Plot of this somewhat engaging loincloth romp: girl beats boy, boy beats girl, enlightenment, happy ever after. And if you can't follow the plot, don't worry, because the Worst Narrator of All Time will be happy to spell it out for you.

After her mother is clubbed one time too many by her caveman domestic abuser, Tigri and her gal pals take to the jungle with their pet panther and "the Wise One" (an irritating old crone). There they mature into leggy swimsuit models and "dance restlessly" "without knowing why", although we know why, and it has something to do with Loincloth Boy and his rugged pals, with whom and their ilk the lonesome doves have had nothing to do these many moons.

There is some marginally amusing reversal-of-sexes stuff as the gals club the caveboys into submission, but the tables are soon turned. Before we get too far into male dominance a visit from a pelican/ugly puppet, followed by a giant, nicely resolves our conflict.

The outstandingly Bad aspect of this otherwise modestly bad film is the narration. The dialog is spoken entirely in Cave-ese, which we moderns of course do not understand, so a helpful narrator is along to fill us in. Unfortunately in addition to translating the dialog the narrator insists on telling us WHAT WE HAVE JUST SEEN, EACH AND EVERY TIME, so that the entire movie consists of the viewer watching things like: the girls gesture at the guys to pick up a dead panther, whereupon the narrator solemnly intones in his best pear-shaped tones: "and the women force the men to carry the panther back to their jungle home", which of course is WHAT WE WERE JUST LOOKING AT. Since the narrator continues to state the bleeding obvious throughout the entire flick from beginning to end, it draws the viewer out of the story and into an "I can't believe how stupid this is" state of mind.

However there are people who take pleasure in doing exactly this, and for such people this is an under-appreciated candidate for Worst Film of All Time lists. I recommend it highly.


By junking at least twenty minutes of extraneous footage (including two totally boring dance sequences that are spun out to excruciating length), this little effort would make a passable feature for those of us who enjoy leg shows (if nothing else). It's true the fights with the giant and the pterodactyl are mildly effective, but the story, acting and production values are so lacking in quality that connoisseurs will find the whole movie a chore to sit through.

It's startling to find one of Paramount's top photographers, Lionel Lindon (later to win numerous awards for Around the World in 80 Days), working on this cheap-jack Poverty Row independentand contributing such below-par work at that. Yes, all the shots are in focus, but that is the responsibility of the camera operator and focus puller. The director of photography directs the lighting, and just about all of the many night scenes are so badly under-lit, you can hardly make out what's happening!


Oh well. I had it in a collection and watched. It has that narration that makes it sound so National Geographic. Meanwhile, the subjects of this "film" run around and act out their impulses. It makes you wonder how they ever evolved as far as they did with so little knowledge. There is one scene that reminded me of a PBS thing about cave people. The tribe keeps pushing the women to keep up with them, to where they pretty much end their civilization. Apparently the Neanderthals were so hard on the fairer sex, they became extinct. Let's see. No women. No _______. No civilization. Hmmm. Let me think. In this movie, the women take matters into their own hands and with the help of a big rock, move on, leaving their hairy counterparts to fend for themselves. There is one really great character, a nine foot giant, who likes to pick up women (literally). The men, who sort of like these ladies (thought they themselves are going to become extinct if they don't figure out a couple things), get embroiled in the capture or destruction of this big guy. There are lots of other scenes that are pretty ridiculous. I love those stupid dances that they do. Then there's that sling shot fight. Unlike the Wonga movie, this has a little personality, and though it's ultimately stupid in every way, it has some charm.


While watching, my mind constantly came back to the question of what would possess someone to make a film like this. Sure, the story's opening hints of romance when the world was young, but then can't decide if it was ten or a hundred thousand years ago. Only one thing is certain with a film like this, with all the scantily clad women center stage, it's only a matter of time before the obligatory cat fight. That takes place about midway through, but you'll have to endure endless plodding narration at both ends before calling it a day.

There are some interesting historical breakthroughs on display though. The male hero Engor (Allan Nixon) discovers fire, while his buddy Kama invents the barbecue, even if by accident. As goofy as it all looks, if you think about it, that very first piece of cooked meat had to get a start somewhere, so this is just as good a rationalization as any. Come to think of it, if the male tribe had a streak of cannibalism, old Guadi might have been on the menu when he became a crispy critter - yikes!

I'd be curious to find out how close this movie was to being the first done in color. Quite a few scenes look natural enough, but you'll have to muddle through a murky opening suggesting a soft porn ritual dance by the man-less women tribe. Then there are scenes that actually look like they're in black and white.

For fans of family trees, the Smith and Jones equivalent of the dinosaur era must have been Engor. That was also the name of the main male tribesman in the 1958 flick, "Wild Women of Wongo". That film also followed the exploits of love starved prehistoric women who set out to enslave male captives for the purpose of, well you know. Watching that film might also lead you to the same query as posited earlier, but at least WWoW had a campy flavor and didn't take itself as seriously as this one. Here however, the women used bolos and clubs to beat on the cave boys, so score one for Tigri and the girls. Nice outfits too!


I truly felt sorry for the duck disguised as "Karoch, scourge of the skies." A rubber something was fixed across the back of the bird's head to no avail: it still looked a duck. One positive point: the use of authentic Greek words like "Kala" (which actually means "good") and "Econ" (the root of the word "economy" or "home").


I don't see how people could like this skunk odor on celluloid. Where can I start on how disastrous this film is? Some of the scenes are shot with very poor lighting. The film is a 1950's male sexist fantasy come to life. Women clad in fur go around and beat up men, taking them in as "love slaves." The actresses do a "love dance" in the full moon, but none of them can dance. These prehistoric women also wear makeup for some unknown reason. They also needlessly hurt animals, killing a black panther There's a giant who goes around terrorizing everyone, and in the end, the hero ends up winning the respect of the heroine by defeating this giant with fire. If that wasn't enough to turn you off, there's also a very annoying and monotone narrator as well. About 5 minutes into the film my friends and I were doing the MST3K thing to make it more bearable.

Avoid this at all costs, unless you like doing riffing.


I've seen a lot of bad movies in my time, but nowhere else have I seen such an incompetent mob movie. Can you imagine a mobster movie - these things involve lots of shootings and lots of catch lines by definition - where a)No shooting happens at all until the end, and b)The whole movie is built around $10,000. That's how much the characters seek, and probably the total production cost of the movie. Lots of pointless chatter, but has neither muscle (listed above) or brains. Watch it if you want to see the worst mobster flick of all time, or if you need a cure for insomnia.


Sorry, call me old fashioned, but I like to care about at least one of the story's characters! Unfortunately, Just On Time, has the feel of a moronic T.V. sitcom, and is so tedious it ruins the fun. Simply put - I could not feel the slightest bit of rapport with anyone in this boring film! It's such a juvenile storyline, but not the least bit funny. One can only hope people this dopey only exist in the writer's imagination!

In case anyone is wondering, the word "Narcissistic" means: egotistical, selfish, self-centered, me-first, and that exactly describes the main character. There's more than enough narcissism in the world! I don't need to watch it on the tube, too!


This movie is poor. Especially the action scenes are very badly performed. The martial arts is one of the worst in recent years: People behave like puppets and as seen in many low budget movies, enemies seem to stand in a queue: only one is attacking the "hero" at once. Talking of the "hero": One of the cops (Gary Daniels) is supposed be the protagonist in this movie. But he such a lamer without any style. I really hated him and really wanted HIM to get killed.

Also, I wonder why this film is rated 18+. There is almost no real explicit violence in this movie. No head shots, no dust of blood from bullet hits, nothing at all. Bullets don't even punch holes into cars. Only the later scene in the grill meets today's standards.

The only reason for an 18+ rating might be the fact that the cop's (imho) ugly wife's breasts are visible in one totally displaced sex scene, which summits a totally lame and boring side story of the cop's private life.

The swordsman is however great. It's also a nice idea to have the Yakuza guys talking in Japanese (with subtitles)


Yippee, it's another cheapo action flick. Must be time for another of my 'hilarious' lists. Here we go..

1.All punches, kicks, explosions etc must be repeated at least twice in slow motion from different angles. The makers obviously this is cool when in actual fact, it is incredibly daft.

2. The main character must be a Maverick Pretty Boy (MPB) cop who goes outside procedure and gets the job done despite the constant threats from his superior of taking his badge away if he doesn't tow the line. MPB has an odd accent.. Australian? South Afrrican? Who cares?

3. MPB's buddy will last for around half an hour in which time they will have a handful of cringeworthy 'bonding' moments, before he is blown away leaving MPB to weep over his dead body and VOW REVENGE.

4. MPB's squeeze is played by an actress who must have the most thankless role ever. She's in about 5 scenes, in which she has nothing to do but moan that MPB won't meet her parents and is taking too many risks on the job. Not to worry, they make up by the end and she gets her tits rubbed in a sex scene with soft lighting and evocative musak. HURRAY!!

5. There is a gang of Russians who do nothing but drink vodka and party with Playmates all day long in a downtown club they own. They all seemingly have moustaches and pony tails, but their primary purpose is to provide fodder for MPB to practise his kung fu on. HII-YAA!!

6. The 'evil' guy in the film isn't such an bad egg after all, he is an honourable Japanese Yakuza warrior who only kills the target he is assigned to. MPB eventually realises this, and the two team up against THE REAL THREAT towards the end, a guy who has the most disturbing smile I've seen since Tony Blair shuffled his way out of 10 Downing St.

7. There are more cars in this film shot at then any I have ever seen. The strange thing is, the bullets don't even scratch the windshield, even when the firer is shooting at close range. This leads to believe either no one in the movie can aim for toffee, or the vehicles are painted with a miracle gloss which renders them bulletproof. Hmm..

8. A personal observation: when I first looked this up after watching it, I could not believe my eyes when I found out it was made in 2001. For all the world, it resembles a 1980's picture. The only clue otherwise is the very modern mobile phones used by everyone. Back then, they'd have been talking into bricks, y'see.

9. The name 'Fatal Blade' is stupid. That's why I haven't referred to it in the review, and this will be my last mention of those two words. Thank you.

10. Okay, finally some positivity.. There is an Asian chick who acts as a love interest for the Yakuza guy, and she is great in the part. She even handles some of the ridiculous dialogue with aplomb, and is absolutely stunning in a red dress. Sadly, she meets a rather bloody end, but her presence alone is enough to save the film from the scrapheap.

I can still only give it 4/10 though. Ideal as an aftertaste to a night at the pub, or an excuse to put off having relations with your missus. Now showing on Movies 4 Men. Classy..


Lord! I can´t believe that a movie like this could be done. It´s very bad, the story is a bulls***, the actions scenes aren´t good either. In the beginning it semmed to be interesting, but lately I could see it was one of the worst movies ever made! Keep your distance from this s***.


Although it is amusing to see Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, and Brinke Stevens as "ugly" coeds, this movie relies too much on nudity and really bad jokes. Don't get me wrong, these three girls look good naked and have a good sense of humor; There just isn't enough for them to do. Richard Gabai should go away and never return. Michael Sonye or Dukey Flyswatter if you prefer, which I do, is extremely annoying as Omar, the psychic. His voice is pain, so if you like that sort of thing, watch the beginning sequence. He also is the lead singer of a band which does a couple of songs of which I did like the beginning of one of them. "Sucky sucky sucky sucky succ u bus! (dun dun) Sucky sucky sucky sucky succ u bus! (dun dun) Sucky sucky sucky sucky succ u bus! (dun dun dun dun) Suck me! (dun dun dun dun) Suck you!" If you must see this, you will enjoy the three girls cleaning each other in the bathtub. Although Michelle's tan scares me, I get over it.


A trio of nerdy sorority sisters (Linnea Quigley, Brink Stevens, and Michelle Bauer) are possessed by Succubi while holding a séance with 3 fellow geeky guys. OK, how can you go wrong with no less then 3 Scream Queens in the flick? Funnily enough easily. First of all, the action doesn't even begin to start until about 30 minutes in, that alone wouldn't be cause for alarm, but this is an 80-minute B-movie, so that's more then 1/3rd of the film dedicated to lameness.True the girls remain topless for a good deal of the remaining film, but, aside from a good lengthy bubble bath scene, nothing you can't see in any other of their respective movies. Films that don't almost put you to sleep in the first half hour. Which leaves the acting and humor to keep this flick alive. The acting...well heh, let's move onto the humor. The humor is extremely cornball. Skip this one.

My Grade: D

DVD Extras: blooper reel; 3 stills galleries (dedicated to each of the 3 scream queens in various states of undress); Director & producer commentary;

a second commentary (this time with Brink Stevens, Michelle Bauer, and Richard Gabai)


This your typical T&A grade B horror 80s cheesefest, but it has the distinction of starring no less than THREE B movie T&A queens: Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer (McClellan), and Brinke Stevens, who show their assets throughout the film.

This film is long out of print and very tough to find, but worth the effort for fans of 80s B movie cheese.


Novice director Nikolas Perry who made a fine debut with the short film "Must Be the Music" attempts to create another trendy Hollywood skid row druggie film but with a twist as a "buddy" film. And this one is set in Las Vegas. Jordan Brower is appealing as Eric and has particularly good chemistry with Jesse Bradford. These two would be worth casting together in another "buddy" feature. Beyond that one gets the sense that we've seen this all before including the obligatory death of the gay character. Perry explains, in his directory's commentary, that the death is an act of love--a sacrifice. Perhaps, but this film never sets the right tone for such a deeply symbolic conclusion. Like so many rookie writer- directors, Perry suffers from making the film too "busy" with endless characters, no sense of momentum, and endless clichés. Or perhaps the money people took over and made the film by committee? It has that look. Happily we are spared from the peek-a-boo nudity that is typical of these films: where the director goes to great lengths to get the actors naked then hide their nudity through awkward posing, clever placement of props, and so on.


This was a ridiculous version of male hustlers and other assorted homeless teens because it is done in such a clean-cut manner. I assume that the people that drifter teen Johnny encounter during his stay in Las Vegas would be much more hostile, crazy, and the like. If you're not looking for a vigorous story of similar circumstances like say, 'Where the Day Takes You,' then Speedway Junky is a good weening toy.

The story is that of a recent high school dropout, Johnny, who's Southern accent miraculously comes and go. Upset with his military father's strict manner of upbringing, and perhaps lack of affection (I don't see how, really, or at least they never make much of Johnny's perceived 'abuses' and 'neglect' evident), he decides to hitchhike his way to North Carolina to be none other than a member of Richard Petty's stock car racing team. If you know incredulous Hollywood movies, then you should already expect Johnny to go through a lot of crap, but some how wind up with a happy ending in the end.

Johnny gets robbed of his twenty-bucks worth of quarters from a Casino. The rest of his things are taken by a horny middle-aged pimp with a penchant for boys in leather collars. So Johnny is stuck. Luckily, he befriends a group of street kids. Namely, Eric (played nicely by Jordan Brower), the kid who helps Johnny out the most when it seem many others won't. He also introduces him to the life of hustling, stolen cars, and the like. And Johnny, though successful at times, still seems like a major amateur. A ridiculously comical one at that.

Enter Steve, played by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who interestingly enough replaced Balthazar Ghetty in the role (Ghetty plays a similar character in 'Where the Day Takes You' only less dehumanized). Steve is like the professional teen hustler, who'll do anything his clients ask as long as he gets paid. Johnny and Eric get into serious trouble when Steven steals another kid's stash of drugs and money, and he isn't the kind of kid you just say sorry to and then treat to ice cream.

Eric is the more interesting character. A gay young man, he likes Johnny, but is consistently obsessed with the idea that maybe Johnny isn't going to carry on the deep friendship Eric imagines simply because Johnny is straight. Johnny is kind of an obnoxious character, despite being the main presence in the movie. He is the nice guy, the charming guy, but in the end, still a hopeless doofus.

The rest of the characters, too, are simply comical caricatures with what seems like no reality in there that would entice the viewer to form emotional connections with or somehow empathize or whatever. We learn no lessons from this movie either, which I suppose is inherent in movies like these, that you should walk away with something. Why would they spend so much time on the story and dramatic elements and character development (or lack thereof) as a result? There's a reason for all of that. Only here, it doesn't work. Johnny is a moron and for that, I really found it hard to appreciate whatever stupid dilemma he got himself into. One after the other. Steve, too, though a disgusting character, is hardly real. Nothing happens to him. He just floats in and out of the scenes to remind you of a villainous presence. And the ending was just corny as hell.

I'd stick with 'Where the Day Takes You' if this is the kind of movie you desire. Or, at least see it for Brower's performance.


***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Same old endless Gay Independent Film Plot. Gay kid fall in love with straight kid, all sorts of tired drama, gay kid dies tragically, The End. For God's Sake someone make a film with real gay characters that is uplifting or enlightening or how about, just interesting. I guess I can be thankful that the tired Gay Independent Film Plot of the 1980s is dead - Gay kid gets AIDS, all sorts of tired drama, Gay kid dies.


I don't know where to begin. Darryl Hannah's performance was the true highlight of this film. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was very mis-cast and the audience laughed every time he came on screen, trying to play the bad boy. He just didn't work in the role. The plot was thin. Poor editing and continuity. I really couldn't recommend this film. If you want a good film to recommend to a gay/bi/questioning youth I would suggest Beautiful Thing or Get Real. Far superior films...


I saw this on cable and thank god i did. I was a male prostitute when i was young and this movie is so way off that i can't believe someone even thought of making it. First off women NEVER hire male prostitutes. It just does not happen except in rare occasions and only from ads in magazines never ever ever off the streets. Whoever thought that girls pick up guys off the street was dreaming. Guys turn tricks for other guys PERIOD!!! Ok having said that it would not be quite so horrible if the acting by the lead was good, but its not its awful and unrealistic. Maybe they should have played this like a fantasy cuz then maybe it would have at least been somewhat entertaining but the only characters who is even worth watching is the gay guy and Daryl Hanna and thats it. If you have to watch a movie about male hustlers then watch "my own private Idaho" or maybe "johns" which is not great but a much much better movie than this piece of crap. I gave this movie 2 stars for the gay dude and Daryl Hanna but other than that save your time and money and don't watch this.


"Speedway Junky" is all about a disenfranchised young man who blows into Vegas where he encounters silly caricatures of the kind of street people we're used to seeing in movies about disaffected and rebellious youths. There's no speedway racing in this crappy film which flops on all levels as it staggers around sin city bumping into gay men on the make, girls on the prowl, druggies, thieves, etc. A better title for this flick would be "Way Junky". (D)


It's really touching to see how many reviewers remember this movie fondly. I just picked up the soundtrack CD last Saturday, and after more than twenty years the classic Fifties-style songs with the unique Beaver Brown sound still hold up.

Unfortunately, the movie itself is limp, torpid, depressing and shallow. Why is the story so weak? At bottom, I think this is really two movies. On one level, in the present, it's a realistic, low key look at how some typical working class characters deal with disappointment and loss while poignantly cherishing memories of the more glamorous past. "Please don't go, tender years," is exactly what these middle aged rockers want to say.

And that's fine. The movie works best when it's almost like a documentary, charting the failures and humiliations of the surviving "Cruisers" in later life. Listen to Sal D'Amato, saying, "they strike oil in your back yard and all you get are dead tomatoes." Then later that night, he leads his tired, balding band into battle, and the announcer says, "the Holliday Inn is proud to welcome back some Jersey boys who really made good, Eddie and the Cruisers featuring Sal D'Amato!" The irony is that Sal's triumph depends on living in the past, and keeping Eddie "alive" in his music. At the end of the show he pays tribute to Eddie, saying "he's as much a part of this band as I am. Down the street . . . around the block . . . not far away at all." It's hard not to watch that scene with tears in your eyes.

But the movie tries to be another story too. The fifties flashbacks showcase Michael Pare as the young, brooding, hunky Eddie Wilson. And uh, that's a mistake. Michael Pare does for Fifties tough guys what Bela Lugosi does for Transylvanian counts. He takes a rich, compelling screen archetype and turns it into a corny joke. Every dramatic scene he has falls flat -- he just flexes his biceps and looks goofy. The script never does give us a reason for Eddie's "attitude," but it's more loser/bully than rebel/dreamer. He tends to pick on people like his own band mates rather than challenging bigger, tougher authority figures. As a "biopic" of a sexy, enigmatic star the movie really gets into trouble fast. Eddie is just a big lug with a nasty sneer, not a real rebel who has a vision. Even his warmed over class resentments come off as forced and stereotypical.

Ultimately, the movie loses you because it never explains why Eddie disappeared, what made him a genius, or what was eating him before he ever became a singer. Had they just had Eddie stay "dead" and focused on the middle aged years, it would have been a quieter, better film, but we might not have this killer soundtrack. So it's all a bit of a trade off. As other reviewers have mentioned, the "missing tapes" plot and the unintentionally funny ending ("Doc? Is that you? Who's out there?")take all the heat and momentum out of Eddie's story. So in the end what's left is the soundtrack -- a genuine rock and roll achievement.


Tom Berenger must have been desperate for work when he signed on for this embarrassment of a film. It has the feel and tone of the kind of made for television movie you might watch out of sheer boredom and exhaustion on a Sunday afternoon when you're too tired either to locate the remote or to fire a bullet at the television screen. The acting is wooden and unnatural, and the music, which is supposed to be awesome, sounds curiously like a bad rip-off of Springsteen, even though the flashbacks in the film are set, for the most part, in 1963, when NOTHING sounded like Springsteen. Worse yet, the sets do not look at all like anything reminiscent of "1963." This is very clearly a cheap production, doomed from the start by an awful script, terrible acting, and a devil may care attitude about capturing the feeling of an era. Here's the premise of the film: years after Eddie, the tempestuous and dumb (can he spell Rimbaud?) lead singer of the Cruisers, has disappeared (he died in a car accident, but his body was never recovered), a reporter decides to write a story about the band. She has a theory that Eddie is still alive and believes that the band may be on the verge of a renaissance, if the missing final recordings, named A Season in Hell, can be located. She forces her presence into the lives of the remaining band members, who are, by the way, dull as dirt, to piece together the band's history. This reporter is so creepy and annoying that she'd probably have a restraining order slapped on her, nowadays. Ironically enough, A Season in Hell describes the viewing experience quite accurately.


What can I say? I'm really picky when it comes to musical movies, and this one really sucked. The music itself wasn't so bad, but plot was just annoying. The movie simply circulated around one man's memory of a friend and a band. I didn't understand the point of the film. Some did enjoy it, surprisingly enough. Watch if you care about personal struggles over dumb issues.

1/10


If you have seen this movie, you'll notice the side of the high school that was used as the front of the high school for the movie shots. That was the entrance used by the student parking lot. Well, that no longer exists as the high school has greatly expanded.

I always wonder why they didn't use the front of the school (could have covered up the school name) because the view from across the street would have been nice.

Rancocas Valley is a beautiful school and this movie reminds me of how it used to be (class of '96)

If you are a Mount Holly native or graduated from RV, check out this movie.


I think people should know what to expect. Lets face it the synopsis gives the entire story away. So why watch this thing...

Well... its an interesting silent film with some very bad music scored to it (it reminds you of the music from part of Disney's Snow White, just not the good parts).

It is in color but quite frankly has the look of a bad home movie.

For lack of a better way of saying it... This movie is what you would have expected from National Geographic if they had shot movies in the thirties and wanted to make fun of native tribes.

It was interesting only to see the way in which people viewed non-European's... it otherwise has no artistic merit. Very bad... I would have given it a one, but I only give ones to movies so bad that you can enjoy them for being bad. This one is just a waste of film/videotape/DVD.


I know it's only a fantasy film but, still, if you know the slightest thing about baseball this movie can be annoying at times because ballplayers would NOT act like this. Even worse, Major League players wouldn't be this inept, to begin with. These guys couldn't make a Little League team, and they are playing professional baseball??? Come on...how much are we supposed to swallow here?!!

Listen.....it's a nice story and a good-natured film, but it's just too far-fetched. However, I can some non-baseball fans enjoying it, or older folks enjoying this for the pure nostalgia of seeing some baseball back 50 years ago. I like that part, myself, and appreciate a movie with some sentimentality and sweetness to it, which this does. I also like Dan Dailey, who plays the boy's father. Billy Chapin is likable as the kid, too....so what I am crying about?

It's just that no ballclub is going to employ (or even listen to) some little kid, even if it is secretly coming from his knowledgeable dad. Maybe I've watched too many Steven Spielberg movies. He always portrays kids as smarter than adults, which is ludicrous. I hate to see the same in a classic-era film in which writers had more sense than the twisted politically-correct morons of today.


Poor William Shatner gets the worst of it. While attempting to save his family from a devil cult in the desert, Shatner is captured and tortured in excruciating scenes of ineptitude. Ernest Borgnine (looking handsomely sinister and--more surprisingly--completely at ease in this B-grade demon western) is appropriately over-the-top as the head demon (or is he the Devil?), Ida Lupino has some nice moments as an elderly lady who gets bewitched, and John Travolta shows up in a couple of scenes as a coven member. Most of the cast melts at the end, which is something to see, but what about the rest of this thing? It's poorly-written and badly-directed, but strictly on a guilty-pleasure level it provides some unintentional amusement. *1/2 from ****


Most of the movie is sadly rather underdone. Seems they had a somewhat interesting concept and just rushed it to the finish line. I am guessing they thought of the ending first and wrote a bunch of filler to get to said ending. So what do we get for most of the film? A rather good cast doing nothing more than going out to the abandoned town and getting themselves kidnapped by the evil cult led by Ernest Borgainine in a rather good over the top performance. You know a movie is in trouble when it seems they are rushing things so no startling revelations here, only lets rush to the cool ending. Which is the highlight of the film, a rain that comes down and washes the cult members away, rather good effects, especially for the time, but this does not make up for the rest of the film. Which leads to a question I have, why are movies about Satan and his cults usually so bloody boring or bad for the most part? You would think these movies would be some of the most gory and scary the horror genre had to offer, but usually it falls flat. Still if you do watch the movie look out for the many stars who apparently had nothing else better to do.


Title: The Devils Rain

Director: Robert Fuest

Cast: Ernest Borgnine, Tom Skerrit, William Shatner, John Travolta

Review: I had heard a few things about The Devils Rain, among them was that this was John Travoltas first movie and that William Shatner (aka Captain Kirk) was in it. But first and foremost I thought that the fact that the used a "high priest of the church of Satan" as a technical adviser for the film just really peeked my curiosity for this film.

The story is about a satanist cult lead by a man named Corbis. Hes lost a book that has all the names of the people that he has turned into satanist and he needs it to send their souls to hell, but low and behold. William Shatners family has the book and he doesn't want to give it back. "I wont give a devil man what he wants!" I must say that this movie was very fun to watch. It has many things that make it an entertaining film. Ill start by the performances. Ernest Borgnine as Corbis is positively evil! But at the same time he is funny. I don't know how to put it but the performance he delivered was both cheesy and good at the same time. He looks kind of funny with his red hooded garments and his beer belly yelling all sorts of sacrilegious phrases. But at the same time he was very evil when push came to shove. He is one of the coolest things of the movie. Then there's Shatner who is always a hoot! He over acted many times as well and spoke his words as if he was aboard the ss enterprise. It was as if they chose these two really cheesy actors and put em together on the same film to see if they could bring up their mega cheese factor higher. Well Ill tell ya, they achieved it and Ill be darned if it wasn't fun to watch. The rest of the cast was nothing special, Tom Skerrit and the rest of the cast were just blurting out their lines, but didn't do too bad of a job.

And for those of you holding their breath to catch Travolta in his first film role...well don't hold on for too long cause you just might miss it. He is virtually unrecognizable under the satanic black hoods and make up. Honestly, the only way I recognized him was by looking at the dimple in his chin.

The atmosphere in the movie is excellent. Right from the first opening minutes you are treated to an opening sequence that will certainly pull you in! You are right smack in the middle of a lightning storm with buckets and buckets of rain falling and the wind blowing like a madman. It just pulled me in right away and I loved that! Then there's the spooky ghost town in which the satanist do their worshiping. It added a nice feeling of desolation and loneliness. A ripe old place for Satan mongers to fester in! Then there's the make up effects. With a movie boasting to have "the most incredible ending on any motion picture ever!" well you know its got to be something special. And special it was. Not mindblowingly good special, but special enough to liven up my Saturday night. The gooey, messy, wet and slimy ending was worth the wait and certainly lives up to its title. What I really liked about that gooey Satan worshipers melting in the rain finale was that it lasted a long time! They really took their time to show these devil bastards melting in every which way they could possibly think of. Cool in deed.

The only negative side to this film was the cheesy dialog. I mean come on dudes! Didn't they use a high priest of the church of Satan to write this thing? Yet the whole thing comes off as a phony, cartoonish version of devil worshiping. Even the devil himself is a cartoon on this one! Complete with goat horns and all! I was expecting something a bit more serious from a movie that boasted having a high priest of the church of Satan helping them along the way. But no, we get the cartoon version of what satanism is like. Now that I think of it....they always do that in movies. But this is not to say that the movie wasn't fun...it was oodles of fun. Just not real.

In conclusion, this was a fun movie with lots of cool little things to keep you interested, gooey slimy fx, cheesy story and acting and satanism (thats always an eye opener!). Just don't take it too seriously, cause its not that type of movie and anyway the minute shatner starts saying his dialog you'll think his going to beam Satan up to the enterprise or something.

Rating: 3 out of 5


True story: before watching this film, one thing lead to another and I ended up dropping the disk down the toilet. Naturally, I wasn't pleased and after drying it out, I hoped it would still work. As it happens, it did work; but ironically, it turns out that down the bog was actually the best place for it. Needless to say, The Devil's Rain is an atrociously terrible slice of Satanism that isn't even saved by some extremely trashy 'melting' scenes. The plot actually isn't that bad - at least not by trash flick standards - but it's not well used and the resulting film feels messy and like it could have been so much more. The plot focuses on a group of Satan worshippers who have the power to call for rain, which melts people. The leader of this group is a man named Jonathan Corbis. He spends all his free time looking for an old book stolen by the Preston family. After tracking down the family and killing the father (with his rain), Corbin focuses his attention on the son, Mark Preston.

The most surprising thing about this film is the cast. The Devil's Rain features a handful of performances from good, established performers...and it kind of makes you wonder what they were thinking when they signed up. Ernest Borgnine stands out the most in his role as Jonathan Corbis, but it's for all the wrong reasons. Borgnine is pure ham as the leader of the Satanic cult, and ends up looking silly with goat horns at the end! William Shatner also makes an appearance as the good guy and the rest of the cast is filled out by the likes of Tom Skerritt, Ida Lupino and John Travolta, in a small early role. The film is fairly gory and doesn't hold back with the melting scenes; but it all feels very silly and therefore doesn't make much an impact. The fact that the scenes where people aren't melting are boring doesn't exactly help things either. The plot is barely given any weight, and the tagline's claim of 'Absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture' seems only to be referring to Borgnine looking like a fool! Overall, this might appeal to some people...but it didn't do anything for me!


I've always recommended this movie to people who like bad horror flicks. Both Shatner and Borgnine are at their overacting best in this as they debate good and evil, while the black robed Satanists just sit around and chant; really, have you ever seen evil be so devout and boring? The highlight is Borgnine as a goat. The melty effects are fun and cheesy too. It's clear the director had just gotten/seen this effect and decided to go to town with it. As someone said earlier, Travolta debuting is just plain weird, and the fact that Anton LaVey hisself has a cameo just makes this a cheesy scream queen classic. Buy/rent or borrow this and have a laugh!


Volumes could be written about what this film lacks; plot, compelling diologue, catharsis, acting... But a quick synopsis of what the film does have should dissuade anyone wishing to view a real horror film from watching this wet sock of a movie.

Let's start with Ernest Borgnine. Yes, that lovable, teddy-bear of a man who has charmed us in TV's McChale's Navy, and Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. When we first meet Borgnine's character, he's standing alone on the streets of a ghost town looking every bit the part of a western rancher. But before the film's over we see him dressed in the dark robes of a satanic priest, and in an unflattering spandex costume that makes him come off as an obese hermaphroditic version of Wonder Woman. Several times in the film, roused into a charismatic fever by his Satan-sermons, Ernie ads the final touch: he turns into a goat.

Then there's William Shatner. Dressed like an itinerant farm laborer in the most Hee-Hawish straw hat you ever saw, he shows up with a .45 in one hand and a sacred amulet in another, projecting a "get behind me, Satan" attitude. He lasts about five minutes. But in that time he manages to shoot a few of Ernest's goons (which apparently causes them to leak rainbow sherbet), get tied to a cross, branded like a cow, share a passionate kiss -tongue included- with his own mother, and get stuffed into a what looks like an old watermelon full of lost souls.

Then Tom Skerrit comes in with his girlfriend and Eddy 'GGGgrrrreeeeennnn Acres Is The Place To Be!' Albert. Together, they cause some more sherbet leaks, then break the watermelon. This does two things. It causes Borgnine to to yell, "SEIZE THEM!", which a high priest of Satan has to say at least once in such a movie. It also causes a cold front to inexplicably appear in that little Arizona ghost-town. It rains, and all the Satan-goons melt. Whether they melted because they are Goons-of-Hell deprived of their holy watermelon, or just because they live in Arizona and are unused to precipitation is not explained.

The movie ends with Tom Skerrit lovingly embracing, and crying on the shoulder of, Earnest Borgnine. If only Borgnine had been a goat in that scene, the movie would be priceless.


This is a terrible film and it's amazing that the film producers were able to get many respectable actors to appear in it. Now the fact that William Shatner appears in DEVIL'S RAIN isn't much of a surprise, but it is surprising that his performance is rather restrained. He does what he can with the silly material. But, for people like Ida Lupino, Keenan Wynn, Tom Skerritt, Eddie Albert and Oscar-winner Ernest Borgnine, it's amazing that they act in a film as dopey as this one. Of all the actors, the one who deserves the biggest round of Bronx cheers is Borgnine, whose performance is utterly awful--particularly when he, believe it or not, transforms into a ram-man late in the film. No, I am not talking about the football team, but Borgnine undergoes a weird transformation where he dons horns and an entire male sheep's head! You've gotta see it to believe just how far Borgnine fell since his Oscar-winning performance starring in MARTY!

The film begins in the middle of the desert in the Western United States. A lone house occupied by Lupino, Shatner and some old guy (whose role is never defined in any way) is suddenly attacked by supernatural forces during a freak rain storm. Apparently, some Satan worshipers are making this happen until they get some sacred book that Shatner's mother (Lupino) is hiding. When they won't give it up, Lupino is kidnapped and Shatner goes to an abandoned Old West town to get her back from these evil scumbags. However, in a silly contest of wills, Shatner not only loses but is forced to join the group of eye-less zombies in this coven.

Later, Shatner's brother (Tom Skerritt) shows up at the house and is told by the old dude that Shatner has gone to the ghost town. Now it's obvious that the house was ransacked but the sheriff said he and his men were too busy to look for Shatner and Lupino! Shouldn't this have been a warning sign?! Despite this, Skerritt and his lady friend go to the abandoned town for a showdown.

Once there, they see evidence of the coven and Skerritt actually sees Shatner forced by some mumbo-jumbo to become an eye-less zombie. He sends the lady for help and just manages to escape on his own. Unfortunately, she is captured and Skerritt and Eddie Albert (who's an old man) on their own return to the city to face a huge coven of evil demonic Lucifer lovers! Wow, talk about great planning! Once there, there is a dumb showdown where again and again, Albert and Skerritt show they have the combined IQ of a muskrat. Skerritt has a rifle, yet jumps from the balcony to fight the hoard with his bare hands. Albert grabs some cool TV set-like device that the coven needs and threatens to break it--but instead of just doing it, he gives everyone ample opportunity to kill him or take back the cosmic TV.

Despite him being about 70 and giving them every chance to get it back, he still manages to smash the TV thingy and then all the evil folks start to melt like they are made of gallons of colored latex. It's all rather gross but funny at the same time. Now normally, seeing these people melt would have taken up about a minute of screen time. However, the special effects gurus must have been relatives of the director and this melting sequence takes about ten minutes (I am not exaggerating). Most of the ten minutes consists of "actors" writhing about as green pudding shoots out their eyes and gallons of Creepy Crawler goop comes dripping out of their skin. Then, out of the blue, there is an ending that is cool to watch but doesn't make much sense, but considering the film so far, who's to quibble about the ending?! As you read this, you are no doubt shocked at how silly the whole thing sounds. Well, it surely was but in some odd way it was also watchable because it had a certain stupid charm. Plus, seeing respected actors (I am not including Shatner in this statement) making fools of themselves is a lot of fun. Additionally, if you look carefully, you can see a very young John Travolta making an idiot of himself in his first film. Look for the cleft chin and nose--you can't miss it.

Anton LaVey appears in a small role as a Satanic priest and organist as well as a script consultant for the film. Being the leader of the Church of Satan in California and author of "The Satanic Bible" somehow gave him some great insights into how to improve the script and make it more realistic. Yeah, right.

Finally, I really liked the opening credits. Having the camera slowly pan across paintings of Hell by Hieronymous Bosch while eerie music played was very effective and spooky. If you have a chance, try picking up a book or do a web search of Bosch's works--they are amazingly bizarre and unusual when seen today. Believe it or not, when he was painting in the 15th and 16th centuries, he was very popular and others often copied his odd symbolism. Today, Goths and all-around weird people (like myself) enjoy his work, though I will admit it's an acquired taste!


Eddie Albert must have read my mind when he asks Tom Skerritt in one scene where they come into a ghost town, "The Devil's Rain? That's a new one." I myself had never heard of such nonsense -- maybe because as far as I know, there is no such thing and the only earthbound element that the Devil is associated with is the "fire and brimstone" of dark, Miltonesque poems and the well-known "Garden of Earthly Delights" of Hieronymous Bosch, featured in the opening titles. But this is what happens when you make a smashing success like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist." All of the waste product tries to jump in on the bandwagon and see what profit they can make by luring unsuspecting fools into the theatre and showing them an exploitation film about Satanists -- which is all this movie is, anyway.

So let's see what we have here. A plot to gain control of a book and a battle between the Devil himself (channeled, apparently, through the body of John Corbis) and the Preston family. First the father goes, melting into a soft bubbling goo. Then the mother -- played by an unrecognizable, tired-looking Ida Lupino -- also is forced to join the cult and put some cheap-looking eye-patches that are supposed to make her eyes black. Then it becomes William Shatner's turn, and he goes, but without a fight. Finally, it's up to Tom Skerritt and Eddie Albert to see if they can have a hand in winning this battle and going home with some really cool prizes, to which we get to the only character who does basically nothing but have a lame vision and scream mindlessly at the end: Skerritt's wife.

A terrifically lazy story that was, apparently, written on autopilot. THE DEVIL'S RAIN is a total bore and as horror as Edgar Allan Poe is screwball comedy, but there it is, existing in the time period of the height of the horror genre, featuring a hammy performance from Ernest "Marty" Borgnine, a blink and miss appearance of John Travolta as he yells "Blasphemer! Blasphemer!" and shows off his notorious cleft chin, and the melting sequence, which goes on and on and on into the void, flanked with sounds of moaning and lots of writhing around. It could be a teeny bit redeemable if it weren't for the flat-out unbelievable final scene. Oh, bloody hell.


Veterans Borgnine and Lupino (who was also part of the cast of the awful "the food of the gods") tried to regain prestige in horror movies as Bette Davis or Joan Bennett did.But "the devil's rain" was not a good choice,by a long shot.The story is nonexistent,I dare anybody to find something looking like a plot in this flick.Pre-"Star trek" William Shattner is tortured all film long.Pre-"Saturday night fever" Travolta is featured,but where? Special effects are ridiculous,overlong ,and the sect chants in the grand tradition of "Rosemary's baby" .Satan inspired a lot of movies,but this one seems the worst of them all.Avoid at any price.


After the first 10 minutes of watching this I was bored to death and had no idea what was actually going on. There seemed to be lots of babbling about a 'book', which is mentioned many more times throughout the film. There was also lots of nonsense about satanism, with plenty of chanting and ranting thrown in. I ended up fast-forwarding through most scenes in the hope of something interesting happening. Eventually something interesting did happen, but as usual it was too little too late. In the climax we get some strange fish bowl thing called "the devils rain" which seems to contain tortured souls. I thought this was an interesting idea that had potential. The devils rain is smashed and all the souls (or devils, or whatever they're supposed to be) are released. They then melt away ala Street Trash in the church which then explodes. The explosion is quite cool - you don't see exploding churches in films every day. At the very end we also get a woman moaning in a tortured sort of way - I think the implication is that she's in hell, but I'm not sure. I should also mention the faces of the satanists/devils, they have white faces with blank eyes which looks rather disturbing.

I can't really give The Devil's Rain more than three stars because it is mostly dull and confusing. However it does have a few good elements that some people may enjoy.


This movie is the worst of any low-budget horror movie on this planet. It starts out that William Shatner (?) comes home to find his family worried about the rain storm outside. As they talk about the rain, his father stumbles home as his face starts to melt and he starts mumbling about some book and to give it to this man that is the high priest of some Satanic cult because it righfully belongs to him. His father dies and Shatner goes on a mission to find this priest (which is nonother than the king of low-budget horror flops Earnest Borgnine (sp).) And once he does find the priest he gets caught up in with the group of Satanist without eyes. After his dissapearance, his brother and his brothers wife go out to look for him and soon get caught up in the same mess. The book is nowhere to be found and we sit through hillarious scenes such as Borgnine summoning up Satan and turning into the Devil himself. Which looks to be a nothing more than a goats mask with a black cape. And the ending which is all too unreal as this crystal ball full of old spirits gets thrown down and breaks and then the rain comes down and everybody turns into melting wax dummies. This movie is trash, only watch it if you are bored and want a good laugh and a waste of your money. And by the way..... wheres John Travolta in this movie? As I had seen, this movie was so terrible that there was a limited cast. Unless he was one of the melting Satanist. I give this one a 2!!!


What an absolute piece of crap!!I wonder how they came up with this.OK,lets get some mediocre has-been(at that time)TV actors,combine that with some young unknowns(with potential),hire a really lousy special-effects team.Now,what are we missing,anything?How about maybe a script.It doesn't even have to believable,just anything on paper will do.This is more than likely how the meeting went.Because the script was horrible,just horrible.Ed Wood wrote better dialogue.King Kong could have written better dialogue.It seems that someone placed a cat on a keyboard,let it jump around for an hour or so, and kept everything that looked like a word.As if that were the only thing that was wrong with this "entertainment" debacle.Then there was the effects (if that's what you can call it).The melting effect really....well it just sucked.The scene with Shattner's father melting was awful.The guy melts completely,without any sign of skeleton.(if you wat to see a much better melting scene go to the ene of "Raider of the Lost Ark", that's melting).Then they made it much worse at the ending scene.They just kept on showing us scene after scene of all of the bad guys melting.On and on,and on ad infinitum.Two minutes or so would have been plenty.Oh yeah, and only the bad guys were melting.

What can I say about the acting?Shattner is all you need to hear.The Emperor of over-acting.The absolute king of ham.No one can "chew the scenery" like Shattner.Joe Estevez,on his best day only wishes he could be like Shattner.He(Shattner) wrings the melodrama out of his every single moment on this film.Borgnine tries to keep up with him but fails miserably,as does Skerritt,et al.

How would I grade this movie?As a horror film,it fails completely.It never provided me with one scene of anything resembling horror,or fright.If it had been a satire, I might have given it a 3,but if it is satirical,then it is only accidentally so.As a comedy,it would get a 2,but I think the things I found funniest,were things the film maker wanted me to take seriously.So I have to stick with a one,but only because there isn't a lower number to give it.rp


Ah, Bryanston Pictures - the same eclectic group of geniuses what brung us various chop-socky flicks, a couple of British comedies, Andy Warhol's ideas of horror (his Frankenstein and Dracula movies) and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

And now, here we have "The Devil's Rain". Break out the holy water - you'll need it.

Seems the devil worshippers in Rural Backwoods USA have a tough time of it when they are beset by Tom Skerritt and Eddie Albert, who vow to destroy them after Satan-izing innocent people they hold dear - who happen to include William Shatner and Ida Lupino....

WHAT??! Yes, it's true, all those names as well as Keenan Wynn, Lisa Todd (one of the original honeys on "Hee-Haw") and Vinnie Barbarino hisself, John Travolta. TIDBIT - this was one of Travolta's first gigs, and he is barely recognizable under that makeup; and he has all of one line, albeit a memorable one.

Oh, but I forgot to mention Ernest Borgnine! Yep, Quentin McHale...Marty...the tough sergeant of "From Here to Eternity"...same one. He plays a priest who sprouts horns and a goat's face every so often. And there's satanic worshipping, pagan rites, eternal damnation, inverted crosses, pentagrams, the whole nine yards. Then comes the rain, when....

But if you've read this far, wanting to know what happens, you deserve to watch this dirge and find out what happens yourself. As for me, I watched the whole thing and was sorry I did.

This whole mess is overblown, ridiculous and portrays everybody (ESPECIALLY the satan worshippers) as world-class round-trip-ticket buffoons; to take a line from MST3K, these are the kind of people who would lick the frozen flag pole TWICE.

"The Devil's Rain" is bad. Very bad. Bad like old cheese. Bad like morning breath after a night of eating garlic. Bad in every sense of the word and a few senses that haven't been invented yet. Even when a "surprise" ending isn't all that much of a surprise, you know you're watching something bad.

Have I made my point? GOOD.

No stars, not a one. And why not; what did "The Devil's Rain" do for me?

TIDBIT #2 - Anton LaVey, satan worshipper/occult specialist, plays the "High Priest" of this cult. Gee, I'll bet the suits all congratulated themselves on THAT original bit of casting.


for all of you, if you're like myself, who enjoy watching a good B movie to bag on it, this isnt any good. it's boring, plain and simple. there really isn't anything to grasp on to. the cast seems stuck in a wasteland of bad writing, directing, and editing. and a lot of people would probably check this out for curiosity's sake, to see John Travolta's first role. the problem isn't that the role is small, but you really don't see him too much, or too clearly. and when you do, he has on very cheap makeup that looks like a facial mask in a beauty saloon. Ernest Borgnine, as one poster said, does seem very at ease here. if anything, this is his picture. that is, there's way too much of him, and not enough of William Shatner. i wanted more bad acting for the Willmeister, because he does it like nobody else can. Tom Skerrit has on a fake mustache and a large black wig and resembles one of the banditos in TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE ('We dont need no stinking Satanists!). but it was nice to see the lady who played David's girlfriend in 8 is Enough, she's a hottie. so anyway, this movie, unlike Troll2 and a whole lotta other great bagable B horror flicks, isnt any fun at all - avoid it and... live long and prosper....!!!


...could swallow this film wholeheartedly.

I am not living in a polyanna-ish world where the US administration's motives for invading Panama were absolutely pure. However, any valid criticism of the US administration that might have been in this film was lost amongst the bizarre, unbelievable paranoia the so-called documentary filmmakers chose to adopt as a viewpoint. Some of this material (like the bit about the US Army using random Panamanian civilians to test Area 51-type secret beam weapons on) landed somewhere between comic book and schizophrenic dementia. Oh, and the "everything was great until the US got involved" viewpoint- classic.

Sadly, I remember seeing this film with the kind of zombies who would cheer the filmmakers at every statement, no matter how outrageous or out of touch with reality. Goes to show that the hardcore religious right is not the only political orientation with a cadre of zombies willing to ignore facts or even the slightest contact with reality, as long as what they are being told fits in with their preconceived notions. One thing the far left and far right have in common: they will pay to have people tell them what they are already convinced is true!


...in describing the events leading towards the invasion by the US, the description of people being "melt to their weapons" and "cut in half" by "lasers" and killed by "poisonous darts causing massive bleeding" given by "eye witnesses" raised serious doubts about the truth content of this "documentary". While I don't doubt the reasons for the invasion given (Gen. Noriega becoming increasingly uncooperative to his CIA employers), the description of events seems, lets say, a little imaginative. Furthermore the accounts of former Panamanian officials are a little dubious since the people removed from power might actually not be telling the whole truth either. It's a shame that this kind of concoction might give historical documentaries a bad reputation.


If you enjoy writing your congressman to complain about black helicopters, you'll love the Panama Deception.

Though this movie did a masterful job of deceiving the Motion Picture Academy and many of those who viewed the film, the film is nothing more than an anti-American propaganda piece. The claims of mass civilian killings have crumbled under the slightest scrutiny, and the premise of the film is widely rejected not only by Americans familiar with the decision making process involved in choosing to invade the country, but by every Panamanian national I've ever met - regardless of socioeconomic status.

I travel regularly to Panama and have had the fortune to develop strong relationships with Panamanian nationals. After hundreds of conversations and interaction in virtually every facet of daily life with Panamanians, I've yet to encounter a hint of regret for the U.S. invasion. The truth is that Panama labored under a dictator whose thirst for power and disregard for political dissent grew to an unacceptably dangerous point.

But even if your politics won't permit you to agree with my comments above, you would acquit yourself well to ask why the U.S. honored the Panama Canal Treaties and handed over full control of the Canal in 1999. The central premise of The Panama Deception is that the U.S. sought to destroy the Panama Defense Forces in order to thwart handover of the Canal to Panama in accordance with the treaties signed by President Carter in the late 1970s. And yet, the U.S. closed its military bases, and today Panama is one of the most robust democracies in the Western Hemisphere and operates the Canal in sovereign fashion.


This film is a leftist polemic in which the American forces involved in the 1989 Panama incursion are all liars and murderers and the leftists who are interviewed are all victims and heroes. That said, the film is well made and interesting, that is no doubt why it won the Academy Award for documentary films. Nevertheless, it is entirely unconvincing. The only person I saw interviewed in the film's entire 1 hour and 45 minute length who was credible was Pete Williams, now a network newsman, who was then the Defense Department's press spokesman. The bias of this film is demonstrated by its maker's position that the American press was itself biased because it focused on the tragedy caused by the deaths of Americans who died in the incursion. It's thesis that American soldiers willy-nilly murdered innocent civilians is supported only by biased interviews and urban legend. Despite the skill of its maker, this film is not recommended to anyone with an interest in knowing the facts.


I had the misfortune of viewing this film on the first day of a course on "Media and Democracy." Based on the fact that the professor accepted everything portrayed in it as fact, I dropped the course that afternoon. I have never seen such a hopelessly biased film in my life. As a 19-year veteran of the US Army, I can tell you that the atrocities alleged in this film did not occur. Our troops do not shoot bound prisoners in the back of the head. We do not indiscriminately shell civilian residential areas. The film's most absurd claims, such as that US forces used some sort of laser weapons against Panamanian civilians, don't even bear refuting. The fact that such a blatant piece of anti-military propaganda won an Academy Award says far more about the makeup of the Academy than it does about the film.


This is a very bad show

You have to have the intelligence of Forrest Gump to believe in this bull"BEEP".

None of what is claimed in this "film" is a fact - it is all fiction.

It is simply lies upon lies.

But there also should be films for the humans on the leftwing - they prefer their fantasy world, where facts and evidence does not have any value. The leftwing have never understood that you have to do bad things to, in the end, do well. But then again: the leftwing have killed more people than the rightwing - The rightwing exist of Hitler (killed 10 million Jews, Gipsies, homosexuals and communist), Mussolini (probably killed 2 million, Ethiopians, Greek people and political adversaries), Franco (1 - 2 million communists, socialist and other) and Pinochet (1 million of all sorts). So the rightwing killed about 15 million people. Then let us look at the leftwing: Stalin (killed about at least 20 million), Lenin (killed 4 million +), Mao (killed about 20 million also), Pol Pot (killed 4 out of Cambodia's population of 8 million) and Saddam Hussein (killed 4 million Iranians plus 1 million Kurds and political opponents)..... So the leftwing have killed about 53 million people.

Wing = people killed.

Rightwing = 15 million.

Leftwing = 53 million.

Who has most blood on their hands??.

The leftwing always tries to hide its bloody face behind anti-war/anti-American probanganda - but when they are at power, they become the most hateful and cold killers, though the hide behind that they are doing it to people who have the wrong opinion.

But as i said: very bad show. It is poorly made. 1 out of 10 - it is simply just awful.


This film is a complete waste of time. The film throws out all sorts of allegations, and yet does not back it up. Thousands of American soldiers were involved in the invasion and yet the film does not have a single ONE backing the films allegations. Skip this one.


Movie tries to be funny but fails in its attempt. Also, the movie has such a simplistic ending.

Basically 2 sisters are fighting over their dad who is on his death bead. One sister wants the dad to be taken off life support soon so that he will die and she can collect all of his money. The other sister will receive all the money if the dad lives long enough. The hospital want's to keep him alive until his insurance runs out. The sister who wants the dad to die, seduced a doctor and is blackmailing him with a video tape and threatens to turn the video over to the hospital if he doesn't cause her dad to die.

The solution the doctor proposes is the solution most normal people would think of with only a few seconds of thought needed. And the way the doctor forces the solution and wraps up the whole film in a couple of minutes is just too simplistic. It was a dumb movie and an even worse ending. 3 stars out of 10.


Werner (James Spader) is a resident at a large city hospital. He's just learning about the politics behind the supposed goal of saving lives, something his colleague, Stella (Helen Mirren) is already savvy on. This is especially true when Werner meets a beautiful young model (Kyra Sedgwick) whose father is a comatose patient at the hospital. It is the model's opinion that her father should be taken off life support; her sister insists that the father communicates with her (by squeezing her hand) and that he can recover. Although the model seems sincere in her concern for her father's state, it turns out that she will inherit a large sum of money upon his death. Which way will the winds blow through the halls of the hospital? This is an awful movie, just awful. For those attracted to the smiling Spader and Sedgwick on the video's cover, get over it. Although the actors are not the film's weakest point, they do an I'm-working-for-a-paycheck job at best. (How they convinced Mirren to join the film, I'll never know). And, there is absolutely no comedy in the film at all, just one depressing scene after another. Lumet, despite his reputation, is to be faulted mightily for the poor direction, and the script is beyond abysmal. Do not waste your time with this movie, unless you just want to see what a film "bomb" really is. It is a failure, and not even an interesting one, at that.


This is a sketch comedy movie done in the style of movie trailers. It's another in the long line of films that filled theaters in the mid to late 1970's like Kentucky Fried Movie, Groove Tube, American Raspberry, Tunnelvision promising to do what Saturday Night Live was doing but with dirty words and naked women. This is probably the weakest of the bunch.

Spoofing everything from musicals (Darktown after Dark) to prison films (3 Chairs for Lefty) to public service announcements (Buddy Hackett on bed wetting) to biker films (Skateboarders from Hell) to Charlie Chaplin films (The Kid and the Yid) and a few things in between this is a very hit or miss film. Most of the gags had been done before and better in other films and on TV by the time this was made so it was like watching reruns of reruns.3 Chairs for Lefty, which stars Bill Murray is rife with the sort of prison jokes that have been around since the 1930's,including giving Lefty a roast to cook when he finally goes to the chair.

The real problem is that almost all of the sketches go on way past the point of being funny. There seems to be some need to spoof a complete film, so in Skateboarders from hell we get a climatic funeral scene that isn't very funny and destroys the laughs that the film had generated with the "biker" fight. There is no reason that this film needed to be almost two hours long since tighter cutting could have made this a classic.

Worth seeing if you run across it on cable and you're in the mood for a very uneven comedy.It would be also okay to get in the bargain bin at the 99 cent store (which is how I got my copy) since its not worth more than a dollar.


An occasionally amusing, often confusing, gleefully profane 70's movie that hasn't really aged well. A precursor to Saturday NIGHT LIVE, it's a hodgepodge of spoofs and takeoffs of popular movies of the time. Some of the material is quite good ('The Shaggy Studio Executive,' where Walt Disney comes back as a guy in a dog suit), some of it's dated badly (A 'Snacktime' concession stand advert featuring a stoned guy with the munchies), a lot of it you have to think for a minute or two to figure out what's supposed to be funny (Who knew the eulogist at the biker funeral was supposed to be a takeoff of Georgie Jessel?). Best if you remember the time.


Most collections of comic sketches are extremely uneven. "Loose Shoes" is an exception. It is CONSISTENTLY unfunny, and all the episodes are awful. Their humor is infantile, aimed strictly at kids. Murray, who stars in just one episode, is awful,too. At 74 minutes, this excruciating "comedy" doesn't even qualify as a movie. It's just a fraud. Be warned.


I'm fascinated by this show partly because I am a big fan of post-apocalyptic fiction (Alas Babylon, The Day After, Testament, The Last Ship, Threads, On the Beach, etc). I recommend "Threads"(BBC 1984). After viewing it, you will wonder why someone hasn't done a good book or movie about Hurricane Katrina using it's premise.

But back to "Jericho." A town of five thousand in western Kansas, most of whose residents have no visible means of support. Where is the big employer, like a shoe factory or a plastic-extruding plant? You can't tell me the town is one to two thousand farmers and their families.

Farmers would be too busy and too far away to hang out in a bar all day, they'd have supplies of gasoline and food at their farms, plus old agricultural machinery and other equipment that doesn't require gasoline and there would be people who would have the knowledge to operate it.

A town of five thousand would have a courthouse, a bank, and leading citizens. There would be power dynamics and struggles that were in place before the catastrophe.

In the most recent episode we learn that the Greens have a ranch out in the countryside with a barn full of horses. A barn full of horses is a time-consuming high-maintenance endeavor, not some place you visit in the fourth episode because you need to get Jake Green worked up.

We also learn that the people of Jericho turn to the mayor and police when their utilities stop working. There does not appear to be an electric substation anywhere near the town nor anyone in the town who appears to know where the electricity came from.

It looks like the creators of this show got their concept for a small town from their experience with suburban bedroom communities. Jericho appears to work as if there were a large city no more than 20 minutes away by car, not like a town in the middle of nowhere.

If you take a look at the IMDb cast & crew page for this show, you will note there are no credited producers, directors or writers. You see executive producers, art, sound, SFX and miscellaneous crew, but just like the town of Jericho itself, there are no responsible adults to look to or blame.


Gamma World written by Madison Avenue. Factually and scientifically inaccurate melodrama mawkishness. Why couldn't the writers pick up a copy of the Planet of the Apes Movies or the Gamma World Role Playing Game and go from there? I have always dined at the table of a longed for good nuclear apocalypse show and have always gone away from the table hungry. This show develops too slowly, and why are all the girls still so pretty with their hair done so nice with their make up and collagen lips and plastic hips after a nuclear holocaust? How come the former St. Louis cop hyper-competently instructs the yokels how to duct tape their houses but yet decides to keep his Morse code short-wave radio knowledge of the extent of the national destruction a secret for only the viewers to melodramatically know at the end of episode 2? Why can you survive by putting plastic on your windows during the radiation rain, but half the town has to be buried in an explosion in a salt mine deep beneath the earth? Why don't they just put dinosaurs in F-16's? Unlike Jericho's depicted apocalypse, I predict this show will die an early death with a whimper.


Great idea for a TV show and first and 2nd episodes were watchable, but after that it turned into the worst sci-fi soap opera. These people have NO imagination at all, the plot is just plain stupid; just think about this: it's been 2 months since the nuclear bombing and nobody knows what's outside their own town - Jericho, almost every scene is indoors and the characters don't do anything but to talk and then talk some more. Even when they run out of food they don't leave town - they simply find a wrecked food train just outside their city....

I really wanted to like this show but it just has the worst play - writers ever!


I was initially sucked in... I am also a huge fan of post-apocalyptic movies, shows, and books. That is, until they tried to treat radiation sickness with iodine off the shelf. I suppose the writers never even bothered to check that out on any web page readily available on the subject. Then comes the Rain fallout: once it stops raining, everyone just went back to their fields and harvested the highly contaminated food from the highly contaminated soil. Alrighty then.... They also lack any sort of military adviser given the way they handle every armed encounter. It wouldn't be so awful if the characters didn't consist of an ex-Army Ranger, a mercenary and black ops member, and an FBI "uber" agent. While the acting is acceptable, the characters in general, are cardboard cut-out stereotypes, with little depth or deviation from their assigned roles. The women in the story are simply window dressing for the men and have no real voice or power. The men run the show, make all decisions, while the women in true 1950's fashion, support their men- regardless of how many bad, ignorant decisions they keep making. They simply hold down the fort, cook up food for the menfolk, and nurse the sick, all with perfect hair and makeup. On several occasions, they stupidly squander resources - like when they have a giant town BBQ with the meat so it doesn't spoil instead of smoking or salt-curing it; or like lighting up the street lights with the limited electric power they have. There also does not seem to be one short wave radio operator in town that can get a signal from even the closest town. Lastly, the unrealistic feel of the town is impossible to ignore. No major chain grocery? No real department store? One doctor in a town of 5000 people? It is a ridiculous attempt by the writers to portray a perfect middle America Mayberry RFD town to appeal to the masses -- unfortunately, that kind of town hasn't existed in about 50 years - if it ever did. I would suspect none of the writers have even driven through the Midwest, if this is how they picture it.

Overall - Pass over this one. It stared out with a good premise, and went downhill. How can one explain a show like Firefly getting canceled and this one sticks? The is beyond me who would want to keep this show around enough to send the nuts to CBS.


Having heard good reports about "Jericho" I delved in, hoping for a realistic and moving depiction of an American small town being isolated by surrounding nuclear attacks.

Christ I was disappointed.

Terrible acting and dialogue are unbelievable at first, and then steadily turn to laughable. The main character who mysteriously returns to "Jericho" after an unexplained five year absence is so heroic that in the first episode he saves an entire school bus load of children, including making a makeshift respirator for one of them with some straws and a pen knife! He is also a fine mechanic (although not as fine as the sexy school teacher whom he initially patronises when she offers her help), he can handle a gun, he can give moving speeches and he is an explosives expert ("Where did you learn to do that?" "I knew a guy once.")

The only black guy in it also mysteriously turns up and immediately starts telling people how to react in a nuclear war kind of way, like some kind of expert or something.

There's an impending romance between a "popular" girl and a "geeky" guy. Ther's a comedy madman who thinks aliens are attacking. There's a bus full of murderers that crashes while all this is going on.

I could go on but I don't have the energy. The only thing positive I can say about this programme is that it made me laugh, and I suppose that is a pretty decent positive, but how long will those laughs last?


Something is off here. This show isn't working enough to keep me glued to it like, say a Lost.

It should have great potential as we have new nuclear fears due to terrorism. A show dealing with this should be timely and interesting. As long as the story retains a degree of believability and is well written it should work (even if it's not entirely believable, as in science fiction with say, aliens, it could work if it was well done and focused).

I guess I'm saying that the story is losing ground with each episode due to a lack of believability as well as no apparent focus. As for characters, I do not see a male character I like enough to want to be...And though there are some attractive females none of them seem very desirable after a short while. When a show is weak on both storyline and character development it's only a matter of time that I give up on it.

To sum it up for me, I have watched eight episodes I'm not sure if I will continue on. I'm fighting the thought that Jericho is cheesy. Maybe the writing will tighten up and at least let me know if I'm watching something that's suppose to be possible. At present I find the story too far fetched and the fictional town and it's people very annoying! I hope that it finds it's center and gets better because I think the premise of nuclear survival is much more interesting now than just a few years ago.


Personally, I am a fan of apocalyptic fiction and thoughts of what would happen if the bombs really dropped. I have read all the good books, from Alas Babylon to The Last Ship to Lucifer's Hammer to The Beach. Apparently, the producers and writers of this God-Awful show have not read any of them and seem to have no clue how life might really be like if a small town was isolated by a nuclear holocaust. The writing is so absolutely terrible, they say stuff like "When I get back to DC, I'm gonna get rid of these clothes!". What DC, lady? Its gone. Get a clue. Its laughable. After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans descended into a kind of hell only 24 hours after the storm...looters, gunfire, rapes, a REAL struggle for survival. In Jericho, they seem to have an endless supply of beer at the bar, the booze is flowing, nobody is hungry, they are not defending their city against unknown evils, its hard to imagine that anyone on the writing staff has a clue about what a struggle daily life would really be like in a post-holocaust world. The first van full of Uzi-toting bad guys would mow the town down and they would abduct and rape the women and the men would all be dead. The concept of life after the big one is an interesting premise, but perhaps there has never been a show about a serious subject on the laughable scale as this embarrassment. Rebuilding the world, or what is left of it, is a topic that can engage us for a long time, but the people in this clueless town act like "oh, a bunch of nuclear bombs wiped out most of our country, when is Oprah on!."


Jericho is a show that had everything going for it. The idea of exploring what would happen in small-town America after nuclear weapons seemed to have devastated the major cities seems brilliant in its simplicity. The possible story lines and the suspense level that such an apocalyptic event could generate is limitless. Unfortunately, Jericho comes off as a wasted opportunity in its poor writing and amateurish directing.

One of the first things a writer must take into account in creating any story for television is the fact that commercial breaks are going to interrupt the flow. This is where the basic building blocks -- the rules if you would -- of television writing arose from, the most notable of necessities being that a significant motivating event must take place before the first commercial break. Writer Stephen Chbosky appears to have ignored this fact in order to develop too many characters in too short of a time. Whereas it would seem a given that the nuclear attack should occur fairly soon into the pilot episode, it in fact doesn't arise until almost the half way mark.

What the audience is treated to up to this point are endless scenes of Skeet Ulrich's character meeting people he once knew and providing conflicting stories as to his whereabouts since leaving home. Curiosity of this situation could be achieved quickly, but Chbosky goes through the same motion time and time again with dialog that provides little character depth. The dialog in general seems to reach at times to artificially intrigue the audience, but with no back-story and situations that simply do not cry out for exploration, the dialog falls flat.

To make matters worse, the direction by Jon Turteltaub in the pilot episode comes off as stale. Turteltaub appears to be completely unaware of the developments in episodic television direction in the past decade. To add insult to injury, the choice in cinematography gives the show a camcorder look at times, thus cheapening the overall experience.

The only redeeming quality of the show is the acting ensemble, including Skeet Ulrich, Gerald McRaney, Pamela Reid and Beth Grant. Unfortunately, they're given little to work with in dialog, dramatic situations and direction, and thus appear to trudge through their work laboriously. With scenes that could be cut by a third in length to achieve the same effect, in the end, even proved performers cannot make steak out of sand.

It is increasingly apparent that more and more networks are trying to replicate the feel of NBC's LOST. However, the impatient nature of production companies to get content out quickly rather than developing it to its maximum potential is resulting in a stream of uninteresting shows to be rushed out before given enough breathing space to mature from flash-in-the-pan neat to truly exceptional. And much of this stems from the creative talent involved.

Writer Stephen Chbosky's only major credit previous to Jericho was this year's less than wonderful film adaptation of the musical Rent, a film which shared the same problems of poor character development, flawed structure and unmoving dialog. It is thus not surprising that Jericho shares the same flaws. Had Chbosky simply sat down and watched the pilot episode of LOST, a pilot that perfectly illustrates how to get a suspense drama off on a bang, he may have taken greater care to see whether the situations in Jericho were interesting enough throughout to make a worthwhile script.

As it is, Jericho is long-winded and lacks stimulation both as a drama and a suspense thriller. The pilot holds little to draw an audience back for even a second look, let alone an entire season.


If the world was facing a nuclear extinction, a civilization fallout. Would you care if Jake kissed Emily?

Bad CG, bad acting and unbelievably cheesy lines.

These are the only things that came into my mind after watching the first series...but don't get me wrong i loved the story and the whole concept of the post-nuclear atmosphere.

In my opinion there's a very good reason for the show being canceled, they took a bulletproof and a very appealing back story and messed it up, nothing was good but i kept watching because i loved the fact i was watching a post nuclear based TV-show.

They had their chance, they should have stayed canceled in order to get picked up by people that really care about the storytelling, the current ones are bringing nothing but some used up, horrifying soap opera plots and dialogs, which for me destroyed the feeling that i was watching something good, not some b-series that are turning every single aspect of a script into a argument which ends in a "I'm not talking to you until you ask Emily if she kissed Eric" ...leaves me pretty angry and unhappy, there are so many shows that deserved that re-airing.

The show did nothing for me, maybe I'm the only one.

3 stars for trying.


After hearing kudos about this show I started watching. And after episode 7 I gave up. This show is so bad that I cannot describe. First of all acting is terrible; sets are cheap like a B grade movie (how can you even think of making a show with this theme and not have a single decent special effect) and most of all, the plot is so unrealistic that its painful. It has so many logical holes that it really insults the intelligence of the viewers. I loved the idea which had so many potentials but realization is very poor. And this show doesn't get canned?!? (like The Nine, Vanished and Kidnapped - ten times better) Well I guess I am not a typical US viewer.


Having just watched the first 4 episodes on Sci-Fi, just to see what the big deal was all about ( and because the writer strike ), I can not fathom why there was such a strong call for this show to be "saved".

I can suspend belief when it comes to TV shows, hence my knowing it was on Sci-Fi, but i can not even comprehend how this show lasted past episode 4. The MASSIVE plot holes should have sank it after episode 2. The poor acting thru episode 4 should have have buried it. If I ever watch another episode, it will have been just to have more ammo to come back here and say again, just how wasted an idea this was, and how worse it has gotten.

Sad that this show was renewed, and Firefly died after 13 episodes.. shame on CBS for not keeping to there guns after canceling, and shame on FOX for pulling the trigger too soon...


An amazingly predicable pile of television schlock, with third-rate casting and even poorer writing. Lacking the fun of most post apocalyptic camp, and certainly the zombies, this show takes itself all too seriously. In contrast, the first episode of its popular predecessor "Lost" opens with chaos mediated by a broken hearted hero, but with comic sidelines such as a panicked character looking for a pen to perform an unneeded tracheotomy. Two years later, CBS spins its own version of a small town stranded with its own love wounded hero preforming a genuine tracheotomy on a little girl on a bus load of stranded school children. Gone here is the humor, back are all the old television clichés in mind-numbing earnest. In all fairness, I've only watched three episodes on DVD and it must get better? I fear for the worst, and find myself longing to rent "Red Dawn" again just to hear Patrick Swayze coach me to "let it turn, let it turn...." Go Wolverines! Ho hum Jericho.


It's taken me a while to get to this.

In appraising an old movie, there is entertainment and there are the ideas preserved in it. This movie may entertain some but more than likely a modern viewer will find the entertainment aspect lacking, and the movie a bit slow-moving; much like Metropolis, Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Silent movies just proceed at a different pace which I find to be on the irksome side. You'll be predicting the movies plot points before they arrive. Its reputation as a comedy bewilders me, or at least its reception as one (in the modern era) does.

It's value as a product to move ideas is intact. The socialism guiding every frame makes its points clearly and explicitly. Really... you're not going to miss the point. And the movie adopts various structural mirroring devices that are on the hoary side.

Time is not kind to certain projects. I found myself begging for the long middle portion to speed up or be over with quickly. I felt this was a very average quasi-silent movie that is in our hands today because the production design was a little more novel than most. We just love superficialities like that here in the modern world. (See Blade Runner and it's 387 special editions). I say quasi-silent because the sound appears in concentrated, intermittent segments.


Where to begin? How about, "Let's take an interesting premise and do the worst possible job with it!" This is a shot-on-video (the harsh overexposed shots are a dead giveaway) and transferred to film "horror-western" which might have made an intriguing movie had it not been put together so ineptly. As the movie progresses, you can see the boom & microphone put in some cameo appearances. There are continuity errors with horses (the stagecoach has four horses, then three, then four again-from shot to shot!) The cookery & glassware looks like it was made in the year 2000, not 1870. The action takes place over three days, but the moon appears full every night! There's a scene where the marshal & a bad guy are firing their guns at something, but only one gun has blanks, so it looks like one gun isn't doing anything. The addition of standard run-of-the-mill sound effects increase the cheesiness of the whole production. Not to mention the use of music- Typical twangy western music is used here, but the tempo is upbeat when it should be suspenseful- any attempt at atmosphere is usually ruined. Are you getting the idea how much thought was put into this mess? The whole thing is a clumsy, ham-fisted effort and your money would be better spent elsewhere. (If you like "MST3K", you'll get a kick out of it, but everyone else stay away!)


This film, directed and edited by Chaplin moves quickly like most of his self-involved films do. Chaplin is a painter whose girl is wooed away by a man with more means. He bemoans this by scolding the portrait he had apparently painted of the man earlier on and then getting drunk and angry in a bar, tossing out patrons. Then he supposedly runs into his girl later on, unrecognized by her, with her and her growing family. This film is notable for a couple of reasons. The first is it's one of Chaplin's first films where he plays a relatively straight role throughout the film, and the second reason is it contains perhaps his first real attempt at pathos in his films: He draws a smiley face on the bar room floor of the girl who left him. However, the print I saw had the scene of Chaplin bumping into his girl's family reversed with his scene in the bar. This is the second Chaplin film I've seen where restoration has failed by changing the editing, like this, or reversing the images. *1/2 of 4 stars.


I've seen quite a few Chaplin shorts from early in his career and I've noticed that his early stuff (done for Keystone Studios) is pretty dreadful stuff. Unlike his wonderful full-length films from the 20s and 30s, the films from 1914-1915 are incredibly poorly made--having no script but only vague instructions from the director. In most cases, the films had almost no plot and degenerated to people punching and kicking each other.

This film consists of a lot of barroom scenes as well as scenes where Charlie is an artist. Apparently, he'd been an artist but it all went to pieces when his love left him for another. Oddly, the captions say "two months later" between scenes. After only two months, he sees her and her new beau and they've got a bunch of kids--some looking at least 6 or 8. This and the paint on him that appeared and then disappeared due to bad editing make this an odd and confusing picture. Unfortunately, none of the stuff is particularly interesting.


The undertaking of the construction of the great canal at Suez was monumental. Sadly, "Suez" was not. Despite the grand beginnings (featuring a breathtaking ball gown with Loretta Young inside it) the film failed to deliver. Predictable in most every way, from the scene with the Indian sand reader to the stormy scenes between Powers and Annabelle. Good special effects. No plot continuity.


I too saw ''Magic Boy'' on it's first release back in 1960. Being a fan of fantasy films, I was enchanted by the story and characters, though it was over 40 years before i saw it again. Alas, it lacks much of the magic I remembered. The story is just an excuse for the beautiful animation, and the characters are undeveloped. The motives of the witch, for instance, are left unexplained (yes, she's wicked, but why?) Many will think that my revised opinion is the result of seeing the film again not as a child, but as an adult. However, this is not true. Many films I enjoyed as a child still hold up wonderfully. ''Alakazam The Great'' for instance, is a superior Japanese animated feature.


High school student Paula Carson is adored by her jerk of a boyfriend, Dwight Ingalls, but new eyes have caught her attention. Brian Woods, a quiet loner who has just been released from a mental hospital after being there for the mysterious death of his father. Not too long people are disappearing and bodies are piling up at Wurley High and Brian is first to be accused by Dwight because of his disturbing past. Although Dwight has been losing it lately and now Paula is put in the situation of finding out who is telling the truth.

Now the memories are flooding back. Think of homework, uptight teachers, a weird headmaster, obnoxious twits, a deranged loner and some murdering? What in the name!? Yeah "Cutting Class" is a forgettable, been-there-done-that and lame high school slasher. Despite that suggestion at least it's never boring, and it's slightly entertains as it breezes by quite easily. The pain is virtually bearable, but a top cast with middling performances make little headway in this low-end 80s slasher effort. The main problem here is that it tries really hard for a funny bone and then it would turn all serious, but it just doesn't come off with the right results. It's just too stupid to be funny and ridiculous to be taken straight. It just can't win! What shaped it was the hopeless charm that scraped the surface with its campy frame and fine turns by the reliable Roddy McDowall and the extremely lovely Jill Schoelen ("Stepfather" and "Popcorn"). Martin Mull even appears in his own little (if meaningless)side-story as some sort of comic relief character. Donavan Leitch does fine in his spooky staring down poses.

Sure the main curiosity for this flick would be that of a young Brad Pitt. His performance is very lacking, but fans of his might still check it out as his a main lead. All he does is leech about and his cocky character is just too unlikeable to care for. The plot is weak; that's there's not much to hang a story off (and still there are holes!) and to throw you off track, as the red herrings are downright ineffective. Just who is committing these murders? Well, it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out, as it's basically telegraphed to you. It follows a derivative style of every other slasher flick. Clichés are not excused. The dialogues are lousy, despite it's tongue-in-cheek tone and hammy one-liners. Killing it is a funky 80s soundtrack that you don't want to purchase after hearing it.

The semi-professional production looked adequate and it sported a colourful and brightly lit decor. The direction by Rospo Pallenberg is stale and tensionless. Wait to your eyes see one idiotic climax involving power tools and an unbelievably rash decision by the killer. The cruel deaths are unimaginative and have little, if no blood and gore. Those looking for obligatory nude flashes have to cope with blink and you miss it moments.

A real lemon of a flick, but still I found this mindless slasher watchable thank-you Schoelen.


By the end of the 80s, the traditional slasher movie had pretty much run its course, the genre becoming too formulaic and over-familiar to its jaded audience. Rospo Pallenberg's Cutting Class is an attempt at sending up such conventions, but it's hard to poke fun at a genre that has already unintentionally turned to self parody, and the film winds up being virtually indistinguishable from the countless genuine films that it intends to mock.

Jill Schoelen stars as virginal and studious teen Paula Carson, object of affection for two ex-best-buds, overbearing basketball jock Dwight Ingalls (Brad Pitt) and creepy loner Brian Woods (Donovan Leitch). When Paula is left on her own for a week while her father, a district attorney, goes duck hunting, she promises to behave, but with rival friends fighting for her attention, the school principal (Roddy McDowall) perving over her ass, and a crazy murderer bumping off her schoolmates, staying out of trouble is going to be harder than she thinks.

Cutting Class certainly makes sure to pack in all the standard genre clichés, with red herrings and misleading clues a plenty (hands up who though that sodium chloride would actually save the day: I know I did), but veers awkwardly between silly humour (Paula's bumbling dad somehow surviving to the end of the film) and genuine attempts at horror (the killing of the school's vice principal), delivering crappy gore featuring patently rubber props and uninspired direction along the way.

The acting also does little to improve matters, with future A-lister Pitt being unmemorable, unlikeable and offering no hint of star quality, Leitch giving an equally unimpressive turn, and a performance from poor old Roddy McDowall that can only be described as extremely embarrassing. Thank heavens for the lovely Schoelen, who is as winsome as she was in Popcorn and The Stepfather, and makes the whole film just about worthwhile by simply showing off her magnificent butt.