Pure and simple, as a computer nerd this movie is crap.

It is totally 100% unbelievable, thats about it. It plays on every single hacker stereotype that exists and it makes up laws of technology.

"HEY! I bet I can guess the password to the FBI in 3 tries! I bet it's sex secret or god!"

Thats the level of technology they expect us to believe the FBI uses.

They ALSO expect us to believe that the FBI keeps its top secret files ONLINE in the first place!!

Crap, all the way through, plain and simple.


That bottom of the barrel movie mill, Monogram, gives its all in this ridiculous but fun film about mysterious happenings in a pseudo Chinatown. Bela Lugosi is the power-hungry overlord searching for the 12 Coins of Confucius which will allow him to become the Boss of Bosses. True to the era and for no particular reason except to add to the running time, all Chinese, good or bad, are murdered, tortured and generally abused.

Throw in Wallace Ford and Arline Judge as the newspaper reporter and his girlfriend for some unfunny comic relief and E. Alyn Warren (who???) as Lugosi's arch enemy and you are off and running. The dialogue will remind you of the Charlie Chan films with those "Confucious say......." aphorisms.

Two of the most humorous things in this mish-mash (and there are many) are: (1) Lugosi playing an Oriental with that heavy Hungarian accent; and (2) after trying every type of torture to make his arch enemy crack under pressure, Lugosi kicks him in the shins. Priceless!!! It's foolish, tacky, poverty row at its finest..........what fun!!!!


This is one of the strangest I have watched in a good while. Of course an hour is not too long to devote to one of your horror film favorites. Disappointment sets in when you realize this is not horror, just odd. Bela Lugosi plays a ruthless Chinese villain that is not short in ordering murder in order to collect the fabled 'twelve coins of Confucius' for himself. Conveniently the coins are concentrated in New York City's Chinatown. Adding to the mystery and oddity of Lugosi's character...his thick Hungarian accent is not disguised.

Note:Lugosi's arch rival Boris Karloff had a series of Mr. Wong Chinese detective flicks also directed by William Nigh.


I am a fan of Bela Lugosi but I also realize that he often appeared in cheesy films. However, much of this cheese was actually a lot of fun to watch despite the low budgets and silly writing. Sadly, however, this film is neither well made nor is it cheesy fun--just amazingly dull.

The film begins with the old Monogram Studios logo--the one with the monorails and zeppelins. Despite this cool start, I also immediately realized that because it was made by a so-called "Poverty Row" studio, that the budget and overall quality would be suspect.

Wallace Ford is a rather obnoxious reporter (a standard cliché of the day) who is assigned to Chinatown due to some suspicious murders. At the heart of it all is Mr. Wong--but exactly WHO Wong is no one seems to know. Considering the film stars Lugosi, it doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to figure it probably is him!! However, who thought that a Hungarian with a heavy accent would make a good Chinese-American?! And who would have thought that Lugosi actually looked and sounded MORE Chinese than his motley group of henchmen. They all sported Chinese-style clothes but looked about as Chinese as Mae West!! The film does have some killing and tossing of knives and even some bamboo shoots being inserted under the nails. Yet, because the acting is so flat, the script so limp that even these crazy story elements can't breathe life into this soggy biscuit. Perhaps the movie would have been better if Lugosi had actually played twins--then maybe two Wongs could have gotten it right! I should be ashamed of myself.

A final note--The DVD version of this film I saw was from Passport Video and was of very dubious quality (it came in "The Bela Lugosi Box"). This company specializes in releasing public domain films and consistently does nothing to clean up the prints. This one was almost unwatchable due to terrible sound and no captioning. Also, Passport imprints their logo at the bottom right corner of the screen--which seems like a lot of nerve considering they didn't pay for the film!! Public domain AND emblazoning their name across it like they made the film?! Gimme a break. See if you can find a different and cleaner version.


"The Mysterious Mr. Wong" is a mystery to me. Star Bela Lugosi made some questionable career choices following his success in "Dracula" (1931). This was certainly one of them. He accepted many parts from so-called poverty row studios probably because he needed the money. At this time he was about to embark on a trilogy of films with Boris Karloff (The Black Cat, The Raven , The Invisible Ray) that should have solidified his career. Unfortunately it did not.

This mess of a movie casts Lugosi as a Chinese (Chinese?) lord, Fu Wong, who is seeking the 12 coins of Chinese Philosopher, Confuscious. The coins it seems were given by Confuscious on his death bed to 12 of his closest friends. They have been passed down to their descendants. The 12 coins when gathered together are supposed to confer untold power to their owner.

The story opens promisingly with three murders by unseen assassins. Each of the victims has one of the fabled coins in his possession. It's all downhill from here. The murderers report back to their boss, Fu Wong (Lugosi, complete with drooping mustache and thick Hungarian accent). He now has 11 of the twelve coins in his possession. He sends his men out in search of the twelfth. Now how in heaven's name did these rare coins all wind up in the same city in the USA?

The murders of the Chinese are assigned to fast talking reporter Jay Barton (Wallace Ford) who with bumbling Police Officer McGillicuddy (Robert Emmett O' Connor) investigate the deaths. In between Barton manages to romance the comely young Peg (Arline Judge). A note left by one of the victims leads Barton to Wong. He seeks the aid of good Chinese philosopher Philip Tsang (E. Alyn Warren) to translate the note. The note leads to the 12th coin and.............................

Lugosi is laughable as the "Hungarian Chinese" villain. He may have seen Karloff have success with "The Mask of Fu Manchu" and wanted to emulate him, who knows? Wallace Ford was about to escape "B" movies with a memorable role in John Ford's "The Informer" (1935).

A dreadful movie.

Remember, Confuscious say:

Actor with thick Hungarian accent Cast in part of Chinese villain Wind up in "wong" role


I'm not sure whom of five people to hate: the director? one or more of the people given the writing credits? In any event, this is one of those movies that fairly actively insults the viewer by having the ostensible hero repeatedly be implausibly foolish -- as if drunk through-out the entire story. On top of this, the movie is awash with offensive ethnic stereotypes, and with obviously Caucasian actors pretending to be Chinese by looking filthy and acting sub-human. The Chinatown is made to seem as if it were literally over-run with villains, so that Wong's henchmen are to be found on every balcony and in most doorways. The banter between the hero and his love interest is not so much a volley of witticisms as it is an inept logomachy.

I paused the movie repeatedly, wanting to recover from sequences of stupidity before slogging onward.


This is filmed theater and does not cut it as a movie. It just does not come across with any realism or vibrancy.

The point is not that a film must have action. Indeed, one of my all-time favorite movies is "My Dinner with Andre", which consists entirely of a dinner conversation between two old friends. But "First Monday in October" just doesn't have any spark.

3/10


This one of the best effort took by Maniratnam who has highlighted the potential of the Tamil film makers.It's a movie reflected Hindu_Muslim conflict through a strong screenplay. Maniratnam's thought was supported by high technical assistance and the superb music by A.R.Rahman.This film shows how a tragedy arise from a single event made living in such a large city a risk full attempt.Aravinthswamy,Manisha and the two little kids expressed the feelings in a more realistic way. I think the director has been successful to leave the people who watched the movie with a feeling that everyone born just to enjoy every moment they live, not to waste it through horrible hatred feelings.It leaves a message that "HARMONY IS WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS".


This one is among the worst Mani Ratnam movies I have seen. Not that Mani Ratnam is a great director in my opinion - he's just among the better ones in Bollywood full of third rate directors. But this movie has nothing to commend itself. The movie is supposed to be based on historical incidents, but there is no accuracy in any of the incidents depicted. I would rather read Times of India. It's a totally crap commercial movie, trying to find balance in the 1992/93 massacre, where there was no balance shown by Shiv Sena government or the police force in Mumbai. In a supposedly serious movie, there are unbelievable number of trash and irrelevant songs and dances. While the riot scenes are being shown, there is a background song on the virtues of unity and harmony. Total waste of 3 hours.


When Charlie Chaplin made his great black comedy of murders, "Monsieur Verdoux" he planned a sequence where Henri Verdoux contacts a woman through the matrimonial ads of a newspaper, only to discover she is a female serial killer for profit. When they find out each other's true vocation it becomes a race to kill the other, that Verdoux barely wins. However, this sequence was never in the finished film. One wonders how it would have been handled by Chaplin. I suspect it might have been good.

Ray Steckler was nowhere near the Chaplin class of director and film creator. He is nearer Ed Wood, but Wood had that saving grace of having some concept or idea that was original but that he could not bring to the screen due to poor talent. Steckler was basically an opportunist who shot films that were violent and full of quasi-pornography. He never could do a nude sequence of interest. He just could show sleazy situations. It was enough to attract an audience, but its not cinematic art at it's best (Chaplin) or it's worst (Wood).

The plot of this film is fairly simple: Johnny Click (that is his name) is a photographer played by Peter Agostino. He has been married but the marriage is now over, and he is a bitter man due to that. He looks at most of the women he meets as tramps and prostitutes, and since he is in Hollywood he does see many of them on the street corners. With a better script and direction it could be the negative version of Julia Roberts-Richard Gere's "Pretty Women", the street nightmare of the whores that Roberts wants to get away from. But this is Stekler, and he concentrates on the sensational that will make the film a ticket seller to a certain audience that just likes sensation. I will give him one credit though - his shots of the streets of Hollywood are done well, and the more to his credit is the cheapness of his film equipment: Steckler made this film as a silent film with a shoulder held camera. Later (at prodding of distributors) Agostino does do some narrative.

Agostino contacts whores and offers to do photos with them as models, showing their "skills" for his camera. And we see him do in all these poor girls by strangling them. We never see any police investigation (it would have meant a more involved script with more acting). Agostino sees every victim as a "cock tease" and he feels he is doing the race of men a favor by killing them. Actually we do sense he is really going off the deep end - at one point he follows a woman to her car and strangles her in the car.

While his murders do make headlines he is sharing them with a second serial killer known as the Skidrow Slasher.* These are male derelicts who are found cut up and mutilated in the back rows of the streets at night. Again no police investigation is shown. But we are invited to see the party responsible. It is a pornography book store owner played by Steckler's real life wife Caroline Brandt. Apparently (we are never allowed into her mental state to see what her problem is) she sees the derelicts as the parasitic men threatening the race of women, and sees it her duty to destroy them.

(*I hate to give a schlockmeister like Steckler any real credit for creative force, but I keep wondering if he first got the idea of the two killers from the notorious Zodiac murderer who operated in California in the 1970s, and was never caught, as well as the "Hillside Strangler", who was caught eventually.)

You can see what is inevitable in this crappy film.

Agostino goes into the book store one day, and his eyes and Brandt's meet. Now neither is really pleasant looking, but both are "presentable" and neat. Both have some "good points" that could overcome their negatives (Agostino never smiles, Brandt has a perennial stare in her eyes). Slowly they get to know each other and start judging each other as a classier type than they have known than others of each other's sex. They decide to go full scale into a deep relationship. And just as it is coming to fruition they realize just who each other is, and what each other does.

SPOILER:

Briefly their growing fondness (I really can't consider it love) turns into mutual contempt and hatred, ending with Agostino strangling Brandt to death while Brandt plunges her knife repeatedly into Agostino's belly stabbing him to death. She dies first, and he dies shortly after.

Aside from the shock value of the murders (which frankly gets monotonous) and the film of the streets, it is a wretched film. I take it that it found it's audience, as Steckler would later do a second film with Agostino (playing the same role - hey didn't he die in this first picture - only playing it in Las Vegas). One can't pass this story by without also noting that it could have been improved in many ways. For instance, Brandt's knife could have been used by Agostino on her while she strangled him in a curious, if fitting reversal, of murder methods. But even with that it would have been a worthless bit of change for such a film. Really the best thing to say about such a film is one need never have to see it. I recommend to the readers they avoid it like the plague.


Why, oh why did I see this horrible film? Well, it was purely because I am trying to see the films of the great auteur, Ray Dennis Steckler--one of the most craptastic directors/producers/actors in motion picture history. I fact, I have, on a lark, decided to see as many of the films of a group of craptastic film makers--including Al Adamson, Arch Hall (Junior and Senior), Larry Buchanan, Ed Wood, William Grefe and a few others. These men all shared many wonderful traits--the ability to make films for almost nothing and a complete ineptness that makes many of their films unintentional laugh riots. However, not all of their films are laughable messes--some are just nasty, horrible films--like THE Hollywood STRANGLER.

What makes this film so unpleasant and non-funny is that the film, though inept, is also a bit like being inside the mind of a sex pervert murderer--and seeing his depravity up close and in person. Sometimes seeing crime is interesting--this is more like being and experiencing the murders first-hand--a nasty proposition indeed. Some may like this but mostly it just felt sleazy and sick. And, there were lots of assorted murders (stabbings, suffocations, etc.) and tons of gratuitous nudity--with women who looked rather skanky.

Overall, the entire film was handled so poorly, even the voyeurs out there will be disappointed. That's because when Steckler made the film, it was silent! Sound was added later as well as a voice-over dialog as well as occasional "Popeye Speak". In other words, voices were added in some scenes and the voices were too soft and rather garbled--sort of like the way Popeye talked to himself in cartoons! It all is very bizarre and very cheap. The only saving grace to all this is that the film is rather short.

A terrible film in every way. And, for that matter, I worry about anyone who would actually get enjoyment out of this thing. It's just nasty and stupid--a rare combination.


Warning... This movie might contain spoilers, but since Im sure you're not going to watch another forgotten cult flick by infamous Ray Dennis Steckler, I won't hold up with spoilers (like there is anything to spoil!).

This whole movie felt like one big deja vu. No, seriously. Whole movie is made from three scenes: 1.) The Hollywood Strangler strangles model (or how she calls them, sluts, garbage and "like the rest of them") and then goes of cooling playing with his pigeons(!?) or drinking bear all the time calling his ex Marsha (I think that was her name). Btw, his name is Johnathan Click and he is photographer.

2.) The Skid row slasher played by Steckler ex-wife Carolyn Brandt (imagine that) who owns a book store by day and is well wino slasher by night. All she does in this movie is: going to the store to open it, staring at drunk, going for the drunk, slashing the throat or stabbing the drunk and then cooling of the beach. Yeah, I forgot to tell that she HAS to close the store every single scene.

3.) Well I can't actually remember what was the 3rd scene...

Anyway, whole movie is deja vu. You might think that you are watching the same scenes repeat over and over since all the killing in this movie are done in exact same way and all events are just repeated with different actors or actress.

Another important fact of this movie is that it's a SILENT movie made in '70. I love those '70, those were the time (and '80) where you could put anything on the screen. Steckler hated sound and he also hated spending money on recording sound so he made a silent movie. When she showed up this movie to producers they thought he gave them some random footage of his vacation he shot while driving from the car. But no, Steckler was serious as always so producers decided to PAY HIM just to put some dialogs and sound into the movie. What Steckler has done is that he recorded lines and mixed them so it looks like we are in the mind of a serial killer (Hollywood Strangler) and narration in the movie are actually his thoughts. Clever idea even by Steckler's standards. Is there no sarcasm in my sentences? Not at all? there's a funny fact how the hell this movie was made. Steckler was on his movie-making class when he start discussion with students where he told them that he could make a scene in the dark with using only his camera and two lights. Result: He made a slasher scene where killer is slashing homeless drunk. Of course he got 75% of his answer incorrect, but who cares! THE Hollywood STRANGLER MEETS THE SKID ROW SLASHER was born from that scene! (since Steckler didn't want to waste all that used movie track he had) Why am I not telling anything about plot? Well... there is actually no plot except for the two scenes I told you about. There is lot of nudity, but no plot. It's a Steckler movie and you should know that he was PORN director in '70. He even used footage from his other movie in this one (from "Plato's Retreat West" the Rollerblade nude dance scene. Don't rush it, there are no hot bodies to look for here. Well, you might find it beautiful if you like to see naked body of a sixty years old virgins. I'm serious about this one. There is maybe one thirty years old girl in this scene which is NOT hot at all.) Bottom line: This movie suck like rest of the Ray Dennis Steckler movies, but if you are fun of his work you might like this (but you may not even if you are fun because this movie really sucks!). If you are a extreme lover of horrible movies check this one out, if not RUN LIKE HELL FROM THIS MOVIE!

Ps. Don't be fooled by director's name of Wolfgang Schmidt, it's one of many names Steckler has been using during his unsuccessful career.


- Such as it is, I'll try to give a brief outline of the movie. During a photo session, the photographer strangles his model. Meanwhile, a bookstore owner stalks and knives a wino. Later, the same photographer strangles another model. The bookstore owner stalks and knives another wino. This continues until the two meet. Without a word, they seem to fall in love. But what kind of relationship can two serial killers have? Apparently, not much of one.

- The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher is the perfect example of inept film-making. If you're idea of a good time is watching people you don't know kill other people you don't know, this may be the movie for you. This basic premise is repeated over and over and over. Eventually, I just wanted to throw something at the screen. How about a little explanation as to who these people are and why they are doing what they do? Unfortunately, concepts like a plot don't get in the way of the killing.

- Steckler filmed this movie without any dialogue. He later added some voice overs at the insistence of his distributor. Dialogue may have helped, although I doubt it.

- If you really must see this movie, watch it with Joe Bob Briggs commentary. There are a few laugh out loud moments. Otherwise, I found it impossible to get through even the first 10 minutes.


Some fruitcake is loitering around the streets of L.A. taking pictures of (ugly) wannabe models, all the while we hear a voice over narration as he muses about his ex girlfriend or ex wife- it's never made clear- and then strangles said wannabe models. This is occasionally interrupted by scenes of another ugly woman, who works in a used bookstore, stabbing bums to death on the streets with an ever handy switchblade. No explanation is ever given as to why this is happening, why the killings are being committed.

Sleazy little movie looks like it was filmed in one or two days on the streets of L.A. and in back alleys and in old apartment buildings - maybe the crew just decided it would be cheaper to film this at their houses instead of on an actual set? There is NO DIALOGUE (!?!) just a narration added in after the fact and a lot of canned background music all jumbled together, and some of the dialogue is barely decipherable. That might make it worth watching in a "so bad it's good" kind of way, but if you're looking for anything more than that, steer clear.

* out of ****


A photographer strangles homely models after he photographs them he then meets a ugly girl who strangles bums. Really not much more of a plot and aside from some narration added in post production. This is a stupid stupid film and if I hadn't already watched "Schizophreniac: The Whore Mangler", I would have thought it the worst serial killer film I had ever seen. But I DID see the aforementioned film so this one while still horrid, doesn't seem bad in comparison. The ONLY way to watch this travesty would be with the Joe Bob Briggs commentary on or not at all.

My Grade: D

DVD Extras: Movie Intro & Commentary by Joe Bob Briggs; Second commentary by Ray Steckler; Interviews with Steckler & Caroline Brandt; Production stills & poster art; and trailers for "Blood Shack", "Adventure of Rat Pfink and boo boo", "Slaughter Hotel", and "Nightmare come at Night"

Eye Candy: Joanne Hiatt, Lori Morrir, Snowy Sinclair, Bonnie Smith, and Jean Robert all get topless


OK you probably know Steckler as the mastermind behind The Incredible Strange Creatures that Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies!, but this turd is probably without peer in the world of b-movie schlock. OK maybe not. But it's probably the first silent movie to be made in the 70's! Steckler dubs dialogue whenever quote unquote actors are not facing the screen and there's a constant grating monologue by Pierre Agostino running in the background. In the true nature of serial killers, he uses the exact same order of shots every killing! Pure genius. Anyhow watch this with the Joe Bob Briggs commentary on and a six pack, and you'll be pleasantly amused. Trash heaven. Long live Steckler.


This is probably by far the worst movie I have ever seen. I'm not even going to pretend that I enjoyed watching this piece of trash. This is quite possibly the worst movie ever made, and I would suggest to you to rent this movie to witness for yourself. It will be a difficult one to find, but if you ever get your hands on this make sure you rent it. 1 out of 10


What a total let-down!What a huge disappointment!I still can't believe that Dario Argento was responsible for this Hollywood-influenced piece of garbage.It's simply a romance with some splashy gore thrown in.All of Argento's trademarks are gone here:no cool camera angles,no Goblin music,no playing with colors,no black-gloved killer,no bizarre dreamlike sequences,and worse of all,absolutely no suspense.The direction is very flat,the acting is horrible and the characters are not interesting at all.The gore scenes are well-done,but the film is extremely boring.All in all,"Phantom of the Opera" is pretty hard to sit through since it is so lame and unscary.I wouldn't be able to watch this trash again.I only hope that Argento's next horror project "I Can't Sleep" will be really worth watching.Avoid "Il Fantasma dell'opera" like the plague.Better watch "Suspiria" or "Deep Red" again.Not recommended.


Dario Argento's Phantom Of The Opera (1998: Starring Julian Sands, Asia Argento, Nadia Rinaldi, Andrea Di Stefano, Lucia Gazzardi, Aldo Massasso, Iztvan Bubik, David D'Ingeo, Zoltan Barabas, Kitti Kerri, Leonardo Treviglio, Enzo Cardogna, Itala Bekes, Tania Nagel, Csilla Ward, Gianni Franco, Gabor Harsai....Director Dario Argento, Written By Dario Argento.

Released in 1998, this is Italian cinema director Dario Argento's Phantom but not the Phantom of the Opera as most people are familiar with nor the truest and most faithful adaptation of the old French novel by Gaston Leroux. This one is clearly a horror movie without any touch of romance. Fans of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and the earlier Phantom movies from Lon Cheney's classic performance to Claude Rains, Herbert Lom and Charles Dance, this film is entirely on a different level. It falls under the category of Italian horror and international casting in an unpleasant, disturbing and gory independent film. No wonder it did not do well in the box office and most Phantom fans aren't even aware of its existence. Dario Argento cast his own daughter in the role of Christine Daee, and British actor Julian Sands as the Phantom. This time around, the Phantom is NOT disfigured, which is the strongest violation of the original premise. Instead of having facial deformities, the Phantom is an abandoned child who was raised by telepathic rats that kill people. Living under the opera house with his rats, he's developed telepathy himself and a dirty, dark, predatory and disgusting personality. He looks like either a vampire or rock star but there is no real sense of romance. His feelings for Christine are carnal and nothing more. She becomes his lover but other than music and her voice, theirs is a purely sexual relationship. Because of this, and because he kills anyone he dislikes, he's not a sympathetic figure. Without the romance, we can't really feel anything for this Phantom who is pure evil. The story is only partially faithful to the original tale. It is set at the Paris Opera of the 1870's and the Count Raoul De Chagny is Christine's choice of a mate, but this time around we genuinely feel that she belongs with the normal, secure and more romantic Count than the sadistic and no good Phantom. The performances are over-the-top and boring, even Carlotta, the fat soprano who thinks she is above all else. The classic chandelier drop is here but this time it's far more bloody than usual. There are scenes of graphic violence that earned this movie an R rating and ought not to be viewed by sensitive audiences or children. The music is beautiful, haunting and evocative of the period (with the use of the aria from Lakme) and the cinematography, costumes and art direction is truly very Phantom, including the "Degas ballerinas" touches, but there is very little to like about this movie. For comic relief, there is a rat exterminator and a midget which seem absurd and out of place for this tale. The real problem is the lack of direction and lack of romanticism. It's just one movie of Dario Argento's dark ouevre that happens to have the Phantom of the Opera as subject, but he twisted it around to make it his work and his style. Unless you're a fan of the Italian director, you'll otherwise find it too dark and disturbing. The only other "horror-themed" Phantom I can think of is the 1989 Robert Englund Phantom, an American film starring the actor of the Freddy Kueger films, but even that one had more interesting qualities. This one is too sick.


They butchered the original. If you are going to make a movie based off of a book, try to make it somewhat like it. Otherwise, don't. Give it another name for goodness sake! I liked the creativity and all put into this film, just don't ruin the story line for me. I have loved this story since I was a child and as an adult I would still like to have it in my memory as a good story, not some type of killer film. That is not how it is supposed to be...

I don't care if you make the movie "original." Just if you are going to name it after something, try to a least make an attempt to make it like it... Otherwise, name it something else.

PLEASE!


To kick off, this film sucks! Call me immature, but it's true. I don't blame the actors, I blame the script. The whole gory shtick did nothing to add to the film. The whole movie is just a waste of talent and viewer time really. Julian Sands is great actor; unfortunately he will have to add this horror of a movie to his resume. I started to see the film's decline in the scene when Christine and the Phantom meet for the first time. The whole meeting was just...stupid. Basically, it was just him revealing that he can read her mind and communicate with her the same way. The fact that Christine fell in love with him because of this just made her seem like a weak-minded bimbo. This movie was so unrealistic and cheap, I had to watch Andrew Lloyd Webber's version TWICE just to rid the feeling of disappointment. I hear reviews saying that the movie wasn't as bad as what others might think. True -- IT'S WORSE. To anyone who even considered renting this pretense of an attempt to a good remake: Don't waste your money or your life on it. Stick to the Andrew Lloyd Webber or the original 1925 version.


Like so many other directors who peaked in the 1970s (Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, Lucio Fulci, etc.), Dario Argento's recent work has been incredibly artless and boring. Last year's "Sleepless" was a disastrous attempt at returning to the giallos that made him famous, and "The Phantom of the Opera" (what is this, the MILLIONTH version?) is a murky, muddled, and indifferent stab at 'art.' Reviews that say this is Argento's worst film are not inaccurate--it's so dull I fast-forwarded through most of it, and I NEVER fast-forward through movies. The script is constantly pulling itself in different directions, the acting is downright terrible, the attempts at humor are awkward and unfunny, and the whole thing plays out with the look and feel of a soap opera. Through and through, this is terrible crap, with no redeeming value.

Zero/10


You all know the story here... The opera of Paris is haunted by a guy (Julian Sands) living in the catacombs underneath it, and he's obsessed with Asia Argento's character.

This story has been filmed many times, and I think the world would have been better of without Dario Argento brutally ravaging the wonderful story. One of the most stupid thing he does is to put as much blood and gore into a story that didn't contain any of it in the first place. Towards the end, the violence reaches an almost parodic amount. Don't misunderstand me, I don't find violence offensive or something, but here it was wrong to use, although Argento usually makes gory movies. Also, the whole concept of the Phantom being raised by rats, and having a face without scars was extremely dumb.

The cast is another factor to point a finger at. Dario Argento should not have cast his daughter to play such a role, as this seems pretty incestuous. Julian Sands was also terribly misplaced as the Phantom, and didn't fit in at all. Nadia Rinaldi was the only cast-member who was any fun at all. I think I found her character funny, mostly because of her rather disgusting appearances and behavior. The best word to describe the acting is: terrible!

Basically every aspect of this movie sucked, and the reason I'm not giving it a 1, is because of the occasionally good sets.


Dario Argento: ILL FANTASMA DELL' OPERA (1998)

When one of the most celebrated directors of horror genre decides to make his own version of many times filmed story the result will either be really good or really bad. In this case it is the latter.

I admire Dario Argento as an Italian horror director. His works from 70's and 80's are visually fantastic horror movies. I became fan of his when I watched movies like THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMMAGE, DEEP RED and TENEBRE. He earlier made a shocking thriller set in the opera world named OPERA and his film SUSPIRIA must be one of the best horror movies ever made!

So what goes wrong here? The story, which Argento made with Gerard Brach, is set in Paris opera house in 1877. The Phantom (Julian Sands) in this version is not deformed or scarred, he is actually quite handsome. He was abounded as child and was raised by rats. Okay Story doesn't tell how he learned to speak, write and read, not to mention dress himself and play organs. He fells in love with a singer named Christine (Argento's daughter Asia) and decides to get rid of anyone who stands in her way to become next leading soprano. But what kind of Phantom is this guy? He masturbates while surrounded by rats? And in anger rapes his beloved Christine?!? Oh this is so wrong.

So, if movie is this bad why am I, a die-hard POTO fan, thinking it is better than 1983 TV movie? Unlike in that version, here Argento puts the opera house in a good use. Film was shot in Budapest's opera house and it really gives an eerie surroundings. One could think it is housed by something evil. Especially when Ennio Morricone's hauntingly beautiful music is played.

Last word: A terrible version of classic story which only purpose seems to be upsetting as many Dario Argento and POTO fans as possible. I'm both and I'm really upset.


There maybe spoilers in the following; if you get to see the film, you really won't care.

It is no wonder Asia is no longer appearing in her dad's films. She has certainly proved herself an infinitely better director all round; true, it would be hard for anyone to ever match the dizzying heights of Suspiria but this stinks. Really, it does; its a floater in the phantom's sewer. Most of the characters look like typical Eurotrash, especially the long-haired Raul, who is impossible to take seriously and WHY, Dario? WHY? WHY take away the mask? The Phantom's mask! What next? Porn without the sex? James Bond without his tux? Oi! But that isn't the half of it; we are exposed to such treats as Sands sticking rats down his trousers (yes, you read that right) and does it not worry anyone else about the amount of nudity Pop requires of Asia? But the film's crowning achievement is surely the crazy idea of Rats... yes, RATS... raising the Phantom from a baby. Where did he learn to speak? To dress? How did he come to be so good in bed? Did he read the Rata Sutra? or is it the Karma Ratra? OK, enough of that. I remember reading at the time a industry insider (who remained nameless) saying that if the film did not do well, the Italian film industry was in big trouble. No wonder they're shooting all their films on digital these days.


First off, I just have to ask if anyone knows if this was intended to be a comedy? I am a fan of the works of Dario Argento. In my opinion he is a master of the craft who can superbly wrap the viewer around his finger. With The Phantom Of The Opera, however, I feel that he may have bitten off more than he could chew. The whole thing seems ill advised from the start. Its been some time since I read the book by Gaston LeRoux, but I do not recall the Phantom having a perfectly fine face. Nor do I recall that he was raised by rats or a rat catcher being a main character who drove around in the labyrinth under the opera house on a steam powered rat vacuum. Truly that was one of the most bizarre elements added to the tale. There were murders in the original novel, that I do recall, but I do not recall them being borderline slasher kills. To be fair, the slasher slant is not a new one. Robert Englund starred in a so-so slasher take on the novel in the late 80s. It just seemed like the film was trying to constantly outdo every other take on the tale and failed on every level. Much of the acting is awful to say the least, and some poor dubbing doesn't help matters any. In all honesty, the only actor with any real power in the film is Asia Argento. She gives a very good performance as Christine. Julian Sands is normally a fine actor but here he seems to be overacting much like the rest of the cast. Avoid this one and stick with the old B&W version. Its far better.


I love Argento to bloody pieces, but this was too self-indulgent for even me, and it seems mostly like a vanity project. About as interesting as a corporate training video, the best thing that can be said about "Il Fantasma dell'opera" is that the sets are typically opulent, although you may rightfully wonder why the Phantom's "underground" lair is so surprisingly well-lit. What is the light source? There's good stuff involving some demented rat-catching, too, and Argento injects some variation into the Phantom myth: instead of being disfigured, he is normal-looking, and has simply been raised by rats. Well, something like that.

This definitely wasn't a breakout role for Asia Argento either, although she eventually did become recognized in her own right. As far as Argentos go, this one is best viewed maybe only once, just out of curiosity. Dario did this same theme much better in his own variation simply titled "Opera".


I hate to disagree with everyone, but, being a true phantom phan, I have to say that this was a terrible film and a disgraceful misrepresentation of the beautiful story by Gaston Leroux. If they hadn't pretended this was a Phantom of the Opera movie, titled it something else, given our phantom a name, a few minor changes with the plot, I may have liked the film and afterward said "Hey, parts of that kinda reminded me of The Phantom of the Opera."


I never thought I would find myself writing a bad review of a Dario Argento movie. I have been a fan of his films since the beginning and have every one of them on video, laserdisc or DVD.

I just purchased the DVD of "Il Fantasma dell'Opera," however, and I must say that I regretfully agree with those who feel this is an all-time low for the director. This movie is so basically bad that it makes me wonder if I haven't been making excuses for Argento for some time now. It's hard to believe that in this day and age, with a significant amount of resources and first-class collaborators like Ennio Morricone, Gerard Brach and Julian Sands, the picture still manages to completely fail in any kind of dramatic sense.

While credibility has never been a big thing for Argento, here he pushes the limits and trips himself into complete absurdity. The film opens with a sewer rat single-handedly saving a basket with child from the edge of a waterfall and goes all the way down from there. Are we supposed to even remotely accept that sewer rats could possibly save a baby from death and raise him like, say, the apes raised Tarzan? The bond between the Phantom and the sewer rats, which is central to the rest of the picture, comes from this scene. Unfortunately, this set-up is so ludicrous that every time the issue of "love" between the Phantom and the rats resurfaces (and it does, often and ineptly) you cringe because there is no way you can dispell the absurdity of it all. Why, did a tiny female rat breast-feed the Phantom until he was of age to feed himself? Puhleeze!

The story meanders hopelessly from one ridiculous scene to the next. One man dies and those around him react as if he had only burped. A woman gets her tongue ripped out of her mouth for no other apparent reason than the fact that nobody else in a Dario Argento movie had that happen to them before. Another man's hand is gnawed at by rats and he just leaves it there while the hungry little beasts go to work on it, just so that we can get a good look at it. Loyalties come and go for no reason whatsoever. The climactic "crash of the chandelier" scene looks cheap and completely unimaginative, with some gore trying to compensate for a total lack of spectacle. And even Ennio Morricone's music, unbelievably, seems oddly purposeless as it plays monotonously against every scene.

And then there's Asia Argento, who hysterically missacts every line and botches every shot of herself lipsynching to what is undeniably and all-too-obviously somebody else's singing. Would it have cost a lot to rehearse until her lipsynching looked real? Never mind. Asia has yet to prove, in my view, that she is anything but a one-note actress who plays every part and every scene as a possessed nymphette, and this script doesn't help. The script, in fact, never delivers any information about Christine or anyone such that we could even intuit what she finds so spellbinding about the Phantom (after all, he is a murderous sewer ratboy!) But Argento seems satisfied that Asia's lunatic-like expressions are enough for his audience to get the story. Well, they aren't, and the story is a bust.

The most perplexing thing about "Fantasma" is that Argento did not need to make it because he had already made his Phantom movie. It was called "Opera" and was filled with classic Argento bravura pieces. If you want to see the master's touch, take a look at the (and this is very important!) widescreen version of that film. Not this.


I have seen (and own) almost every version of "The Phantom of the Opera" on VHS. Let me just say, this was terrible. It's nothing like the original, I can barely see where it gets its title. As a horror film it's pretty OK, but it doesn't deserver the title "Phantom of the Opera"


By far the worst Argento film I've seen. The story is plain stupid, although the story has never been the most significant part of the Argento parcel. This time his visions have lost it's edge totally, the splatter and gratuitous typical Argento-violence is there, but that and his infatuation with opera is the only thing reminding of his previous work. Acting isn't much, but you still see the occasional wonderful camera moves and he has always used music very convincingly. As a whole it is disturbingly lame production from such a grandmaster, whose previous Stendahl's Syndrome was just mindbogglingly powerful masterpiece. Hope his next giallo film has same grit his former giallo visions have portrayed...


I rented this movie knowing that it was said to be horrible, but I just had to see it for myself. This movie is ridiculous! It's horribly acted, horribly written, and it just is plain bad! The movie takes place in France but 90% of the cast is Italian? There is no feeling of the classic "Phantom" story line. There is no mystery no feeling of actual connection between the Phantom and Christie. All of a sudden Christine loves the Phantom and immediately has sex with him, then she hates him, then she has sex with him again, then she hates him, then she loves him again! I can't believe that Dario could actually film his daughter in a sex scene, thats just plain messed up. And let me say that Asia is a horrible actress and no matter what people say I don't think she is attractive at all. The only reason I can think of that Asia got this part is because every other actress turned it down! Another part that was ridiculous is when the Phantom rips out Carlotta's breast and threatens it cut them off, whats up with that??? And the rat catcher and the little person was just a dumb side story. Bottom line BAD acting BAD story BAD movie!!! Seriously don't waste the $ to rent this movie, luckily I got it for free!


Forget Heinz Ruehmann playing Heinz Ruehmann interpreting the "Hauptmann von Koepenick", concentrate on some of the remarkable supporting actors and actresses to have at least some fun. And then, try to get 1931's "Hauptmann von Koepenick" with Max Adalbert...


I didn´t like this movie, because of the malicious intention of a reaction in the public, based in a cheap exploitation of homosexualism. Using great actors, with the excuse that an actor has to do whatever the screenplay says, and doing scenes that went against they will, only for the pleasure of the director.

Maybe the producer and director wanted to scandal the audience using unnecessary scenes, that didn´t contribute to the plot. On the other hand, the deletion of those graphic scenes, would have made a great movie, because the intention of the book writer, was to show the subtext behind homosexual behavior, not the behavior itself.

P.S. I use to watch Jaime Baily´s TV show every night, and once a caller asked him if he was gay, and he responded no. When he wrote the book, he also said that was not an autobiography. So, I don´t know why a commenter said the opposite. The answers are in the recorded video tapes of his show.


I HATED this movie! It was one of the most painful, nerve-grating "comedies" I've ever watched. I normally like Danny Kaye, but this movie was like fingernails on a blackboard.

The story: Nightclub comedian Buzzy Bellew (Danny Kaye) is murdered by gangsters after witnessing a murder committed by their boss, Ten Grand Jackson (Steve Cochran). The spirit of Buzzy contacts his twin brother, Edwin Pringle (also played by Kaye), a stuffy bookworm, and asks him to testify before the D.A. in Buzzy's place. Buzzy can possess Edwin's body when he wants to, and make him act like an idiot. The situation causes all sorts of complications with Edwin's girlfriend (Virginia Mayo) and Buzzy's fiancé (Vera-Ellen).

The main problem is, Danny Kaye spends too much time trying to be funny by acting funny. Seeing someone act funny is not funny, unless the people around them are also funny. (This is why the Marx Brothers were funny. They were surrounded by stuffed shirts and pompous characters like Margaret Dumont. You could see who the Marx Brothers were skewering with their humor.)

Characters who act funny when normal characters are around are NOT FUNNY! They are just annoying!

Take the scene where the spirit of Buzzy possesses Edwin for the first time. They are in a park, and what does Buzzy immediately do? He makes Edwin jump around like a crazy man, in front of a cop! An interesting tactic, since Buzzy is supposedly counting on Edwin to avenge his murder by testifying against a gangster. You'd think the last thing he'd want Edwin to do is end up in jail!

Danny Kaye is not funny in this scene! He is trying to be funny by acting funny! But of course, that just ends up being annoying and painful to watch! (You wonder why the cop, who has a billy club, doesn't just whack Danny over the head and cart him off to the funny farm.)

From there on, Buzzy possesses Edwin only when he wants to -- not when Edwin needs him to. One of the most painful scenes in the movie comes when Edwin is called to testify in the D.A.'s office about the murder that Buzzy witnessed. Edwin sits there pleading out loud for Buzzy to possess him, so he can tell the D.A. about the murder, while the D.A. and his men look on, bewildered. Does Buzzy show up and possess Edwin? Of course not! And Edwin is humiliated.

Later, we find out the reason why Buzzy didn't show up. He had a hangover from drinking too much champagne in a nightclub the previous night, while he was possessing Edwin's body.

Would someone please explain this to me. HOW IN THE NAME OF JACOB MARLEY CAN A GHOST GET A HANGOVER, OR EVEN GET DRUNK, AS BUZZY DOES?

Kaye's character has a grating habit of only half-explaining things to people. There's a scene where Edwin, on the run from gangsters, ducks into a delicatessen owned by S.K. Sazall.

"The men in black are after me," Edwin tells Sazall. Of course, Sazall thinks he's crazy, and they go through this whole annoying scene of turning the lights in the deli shop on and off, which alerts the gangsters to their presence.

All Edwin has to say in this scene is "Gangsters with guns are after me. Be quiet and keep the lights out or we'll both get killed."

But that would be too easy, too logical a solution to the problem. Instead, they try to be funny, and end up being annoying again.

There are other annoying characters in the movie. There is a gangster who wears a hearing aid. He keeps asking people, "What'd you say?" Or "What did she say?" But according to his partner, the gangster is only pretending to be deaf and doesn't really need the hearing aid.

WHY? Why would a gangster pretend he needed a hearing aid? Answer: It is just another way that the movie tries to get cheap laughs but doesn't.

The Oscar-winning special effects are good for their time, but lend nothing to the story.

There is ONE good thing in this movie. Vera-Ellen does a tap dance number with the Goldwyn Girls that is AMAZING to watch. Vera-Ellen was an incredible dancer, and it's too bad she didn't achieve greater stardom in her career.

Except for the Vera-Ellen dance number, I would skip this movie, unless you like having your nerves twisted watching people who are not funny trying to be funny.


First off, I have to say I like Danny Kaye -- I really do. We were watching "White Christmas" on Turner Classic Movies tonight for our annual holiday tradition. I used to watch that movie as a kid with my family and that was where I was first introduced to Danny Kaye's comedic genius.

Then when I saw that tonight TCM was highlighting Danny Kaye movies and that "Wonder Man" was on next, I rushed over to IMDb.com to read the reviews on it since I had never seen or heard of this Danny Kaye movie before.

All the reviews here were so glowing (many remarking how this is Danny Kaye's best), that I convinced my own family to sit tight after "White Christmas" was over to make sure that we wouldn't miss this unexpected treat. Well, all I can say was that it was almost a waste of time.

Yes, there were a few good bits in "Wonder Man" and the special effects were very good for that time (deserving of the Oscar they received), but the overall film just seemed so sub-par to all of us.

We sat here for the full 98 minutes, and kept hoping that it would get funnier as it got along. Somewhere around the first half-hour, it became painfully obvious that it wasn't going to get any funnier or better. Two of us fell asleep before it was over; the other two of us stuck it out to the end just to make sure we wouldn't miss anything in case it did get better. It didn't.

How bad was it? Let me put it this way -- I was videotaping it because after reading the IMDb.com reviews, I felt sure this would be one movie that I would want to watch again and share with friends. But then after the movie was over, I rewound the tape so I can re-use it to record something else. I can't see myself ever wanting to spend the time to watch this movie again.

Now, I'm not saying it was terrible; it just wasn't a continuously funny movie. There were a lot of long dry bits between the few laugh-out-loud bits.

For my money, "The Court Jester" was Danny's best and funniest movie --a great script with excellent pacing, well-designed and executed set pieces, hilarious situations and songs, and just a great and satisfying storyline overall. When we first saw it last year on TCM, our whole family literally busted out laughing uncontrollably, with tears coming from our eyes during the rapid-paced knight-certification scenes (and this is with somewhat-jaded teenagers yet!).

Then you throw in the jousting tournament shenanigans, the dueling-under-hypnosis scenes, and the creative climatic fight and rescue and you really have a very funny and entertaining movie. The dueling-under-hypnosis scenes are classic for best showcasing Danny's singular ability to change faces/personalities/whole personas back and forth on a dime.

See "The Court Jester" if you want to see Danny Kaye at his best with a great script, great writing, beautiful production, and rib-aching comedic entertainment.

But back to "Wonder Man" -- besides some of the positive bits mentioned in other reviews here, what really first struck me subconsciously early in this movie and then I became more consciously aware of as the movie progressed is how much it seems that Jerry Lewis lifted from Danny Kaye the manic, physical bits and persona he (Jerry) later became famous for and identified with in the 1960's. See if you don't get the same impression.

In closing, watch "Wonder Man" only so you can say you've seen all of Danny's film work but don't go in expecting that this is his best or anywhere near it. (Did I mention "The Court Jester" is the movie you ought to see?.....;->)


Sheffield 1977 and 18 year old pen-pusher Vince Smith fancies himself as a Saturday Night Fever styled disco king, but the object of his affection, Joanna, is more interested in Johnny Rotton than John Travolta.

While spineless Vince wrestles with his conscience, his downtrodden father, Harold, reveals a hitherto undeclared talent for magic that is nearer to the X-Files than the spoon-bending antics of Uri Geller. And when a fatal incident in a residential home brings him to the publics attention, Joanna's pompous scientist father surprisingly declares him a walking miracle! Featuring cameos from such '70s icons as Angela Rippon, John Craven, Keith Chegwin, Jan Leeming, Alan Whicker and Lulu (as Vince's wayward mum), Courtenay is a likeable Smith, and the film has all the ingredients for a warm, quirky romantic comedy, but sadly, it all fails to gel.

Whatever happened indeed!


I had the opportunity of seeing this film at the London Film Festival and as I grew up in the 1970s, it seemed like an interesting premise.

Sadly, 'Whatever Happened to Harold Smith' is another in a long line of British cinema disasters and is destined to be lambasted by the critics and ignored by the public.

The makers of this film are so lazy that they feel that stringing together a bunch of cultural references around a shallow and uninteresting story and adding a big soundtrack is enough for a surefire success. Well, despite the ridiculously sycophantic applause of Saturday night's audience, the release in February or March will illustrate that this is simply not good enough.

The performances are passable although Stephen Fry does little more than play himself and the lead actor is so inconsequential that I can barely remember his performance.

However, it is the cultural references that really grate - these include a car painted like Starsky and Hutch's, not one but two examples of Hai Karate adverts, a ridiculous take off of the opening of Saturday Night Fever and a variety of newsreaders from the period clearly appearing 20 years too old. It's remarkable that they didn't manage to squeeze spangles in somewhere.

However, the single worst thing about this film is the way that it portrays punks as criminals or deadbeats. Having been a disaffected youth into this music myself, I don't recognise these characters at all and this moral line on a little rebellion leaves a very nasty taste indeed.


In contrast to some of the reviews I've read, I thought this film was a poor effort on every level.

I grew up in the North of England in the 1970s - was one of the first punks in Sheffield (where I understand the film is set) - and I don't see any authenticity in it. Just a bunch of caricatures meandering through a faux 70s setting.

The plot lines were dreary and unfocused and the resolution ridiculous. Two lackluster juvenile leads and the remaining talent chronically under used.

It fails- as most British movies do - to actually look like a film. It looks cheap. It has televisual sensibilities - and budget TV at that. The disco sequences really rock - not. Hard to spread out fifteen extras to make a room seem full I know.

All in all it is rubbish. And its no wonder it was a flop when originally released.


WOW, does this film age poorly. Back in the 30s, Mae West was quite popular and this movie, believe it or not, was up for Best Picture. Now, most viewers will doubtless ask themselves "what is all the fuss about--WHY was this film so popular?". After all, by today's standards it's a very dull and contrived movie--not nearly as interesting as Paramount's other comedians, WC Fields and The Marx Brothers. And, for a comedy, it's almost completely devoid of humor. For me, seeing the trampy looking West vamping every man in the film is ludicrous, as she just looks gross and unattractive. This is even more apparent when she woos a very young and handsome Cary Grant. This is about as believable as the bride of Frankenstein winning Grant's hand! All in all, a very contrived movie and not a whole lot different than most of West's other films. In fact, this movie is pretty much I'M NO ANGEL (1933 AS WELL) all over again (complete with, once again, a drooling Cary Grant as her main heartthrob).


This movie was a serious test of my patience. I have seen few movies where I've felt more disinterest towards the plight of the actors involved. The fact that the cast spoke as if their mouths were full of marbles certainly did not help their cause. The adoration that the soulless Lady Lou (Mae West) commanded was befuddling at best. Mae West's one liners, although bordering on slick, were those of a person desiring a kick in the chops.

As you may have guessed, I am one of the two users who gave She Done Him Wrong a "1".


I've seldom seen anything as ill-directed and ill-writ as this veritable swarm of locusts. The script serves as an age-biased loaf of stale bitterness regarding ageism, to which any dodgy Benny Hill-script seems vital and fresh; the characters are archetypical in the worst sense of the word, the story never brings anything interesting or lucid to the screen, and there are more chances of you being hit by lightning while reading this than there are comedic lines found in this vapid, turgid and fake implausibility; collect a billion monkeys, tie them to typewriters and I shall pay you 1000 US Dollars if even one of them should come up with anything less comprehensible. Even the soundtrack is horrid. All in all, a waste of time that should serve to never let Colin Nutley direct again; sadly, he does just that over and over.


This is simply awful. A load of sloppy dildo-humor and incoherent lines of dialog. The movie lacks definite focus to a point where you wonder if the film ever had a script, the ending is by far the most idiotic resolution I have ever seen. Stay away, or you might have nightmares; this movie is simply the definition of a "failed comedy" film... The acting is decent and the directing is OK, but this does not save it from being extremely painful to watch, I would rather burn alive than see this piece of crap again. The obvious targeted costumer here is a middle aged Swedish old lady who thinks movie like "Shindlers list" and "The Godfather" is too serious and violent. Conclusion: Swedish films generally suck. I know, I'm a swede.


This "movie" is an 18 second clip shown in Nickelodeons across the country in 1896. It consists of a rather ugly older couple getting frisky with each other and culminates in a brief but sweet kiss. THAT'S ALL!! And yet, when it appeared it was considered "smut" and there were widespread cries for censorship!!! It just goes to show you how much things have changed over the years! It's a very important movie historically and I have shown it to my history classes when we discuss American cinema. If anyone cares to see it, it's available on the Internet and is available in Quicktime, MPEG and other formats. Give it a try--it won't take up much of your time!

PS--This film is also known as the MAY IRWIN KISS and is not the same as the 1900 film THE KISS--a knock-off film also made by the Edison Studio, but with more intense kissing and a more attractive couple.


Of course you can make a movie out of The Nibelung Saga, no problem. It is an exciting story, which has all the elements of a proper movie: love, war, jealousy, action, heroes and villains, mystery like dragons, dwarfs, a magic ring... (sounds a wee bit like Lord of the Rings, doesn't it?) Anyway, and then you have all the capacity to start with: a great landscape, fairly decent actors, average budget, CGI that sucks only to a point where it's still bearable, but then... *drum roll* ULI EDEL rears his ugly head, to top it all! And the horror begins with THE MAN who has so far managed to ruin! every! single! movie! he has been involved in! I mean, seriously, WHAT THE HECK!!!!!!!

!!!!!!! SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!! SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!

Brunhild, the queen of Iceland, played by former terminator chick Kristanna Loken, who said herself that she knew jack-squat about her character -and you can tell in the movie-, I repeat, she surely DID NOT DID NOT DID NOT simply sail past Siegfried's smithy. Oh, and Siegfried DID NOT grow up as a schizophrenic retard who calls himself Erik, the "Master over the fire AND (!!!) the elements" (like Brom, Aluminum, Copper, Magnesium... you name it)His name was Siegfried, Mime, the smith, gave him that name and he found out about his parents in a different way. King Siegmund actually outlived his son and Queen Sieglind did not die in a Xena-amazone-warrior-princess kind of way. Hagen was not such a bad guy, but he CERTAINLY WASN'T THE ILLEGAL BASTARD SON OF ALBERICH WHO!!!!!!!!!!! WASN'T !!!!!!!!!!!!! A!!!!!!!!! NIBELUNG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, his name is ALBERICH, as in King of the ALBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGH!!!!!!! Oh, this is getting painful! And of course, there had to be a strange foreign language-thingy to get it just this much closer to Lord of the Rings... again! Then, Gunter of Burgund had two brothers, both of whom were quite intelligent young men who ruled Burgund together, not just one lad barely out of puberty, who just happens to *sneak* onto the ship they sail to Iceland with, just so he can get some more screen time, because he had to be introduced to the public for the next Harry Potter movie, in which he will be starring as Cedric Diggory. Siegfried actually loved Kriemhild, no need for sneaky Hagen, the half-Nibelung with Daddy-issues *bangs head against keyboard* to pull the secret "lurve"-potion out of the bag! What else... Brunhild was not karate-Barbie on crack FROM HELL, she did not beat Siegfried in ice skating with axes, but in a fairly structured combat which involved spear-hurling, archery and a sword fight. The Nibelungs were not spooky ghouls out of a cave, they were a proud people who were not extinct, but later ruled by Siegfried as their king, as indicated by his title: Siegfried, KING of the NIBELUNGS!!! One final piece of advice: If you ever come across anything that has the words Uli and Edel in combination: RUN!!! RUN FOR YOUR SANITY!!! RUN AS IF A BIG UGLY CGI-DRAGON WAS CHEWING ON YOUR BOTTOM!! This is all for now. Writing this review made me reach a decision: Excuse me while I go drown myself in a bucket! Toodles!


OK, hands down, The Final Sacrifice is the best Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. I'm still laughing every time I think of this movie, it's just, how do movies like this get green lighted? Or did the director ever stop and wonder if he was making a good movie? The acting and characters were just so unintentionally laughable, it's insane. I can't believe they gave the "hero" a name like Zap Rasdower, that's such a stupid name, but it made for a good laugh, that's for sure. The kid, Troy, looked like such a Lord of the Rings type of dork(no offense to the LOTR fans, it's cool that you like it)that you couldn't help but wanna get inside the film and knock the books out of his hands. The villain or Canadian villain Garth Vador had this ridicules voice, and were did Mike Piper get his voice? Was Yo Sammity Sam like his inspiration? This is just such a ridicules story.

Troy is looking for who caused the death of his father, he finds a map that is supposed to lead him to a lost world. But this cult lead by Garth Vador is after him and wants him dead and wants the map, but Troy outsmarts them by getting on his ten speed bike to out run them. He gets off his bike and hitches a ride with Zap Rowsdower and together they go to find out what this is all about and why Troy's father died. Maybe they can also find out why Rowswer is a... hopeless drunk.

The Final Sacrifice is one of those movies you'll never believe got made, it's just so laughable. I highly recommend the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, it's just beyond funny, I loved every moment in that episode. But I hope the director watched that episode because I wanna see a Zap and Troy spin off, that would be an awesome show with an occasional guest appearance of Mike Pipper. I smell the Emmy's coming for best new show, lol.

1/10


That is about the extent of the plot. This nerdy kid finds a map that belonged to his dad who was killed. Evil cult members in ski masks and tank tops come after Troy (the nerdy kid), because they want the map (which is to a supposedly lost city, but really a map to a great big pop-up book). They are led by a guy in a coat who doesn't have to wear a ski mask. Troy runs from the cult members and gets into the back of a truck belonging to Zap Rowsdower the hero of the flick (the most original name I have ever seen in a movie). The hero has a few health flaws and seems to have the hardest time running from one action scene to another because he is always out of breath. You get to see Troy and Zap uncover the ancient map room complete with leaking plumbing. You get to see zap and the bad guy fight with torches and grappling hooks (I always find grappling hooks just lying around). You get to see really bad car chases, bicycle chases, and 10k runs up a mountain. And you'll meet Yosemita Sam's older brother as well. If this sounds like your movie, feel free to check it out, but be warned it isn't as good as I made it out.


This infamous movie will forever hold a place in my heart. It follows the tragic story of a young boy, apparently spawned from the loins of a young Dan Dierdorf and a Ferengi, trying to find his way to treasure in a world of masked sadists, beer-stinking mullets and too-tight red sweaters. Pursued by the all-too-easy-to-kill Satoris, our adolescent protagonist, Troy, must fight through all sorts of challenges placed in his way. From broken down trucks to acid wash jeans, Troy overcomes. His hero sidekick (are you ready for this?), Zap Rowsdower...hang on, I need a moment...OK...is the hops and barely fueled muscle in Troy's fight against evil. Zap Rowsdower is the cinematic equivalent of George W. Bush. He reminds us that truly ANYONE can be a hero. Even beer swilling morons. Finally, the 'bad guy', Satoris, is apparently evil because he has a big face, wears a black trench coat, has a deep voice and waves a cane around in the woods. Sure, whatever you say, Canada.

The plot to this movie isn't really important. You'll probably find it in the same place the Ziox buried their lost city. The real fun behind this Great Northern catastrophe is the characters. From Yosemetie Sam to Zap himself, this movie is completely engrossing. I felt pulled into their lives. And it smelled a lot like back bacon.

Now I know that most everyone has seen this movie only because of the comedy genius of MST3K, or Mistie to the loyal masses. However, I sincerely believe that this film can be enjoyed without the commentary by anyone with a sense of humor. You cannot last this entire film, in its unbridled, unmistied glory without busting a gut.

As an MST, this film is in my top 5 (I am a huge MST fan), but it is one of the few that is easy to watch even without our be-silhouetted trio. From mullets and beer cans to Troy's horribly frightening visage, this film will take you on a journey through the north. You will fight men who wear tank tops in the snow, the ancient traps of the Ziox, a large man with a stick and your own gag reflex. This movie comes highly recommended without MST. With MST, it is simply a must see for anyone who loves to laugh so hard you need to wear adult diapers.

2/10 for the movie, but a hefty 9/10 for the masochists who love MST! ~Aaron


Many of you and I know about the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode featuring this excuse for a movie. Despite it's horribly chosen character names and WWF volunteer extras, MST3K has naturally found a way to make it watchable for any human.

1. ROWSDOWER: This is not a name for a Canadian or anybody for that matter. What it should be: a canned food item, a curse for teenagers, a type of soup, a nickname for a sports car, or even a name for a high school dropout.

2. World Wrestling Federation: Did they help make this film? A lot of the cultist looked like lower class wrestlers that don't get much screen time on the actual show. Well, now they have about 50 minutes of screen time.

3. The star's exposure to the viewer: What is he? Pretty much a loner kid who exists before the popularity of the internet. That's why in the movie he's being chase by some random cult in the outskirts of Canada. If this movie was made in 2008, it would star the same kid, but it would be about a cult started in World of Warcraft instead of some lost civilization.

4. CULT LEADER: What a funny guy to look at. Constantly changing hair styles, deeper voice than Satan, wears a coat from Ross, and isn't really important until he dies.

5. The old/wise man named Pepper... What can I say, the guy lives in an old crap joint in the middle of somewhere and eats rat droppings for supper.


No one alive will convince me "Mike Pipper" isn't Steve Smith, better known as character Red Green on "The Red Green Show". Yeah I realize he's billed as Ron Anderson (III). That's Red Green, unless like 50% of Canadians look and sound like Red Green.

The movie is about some dork who's dorky father was killed by a dorky cult. The dork snoops around and finds his dorky father's notes on a dorky cult. Dork investigates. Not surprisingly the entirety of Canada must be part of the dorky cult because somehow they show up at dork's house, looking for dork and the notes. Dork escapes and meets bigger dork. Chasing continues and rather bland uninteresting dialogue ensue until they run into Red Green. Right around this time dork finds out that bigger dork used to be in the cult, and in fact may have killed his father! Dohwell... didn't expect that now did we? In the end, some dork ends up burning and some really dorky thing happens. Perhaps the oddest thing is the apparent alien abduction of about 10 of the dorky cult members. I couldn't really figure out what exactly took place, and how this fit into the err..story? Perhaps they were walking towards the light?

The story is horrible, acting is terrible, there are no effects, and the script is 1st to none. The only thing I can say there are actually quite a few "motion" cinema shots. That's about the only thing that get's this film a 1. It's dated 1990. I seriously wonder how many decades this sat finished before release? 1/10


Ahhhhhh...Quest for the Lost City! Good times!

This film features an alcoholic hick hero named "Zap Rowsdower"; an effeminate teenage boy named "Troy"; a black-clad, mullet-sporting group of Canadian wrestlers; a bad guy who talks like Darth Vader; and Canada's answer to Yosemite Sam!!

Go see it!!


Some people still can't believe that anyone expects great acting, etcetera, from low-budget films, and shouldn't criticize anything without a big budget. However..."The Blair Witch Project" (though I'm no fan) was low-budget yet has become a cult phenomenon. "The Red Violin" had no big budget, yet was critically acclaimed. In "The Quest For the Lost City," (a.k.a. "The Final Sacrifice") a kid conveniently stumbles upon a map of some sort that is a key to a "lost city." A cult of guys in ski masks, led by Satoris--decked in a trench coat, suit, and tie while riding around in rusty GMC trucks--want the map and run after the kid. But he finds the company of a drunken loser who helps him fend off the cult, save the day, and restore a "lost city" made of cardboard. This film is feverishly written and features cheezy performances. The only good thing about "The Final Sacrifice" (noted so many times, it is now a cliche`) is that it was humorously torn apart by our trusty friends at "Mystery Science Theater 3000."


I'd like to give this film one star, but I couldn't do that to such a hilarious film. Anyway, on with the review. This film was a student film made for about $1500, so I'd like to say we shouldn't judge it too harshly, but the direction is so poor, it's really impossible not to say it stunk. And it did stink. One of the main problems I had with the film was it's lack of any female characters. Sure, it has Troy's grandma for one scene, and you could hear the voice of a female operator in one scene, but what I mean is, this film had absolutely no romance(unless you want to count Zap Rowsdower and Troy scampering through the woods romantic...ugh...)I think there really should have been a spunky female protagonist alongside Zap and Troy, fighting masked goons and uncovering clues to the lost city. But alas, there is none. What I will say about this film is that it has some of the most unforgettable characters in B movie history. Who could forget whiny, prepubescent Troy Mcgregor? Or Hocky Hair-ridden, alcoholic, uber Canadian Rowsdower? Or Pipper, the man who sounds like he had a bottle brush shoved down his throat? Nobody, that's who. Nobody who saw the film, that is.


Well, I've never seen a Huffy outrace a muscle car... but I guess when you are making a completely irrational film it is certain to happen somewhere along the line. I think you can count the lines of dialogue in the first thirty minutes on two hands. I guess the director's rationale was that it's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid, than to open it and remove all doubt. Then again I think assuming there was any rationale involved in the production this movie is giving the director too much credit.

This film has some of the most hilarious chase scenes I have ever seen. First you have Troy's epic escape from machete wielding villains via his mountain bike. I swear this scene would not end. Literally ten minutes are spent tracking Troy as he eludes a car full of goons on his Huffy. Eventually the heroes give up chasing this kid in a car and decide to foot it. Sadly enough, they come closer to catching him on foot than they did when they chased him with their car. Finally, when it seems as though these villains are about to catch Troy, he hops into the back of a truck. This is no ordinary truck, however. This is a truck owned by the dumb, drunken protagonist Zap Rowsdower... yes, Zap Rowsdower. This guy is a cross between John Candy and Joe Dirt. I think that I could use my ass cheeks as a face and be a more effective actor than this guy. Anyway, after Zap and Troy reach a gas station another hilarious chase scene ensues. Of course Zap and Troy have the last laugh. The funniest part about this scene is when the villains car treads off of a hill and takes a long winded drive towards a creek. The scene could have easily been ended by just blowing up the car, or by the villains simply hitting the brakes but NO. For dramatic effect the director had the villains speed across a 500 feet straightaway into a creek.

The chase scenes are all good and fun, but the supporting cast is what makes this movie so "fun" to watch. ESPECIALLY the character Mike Pipper. This character is a hybrid - one part Macho Man Randy Savage, one part Ted Kaczynski. I was just waiting for him to shout out "Ooooh Yea!!!" after every single line. And let us not forget the performance of "Satoris", the antagonist of the film. Satoris, as we learn, is hell- bent on taking over the world. He plans on achieving this by sacrificing our virginal protagonist, Troy. Unfortunately he doesn't succeed. After a bunch of useless scenes, horrible acting, and utterly retarded dialogue the "climax" is reached when Troy kills Satoris and in doing so saves the world from the necessity to continue this horrible film.


While rummaging through his father's old stuff, a boy named Troy discovers a map that leads to an ancient civilization. Troy thinks the map may also lead to answers to his father's death. But there are other, darker forces at work. A cult bent on world domination wants to get hold of the map. With the help of a former cult member named Rowsdower, Troy hopes to get to the bottom of the mystery before he ends up like his father.

While I usually pride myself in being able to separate the two, in the case of The Final Sacrifice, it's really difficult to imagine watching the movie without the Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary. The movie seems to have been tailor made for that type of ridicule and mockery. From Mike Pipper's Yosemite Sam-like voice to the over-weight Canadian guys in black hoods and tank top running through the woods to the nonsensical plot to the cardboard Ziox civilization  it's like shooting fish in a barrel  the riffs just can't miss. I've probably seen The Final Sacrifice a half-dozen or more times and I'm always astounded at the ineptitude of it all. Some things are so bizarre, however, that it leaves me scratching my head in wonderment:

 Zap Rowsdower? Really? You've got to be joking. The name, the actor, the character motivation  none of it makes the least bit of sense.

 Troy McGreggor? Again, you've got to be joking? I sincerely doubt you could find a punier or bonier looking guy to play the role. And that incessant whining of the name "Rowsdower". It makes me want to slap the guy every time he opens his mouth.

 Plot coincidences. Can you write a plot with more unrealistic and unfathomable plot coincidences? Take the bad guys timing in coming after Troy. The map has been sitting undiscovered in Troy's attic for seven years. That's right  SEVEN years. But the moment Troy discovers the map, the bad guys immediately show up on his doorstep. Yeah, right. Or take Troy's chance meeting of Rowsdower. Of all the trashy, redneck pick-up trucks in Canada, what are the chances Troy would pick one to climb in that just happens to be owned by a former member of the cult that's chasing him? Not very likely.

 Is Canada really that desolate of a place? Troy's aunt's house appears to be in a neighborhood of some sort. Is there no one around to notice that something's amiss when hooded goons take a chainsaw to her front door? Does no one notice a band of thugs chasing Troy on his bike? And why doesn't someone notice the shootout Rowsdower and the cult members have on the highway? Is this kind of activity normal in Canada?

This is too easy and I've barely scratched the surface. I haven't mentioned the lousy technical aspects of the film, the amateurish acting, the poor special effects, or the ridiculous music score. The Final Sacrifice has it all and none of it is good. Because of some unintentional entertainment value I derive from the film, I can't rate it any lower than a 2/10. But as far as MST3K episodes goes, it makes for one of the best. I'll give that version a 5/5 on my MST3K rating scale. Enjoy.


Nope, still haven't found it after watching this. Most of the budget seems to have gone on the lead bad-guy's attire. This movie is lots of shots of dorkish hero (Troy) in dire need of major dental corrective treatment running away from balaclava-clad thugs who, despite most of them carrying rifles, never think of shooting him. Seems like he's following his father's footsteps of finding a lost civilization in Canada (!). Hopelessly silly plot best summed up when Troy and friend Zap enter a cave. Bag guy follows and captures Zap. Back outside, the dialog is something like: Bad guy: "The boy. He went into the cave with you. Where is he?" Henchmen then go off and start searching the forest. Duh. Naturally, this movie is prime MST3K fodder so best watch that version instead if I were you.


Believe it or not, this film's plot actually ties in various racist/Aryan 'lost civilization' conspiracy theories about prehistoric North American 'Atlanteans'(or Lemurians or the boys from Mu or take your pick) having their plans for world conquest thwarted by an act of (a) god. Hitler's academia were supposedly fond of such stories, obviously baseless... or were they!? Yeah, they were. But the promised pay-off of an ancient ruin rising out of the earth is reason enough to co-op some pseudo mythology for your cheap movie. By the way, any ancient ruins? You don't see much of them. What you do see, among other things, are scores of interchangeable masked goons performing less than impressive gymnastics and making 'special ops' moves with their hands. Plus, a guy named Rowsdower. That was kinda cool. The 'hero' kid... not so much. The deep-voiced villain? Not cool either. Still, this movie has something to it, something I can't quantify... a unique Canuckness... and every idiot cliché in the book. They've already been listed in triplicate in the above comments, so I'll try to find something new to bring up... how about the obvious allusion to INDIANA JONES with the penultimate 'driving sorta into the sun-set' scene and the unspoken but palpable hunger the filmmakers had for someone to be moved by it, indeed, to hope for a sequel, an elaboration of the continuing adventures of ROWSDOWER AND WONDER GEEK. Or they could drop the kid. That'd be cool, eh.


The Final Sacrifice is the perfect example of a Canadian movie that had potential. It had the basic story of an unlikely duo teaming up and fighting an evil cult. Very Indiana Jones-esquire. But that's where the creativity stops.

The movie starts with a short scene of an unknown man being chased by unknown thugs. I think the important thing here is to see the hockey-haired, trenchcoat wearing man who is obviously our villain. The scene ends with the unknown man being shot, but this is expertly done by simply showing a stand of trees, and a gunshot played over as a sound effect. After seven years of credits, we see a boy visiting a grave that one has to assume is that of the man who was shot in the scene earlier. This then cuts to a scene of the boy finding something about lemon mines in the attic, and a VERY wrinkly letter from "Mike Pipper". This then cuts to a short scene about a guy unable to start his car. And then back to the boy. As he apparently studies about lemon mines in the comfort of his home, he is outwitted and then attacked by a hood. His house is overrun by machete wielding grunts, led by the same man from the first scene, who apparently decided seven years of hockey hair was enough, and got it changed. The ensuing chase of a car NOT being able to catch up to a skinny guy on a bike is very heart pounding.

As the movie progresses, the boy, named Troy, meets up with our hero. The legendary Zap Rowsdower! The two have a long series of misadventures, one of the highlights being Rowsdower accidentally bumping his crotch against Troy in an underground tunnel. After a lot of chasing, and a VERY scary grizzled mountain man who sounds like a mix of Yosemite Sam and Randy "Macho Man" Savage, the movie ends with Troy being selected as the final sacrifice, which will give the bad guy with big nostrils an invincible army of zombies, with which he can take over Canada, and then get demolished by every other country in the world.

I won't spoil the ending, but suffice to say, you know it's coming. The movie is uninspired, boring, and just plain bad. Mike and the bots work their magic on this one, creating a very memorable episode from the not as wonderful Sci-Fi era of Mystery Science Theater 3000.


Don't answer that! Obviously what sunk this movie was the tiny budget and the utter amateurishness of the writer/director. The plot reads like a ninth grade school boy's attempts to reproduce Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft - some weird melange about a lost city and a sacrificial cult and an exiled loner and a chase into the lost wastelands of Noggoth...er, or at least rural Canada.

Anyway, there are actually elements of a decent movie in here...they just get torpedoed by bad choices in almost every scene. The movie does give a sense of the isolation and loneliness of the land. "Zap" is something of a lunk, but he is an agreeable lunk, and makes a believable 'Everyman' character, even if he is something less than magnetic or inspiring. The guy playing the villain seems to have modeled himself after the Tall Man from "Phantasm" (not a bad choice, really), but instead of having the Tall Man's menacing rasp, he seems to be choking on a throatful of phlegm.

In fact, given a real budget and a real director and some decent film stock, the 3 main actors might have been able to pull off something that didn't resemble Amateur Night at the local community theater...but these poor fellows are completely over their heads. I'll say this for them, they gave it a good try.

Oh, and the soundtrack: it's one guy with a synthesizer. And it manages to be incredibly ambitious AND irritating. The composer shifts and changes moods dozens of times, sometimes within the same scene, varying wildly from "Beethoven's Fifth with aphasia" to "Video Poker Music" (from Mike Nelson's MST3K coverage) in an attempt to drum up some excitement. But it actually turns out to be one of the film's biggest problems. It's like having a kazoo band provide background music for your dinner party - no matter how many leitmotifs and riffs and themes they play, it's still kazoo music, and you wish they'd shut up and let some actual instruments play...or even allow some restful silence.

And just when I thought I was going to be able to at least accept this movie on its own terms without giggling hysterically at every new scene, along comes a character channeling Yosemite Sam. Yosemite Sam is a great Warner Brothers cartoon character, but for God's sake, what is he doing in this movie???

FWIW, as silly and amateurish as this movie is, no way does it deserve to be this deep into the Bottom 100. It's a very earnest little number that tries to be "about" something; and while the actors are unskilled and badly directed, they don't ham it up or chew the scenery, and they come across as sympathetic and likable.(That's more than you can say about 'Hobgoblins' or 'Space Mutiny').


This movie represents something that is actually quite rare. A movie that is so horribly Directed and Written with a cast that has no acting ability what so ever. Well, the point is that I wish more movies like this were made because they are so much fun to make fun of because they are so horrible. You get to sort of interact with the movie instead of just sitting and watching paying close attention to the plot. You need a movie with a plot that is so ridiculous and plot less like to do this. (Please note that the next comments on the movie are stretching the truth to the limit. Every scene in this movie is done so horribly that I don't know how this movie actually made it to a theater) Christian Malcolm is such a great action hero like when he chases after his truck and has to jump in the back with the cult right on his heels. Then, he has to fend them off as his truck is slower than the Gran Torino. I wish there was a scene between Satoris and Mike Pipper. Satoris is a great villain. He's dark, scary and fights well with a torch. What this movie needs is it's own series. That would give 10 or so episodes where Troy and Rowsdower could go on and try to uncover and solve mysteries together. Mysteries that would of course bring lots of danger to themselves and would force the two of them to put there wits together to come out alive. Of Course they need to keep the classic 60's GMC Pick-up, it serves to create situations of suspense and trouble for the two. I mean, come on, when it's above 50 or below 40 degrees it never starts right? Also I love the music composed by Robert Skeet. It fits the movie well.


This movie is a wonderful exploration of different art-forms, such as cinematography, and special visual effects. Jim Stacy delivers a wonderfully "lensed" film, in what is probably the finest cinematography credit of his career. The visual effects produced by Phil Letourneau, could be the finest he has ever done as well. Bruce Mitchell delivers an award-deserving performance as the believable, yet unpredictable Zap Rowsdower. The plot is relevant and highly believable, while maintaining it's fantasy charms. Flying Dutchman Productions made a daring decision, choosing to release the film in Monaural audio. Although some have told me they would like to see a 15th anniversary re-release that is remastered in THX certified digital surround sound. See this film, and judge for yourself, although I think you'll agree, that digitizing can't make a film that is already of this quality any better.

Kudos to director Tjardus Greidanus, you couldn't have made a better film.

The bottom line: This movie will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and the ending will keep you guessing.

That was easily the finest stream of horse garbage I have ever typed...

"This film is the ultimately worst film of all time. It shares this distinction with absolutely no other films. Bar none, no holds barred, no filmed overlooked, this is the worst, and any opposition to this opinion, to this notion will not be acceptable as a form of logical, reasonable, or understandable argument."

Sincerely

Nick Criggar

My Rating: 1/10

(To the IMDb editors: Please allow access to a new rating: 0 (God Awful) for this film only, as it is the only film that has or ever will have truly earned it.)


This is a bad, bad, bad movie. Everything abut it is bad, from the pathetic acting tot he horrid directing, tot eh VHS quality of the film itself to the nonsensical attempt at a plot. It is difficult to imagine anyone spending money to make this.

It is, in fact, so bad that it lacks even the amusing badness of such dreadful classics like PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE. In fact, even MST3K's treatment of this film couldn't make it even mildly interesting.


Were it not for the antics and comedy of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew, this movie would be a waste of the film it's printed on! The acting is crap, the music is crap, the sets are crap, the direction is crap, and the camera angles (all three of them) are crap! I think that pretty much sums it up.


This must be one of the worst movies ever made in recent history. Try to see it on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, otherwise it's just intolerable. The acting is awful, the story so...I can't even find the words. The only redeeming factor is the name of the hero: Zap Rowsdower, which makes me laugh every time I hear it.


Yes, I'm aware that that hilarious MST3K line was from "Final Justice" and not "The Final Sacrifice", but it works very well here too. This is mind-bogglingly bad, with the now-famous Christian Malcolm and Co. hamming it up in the lead roles.

Actually, I don't think Malcolm (or "Zap Rosdower") is that horrible. He ain't no action hero, though. He's fairly ugly and outta shape, so I don't think he could have a big career ahead of him. But in all fairness, Malcolm (especially since, save a bit role and a made-for-TV production, he has no acting experience whatsoever - at least in film) is okay. He's certainly not Henry Fonda, but he's not as horrible as, say, Reb Brown or other famous MST3K actors . . .

. . . like Bruce J. Mitchell, or Troy MacGregor. The one user who commented on this movie that called Troy "Kid Dogteeth" is hilarious and true at the same time; he looks like a freakin' Doberman at several points in the movie. He's at least twenty-five, but he sounds like an eleven-year old Frankie Muniz. As one of the guys (forget which) suggested: "Maybe he's the Tin Drum kid?"

Shane Marceau (no relation to the very sexy Sophie, I'm sure/hope), is "Garth Vader", as the 'Bots put it. He sounds like he "Has a cold", to quote riffing from "Invasion of the Neptune Men", and is not threatening at all. I think the way he says "Zap Rosdower" as he is about to kill him is hilarious. How exactly did he die again?

Ron Anderson appears as the Muppet-come-to-life, Michael Pipper; his introductory scene (esp. when Troy says "Food!") and him threatening to blow Troy and Zap's brains out are hilarious.

There are many mind-boggling scenes: (spoilers ahead) Troy outruns a car on a ten-speed (later to be one-upped by the overweight, out of shape Rosdower nearly outrunning another car ON FOOT!)? Zap gets his car moving by dumping alcohol on the engine? Zap shoots in between two cult members which are standing only feet away from? Zap just happens to find a conviently placed grappling hook just as Sartoris rips his torch away? Sartoris' death???

Well, MST3K had a hell of a lot of fun with this, though the host segments coulda been better (except the "Canada Bashing" song and Mike the Prospector).

Two stars for "Quest For The Lost City"; ten for the MST3K riffing on it.


This film, along with a shoe museum and toaster museum, have raised a very interesting question for me: Could my body handle the amount of pot I would have to smoke to go to Canada? The film centers on a Gremlin-faced kid and the Grand Poobah of hockey hair, Zap Rowsdower (ugh!). Poobah Hockey Hair was member of a cult and killed the Gremlin-Faced kids father.

SEVEN YEARS LATER...

Nobody ages and the film goes on. There are some really cheesy chase scenes, horrible music, nausea-inducing acting, a story that is either too confusing or too boring to follow (I can't remember, I fell asleep!), and so on and so forth. Bad, bad, bad. But, on the brighter side, a very funny MST3K.


Funniest MST3K episode I've ever seen...from the mullet-sportin' trailer park hero, to the machete-wielding thugs who can't catch a kid on a TEN SPEED. As always, ONLY see the MST3K version, the film itself is trash.

In closing...LARRY CSONKA!


As in an earlier comment, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, (known as "Final Sacrifice" is a hilarious spoof of this Canadian made movie! Unless you like campy, simple plotted, lame action movies, don't see this one.


A trio of detestable hoodlums - Steele, Lomax and Billy - beat a man to death, torment a convenience store employee and after arriving at an isolated farmhouse keep a weird girl and her grandfather hostage. This film is also known as The California Axe Massacre which is strange considering it was filmed in North Carolina.


3 men go on a murder spree. They drive through the country and end up at an old Farmhouse. Inside is a girl and her grandpa. They Terrorize the girl sending her to use self-defence with her axe...


This remarkably silly, hackneyed adventure movie takes hilarious liberties with its source material, an uplifting account of two nuns' mission to bring modern medicine to the Congo. By the time it reached the screen, it had Susan Hayward as a headstrong young nurse, and Bob Mitchum as a treasure-hunter escorting her through Bakuba country. The script is unbelievably clunky, with Mitchum having to translate all the Congolese dialects into English for Hayward! Haha, how rubbish! Fans of Walter Slezak won't be surprised to find him playing a slimy, greedy, reptilian, overweight villain, albeit this time in a safari suit.

Hathaway mixes hard-won documentary-style footage with alarmingly transparent studio crap as Hayward wins over natives with her "big magic" (I'm going to ask my GP for some "big magic" the next time I see him) and Mitchum acts like an insensitive oaf over her dead husband, just because she won't immediately sleep with him. Needless to say, they can't recreate the magic of their only other teaming: the previous year's 'The Lusty Men'. In fact, this is more like a dry run for Hathaway's confusing, über-dreadful, greed-is-bad yawnfest 'Garden of Evil'. There's the odd concession to classy entertainment  a few spectacular location shots and a nice tour of a makeshift hospital, seen through a dozen veils  but that's about all. The set-up is laboured, the situations as artificial as the environment, the resolution laboured and rushed. The film's calling cards and its wildcards are wasted with startling profligacy. Cult character actor Timothy Carey has about a minute's screen-time. Even the mighty Mitchum is lacklustre, injecting just a few moments of the requisite cynicism before going back to counting the zeroes on his cheque. For Mitchum completists (like me) only.

(1.5 out of 4)


This film is about an obnoxious blow-hard played by Spencer Tracy. This guy absolutely can't talk for more than a couple sentences without lying to make himself seem big and important and it's obvious to most people that he is a complete jerk. However, a young woman inexplicably falls for him despite the fact that he's a walking windbag. Her family hates him, but they know there's nothing they can do to stop the romance.

At first, life seems good for the newlyweds. However, since Spencer is so full of crap, he tries to look big in his wife's eyes by compulsively buying her lots of stuff--so much that he bankrupts them despite her trying to reform him. He also loses his job because of his obnoxious ways. His wife is forced to move back with her parents and Spencer is ultimately asked to leave--much to the delight of her parents! However, at this point I was very happy to see this guy's life fall apart. After all, he was FAR from likable. BUT, some nitwits at the studio liked the idea of him making it big and winning back his wife. This just didn't make any sense at all. Instead of a clichéd and ridiculous "happy ending" I wanted to see him dying in the gutter--he was THAT obnoxious and unlikable!

By the way, this film was based on a play and was previously filmed in 1926 and 1930 as well as later with Red Skelton in 1946. The 1926 version is actually pretty good--probably because although the leading man is a jerk, they managed to tone him down a bit and making him less of a loud-mouth. Perhaps most of this was due to it being a silent film! This is one case where it's better when you can't hear the leading man!!