrible lighting and dismal video quality. The plot, such as it is, concerns a bunch of teenagers who are being hunted by other dead teenagers. I wish I could be more specific, but the story was so confusing and badly written that I am hard pressed to tell you what this movie was about. I just wish that I had bypassed this one altogether.


A group of road tripping teens are caught in a car accident while being attacked by an unexpected swarm of insects--right off the bat showing just how much sense this movie makes. They wake up in an academy with run by a cult of dead students who intend to make the teens "one of them". The plot is unbelievably stale with no-talent actors presenting us with some grade-A no-talent acting. The movie has that unsatisfying, cheap digital look that, when combined with the horrible acting and the lousy plot, make the film look like a failed attempt for a high-school project. I must admit though, that the eye puncturing scene was the highlight of the film. There are several other lame death scenes such as a man falling in a wood chipper and a sword through the neck which are.... well, sucky. I must warn you to stay away from this movie, for it is not worthy of being viewed. Crap crap crap!


There are a vast multitude of sub-par crappy shot on digital yawn-fests littering videostore shelfs, and this is definitely One of Them. The story of a cult of dead teenagers attempting to turn other teenagers into One of Them is so incompetent in ever single aspect, that just watching One of Them try to act is a daunting task indeed. One of Them will put you to sleep before long with it's inane dull story, it's bad special ed effects, and it's apparent complete disdain for the hapless viewer. Not doubt that One of Them is putrid. If it seems like I've written One of Them too much in my review, you have no clue until you see One of Them. If you were to take a shot EVERY time someone said One of them or asked "are you One of Them?", you'd have to have your stomach pumped before the movie ends, which ironically is a better fate than watching One of Them.

My Grade: F

Where I saw it: Starz on Demand (available until September 29th)


The teenagers friends Elizabeth (Kelly Carmichael), her brother Jeremy (Chase Carpenter), Jessica (Jessica Stewart), Rick (Paul Geffre) and the hothead Trey (John Patrick Jordan) have a car wreck caused by a sworn of insects. They wake up in the infirmary of the Marquez Academy, a school for troubled youths. Meanwhile, the also teenager Trina (Marianne Bennett) is drowned by a man dressing a monk cloak in a river in the woods. Her uncle and tutor Daniel (Richard Anthony Crenna) comes to the town nearby the Marquez Academy looking for his niece, and the sheriff tells him that she was found dead and eaten by coyotes in the previous night. Daniel feels that the local fears the Marquez Academy and do not give any information about the place, and he goes to the school, where he meets the headmaster Santiago (Osman Soykut) and his assistant Francis (Bridget Moore). Daniel decides to investigate the school and is informed by the voodoo priest Miss Lorita (Tessla A. Walters) that Santiago and Francis are followers of a cult brought by the slave Erzulie, protecting and worshiping two evil Hudu gods called Amanda (Erin Byron) and Zander (Brian Sheridan) that uses blood shed for resurrection and eternal life. Daniel returns to the school where he discloses the truth about the evil place.

"One of Them" has good special effects but unfortunately a terrible screenplay, lines, acting and soundtrack. The beginning of the story is absolutely confused, without any previous development of the characters or situations, and only after fifteen minutes running time it is possible to begin to understand the plot. There are many characters, and some actors and actresses are hams. There are some lines that make this film unintentionally funny in some moments. The situation of Daniel is incoherent, since his niece is left in a school for troubled youths, and only when she vanishes, he seeks information about the place where she was living. The objectives of the pointless cult and the evil Amanda and Zander in transforming people in "one of them" is never clear. My vote is four.

Yitle (Brazil): "Os Escolhidos" ("The Chosen")


One of Them was absolutely awful. I am one of those people who scour On-Demand stations for absolutely horrible horror movies. But this one was just plain BORING. And it must have been a nice way to stay on budget by cutting out actors from pieces of cardboard and leftover set...oh those were "REAL" actors??? My bad...

It was boring, stupid and predictable. Lots of loose ends (if you're into that whole "story coming together at the end" sort of thing). I think the most INSULTING thing to those of us "in the know" in regards to the genre, was the BLATANT and may I say, BADLY done corpses stand straight up, Nosferatu style.

If I may point out some of the more questionable things: okay so if they were really worshipping "false gods/demons" then why did they actually end up having power at the end? Where actually WAS the farmhouse that Elizabeth was supposed to lead them to? And why were they going there? And if Trina knew she was going to be killed, why did she go alone into a dangerous area instead of staying in Hollywood, where she was in the beginning? Was that really "Trey" calling from the woods? What of the girl Charlene, with the whole "slitting her own throat" thing? And why was SHE hiding as well? What was with the blinding thing (also a ripoff of Un chien andalou (1929))? Not even entertaining in a BAD way, this is a definite MST3K stinker.


I'm a sucker every time for Hollywood video's 4 for $20 sales, meaning I find two I really want and then have to find two that might not be TOO bad but I'm generally WRONG about that. And here is one of my two rejects, "One of Them", some low budget ca-ca about some teens that were on their way to see where one of them grew up and crash after a bug invasion. I guess they find themselves at this college or university, The School of Hard Knocks, I reckon, as that's about what they're going to get as they run away from other dead teenagers or SOMETHING, it's not often that I watch movies that are this incoherent. So incoherent was it that I declined to watch the whole thing and instead wasted still more time watching "Shadows of the Dead" so if you like you can read my review on that hunk-o-junk too. 1 out of 10, and only because the numbers go no lower than 1. Abysmal.


ONE OF THEM is not so much a devil-worshiping movie; it is rather an evil demon-worshiping movie.

Whilst no one should expect anything novel in a straight-to-DVD movie, few will be prepared to face the torture of being subjected to more than 90 minutes of the garbage contained within this movie. Even if I can successfully warn just one person to stay away from it, I will be able to sleep more peacefully at night.

The low rating coupled with comments made by some other reviewers may fool some fans of straight-to-DVD movies into thinking this is one of those so-bad-its-good movies in the vain of TROLL 2 or CHOPPING MALL. Well, I am sorry to disappoint but it is NOT.

The beginning of the movie actually starts out quite promising. A young woman is walking around a busy city late at night. Many things suggest something is wrong, she is being followed and some strange people are around. Some suspense is created straight away.

The young woman travels to a graveyard and is killed not long after by a figure dressed in a monk cloak.

The story shifts to a group of youngsters travelling down a dark road. A swarm of insects is summoned up out of nowhere and a car wreck ensues. The movie continues to be interesting up to this point.

But, the story takes a turn for the worse soon after.

The remainder of the movie takes place in some stone built academy and the grounds surrounding it. The academy is totally out of place in this movie, and looks more like something from South West England rather than the United States! I kept expecting Christopher Lee or some druids to show up, but alas it never happened.

What takes place in this academy is little more than youngsters sat around dining tables or sat on rocks outside babbling nonsense and there are a few interactions with the creepy people who work there. All of these youngsters are the stereotypical brainless morons who are hardly adverts to become the next Einstein! According to others who have reviewed this movie, the people at the "academy" are dead students. It goes to show how confusing the plot was because I completely missed that element! Anyway, it is revealed later in the movie the dead students worship evil demons that in return give them eternal life. Naturally, the demons want them to kill before granting them their wish. Because none of the mystical demon-worshiping elements suggested by the plot outline are focused on in an interesting way, the movie descends into nothing more than a very sub-par slasher.

The pacing of the middle section is very slow. You never get the sense any of the characters are in danger and all attempts to build up suspense are completely wasted. A few worthless flashy images are placed but provide no meaning to what is happening elsewhere. The villains in the movie do not seem the slightest bit scary. All the young male characters behave like total sissies. And the acting is as bad as one would expect for this type of movie. One guy is attacked with a knife and just lies down on the floor like a complete sissy saying "f*** you" to his killer. The guy playing the teenage brother of one of the main female characters looks as though he'd rather be somewhere else. In every scene he's in, he has this expression on his face that says "what the". I know how he feels! There are a few sporadic killings done in a variety of different ways but even these killing scenes are very lame and forgettable. One or two funny moments are to be had (such as the guy sucked into the wood chipper), but that's it. The killings are also confusing  sometimes a person killed is seen again later in the movie without explanation as to whether the killing was real or imagined. One character slits her own throat for no apparent reason! As is the case with this type of movie, the youngsters very quickly forget about their comrades after they've been killed.

Just when it feels as though we are going to learn something, the plot becomes more confusing. And there is not even an attempt at a decent twist ending. See the ending for yourself to find out what I mean.

In short, this movie is bad, and not in the good way either. Aside from the interesting 10 minutes at the beginning, it has no redeeming features. The characters are generally annoying or boring, there is absolutely no suspense after the beginning, and the movie is not even funny in the so-bad-its-good way either.

Many of the other reviews here criticise the straight-to-DVD market as being full of trash. I agree with that. But, amongst all such movies, you will find minor classics or examples of the so-bad-its-good calibre (BACHELOR PARTY MASSACRE for example). ONE OF THEM is neither  it is just a worthless piece of nonsense that has probably already been forgotten by everyone involved in its production.


A group of teens have the misfortune of falling prey to hoodoo worshiping occult masquerading as a Catholic school for troubled girls. The town doesn't discuss the place and we see what one villain, underneath a hood and robe, does to Trina, a member of the school trying to get away from her pursuers. Trina's uncle is out to find the real truth of what happened to her and will uncover some grisly truths he might've never expected. Anyone with information regarding the cult often wind up dead. A young male and female are actually the leaders of the cult and commit the violence towards those they want as ghostly minions to serve them. Only brother and sister, Liz & Jeremy might stand a chance against this cult, but leaving appears to be a problem as escape does seem unlikely.

Corny, micro-budget occult thriller with the typical terrible acting and silly supernatural goings-on. The gore effects range from decent to awful according to method of death. The wood chipper death is a howler(it actually looks like the victim throws himself in!)and the hoodoo elements are really cheesy. There's even a voodoo witch and ghostly apparitions throw in the bungled mix for good measure.


This is BY FAR...the worst movie ever. And that it is on Encore does say a lot about how sad those that do the programing for this cable channel must be. PLEASE....if you see this title...RUN!!!!!!!!!! The direct to video is even bad for this "movie"?? The acting is as bad as it can be. Often in a "b" movie there is at least one person that stands out, in this case..NOT! I have no idea who wrote this or cast it...but they really need to spend more time taking care of the customers at the Drive Thru, and not worrying about making a movie. Please, never see this, and if you do...I am sorry for you! I will say, that some of the special effects are not bad. But that really is all that can be said.


I flagged this "review" as having a spoiler however I don't think anything I say could possibly spoil this movie. My only reason for writing is to report a "goof" and can't seem to find the proper form for that. So the spoiler lies in my saying this: There's a scene when Santigo and that creepy lady with the Avon lady fake grin all the time do their Hoo-Doo, Voo-Doo or whatever they call it on Charlene and get her to slit her own throat. She falls dead at their feet.Cut to a shot of a kid witnessing it and then to a long shot of the two cult people with the dead Charlene at their feet. Then the camera cuts to the witness running away. Anyway...in the final frames of the long shot before the boy runs away you can see the dead girl move. I'm not talking about an eyelid or cheek twitch either. She moves her arm in a position to push herself up to get off the ground and her head lifts as well. Its as if the director yells "cut" and the actor starts to get up but the editor let about 10 frames of film too much in the shot.


This flick has become a cult classic at my school due to it's uber-stupidity. The plot, or so it is, has to do with a bunch of teenagers on a road trip to who cares when their car gets attacked by a swarm of very phony looking locusts or something (if you watch close enough there is a cut where the characters are swatting and squirming and screaming but there aren't actually locusts in that cut. Ooops)and they get in an accident. When they wake up, they are in some kind of remote school or, excuse me, "not a school. Just an academy for troubled youths". The teenagers spend the rest of the movie either getting killed in hilarious, Sananistic-cult-type-ways or trying to escape, but you won't really care about the plot, you will be too pointing out all of the continuity issues, plot holes, and goofy lines.

Take for instance, two of the characters (their names, like the plot, are inconsequential) are supposed to be siblings, but one has a southern accent (some of the time) and the other one is definitely British. The blood looks like strawberry Gatorade and the gore looks like diced beef--there is a scene where a character gets sucked into a wood chipper thats especially laugh-inducing--and you'll notice that the beginning shots of the movie have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the move.

The closest this movie gets to genuinely creepy is a part were a girl is talking about impaling while sharpening a long wooden stick...but then she cuts a guy's eye open and what looks like jello-o squeezes out and it's back to the laughs.

If MST3k was still going, this would be one of their targets. Rent it with other direct-to-video horror stinkers "Crocodile" and "The Glass Trap" and prepare to laugh yourself dumb and feel your brain cells dying.

Overall rating: 2 out of 10 p.s. "You're DEAD! I SAW you! You were DEAD!"


I really like this movie,but I am trying to figure out who sings the song "voodoo woman" that was sang at the end of the movie, I can't find it online... I thought it was sung by someone named reed... any help? I really like this song and am going out of my head looking for the dam thing! I also thought that the movie has it's own unique genre, of course I am a huge fan of horror but there are so many different ones out there... too bad this movie was low budget and didn't get a lot of credits... I think it's because when you look up the title of the movie, it comes up with 3 different ones... the title was too common and overused!


Women-in-prison flick involving an innocent American tourist in West Germany who is mistaken for a spy, grilled until exhaustion sets in, and sent to jail without a word to her soldier-fiancé. After publicly nixing her hit "Chained Heat" on just about every talk show of the 1980s, it's amazing that star Linda Blair would even think of doing another jailhouse underachiever. This one, filmed in chilly blues and grays, is just as seedy and depressing. The roster comes complete with a decadently lascivious guard (gaunt, kinky Sylvia Kristel), a terrified blonde, a friendly butch, and lots of malicious broads. And yet the direction is fairly tight, the locales are interesting, and the movie is engrossing almost in spite of itself. As for Blair, she keeps her dignity and has a few strong scenes, including being interrogated and collapsing under the pressure or standing up to the review board with a firm "f*** you!" ** from ****


Not to be confused with the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle with the same name, although released just a few years earlier and clearly featuring a couple of common themes, this "Red Heat" is actually a 'Women in Prison' exploitation movie starring Linda Blair (the amount of trashy B-movies she starred in during the eighties is nearly endless) and Sylvia Kristel; the one and only original starlet to depict the legendary soft-core film character Emmanuelle. The main reason why "Red Heat" isn't very popular or even commonly known among exploitation fanatics is probably because the script aspires to be overly ambitious and politically engaging. There's too much driveling about the Cold War and political conspiracies, instead of just focusing a little more on the obligatory "WiP" ingredients such as cat-fights, lesbian perversity and dark affairs ran from inside the prison walls. Don't get me wrong, "Red Heat" does feature all these elements, only in too small portions. That's why I think the comparisons between this one and "Chained Heat" (also starring Linda Blair) are completely unjust. I just watched "Chained Heat" as well and this movie is at least ten times more boring and less sleazy.

Blair stars as an America student who comes to pay her soldier boyfriend a visit in his stationary base in West-Germany, only to hear that he wishes to delay their marriage in favor of signing up for some extra years of service. Angry, confused and out for a nightly walk, Christine witness a political kidnapping and gets apprehended herself. Forced into confessing spying crimes she didn't obviously didn't commit, Christine is taken to an old-fashioned and secluded prison institution where contact with the civilized Western world is simply a distant dream. Sylvia Kristel  wearing a hideous red wig - stars as the bitchy inmate who's actually more in control of the prison than the head warden. Meanwhile, Christine's fiancée slowly attempts to set up a rescue mission with the help of his army buddies and some political volunteers. In all fairness, the film contains a handful of powerful sequences (like, for example, Christine's exhausting interrogation) as well as neatly atmospheric set pieces and steady direction by Robert Collector. Heck, come to think of it, "Red Heat" isn't even such a bad film. It's just too slow, talkative and wannabe informative and that simply isn't what the target audiences anticipate to see. Have no fear, though, as said there's plenty of other 80's trash featuring Linda Blair out there.


Not quite, but close! Linda Blair has proved again and again that she shares a rare quality with Mark Hamill, the ability to attach herself to one cinematic landmark and follow it with an entire career of complete trash. I saw RED HEAT on TV when I was about 11. Perhaps I was too young to understand this film's more basic appeal at that time, what I did get from it was that women in prison do crazy things to each other. Was there a plot beyond that? I'm not sure. There's something about an escape attempt but it isn't very clear. RED HEAT can really be best described as crap. It doesn't even succeed at that fun/pathetic B-movie level. The picture is alternately boring and confusing. The ending is about as clear as a muddy ditch and a lot less satisfying. I'd comment on Blair's performance if she'd actually given one. RED HEAT is a forgettable, exploitive little thing that should have been made by someone who understood the genre. I give it no stars.


In a picturesque coastal town in Maryland, a married family man is reunited with an old sweetheart, a pretty photographer who's been traveling the world for the last fifteen years. Putting freshly-scrubbed Sissy Spacek in the role as 'the other woman' doesn't really sit right with us because, basically, it's tough to swallow Spacek as the proverbial homewrecker. Sissy's real-life husband Jack Fisk directed the film, and although he sets up some good-looking shots, he doesn't feel the need to involve us in this character's thoughts: does she have a selfish agenda or is she removed from all the confusion and heartache she causes? The screenplay is a limp, squashy mess--a compendium of Woman's Picture clichés--and Kevin Kline doesn't have much to do but stare at others thoughtfully or look conflicted. *1/2 from ****


When I first turned on the movie I though it was gonna be horrible,and not to my surprise it was horrible. I also thought the movie was unrealistic come on who would let a dog play basketball even if the dog could. I think it would be cheating cause how are you gonna get the ball from the dog.

They had Michceal Jeter playing the clown a homosexual to make the movie even worse. The acting was horrible the plot was lame this is an all around corny movie. I remember in 1997 when it came out I didn't watch it now ten years later I disgusted with the movie. I also fond out the star of the movie was born on my birthday.


OK, hmmm, well lets see... I question how many dogs died in the making of this movie, seeing as a breaking of the nose during some "crazy dawg action" trying to score with the basketball. Also, I've heard that pudding isn't good for dogs...ya. And also, this is basically dissing American basketball. A team of kids who haven't won a single game...And along comes a dog, which appears to be a better teacher than any of the boys, as well as better than the whole team. (Even though it has no idea what it's doing.) Oh ya! I just remembered. Golden retrievers don't have thumbs. So, the writer's brilliant plan? Airbud hits the the basketball with his nose basically the whole movie! One problem. I've tried that before. Make that two problems. It breaks the dog's nose, as well as YOU CAN"T AIM! This is crushing all of the kid's egos! They must be thinking "Hey, a dog, with no thumbs, using only his nose is better than me." You'd think some kid would want revenge for all of the humiliation. Although I had tons of fun making fun (fun squared!) of this movie with my good pals, unless you are into all types of cheese possible, watch grass grow. It is more exciting, and has a better plot.


If it was a spoof it would have been at least excusable, but the fact that it was meant to be taken seriously places this godawful movie in the "So bad it's actually bloody excruciating" category. Predictable, plodding, dull as dishwater, the movie only managed to make we wish I was blind so I wouldn't have to suffer it any longer. When the stricken junkie thief, his acting so awful it was actually physically painful to watch, threw himself on the third rail in a fit of drug crazed grief, I knew I was watching something really special. Special in the way that dentists have when they do root canal work without anaesthetic. Avoid this pile of excrement at all costs. You'll thank me for it.


This was the biggest steaming pile of a movie I've seen in a long time. Awful writing, awful directing, tedious and contrived plot, and poor acting efforts from an A-list cast. In fact, this is one of those movies that's hard to turn away from because the awfulness is so compelling -- this is a movie with serious Oscar pretensions that comes up short in so many ways. The plot can be more or less summed up as a melodramatic mix of the worst parts of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest & Gorillas in the Mist. Man loves Gorillas, Gorillas get killed, man goes berserk (this is the big secret he's keeping mute over in the nuthouse?) Hopkins wades through the dreadful script as well as possible, but Gooding as usual hams it up to the max all movie long with his favorite screwed-up-Popeye-indignant face. A couple of choice scenes to demonstrate the cheeziness of this movie -- First, the scene in which Gooding gets all the inmates to tear up their playing cards while the inspirational music swells and you half-expect the cast to start the slow-unison clap from those awful highschool sports movies. Second, when Gooding gets out of his car in the end after quitting the asylum, he climbs out of the car and with more sappy music swelling does the Tim Robbins Shawshank-escape Jesus pose in the driving rain... unbelievable syrupy tripe. Don't waste your time with this stinker, unless you like the unique awfulness of the Heaven's Gate-type of train-wrecks; you're better off jabbing a salad fork in your eye for 2 hours.


This movie is a heavy-handed collision of Gorillas in the Mist and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Seriously.

Somewhere in the muddle is some kind of message about man's eco-place in the natural environment. Or something like that.

We get Anthony Hopkins living among Gorillas (but he doesn't run into Sigourney Weaver, go figure) until he gets arrested and flown back to the US to face charges. An eager young med student named Cuba Gooding Jr is volunteered by Donald Sutherland to conduct a psych evaluation on Hopkins.

Well, it takes one minute for Cuba to break through the primitive wall of silence Hopkins has constructed. And before you can say Jack Nicholson, Hopkins has the assorted criminal loons on his side. Which is supposed to be all uplifting.

Skip this. Watch Cuckoo's Nest, Gorillas in the Mist and Silence of the Lambs instead.


This could have been OK but Cuba Gooding's portrayal of the overly earnest shrink ruined it.

Anthony Hopkins is interesting as a primatologist who lived with gorillas for a couple of years and then was sent to prison for killing poachers. Gooding visits him in prison to try to find out what happened even though it's none of his business. Gooding portrays the shrink as a noble man fighting the good fight against the neaderthal prison guards and warden. It's so heavy-handed it makes you sick.

Way too much sitting around and talking in this flick. Movie should have been about Hopkin's life with the gorillas, not the boring prison meetings with the shrink.

Ending is pathetic. Hopkins just removes a window in front of everybody and walks away and they never find him!


Films like this are what is wrong with mainstream cinema. It was a contrived re-mixing of Gorillas in the Mist, The Shawshank Redemption and Dead Poets Society. The script seemed to have been written on a chalkboard - interchanging cliche after cliche though lacking a satirical or retroactive temperament. I'm not exaggerating - there were so many overt film references it seemed like a parody. The actors were designated by their collective wallet, not heart or mind, and the direction was simplistic. And you people gave 'Julien Donkey-Boy' a 4.5? Clearly the lesson remains: 'give us what we want' because the alternative is just too horrifying.

It's this type of film, and this type of rampant commercialism that seeks to destroy the craft of film art, just as disco had to rock and roll in the 70s. See this film and continue to line studio-pockets...just don't maintain a pretense of superiority over those of us who give a damn.


Yup, here it is...another movie that wasted 80 minutes of my life. Paganini horror is a typical and meaningless horror movie. Nothing special, unoriginal and pretty annoying most of the time. It's the kind of movie that is hidden on the lowest shelf at your local videostore, covered in dust. There's a reason why it's down there, by the way...

Although I do believe Paganini Horror has a bit of potential in it, it fails to show it on every possible level. The story is about a female rock band who uses the old Paganini mansion as the location for their newest video clip. Paganini was a violin player who once sold his soul to the Devil himself, in order to become world famous. Satan is still present in the house and he terrorizes everyone who dares to enter the mansion...Pretty dumb of course but some of the aspects that are related to Satan ( like playing the violin -- symphony of the dead ) prove that some tiny elements in this movie show potential. But you cannot believe how cheesy the special effects and the make-up in this movie look !! Blue flashy lights stand as most of the "horrific" effects and the blood shed is rather limited. Even though this movie was shot rather recent - in 1989 - it looks incredibly dated and above all cheap !! And I don't mean the charming kind of 'cheap'...No, I mean the laughable and pathetic kind of cheap. The use of music is damn annoying as well. The stars are supposed to be talented singers and their hits are shown in the movie very detailed. Those are ideal "fast forward"-moments !! The songs suck and they don't really fit in a horror movie anyway...

I keep on wondering how Donald Pleasance got involved in so many ludicrous horror productions !! This guy was such a great actor but he starred in so much crap ! Where does he find these roles ? Does his agent used to tell him stuff like : "Hey Donald, I've got another annoying Italian Cheese ball for you...interested ?" "Yeah sure, sign me up" It's really weird...I'd like to tell you his performance was the only positive aspect about Paganini Horror, but it's not. His acting is as terrible as the rest of the cast. Furthermore, the movie suffers from an amazingly stupid ending ! The ugliest girl survives and she has to face an utterly stupid plot twist...the poor thing. Anyway, you don't care about it anymore at that point. If you managed to sit through it till then, you'll laugh away the stupid ending as well.

I always knew Satan was a musician. Can't really explain why but I always figured Him to be a violin player. It has a really spooky effect, if you ask me...That simple plot idea is the best thing this movie has to offer. I really advise you to skip it.


It's not a surprise that Luigi Cozzi, after this movie, never shot a film again (except for two documentaries). This thing is not worth being called a movie (I've directed better films with my friends). The attempt of the director to give the film a photography reminiscent of the chromatic games of Suspiria is simply pathetic, and is nonetheless the better thing of the movie. However this film made me laugh so much with my friends that I should forgive its uselessness and its ugliness. We had a lot of fun. There are two sequences in Paganini Horror (one at the beginning, the other close to the ending) so silly and dumb that you can't do nothing but laugh.. unfortunately the rest of the movie can be quietly trashed away, its boringness is something unbelievable (especially during the music scenes). Maybe this film owes its only appeal to the bad acting of the actors, the principal cause of hilarity. But even the script is wonderful: the invisible barrier is surely the lowest (or highest) moment of the film...


As an avid lover of Horror made in Bella Italia, who has seen hundreds of Italian Horror productions, I must say that "Paganini Horror" is arguably not only THE dumbest, but also the most boring and tiresome Italian Horror film ever brought to screen (I am not counting Claudio Fragasso's disastrous "Troll 2", which is, In my opinion, not Horror, and neither is it really Italian). Not even the casting of the great Donald Pleasence and regular Italian Horror actress Daria Nicolodi can save "Paganini Horror", as this has absolutely nothing to offer except for mild amusement about all its ludicrous aspects. I did not have high expectations for "Paganini Horror" as fellow Horror lovers had already warned me about how ridiculously bad it was, yet I somehow wished I was in for a positive surprise, since director Luigi Cozzi is generally a gifted man, as films like his highly unusual, but equally highly memorable Giallo "The Killer Must Kill Again" (1975) prove. "Paganini Horror", however has nothing to recommend it for, which is too bad, since a Satanic Horror film about Paganini could have become something good, or at least highly entertaining, if someone had put a little more heart into it.

After the producer of a mostly female Rock band keeps nagging about the lack of originality in their (terrible!) newest song, the only male band member, the drummer, purchases an unopened document with an unknown Paganini score from a sinister man (Pleasance). Supposedly based on this Paganini document, the band produce a new (and equally awful) song, and decide to make a video-clip in Paganini's old mansion - The mansion in which the famous violin virtuoso had once signed a pact with the devil... Sound cheesy, and it is, but not only is it very, very dumb cheese, even though the film is only 80 minutes long, the temptation to fast-forward becomes bigger with each passing minute after a while. Even the gore-effects are awful, there's an incredibly corny-looking electrocution sequence which is so crappy it really has to be seen to be believed. Apart from Donald Pleasence (one of my favorite actors) and Daria Nicolodi, the performances are also god-awful. Still Pleasence and Nicolodi raise the quality a little bit (but certainly not very much). Otherwise, this has little to no redeeming qualities. Avoid!


OK...this might not be the worst movie ever made, but it's close.

SPOILER... (Can you really spoil a movie that stinks this badly?)

Readers Digest version of the plot:

Grieving couple move into house that's been empty for 20 years. Wife starts seeing signs saying she is going to die in 7 days (hence the title of the movie). Husband doesn't believe her. She does research into the house and finds out that every couple that lives in house dies and/or kills themselves. She tells husband, he ties her up. She gets away and interminable chase begins. Sheriff who was present last time comes to a momentous decision and goes to help wife. Possessed husband is saved by wife saying "I love you", they get out...the house sinks into the swamp...the end.

Yet the house is standing again at the end credits.

I couldn't like anyone in this movie. The wife, who should have left early on, sticks around FAR too long, the "loving" husband is antagonistic and mean even BEFORE he becomes possessed, and the sheriff seems to be a wimp.

The movie defies logic in several places, and the plot is the derivative tripe that makes you laugh, rather than scares you. The acting is the kind of stilted over-acting you see in a bad high school play. The special effects (as little as there were of them) weren't very good. And you can just forget about suspense...What they meant to be suspense, just made the movie drag.

I gave it a 2 for a three reasons:

1. I liked the music. 2. The cinematography was pretty good 3. I was feeling generous when I wrote this review

I would say don't watch this movie for any reason, but it might be fun to watch it with a group of friends with the sole purpose of laughing at it.


I had watched this once before and knew it had something to do with a house, but I had forgotten much else. Now watching it the second time I hope I can forget it just as easily as I had the first time.

It's about a couple who lose their son and buy a house out in the country to try and cope with their loss. The man is a writer and the woman is just a mourning mother trying to move on. They don't know the story of the house and how it has destroyed many other families that lived there before.

The woman quickly starts to see things, including messages telling her shes going to die soon. The husband seems to think shes just having a hard time dealing with the stress, but he doesn't realize he is changing too, for the worse. As time goes on the truth unravels and we watch as the madness and the fear strike.

At first the movie is promising, the big house has potential to make a good haunted house movie, the hallucinations telling you you only have a few days to die would be very scary and here it gives hope for a creepy movie, but as it goes on you realize its going nowhere.

This movie is a supernatural thriller not to be confused with a horror film. It is not scary and quite frankly its down right stupid.

The actors are all bad, there is no cool production values and it has worthless CGI at times. I would not recommend it to anyone. It reminded me in a very small way of The Shining, but just because you liked that one doesn't mean you will this garbage.

Save your time and stay away from this boring movie, its not entertaining in any way, you could do worse, but you could surely find something way better to kill 90 minutes.


seriously. swallows a hornet? that, mind you, landed in his cereal. only to be followed up with a shower scene? what am i watching? i had to write this after having viewed no more than 15.5 minutes of this. i hope it gets better. it won't. oh wait. there's a 7 on the steamy mirror. watch this in a dark room alone. as long as you're not in the room. and as long as there's something else on. probably with commercials. and you're doing something better. like having an enema or perhaps experimenting on the strength of the enamel of your teeth with a toenail clipper or testing the limits of your hearing on flea farts or listening to a gulp of water make its way from your mouth to your bladder, or to your anus, depending on what you ate earlier that day. and one must not neglect the amount of alcohol one drank that day, as well as the acidity level of any foods eaten in the period before the water was taken. it might not even be the water at all, seeing as how such conditions can be a result of a lack of water. these conditions may not be a function of water at all, but maybe poor nutritional choices at large. one cannot comment on the elections of others without knowing the motivation behind such decisions, but it can be safely assumed that the viewing of this film could not possibly be attributed to the aforementioned ailments/symptoms, but rather a morbid curiosity begat by boredom and the senseless desire to subject oneself to the efforts of a hungry director and the economic needs of actors that said, "Hmmm. Seven days until The Ring 'gets' me. Sorry, i got confused. I see. So, there's a child and a--doesn't matter. You're going to pay me for this? Right then. And the danish is free? Very well. Hmm. Well, there it is then. I'm on board. And we'll be done by Thursday? Super. I can get back to whatever i was up to before you bothered me. I believe i was thinking about purple or where i left my hat. Did you see it? Not my hat, but purple. It really is quite lovely. You know, my mother loves...." So...this is what this film is. Nonsense. Except this assessment was far more involved. Sorry for those who enjoyed this. Really. I am sorry for those who enjoyed this. And your families. And pets. Herumph.


7 days to live is an OK horror film if you have never seen a horror film before. I have counted at least 5 horror films that this is a mix match of including Amityville horror, The Shining, Maybe a little Misery, Psycho (hey look at that house),Poltergeist. There are very faint glimpses of other films as well. Could have been a lot better with more background on the characters. I would also liked to have seen a lot more detail on where the location is based on this film, it would make it a lot more interesting if the back story on the location was elaborated on then you could get a feel for the where and the why. The ending gave me the feeling that it was left wide open for a sequel because you get no feeling for what happened to the house.


best you can do while watching this movie is guessing which scene was stolen from which movie - so you could be able to stay awake. though sebastian niemann tries hard to give it a personal touch, he can´t overcome the ill-fated premise of the muddled script. worst of all- you simply don´t care for the characters. amanda plummer looks more like her father than ever.


this film really sucks. it is boring, the actors are awful and the computer animations (especially at the end of the film) aren't worth to be called so. it doesn't even come close to "the shining". fortunately i got the ticket for 5 Deutsche Mark.


I'm always looking for a good haunted house/ghost flick, and I have to say I haven't seen a good new one in years. Instead of something new, here we have a movie that borrows aspects and ideas from a bunch of other haunted house/horror flicks and combines them into one... making this very unoriginal and very dull. Watch The Shining, Poltergeist, The Changeling, Amityville Horror, and others instead of watching this rip off flick.


A movie that promises a lot, but doesn't deliver especially when you

realise it is a total take on "The Shining" ! The actors are excellent

and, at first, the mystery is well drawn, but when the main actor (A

writer falling under the spell of spirits - rings a bell ?) thries to

emulate Nicholson, everything falls apart, leading to an overdrawn

finale (The cop arriving at the right moment to save the day and the

"What the heck ?" sudden appearance of Fulciesque living deads)

Granted, there are scary moments, but all in all, we are left

disappointed. Besides, like most German TV movie or series, it tries

pretty hard to hide its origin, sacrifing any originality whatsoever. So

far, the Spanish still deliver the best Euro-horror so far. Maybe we can

have hope for "Jeux d'enfants", a new French horror movie whose trailer

I saw before this one. Keep


I saw "Mr. Goodbar" at a film festival screening, several years after it's initial release. In some ways (none of them good), this movie has haunted me ever since. I can still recall feeling strangely perturbed and confused as the film neared it's final minutes. I guess I expected that the ending would somehow magically bring the preceding grimy and occasionally chaotic events into some sort of focus.

All I got from that ending was a brutal stomach ache similar to the lingering pain that comes from a cheap sucker punch in the gut. I will readily admit to having gained no further understanding or insight into this film over the years. I still can't imagine why anyone would make a film like this, or what possible value or entertainment viewers derived from it.

For me, Diane Keaton's performance is the only thing in the movie that keeps it from getting the lowest vote. That she managed to project some warmth and humanity from such a crudely drawn, relentlessly sad, and gratuitously self-destructive character, only made the ending that much more horrific and senseless. It's easily one of the worst experiences I've ever had in a movie theater.


Dracula: Dead and Loving It starts in Transylvania during the year 1593 where British solicitor R.M. Renfield (Peter MacNicol) has a meeting with Count Dracula (Leslie Nielsen) to conclude the sale of Carfax Abbey in England. Once the forms are signed Dracula travels to London to take up residence in his new property which is situated next to a mental asylum run by Dr. Jack Seward (Harvey Korman) & as Dracula introduces himself he notices Lucy Westenra (Lysette Anthony) a friend of Seward's daughter Mina (Amy Yasbeck) & takes an unhealthy interest in her as he changes into a bat, flies into her room while she is asleep & drinks her blood. Lucy becomes ill & Seward calls in Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Mel Brooks) an expert on rare diseases who quickly realises that Lucy has been bitten by a Vampire. It's up to Van Helsing to save the day & Seward's daughter Mina who Dracula intends to become his next victim...

This American French co-production was co-written, produced, directed & starred Mel Brooks & to be honest it didn't do that much for me. The script by Brooks, Rudy De Luca & Steve Haberman follows Bram Stoker's original novel surprisingly closely & retains most of the relevant action & character's but just spoofs everything up. While the story is solid the decision to turn the film into a silly slapstick comedy first & foremost is one that doesn't work, surely Dracula: Dead and Loving It would have worked much better if the filmmakers had worked around the principal that they were making a horror film first as per the original novel & structure the comedy, the gags & the spoof material around it. As it is Dracula: Dead and Loving It is a comedy first & horror a very distant second while I think it would have been much better the other way around with it being a horror first & comedy second like The Evil Dead (1982) or Dog Soldiers (2002), I mean you can't really add horror to comedy yet I would say you could add a comedic element to horror. Just a thought. Another big problem with Dracula: Dead and Loving It is that it's just not very funny, in fact as to prove my point the best scene is when Harker & Van Helsing stake Lucy through the heart & are covered in gallons of blood, horror first guys, horror first... The only other funny moments in it are two running gags, one about enema's & the other a silly duel between Van Helsing & Dracula about who has to have the last word.

Director Brooks uses loads of ancient gags & jokes from silly accents to moronic slapstick like where Dracula rises from his coffin & hits his head on a low hanging chandelier, hey this is classy sophisticated stuff. To it's credit the film looks really good & it has great sets, costumes, special effects & period production design. Apparently the dialogue in Dracula: Dead and Loving It spoofs a lot of the dialogue from the original Dracula (1931) with Bela Lugosi, well that's fine if you've seen the original Dracula which I haven't & I'm sure many other people haven't either so I have to ask myself what was the point when there was always going to a large amount of viewers who haven't seen the original Dracula, it seems like a bit of a waste & an in-joke a lot of people weren't going to get. Brooks goes for comedy all the way so forget about any scares.

Technically Dracula: Dead and Loving It is pretty darn good but this aspect of things only leads to more frustration when one thinks what this film could have been, as someone who has sat through loads of low budget horror I could only think what the likes of Hammer could have done with a budget like this. The acting wasn't anything special & everyone plays it over-the-top, I must say that I personally thought Nielsen was awful as Dracula & had little screen presence.

Dracula: Dead and Loving It is a comedy that isn't very funny & a horror that has no horror, it fails at everything it tries to do. It's not a totally worthless film as it's quite nice to look at & it has a strong story thanks to the original source but as a whole it didn't work for me.


Remember when Mel Brooks used to be funny? Well, so did I, and unfortunately, this movie is an incredible disappointment. I could say the same for Leslie Neilsen, who used to be in some funny movies, too, but really fell into some bad schtickt.

Supposedly a spoof on Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula", it actually has more in common with the original 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi.

All that said, the jokes fell flat, many of them were done to death. "Give him an enema" was funny the first time, but the fourth or fifth, it just lost its humor value.

Did the bar of what's funny just pass Mel up, or did he just stop trying? Young Frankenstein still holds up after 30 years. So does Blazing Saddles.


I just finished watching this film with pain. although it has some laughable scenes, but failed to reach the quality badly which is other great parody movies has achieved. Don't waste your time and Money!!


Dracula: DEAD AND LOVING IT (2 outta 5 stars) It gets 2 stars only out of respect for what Mel Brooks had done before. I mean, just look at this film in comparison to "Young Frankenstein" or "Blazing Saddles" or "The Producers" or "Silent Movie"... hell, even "Spaceballs" is a work of genius compared to this! Oh sure, I found a couple of chuckles... but the script, the acting, the direction... its all sub-par. This could have been out by any comedy-movie hack team... its simply not worthy of The Great Mel Brooks! I guess if you are already chuckling at the idea of Leslie Nielsen playing Count Dracula you will probably enjoy this movie... but he can do these kinds of movie is his sleep by now... he doesn't really do anything that he doesn't done better before. Peter MacNicol seems to have the nest scenes... even if he does tend to overdo his role at times... a little less mugging would probably have made his role twice as funny. Other comic talent is pretty much wasted: Harvey Korman, Mark Blankfield and Mel Brooks himself as Van Helsing. (Hey, maybe if he'd played that part in "Van Helsing" instead of Hugh Jackman... now that woulda been something worth checking out!)


The only good thing in this movie is Leslie Neilsen, the movie woulda been better if it would have spoofed Dracula and not tried to be a remake. I give it 2.5 out of 10


"Dracula: Dead and Loving It" is a sad reminder of a great career bottoming out. Mel Brooks could do no wrong with his first 5 movies. Then the decline began. "The Producers" is a comedy classic. "The 12 Chairs" is a little seen gem. "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein" created a superb one-two punch in 1974. And "Silent Movie" is wonderfully inventive.

Then came "High Anxiety", Brooks' tribute to Hitchcock. It has its moments but fell short of expectations. "History of the World Part I" also has its moments but parts are greater then the whole. "Spaceballs" was made ten years later then it should have been. "Life Stinks" offers a good theme about being homeless, but his comic moments seem out of place. "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" was a near disaster.

Now we come to this film. It is easily the worst film Brooks has made and it is no wonder (at this date) he has not made a film since. Maybe Brooks lost his touch. Or his brand of humor just doesn't belong in this day and age. Whatever the reason we are subjected to 90 minutes of tired jokes and a weary looking Leslie Nielsen in the title role.

There was potential here but it all went wrong. And Brooks even blew the title. "Dead and Loving It"??? He could have come up with an apt title that also descibes this film. "Dracula Sucks".


Aside from a few good jokes here and there this one was rather dull. No wonder it won an award for most boring comedy of the year in 1995. I chuckled a couple of times, but for the most part I just wanted it to be over. Mel Brooks was most definitely not at his best for this one as at times you forget it is supposed to be a comedy and it takes it self to seriously.


Brooks revisits classic horror territory after Young Frankenstein; this time it´s Dracula who gets the Brooks treatment, but this poor spoof is evidence that lightning doesn´t strike twice. Although the movie is beautifully photographed, looking almost like a vintage Hammer movie, there are barely any laughs. Leslie Nielsen is not quite up to his usual Frank Drebin deadpan comedy routines, and even though Peter MacNicol delivers a note perfect Dwight Frye (Renfield in the 1931 version), as well as good turns from Harvey Korman and Brooks himself, the final result is depressingly unfunny. Hilarious stake-through-the-heart scene, though!


I went to see this movie in hopes that it would be nearly as brilliant as Young Frankenstien. On opening weekend Saturday matinée there were about 15 people in the cinema and half of them walked out during the first 10 minutes while making loud offensive comments. I was pretty embarrassed for Mr. Brooks. I stayed and watched the whole thing. Unfortunately for me I found myself groaning more than laughing during this goofy spoof. I'm sure they had lots of fun making the movie because they look like they're having fun but it struck me as schlock. I'm sorry to have to say such things about a film made by one of my favorite directors but I could have waited to see it on T.V. OUCH!


When a "serious" movie is pitifully appalling, it is easy to write a comedic review. When a comedic movie falls into the same category, it is almost impossible to make sport of it  because any frivolity in the review may be misconstrued as comedic quality that the MOVIE possesses. So let me clarify from the outset: This "comedy" is not to be laughed at.

Who would have thought that Mel Brooks  the genius writer/director behind Blazing Saddles, History Of The World and Young Frankenstein (a successful comedy movie wholly in the vein of this failed one  pun intended)  would be prone to helming a comedy as pitifully appalling as "Dracula: Dead And Loving It"? One imagines that Brooks' comic radar is so finely-attuned that he would have seen through the financial and corporate layers of this film's drudgery and simply either abandoned it and cut his losses when he saw that it was not working, or salvaged the potential high points and let the cutting room floor eat the rest.

He did neither, which reveals that something is terribly askew in the Brooks universe. No longer is it "good to be the king" - Mel Brooks is merely an old man these days, his tastes no longer running congruent with his audience's; his comedy no longer as energetic or as biting as the wit of his youth (which, relatively speaking, was his late-40s anyway).

The Brooks gag formulas are definitely still there, but seem lazily inserted as dependable fallback material, rather than inspired stylistic substance. Jokes which I can imagine my 15-year-old self repeating ad nauseam in the schoolyard, now fall flat and wearisome on inured sensibilities.

Not only does the film suffer from rehashed and lazy gags, Brooks' direction lacks coherence and is oft-times merely cursory; there are wide shots, reverses and close-ups which serve no purpose, camera blandly flitting from one unnecessary shot to the next, not merely misdirecting our eye, but searching for subject matter to fill the frame judiciously. Many shots seem to be second-unit throwaway footage. Instead of easing back and letting the film's levity wash over me, as should have been the case, all these logistical details kept bugging my senses, detracting from the already-sparse humor.

During the cast-and-crew screening for this film, one has to wonder whether there were any genuine laughs or whether the aura of the director's past glories tainted the crew into believing that they had a good comedy on their hands, thereby eliciting perfunctory giggles out of respect for their elders.

In this film's adherence to the original Dracula story and noticeable neglect of comedic opportunities, not only did it fail as a good comedy, it becomes barely convincing as an A-List movie. Brooks did not need to re-make "Dracula". Yet this seems to be all he did  in a manner inferior to that of droves of dramatic film-makers before him. Mel's strong suit is COMEDY. So why were we subjected to a film about the infamous psychotic blood-drinker, so loosely sprinkled with jokes that they seem incongruous within the context of the morbid tale? Where you would expect punchlines, there are scene-fades; where you would expect a gag, there is exposition of the Dracula legend; where you would expect laugh-out-loud-slapstick, there are strained attempts at re-capturing youthful insouciance from laurels past. And the dance sequence between Dracula and Mina was needless padding. (Makes you wonder what DID make the cutting room floor.)

The actors vacillate between parodying Victorian characters and actually *playing* them. Harvey Korman's Dr. Seward can almost be an actual over-actor from one of the REAL Dracula movies, whilst Steven Weber's Jonathan Harker frequently comes across as an exaggerated English nobleman from a Christopher Lee film. Peter MacNichol, though, makes the perfect Renfield  for ANY Dracula film, serious or spoof - and is the only actor who truly nails his role in this blunt-toothed parody. Amy Yasbeck and Lysette Anthony are just too damn hot to be funny: all the self-deprecating melodrama in the world is not gonna help, chickie-babes - LOOK AT THOSE RACKS!

On paper, Leslie Neilsen's Dracula seemed like a hilarious coup, as did Mel Brooks' Dr. van Helsing, but both seemed to be laboring under the specter of their own reputations as funnymen. Neilsen playing STRAIGHT and being oblivious to his own humor is how he works best, but here he actively went for laughs, which means that even Brooks, as director, did not discern Neilsen's forte - or *did* discern it and chose to make Neilsen play against type anyway  either way, an erroneous decision. And Brooks' van Helsing seemed too self-aware of every mispronunciation he made - for the sake of schoolyard quotes - to be regarded as genuinely hilarious.

If Mel Brooks has grown so blind that he cannot see that the comedy boat has left him onshore; if he has become so oblivious to discernment that he actually thinks this film is noteworthy enough to be considered a vital "comedy", the movie's subtitle may well be applied to HIM  "Dead  And Loving It".

(Movie Maniacs, visit: www.thedunmore.com/POFFY-MovieReviews.html)


This is the movie that show us that Mel Brooks has lost the comic genius he became so famous for. The great director of the incredible funny movie THE PRODUCERS, the wonderful YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and the great BLAZING SADDLES has lost it. We saw it all ready with HIGH ANIXIETY, he made up some (but not much) with SPACEBALLS and ruined it all with LIFE STINKS. Perhaps Mr. Brooks is just out of shape? Maybe he hasn't lost the comic genius, he's just fooling us? He's just having a dry period. Anyway, the man can never make a worse movie than this Dracula spoof. He could have called it DRACULA STINKS!

Brooks may not have lost all of his genius. I saw him the other night on television (it was a fresh interview about the Broadway show 'The Producers') and I laughed my head off. The man is really funny, at least when he's interviewed. Can't he make a documentary about someone interviewing him? That would have been a brilliantly funny film.

Ok, Brooks, I'm through with you and I start with Leslie Nielsen whom I've never liked. He was good in AIRPLANE and the first Frank Drebin film, but then he sold out: he started to use his 'talent' in trash like MR. MAGOO, RENT-A-KID and that stupid EXCORSIST spoof. Peter MacNicol is a splendid actor; in 'Ally McBeal' he's terrific, in 'Chicago Hope' he was great and in SOPHIE'S CHOICE he was almost better than Kevin Kline! But in this movie he acts like Pauly Shore! What's wrong?

Bram Stocker's famous vampire story has been filmed many times; the Coppola version (that this movie spoofs the most) was superb and the 1979 version with Klaus Kinski was also darn good. The masterpiece above all Dracula films must be Murnau's 1924 version. DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT is the worst Dracula film ever made.

To end this 'comment': if you loved BLAZING SADDLES or SILENT MOVIE or even SPACEBALLS; don't watch this crap!

(Sorry, Mel, better luck next time!)


I'll make this as painless as possible. This is the worst Mel Brooks film I have seen in a long, long time. "ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS" is a masterpiece, compared to this forlorn mess. I laughed only once during this corny hodgepodge of backfires, flat gags, unfunny dialogue and terrible English accents. This is tragic, as we've seen so much better from both Mr. Brooks and Leslie Nielsen. This is so disappointing, considering the days when Brooks wowed us with "BLAZING SADDLES" and the horror genre send up of "YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN."

I couldn't in good conscience recommend this. Should you stumble upon it on broadcast television, find the remote quick.


Mel Brooks has brought out a couple of outrageously funny movies, and Leslie Nielson has starred in his own series, but this one measures up to neither standard, alas.

One of the problems is that the original "Dracula" with Bela Lugosi was so perfect in its thingness that, after only a few viewings, it's practically a self parody. In the 1930s version, Lugosi serves some drugged wine to Renfield. Renfield: "Aren't you having any?" Dracula: "I never drink -- wine." I doubt that the people involved in the production intended the line to be a joke, but that's what it's become. In Mel Brooks' version, the line is repeated and the camera holds on Leslie Nielson's face, waiting for the laughs to die down.

A second problem is that the gags vary from funny to silly, as is usual with Brooks, but there aren't enough of either kind. We seem to follow the 1930s version fairly closely, almost as if it were to be taken seriously. And the jokes that pad out the scenes simply aren't that amusing. In one conversation (in "ancient Moldavian") both Nielson and Brooks try to get the last word in. It drags on. And in the last scene of the movie, Brooks is alone with the coffin containing the now thoroughly cremated Nielson. He glances around, slyly opens the coffin an inch, and shouts in the last word of the ancient Moldavian conversation they'd had half an hour earlier, then slams the coffin shut and strides out with a look of satisfaction. If that's the best that could be done for a climactic gag, well, there's a problem.

There are other problems. Brooks is okay in the part of Van Helsin, but Leslie Nielson is a bit old for the part of Dracula, and he doesn't have the accent. (It ought to be overblown in a movie like this.) See George Hamilton do a better job with better lines in HIS Dracula parody, "Love At First Bite".

It's not a total waste and there are some funny moments. It's just that there aren't enough of them.


Every moment Errol Flynn is on screen in this film sparkles with his undeniable panache. Every moment he is off screen (which is most of the movie) is either a bore or a puzzlement. Kipling's dialog works just fine on the page, but on screen there is no feel whatsoever that real people would talk in such a manner. What flows on the page is stilted when forced into the mouths of actual people. Dean Stockwell does as well as one can imagine with the title role, but everything he says sounds as written as the Declaration of Independence, not the spontaneous remarks of a boy. (The same applies to every character, actually.) The direction is flat and incredibly unimaginative for a major studio release. Scenes which could have had real dynamism are played in flat tableau. Sequences of physical action are staged as badly as a high-school play. (Was there no experienced stunt coordinator available?) Beautiful footage of India is interspersed through more prevalent scenes of largely cheap-looking soundstage sets. (A walk through an Indian train station shows not one speck of dirt or debris or trash on the floor, no sign of dust or even worn paint!) The rear-projection shots of principles on soundstages in front of Indian scenery are worse than the cheapest serials of the time. And nothing substantial happens! The spy games being played consist mainly of doing things through complicated means that could have been much more effectively done straightforwardly. The dramatic action of this film could have been condensed into a twenty-minute short, and the 113-minute running time of the feature would not have felt like 1,113 minutes. The only saving grace is the splendid work of Errol Flynn, who almost manages the impossible task of making Mahbub Ali a real and realistic person instead of a spout for the pouring out of novelistic and archaic dialog. Flynn seems to me to be at the height of his powers here, if slightly (and only slightly) past the height of his beauty. I rejoiced every time he (far too rarely) returned to the story. The rest of the time, I watched the screen with one eye and the clock with the other.


More swings than hits in this 1950 Hollywood "adaptation" of Kipling's masterpiece. Mahbub Ali may have been a perfect Flynn role, but making him the hero of the piece in place of Kim himself and Hurree Babu -- gratuitously killed off, as is the old lama Kim follows, loves and learns from -- leaves out the crisis of identity Kipling's Kim must face, the central theme of the book. Also missing are Kipling's picturesque vistas of the India he knew and recalled so well, scenes he paints with words easily surpassing all the Technicolor location shots. One who has read and appreciated the book on all of its many levels will also miss its many memorable and important "minor" characters; its sensitive and sympathetic treatment of Buddhism and other non-Christian creeds; and will be left wondering whether it was the star, the writers, the producer, the director or some combination of the above who thought they could go Kipling one better by, among other things, replacing his almost-accidental crisis with a Flynn-caused avalanche, then neatly tying all his lifelike loose ends into a big Tinseltown bow. Three stars because it's probably the best job they could have done with it at the time -- sad to say.


By 1950 Hollywood gave Dean Stockwell a lead role in a Rudyard Kipling story. Stockwell was a young teenager and after such films as "Gentleman's Agreement," and "Keys of the Kingdom," he deserved far better.

The picture was a slow pacing film about a boy spying for the English, who anticipate a Russian invasion of India in the late 1800s.

Stockwell is really Caucasian but pretends to be Indian so that he can avoid school. Orphaned, he is soon captured and made to go to school but during summer recess, it's time for espionage.

Errol Flynn plays a horse trader in this nonsense who also works for British intelligence. Paul Lukas is a religious leader who walks away at the end. He must have thought that he was Moses.

The Indian women in this mess talk like they're reading the script for the first time. An exciting part is when Thomas Gomez is thrown off a cliff. This is what should have been done to the writing.

This film is living proof that pictures with star quality will fail when the writing is bad.


First of all, anyone who claims that he or she didn't find this head-scratcher confusing must be the next freakin' Einstein! The plot is maybe more tangled than that of "The Usual Suspects", and there are enough distorted/out-of-chronological order events, half-remembered/repeated/altered lines and "was-it-all-a-dream-or-was-it-real?" tricks to baffle even the most avid mystery fan. Generally, movies with multiple twists and turns can be great fun, but this one is so contrived that it tried my patience. Besides, I don't understand why Lara Flynn Boyle had to whisper almost all of her lines (to come off as "seductive", perhaps?), or why they would pair her romantically with Scott Glenn, an actor almost 30 years older than her. (**)


The promissing cast starts good with nice scenes between the beautiful Lara Flynn-Boyle and Scott Glenn as the sensitive cop. But the story gets so weird: Lots of cheap flashbacks and "mysterious" knifes, glasses and fruits falling on the ground  uuups!  oh, you mean this is suspense? Then watch it. I didn´t enjoy it: 4 out of 10. To less Lara F.B. for to much movie.


***Tip: Have It Read To You, Heres How***

1) Copy And Paste This To Notepad (NOT WORD) 2) Go To. START>ALL PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES>ACCESSABILTY>NARRATOR

Have you ever woke up on Christmas day when you was young and seen a present that was so nicely wrapped, with the best looking paper that you just couldn't wait to open it, then when you do you find that all you got was socks? This was what Manhunt was like for me. I seen it in the shop and thought "Wow, that looks like a game aimed a cult movie fans, with a feel of films like 'Man Hunter' or 'The Warriors'" and to be fair I don't think I was TO stupid for thinking this, mainly down to the fact Man Hunter star Brian Cox was providing the voice of a sadistic director.

I didn't buy the game from day one for some reason, but I did intend to play it at some point. It was actually when I watch The Warriors on DVD with some mates that I decided to exchange an old game for this which was about £15 at the time, and in true cult style surrounded in controversy. Everything about this game looked so cool, from when it told me to set the screen to get the "BEST EXPERIENCE" and that it was set in a city at night. However once I got into the game I had in theory finish unwrapping the paper only to find that I had got some socks and underwear, and seeing as I exchanged for it I couldn't take it back. So it was a case of *Fake Smile* and "Thanks For This Wonderful Present, Its What I Always Wanted".

To me it feels like Rockstar realized that the game play was sluggish and rather than scrap the whole thing decided to do was singers do when they have a terrible song, make it so it gets band (Well Almost).

I could just see them in the offices now...

"Sir its about the game Manhunt" "Whats wrong with it" "Well, theenemies AI..." "Is that all" "No there's also the sluggish combat, poor graphics, repetitive game play, its boring and when you get into a fight you just end up taking turns hitting one another till someone drops, should we scrap it?" "No, I've got a better idea..."

Then after adding about 100 swear words and tons of gore we got Rockstars Manhunt.

To be honest I thought that the story was ace, the idea that you are being hunted by an entire city was awesome, it felt like I was going to play a video game based on 'The Running Man' but the game play just plain sucks. For one each level is just the same in that you kill everyone in an area and then move on to another, like all video games the enemies start of weak and then end up being Hard Ass's. This gets very boring when you realize there its a trick to killing everyone which is, hide in the shade, tap the wall and make the enemy come to you and then wait for him to turn away so you can make your move. Another thing that ticks me off about the game is how little verity there is, its feel like it is one plate of peas trying to feed 100 people.

The enemies AI is like that of a SNES game, but maybe even a little worse. For example if you get seen and then subsequently chased all you need to do is hide in the shade, you don't even need to worry about them if they see you go in there as they will just wait for a few seconds and then say "Well, I guess that it was nothing" HOW CAN IT BE NOTHING, I WAS JUST 5 SECONDS BEFORE PUNCHING YOU IN THE FACE!!! At least in Super Mario the enemy knew to walk back and forward, they even frightened me more.

I did like that the game have great voice acting from Brian Cox, who was not only menacing but also side-splitting funny in parts. Like when a member of Cash's (the guy you play as) family gets shot in the head, you hear

"Ow no, thats just to bad"

OK when read it might seem lame, but its not so much what he says its how he says it.

In conclusion I can't think why any cult fan would what to buy this when the awesome Warriors video game is out there, maybe for about £5 its worth it to hear the genius of Mr. Cox, the saving grace in this pair of socks.


As a late-comer to the heated debate about this movie, let me make my position clear. I am a Jack Arnold fan.

For me, Arnold's contribution to Fifties SF movies is greater than any other director. But he was heavily dependent on his screenwriters. When the screenplays were good he turned in some of the best SF movies of the decade: It Came from Outer Space; Creature from the Black Lagoon; Incredible Shrinking Man and, to a lesser extent, Tarantula. When they were poor (Revenge of the Creature; Monster on Campus) all he could do was make the pictures watchable: he couldn't make them good.

Apparently, Space Children was his personal favourite amongst his SF movies and the one on which he lavished most care, but it definitely falls in to that second category. It is watchable, but no more.

It establishes a good atmosphere. Arnold invests an ordinary stretch of coastline with the same eerie ambiance as the Black Lagoon and the desert locations of It Came from Outer Space and Tarantula. He also gets good performances from his juvenile cast. As a group, they are the least objectionable movie kids of the Fifties.

The problems all lie in the screenplay, which is derivative, half-baked and repetitive. The screenplays for Revenge of the Creature and Monster on Campus were simply trite, mechanical and by-the-numbers. This screenplay is actually incompetent and there is ultimately nothing Arnold can do to salvage it.

It is a movie with a message, but that message is thoroughly hackneyed. The mysterious (usually alien) stranger who uses almost magical powers to save us from our own follies is an idea that has had many outings over the years: Things to Come; The Day the Earth Stood Still; Stranger from Venus; The Cosmic Man; Strange World of Planet X and even Plan 9 from Outer Space. Space Children adds nothing new to this somewhat self-righteous, preachy sub-genre.

The SF content is completely haphazard, so we never really know what is going on. For example, when the alien lands it causes power cuts that extend as far as the rocket launch site, so it not clear why the alien needs to enlist the aid of the children in the first place (anyway, why not work through adults?). The nature of its connection with the children is also somewhat vague. Does it possess and coerce them, or merely enlist their voluntary aid? The visuals often suggest the former, but the intent of the story implies the latter. Then again, what help does it require? What do the children actually do to stop the launch of the missile? If it is telekinesis, why do they have to break into the launch site? Why does the alien grow in size during the course of the movie?

The SF content is so incoherent that the story can only really be viewed as fantasy. For example, the alien's use of children rather than adults is not dictated by the logic of the story: it is basically a poetic device. But even fantasy needs its own rules if the story is to grip. This movie has none, so it feels like random a sequence of events.

The dramatic structure of the movie is weak. It starts well enough, with the arrival at the missile base, the landing of the alien, its discovery by the children and its first communication with them. After that, it just meanders all over the place. There is no steady build up of tension and no real climax. Things happen, but for no particular reason.

For example, there is apparently a second alien arrival, but we only see one alien. We have to assume that, for some reason, it departed and then returned again.

There is a pointless sequence where Bud takes his father to the cave, they retrieve the alien and carry it off to their cabin - only to return it to the cave the following day. This adds nothing to the story and only contributes to the sense that the movie is just an endless succession of people going backwards and forwards to the beach.

The business of the adults finding out what is going on, but being unable to tell anyone about it, is also redundant.

The death of the drunken father is so poorly handled we don't really know what has actually happened. The implication is that the alien has killed him, but this undermines the notion that it is essentially benign. Probably what was intended is that the shock of encountering the alien caused him to die of natural causes (there is some dialogue with the doctor that lends weight to this interpretation) but here, as elsewhere in the movie, even the simplest plot points are fudged.

The truth is that all these scenes are mere padding. The picture seems so aimless because, having set up the basic situation, it is just marking time until the thwarting of the rocket launch and the final revelation. Take away these irrelevant scenes from the middle of the picture and there simply wouldn't be enough footage for release as a feature film.

It is hard to see how this relatively straightforward story could have been written any worse. What did Tom Filer and Bernard Schoenfeld do to earn their money?

Despite all these reservations, the movie is by no means a complete dud. It defects are mitigated by merits that other low budget SF of the era didn't have. Arnold tries his best to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but cannot quite manage it. Nonetheless, I am glad I finally have it on DVD to complete my Jack Arnold collection (even if it is a soft, second or third generation copy).

However, if I was trying to convince people that Arnold's SF films should be taken seriously I would be very wary about showing them this movie.


Hi, this is your horror correspondent Coventry bringing you an exclusive interview with Jack Arnold! He's the guy who directed some of the most memorable horror landmarks of the 1950's, like "Tarantula", "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and "The Incredible Shrinking Man", but he also directed  THIS movie! "The Space Children" is a completely obscure Sci-Fi movie that only has a rating 2.2 out of 10 on this famous movie website. And it's not like he made this movie at the very beginning of his career or at the end. No, Jack Arnold made this film right after all the aforementioned winners; in the year 1958. More than enough reasons to have a little chat with the director, if you ask me

(Coventry): "What exactly went wrong with "The Space Children", Mr. Arnold? (J. Arnold): Hmm (panting)  Well yes, hmm, I clearly hadn't got any budget to work with here. That is noticeable straight from the opening credits already, and from there onwards it just got worse! I had to work with obvious cardboard set pieces and lousy special effects. (Coventry): Yes, indeed But there are also a lot of problems with the script. A great director like yourself should know a good script when he sees one or at least have the talent to turn a mediocre plot in a worthwhile movie? (J. Arnold) Ha well  (mumbling) I personally saw some good potential in the story of an extraterrestrial stone crashing on earth and "hypnotizing" the children. And I still think that I'm right, by the way. If my movie would have been slightly better, it would have been a bigger classic than "Village of the Damned", which has a similar theme and got released two years later. (Coventry): Maybe, but  (J. Arnold) Oh, and another thing, "The Space Children" does undeniably contain a handful of highly effective sequences! For example when the leader of the kids, you know the 12-year-old James Dean wannabe, hypnotizes two truck drivers into parking their vehicles on the beach! Or when he takes away the scientists' ability to speech! Or when all children stand in front of the glowing stone and the camera zooms in on all their faces separately! I think I'm entitled to say there's some quality and ominous atmosphere in all of those sequences. (Coventry): I agree, Mr Arnold, but those are merely isolated moments that point out your personal craftsmanship. You can't really deny that "The Space Children" is an overall tame and unexciting Sci-Fi story. (J. Arnold): It's true that are long periods of boredom in the film, I admit, and that some of the overly talkative scenes could easily have been cut on the editing table, but there just weren't any opportunities to put spectacle or suspense in a movie that constantly features children! If I would have shown footage in which children are harmed, I can forget about a career in the film industry. It had to remain child-friendly at all costs. (Coventry): I thought it was childish rather than child- friendly, but that's one man's opinion, of course. One more question, if you'll allow me, would you really recommend "The Space Children" to your fans? (J. Arnold): Well, in all honesty and I know I'm speaking against my own financial interest here, there are many 50's movies that you should see before "The Space Children". It's nowhere near a classic, or even a good and memorable movie for that matter. But still, if you've seen everything else already and if you're in the mood for some charming and typically cute Sci-Fi, you won't regret choosing this movie. (Coventry): Thank you so much, Mr. Arnold.


One of Jack Arnold's lesser efforts, it reverses the "Invaders From Mars" theme. Instead of alien's controlling parents, we have kids becoming the mind-controlled tools of forces from beyond who want to stop Earth's "self-destructive" ways. Worth a peek for Jackie Coogan and his snug bathing suit.


Without hesitation, I'd admit I've seen worse movies... but not many. ("Hobgoblins", "Manos".) While I enjoy the MST3K guys, I think even they had trouble trying to find something to parody.

Anyway, it's obvious this is a B movie. Budget actors, budget writers, TV grade special effects, etc. Of movies like that, where at least normal attempts of quality are adhered to, some movie has to be one of the worst. This film is it.

Perversely, some person in IMDb has created numerous logins and given "reviews" of this film that are better categorized as "propaganda." Disregard these rants. It's a bad movie... not as bad as they get, mind you, but certainly some fun if the MST3K guys can give you commentary.


A blob from outerspace comes to the beach and hangs out in a cave. Only children are attuned to the blob and it tells them what to do in order to sabotage, The Thunderer! Apart from that rather thin plot line, we are treated to Jackie Coogan in a fuzzy bath robe and really short shorts (frightening). Russel Johnson departs from his lovable Professor persona and plays a drunk who is struck down by the blob. And there's the guy from "North By Northwest" who plays the father of two of our mysterious children. He's married to the twisty faced woman from "The Screaming Skull" so all in all, it's a film for the ages. Be sure to watch this one with Mike, Tom, and Crow otherwise you might feel compelled to smash something at the end of it


The above statement goes to the one obsessed fan who apparently written several reviews of this movie under different names and goes around blasting and writing to everyone who disagrees with his opinion. Apparently he would prefer to live in a society where only his matters and everyone must bow down before him. Well what to say about this movie...it is a very short, pointless anti something or another movie, possibly war or nukes, but lets face it all we got here is a missile that if launched would have no capabilities other than coming down again. It is way to small to be the highly specialized missile capable of knocking out any country you desire for you need a satellite to have something with that means and this weapon looks like a stick. For a better movie with an anti nuclear weapon message I would suggest Japan's own original "Godzilla". Here we have a man moving his family into an army base with a bunch of other families to work on the weapon. Of course along with these families there is also a family with an out of work dad and his wife and step child, why they are on this top secret base is beyond me, I highly doubt a woman would be working in such a facility in the 50's but then what do I know I think this movie sucks and that means I am an idiot. The wife is annoying, but then again I think this is just the way she acts as if you had seen her in the equally as bad "The Screaming Skull" you would realize she is basically playing the same role. The kids are all annoying brats, and so is the rest of the cast. From the heavens comes a blob, which for no reason gets bigger and helps the kids disarm said nuclear device through magical means of unlocking a gate. Wow, isn't that exciting, apparently kids from the 50's thought watching a blob get bigger and gates unlocking made for the best movie ever (well to the one disturbed fan it does). However, to me and most normal people this does not a good movie make...it makes for a very boring and pointless movie whose only redeeming value is that it is so absurdly done that you can make fun of it. A good message does not mean it is a good movie and one deranged fan who has probably 4 or 5 identities so he could pump up the score and write multiple reviews and say he disagrees with other reviews two or three times, makes for a person that probably should be put in a mental ward. And don't bother private messaging me psycho I have said my last words on this turkey "Space Children".


Unoriginal, poorly produced, poorly acted, and ultimately disappointing, this film takes the beautifully orchestrated acrobatic moves of Crouching Tiger (not to mention the leading lady), but executes them with an awkwardness surpassed only by the overused blue-screen and computer-generated special effects. Some of the action scenes were well done, but as a whole, it failed to bring anything more than what most low-grade action films offer.

The many attempts to inject humor into the film, via the classic "moronic American idiot" who bumbles around the film acting like he just left the set of latest Police Academy installment, is so out of place that it annoyinging disrupts the flow of the film and leaves the audience to wonder, "what the hell is that guy doing in this movie?"

Perhaps most disappointing were the performances of the two lead characters, who after promising roles in "Crouching Tiger" and "Birthday Girl" seemed to have settled for whatever script was tossed their way.

I rated this film a 4. It was compelling enough that I stayed to see the ending, but in the end, I wish that I hadn't. Utterly forgettable and disappointing...


Ben Chaplin (Birthday Girl) plays Eric, a former acrobat turned thief for a wealthy, but deadly collector. When Eric finally steals an artifact of great importance to his acrobatic foster family, he decides to steal it back and begin a treasure hunt with his former child love, Michelle Yeoh.

The plot is the same as pretty much all the films of the genre. A group of noble treasure hunters goes out on a dangerous journey but is pursued by a killer and along the way they find love, loose a few people and end up happy.

The first hour you will admire that the sets aren't cheap and Ben Chaplin does a halfway decent job of playing Eric. Michelle is fair at best and the rest of the cast are awful. The rest of the film makes you wish you could fast forward to the climax and the treasure part....when you get there you will wish you hadn't wasted your time.


'Tian mai chuan qi' (AKA 'Touch') follows in the well paid path of the really gorgeous films that came out of Hong Kong and China (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, etc) but it raises the question 'Just how many of these small story visual epics are palatable in repetition? Michelle Yeoh recognizes successful financial formulas when she sees one and is at the crux of this flimsy little caper film, cashing in on the popularity of the genre.

The story is slight: a relic (ny the monks of Dan Huang. The monks call upon a family of acrobats (of course with a history of hundreds of years of secret training on how to accomplish this mission) to retrieve it. Pak Yin Fay (the very beautiful Michelle Yeoh) and her brother Tong (Brandon Chang) take on the mission - with a few glitches: Pak Yin Fay's old boyfriend Erik (Ben Chaplin) is a ne're-do-well thief who possesses the necessary Heart medallion required to open the location of the Sharira. But wouldn't you know, there appears an unscrupulous nasty guy Karl (Richard Roxburgh, a fine Australian actor out of Moulin Rouge, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Oscar and Lucinda, etc) who causes no end of problems at the site and initiates the reason for making this film: an extended martial arts dance on pillars above a CGI fire in the tomb - a place where nearly everyone in the cast is cremated after gallant swinging and flying! Yet of course it all ends well with the Sharira being returned to the happy monks in Tibet.

Corny, yes, but if martial arts films with lots of color and vistas of deserts and the holy city in Tibet stimulate you, then this film is worth your time. Michelle Yeoh is beautiful to watch, and both Ben Chaplin and Richard Roxburgh are fine enough actors to almost make you forget the pointless shallow lines they are force to deliver with as much comedic tone as they can milk from the script. Grady Harp