Communion is a good alien movie that's based on a true story. Christopher Walken was very good. I don't want to get into the film much but I will say that the film can be quite scary sometimes especially with that haunting music! The film is entertaining and interesting! The box is beautiful! I believe this story as I believe in aliens and the unknown! That's all I can say without spoiling it. I can say I strongly recommend you see Communion!

Movie Nuttball's note: If you like alien movies I also recommend the following films: The UFO Incident, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra- Terrestrial, Time Walker, Invaders from Mars, Fire in the Sky, Independence Day, The Arrival, Xtro 3: Watch the Skies, Life Form, Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Predator, and Predator 2!


If it wasn't for Walken, I would have been walken'...out of the theater. He was the lone savior of this film. I can't believe Whitley Streiber was actively involved in this film. His book was excellent, the movie is another story. This visual atrocity completely does his book an injustice. I understand dressing up certain aspects of the film to make it more appealing, but come on. They should have at least tried to stay within the scope of the text and support the basic premise of the book. There was a tremendous intellectual and philosophical upside to Communion that just didn't come out on film. Instead, the viewer gets ninety minutes of choppy, inadequate details that mostly go unexplained. Need I even mention the cheesey aliens. They looked like something out of Willy Wonka. Shame on you Whitley for allowing this to happen.


Some movies are so bad, they're good. This movie is so bad, it's bad.

A man is visited by aliens a couple times, and nothing more happens. There are some vaguely entertaining surreal parts, when the main character encounters the aliens (both of which look like cheap X-Com rejects), but the whole fun of the surreality is that a willing viewer can briefly pretend he is not watching "Communion" and is instead enjoying an ugly acid flashback. The suspense is horribly managed, the acting is terrible, the film has little direction, and when that 103rd minute finally rolls by, the audience is left with nothing more than the back of the box will tell them. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Better than "Manos: The Hands of Fate," but worse than "Death Machine". And not in that fun-to-watch bad movie way, either.


I tried to watch this piece of trash late one night, and even though I have a profound phobia about alien abduction (no, I'm not lying) I didn't think this was scary and I didn't think it was suspenseful. The 'special' effects were absolutely idiotic. I can't believe that anyone would think that those blue creatures were aliens. I'm getting sleepy just thinking of it.

I'm not sure that they weren't trying to make a spoof. It was _that_ bad. A ridiculous waste of film.

1/10


From the director of The Missing Gun comes this powerful story of a journalist who travels with a small mountain patrol group as they track a band of poachers across the unforgiving lands of Kekexili, the last great wilderness.

To say this film is great is a grave understatement as its uncompromising nature and cinema verite approach to story telling elevate it above all other films of the year. What this film does so well is connect you with the protagonists in a simple, yet very effect manner. Once the initial setup and character introductions are complete, the rest of the film is spent following them through the harsh wilderness. In doing so, Lu Chuan places the viewer in the same dire situation as the mountain patrol. We're with them as they brave harsh winds, freezing water, sun-baked plains, and treacherous, snow-covered mountains. We feel their anguish as they come under attack from seemingly invisible assailants. We sense their fear and pessimism as they struggle to survive in this breathtakingly beautiful, yet ultimately deadly landscape. All this to protect Tibetan antelope. The fact that they're willing to risk everything for this unseen animal says more about their character than any amount of dialogue. They do this without a paycheck and with the knowledge that they'll probably have little to no success. By giving the antagonist so little screen time, Lu Chuan is able to broaden this story and give it global context, declaring that attitudes and actions such as this should be condemned outright. It also serves to elevate the protagonists above ordinary heroes as it can be interpreted that they're not just doing this for the Tibetan antelope, but endangered animals everywhere.

Kekexili is an enormously powerful film that should not be missed. This is far and away the best Chinese film of the year (better than Shi Mian Mai Fu (House of Flying Daggers) in every respect) and one of the best films of the year, period. 10/10


While I know I am biased and I will explain why, I still feel I should write and try and express the depth of feeling I have for this film.

My brother, Alex Graf was a production manager for Columbia Tri-star Asia. He was returning from the filming location in western China when he was killed in a vehicle accident.

OK, now you know why I am biased towards this film. That being said, this is a very powerful, visceral film. It is definitely not a feel good film and is, at times very hard to watch. The setting is in the western Chinese high desert. To describe the scenery as beautiful, breathtaking and desolate would be to massively understate it. What an incredibly vast, unforgiving, yet hauntingly mesmerizing landscape, and Lu Chuan takes full advantage of this. One aspect of the film that is unexpected, and demonstrates Lu Chuan's mastery of film making is that you expect to despise the poachers but somehow you end up understanding their plight as much as that of the patrol. If what I have written here still doesn't move you to see this film then see the film as see for yourself you will not be disappointed. Andrew Graf


'Kekelixi' ('Mountain Patrol') is one of those quiet, quasi-documentary films that now and then rises out of nowhere and has such an impact on the viewer that it has the potential for creating some global change action. Written and directed by Chuan Lu from China and sponsored in part by National Geographic the film was distributed as 'travel/foreign places/environmental issues' product, and while it satisfies those designations, it resonates as a story that is not only based on fact, but one that opens our eyes to another way of life in a very remote area. The effect is stunning.

A journalist from Beijing - Ga Yu (Zhang Lei) - travels to Tibet to investigate the poaching of Tibetan antelope and the group of unpaid citizens committed to eradicating the poachers and saving their beloved antelope. The leader of the mountain patrol is Ri Tai (Duobuji) and he has gathered devoted men who spend their lives selflessly searching for the elusive poachers. Ga Yu goes along for the search, camera in hand, capturing the magnificence of the mountains of Tibet, the men's camaraderie and commitment to their mission, and the fields of antelope carcasses left behind by the poachers whose only concern is to skin the antelope for their pelts of luxurious wool for the world market. The patrol encounters endless problems with their equipment, food supplies, loss of men to the poachers' guns, and finally capture a group of men (a family) who serve as skinners for the pelts. Ri Tai attempts to remain fair and non-violent, but his attempts are constantly thwarted. Ga Yu changes from a journalist role to a committed hunter and his relationship with Ri Tai and the other patrolmen is exceedingly touching. The ending of the film is as quiet as the Tibetan landscape and equally as impactful.

The cast is not known to this viewer, but it is difficult to imagine that Duobuji and Zhang Lei are amateur actors, so profoundly moving are their performances. The haunting music by Lao Zai and the breathtaking cinematography by Yu Cao support Chuan Lu's film. This art piece is excellent on many levels and is one that deserves a large audience. Highly recommended.


Set in stunning scenery on the titular Tibetan plateau, "Mountain Patrol: Kekexili" recreates an extraordinary grassroots effort in the 1990's by supremely dedicated idealists to stop poaching of the Tibetan antelope -- mano to mano with no satellite phones or navigation equipment or much in the way of weapons.

For all the thrilling nobility of the volunteers and grueling challenges they face from man and nature, the film naggingly feels like a propaganda effort supported by the Chinese government to show how it supports Tibetan initiatives (including a somewhat smug statement at the end that they have now taken over the protection job from the volunteers). I felt complicit in the occupation even as I got caught up in the film.

Their struggle to save the antelope vividly recalls scenes of how the buffalo was decimated in "Dances With Wolves", though we get no inkling of the role of the antelopes in Tibetan culture, so saving them just seems either altruism about a rare animal, nationalism, obsession, stubbornness or macho independence.

While we meet several of the volunteers in their isolated monitoring stations and frustrating chases who have a range of personalities and relationships, it is a bit hard to differentiate them other than by the vehicles they are driving or jewelry they're wearing. The exceptions are the patrol's charismatic leader Ri Tai (Duobuji captures the screen) and our entrée to this world, a Beijing-based investigative journalist with Tibetan roots (Ga Ju played by Zhang Lei who effectively communicates his transformation by his experiences).

Whle the sense of swaggering male camaraderie is well captured in a military-like bonding of living, traveling and partying hard, they say the area's name translates to "land of beautiful women" and that's supported by the few we see during brief respites.

In addition to the breathtaking scenes of the Tibetan plateau, better seen on the wide screen than on TV, in a range of extremely challenging weather and geographic elements (one scene in quick sand is particularly harrowing), the views of Tibetan towns and quotidian life in the mountains are an intriguing sidelight.

The subtitles were only hard to read as white on white a few times, though a couple of times they lingered on the screen too long past a dialog, blocking views.

National Geographic co-produced the film and has additional information about the film and the cause at their Web site (though for some reason IMDb doesn't consider their's the official movie site).


Kekekili is a mountainous wilderness in Tibet, home to the Tibetan antelope - now an endangered species since their fur became a valued commodity in the west. In the early 90's a group of volunteers formed to protect the antelope from poachers, working with meagre resources in a hostile terrain. When one of the volunteers is murdered, a journalist from Beijing travels to Kekexili to follow the patrol and tell their story.

Tibet is a country that many in the west have a very romantic image of - a culture and lifestyle as far removed from modern, urban society as any on earth. The reality of Tibetan life in the modern age is probably that it's tough, first and foremost.

Kekexili is a simple film, telling the story with no bells and whistles or attempt to shoehorn in clichéd dramatic devices, or to make the characters fit particular archetypes. People and events are presented plainly as the patrol pursue a group of poachers over the gorgeous backdrop of the mountain wilderness, risking their lives to protect the endangered antelope - but compromising themselves ethically along the way too.

The ending is perhaps a little unsatisfying, but I guess reality can be like that :)


It is the best Chinese movie of the year I have seen. I was shocked by the story and the presentation of the movie. It took me quite a while to get out of it.

The movie talked about how a volunteer mountain patrol team fought against the poachers and protect the extincting Tibet antelopes. Due to the increasing demand for the leather and cashmere of Tibet antelopes, poachers drove the once 1 million antelopes to the edge of extinction (less than 10 thousand). A retired military officer volunteered to setup a mountain patrol to protect the antelopes and hunt the poachers.

What is touching is not the survival or dying of the antelopes but that of human beings above the 4000 meters (over 12,000 feet) high land. Wind, snow and deserts took away food from people and they could not make a living. Lots of people turned to hunt antelopes for their own being. Meanwhile, the team members of the mountain patrol were fighting for their own life while hunting the poachers. The volunteers had no government funding, no food, and no weapons. They were at great disadvantage when facing well equipped, out numbered and brutal poachers. Without any alternatives, they had to sell the skins of the antelopes they captured in order to support their duties of protecting the extincting creatures. The movie presents the brutal facts right in front of you and make me hard to breath.

The story was set in the period of 1993 to 1996, however, I highly suspect that it was an on-going cat and mouse game, and the situation of today may not be much better than what was described in the movie.

Highly recommended.


I've been waiting for the screening of this movie for a very long time, and I guess I was really lucky that I was able to watch it at all, since there are only four copies being rotated in Germany. Considering the international approval of the movie, this seems quite ridiculous to me.

Apart from that, I don't have to add much to the other users' comments, but it can't be said often enough how much energy this film gains, first from the not-telling-but-showing technique of the portrayal of its characters; and second, from the way nature is depicted as it breaks the will even of these strong characters. They become even more realistic because of the strong inner conflict which is aroused by the necessity of selling some of the confiscated antelope skins. All in all, the movie (re-)presents existential, universal questions at least as successful as the best westerns that I have seen.

Adding to this, Kekexili is certainly also a must-see for anybody interested in the "Tibetan Question", as it shows life in the Tibetan highlands from a very uncommon angle: It's a Chinese view of "Shangri-La", torn between admiration of its spirituality and humanity and, on the other side, shocked amazement by its harshness and inhumanity. Generally, it's a universal approach independent of ideology, and that's never to be taken for granted whenever Tibet is involved (needless to say that this concerns the American or European image of Tibet as well).


There's a stark, haunting beauty within the land called Kekexili -- Tibetan for "Beautiful mountains, beautiful women" -- that threatens to smother the human drama being played out between the patrolmen risking their lives to preserve the antelope and the poachers who use their skins to create obscenely expensive scarves. No matter what the scene, be it a closeup of an action taking place in a river or a medium shot of vehicles traversing a barren, empty land, Kekexili is undoubtedly the main character in this gorgeous but bleak film, a hostile land that in one of the movie's most striking moments, swallows a lone patrolman whole when he makes the mistake of stepping over quicksand.

As an action movie, only the first scene is really where the brutality ensues as antelope are systematically killed (right in front of the camera, which makes it a tad intense for anyone not used to these images) and the patrolman trying to protect them gets a bullet in his head. It gets quickly established from the get-go that these poachers are soulless individuals whose greed has led them to destroy the wildlife, which makes the plight of Ri Tai, a man whose life has been committed to the cause of the antelope, and Ga Yu, a reporter who gets involved in the case, more relevant even when everyone else gets blurred in the background and it seems that there will be no solution to this matter.

KEKEXILI is a tricky movie to classify even when it's clearly grounded in thriller and action roots due to the overpowering nature of the place where it's set and its refusal to romanticize its two lead characters. If anything, it can be seen as a silent film, one that tells its story in mute yet powerful images, and in doing so, gets its message across.


This film returns to the topics and aesthetics of New Chinese cinemas of the Fifth Generation filmmakers. There are especially strong connections to Chen Kaige's first film "Yellow Earth" (1984). The harsh, unforgiving natural elements in Kekexili (and in Tibet more generally) are both beautiful and harrowing, similar to the landscape in "Yellow Earth". The outsider reporter/photographer Ga Yu from Beijing echoes "Yellow Earth" character Brother Gu, of the Eighth Route Army, who is a visitor to the impoverished peasant family in that earlier film. Unlike the early Fifth Generation works by Zhang Yimou such as "Ju Dou" and "Raise the Red Lantern", "Kekexili" is set in very contemporary times and as such, the criticism of government policies and neglect is much stronger. In scenes of violence, the film's use of long shots and long takes is more powerful than the more common use of editing to extreme close ups.


*CONTAINS SPOILERS* this is a great movie unbiased in its accounts of its characters. also one of the earlier comments was that the movies ending was bad script saying that why would the captain go up to poachers armed with a single rifle, knowing that these poachers have killed one of his men earlier. the war between the poachers and the mountain patrol have been raging for years. the captain at the end mentioned "i have been chasing you for 3 years". basically if he didn't go up to them at the end of the movie, he knew he would of never have the same chance of catching them again. so disregarding his own life and safety, he rather capture them and risk his life, then to let them go and wait countless years before another opportunity. I'm guessing its more of a pride/symbolic representation in the script itself.


The first reviews which drew me to watch Kekexili compared it to the great American "Westerns"-- so I'll start with the DIFFERENCES. To begin with, the Region-1 DVD cover shown here on IMDb is splattered with more red/ blood than you will actually see in the film-- OTOH, the Region-3 DVD cover completely gives away the ending. Talk about cultural differences in marketing strategy-- action/ plot vs. something worthy of repeated viewing?

More importantly, American "Westerns" were generally made in 20th century about 18th-19th century, so even the most "gritty and hard-hitting" ones are full of American "romantizations" about a long-gone time and place. OTOH, Kekexili is a 2004 film about something that only happened 10 years ago-- so it is full of the kind of realism that even National Geographic may find hard to achieve (high-altitude cinematography with the sand and the cold cracking the film-stock, getting the locals to talk, etc.).

IOW, fans of the American "Westerns" are not going to enjoy this film-- the chase/ action sequences are few, short and slow (you move too fast at high altitudes-- you die) and the patrol-men don't exhibit any modern or western sense of individualism/ heroism that audiences can cheer for. Even fans of the Discovery Channel may not know how to react-- there is very little narration to tell audiences what to think, very little music to tell audiences what to feel and very little slow-motion/panning cinematography for audiences to ogle at.

What this film is, is a different kind of "docu-drama" (more Abbas Kiarostami than Akira Kurosawa)-- the kind where the director "pulls all his punches" with such minimalist scripting, plotting, acting, photography and editing, that audiences are denied any possibility of a cheap thrill (the "ah-hah" or "wow" from being given a back-story, message, climax, conclusion, etc.). This is where this film rises above the likes of "Himalaya" which tries to tuck in a conventional but awkward narrative-structure-- in the words of the director, it's very "cruel" to the audiences.

I mean, talk about letting the subject-matter "speak for itself"-- it starts out with the premise of some high action-adventure, but continually "breaks" the pace to let the realities of high-altitude patrolling intrude.... And since we are mostly "embedded" with the reporter who speaks only a little Tibetan, very little is explained to us/ the reporter (the patrol-men aren't great "talkers"...). To improve the "immersion" factor or get a sense of the wonder and confusion the reporter felt, try watching the film without the subtitles for the Tibetan dialogue. Like a backpacking/trekking trip, you might have to think about what you saw or felt after you "come back".

This film had a limited marketing and release because it didn't quite fit any of the "commercial" film genres-- but I'll be watching out for director Lu Chuan's next film about the Nanjing massacre (or "incident" as some Japanese call it).


"Mountain Patrol: Kekexili" is Chinese director Lu Chuan's second feature, set in the gorgeous titular Tibetan plateau where Tibetan antelopes were and are still being poached and mercilessly shot with their numbers dwindling from about a million to around 10,000 in the 1990s. This film is an effort to commemorate the selfless patrol jobs performed by one-time civilian volunteers who acted as natural reserve wardens in that part of the country. Sadly some of the face-offs with the illegal poachers resulted in many of these patrols being killed, which the movie depict in shocking detail.

As the film ended I found myself with mixed feelings towards "Kekexili: Mountain Patrol". Lauded in many film festivals and picking up a Best Film prize at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards Festival, "Kekexili" is very powerful thematically, and Lu Chuan makes his points very saliently: back in the 1990s, doing mountain patrolling to help protect these endangered animals was a thankless task, not help by lack of manpower, funds and weapons. In a powerful scene where the patrol chief Ritai speaks to Beijing reporter Ga Yu, the former confides that he has almost no help or money to support his efforts. Ironically he has to even sell the pelts to raise funds even though this is an illegal act. The patrols face uncertain deaths every time they confront a band of poachers, since they may readily be out-gunned or simply shot. This is what happened to two of the patrol members as shown at the start and end of the movie.

Narratively, however, the film leaves a little to be desired. The film is sparse and few incidents packed its 89-minute running time; the movie often reveals itself as something as a travelogue guide to Kekexili, although the cinematography is striking and beautiful. The pacing is lax although the editing is fast paced, giving an odd tempo to the film. Several scenes might strike one as being more appropriate for a documentary: indeed, were it not for the fact the film is re-enacting the 1990s effort at animal conservation, "Kekexili" might better be made as a non-fiction picture. Take the scene where the patrol truck gets stuck in the river: the patrols work together to get it out of the slush rut and it lasts several minutes. In a documentary this might be interesting with a voice-over, but in a narrative film like "Kekexili", the scene appears heading for nowhere in particular, merely extending the running time. Also, amateur actors may be fine for certain scenes, but they mostly appear unmemorable and faceless and it might not be surprising that the two professional leads are the ones most readily recalled at the film's end.

Despite all these flaws, "Kekexili" has three powerful scenes which make watching it worthwhile - all coming in the later parts of the film. One is the aforementioned dialog between Ritai and Ga Yu, when Lu Chuan makes his thematic points an hour into the movie. Another occurs when one of the patrols sinks - and is engulfed - by a quagmire of quicksand. The last and most shocking comes at the end when the chief is shot for trying to apprehend the poachers. It makes the point very strongly that in numbers and in weaponry, the mountain patrols cannot match these wealthy illegal poachers. "Kekexili" comes across finally as an impassioned and powerful - even if flawed - plea for the Chinese government to up their efforts to apprehend these offenders. By the looks of the Beijing Olympics 2008, where the Tibetan antelope was chosen as one of the five mascots, Lu Chuan's goal might be achieved already.


Filmed on location in some of the harshest terrain, Kekexili is a film for lovers of great cinematography, animals, the environment, and Tibet. I don't often give 10's for my reviews, but then I don't often run across a movie as great as this.

Kekexili is basically a Tibetan western. The Tibetan Antelope have been hunted mercilessly for their pelts which bring good prices for poachers. A group of barely paid citizen volunteers get together and for about 3 years patrol the mountains to try and catch poachers. The men carry machine guns and give plenty of warning shots because their unsanctioned job is to fine or arrest, not to kill the poachers. This is admirable, considering the lack of support from most everyone else and the fact the poachers have no problem killing the patrolmen and do.

A Chinese reporter from Beijing accompanies the patrol to various cold, barren locales in the mountains. Some of what he finds along the way seems contradictory to what he originally felt the patrol stood for: occasionally they sold the pelts they confiscate to get money for their provisions when they don't have enough money themselves(or if one of their number gets shot by a poacher). A great quote from the patrol captain was something along the lines of "Have you seen the prostrators on their pilgrimage? Their faces and hands are filthy, but their hearts are pure." Animal lovers will have a love-hate relationship with this film as some animals are actually killed. And the scene where the patrolmen find literally dozens of carcasses, stripped of their pelts by men and their flesh and internal organs by hordes of vultures, is difficult to watch. They haul the dead antelope bodies to a pit and burn them. The clacking of their bones as they are hauled over the earth is quite unsettling, like a deathly wind chime.

For the most part, the Tibetan actors are amateurs, but it works unbelievably well. The landscape will take your breath away just as quickly as it did for the patrolmen when they began to get bloody noses from the high altitudes. The film crew had a grueling time with this film; one member was killed in a car accident. Unforgiving climates, harsh and unvegetated terrain, and miles and miles with no towns...it's quite a spectacle, like a frozen desert.

I don't want to spoil too much of the plot, but don't look for a happy ending, unless you're an antelope.


This has got to be one of the most AMAZING films ever made, not only for the astounding cinematography, the quiet, subtle, yet overpowering drama, the incredible pacing of the story, the compelling character portraits, but also for very intelligently conceived cinema verite techniques. It is an extremely moving film, though it may be one of the most difficult movies I ever sat through, both the beauty and brutality are overwhelmingly relentless.

Based on a true story, the film demonstrates a rare instance where Life is fuller, richer and more interesting than Fiction. The dramas that Hollywood feeds us pale in comparison to the colour of humanity and the depths of emotional courage portrayed in this film.

It is a film to be experienced, and ranks right up there with classics like Nanook of the North, Das Boot, etc., please don't ever miss it.


Let's get the title correct first. The characters pronounce "Kekexili" as "Ko-Ko-Schee- Lee", and we are told it means beautiful mountains.

Kekexili follows Ga Yu, a Beijing journalist as he travels with the Mountain Patrol, a civilian group under the command of a man named Ritai who are determined to stop poachers from hunting "chiru", a nearly extinct Tibetan Antelope that is valued for their soft pelts.

The Mountain Patrol is not officially recognized by the Chinese government, so their actions are quasi-legal, but they do have the power to confiscate illegal antelope pelts and to administer cash fines to anyone caught with the pelts.

If the Mountain Patrol can catch poachers in the act, they can bring down the full weight of the Chinese government to arrest these criminals. We go with the Mountain Patrol on this particular mission and we experience all the hardship, danger and troubles that they experience.

As Ritai's group tracks the poachers we see the after effects of their poaching. One scene shows a valley full of skinned antelope carcasses left to rot in the sun, now nothing more than food for vultures.

In another, Ritai comes upon a group of men who work for the poachers as skinners. These are just poor Chinese workers trying to eke out a living. They know it's illegal to kill the antelope, but they have only been hired to skin already dead animals; so where's the illegality in that?

Ritai however, is not very sympathetic. He confiscates their pelts and slaps the men with a large fine. But Ritai thinks he may be able to get to the big boss poacher through these skinners, so he "arrests" these men, has them handcuffed and loaded onto one of his trucks.

Our journalist is clearly bothered by this incarceration of citizens by a group lacking any legal authority to do it, but his concerns are dismissed by Ritai. This will not be the last time we find ourselves in a moral gray zone.

Since Ritai has incarcerated these dozen extra men, he is now responsible for feeding them. We now learn some bitter truths about this Mountain Patrol. The Mountain Patrol receives no state funding for salaries, supplies or anything else. They rely wholly on donations, which are notoriously small.

In fact, none of Ritai's men have been paid for over a year. As Ritai's obsessive search continues, his food rations ebb and he is soon faced with a dilemma, who does he feed; his men or his prisoners?

Ritai now decides he has to send one of his men back to get more supplies and Liu Dong is dispatched to drive back. Lui Dong tells Ritai that he has no money to buy supplies. Ritai tells him to use the money collected in fines. That won't be enough. Ritai thinks for a moment and then tells Liu Dong to sell off the confiscated Tibetan Antelope pelts on the Black Market.

What?

Is Ritai really going to sell the illegal antelope pelts in order to raise the funds needed to stop the poachers who also sell illegal antelope pelts? Apparently he is.

On top of this, Ritai has decided to let the group of incarcerated skinners go because he can no longer take care of them. Some complain that they can't make it back to civilization and will probably die.

Ritai's only comment, "If you don't make it, then it's your fate." This is pretty cold, if you ask me.

With all the tribulations faced by the ever-weakened Mountain Patrol, the worst thing that could happen to them is exactly what does happen; they find the poachers. Unlike the weak, under-funded Mountain Patrol, the poachers are large in number, well fed and well supplied.

The poacher boss asks Ritai why he is harassing him? Ritai says he is protecting HIS antelope. The poacher boss laughs; when did they become Ritai's property? The poacher boss offers to buy Ritai a house and two cars if he'll just stop pursuing him.

Insulted that the poacher would even think of bribing him, Ritai punches the boss man and he is immediately fired upon. Ritai is hit in the abdomen and falls to the ground writhing in pain. The big boss now takes a rifle and pumps a half dozen more bullets into Ritai to put him out of his misery.

But Ga Yu, our frightened Beijing journalist is not killed. In fact, the poachers show him far more courtesy and humanity than Ritai's group ever showed him.

No wonder this film made me queasy.

I was both impressed and frightened by the self-righteous anger that seemed to motivate Ritai and his men. And, while Ritai's goals were laudable, his methods for achieving them were questionable. Once Ritai began illegally selling the antelope pelts for operating funds, he crossed a very serious line.

But contradictions like that are not unknown among some animal rights groups. Consider PETA, which is opposed to all types of animal testing for medical research, yet their vice president, Mary Beth Sweetland is a diabetic who uses insulin made from animal products to keep her alive.

She publicly admits this but says; "I don't see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals." So, life saving medicine that she would deny to ten million other diabetics is OK for her because SHE is devoted to saving animals. One usually has to reach into the realm of politics to uncover such monumental hypocrisy.

As Kekexili ends, we are informed that beginning in 2001, the Chinese government disbanded the civilian Mountain Patrol and formed its own anti-poaching unit.


First off this movie is supposed to be a compelling adventure about a few brave men protecting endangered antelopes from poachers.

What they don't tell you is, in the course of shooting this movie they are actually shooting real antelope. Granted these aren't the "endangered" animals they are protecting in the plot but a similar antelope breed with fake antlers glued to it. With 6 views of antelopes being killed consistently and bleeding out made it hard for me to believe there message.

Hypocritical doesn't begin to summarize this movie. If I was you I wouldn't waste my time or money.

I mean real antelopes being killed in a movie about stopping people from killing them? These writers should feel ashamed.


A preface: I will go out of my way to see a movie that takes me to a new part of the world. Thus I was excited to see "Mountain Patrol" as I'd never been to Tibet. The local reviewers (Chicago) gave it very high marks.

The scenery and the background-story (destruction of the antelopes) makes this movie worth seeing.

Yet, as I watched this movie, I found myself thinking: if this movie was about Mountain Goats in the Sierra Nevada (i.e. something less exotic than Tibet), Chicago reviewers would be more critical. The characters are flat ; the plot is somewhat thin. The mountain patrol are "searchers", but the movie doesn't have that edge of the John Ford western. The movie seemed formulaic for the first hour, but happily breaks out of that rut.

A similar "high altitude" movie which I enjoyed more was "Himalaya." I recommend both "Mountain Patrol" and "Himalaya", especially for those interested in armchair/movie theater traveling to the "rooftop of the world".


Above all, I wanna say it's powerful and one of the best mandarin movies in the year. It's about extincting Tibet antelopes and a couple of people who want to protect these animals. The director leaded his filmmaker team into Tibet high land that without human being, they worked for a couple of months and finished it.

When I watched the film first time, I thought I felt the smell of death. Especially the snowing scene, everything's white and snow could not stop falling. White represents death sometimes, I really saw a dying world. I was touched a lot.

I heard about the American investor designed the film as a Chinese West film, just like American west movies. People fighting and shooting each other, Heros win and the poachers are killed. Certainly, the director refuse the bad idea. He's clear that he need a documentary movies not for pastime. It must be serious and heuristic . However, I still should point out the script problems. When the mountain patrol team captain found the poachers, he asked the armed poachers put down their weapon and confess to crimes. I'm confused for the captain hadn't been armed at all. I mean he should choose a better measure, he was facing a group of gangsters not normal citizens. So I think it'll be better if the screenplay was modified in a appropriate way. On my humble opinion, director Lu didn't exposure humanity deep enough for the script reason. But it's still terrific and two thumbs up.


**Mild spoiler** So, poaching is a big problem in Tibet, eh? Some moral Chinese fighting poaching and extinction of antelopes in Tibet. How moving!! But may I ask what caused the poaching and extinction of animals in Tibet? These were caused by China's illegal and amoral occupation of Tibet and greedy exploitation of Tibetan people. The attitude of the Chinese Communist government, which doesn't give a damn about Tibetan people or its culture, is well reflected in the attitude of Chinese criminals who go to Tibet. These criminals do not care about Tibetan people, its culture or the land. They poach Tibetan animals themselves and encourage poverty-stricken Tibetans to poach so they can make money. The quickest solution to the poaching problem in Tibet is for China to return Tibet to its people and get out of Tibet!! Why didn't this movie give us this obvious and most logical solution to poaching in Tibet? Treating extinction of some antelopes in Tibet as if it is the greatest problem in Tibet is absolutely laughable. The greatest problem in Tibet is illegal invasion and occupation of Tibet by China and Chinese people. Is the Beijing journalist played by Liang Qi totally stupid or totally blind? Can't he see this obvious problem? Does the producer of this film think that just because they made some film condemning the poaching and extinction of some species of antelopes in Tibet, the Tibetans will love Chinese, who stole their land and massacred their people? Showing some token kindness is not going to erase the crimes committed by Chinese against Tibetan people.

This movie is a disgusting self-congratulatory nonsense made by some government influenced Chinese film producers. Although it is much more subtle, this is a propaganda movie just like the anti-Jewish Nazi film "The Eternal Jew." I am nauseated to read the high praise written by some Americans and Japanese about this propaganda film. Did these Americans and Japanese lower themselves to the level of Chinese government mouthpiece? By the way, why was this movie awarded Don Quixote Award in Berlin? Are those Berlin judges insane? I have repeatedly criticized this movie because of its disgusting propaganda. I am glad that my repeated criticism has angered some self-appointed Chinese patriots. In China any criticism of the state and its policy is punished severely and the critics are silenced swiftly. If my comment against this film is a criticism of Chinese government, I cannot help it. One cannot criticize dangerous propaganda films like this without criticizing the underlying policies of the government which made the film. It is like commenting about a disgusting film like "Eternal Jew" without attacking Nazism.

These Chinese patriots cannot silence me here in the United States, a country of free speech. If these Chinese patriots were not thick-skinned enough to take criticism, I would tell them, "Welcome to the world of free speech."


I can't help feeling that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon saying this is the worst film ever made etc.

I viewed this film for the first time on laserdisc on a video projector in a darkened room with some mates and we found it to be entertaining different atmospheric in parts. John Agar for once has some good lines and does well. The script is a fairly complex one far more than other film of its vintage and budget. We thought the writers should be commended for using such plot devices as intolerance to light and the sub-culture within a sub-culture. Even the ending is unexpected and different. It even has an opening prologue which is a lot of fun. While this film does not hit its target on everything it tries to do, we thought the creators had a pretty good go at it.

I do not honestly understand why so many people think this film is so bad. Maybe seeing it projected on a big screen in a darkened room made a difference, I don't know, but if you have never seen the film before try it with an open mind you may well enjoy it as much as we did.


I've seen this movie several times over the years. It's a real semi classic, great example of 50s sci-fi monster movies. You do get a good look at the actual mole monsters and see quite a bit of them. As good as the mole monsters are, they are only a small part of this film. It's also an adventure movie about exploring for a lost civilization. Most of the plot involves this civilization which also happens to include the Mole People. This is good stuff. The stuff that used to scare and entertain in the 50s. The thing is, if you've seen a decent amount of horror/sci-fi films from the 50s and early 60s and haven't found much that you liked, "The Mole People" is not for you. If you're a fan of 50s B movies, you'll love this one. It's a real must see.


Coming from 1956 is another of Universal-International's science-fiction pleasures. They made about twenty of them in the 1950s, brought on by the enormous successes of "It Came From Outer Space" (1953) and "Creature From the Black Lagoon" (1954). An interesting prologue with a real professor on the Earth's interior cores is followed by a great title sequence accompanied by a superb score. John Agar leads an archaeological expedition in Himalayan mountains to search for an underground lost civilization. Eventually they find them, an albino tribe, who have trained the half-human "Mole People" to be their slaves. Agar falls in love with the lone pigmented character, lovely blonde Cynthia Patrick, who invokes a bit of Kim Novak. Sacrifices, revolt and chaos ensue, with the Mole People actually the sympathetic characters, an unexpected ending, shadowy photography, and solid direction by Virgil Vogel, make this enjoyable.


Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's cheesy bw 50's sci fi. But it's GREAT cheesy bw 50's sci fi! The Mole People would be campy if it weren't so earnest. It takes itself so seriously it even begins with a pseudodocumentary prelude explaining the hollow Earth theory.

Part of the fun is seeing future TV faves Hugh Beaumont (Beaver's dad), and Alan Napier (Alfred the butler) teamed with legendary 50's hack actors John Agar and Nestor Paiva.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 gave Mole People the full treatment and it was one of the funniest MST3K episodes ever. For the full effect I'd suggest you view the straight version first and then try to find the MST3K episode.


The film is quite fun to watch and the Mole People are a little on the wired side but nonetheless they looked good especially for the 50s!If you like the Universal Monsters movies then check this out soon!I think you'll like it!


Although The Mole People isn't the best of Universal's 50's sci fi movies, I rather like it.

A group of Archaeologists discover a strange world while exploring in a part of India. They discover a race of albinos living here and they use a strange life form as slaves, mole men. They are afraid of light and a torch is used as a weapon to scare them away. As the movie progresses, most of the team gets killed and one of the survivors falls in love with a woman who happens to be down there as well, but this proves short lived as she is killed in the earthquake at the end in which the world is destroyed.

The movie stars 50's sci fi regular John Agar (Tarantula, The Brain From Planet Arous) and Hugh Beaumont, Cynthia Patrick and Alan Napier.

This movie is worth checking out.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.


I picked this up at a car-boot sale on VHS for a £1 purely because I remember seeing it advertised in the back of "Famous monsters of film land" in the 1960,s and wondered what it would be like, Well! it,s a lot better than I thought it was going to be.It stands up pretty good when compared to other 50,s shockers like "Tarantula" ."it came from beneath the sea" etc and has some genuine spooky moments .If you like 50,s monster / sci fi films .I recommend you give this one a chance although to my knowledge Universal have not released it on DVD,you may have to check out e bay for a copy or setttle for a VHS version.Well a lost classic in my opinion ,well worth hunting down!


An anthropological expedition in Tibet led by John Agar discovers both an ancient primitive race of pasty, light sensitive, superstitious albinos and the browbeaten, grotesquely unsightly burrowing mutants called the Mole People whom the albinos cruelly exploit as slave labor deep within the bowels of the earth. Competently directed by Virgil Vogel, with a fanciful and intriguing script by Lazslo Gorog, handsome photography by Ellis Carter, admirably sincere acting from a solid cast (Agar is his usual reliably stalwart self while the lovely Cynthia Patrick makes for a charming heroine and Alan Napier has a grand time as an evil high priest), a steady, if less than stirring pace, nifty and impressive special effects (the matte paintings are beautiful), a properly eerie and claustrophobic atmosphere, funky monster make-up by Bud Westmore (the Mole People are truly gnarly-looking subhuman beasts), a rousing last reel revolt by the Mole People against their mean oppressors, and a surprisingly downbeat ending, this baby sizes up as a hugely enjoyable golden oldie fantasy horror picture.


While it may not be as classic as other sci-fi from the 1950's, this fanciful bit of sci-fi schlock does just fine for a nights' viewing.

A group of archaeologists find themselves descending deep into the earth where they discover not only a lost civilization of light-sensitive albinos, but the title creatures, used and abused by their human counterparts.

John Agar, Hugh Beaumont, Alan Napier, Cynthia Patrick, and Nestor Paiva star, and the performances, like the film itself, are fun. The sets are decent, the pacing pretty efficient, and the music enjoyable. The photography is often dark and moody, adding a fair amount of atmosphere. There are even some nicely tense moments. Sure, it may be a little silly, and one may have to be partial to this kind of film to begin with, but I found it to be very engaging stuff.

It begins with a surprisingly lengthy lecture by an apparent scientific expert on the earths' core, which is an interesting way to start. The ending is also not quite what one would expect.

All in all, I found this little picture very amusing and very watchable.

7/10


I saw The Mole People when it first came out. I was just a tyke and I loved 'scary' movies. (Still do. Problem is, movies aren't scary any more.) MP haunted me as a kid and I have always loved those rare times when it was shown on late-night TV. It is very camp but it is still one of my favorites. Now I rather enjoy finding all the scientific and historical inaccuracies in those old movies about giant insects, shrews the size of dogs, and an underground civilization that lives on mushrooms and speaks English. THE BIGGEST ERROR in MP is the statement by Hugh Beaumont that Noah's flood is a proved historical fact. Of course, all the evidence proves exactly the opposite.


The King of Smug John Agar is his usual unbearable self in another horrible serving from the folks at universal international pictures, makers of some of the worst films of all time. Agar's archaeologist is so pompous and all knowing that you long to slap him in the chops over and over again. He leads a team of talented men(o.k., talented compared to him, anyway) on an archaeological dig 'somewhere in Asia'. They find an old stone tablet that tells of a lost Sumerian dynasty, then it gets destroyed when they leave the five thousand year old artifact on a cheap folding table during an earthquake. A competent bunch, to say the least. Then a shepherd boy brings them an oil lamp he found on a mountainside, telling another version of Noah's Ark featuring the same King and dynasty the tablet talked of(convenient, no?)

Thus begins our hero's long toil up the mountainside. Make that a long series of stock footage shots of men climbing a mountainside somewhere, interspersed with lame shots of Agar and company crawling across a floor dusted with fake snow. They find the hand of a mannequin half buried in the snow(or maybe its Bon Ami?) on the mountain, apparently belonging to an ancient Sumerian clothes boutique. They hurry on to find some extraordinary matte paintings of Sumerian ruins on a plateau(although the ziggurat was out of perspective). One of their members falls through some cardboard flooring into a 'deep hole'. He never even made it to the first plot point.

There follows long shots of our fellows climbing endlessly down a rope. (1. Why is this interesting? and 2. why do they care about finding the guy's mangled body down a dangerous, unstable hole? I mean,he's dead. That was pretty obvious considering how long their downward journey is. Are they going to scrape his remains into an envelope and go on?) At the bottom, they're buried alive in a series of caves by an earthquake. But they press on, inspired by the quiet leadership of Agar.

Thus enter the mole people, deformed creatures who look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame with a bad skin problem and beaks. For some reason, these primitive things are dressed in pants and little jackets. Who gave them these clothes, since the Sumerian folk who live underground are wearing skirted tunics and gowns? Kinda puzzling, really. Maybe the mole people had a sweatshop somewhere where they make garments for the Sumerian equivalent of Kathy Lee Gifford?

Agar and friends eventually meet the Sumerian folks, who look like Keebler elves and are whiter than Micheal Jackson. For some reason, these Sumerian people have Egyptian paintings on their walls, and their King wears a Crown Roast hat. They have the spines of tube worms, as they're sent running by the low level light coming from Agar's flashlight. Or maybe they'd just heard about Agar and were running from him personally, you never know.

Alfred the Butler from the old Batman is the head priest of these folks, and he wears a glittering robe, pointed hat with fringe, and a Fu Manchu mustache. So this is how the ancient Sumerian priests dressed,huh? Interesting. He schemes to get the flashlight away from Agar, because he believes it will make him all powerful. Of course, with this lot, it might actually work. They believed Agar when he told them he was a messenger from the Gods, after all. Frankly, I think that he'd be a messenger from a lower place than Heaven, but that's just my thought.

Agar eventually becomes the John Brown of the Mole People, helping them to rebel against the guys in skirts who like to whip them just a LITTLE too much. Agar, Beaumont, and a truly dumb slave girl named Adele escape the carnage by the attacking Mole people by climbing up a hole that leads to the surface. Another earthquake finishes off Adele by dropping a pillar on her(and good riddance, says I-why couldn't it have taken Agar with it, too?) and closes the hole, leaving the Mole People large and in charge. So ends the grand saga of John Agar, archaeologist and truly extraordinary pain in the butt.


This is one shoddy piece of work. Not hateful, because it doesn't actively promote antisocial behavior, and not bad enough to be unintentionally amusing either. It's a straightforward attempt to cobble together a cheap movie, while putting no time or effort into it, and drawing in enough patrons to make a profit.

A handful of archaeologists, led by John Agar, are digging up and decoding plaques with "cuneiform" writing on them, though what we see bears no resemblance to any cuneiform that a Sumerian might have seen. The other scientists look over John Agar's shoulder while he reads a particularly puzzling plaque and rattles off allusions to The Gilgamesh Epic. This prompts them to climb a mountain that looks like K-2 in order to search for more clues. Near the peak, an avalanche almost buries them, but it also exposes a ruined Sumerian city.

So far, so typical of Warner Brothers' 1950s SF/fantasy flicks, and not without interest. But then the ice breaks under the feet of one of the scientists and he plunges into a hole so deep that Agar, peering in behind his flashlight, can't see the bottom.

I ask you -- the experienced mountain climber -- what would you do under these circumstances? A member of your team has fallen into what appears to be a bottomless pit. Here's what THEY do. With no more than a flashlight and a bit of climbing equipment, one by one, they lower themselves "hundreds of feet" into the black pit with no way of getting back up except by hoisting themselves hand over hand. How John Agar expects to do that is left unexplained -- never mind chunky Nestor Paiva.

The handful of middle-aged men find their colleague's dead body. Nobody bothers to mourn or comment on the loss. They don't have much time anyway because, before you know it, they discover a lost civilization of pale Sumerians who live on mushrooms, except for one beautiful babe (Cynthia Patrick, the best actor in the bunch) who looks reasonably human and has something resembling a tan. The Sumerian king assigns her to be Agar's consort. When Agar retires, she goes with him and he must gently fend her off because, after all, he's a man of principle. It turns out that the Sumerians decide all their visitors must die -- BUT -- they are afraid of "the fire of Ishtar," meaning the flashlight.

But why go on? It deteriorates into one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' half-schizophrenic novels. "Tarzan Goes to Mars," or something. Lots of scenes of beastly half-hominids laboring among the lava pits and being whipped by their Sumerian masters. Sumerian soldiers chasing the archaeologists waving swords but being held back by the fire of Ishtar.

I don't know how it ends. I own the DVD and I can't bring myself to finish watching it. I really tried to find it ridiculous enough to raise a smile but I couldn't generate any feeling except a fierce boredom.

It's hard to imagine that this was intended to be seen by anyone over the age of nine or ten.


At long last, I managed to get my hands on Universal's coveted "The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection" 3-Disc Set  and I started off with this film, one of three I hadn't watched before.

Following an embarrassing pre-credits sequence featuring a very dull lecture by an overly-mannered University professor, this turns into a fairly engaging piece of sci-fi in the proved Universal manner (from the "Mummy" and "Creature From The Black Lagoon" series of films). Even so, about half of this early section  involving a group of archaeologists who climb a previously irreproachable mountain after stumbling upon relics belonging to a legendary 'lost' civilization  is, amusingly, comprised of stock footage (some of it, apparently, from the celebrated German Silent 'mountain picture' THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU [1929])!

Unfortunately, the latter stages  when the surviving members of the group (including likable hero John Agar, a regular of Universal sci-fi outings) come face to face with an underground race of albinos and their mutant 'mole' slaves!  which bear strong echoes of another fantasy stalwart, H. Rider Haggard's "She", prove incredibly disappointing; curiously enough, this would also turn out to be the case in such diverse, later sci-fi films as THE TIME MACHINE (1960), BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970) and LOGAN'S RUN (1976). In fact, those sequences here come off as downright inane at times (virtually Grade Z stuff)! At least, Alan Napier gives a committed 'menacing' performance as the chief villain...

The thing is that the plot does have philosophical/existential interest: the species concerned had somehow survived the Biblical flood and, due to a constant lack of sunlight, have degenerated to their current 'form' (with the notion that above them, there's only Heaven  hence, when the 'normal' humans appear, they're mistaken for Gods!). Of course, they still live in the Dark Ages  wearing togas and the like  and regularly sacrifice 'obsolete' members in their midst by frying them to death. However, we're never told how the mutants evolved or, for that matter, just why a normal and inevitably beautiful girl should turn up among them after all this time (and whom they obviously consider a 'freak of nature'!).

The supporting cast includes Nestor Paiva (like Agar and producer William Alland, a BLACK LAGOON alumnus) as the hero's elderly companion, who's panic-stricken in the presence of this alternate universe, and soon ends up a victim of the 'Mole People'  thus exposing the intruders' essential mortality! Though Alexander Golitzen's set design per se is impressive, the low-budget afforded the film is most evident during the very mild destruction of the underground city at the climax; the downbeat coda  in which the heroine is stupidly killed  was perhaps unwarranted, though.

In the end, I wholeheartedly share the generally-held view that this one's "probably the worst of Universal-International's '50s sci-fi movies" (to quote Leonard Maltin).


Surprisingly good B sci-fi. John Agar and Hugh Beaumont star as archaeologists who gets trapped in a world below the Earth's crust. They discover two intelligent species there, a race of Albinos apparently descended from Sumerians and the mole people. The mole people are initially the scarier race, with their ugliness and their big claws, but the superstitious, ultra-religious ways of the albinos prove more threatening in the long run. The script is fairly intelligent, and anticipates Planet of the Apes in many ways. Yes, the B-movie production level is at times risible, and the ending is very odd  read IMDb's trivia section for an explanation (though avoid it if you haven't seen the film, as the one piece of trivia is an enormous spoiler)  but otherwise it's a fine movie. I was racking my brains to understand why it was rated so low  only 4.4  then I figured it out: it was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. That show really is a bane to real movie lovers. So far, this is the only film in Best Buy's sci-fi set that I've really liked besides The Incredible Shrinking Man.


Considering that I love sci-fi and horror films from the 1950s, it is very surprising that I rate this film as low as I do. It just happens that of a string of these type movies had by Universal, this is about the dullest one.

I group of scientists are exploring when they stumble upon a huge crack that leads to underground caverns. When they descend into them, they are captured by the subterranean people. Because they have lived under ground since ancient times and are look much like albinos, as it turns out their civilization was swallowed into the earth along with them.

At first, everything seems just peachy, but later these underground people turn out to be major jerks who keep incredibly ugly creatures as slaves. They beat the poor mole-like things and when the scientist complain, the ancient dudes attack. However, the above ground people assist the mole people to fight back against their evil overlords and they return back to the surface.

Aside from a less than inspiring script with few things to scare you, the acting and direction are pretty dull as well. It is amazing that a film called MOLE PEOPLE could be as static and uninteresting as this one was.


Although this movie boasts a great cast (including Hugh "Ward Cleaver" Beaumont, Alan "Alfred the Butler" Napier, Nestor "Indeterminate Foreign Guy" Paiva, and John Agar, the patron saint of cheesy '50's sci-fi films), it isn't much of a movie. The real standout, and the guy who really makes the movie is Dr. Frank C. Baxter, Professor of English at the University of Southern California. His tedious and pretentious introduction to the film, complete with halting delivery and awkward gestures gives the movie an element of risibilty that raises it marginally above mediocrity.

What was Dr. Baxter even doing there? He was a professor of English, not a scientist, or even a social scientist. His lone qualification, apart from large bald head and round rimmed glasses, seems to have been a stint as narrator of a series of classroom instructional shorts on science. But whatever may have been the rationale for his being there, I'm just glad he was there. As the good Dr. Baxter himself would say, "Down, down, down...."


Marketed as "science fiction," The Mole People is just a fiction. The only "science" element is the hero's claim to being an archeologist - in which case "Raiders of the Lost Ark" would be science fiction also. Really I think The Mole People must be seen as a comedy. Specialists in Babylonian studies profess a vague familiarity with the story of Gilgamesh. They discover a race of unmanly albinos living under a mountain. The albinos don't know about the world above ground. They harness Mole People as slave labor to grow mushrooms and spend their days whipping and flogging them. Apparently they do nothing else. The most sympathetic characters are Cynthia Patrick and the Mole People. The Mole People rebel against their taskmasters; Cynthia Patrick is killed before she can rebel against the will of John Agar.


Film opens witrh some pompous, overblown English "professor" (Frank Baxter) overacting and yapping about what could possibly be in the middle of the Earth. Then we get a story of John Agar and three other idiots discovering (in the middle of the Earth), a civilization of albino Sumarians (no, I'm not kidding) who use the title creatures as their slaves (again, not kidding). I'm giving this crap a 3 because some of the sets are impressive, but everything else rots. The story is, to say the least, ridiculous; the dialogue weak and the mole people look laughable (and nothing like moles). As for the acting: Hugh Beaumont (why Hugh?) is pretty good as is Cynthia Patrick as the obligatory love interest (for an albino, she looks like she's getting some sun). Agar is just horrible (but who could blame him?). He can be good, but not here. This is a truly stupid, dull movie--one of the worst sci-fi movies of the 50s. However, if you have insomnia, this'll cure it!


Even without mystery science theater this one would still be full of laughs. It starts with a professor of some sort explaining all this theories of what is in the center of the earth, and boy are they not even close to the truth. Then you meet the troops as John Agar and the Beaver's dad and the rest of the team are doing research on artifacts. They find something that prompts them to climb the mountain and then one of the men falls down a hole so you get to watch men climbing down a hole for a good ten minutes. Then they get trapped and stumble upon an ancient civilization underground ruled by white elves in dumb costumes. Of course the logic in this movie is a bit suspect as the men probably didn't go down more than a hundred feet and they were on a mountain so I doubt the place could have been as big as made out to be. The mole people look especially stupid, but at least there clothes look more normal than the elves. And the one seen where the elf people are whipping the mole men does sort of make you wanna sing that old Devo song. And watch for the old man who does nothing, but slow Agar and the Beaver's dad down with his constant whinning.


This is a classic "bad film" that seems made to be butchered up by Mystery Science 2000/3000 - and only by that process be made watchable. The special effects consist of men in rubber suits, and the plot is just comic book material. Its inconceivable to me that anyone would actually like this movie for its own merit, but it is the kind of movie that becomes funny just by the fact that it was made. The fact that the movie was featured the cover of "The Great Book of Movie Monsters" (Jan Stacy and Ryder Syvertsen) shows the movies only merit: its limited role in the 1950's cheesecake style horror flick. The trouble is that this movie is so cheap that it would even disappoint 10-year old kids of the 1950's. My rating" 2


But it made quite an impression on me when I first saw it in the theater back in the mid-50s. For years I remembered the name of the mountain under which the albino Sumerians lived--Kuh-i Tarra. The "scientific" introduction is a hoot.


Dr. Roger Bentley and Dr. Jud Bellamin lead an archaeological dig in Asia where they search for the remains of Sumerian dynasty, where they make their way up a mountain pass and find the ruins of a temple, but another member of their crew (Dr. Stuart) falls through a pit down to a cavern. The other members of the expedition make their way down (Lafarge and a guide, who like Dr. Stuart, dies after falling down). The remaining three make their way through caves until they find an open area where they are promptly abducted by a strange race of Mole People. The three manage to escape, but are captured by the leaders of the underground city, a race of albinos who use the Mole People as slaves. Elinu, high priest of the albinos, and the rest of the people revere the two doctors as Gods, since their flashlight becomes a sacred instrument to the light-shunning albinos. Adel, a blonde girl of fair skin is given to the doctors as a gift to the Gods, but Elinu believes them to be mortals and wants to have the doctors sacrificed before their influence reaches the albino people and the Mole People revolt. In terms of the Universal monster series, this is a very disappointing effort since they film is not as fun as interesting as previous monster films. The script has various absurd moments and creates little suspense or anticipation. Agar and Beaumont are pretty wooden characters that no actor could have saved. Patrick is beautiful, but her character just seems to a stereotypical "what is the outside world like" person. Napier is hardly intimidating, and the title characters look ridiculous. The sound recording must have been done by amateurs, but the score fits the scenes well. The film does have some fun elements, but they are few and far between and the ending was really a disappointment. Rating, 4.


One expects more from Universal movie monsters than one gets here. This film disappoints on many levels. While the Beasts of the Dark do make for some cool critters, the reasons for their actions at the end are not altogether made fully clear. Plus the ending after the expected ending is such a terrible letdown that it will leave a bad taste in most viewers mouths. Also the film has a terrible slow and dull pace. Even John Agar couldn't save this one and I so wanted to like it.


Yes, he is indeed!

*SPOILERS*

Pompous Agar and Ward and The Load go down in a hole and get trapped when a guy gets hit in the head by falling rock. They find themselves in front of a cavern that isn't natural, or, as Tom puts it, "a perverted UNNATURAL cavern!" They go down it and a mole hand pokes out of the wall, which, of course, they don't see, because the Load has the vapors. They have to practically carry the fat guy all the way down to a big 'ol painted backdrop where they take up residence right where one of the moles pops up to say HEY HO. Well, after a good shot of Venus the Nothingo, moles come and put sacks over their heads, dragging them into the ground and putting them in a room where they will be nicely kept docile. Well, here's three lines from the greatest MST3K episode to ever hit TV that explains the next scene.

Crow: TERROR ELVES!!!!

Tom: Oh, you never would believe where those Keebler cookies come from!

Mike: Santa will see you now.

Yes, the terror elves come down with their little wooden swords and Peter Pan outfits and take the three away to their king, Lieutenant Crown-Roast and his priest, Alfred the Butler, who wears a snood. They decide to kill them, and the three don't take partial to this idea. Well, John the Pompous A** shines a flashlight on 'em and melts some elves, because they run away from 'light that is slightly brighter than what [they're] used to, NO!!!' Uh-huh, they do. And so that begins the fact that they now think that the three are gods and John the Pompous A** loves to cultivate this image. Anyway, yadda yadda yadda, there is some stuff in between all that, but it really doesn't matter, does it? Just remember that John knows everything. He does, he can explain things just like he's known it forever. Interesting, no?

I gave it three stars, partially because it is the genre of B movies, and it deserves it. And, I give it **********/***** for the MST3K version. This has got to be their finest. It has hilarious lines, especially about the entire Load section, and, well, to sum it up, it is a da** fine thing to laugh at. You gotta see it!!! Watch it with Mike and the Bots, but only with them.


The Mole People features John Agar endlessly talking about things that he seems to think he knows about. While on a dig in the far east, Agar and Mr. Cleaver discover a reference to a lost city. Together, with a rather heavy set man called LaFarge, meaning Load, they set off and discover a race of albinos living under the mountain. These albinos are ruled by a king who looks like a hood ornament and Alfred the Butler of TV's Batman fame. Agar meets a marked one, and the two of them sort of fall in love. She plays the lute and he waxes philosophical. In the end, they insight an uprising by the mole people, bringing down this ancient, but really dumb, civilization. Agar's love interest is killed when she decides to run under a large stone pillar that is falling. Thankfully, the end.


"Hate Thy Neighbour" combines the classic Spaghetti revenge scenario, with the regular Spaghetti "map" tale. The story centres around Ken Dakota's search for the murderer of his brother, who was killed by bandit Gary Stevens, at the behest of Mexican land owner Chris Malone, for a goldmine map. Stevens tears the map in two, and gives Malone half, spiralling into a running feud of double crosses between the two, whilst Dakota attempts to bring the men responsible for his brothers death to justice.

This is a really enjoyable Spaghetti Western, albeit with the odd moment of corny dialogue. It includes some really exciting moments, such as peasants and bandits duelling with metal claws for Malone's pleasure, torture by hanging over a pit of snakes, and some very talented bandito musicianship! My experiences to date have highlighted that Director Baldi can come up with some great movies (Blindman, Viva Django) and some absolute turkeys (Get Mean and, so I've heard, Rita of the West). Hate Thy Neighbour doesn't hit the highs of Blindman by any means, but is certainly an enjoyable view, with George Eastman (as Stevens) and Horst Frank (Malone) putting in good roles, and the plot having some quality twists and turns.

Not the easiest of movies to get your hands on, but certainly worth the effort if you are a fan of the Spaghetti genre.


Along with the town undertaker, a Man follows his brother's killer (George Eastman) to Mexico, where sinister (and I mean sinister!) gringo Horst Frank forces his Mexican slaves to fight to the death using steel claws. Frank then sets his sights on Eastman's secret goldmine, holding him captive and torturing him until the justice seeking brother comes to take him away.

A fairly standard revenge plot is helped along nicely by some interesting ideas, unusual developments, and some fairly graphic violence, keeping things exciting and entertaining throughout.

Due to the crackpot nature of some of the film's plot elements, this seems more like a drive-in movie than a spaghetti western.

Horst Frank is a lot of fun to watch as the deranged, yet urbane bad guy, while George Eastman is good and nasty too. However, the hero is too bland and cardboard. You don't really feel anything about him, one way or another.


Ken Dakota seeks revenge for the killing of his brother Bill and wife. In his search for the murderers he runs into conflict with the evil Mexican land owner Chris Malone (Horst Frank) who lets peasants fight against each other for pure pleasure. The plot isn't straight and simple and more often than not it is difficult to find any serious reason for what is going on. E.g. why putting Eastman over a snake pit. If he dies everything is lost and he won't talk anyways. Well, there is the reason of maintaining a constant flow of carcasses. Despite the rather violent and dark plot with various scenes of torture the film is beautifully shot in a nice landscape with lakes and waterfalls in front of a blue sky. Often the violence is accompanied by nice music and even the villains prove to be skilled musicians. This generates a strange contrast. George Eastman acts with pleasure and Horst Frank plays a credible villain. Nicoletta Machiavelli has definitely some problems with her role.

The film is pretty long for a Spaghetti Western and able to entertain as long as the viewer doesn't care about the plot. It seems to be filmed in 4:3 format.


I saw this movie back in Hungary, when I myself was also in high school, and absolutely loved it. Today I had a chance to see it again, and was a little worried that being 20 years older, and having seen so many more movies since then, I may end up being disappointed. But fortunately it didn't happen! I still found the jokes, the kids and the faculty hilariously funny. The movie successfully transpired that distinct CUTE goofiness we liked so much in other French movies (most notably in those of Louis de Funes), but is completely missing from otherwise brilliant flicks like American Pie. I wish I could find this movie in English, at least with subtitles; I'm sure the American education system could relate to it real good...

Ps.: Our hard-working people will be victorious! ;-)


I spent 3 weeks in France on a foreign exchange/home-stay program and happened to see this film. I was only a second-year french student, but despite the language barrier, I laughed.. SO HARD.. at that movie. I'm sure my host family thought I had lost it. This is one of those movies you wipe the tears from your eyes after laughing so hard about. I'd give my right arm for a DVD of it. It brings to mind a sort of Inspector Cleauseau funniness. These kids are horrible pranksters, and the things they came up with don't quite hit you until the prank is pulled off. All in all, its just a fantastic movie. I wonder if I'll ever see it again...


An absolute must-see for those into teenage comedies. I really wish this one was distributed worldwide as it is somewhat reminiscing of Animal House and The Breakfast Club, but just much, much funnier.

The plot: The story of a bunch of students in a tiny private school. Always up to no good, they end up blowing up part of the school. As a result, they can be sent to jail or... pass their baccalaureate. Since they are absolute losers, they'll come up with the zaniest tricks and devices to cheat during both the written and oral exams (both supervised by the police !). This film is a riot from beginning to end, and after that, you will never forget the "Learning Machine" or Mr. Bruce, the sports teacher.


Back in the years of high school, a perfect age for this film, cinema for me mend summer time, sky roof theaters, uncomfortable canvas seats, mosquito repellants and a wish that it wouldn't rain.

And one day, I was old enough to take the bus for an one hour travel to the big city where the real cinema theaters were. Together with by best friend, I had my first experience of the short going to see Spiderman. At that age it actually looked good. But the second time we dared to make use of our teenage freedom, we went to this film. The theater was foul. The audience was delighted. We were laughing all the way to the end of the function and some even applauded when it was over.

I never forgot this experience. All the movies that followed had to be compared with this one.

Back in the '80s, in Greece, this film became a legend. French comedies were predominant in those days and we knew French comedians better than their American colleagues. A whole fashion of school movies was provoked by the success of this idea and several bad taste local versions were produced.

Today, apart from me and my friend, probably no one else remembers the comedy that thrilled the country. Personally I still wish for more.


Like any other in pop culture, Japan seems always to be very adaptable anything that is "cool", with knowing of meaning of it isn't important. The celebration of Christmas Day is long gone.

Yes, I do remember this movie, of course. This was a huge hit in Japan when I was growing up... Japanese titled "The Cunning: IQ=0". I was in my first or second grade, all the kids learned the tricks of cheating exams, well, not during the real exams, but to act like those kids in the movie. That was a real fun to do.

And if I was right, there was a sequence of this film. Either way, I wish this movie was more well-distributed than it was, to this day, it remains as a "cult" film.

We enjoyed it a lot in Japan back then, it is so cool movie, we even did not know (or bother to know) this is from France.


I saw this movie a couple of days ago on cable TV. Even though it's quite old, it remains funny all the same.

It's about a group of teenagers who are just too dumb to pass their imminent exams for their baccalaureate, and the tremendous effort by their teachers to make them learn the lesson by the deadline (They even use a "Learning Machine", which beats up every student for their wrong answers).

After a misunderstanding involving a bomb, they are forced to take their exams supervised by the police, so they manage to cheat using some really weird tricks, like elastic coats that, when stretched, reveal the answers. The best thing about this movie is that it's amusing from beginning to end, never taking itself seriously. For instance, when an officer finds the bomb, as soon as he shouts "I've found it!" it explodes, leaving his smoldering (and still standing!) skeleton among the ruins of the school building.


An horror road movie with an interesting twist, this flick about a part of Route 666 infested by ghosts is better than one may think before of seeing it. Good cast, several surprising twists. For a double features b-movie evening with popcorn and cola.


Lou Diamond Phillips plays Jack La Roca, a U.S. Marshall and former Navy SEAL assigned to pick up "Rabbit" (Steven Williams), who is in the federal witness protection program but has been on the run. La Roca is to take Rabbit from Arizona to California to testify in court, but along the way they run into a variety of obstacles, mostly horrific, the most serious of which are the result of La Roca's decision to take a shortcut on Route 666.

Lou Diamond Phillips is a B and C-movie king. Route 666 nicely fits in with his oeuvre. The film is much better than it should be, perhaps, given the relatively small budget and a number of questionable decisions on technical aspects (life reflecting art, as the film hinges on a questionable decision). But although goofy at times, Route 666 is a fun-to-watch action/horror film. It actually ended up as a 7 out of 10 for me.

A number of things quickly drew me in, even though they do not directly have an impact on the quality of Route 666. The first two were the presence of Williams and character actor Dick Miller. I'm a big fan of Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (1993). Williams plays Creighton Duke, one of the main characters, in that film. Miller is a genre veteran with over 100 titles to his name, and well loved by many genre fans, including me. The third immediate attraction for me is that Route 666 is set in a Joshua Tree-filled desert. I love deserts, and I especially love Joshua Trees. Director William Wesley actually acquired permission to shoot in Joshua Tree National Park, one of my favorites. This was the first film in about 10 years allowed to do so.

Wesley quickly builds an effective, sarcastic and usually witty rapport between La Roca, his partner Steph (Lori Petty) and Rabbit, although Petty can be a bit over-the-top at times. But Williams is particularly funny. There are other standout performances here, as well, especially L.Q. Jones as the Sheriff.

At the beginning, Route 666 seems like it will be an actioner. Although these aren't the most exciting shoot-out scenes ever filmed, they have a nice feel to them, partially due to the setting and lighting, and there is a pleasantly unusual tangent when Phillips has a bizarre "flashback" as he looks at a victim's blood spreading on the dirt.

There is an eerie atmosphere to the whole film, and especially when the horror material starts, it is very refreshing that Wesley chose to keep the proceedings in broad daylight. It also helps that there are two sets of villains, with the second, and possibly the most effective, not being very obvious until late in the film. The more traditional horror villains are very satisfying, with an interesting, unusual yet immediately recognizable look, and they are worked into the backstory of the characters extremely well. Their methods of dispatching victims are creative, although I wish Wesley would have gone into a gorier mode with the deaths. But one death, at least, near the end of the film, is particularly brutal in its abruptness. Even though this isn't Wesley's masterpiece, he shows that he has one in him.

Sure the film has flaws--Phillips plays much of the film with what looks like a large wad of raspberry gum stuck to his forehead, the shaky cam and other effects didn't work very well for me during the horror attack scenes, the score sounded fairly generic and repetitive (it reminded me of playing a video game), and there are some plot points that don't make a lot of sense if you think about them too much. But most horror fans probably will not expect a masterpiece when watching Route 666. With appropriately lowered expectations, you'll likely be pleasantly surprised at just how good this film is.


This movie is extremely underrated and deserves at least a 5.5/10 Steven Williams and Lou Diamond Phillips are the real stars of this film. The violence was short and the deaths were cheesy, but worthy.

This film is about a group of agents who try to bring a witness to testify against a mob boss. But, when they take a shortcut called Route 666, they encounter killers and four zombies.

I recommend this to anybody who likes a decent zombie film.

MPAA: Rated R for strong violence and language

MY MPAA RATING: Rated R for strong horror violence/gore, brief sexuality, and strong language

****out of*****


This movie isn't bad. In fact, I thought it was pretty good.

The plot revolves around Federal Marshall Jack La Roca (Lou Diamond Phillips) who is after a fugitive on the run named "Rabbit" (Steven Williams) who just happens to have made a stop on Route 66.

Now they must transport Rabbit from Arizona to California in the next ten hours. But, they decide to take a shortcut through Route 666.

I don't know about you but if I saw a route with the number 666, I would avoid it. I am not a superstitious man but I would just avoid a road like that.

Anyways, back to the story. They decide to take the route and they are stalked by four ghouls. All four of them were the most psychotic prisoners of the 1960s who used to work digging ditches and died.

The four ghouls each have a weapon they use to kill people. One has a sledgehammer, the second has a pick ax, the third is equipped with a large chain, and the fourth is equipped with a jackhammer.

*Spoiler Alert*

While one of the ghouls yanks the person off their feet with the chain, the second and third then proceed to stab and smash with their sledgehammer and pick ax. When it's time to go for the kill, the fourth person kills by drilling the person to death with his jackhammer.

*End Spoiler*

Later in the film, you find out one of the killers was Jack La Roca's father. Who, coincidentally, has the same name as his son.

The story is pretty good. I liked the twist at the end. There is a little gore but that is fine. Lou Diamond Phillips is great in films like this.

If you are a Lou Diamond Phillips fan, I would recommend you pick this up.

I give this movie 7 stars out of 10. Not as bad as people make it out to be!


My second time catching this and loving it even more. Not in the ways one is suppose to I'm sure. The film is a B-Movie to the core, with cheesy acting, special effects and the whole lot.

Lou Diamond Phillips, or as the cool kids call him, LDP, has to find and escort a witness back to court. The only problem is the witness is hiding out in the middle of the desert. The film opens with LDP finding him and the Russian gangsters he is testifying against tracking him down to kill him. A shootout occurs, one that is so horribly done that it feels like a low grade action film from the 80's.

On their way to bring the witness back, LDP begins having these bizarre visions of a graveyard and prison workers dying. Is there a connection? Well, out of nowhere he claims his father is buried out here. Coincidence? I think not, some clever writers came up with some genius ideas in this script.

At some point in the film, it becomes some sort of horror flick. With these zombies coming back from the dead to kill those who are on route 666. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention they take an abandoned road to get to their destination quicker. Isn't that always the case? These zombies get their 'power' from the road. That is a quote from the film. They are attracted from blood spilled.

The acting is well done from LDP and Steven Williams, the witness. The rest are pretty bad. The effects, are cheesy. The film has some kind of weird choppy slow motion style when the zombies appear. The make-up on them is low rent. They look like gravel...like the road. Find any of this funny yet? I sure did.

The film is one of those, so bad it's good. I find it hilariously good. If you can't find the humour in bad cheesy horror films, then this will not be for you. The climax involves LDP connecting to his dead father and giving him his blood to save everyone. Weird? Sure is. The dead zombie father becomes good and saves his son. This film even falls under the good old 'drinking game' category. Give it a whirl if you find bad horror films hilarious.


Syfy has done it again! Combing intense horror scenes and gripping plot that will keep you on the edge of your seat!

I am almost certain that the Matrix was based entirely off of this movie. You have Jack La Roca the chosen savior to bring peace to the zombies and the humans (ring a bell Neo?). His sexy partner Steph who Trintiy is obviously based on, and the fat Hawaiian seems to the original Oracle.

Not only do you have these great characters you also get the one and only Martin Lawrence with his best performance since Remember the Titans. His one-liners are classic and will have you laughing uncontrollably and there is nothing like handcuffing a black guy over and over.

Also the electric guitar riffs and the cameraman with Michael J Fox syndrome completely fit the mood of the gripping zombie sequences.

Only one minor question goes unanswered throughout this movie.... Why don't they just stay off the road?


In 1988 former cameraman, theater director and Army documentary filmmaker William Wesley made the superbly eerie and grisly living dead horror zinger variant "Scarecrows." Some thirteen years later Wesley finally resurfaced with this snazzy direct-to-video terror shocker which centers on a dry, dusty, desolate patch of remote desert backroads haunted by the lethal, murderous, unrestful eyeless, zombie-like, asphalt-encrusted, crumple-faced spirits of four extremely vicious and dangerous chaingang convicts who were all killed in a brutal roadside massacre back in 1967. Rugged Federal marshal Lou Diamond Phillips, feisty lady cop Lori Petty, antsy mob informant Steven Williams (the tough, determined bounty hunter out to bag Jason Vorhees in "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday"), and several expendable fuzz who include Dale Midkiff (the dumbbell doctor dad in "Pet Semetery") and Alex McArthur (the chillingly emotionless serial killer in William Friedkin's "Rampage") encounter the fiendish undead felons when they make the unsound decision to use the titular condemned, closed-off highway as a shortcut. Meanwhile, a mob assassin pursues our beleaguered bickering bunch.

Ingeniously blending a tried'n'true fright film premise with elements lifted from your basic chase action yarn and rough, gritty, noir-leaning crime thrillers, "Route 666" provides loads of crisp, pacy, straight-up grue-slinging creeped-out monstermash fun. Wesley directs in the same taut, spare, stripped-down no-nonsense manner which distinguished "Scarecrows." Philip Lee's sharp, panoramic cinematography vividly evokes a quietly unnerving wide-open feeling of total isolation and vulnerability. Terry Plumieri's countryish shuddery score likewise hits the spooky spot. The cast all turn in sturdy performances: Philips is less stolid and more agreeable than usual, Petty has spunky charm to spare, and Williams delightfully supplies the hilariously whiny, craven and conniving comic relief. Better still, we've got nice cameos by venerable character actors L.Q. Jones as a folksy sheriff and Dick Miller as a gruff, gravel-voiced bartender. In short, "Route 666" is just the place to find plenty of good, gory, neatly streamlined and to the point horror pic kicks.


This movie when i saw it kept me into it the whole way through. This movie had everything a true horror movie should a good story line, and great gore scenes. the ghosts in this movie were done up well and the way Lou diamond Phillips played his role as the ghosts son worked well throughout the movie. To anyone who hasn't seen this movie I would suggest watching it if you can find it. I give this movie a 8 out of 10


First saw this made for TV film back in the 1970s when I was about the same age as the little girl in the movie.I wasn't able to understand it properly at the time,but the ghost theme captured my imagination.I found it very appealing and intriguing when I saw it again much later on as an adult.


I just was channel surfing and ran across "Daugher of the Mind", which have not seen since I was a young child (I am now almost the big 50), however, much to my dismay the movie was 3/4 over and I only got to see the last 1/2 hour. But this was enough to bring back memories of seeing it as a young girl and how haunting the movie was to me.

In now seeing the credits and getting the name of Pamelyn Ferdin I was able to go online (something I was not able to do 36 years ago) and find her web-site with all of this wonderful biography information.

I had no idea how many movies and TV shows she had done and I am sure that I must have seen many of them in order to have such fond and vivid memories of her.

To Pamelyn, "thanks for the memories" and hopefully this movie will be on again so I can see it from the beginning or better yet, obtain a copy for my collection. Also, I am glad to see that you are not a "casualty of child stars" and that you proved you can be a child star and a successful adult person.

Maybe "TVLand" can do a "Where are they now" special on Pamelyn.


I remember this movie as a young child.Pamela Ferdin and Ray Miland were great in it.It was actually kind of creepy and depressing about a young girl who had died.It actually upset me as a little kid that the characters daughter died so young.I never knew kids could die and this freaked me out as a kid.In some ways I guess it made me realize that anyone can die young and old,but the ending was hopeful and made me feel a bit less freaked out.The musical score was very well done and the acting was good also.TV movies in the late 60's and 70's,80's were SO much better than they are today.They actually had a STORY and Characters that were more realistic and original.Today,writers have no talent as they need to RE DO like every movie in a remake.Sad.I like the Originals.Wow,now that I think about it,I must have seen this in the 70's as I am still in my late 30's and this was made in 1969,the year I was born.I probably saw it at age 11 or 12 sometime in the mid to late 70's on a rerun.It really scared me.


**SPOILERS** devastated by the loss of his ten-year-old daughter Mary, Pamelyn Ferdin, in a car accident that he holds himself responsible for well known cybernetics professor Samuel Constable, Ray Milland, has been visiting her grave almost every day. This was starting to worry his invalid wife Lenore, Gene Tireny, in feeling that he's going insane. It's some three months after the accident that Prof. Constable starts to believe that there may well be something very psychologically wrong with him when one evening driving home he runs into, and almost runs over, a live Mary Constable walking along a lonely road.

Being a man of science Prof. Constable doesn't believe in anything like ghosts or the supernatural but after seeing and talking to Mary he starts to believe in it. At the insistence of a friend Dr. Frank Furgerson, George Macready, Prof. Constable goes to see a man who could help him solve this dilemma Dr. Alex Lauder, Don Murray. Dr. Lauder is one of the worlds biggest expert in the field of parapsychology. Dr. Lauder is so impressed by what Prof. Constable tells him and what he sees and hears himself, in Mary's sudden appearance at the Constable home. That makes Dr. Lauder almost a true believer, like Prof. Constable, in the supernatural. This leaves the door open for Dr. Lauder to investigate if all these ghostly events are real or somehow manipulated by people behind the scenes.

Not what you would expect at first "Daughter of the Mind" is a lot more then a ghost story it also has a lot to do with the defense of the United States that Prof. Constable is very much involved in his top secret work for the Pentagon. Mary in her appearances keeps telling her father, Prof. Constable, about all the bad he's doing in helping develop weapons of war for the US military. It's for that reason that she's somehow trapped in an in-between or astral world and will never find peace. That's until her father stops doing anymore research for the US government.

Prof. Constable's weird behavior also attracts the US governments intelligent agencies in the person of CIC agent Saul Wiener, Edward Asner, who's having him and now Dr. Lauder followed day and night. The CIC and Agent Wiener feels that Prof. Constable is being duped into defecting to the Soviet Union by these "visions" that he's been having about his dead daughter Mary.

Very well made-for-TV movie that's as good as any film that was released in the theaters back in 1969. with an intelligent script and believable ending, an ending far too believable for a movie about the world of the supernatural and dark sciences. The supernatural is handled in a very unusual and honest way in the film by at first not trying to disprove it and then trying to make those who believe in look like gullible and mindless fanatics. At the same time not hit the audience over the head with it, the supernatural. By making it look like anyone who doesn't believe that such a world, beyond the proof of modern science, exist is a slave to what he, or she, was thought in school. As well totally lacking in any kind of constructive and abstract imagination of the unseen and unknown world, or worlds, around us. Which over the years brought into being some of the greatest achievements and advancements in the world of science and medicine.


That is what everyone seems to say that I know. We even brought it up at my 30th class reunion! I remember watching it (10 yrs old) and being petrified! But it's all relative. What was scary back then might be cheesy now. But I sure would love to see it again! I found a site called movielead.com that claims to have it but you have to write a request and leave your email, and someone will get back to you. Anyone ever hear of that site and if they are legit? Thank you to all who critiqued it and gave it high ratings. I think the Baby Boomer crowd appreciates this kind of stuff far more than the younger ones. Made for TV movies are sometimes the best, but the hardest to get a copy of!


This is very well-conceived and well-acted. But, just when you think you are watching an unsung classic, just when you are scratching your head to come up with a resolution, you realize that the film makers do not have one and instead leave us with the ultimate cop-out ending. Too bad.


Just like Norm McDonald's last comedy, don't expect anything complex or high-brow. But expect tons of laughs! I was laughing from beginning to end! And Norm is assisted by Dave Chapelle, another one who's talented at his craft. There's no artistic merit to thoroughly discuss. All I have to say is it was funny, and I don't want to give away why it was funny. Just go see it! You won't get "screwed" like some smart-alecky people claim.


Screwed does not take itself seriously, and as a result is able to work around a script that, while witty and clever, is not exceedingly original. Norm MacDonald, plays the standard role, Dave Chappelle compliments him well, and Danny Devito plays his character as if he is the star of the show, and in many ways he is.