It's safe to say that cannibal films are an acquired taste, but I think it's safe to say that it is one that I have acquired. However, even I am struggling for good things to say about Cannibal Terror. The best cannibal films hail from Italy, so the fact that this one was a French and Spanish co-production may have something to do with its sub-par quality. The plot follows two would-be kidnappers who end up hiding out in a house near the jungle. However, when one of them rapes the home-owner's daughter, the bunch is left to the nearby cannibals. Cannibal Terror was one of the handful of cannibal films banned by the DPP back in the eighties. Indeed, there is some rather nasty gore on display; but it's nowhere near as gory as the best films that this genre has to offer, and the gore is hardly shocking as the whole production is so badly done. Director Alain Deruelle never manages to impose the jungle atmosphere on his audience, and the film feels like merely a rip off of better cannibal films. Needless to say, the plot doesn't really go anywhere and the overall effect is really rather dull. Overall, I can't recommend this film as the only reason for watching is that it was once banned! Avoid.


Before watching "Terreur Cannibale" (aka. "Cannibal Terror") I was expecting to see a film of the kind that is so awful that it is actually kind of funny. Awful it is indeed, but in a manner that is nothing but... awful! I am a huge fan of the gruesome Italian Cannibal flicks that were made around the time (most memorably Ruggero Deodato's disturbing masterpiece "Cannibal Holocaust"). Director Alain Deruelle obviously wanted to cash in on this popular wave of gruesome movies about Cannibals, that were mostly ingeniously set in the Amazon Jungle. "Cannibal Terror" is also set in the jungle. A jungle that is very obviously situated in France, that is, however. I will not even try to explain the absolutely ridiculous and moronic story, the performances are among the worst I have ever seen. In the first half of the movie, Deruelle obviously wanted to enhance the atmosphere by having crickets chirp for about ten minutes. The scenes change, but the chirping of the crickets keep monotonously drowning out all other sounds (such as the dialogue), which is even more annoying than it sounds.The 'Cannibals' in the film are entirely white guys in savage costumes, some of them sport beards, others are bald and have beer-bellies. Apart from being the whitest savages ever seen on film, they are also astonishingly well-behaved, as they never seem to leave their territory, and their hunger for human flesh obviously concerns bad people only. The score wouldn't be that bad, but it nearly always seems terribly out of place. Also, the gore-sequences are quite well-made and nauseating for a film with such a low budget. Nevertheless, it is beyond me why this film landed on Britain's infamous Video Nasty list, as nobody could possibly see anything but ridiculousness in this sorry attempt of a film. The moderately disgusting gore cannot save this. The only reason to watch "Cannibal Terror" is the wish to look at absolute awfulness. AVOID!


Ah, the wondrous mysteries of late 70's/early 80's Euro-exploitation cinema With almost a 100% positive certainty, the script of this film was improvised along whilst shooting. Judging by the tone and cheerful atmosphere of the opening sequences, it doesn't even look like the creators (Alain Deruelle and Julio Tabernero) ever intended to make a movie about cannibals, but maybe the producers forced them in order to quickly cash in on the gigantic success of contemporary horror-hits like "Cannibal Holocaust" and "Cannibal Ferox". As you probably know, everything was possible in the exploitation industry, even hiring the notorious smut filmmaker Jess Franco to shoot some additional footage. The film opens with a rhythmic and jolly carnival song, introduces several comical characters and a potentially interesting (but poorly elaborated) kidnapping/ransom plot. The cannibal tribe and obligatory grossness only kicks in after about 40 minutes and comes across as totally ridiculous. Three amateur thugs, one voluptuous woman and two guys, randomly decide to abduct the daughter of a wealthy businessman and demand a ransom. When one of their accomplices gets involved in a banal car accident, they flee towards the jungle (I think the South American) and seek shelter in the hut of a friend. Nearby there's a tribe of primitive cannibals, but they appear to remain politely within their perimeters. Only when one of the thugs rapes the lady of the house, her husband almost literally feeds them to the cannibals. Meanwhile, the parents of the kidnapped girl have also arrived in the jungle (don't ask me how, though), but they're good people and hence don't get eaten. Needless to say "Cannibal Terror" is an incredibly bad film and I honestly can't name one good element, apart maybe from the jolly theme song. Sure, there's a bit of nasty gore, but there's absolutely no prior tension building and the actual munching goes on for far too long. You know you're in trouble when even the gory bits in a movie are dull. The acting performances are atrocious. The lines of the little girl are practically inaudible and I'm pretty sure an adult woman imitating the voice of a child spoke them. The "jungle" setting is quite hilarious, as the film is clearly shot in someone's home garden and the "natives" are plain white day-players. Several of them even have sideburns and sophisticated haircuts. Oh dear


For a long time this was mistakenly listed online and in various books as either an alternate title for Jesus Franco's MONDO CANNIBALE (aka WHITE CANNIBAL QUEEN), or an entirely different Franco film altogether. It was also mistaken for Franco's DEVIL HUNTER because it basically shares an almost identical kidnappers-stranded-in-cannibal-country premise. However, despite being made by the same production company (Eurociné) around the same time and containing some of the same actors, this isn't a Franco film. I'm not sure he even had anything to do with it despite still being listed in the credits here. And speaking of credits (as if they aren't confusing enough already), the ones in the version I saw list Ilona Kunesova (the script supervisor for MONDO CANNIBALE) as the screenwriter and "Allan W. Steeve" as the director. It says here that "Allan W. Steeve is an alias for Alain Deruelle, yet also lists the films co-star, Olivier Mathot, as well as Spanish actor Julio Pérez Tabernero, as additional uncredited directors. So who the hell actually did make this thing? I can't really answer that, but after watching it, I can't blame everyone for wanting to hide behind a pseudonym.

A trio of "gangsters," Roberto, Lina and Mario (the latter played by Franco movie regular Antonio Mayans) decide to kidnap little Florence (Annabelle) and keep her hostage until her wealthy parents (Silvia Solar and Olivier Mathot) can come up with the ransom money. To ensure an easy escape, the trio decide to drag the little girl across the border into "Indian territory" to hide out with some guy named Antonio and his much-younger wife Manuela (Pamela Stanford). On the way there, their jeep overheats and the female guide is kidnapped by a cannibal tribe, dragged off to their village and is then sliced open and eaten. The kidnappers manage to get the jeep running again and make it to Antonio's home. After Antonio leaves, Mario ties Manuela to a tree and rapes her. When Antonio returns, he ties Mario to a tree and whistles so that a couple of nearby cannibals can come eat him (?!) Everyone else flees into the "jungle" when the parents finally show up looking for their little girl and are picked off one by one by in unexciting ways by the tribe. The end.

I don't even know where to start describing how awful this thing is. I can only say that it's consistent in that everything (the acting, the ridiculous dubbed dialogue, the inappropriate score, badly edited in stock footage, etc.) is awful. It also commits the cardinal trash movie sin of being extremely boring. Aside from just two moments of gore (which are recycled from the aforementioned WHITE CANNIBAL QUEEN) and one scene of nudity (provided by Stanford during a hilarious bathing scene where she rapidly tries to scrub her body because she's obviously freezing her ass off outside in the "jungle") this movie is lacking in anything cannibal movie, horror or exploitation fans want to see. The entire grueling first hour consists mostly of people sitting around complaining, while the last half hour consists mostly of people walking around in the "jungle."

Notice I keep putting quotes around "jungle." That's because the "jungle" consists of pine trees, a couple of strategically-placed ferns, gravel roads and a snow-covered mountain backdrop to capture that authentic tropical feel. Even more ridiculous is the "cannibal tribe," which seems to consist of all ethnicities that they try to hide by painting everyone with multi-colored clown makeup. There are Asians, Caucasians, skinny guys, fat guys, little boys and hippies with porkchop sideburns, yet oddly just one female tribe member to populate the entire village. Even if you're a cannibal movie completist, I would think twice about picking this one up.


For years, Cannibal Terror was believed by many to be the work of horror/sleaze director Jess Franco, a reasonable assumption since the film bears what seem to be most of the prolific Spaniard's hallmarks, most notably a dreadful script, unconvincing locales, inept direction, terrible acting, and endless meandering shots of nothing much in particular (and I guess, for some, it was also hard to believe that there might be another person out there who could make films quite as bad as Franco).

The real culprit, however, was French director Alain Deruelle, who proves that he can be just as inept as Jess when it comes to delivering jungle horror.

Deruelle's dreadful film follows a trio bumbling kidnappers-two men and one woman-who escape across the border (to where, I have no idea!) with their hostage, the young daughter of a rich businessman. Arriving at a safe house that borders 'cannibal country', the threesome are able to relax for a while, until one of the gang, Mario, decides to rape the wife of their host (after spying on her having a wash in a giant wooden bucket). This kick starts a chain of events that results in the criminals and their hostage being pursued by bloodthirsty natives, with the father of the little girl in hot pursuit.

Taking a leaf out of Franco's Big Book of Cannibal Movie-Making, Deruelle opts to set his adventure in what appears to be a large botanical garden, hires himself some of the least convincing cannibals ever to grace an exploitation film (some have sideburns, many have coiffured hair, a few have beer-bellies, nearly all of them are Caucasion, but none of them look like savages), and throws in some cheapo blood and guts (using what looks like pig carcasses to stand in for human remains) in order to satisfy the gore-hounds.

The result is a mind-numbingly dull piece of Euro-sleaze that now shares top spot with Mondo Cannibale on my Crap Cannibal Movie list.


****possible spoilers**** Nobody makes cannibal films like the italians. This a good case in point. Three crooks, Mario Roberto and a woman, kidnap a young girl Florence Danville. They call in a favor and hide out in a house near a jungle with a guy and his wife. Mario rapes the wife. The guy extracts revenge by leading Mario into the jungle and leaving him there to be eaten by cannibals. The girls parents find out where she is and go looking for her. The remaining crooks leg it into the jungle, hotly pursued by the parents and owners of house. And so it goes on until the cannibals dole out some punishment on the crooks. Inept and poorly made in every department don't waste your money. Theres only a couple of gore scenes in it, and not very well done either. The jungle setting is'nt very convincing with neatly cut grass clearly visible in certain tight shots. The native cannibals themselves are laughable, they have strange 70s styled hair-dos and neatly cut side-burns!!!! Cannibal Holocaust still rules.


I generally like movies that depict anything that is "non mainstream". And I even don't mind gross movies if they are done well.

But this movie is a huge disappointment - no real story, no building up any character or situation, extremely bad acting (a school play does far better), the shots were pathetic, the gross scenes were not necessary (nor were they shocking).

The close up in scenes is really bad, i think i even spotted a 'cannibal' with long stylish locks! Looks like the directors/producers paid no attention to the movie at all !

With this movie, I've decided to stop watching any more "cannibal" genre movie!


Out on video at last! One of the original video nasties that were banned by Britain. It was finally released uncut in 2003. Obviously, the Brits don't like cannibal movies as they banned five of them.

This film was really bad on so many levels.

It seemed as if time and distance were totally disregarded. For example, Monsieur Danville (Olivier Mathot) left for three days and seemed to come back in 30 minutes. The jungle must have been in Southern Spain, as it took everyone so little time to get there.

If you are looking for titillating scenes, there is only one: Pamela Stanford taking a bath. Other than that the rest focused mainly on the eating of people's guts. Yech! They really didn't need to ban this as it is too awful to watch.


Uhm...... this is to horror movies what blair witch was to credible journalism.

I don't mind these guys taking a camera and goofing off... bringing copies around the office, but when you go to this extreme to b.s. people into watching your day off with a video camera... I just *hope* no one buys a copy of this.

Cool... they even put themselves on this website.

I miss the days when IMDb wasn't bastardized by this kind of b.s. But I guess integrity is as rare as talent. Compare this to a near zero budget indie film like "In the woods" by Sam Raimi.


Ever since Something Awful went from funny but financially unsound to lazy, unfunny, and bloated by the contributions of cliquish forum nerds desperate to join some "elitist" society of half a million other nerds, SA's contributions to mainstream wit have become crippled half-thoughts not worthy of attention.

There's a reason there's an inordinate number of 10 votes, the forum goofs from Something Awful coming along and voting it up despite its lack of anything redeeming. The movie is as painfully unfunny and unintelligent as the front page and the forums, with as banal a "wit".

Give this one a pass, as it'll just line Richard Kyanka's already fat pockets.


A bald, commanding Kevin Bowen, his calm tenor carrying an edge of danger, offers Reginald an answer. "Unfortunately, no one can be told what Doom House is. You have to see it for yourself." Actually, you can explain what it is, it's just not as much fun as showing off images borrowed from Metropolis and covers of Amazing Stories magazines. Simply put, life is a virtual-reality dream controlled by a master artificial intelligence, a computer ruling the world in the conspiracy to end all conspiracies. Kevin is a rebel leader in the post-apocalyptic physical world of the future who staged guerrilla forays into the virtual world of the computer, and Reginald is the hope, the future, the answer to a prophecy. Richard Kyanka as cybermessiahGod help us all.

Drawing on everything from Colossus: The Forbin Project to Tron to The Terminator, Richard Kyanka proceed to turn the world as we know it into a virtual-reality landscape with a tech-noir look (lit with a sickly green hue, like the glow of an old IBM computer screen) and the physics of a video game. Kevin, playing Obi-Wan Kenobi to Reginald's Luke Skywalker, trains his prot駩 in the virtual world; they become kung fu masters in a cyberdojo in a marvelous sequence that combines the ballet elegance and furious moves of Hong Kong movies (courtesy of fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping, a martial arts maestro and former Jackie Chan director) with computer effects and tricked-up camera work.

Clearly Richard is more interested in his cinematic toys than his story. With a nod to John Woo, they stage a bullet-riddled showdown that lovingly records every spent shell that spills to the ground in slow motion. Later, a helicopter crashes into a great glass skyscraper, and shock waves roll across the surface like a pulse across a sea of silver. They've obviously put a lot of thought into the look and feel of the film, and the result is a consistently handsome, often quite elegant action movie.

Would that they put that much thought into the story. The rules of the universe blur in the frenzy of bullets and kung fu fighting and all questions of fate and free will are cut loose. Kyanka, his vacant expression and breathless surfer dude delivery still intact, reveals the Promised One to be a Zen master virtual-reality gamer. For all its half-baked philosophy and cyberpunk grounding, Doom House is less a vision of cyberconspiracy dystopia than a really cool computer game. Given that, it's the most stylish, inventive, kinetically dynamic computer game to play across movie screens in a long time.


There have been many, many movies that Disney has put out that I've had a high desire to see "succeed". All in all, most Disney animated movies that have made it to the big screen in the more modern cinema history of, say, from "Beauty and the Beast" all the way up to "Lilo & Stitch" and "Brother Bear", have done that. Perhaps some are only a financial success, like "Treasure Planet", but certainly they were popular enough with one group of moviegoers or another to have a good box office take.

Unfortunately, "Chicken Little" is not a success.

In pooling my thoughts to review this movie, I am so highly disappointed that good animation is its only high mark. In this pivotal point in the history of The Walt Disney Company, where its relationship with Pixar is still on the rocks while a new president is stepping up, I wanted this movie to be a smashing success. I wanted this to be the movie that starts another Golden Age revolution, where it is possible that Disney takes the top spot in producing awesome animated movies.

I fear that there aren't many good storytellers left at Disney Feature Animation, and there didn't seem to by any present for the making of "Chicken Little". The story itself, chronicling the tales of the title character proving to his community that he is not a failure, was a good enough premise. Though it wasn't executed well at all. Instead of solid, premise-building scenes where it's main characters interact well with others (and get the audience laughing along the way), we get a sappy, melodramatic mini-soap with voice actors who don't have a good script...followed immediately by, more times than I'd care to recall, potty humor gags. Judging by the audience of my screening, made up of at least 40% little kids, only they found that funny.

With so many 3D animated movies coming out recently, like "Madagascar", "Robots" and "Valiant", all released this year, many companies are trying to prove their movie-making chops to us movie-goers. They can make a very beautiful looking movie, with wonderfully rendered characters that can move so fluidly and realistic...but the very vital element of sharing a good story is missing in action. It's my belief that a great story without great animation will be a much better movie than one that looks great, but has a weak story. Though, both elements are what made Pixar's "The Incredibles" an Oscar-contending, $265 million hit. Computer animation is, indeed, not the shoe-in, cure-all solution to a great movie.

To boot, "Chicken Little" has a weak soundtrack, composed mainly of songs that were popular at one time or another...to the pre-teen-aged crowd. Instead of beautiful, original, fully-composed songs like "A Whole New World" in "Aladdin" (or anything close to it), we are treated to Spice Girls' "If You Wanna Be My Lover" (complete, by the way, with karaoke subtitles). Unoriginal and highly annoying.

Having sufficiently railed on the movie, it is my belief that the corporate suits in charge of financing Feature Animation have more blame for the steady decline in their movies than anybody working under them. It seems they think they know what makes a successful movie, over-riding many decisions of the animators and storytellers--those who are still at Feature Animation--who have proved they can make great movies. I believe said pencil pushers are what made last year's "Home on the Range" fail, critically and financially.

All in all, I believe "Chicken Little" is a failure that I define as hot having a good story to match its sweet computer animation. In Disney's quest to prove that they are still the Best of the Best, movies like this will prove to the world that they are merely the best of the rest. And we all know that it's not the Disney we grew up on and cherished.

"Chicken Little" gets 4 of 10 stars


This is done well enough to satisfy the most indiscriminate, but even those children in my acquaintance who were above the age of nine were dissatisfied with this animation, citing rough edges, and a complete disregard for detail where backgrounds and set props were concerned.

The story is the familiar story of most movie-goers' childhood, hidden deep, but it is in there, about a chicken who, when hit by something from the sky (pine straw, perhaps?) proclaims the sky is falling, much to the amusement of the other barnyard residents of the chicken's fair village. This has, of course, been Disneyized, made into a father/son thing, and child characters were invented for the further Disneyization to be complete.

This is not great, and offers little for the family, OR adult audiences. This was aimed mostly at the kiddies, and only the younger ones will (at least in my experience) typically enjoy this. Probably because the "dad" in this is a self-centered, faithless mook who cares about no one but himself. Even after he shows support of his son, it's all about "look at me, look how supportive I'm being!" instead of Chicken Little and HIS accomplishments. He sucks as a father, and who wants to see that? There are too many in real life, who suck, for this to be enjoyable.

It rates a 4.0/10 from...

the Fiend :.


I went to the theater thinking that I would be entertained. Instead, I was disappointed. The music portrayed in this film were above the kid's heads as they could not relate to the outdated tunes. Also, for a scriptwriter to have to use overused dialog really hints that this person has no original thought in their head. Also, the PC themes in there got on my nerves as they do not belong in this country. I could not even feel for the poor Chicken Little as his shallow dad was disappointed in him because he was not the great person he himself once was. It just did not pull me in because that part of the plot was weak. I find this as bad as Robots and Yugioh the Movie. I know that in Hollywood that it's not what you know, it's who you know, but I think that these major film companies need to review their staff of writers and get some REAL talent. Yes, I could have written a better film. This is from a writer who knows better!


I'd like to begin by saying that I am one of those people who truly enjoy the recent influx of adult-humoured Disney/Pixar projects like Finding Nemo, Shrek and Monsters Inc. as opposed to traditionalists who prefer Disney to get back to its old classical way of storytelling with damsels in distress and fairytale villains in castles. No not me, I like the new films better because they cater to a wider audience, are satiric, and they demand more intelligence from the viewer because archetypes (like heroes, villains) are not as defined.

I thought my endless affection for these modern kinds of animation would mean I would enjoy Chicken Little (2005) - but I was clearly wrong, because this is a barely competent Disney film with very few laughs. Plotwise, I don't mean to be a nitpick but it generally helps if your script makes a tiny bit of logical sense. Imagine you take a shotgun, load it chock-full of story lines and events and fire into a random mess. That is the story of Chicken Little and this chaotic writing makes itself known through every puzzling detour the film takes.

The only thing you need to know is that Chicken Little (voiced by funnyman Zach Braff) is someone who people don't take seriously because of his size. He therefore spends the film trying to reaffirm himself and restore his ridiculed reputation. There's also an alien invasion taking place which proves to be a perfect opportunity for the latter. This invasion is a blatant War of the Worls homage and although I hated the film, I appreciate references. Keep a look out, because there are also Finding Nemo (lawn-mower) and Signs (corn crop-circles) references.

Some other decent parts to Chicken Little are the dodgeball scene in the beginning of the film and Chicken's fish-friend whose head is enclosed in a bowl-helmet. He is simply called "Fish" and is so endearing that he temporarily elevates the whole film above generic unfunny formula. But the good aspects end here, because the rest is an unfunny overcooked mess. Even the slightest pause for serious situations and dialogue are interrupted by some cheesy pratfall, pee- or fart joke. I'm serious, these cheap-shots are present throughout.

The success of Chicken Little was certainly not what Disney had hoped for, nor the funny entertainment I had expected. A pity, because I am the biggest Zach Braff fan there is - I think he is pretty much as funny as you can get, but here he is wasted on a silly overcooked little chicken.

4/10


If there is one thing in this world of media that infuriates me, it is an iconic company's attempts to do something incredibly stupid. For one example are Disney's attempts to abandon hand drawn animation, and shove CGI animated movies in the Disney canon and consider them "Full Length Animated Features". What's worse is it starts with one cataclysmic abomination entitled Chicken Little. As we know about the original Aesop fable, this movie contraries from it and contains an abusive amount of clichés, pop culture references, movie references, and so much more clustered together. I can't stop thinking that this is the textbook definition of "worst movie ever". Compared to other poor movies out there, such as Batman & Robin, Battlefield Earth, or North, they are Gods.

We're first jumped into a chaotic scene, that BEGS me to laugh with an Indiana Jones joke and a chain of baby rabbits, when Chicken rings a bell in an Oakland town to warn everyone that the sky is falling in such a panic, later revealed that an acorn fell on him. Yeah, that's our hero, ladies and gentlemen; someone who chaotically grabs people's attention just for the most far fetched warning. A year passes by, and he's the village idiot, and a movie of him is in production. Gee who would think that? He's teased in school for his idiocy and is friends with the most horribly named characters with the worst traits in the world. Abby, also named Ugly Duckling who gives advice to Chicken and establishes nothing except for a weak love antique. Fish out of the Water, a fish with a water helmet on his head, who only performs pop culture references. And Runt of the Litter, who's an obnoxious ugly fat big that flaps its arms around so much, and doesn't do a single thing useful in the movie. My question is, what the hell names are these?? Fish out of the Water? Runt of the Litter?? Who comes up with these names? Were these writers even trying? And if anything, you could remove all these characters, and nothing in the story would alter!

The entire first half is a rapid fire of high school clichés and a montage to a baseball game for Chicken's reputation to regain. You know, something you'd see on a TV sitcom. This is all utterly pointless because in the second half, the alien plot is in and Chicken loses his reputation again. At this point, why did I have to watch the first half of clichés and sport montages when he becomes the village idiot again? So aliens, reminiscent of War of the Worlds, invade as chaos is aroused again. Citizens are getting vaporized by Martian beams. You know. For kids! There's jettisoned little three eyed orange alien has to be returned to stop this whole mess. He gets returned, but the martians are actually friendly space neighbors. OK, at this point, why did they attack the city in the first place if they're generous? So now that Chicken's reputation is back the second time, his movie is changed to a Sci-fi Trek flick. What did we learn from all this? Practically nothing!

The story is messy, and absolutely frustrating to understand. What was the movie telling me, or at least trying? The tag line implies "The sky is Falling". So was it supposed to be about aliens? If so, why was everything else there? Why a baseball game? Was it telling me not to jump to conclusions, or actually listen to someone say something far fetched, despite of no evidence revealed until later in the film? If you asked me, nothing happened! The movie was telling me nothing!

While most Disney films contained amazing scores, this musical soundtrack features nothing but decade old songs from groups like Spice Girls. Something in which would amplify the anonymous pop cultural references in the movie. The animation is mediocre, and the character designs are terrible. For the most part, it looks like stop motion, and Foxy Loxy looks like a squirrel. The biggest shame is that some big stars like Zack Braff, Patrick Stewart and Don Knotts have taken roles in this film, and is directed by Mark Dindal, who's known for Cats Don't Dance, and the Emperor's New Groove. Both of which are fantastic films. Some people used these stars as a defense to the film, but really, it doesn't matter who the creators are. What matters is if the movies's good or not. You'll might as well state that Howard the Duck, produced by George Lucas, was great. That would sound ridiculous.

Chicken Little is unbelievably retarded. The story talks about nothing with no sense of originality, the characters are annoying and useless, the animation is poor, and it brings a weak soundtrack. I can't say anything good about this hunk of garbage. Chicken Little is a disgrace to the Disney Canon, and a definition of a CGI used wrongly as well as it's an example of modern cinema crap fest. The biggest blame goes to Disney CEO, Michael Eisner, for assuming that 2D animation is dead. Good for him, maybe he should have thought twice about that before firing the Disney animators in the process, considering there are hand drawn Disney sequels, and Studio Ghibli films they distribute.

Chicken Little is an inexcusable, unoriginal, effortless abomination, and it's completely unforgivable. One of, actually THE worst movie I have ever seen in my life.


Look. I'm a fan of Disney movies n' all, but the films are starting to get repetitive and boring. This film suffers from shabby acting, bad animation and a recycled plot line.

The film's story centers around Chicken Little claiming the sky is falling, but it turns out that the sky is a bunch of aliens that attacks the town.

Sounds kinda unique, right? But the film's plot line is the same as every other Disney movie. Introduce the characters, start the problem, come to a semi-climax, sad moment, the friends reunite and the problem's solved. This plot line, though can be used once in a while if it's done once in a while, gets tiring after a while. I'm sick of it.

The voice acting isn't nearly as good as the other Disney films, and that was distracting to me.

Like Hoodwinked, the animation is way too cartoony and really makes the film distracting to watch, and this film's animation was just stupid.

All in all, this is a flawed film that I really didn't like at all. Want a good Disney show? Watch Toy Story. Or National Treasure. Or Pirates of the Caribbean. There's a ton of good Disney movies out there... pass on this one.


Chicken Little could have been excellent. The idea of the falling sky on the chicken and the chicken running helter-skelter informing everyone about what had occurred while the people do not pay any heed to his pleas is based on a children's fairy tale.

But alas, Chicken Little, was just a bland, silly story which has a abominable ending, with half-baked side stories that are not focused upon. The chicken is always bullied and ridiculed by everyone who think that he is formulating his own stories about the sky falling down.

Though I missed a part of the starting, it wasn't that much important. They show the town running everywhere but then realizing that the Chicken Little had just imagined that the sky was falling and had mistaken it for an acorn.

Then there is a dramatic dialog about the father of the Chicken who is embarrassed and tells his son to not keep high hopes and the Chicken agrees and goes off to school where he is bullied by his classmates.

He has a few friends like the Ugly Duckling, a Pig and Fish out of Water. He decides to sign for baseball where he is always told to take the bench while his nemesis Foxy Loxy becomes a star. This happens until the finals where the Chicken Little is responsible for the team to win and is respected and the people of the town forget about his past life, that is, the trouble he had caused by alarming everyone about the sky falling.

Then he thanks the star whom he had wished for doing something magic before the match so that the people could forgive him (sorry for not informing before) and his father too is proud of him. Then at that moment, the sky actually falls which has some properties, like it can change and adopt the color on the object on which it is placed, like it turns brown whenever kept on a brown wall, similar to a chameleon.

The Chicken informs his friends about this and they tell him to inform his father but he feels that if he tells his father and is father thinks that he had gone crazy again, he would be mocked and ridiculed. So, he doesn't inform his father, even when the fish is taken away.

He and his friends try to rescue him and succeed but are attacked by the aliens who are planning to destroy earth by entering the planet from the broken fragment of the sky. The chicken alerts the town about the aliens but the aliens leave before he could give them the proof, and so, the chicken is ridiculed again for wrongly alerting them. Even his father loses trust in him.

The chicken, therefore, is depressed until he finds the baby of the aliens who is, by mistake left back on the earth. Therefore, the aliens attack the earth to search for their baby and Chicken little, his father and his friends deposit the baby to the alien baby to his parents and they forgive them and don't destroy the earth and go back. At last, a movie is made on Chicken and the town celebrates. In the middle, two or three scenes are inserted showing the attraction between Chicken and Ugly Duckling.

The things I liked about the movie are: (1) I liked Chicken Little as I found him cute and his voicing was done well (2) I liked the way they showed the part of the sky falling and the properties of the sky.

But, sadly, Chicken Little fails to impress you. Its side stories, like the love between Chicken Little and Ugly Duckling, are shown blandly and you don't sympathize with any of the characters. It has a weak script with bad dialogs and nothing that funny or captivating and has referred other movies in it, which is sadly stupid and unnecessary. It has one of the worst and the most hurried up endings. Therefore, in the end, you do not feel that Chicken has suffered much and endured a lot of pain before achieving success in the end. The adult aliens are just so stupid, and are shown to be lovable at last. But before that, they were busy destroying planets?

I would give this movie a 4 out of 10, and would not recommend this film for people who have high hopes with Disney and Pixar.


Well, the story is the typical: the kid that lives miserable, with few friends and tries to do something to be a hero, the day he is able, finds that no one will believe him. The plot is easy to follow, as it is filmed for kids. The action is simple and the characters are totally topical. Most of the jokes are not very funny (but for kids) and the movie is short, in order to do not make them to make a great effort. Despite that, it is not too childish and most adults will be able to watch it without become very bored, as it is a little interesting but, finally, it is a movie for kids and adults will not be very pleased, as happens with other films as Shrek or Ice Age.


in very simple words

the worst computer animated movie of all time it was horrible beyond imagination it should be given a rating of R so that no child has to endure the pain of watching this movie

only 3 things happened!!

the opening scene, the baseball scene and the alien scene

It was so pathetic, this as to be Disney's lowest point. the funny thing is that they expected to receive 350 million for this movie

Watching this makes me the wonder what happened to the good old animated films


chicken little is not that a good film it has animals pretending to be human and the plot of the sky falling down was not really good i think when they make a animated film with animals just use them as as true to life as they get like a talking parrot that helps people not like a fish with a helmet full of water how would the rest of his body coup with the surroundings. the next film coming that i have heard of is "cars"with little cars that can talk and can controls themselves if you can believe this you can believe a lot of things. chicken little has some good things about it like the comedy and the way it makes you feel like that you feel sorry for a chicken.


Kelly MacDonald has that quality about her that pulls the male ego into wanting to protect her. I felt it in "The Girl in the Cafe," and I'll never forgive Javier Bardem for keeping his vow in "No Country for Old Men." "The Merry Gentleman" could be titled "Who will Protect Kelly?" Will it be the cop, the hit-man (Keaton) even her "born-again" husband?-they all want to protect her. Her husband is insane, and the cop offends her every time he speaks. Cold-blooded murderer Logan (Keaton), seems to win her heart with coughs, wheezing and repeating twice "I found a girl under a Xmas tree." Keaton's minimalist dialog even has him wheezing for her to quit talking and leave the hospital. If he charms her with any more silver-tongued devilry than that, it must have been edited out. I thought the ending worked; the part that was missing was 'What did she see in him?'


This very simple tale aims for a feel similar to a Coen brothers noir-ish film but the actual craftsmanship and writing is not up to the task.

The premise is that of two loners who have nothing in common but nonetheless bound together. One character is a hit-man, played by director Michael Keaton. The other is Kate, a woman fleeing a past of abuse, played by Kelly MacDonald.

Unfortunately, there's nothing here to rejuvenate the classic elements such as the nice-guy- hit-man who is poorly socialized. The quirky relationships falls a little flat compared to other movies of the genre. Everybody will root for poor Kate to get her life on track after a bad relationship, I couldn't help but feel it all tied up a little nicely for her.

There's just nothing terribly interesting about this plot or the characters to make me care


Michael Keaton is one of my all-time favorite actors, his style & natural performances in almost all of his films have made me a proud fan. 'The Merry Gentlemen', which marks the debut of the Legendary Actor's directorial debut is a disappointment.

'The Merry Gentlemen' is a dull fare, the film just doesn't hold. Keaton's direction is neat, but the screenplay isn't. The film has no pace, it starts with a dull tone and ends the same. The climax also looks artificial & abrupt.

Talking on performances, Keaton is okay. This ranks amongst his weak works. Kelly Macdonald is sincere.

on the whole... one expected much more from Keaton.


I feel that, even though I really don't want to, I should maybe watch this film again - to maybe see if I missed out any important details or something because from my experience this film has very little to redeem its creation. Frankly, I'd rather the film didn't make any money so that would teach Michael Keaton a lesson. Kelly McDonald's in it - and her character doesn't do any favours to get the audience to empathise or sympathise in any way with her. Likewise, Michael Keaton the retired hit-man love interest out to do one last job is unengaging and wooden. The only portions of the film I enjoyed were most of the scenes involving the fat cop (who fancies Kelly) because he actually manages to act unlike the rest of the cast. In addition, the first twenty minutes of the film where Keaton sneaks about town doing 'hitmanny stuff' is all very well arranged and is admittedly kind of cool - yet this twenty minutes does not in any way reflect the tone nor the level of quality you should expect from the rest of the film following it. I didn't get it.


... it had the potential to work. Combine it with an actor who apparently wants to make one of those films you can tell is specifically created for Oscar award nomination and ends up being cliché and simplistic and you get cliché, simplistic, and unrealistic.

At times it did work. But I think this is a case where the director (also a primary actor in the story) got himself too involved and lost perspective.

You could also say this mixes the various sniper/killer films popular at the moment with an xmas film. Either way, the end product would have benefited immensely from someone reviewing it who wasn't personally involved in the film and a bit more plot development.


A rich couple and a poor couple -- both played by Joan Collins and Steven Berkoff -- prattle to the camera (and between themselves) about their lives and experiences.

This is the pits of the pits. Bad. Bad. Bad. Staring the biggest -- most talentless -- show offs that ever went before the camera. Talk about camera mugging. Berkoff makes Jerry Lewis look restrained.

Basically Berkoff points the camera at himself and then overacts for England, village hall style. Collins -- who looks at least a 100 years old (despite six tons of make up) looks as bored as you will be if you start watching this pile of old tosh.

This has to be one of the worst movies ever made and without any doubt the worst script ever filmed.


Friends of mine pointed me to this series to fill the void of a summer without good Sci-Fi. Oh, how it disappoints.

First of all, if you are looking for Sci-Fi, look elsewhere. This series has almost nothing from the Sci-Fi genre to recommend it. You could replace the Chigs with "foreign military", and replace the spaceships with fighter jets, and you'd have a bog-standard War show. All of the potential offered by the future settings / aliens / advanced technology, was all wasted. And even though I love war movies/series such as Band of Brothers, even put in that light, this series has little or nothing to recommend it.

Second, the acting. The actors deliver their lines in a wooden monotone, as if people of the future have lost the ability to emote. The only standout was James Morrison (Lt. Col. McQueen). Every other actor should have never made it past casting calls. Of special dishonorable mention: Morgan Weisser (Lt. West) and Lanei Chapman (Lt. Damphousse). I cringed whenever they uttered a line. I continually hoped that their characters would be killed first. I was thankful when the series was over, that I would probably never have to witness them again.

Third, the character development. Over and above the poor acting, the characters were single-dimensional, and extremely shallow. Every character was so "goody goody" that it was boring and predictable. The 2nd to last episode was especially poor due to its predictability. To avoid spoilers I won't state the exact circumstance, but suffice to say, the main characters did exactly what you would expect from the 05:00 minute mark onward, and surprise surprise, it gets them in a lot of trouble.

Fourth, this series is incredibly clichéd. Every plot point has been done prior to this series ever airing, but done better (most of those, in War movies/shows - not Sci-Fi). I mean, come on, lone pilot (series hero) vs. ace (unknown enemy)? Who out there didn't see the end of that one coming? Or how about Lt. West's love interest? Clichéd and boring, like the rest of the show.

I ended up watching the entire series due to a complete lack of anything else worth watching, plus I continued to hold out hope of the series improving. Finally, I did find something that I really, truly enjoyed: the end. When the final credits rolled, I felt a relief that I had no more of this boring show to plow through. I popped in a Babylon 5 DVD and the contrast was striking. Even the admittedly weak B5 season 1 plot line absolutely blows away SAaB.

The only reason I rate this above a 1 is that it was just good enough not to make me stop watching after the first episode. It did feel like a chore though, wading through so much crap just to get to the end.


The second movie in the saga is by an extremely wide margin the very worst of them - it is actually completely awful in itself, let alone as a sequel to the great first APE movie.

Most of the story is a heavy-handed commentary on religion, war and the use of nuclear weapons - the dialogue is so pompous and the idea so pretentious that most of the acting seems more fit for the stage rather than the screen. The ending is disastrous, actually making the entire point of the film meaningless.


This movie seems to be just half way thought through and certainly made the writers jump through hoops to continue the story line. But what is incomprehensible is the ending. However screwed up the world was in 3300 or whatever year it was.....to have Taylor make the decision he made.....underscored that Dr Zaus was right about humanity. Certainly the worst of the 5 movies and what an incredibly terrible moral message.


This was Uma Thurman's first feature film, and she started her acting career right at the very bottom. She is youthful and attractive in this film, but that's all the film has going for it. It is utterly dreadful. Very, very amateur. Thurman plays a femme fatale who goes on dates with middle-aged wealthy men, and then drugs them and steals their money. Meanwhile, a deranged guy who owns a rabbit is obsessed with her. That's about it. Steve Buscemi appears briefly. The other character is played by Paul Dillon (brother of Matt). Strictly for staunch fans of Uma Thurman only; and even if you are one, beware.


I picked this up very, very cheap in a bargain bin somewhere (I won't mention the name of the store, but I'm sure you'll figure it out anyway), deciding to give it a chance because of the early appearances of Uma Thurman and Steve Buscemi, as well as one of the few appearances of Paul (older brother of Matt and Kevin) Dillon. I won't call it out-and-out terrible, but it was not, by far, one of the better movies of its type.

This somewhat confused thriller features the lovely and very young Uma Thurman as Laura, a woman who takes on multiple identities and seduces older, wealthy men, drugs them, and robs them. Among her gentlemen is William Tilden (Paul Richards), a cultured man with a pet rabbit who buys her gifts in exchange for her (non-sexual) company. Unfortunately, it appears that Tilden has more than just an innocent fondness for Laura, and the relationship leads him to fuel more than a little of the conflict seen in this movie.

Meanwhile, a younger friend of Laura's, Sid (Paul Dillon), is down on his luck and she does her best to look out after him. Neither Sid nor Laura are exactly upstanding citizens, but their relationship is honest, for the most part.

Additionally, Steve Buscemi has a small scene as the sleazebag guitarist Johnny, for whom Sid spends much of the first part of the film searching.

While this movie does remain in my collection due to its relative obscurity and strange plot movements, it is not well done on any end of the spectrum except, perhaps, for the performances of Thurman and Richards, who work quite well together. The lighting is substandard and there have been numerous complaints listed on IMDb about the sound quality. This is definitely not a movie for everyone, although it does appear that some folks enjoy it. Rent or purchase this one at your own risk.


This film is about a young and attractive woman who lures men and then rob them. She finds her own life is in danger when she ends up in the opposite end of the game.

Even considering that "Kiss Daddy Goodnight" was made twenty years ago, it still seemed more like a college film student effort. The camera work is terrible. There is no consideration into how to make the camera angles and presentation of scenes more interesting. Lighting is terrible. Scenes are either very dark or are poorly lit. I refer to a specific scene where William and Laura talk by the entrance of Laura's apartment. The source of lighting takes no consideration into where light should come from. They just use spotlight to shine onto the two characters' faces. The end result is father laughable.

The plot could have been promising, but it is not engagingly told. There is simply no suspense or thrill. To sum up, "Kiss Daddy Goodnight" is rather disappointing. If it was not for Uma Thurman, this film would have found no viewers at all.


Where to start? Extremely poor lighting-most of the time you couldn't tell what was going on. The actors' are hidden in shadow the majority of the time. It's like someone shot the movie in their unlit basement at midnight. Didn't someone at least have a snakelight or something?

The dialogue is pitiful, mundane and the movie plods along at a molasses pace. You spend most of the movie wondering "what just happened?", and trying to figure out one scene while it moves on to the next.

The editing is choppy. You'll see characters go into one location, no explanation as to why there there, and then in next scene they're at a different location. It gives the editing job done on "Plan 9 From Outer Space" a run for it's money. Finally, to top it off, Paul Dillon's unibrow is incredibly distracting.

I'd skip this movie. My roommate bought it for $1.99 and it wasn't worth that much.


Continuing my valiant quest to watch every film Steve Buscemi has ever been in I haplessly stumbled upon this god-awful waste of 80 minutes. The plot is awful, the dialogue is poor, the acting is dreadful (even Buscemi's 3min role is pointless with no real relevance to the story)-I can only assume they needed the money-and to top it all it looks like that the whole thing was shot by a 7 year old after sneaking out in the middle of the night. It is truly one of the worst films I have ever seen. If you seriously need a Uma fix then watch Kill Bill again-hell even watch the Avengers or Batman and Robin-at least they were so bad they are laughable unlike this piece of crap.

Don't even bother-trust me.


not even close to a horror film. therefore, i'm not even sure why this was included in the brentwood DVD pack, but it was. so again, here i was expecting to be scared, when i was just plain bored. this about as much of a 'horror' flick as was Scream. i really hate it when it Hollywood misadvertises like that.

this is way more of a suspense than anything. uma thurman fans will also apply, but will need to beware just in case.

the film looks older than what it is. and i always found that weird how Hollywood also lock away films for years and then releasing them whenever. great score though.


This truly obscure neo-noir from 1988 is memorable as Uma Thurman's first starring role and also has a bit part from Steve Buscemi. Quentin Tarantino must have seen it since he cast both of them in "Pulp Fiction." The DVD retails at WalMart for $1.00, which is about what it's worth. "Kiss Daddy Goodbye" has an intriguing storyline but is so low-budget as to be literally unwatchable: the lighting is poor, the photography amateurish, and night scenes are literally invisible. On the plus side the eighteen-year old Uma oozes sex appeal and a sleazy sort of glamour which must have attracted Tarantino to her, and there are some gritty, realistic performances, particularly from Buscemi. The movie was produced with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the West German Kunstministerium, another example of taxpayers' money going to waste.


....or "dreary thriller", maybe. You see, this flick begins like a low-key drama (some scenes, like Dillon's meeting with Buscemi, have a documentary-like feel that reminded me, believe or not, of Andy Warhol), then turns into a straight slasher thriller. Uma Thurman makes a promising acting debut, however - and am I wrong to believe that Dillon is Matt's identical twin? (He even acts like him). (*1/2)


This film is sloppier than a school dinner. Awfully cheap picture quality, lighting was terrible, sound even worse  the background sound most of the time drowned out the actors voices. The acting, apart from a 17-year-old Uma Thurman and a cough and a spit part from the ever-reliable Steve Buscemi, was also abysmal. Paul Dillon, obviously a relation of Matt, was a needless and very dislikable character who made me want to fast forward every time he appeared on screen. This monstrosity of a film was cheekily re released again to look as though it was a new Uma film, I have seen it floating around on DVD in second hand shops and car boot sales on numerous occasions - and now I know why. Avoid.


This is Uma Thurman's first movie. She plays a 20-something living in the East Village who goes home with men, drugs them, and steals their valuables. Then someone starts stalking her. That's really all there is here. This movie is boring, ugly, and poorly made. It isn't scary or creepy or anything. You know who the stalker is straight away because of the spoiler-ish movie title. Uma does an okay job, but her character is so boring and unlikeable that you could care less if she's being stalked. I suppose if you are an obsessive Uma fan, you might want to check this out. Oh, and Steve Buscemi is in one scene. File this under "horror flicks with random and non-sensical rabbit scenes." My Rating: 2/10


Haralambides, a beatnik-wannabe himself, has a first go at creating a film with beatnik connotations all around. Only it doesn't work out that well. The main character (you guessed it, Haralambides) takes a midnight stroll round the deserted streets of athens with a girl he meets by accident. In the process they hold a 'most mortifying cliche ever' contest by elaborating on matters of life, love, death, what have you, only to come to the conclusion that, well, she doesn't fancy him very much. All this is embellished with parallel storylines taken from the life of our hero (Haralambides, lest we forget) or nowhere in particular (as if anyone cares). The only (mildly) exciting bit in the entire film is Costas Tsakonas's performance (whose name by the way is not even mentioned in the credits). A terrible waste of time, money and talent (definitely not Haralambides's).


I have noticed in a lot of my reviews I have mentioned how beer may make the movie better. There is not enough beer on Earth to make this movie watchable!!! This movie just...SUCKED!! Bad acting,story,plot,effects and so on. It's not even bad in a good way and I like bad movies. I have had more entertaining dumps than this flick!!


This film could easily be a comedy, unless someone is 15 years old or younger. Rourke shows up only once and for about 5 min. The man obviously doesn't take his job seriously, not anymore... The whole concept of this movie is a joke! We 've seen it again hundreds of times. And the final scene! What an idea! Thousands of programmed mutant-robot-(god knows what else)-cockroaches come together to form a giant monster cockroach!!! GIVE US PEOPLE A BREAK!


There is a total of one roach that ever shows up in this movie. The only scene involving a real roach is gross. The rest of this movie relies strictly on really awful gray computer graphics animated bugs. The CGI is so bad that when the bugs attack one guy in particular it looks like a gray liquid is covering him. These CGI roaches move in perfect synchronicity, and they are dark gray. Most roaches are some shade of brown. The acting is horrible too. Most of this movie has no bugs at all because it is really a Police Procedural movie with bugs. A Detective is trying to solve a homicide, and the brother of the victim of another homicide runs into the Police Detective and they decide to work together!? So most of the movie follows the typical Police Investigation format, and about every 30-45 minutes someone gets killed by the dark gray liquid which is supposed to be roaches. The big mystery regarding the bugs is solved. There is supposedly an incredible technology which is discovered to allow the control of roaches, but the two bad guys who control the roaches never show any control device or other gadget. They do not even talk to the bugs. Apparently, the bugs work on ESP. No control device is ever shown, though many references are made to the incredible amounts of technology which the student-bad-guys are using. Consider this: At one point the hero is swatting thousands of roaches with his jacket. A few seconds later, he puts the same jacket on without even looking to make sure there are no bugs on it. Characters regularly have spontaneous discussions while standing on the floor on top of thousands of man-eating bugs. By contrast, other characters are engulfed and eaten in seconds by the same bugs. It seems that sometimes the bugs run at super-speed to eat some people, but other times the dark-gray "bugs" just mill about or "walk-in-place." The very end features a very silly CGI as all the roaches stick together to form a giant roach. Of course, the Police woman shoots her gun at the dark-gray blob and nothing happens. The giant roach is killed off in another scene that was ripped off from the Terminator. There are several other scenes that were ripped off from other movies. THEY CRAWL lacks any suspense or horror.


The only way I got through this movie was by watching it with my brothers, continuously adding our own humorous commentary over the dialog. There are so many "also-ran" actors in this film it began to resemble a Burgess Meredith re-union party. Oh, and what is the deal with Mickey Rourke? He appears in one scene, and leaves the viewer aghast at his silly antics. I mean, was there a point to him knocking that door off it's hinges? Surely it's a bad sign for a film when the producers rely on Mr.Rourke for his "star power" to pull in the crowds. One can only ponder what next for Mickey, perhaps a starring role in Ishtar II? About the only redeeming feature of this film, were the sporadic CG cockroach attacks, and even they left much to be desired. Avoid this film unless you enjoy boredom, or simply need evidence of how far Mickey Rourke has sunk. 4/10


I watched this on TV because the digital cable guide listed it as a film "starring Mickey Rourke." Little did I know all he had was a very brief cameo in the film, yet it was enough for them to advertise his name all over the listings. In fact it actually stars a Tom Cruise lookalike named Daniel Cosgrove who suspects little bugs (cockroaches and that sort) are planning to take over the world.

The film is shot in a gritty, blue-filtered way - like those TV cop shows (Law & Order, NYPD Blue, The Shield, etc.) but the problem is that the "reality" feel of the movie betrays its utter absurdity -- please, LITTLE BUGS ATTACKING THE WORLD?! What is this -- the 1950s?! The worst scene has to be the very ending (SPOILER AHEAD) when all the little bugs "form together" to create one giant, enormous "bug" that attempts to kill the hero. The way he "kills" it is laughable at best.

It's not worth watching - not even for Mickey.


Another hokey Sci-Fi channel offering, this time the monsters on the loose are smart cockroaches that swarm around a lot. The cucarachas croak a bus driver who likes to smash his bus through office building lobbies, then somebody gets killed in a bombing. You guessed it: a government conspiracy is behind it all.

Our heroes include a Jordache Jeans commercial guy (brother of the bombing victim), and a lady cop who shoots anything she sees: roach swarms, boxes, trucks, cars, buildings, into mid-air, and occasionally even a bad guy. When Officer Ripley runs out of ammunition with one weapon, she grabs another gun and resumes firing. As for Jordache, he just sticks his nose everywhere, while bodies pile up. The cop captain is the usual skeptic who does nothing, and the head honcho nasty guy is a comical stereotype, who snarls when he talks. They even had the nerve to use the ridiculous "bad guy pauses to explain the evil plot to the good guys before shooting them" routine. The obvious poetic justice is served, of course.

But stay tuned for the grand finale. The debut of one of the most hilariously inept monster creatures ever spawned still awaits you. He was about as intimidating as a Teletubby, and the final scene had me laughing until I could hardly breathe.

A hilariously stupid movie.


They Crawl starts with a runaway bus demolishing half of Los Angeles & crashing, Detective Gina O'Bannon (Tamara Davis) is on the case. Glen (Ken Lerner) the coroner does an autopsy on the bus driver (Jerry Kernion) & discovers that the driver has strange electricity burns on his body & his insides were gone. O'Bannon suspects a religious cult known as the Trillion as they sacrifice victims by electricity & remove their innards, O'Bannon banks on it being more than just a coincidence & decides to pay the cult leader Tiny Frakes (Mickey Rourke) a visit. Meanwhile Ted Gage (Daniel Cosgrove) has returned home to see his family but before he gets an opportunity to see his Brother Brian (Chase Hampton) he dies in mysterious circumstances when his flat blows up. Again, O'Bannon is on the case & once again Glen the coroner finds the same injuries to Brian as was present on the bus driver which has to be more than coincidence. O'Bannon & Ted team up, after some investigations they uncover sinister military experiments, conspiracies, lies, murder & an egotistical madman who wants to take over Earth using radio controlled killer cockroaches! For no other apparent reason that he can...

Directed by John Allerdice They Crawl is one crap sci-fi horror film that wasted 90 odd minutes of my life. The script by Curtis Joseph & David Mason is so slow it's untrue, I was bored rigid throughout. The X-Files style government/military conspiracy side of things is as dull as it sounds while the horror elements are severely lacking. Until the final 10 or so minutes there are precisely three cockroach attacks, that's three attacks in 80 minutes & one of those is right at the start. The rest of the excruciating running time is devoted to O'Bannon & Ted's investigations as they uncover the conspiracy, unfortunately They Crawl is one of those films where we, the audience that is, know that there are killer cockroaches scuttling around & it takes the main character's virtually the entire film to catch up & it becomes an absolute snooze fest waiting. It was never explained to my satisfaction how the cockroaches were controlled, something about the correct frequency is mentioned vaguely but it's never really discussed & the equipment needed never shown. Another thing I'm not happy about is the use of footage from other films, during the opening sequence a bus driver is attacked & he swerves all over the place hitting other cars & it's painfully obvious that this footage came from the Swarzenegger action film Red Heat (1988) & I kept saying to myself why the hell didn't the bus driver just pull over & stop? Because they couldn't have stolen that footage then that's why! The bit when Brians flat explodes is taken from Rush Hour (1998) & there's a bit when a house explodes lifted from another Swarzenegger film, Last Action Hero (1993). To add insult to injury these scenes are the best in the entire film! The plot is a mess, it's dull, repetitive, boring & you can see the so-called twist ending coming a mile off.

Director Allerdice does an OK job, the film is alright to look at & has a few neat special effects. The huge cockroach made out of ordinary cockroaches at the end looks pretty good but this is far too little far too late. There is no atmosphere to it, there's definitely no scares, shocks or surprises & the horror is secondary to the dull conspiracy. Forget about any blood or gore as there isn't any, there are a couple of wounds, a cockroach comes out of someones ear & that's it. Although if you are scared of cockroaches then They Crawl may make you feel a bit uneasy.

They Crawl must have had a low budget, all the decent bits are stolen from other infinitely better films. As it is it's competent at least but that's about the best thing I can say about it. The acting sucks, what on Earth is Mickey Rourke doing in crap like this?

They Crawl is one of the worst killer bug films I've ever seen, the bugs seem to be almost totally ignored in favour of dull melodramatics & X-Files style conspiracies that went out of fashion a long time ago, unfortunately no one told the hacks who made this. There is absolutely nothing by which I could recommend this total waste of celluloid, for insomniacs & masochists only.


Put a gun to your own head and pull the trigger. Actually that seems really good compared to watching this boring pile of garbage. the main guy is the weird dude from Van Wilder so every time I look at him I see him drinking Pit Bull C-u-m.

Ridiculous story with so many irrelevant plots going that I felt like gagging, A cult, the military, some drug dealers, a university and Tone Loc all get together and rub one out on a cookie. The C-u-m eater eats it obviously.

I wish I could find whoever decided to go ahead with this movie and punch him in the crotch. Seriously, f him.


I'm writing this review from Italy where i've rented this video just to see something new with Mickey Rourke in it (i'm a big fan of the man!). So i was looking around at the video covers in the videostore when suddenly my attention get caught by the cover of 'Invasion X' (the italian choosen name for this movie). Well, in the high corner on the left of the videotape the first name written was Mickey Rourke. I was glad, finally something new with Mickey was available. Ok, now i've read the other review on imdb where a guy tell us that Mickey is in the movie just once and for about five minutes but it's not true; believe it or not Mickey is in the movie just once but for three minutes!!! If this isn't enough this movie is also boring and not scaring at all. What i really can't understand is why a director (in this case Allardice) that can have Mickey Rourke in a movie use him so few and just in a scene (it's unbelievable and no-one can understand a choice like this). For the italian distributors of the movie there are no right words: to all of you just a sincere f*** off!


Sci-Fi not at its best. Ted Gage(Daniel Cosgrove)is a disgraced serviceman who returns home and teams up with a spunky female detective Gina O'Bannon(Tamara Davies)to find out who killed his computer geek brother. The computer whiz was earning his way through college by "cooking" and dealing drugs. And his project on the side was helping create super smart cockroaches for the Government. Adding to the human drama is a rash of killings that may be related to a human sacrificing cult led by Tiny Frakes(Mickey Rourke). Meanwhile the engineered cockroaches continue to due damage. Also in the cast are: Dennis Boutsikaris, Brandon Karrer, Tone Loc and Scott Rinker.


Sorry to say, but I just got through watching 160 minutes of pure garbage. What an awful movie. There was absolutely no plot at all. The movie was just one bad musical performance after another. There was no story, the characters were not developed at all, the acting was bad, and each scene had nothing to do with the next. Want me to go on? I can't believe that this movie is actually considered a classic. I gave it a 1 rating and I was being generous. Avoid at all costs


Wow. I was really surprised when I saw this film tonight. I'd heard so much about it being such a masterpiece and one of the best films of 70s, that I knew I had to see it. Afterwards, I just have to assume that the rest of the films of the 70s were rotten for this to one of the best! Most of the reason I disliked this movie was that it seemed like every second was being created by someone with ADD,...perhaps even ADD as well as crack! That's because there are no quiet moments--only scenes where practically everyone is talking at the same time and it seemed like they were trying to cram 3000 minutes of film into one movie. And because of this, after a while I just wanted it to stop. While some might be amused by this, it just seemed overwhelming and annoying.

It's funny--I have never liked Country music, but I really felt sorry for the people of Nashville because the movie seemed to paint them so poorly--like some sort of freak show. It seems that according to the writers, director and actors, the people of Nashville, and perhaps America of the 70s, is made up of dumb hicks.


Neither Altman nor his stars understood country music. The author having insinuated politics into the film was both gratuitous and useless--adding nothing to the story but more cynicism. It was as though Mr. Altman threw a lot of balls into the air, hoping one of them would hit. The music was dreadful--might pass for drugged-up folk music but had no melody. Poor Johnny Gimble, Texas's best fiddler, who looked pained but characteristically pleasant while trying to save bad, fake "country & western" music--he doesn't even get a credit on this site, while Vassar Clements does. The movie was full of inaccurate interpretations of the country music style and milieu. While attempting to be a send-up of hicks and small-minded rednecks, they even got THAT wrong! Cartoonish pastiche on that theme, while being hackneyed and unfair, could have been achieved with little effort, but wasn't. It is as though Altman and crew were ALL on psychotropic drugs during the making of this film. I also pitied Merle Kilgore, who is a true song-stylist of high quality, having written many big country & western hits including "Wolverton Mountain". He and Mr. Gimble were cynically invited to participate in a movie that not only had no point, but which, in its stab at ridiculing the country music scene, only succeeded in exposing the bad taste and ignorance of Hollywood itself. The plot sickens--oh no, wait: there wasn't one. Mr. Altman thought he could cleverly use the "One Day's Chronicling" device to conceal that deficit. That dawg don't hunt!


I wanted to see this movie because I love music and movies about music. I also wanted to see it because of the star filled cast. There were a lot of problems I had with this movie, though. First off, it was just plain and endlessly boring. The story revolves around a lot of different characters and their lives in the Nashville country music scene. I found all of these characters to be completely uninteresting and unlikable. I also found practically all of the music to be terrible. The only exception was "Hard Ridin Cowboy Man" which I liked, and for some unknown and confusing reason, that song is not even listed on the soundtrack. The rest of the movie just seemed to be a bunch of scenes scrapped together, with no plot or meaning. Maybe this is the kind of movie you need to watch more than once to appreciate, but I am not willing to give it another 3 hours of my time to find out.


I found this movie an insult to the southern culture, and like all Altman movies, an arrogant jab at anyone living between the two coasts. I remembered when this piece of crap premiered, I heard the good people of Nashville were mad as hell at the obvious insult to their city and state. So I went to see it just to see if they were over reacting. They weren't. Altman and his ilk, think all of us who live in the "fly over" states are a bunch of backward rubes who just don't get it, cause we vote republican.

The casting was a joke, and the music worse. This was Hollywood country. This had nothing to do with Nashville or the country music culture. This was Country as seen through the eyes of the Hollywood culture. Why cast a bunch of yankees and west coast "progressives" to portray southerners, unless you're satirizing them. All I saw was a bunch of second rate actors dressed up as clowns, pokin fun at the backward hillbillies of Tennessee.

Just as M*A*S*H was a jab at the military culture, Nashville was no more than a laugh at the country music culture of the South. So yuk it up while you can. Hollywood and the mainstream media won't always wield the power of influence over our culture.


Nashville is awful. The songs are awful. The dialog is awful. This is a movie that only liberals in Hollywood could produce. It shows just how out of touch they are with real America. They don't understand country music and they think everyone loved the Kennedy's. The satire of this movie is so far off it makes sense only to the America haters. I am amazed that anyone could get through this sick attack on the South and good Americans. I liked MASH the movie, but the TV show sucked. I find nothing good about the point of view this movie takes. If you should happen see this movie in the TV listings, avoid it at all costs. This movie was an attempt to undermine conservative opinion of the time.


This movie absolutely stunk! It's nothing like the book, which is much better than this turkey of a movie. I hate that some of the characters names were changed (why? Your guess is as good as mine), or one or more characters were combined into one composite character.

Don't waste your money. Search for the book and read it. It is far and away better than this movie could ever hope to be.

I can't see any of the actors in the roles they play in this. Perry King as Russ? He's not as good looking as Myrer's book makes Russ out to be. And why are some actors listed, but not the role they played (were that bad? Probably)?

Some characters I don't even recognise from the book! Who's "Italian Kid"? The only Italian kid I remember from the book is Guido, Teresina's son, from when George and Opp were in Italy during WWII.

--bbd


I'm a gigantic TPB fan. I've seen every episode at least 10 times, and I love them all to death. In my opinion, though, this movie was lacking. What I saw was a 2-hour long repeated joke. It poked fun at the same things the show pokes fun at, but it just seemed repetitive. "Ha ha... Lahey's drunk." , "Ha ha... Randy's fat." , "Ha ha... the sh*tmobile is sh*tty" , or "Ha ha... Ricky's stupid but surprisingly cunning at dealing with cops and courtrooms." These are things I've laughed at a million times before in the TV show, but the movie was just overkill. It seemed almost as if Mike Clattenburg and Robb Wells just picked their favourite jokes from the entirety of the TV series and turned it into a movie script. Seriously. I could've sworn they were directly copied and pasted.

Even though the TV show manages to make us laugh at the same things over and over, it still has variety to it, and each season kicks ass (even season 6, which a lot of people dislike). I think the fact that this movie wasn't part of the actual storyline made it what it was. Since it wasn't part of the actual storyline, I think the creators wanted to show the rest of the world exactly what Trailer Park Boys is all about. To do that, they just took the best of the show's material and added a lot more drama. And they pretty much took out J to the R-O-C (he had what, 3 lines?), which I think sucked.

So yeah, I really wanted to love this movie and walk out of that theatre with the biggest grin on my face, but nope. They didn't give us anything new or interesting, just the same old stuff we've grown used to (and if ANYBODY thinks TPB is the same thing season after season, you're just dumb). It works for showing newbies, but it's not for the veterans.

Hell, I even blazed one before I went into the theatre.


Absolutely hated it, such a huge let down! We love the series and often die laughing watching it. We re-watch it over and over and spend far too much time surfing You-tube for clips of it. This movie is a disgrace to it and fans of the show and doesn't even feel like it's put on by the same people. It made us so angry with the nudity and plot lines that centered around that, which seemed to be the bulk of the movie. Strip clubs, bunch of T&A every other scene. We missed out on a good chunk of the movie because of all the fast forwarding we had to do to get through that junk and about 35 minutes in we just shut if off because it was just making us angry. What were they thinking by agreeing to this junk?


I saw this one on Fantasporto 2007, in Porto, Portugal.

I went to watch this one without expecting anything in particular from it. I like to go into films like this, quits the preconceptions brought by the excess of knowledge about the people involved. Apparently, i know it now, the directors are part of a new generation in the Hong Kong cinema, and they've produced some hits on that basis. To me they were unknown.

The film is complex, but not always for good reasons. It starts with a very smooth environment, borrowed (i guess, but not necessarily) from the psychological "apartment" thrillers by Polansky. This beginning was thrilling and promising, very good moments. The main character played a writer, i was guessing some kind of game with this characteristic (contemporary good cinema loves to explore these things). But no, what we watch are successive radical cuts between sceneries, story, etc. It moves on to present some fantastic scenery, having something to do with Japanese animé, a kind of Miyazaki filmed with live sets instead of animated ones.

But it fails deeply in trying to produce intense drama environment, in order to pass the environmental global message; instead we get a non pretended comedic portion of film (at a certain time laughs were the most heard sounds in the room).

The thing is, to my view, it gathers too many ways of doing it, to many cinematic theories, in a trick of associating the proliferation of materials and waste with the proliferation of cinematic "moods" and so cause the breathless sensation in the line of the intended message. I guess some contention and simplicity would apply perfectly in this case.

Story is completely irrelevant (not necessarily bad), but it is tiring and without motivation trying to follow it or understand it. Nevertheless this is a film with good production values, not always completely believable, but overall solid.

Some imagery is impressive, and well worked out in the relation with the soundtrack (also not bad), but i don't consider it enough to justify the time it lasts. Unless you ave a very special interest for this kind of movie, i don't recommend it.

My evaluation: 2/5


If you like movies with no discernible plot, with protagonists you don't care about, that leave you wanting to slit your wrists, by all means watch this! I gave it 3 stars because at least it was somewhat original in terms of visuals and had a surprise ending. But seriously, I have never had a movie with no real plot make me feel so depressed. It was horrifying, but not in the sense that you WANT in a horror movie.

Word of caution - if you have ever had an abortion, had a fetus die or have any sensitivity to this topic, don't watch this movie, as it has some REALLY disgusting and emotionally sickening images/themes.


This movie is the epitome of paradox. Whether or not it is a scary movie does not even bother me. I am so fed-up by it I am not even going to spend much effort in writing this review. So here are the people who deserves to be Re- Cycled.

First: editor. The entire movie is a series of snapshots fading in and out of the screen. There is no continuous or coherent scene. Most of the time, you get flashes of a shadow or a hand. The shots are angled, out of focus, and pointless. If the movie was trying to be abstract, it failed miserably. I can't see a darn thing! I am refraining myself from using words that are not permitted here.

Second: the directors. To tell the truth, other than The Eye (the first movie), the rest of their works are mediocre, even borderline lousy. This movie pushes it over that borderline. One of the signs of weak direction is the inability to know when a scene should stop, and it is so evident here.

Third: sound director. Did they run out of budget? Give me a break.

Fourth: actor. I never like Lee's acting but I thought she was decent in The Eye. In this movie, I got sick looking at her, and most of the time, it is her that you see. She is the focus of every single shot, and she was able to show only one expression. Fear/anger/confusion; I can't decide which it was. Oh, and the dialog. Were they on a dictation contest? Does anyone in the cast and crew knows the meaning to the word 'acting'? At least at one point I feel for the little girl, but the best thing is, it wasn't the point where I was supposed to feel for her.

Fifth: writer. I can appreciate and even respect the idea presented in the movie. Yes, abandoning things are bad and we should recycle. So what's the point of the movie? Exactly, there is none. It teaches you neither to abandon, nor to recycle. Well, they do tell you the horrid of aborting a child, but I think the moral value is lost when you can't even make it to that point of the movie without losing your patience, and your mind. Oh and I think everyone who has watched at least one movie would have figured it out by then. I think they wanted to make the movie only because they thought the idea was nifty, but never really did any actual work on writing or reading the script. The movie spent the first 30 minute developing something that only affects 5 minutes at the end of the movie, and that was the gist of the one and a half hour movie. Please! And people dropping from the sky? Come on, help me out here.

Sixth: writer. Yes, he/she/they deserves to be buried twice. The entire story is a paradox. 'Why is everything here so horrible?' Lee said, squatting on a rock with a sweet child amidst a beautiful river with a small waterfall and lush greenery's. 'This is the place that I belong', Ting-Yu (the child) said when her mother was holding her in her arms, crying, wishing they could live together happily ever after. Need an explanation? The place is for abandoned things, and she has a mother that wants her, so she is not abandoned anymore and hence she no longer belongs there.'Anything you threw away can be found here' the child said, and then everything got sucked away by the wonder known as Re-Cycled. So what's the point again? They are thrown away, gather in this place, only to be thrown away again? Someone stop me please.

The lowest rating a movie can get here is 1. I gave this movie 2. The extra point was for the visual effect. The environment was nicely built, especially the toy graveyard. I think they made the movie BECAUSE of that. I would have given another point for creativity, but I took it back because the movie looked like a cross between The Langourliers and Silent Hill.

Why do I sound so angry you ask? Simple. I spent my money, my time, and my effort to watch a movie. I watch any movie with an open mind, and I try to justify the movie for what it is. I have enjoyed many movies, but when I watch a movie such as this, I get angry. I strongly suggest that they do not make another movie again. Excuse me while I go watch Dorm again.


The four points come from good cinematography, sound-production, and special effects.

Nomore points from me... this was boring, predictable, used only clichés... hair, phone, somebody running out of focus...

For serious horror-addicts nothing to be seen here. But I've seen worse...

I didn't get scared at all... I like black metal, horrorcore, ... and other disturbing sh*t.

OOOooohhooohhhohohohhohhh.... Oooohhohoh...

Man the phone part just sux =D


One of the worst movies i have ever seen! I didn't find anything worth in the movie. These kind of movies shouldn't be brought to theaters. They were only trying to steal our money. I cannot think for a reason that someone should see this movie, it didn't have a plot ,at least until the middle of it because i left from the cinema at about that time. it was the first time i left from the cinema and didn't see a movie till the end. Perhaps if the movie had a little bit more dialogs it would be better, but there is a pause of about 30 minutes where you don't hear a word and go to places of the writer's imagination. This is where you start thinking maybe i should have gone to Superman:the return or to a bingo night (anything else but this)


I saw this movie when it screened in Cannes and oh my god. i Haven't seen a worse movie in so long. FOr some bizarre reason, it closed the un certain regard category and during the movie approximately half of the audience walked out. THis movie was pathetic. There simply was a weak story embedded in an hour and a half of nothing. FOr some reason, every 20 minutes or so, when the plot was starting to suck, dead bodies fell from the sky.. THere were so many holes in this story. and parts of it were just plain gross. How this got into Cannes, i will never know. The applause at the end was weak and didn't even last a minute. IT was more an applause of 'thank god this is over'. Outside in the foyer, people were literally laughing at how bad this was. NOT a good way to end the festival.


Frederick R. Friedel's Lisa, Lisa (1974, more famous titles include Axe and The California Axe Massacre) is among those weird and twisted horror exploitation films that were made in the US and elsewhere especially in the seventies after Herschell Gordon Lewis had "created" the "gore movie" term with his Blood Feast (1963) and other similar films of his. The closest thing to Friedel's film that I can imagine is Marc Lawrence's ultra rare Daddy's Deadly Darling aka Pigs (1972) which has equally menacing rural milieu, dark and deadly farm houses and overall feel of unexplained psychosis.

Axe opens with a scene with three well suited gangsters that wait for their friend who apparently has betrayed them and so will get a lesson from the boys. A murder takes place after which an escape from police to the farm areas. They terrorize an innocent shop keeper on their way and finally make it to a house inhabited by a shy, silent and very strange girl, Lisa, and her paralyzed and helpless grandfather whom Lisa lives with, alone. The gangsters soon notice the attractiveness of the young girl (very strangely and making the film even more "suspicious" considered what will happen later in the film, the cover of the old British tape which was banned, says the age of the girl being thirteen while there's not a mention of her age in the film itself!) and some axe wielding and also boringly slow moving terror soon happens.

The film runs only 60 minutes plus the credits but it feels much longer. This is the kind of marginal horror film that practically cannot be seen/watched more than once as it offers nothing significantly special or interesting that would give a motive to see it again sometimes in the future. Even those mostly looking for gore in their films won't get too much from this film, which isn't always the case. The story is filled with mysterious holes and unexplained things and none of the characters get developed to anywhere so they are all more than uninteresting. Nothing about the past of the gangsters and the reason of the beginning, nothing about the girl and her strange silence and self destructive behaviour, nothing. But there are some elements in the film that make me wonder what was in the head of the director/writer, other than to make another exploitation cheapie for the drive-ins.

Most notably I mean the ending which is among the most twistedly repellent I've seen in these films. The cannibalistic habits of Tobe Hooper characters will feel tame in comparison to those of the Axe's people as nothing is explained and Lisa acts as "naughtily" towards her relative as she does towards the thugs. This is definitely among the things that I will remember about this film, and also the final nail to the coffin of these "so twisted and insane no wonder the directors don't have plenty of future films on their credits" films to which the mentioned Pigs, in which, the pigs of a mysterious old farm keeper eat people, also belongs.

Otherwise Axe is not as strong or graphic as some of the time's other efforts. There are couple of murders and attempted violations of the girl, but much is left off-screen which definitely isn't a bad idea. Still this is an exploitation film and includes also some nastier bits and gore, with the kind of close-ups and other camera proofs that make it clear what were the motives to make this film and market it like. There's nothing interesting visually, and the editing is sometimes very bad as well as the acting and that makes it naturally even more difficult to sit through, despite its short running time.

The only really interesting and effective element in the film is the soundtrack that consists of very strange and high keyboard voices and waves that naturally are among the things that make the film look and sound so weird when compared to other films of its kind. The soundtrack may sound annoying too, but it adds nicely to the atmosphere and it becomes clear that things inside Lisa's head are not as they should, but since nothing is explained further and nothing else is this interesting, it cannot raise this film too much higher and the element can be appreciated only as a single succesful piece in a very flawed work. But it still could be completely without interest (and run longer), so spending the hour with this odd example of the seventies B cinema didn't just go in vain as it could have! 2/10


Three gangsters commit murder, then take to the road where they end up at the farm of a disturbed young woman.

An effectively spooky character portrayal by Leslie Lee and some good filming locations, doesn't quite save this ultra low-budgeter from being an unsatisfying horror flick. While it does have the occasional moment of gore, Axe a.k.a. Lisa, Lisa makes for an uneven slasher film and is a bit too light on the violence to really be considered a true exploitation thriller. It's pretty much a mixed bag, that never really finds its effectiveness. The films choppy editing and stilted direction definitely takes away from it too.

So, all in all it's kind of hard to find a place for this weird B flick, the curious may find something of interest in it, but don't expect another Last House on the Left (1972).

* 1/2 out of ****


I guess we have institutions like The Daily Mail to thank for this film; not for the making of it, but rather for the fact that it still has audience when it should have been forgotten along with most of the rest of the Last House on the Left rip-off's almost thirty years ago. Yes, 'Axe' is a member of the infamous video nasty list, and that's the only real reason to see it. The film is exploitation in the tradition of Wes Craven's infamous shocker, only instead of being fun and memorable, it's just dull. The film is kind of like Left House-lite, in that it's the same basic premise, but there's less of it. Axe is just over an hour long, which is definitely a good thing as I'd have hated to have wasted any more time on it. Basically, a trio of criminals on the run decide to stop off at an old country house, where they are introduced to Lisa and her old paralysed grandfather. It's not long before the men have raped her, and in true seventies exploitation style; she's getting her bloody revenge against them, using things like razorblades and axes.

The film fails to generate any kind of sympathy for it's characters, and even though the acts being committed are horrifying and sick, it's hard to care...which just makes it boring. Also, the fact that you know what sort of movie it is and when it was made ensures that it's always obvious what's going to happen, thus meaning that you're sitting there waiting for it. The atmosphere tries to be sleazy and foreboding, but only ever succeeds in ensuring that the film feels very cheap and obviously made for a quick buck. Axe tries to make it's central female the star of the show, and seeing a small child brutally murder three grown men is quite shocking; but again, it all comes back down to the fact that it's hard to really care; and that makes the whole idea style heavy and without substance. It's easy to say that it's only a cheap seventies exploitation movie and not worth taking seriously, and that's fair enough. It's also fair to say that this film is merely a dull reworking of better and more successful films that came before it, and if you want to see some sick seventies blood and guts; you could do a lot better than this. Axe is a video nasty best left hidden!


I bought this movie from my local video store for $3 out of the previously viewed bin. Thank goodness it was only three bucks. The movie looks like it's trying to be a much less graphic cheap imitation of "Last House on the Left" or "I Spit on Your Grave." The front cover of the box reads, "AT LAST! TOTAL TERROR!" However this movie wouldn't scare anybody. A group of guys force their way into a farmhouse where a girl lives with her paralyzed father who may also be a deaf mute -- who knows? I hope they didn't actually PAY a guy to sit in a wheelchair and stare off into space the whole time.


LISA, LISA (aka AXE) is one of the 74 entries on the notorious video nasties list compiled in the UK by the DPP (now CPS) back in the 1980s.

Whilst it is evidently one of the weaker entries on the list, it is definitely not the worst. It fares better than THE GHASTLY ONES and the absolutely dire THE WEREWOLF AND THE YETI.

The plot follows that of a typical exploitation movie from the 1970s period. Three gangsters break into a guy's apartment, murder him and his lover and then seek refuge at a farmhouse inhabited by a strange girl who hardly speaks. I'm sure you can work out the rest.

The exceptionally short running time is perhaps the strongest point of this movie. In addition, a few good scenes stand out from an atmospheric point-of-view or an unintentional comical point-of-view.

The producers of the movie were clearly inspired by Wes Craven's exploitation classic, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. LISA, LISA is however, a much tamer movie as many who wrote on this comments page have already stated. The title, AXE, used as an alternative to the official LISA, LISA title is somewhat misleading. I won't give away spoilers as to why but you'll find out if you see the movie.

The acting in this movie is quite bad but definitely not as bad as that exhibited in the movies of gore legend Herschell Gordon Lewis. A murder scene early in the movie was so badly acted and directed that I struggled not to laugh. Sadly the movie did not contain much else to provoke such laughter in the same manner as the HG Lewis movies, which were entertaining due to high levels of unintentional humour.

On the subject of HG Lewis, viewers of this movie will see the inspiration taken from him with regard to gore. Sadly the gore-hounds will be disappointed with the results.

The movie is shot on the usual grainy film stock seemingly reserved for its type. However, it lacks the documentary style that was used so perfectly in THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.

Whilst the movie has potential to be very creepy or exploitative, such potential is wasted by a combination of poor direction and a very flat acting performance from the lead actress, Leslie Lee. Much of the movie between the good scenes is very dull and can be something of an endurance exercise for less patient viewers.

The lack of explanation of motives or reasoning of any kind may have worked excellently in THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE due to the testament of the movie's strength to horrify and shock, but simply does not work at all in LISA, LISA.

Overall, this movie proved a disappointment. Exploitation fans will be disappointed by the tameness of the movie, whilst fans of the "so-bad-it's-good" movies will find few laughs or much else to entertain themselves with by seeing it. The movie adds nothing to either genre.

I recommend this movie only to "completists" of video nasties or exploitation movies. Gorehounds should stick to HG Lewis movies. Exploitation fans should stick to THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. Fans of the "so-bad-it's-good" movies would do better to see TROLL 2 again. And everyone else should stick to the well-established horror classics.


Strange, even as short 'Axe' was (running time barely just past an hour) the movie seemed so long. Some scenes were drawn so far out and even the opening and closing credits were all but on "pause." Then, as if the director/actor realized this, he jumps some scenes hilariously from one character/object to another at light speed. And speaking of jerking cameras, to prove there was little to zero budget, every time an action or horror scene was to happen, the camera would blink away. Case in point, one of the most hilarious scenes was a man jumping out of a window 10 or so stories (get this, to avoid death) and you not only can't see him jumping, you simply hear glass and a character looking behind drawn shades. Clearly, this was just another typical 70s horror, no budget revenge/bad guys getting what they deserve flick, a la 'Last House on the Left.' The title escapes me, because the heroine uses an axe (again off screen) but also uses many other devices. I suppose it was just to draw the same 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' audience. Three men who kill another man while watching, I guess, was his partner plunge to his death, try and secure safety in a farm house occupied by a paralyzed grandfather and his granddaughter. They apparently pose a deep threat to the twosome, yet no attempts at escape entail. When one tries to rape her, she goes savage and offs him. It doesn't stop there. Blah, blah, nothing new, even back then. Slightly creepy in closing, but again, this hour-long movie seems like three hours. Not even recommended for revenge/torture/rape victim rights group movie lovers.