I know that horror films have a big suspension of disbelief and major plot holes are the norm, but this film takes the cake. Basically the plot centers around the fact that a college student has a mental block about the killings of her family members and the fact that the sorority house where she is now living is the place where the killings took place (nevermind the fact that a sorority would buy a murder house to begin with, thats far fetched enough).

Amnesia is one thing but its plain ridiculous that one cant remember something that life changing even when they were 5 years old. Besides my main gripe with the horrible plot, the kill scenes looked extremely cheap and fake (knife goes in chest, a little blood, if any comes out, no closeups either). If you are looking to see this in a quest to see all the college genre films out there, go for it, but if you are looking for a good horror or slasher film, just stay away.


Sorority House Massacre just has to be the most hysterical slasher movie of the mid to late 80's even though it was never intended to be this way! I watched this with some friends and we cried our eyes out laughing. It failed to be scary on every level, in fact the only scary thing about this movie was the girls hairstyles and the conversations about their clothes, boys and food that was supposed to carry the film along. If a guy had made this movie he would have been shot by feminists for stereotyping teenage girls. As it stands, the woman who directed this and the producers who handed over the money for such tripe should be executed for squandering!! Still, I'd watch this movie again and again, it's as good as any horror spoof even though we're not supposed to snigger when one of the girls gets butchered and her stud boyfriend runs into the house naked except for some sneakers and cheesy white socks, sprouting, in a deep jock voice with twitching eyebrows "Some guy just killed Tracy"...Classic!!!!


Sorority House Massacre starts as Beth (Angela O'Neill) arrives at her friends sorority house to stop over for the weekend to see whether she will join the house, herself, Linda (Wendy Martel), Sara (Pamela Ross) & Tracy (Nicole Rio) all intend to have heaps of fun over the forthcoming weekend. However things take a turn for the worse almost immediately when Beth starts to suffer from graphic & terrifying dreams & hallucinations. Meanwhile in a nearby mental asylum convicted mass murderer Robert (John C. Russell) manages to escape thanks to some (very) slack security procedures, unknown to the girls Robert brutally murdered his entire family in they're sorority house except his sister who hid from him. Can you guess who his sister is? Can you guess what Robert intends to do & what happens during the remainder of Sorority House Massacre? Of course you can, it's hardly rocket science is it?

Written & directed by Carol Frank Sorority House Massacre is one of the lamest, poorest & rubbish 80's slashers money can buy & only really succeeds in confirming that a woman can make a horror film every bit as bad as a bloke. Where to start? Basically this is one massive dull, unoriginal, routine, bland, forgettable, boring & just plain bad waste of celluloid, it's as simple & straight forward as that folks. On a personal level there is nothing that I enjoyed about Sorority House Massacre, it's full of clichés, annoying teenage character's, lame death scenes, bad dialogue, situations & happenings that make no sense plus it's extremely slow & boring. It takes itself far too seriously like the filmmakers thought they were making something profound & meaningful, hey guys you weren't. There's a whole sub plot thing about being psychically linked which was as interesting & plausible as it sounds, basically not very. Sorority House Massacre is the sort of slasher film to give slasher films a bad name as if the slasher sub genre didn't have enough of one already, I can't remember enjoying any single aspect of this film. At all.

Director Frank doesn't do much to liven the film up, it doesn't have much in the way of style or visual quality & it's very, very dark. The entire film is set in one house & I just have to ask how many times can you have your character's run up & down the stairs before it begins to get tiresome? There are so many things that I didn't like about this film I could go on all day long but I think you get the idea, I don't like Sorority House Massacre at all. Forget about much gore, every person who is killed in this film is dispatched the same way. Everyone is stabbed, there's no variety to the murders & there's a distinct lack of exploitation & blood. There's a bit of nudity but if that's what you want go hire some porn out.

Technically Sorority House Massacre actually isn't too bad & could even be described as being quite well made, it's just a shame the film overall sucks so bad. The acting was neither here nor there, average at best.

Sorority House Massacer is yet another cheap low budget piece of crap from executive producer Roger Corman's New Concorde Pictures, I sat there openly willing it to finish I was that bored. Total crap & I just about hated every lame boring minute of it, there are loads more much better slasher films out there for anyone to be bothering with such a crap film such as Sorority House Massacre. One to avoid. I'm not sure why but a sequel Sorority House Massacre II (1990) turned up a few years later, I've seen it & yes it's an improvement but not by much.


SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE just doesn't live up to its sensational title. Films like SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE and this one have pretty much turned the word "massacre" into a joke. Except for the two first Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE films, if there's a movie with the word "massacre" in its title, it's gonna suck. And this one is no exception.

Bland setting, stupid story, bad acting from plain actors, and tons of continuity errors make SHM barely watchable. The idea of student returning to the same house where her family was killed when she was young (with the student having a psychic bond with the killer) is simply too stupid for words, so I'll leave it at that.

What's remarkable is the fact that they actually made a couple of sequels. I just can't believe it. And I won't be watching them. There's nothing remotely interesting about SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE.


And I don't mean that in a good way. 100 % Dullsville all the way through. The film doesn't contain anything worthy of my interest. Even the chicks aren't good-looking! So when they get naked, it's like, "Who cares?" Plus, I assumed since the film is titled "Sorority House Massacre," it would be about a bunch of GIRLS being stalked by a psychotic killer, and not a bunch of girls AND THEIR BOYFRIENDS! That totally destroys all the homo-erotic undertones. There's no moments of humor. The acting is mediocre, which is worse than bad in the case of a film like this, because I can't be impressed by the acting, nor can I laugh at it. There's a nifty scene involving the girls trying to escape from the bedroom window with a ladder, and the killer is waiting on the other end. Not exactly a Hitchcock moment, but it was pretty exciting and that's the only reason I'm giving the movie a score of "2." This is definitely not the trashiest B-slasher ever made, but it's definitely one of the most boring! And in a genre like this, being trashy is not a sin. Being boring--major sin!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE AVOID THIS MOVIE AT ALL COSTS!!!!

My score: 2 (out of 10)


Not to be confused with the earlier and slightly better The Slumber Party Massacre, with which it shares several similarities (a house full of teenage girls, a psycho killer, a virginal heroine, the word 'Massacre' in its title), Sorority House Massacre is yet another routine 80s stalk 'n' slash thriller, with a little Nightmare on Elm Street dream nonsense thrown in to try and spice things up a little.

It doesn't work!.

When the most horrific thing in a scary movie is the awful fashion sense of its characters, then you know you've picked a real turkey; admittedly, the extra large shoulder pads, baggy checked trousers with extremely high waist, and nasty perms are all fairly amusing, but they do not make up for this film's inability to scare, its lack of gore, or the complete absence of a decent plot.

The derivative story sees Angela O'Neill as Beth, the new member of a sorority house where it is rumoured that a lunatic once murdered his entire family. This being a cheesy 80s slasher flick, those rumours eventually prove to be truewell... almost: Beth turns out to be the only survivor of the massacre, now all grown up and lacking any memory of her childhood trauma. Worse still, her brotherthe killernow seems to have a psychic connection with Beth, knows that his lil' sis is back 'home', and wants to finish the job he started 14 years ago. Escaping from his asylum with ease, he makes a quick stop at a store to pick up a hunting knife, and then hot foots it to the sorority house, where he begins to hack up the girls (and their boyfriends, who, this being a cheesy 80s slasher flick, drop by to party).

Taking an absolute age to get going, with far too much time spent on mundane chit-chat between the girls, and on Beth's dreary nightmares (caused by her psychic 'link' with her brother), this film has a real problem with its pacing. A little welcome nudity helps a tad to keep viewers from nodding off completely (although none of the girls could really be classed as total babes, they do have nice jugs), but it's left way too late before big bro' finally gets into full-on killing mode. The deaths, when they do arrive, are uninspired, consisting of one tedious, unconvincing stabbing after another, leaving one longing for something a little more creative (is it too much to ask for our killer to make an effort?).

By 1986, absolutely tons of slasher movies had already been and gone; this one added nothing new to the genre, whilst making a complete hash out of the stale elements it borrowed from its predecessors.


Another one of the span of sorority killings during the 80's. many have come but most fall short in quality. This falls very short in quality. It's just another slice and dice teenage movies made for thrills. Once the movie starts and you get into it you begin to unravel the plot pretty quickly and then it's just a matter of time before the some teenage killings and some sex like all horror movies need to have. If you want a cheesy marathon put this somewhere near the top along with Madman, Choppin mall, The Forest, The Mad Butcher and Clownhouse.


So after seeing Lost Highway and finding it brilliant I wanted to see more of Lynch. This one had a rating of 7 so I check it out (as I tend to avoid movies with an IMDb rating of less than 7).

I was disappointed. The creepiness of Big Tuna, Texas was about a 7, but most of the rest of the movie was a 2 at most. The acting is generally poor and the ending of this movie is just plain stupid.

The only other good thing about this movie is Powermad. It's too bad they didn't continue. What a great, technical, speed metal band they were.

I was left thinking about Lost Highway for days. This one I hope to forget.


I much prefer Blue Velvet, maybe because it was new and shocking and original, whereas here Lynch seems to be copying himself, Nic Cage seems to be doing his faux-Elvis 'look at me all the time" schtick and Laura Dern just seems lost. The camera work is lovely, but to what end? It's kind of an empty story when all is said and done. As Emanuel Levy says in his book Cinema of Outsiders, "the shocks have little resonance, and the weirdness is trivial- the pictures hyperkinetic wildness is mostly on the surface, the images are elaborately conceived but meaningless."


Great martial arts action makes this cheap, low-budget, and poorly acted Yuen Woo-Ping film fairly entertaining and likable. The story is one we have seen many times before in many variations - terrorists take over a cruise ship and kill randomly, crew betrayals and heroic actions by a former cop (with a bitter past to add some depth to the character) to save the day are nothing new. A larger budget and better supporting actors would have made this lots better, but even so the no-wires-anywhere fight scenes are great despite the film's grade-Z budget, dumb stereotyped characters, and over-the-top slaughter-everyone violence. Worth a one-time see anyway.


To say that this movie is a let down would be a tremendous understatement. Sitting on the shelves of various high street DVD outlets, resplendent in its Two Disc Special Edition packaging and with a back cover blurb that brings up director Yuen Woo Ping's work as fight choreographer on The Matrix Trilogy and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, you have to give credit for the packaging department for luring you into a false sense of belief that this movie is a hitherto overlooked milestone in HK action. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth.

I've heard it compared to the similarly disastrous Speed 2. In truth, the only link between the two is the setting on a luxury liner. Unlike Speed 2, where the task of slowing the out of control vessel was central to the plot, here, the ship is little more than something big, large and isolated for Kenny Ho to run around in. And speaking of Ho, his role as lead action hero leaves a lot to be desired. While he can handle the gun play and martial arts with as much flair as his contemporaries, his facial expressions remain largely unchanged throughout. There is a back story involving his dead wife which could have granted him more sympathy, but it is so woefully mishandled it feels like something that was tacked on for no particular reason. Twenty minutes after the credits roll, it's unlikely you'll remember anything about him. Besides, how can you feel any backing for a man who is supposed to be a security chief, yet fails to stop the villains from massacring nearly every passenger on the boat?

However, his co-star Elaine Lui really stands out. Not because she's a good actress you understand, but because her role as the comic relief slapstick foil backfires spectacularly as she becomes one of the most irritating screen heroines to appear in the Hong Kong Legends catalogue. A little bit of comedy in action films is okay now and again, but considering the ridiculously high bodycount and number of innocent people murdered in this movie, she seems very out of place. Her fight with Christy Chung for example is extremely tasteless, as Lui imitates martial arts stances and goes through a bumbling slapstick routine, mere minutes after a young girl watched her mother machine gunned before her eyes.

All in all then, not worth the effort. The action sequences are decent enough, but a bland leading man, immensely irritating heroine and a complete absence of emotion result in a film that Yuen Woo Ping would most probably want to forget.


What do you get when you cross legendary action choreographer Yuen Woo-ping (here directing rather than choreographing) with the plot of Speed 2, a bland leading man, an immensely irritating leading lady, an obnoxious and untalented child actress and some tired and uninspired action scenes? Unfortunately, the answer is a complete waste of time. Probably a career low for all concerned, it's a real slog getting through to the end of this surprisingly cheap-looking and occasionally amateurish mess, all hope that it will get better being continually thwarted as it staggers from tired action scene to tired action scene. And how can you root for a hero who is so inept that, despite being head of security on a liner, fails to prevent the villains killing every single one of the passengers and crew except the aforementioned irritating females - probably the two people most audience members will want out of the picture and fast?

Worse than Speed 2 - yes, you read that right: even worse than Speed 2. Not worth the time of day.


I've read that this has a cult following; I suspect that Yuen Woo Ping has a cult following, members of which are trying very hard to like this film.

A few years before this film, Wong Jing (no one's favorite Hong Kong director) did a movie that was part "Die Hard" with kung fu (supplied by the ever-able Jet Li) and part satire on the career of Jackie Chan, "Meltdown". The film actually has some interesting moments, especially the finale, but the violence is too cruelly presented, even for a blood-thirsty old 'fu fan like me. The Chan satire makes the darkness tolerable, but is itself unnecessary.

What Yuen Woo Ping has done in "Red Wolf" is given us "Meltdown at Sea". that's about the size of it; except that Yuen has no satire here - no comic elements at all. Which means that, given the raw tension, and the sheer violence of the film, the over-all effect is down-right depressing.

I admit, it was so uncomfortable to watch, I couldn't finish the film. I don't know what happens at the end of the film. because the characters were so vapid, even watching them get killed didn't interest me.

the stars are for the choreography, which is top-notch of course; but really, I'm sure you can find something more amusing to do; and I wish Yuen Woo Ping had tried.


Audacious, totally off-the-wall trash about architect Michael Caine, who is stuck in a hopeless, almost masochistic marriage with half-crazy Elizabeth Taylor, and begins an extramarital affair with Susannah York, who nonetheless has secrets of her own....Because of the movie's cast, and of the fact that you've probably never heard of it, you might think that it could be an undiscovered gem. Alas, this is not the case. We never even get a handle on the characters; any resemblance between the way these people talk and behave and the way REAL people talk and behave is strictly coincidental. York comes closer to portraying a recognizable human being, but not close enough. (**)


When "X Y & Z" opened in New York, it faced unanimous horrible reviews from the film critics. Rex Reed gave it a zero and went after Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Caine, Susannah York and Margaret Leighton with a vengeance.

Rex went on about the new wave of sex in the movies and said about this movie: "Well, sex is back in "X Y & Zee," as wretched and slimy a pail of slop as I've ever seen dumped on a movie screen, with the misguided Elizabeth Taylor playing chief pig in the pig sty..."X Y & Zee" is a depraved lesbian horror film with flabby, oatmeal-colored Michael Caine trying vainly to out-weight and out-scream the bloated Miss Taylor before they both get thrown out of the Screen Actors Guild." Believe me, he said plenty more.

Me, the fool, went out and saw this on a double bill and wish I had listened to Mr. Reed. If you were among the pot smokers and free love people who staggered out of the 60s wearing your "I Hate Doris Day" tee shirts, you probably got a big kick out of this trash. I left the theatre disgusted.


Starts off quite promisingly, with some clever dialogs and an interesting plot about a retiring old actor.

But Bogdanovich unfortunately had something else in mind.

He introduces a character who quite obviously will turn into a spree-killer, and the movie re-directs its focus almost solely on him. Now, I understand the points that Bogdanovich was trying to make with this story, but somehow he fell into a Hitchcockian trap, i.e. he let shock and horror overtake the logic. Just like the just-mentioned chubby Englishman with a penchant for ignoring logic and insulting the (intelligent) viewer's intelligence, Bogdanovich serves us some nonsense. Bullets are flying left and right, and corpses just pile up, yet it takes ages for people to hear the bullets or realize the direness of any of a number of situations with the random shooting. The spree-killer shoots three times in his home, in what is presumably an idyllic middle-class suburbia, and no one calls the police! No one hears the bullets. And the scene where Karloff approaches the killer may be well thought-out but combined with the ensuing face-slapping it belongs more in a comedy or a fantasy then a movie which strives for realism. Karloff's female assistant is as Chinese as Jennifer Lopez.

Bogdanovich is wise not to have pursued an acting career; he comes off amateurish. Bogdanovich's line "All the good films have already been made" has more irony than brain cells in Einstein's brain. Pretty much at the time this movie was made the actual golden age of movies had already begun. The vast bulk of the classics were made from the late 60s onwards. What a BAD PREDICTION by a relatively likable but quite overrated director, who should have stuck to writing his pretentious, dull film-reviews.


Watch the clean-cut young guy eat dinner with his family. Watch them watching TV. Watch the same guy driving a car. Watch him get dressed. All this is acted Robot-like by a no-name actor who is a dead ringer for Matt Damon, without the acting talent. Yes, there's violence because he goes on a shooting spree and kills many people. But that's IT. I mean, there's no plot, no suspense, no anything. There IS a lot of dead space in this movie.

If you love watching a pasty, boring dude eating a sandwich.....driving a car.....walking......etc., then this movie is for you!! Before seeing this movie I read the raving reviews. I thought my favorite actor, Boris Karloff, was in it and the reviews were good...so I spent almost two hours being BORED TO DEATH.

NO GUN NECESSARY.


This film was supposed to be a film noir, except that the character development of everyone except for Tom Berenger's character was flimsy. As a result, it's hard to buy the plot twists. The characters needed more development -- most noir characters are one-note, but those notes have to be played clearly. If the, say, gruff but sympathetic boss doesn't come across as sympathetic, you care less if he is killed. (Note: this is a random example, not from the film.) On a side note, the lighting (or cinematography) of this film was awful, making all of the actors look terrible. In particular, Lori Heuring, who has an asymmetrical face, was shot from an angle that made her appear in some light to have a harelip and in others to make her look like she was slightly sneering (the actress herself is extremely pretty in other films, so I think I'm right to blame the camera work). Anyway, that's a small quibble with an otherwise bad film.


Its so sad to see some of the dreck that Tom Berenger has been making in the last ten years or so. Occasionally he pops up in something interesting like "Training Day" but in small roles. But the projects that he stars in is usually low budget junk and "True Blue" is absolutely junk! Berenger plays Rem who is a burnt out cop who drinks a lot and smokes even more and looks completely out of shape. He's a widower and his wife was killed by an Asian gang. While investigating the disappearance of a girl he gets mixed up with Nikki (Lori Heuring) who is connected to the case. The usual investigating takes place as Rem goes to strip joints and S&M clubs and of course everything leads to the Asian gang. ****SPOILER ALERT**** The ending to this film is so bad, and so preposterous and contrived that as a viewer I got a little angry. Why do writers and directors continue to have plot twists with his co-workers involved and setting him up? Its ridiculous! Its unbelievable! They did the same crap in the film "Along Came a Spider" and ruined that film as well. This wasn't a very good film to begin with but this atrocious excuse for an ending makes it even worse. Please! I beg you writers and directors out there, no more convoluted plot twists! Twenty five year veterans of the force are not going to set up other officers for some money and commit murder. No one has ever bought it! And no one ever will!


Berenger is good, the rest of the cast are adequate. The story is very predictable and somewhat incoherent. A pretty explicit s/m scene is included to spice things up a bit, but it seems out of place. Not recommended viewing, but if you have nothing better to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon, then ...


A lot of the ingredients of an enjoyable jaded cop film are there but they just didn't work for us. The contrived and complex plot is so densely packed into a few lines of dialogue in several scenes and the switches, surprises and reverses are so numerous that for us the film became increasingly incoherent and finally ludicrous.


When I got this movie I assumed by the title that it would be ALL about torture. This is not the case. Within all the comedic scenes with the kung-fu sexaholics and the invisible guy, I did find satisfaction in knowing that the two main characters did seem to love each other. As I was sitting there watching, I thought, "Oh, what a horrible movie." I am a huge fan of the actress Gong Li (who does not appear in this movie) but a new interest has sparked within me for the young Yvonne Yung. I will be looking up some more of her movies. As far as a recommendation for you, I would say, it's twisted, funny & weird with lots of titties. If you can stomach that kind of stuff, then you should be able to get through this. Yvonne Yung makes it worth the watch. Beware: It's subtitled, so pay attention!


Not exactly the sequel you've been holding your breath to see. This is the follow up to SINGLE SANTA SEEKS MRS. CLAUS. Just about the whole cast returns for another round of forced Christmas gaiety. Its amazing how Hallmark Entertainment TV can gain profitable numbers in presenting these turkeys more than once. But it is safe holiday fare for the family. This time Nick Claus(Steve Guttenberg)is working overtime to afford the most perfect wedding. Beth(Crystal Bernard)finds that her society mother disapproves of Nick and definitely has no idea he is Santa Claus' son. Others in the cast: Marcia Ann Burrs, Dominic Scott Kay, Armin Shimerman and Mariette Hartley.


First of all, this made-for-TV film is a sequel. Believe it or not, Guttenburg et al made one of these for the previous Christmas.

Well, that on-set experience must have been a good one for them to agree to a second outing. And, in fairness, there's a warmth to the slapstick, seasonal comedy and chintziness which one can laugh along with. Neither is the conceit (i.e. Santa needs a Mrs to get the magic to work) straight out of the stockroom.

But, my goodness is it cheap! The North Pole set looks like it was constructed as a one-off for John Stewart's Daily Show while chez Bernard is Texan soap-leased. As are the hairdos. The script IS stockroom, and dusty with it. Guttenburg... well, he's a chirpy chap, but the bags under his eyes make him look as weary as the whole exercise. For all the novelties that got it green-lit in the first place the final half hour is obsequious, indigestive bleurgh. 2/10


Sequel to "Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus" *WARNING* - Spoilers ahead! Hopefully not enough to ruin the whole movie, but you have been warned! I comment on plot devices, so it would be somewhat spoiler, but the review doesn't work without the information Well, I saw the first in the series (noted above) and didn't think much of it. With the framework in place, I thought this feature might pull it together better, however. Wrong.

In brief, Crystal Bernard is Beth, the fiancé of the heir to Santa, (played by Steve Guttenberg as Nick).

Beth's Mother is a harsh dictator who rules with a iron fist, and when Beth turns to her when it appears that she can't put together the marriage she wants in time for Christmas Eve (long story) she brings the fist down on Beth.

OK, lets look at the problems: VERY slow pace. Wastes the first hour wandering about plot-wise, then when the Mother is introduced, she is impossibly harsh (so harsh that the plot device of Beth asking for her help isn't believable, an elopement (or suicide) would have been more believable (and quicker!)) Steve Guttenberg plays his part as a total nitwit. So annoying that it isn't funny. In the first movie he shows some brains/parenting skills. Nothing here, just dumb.

The end of the movie wraps up in the last 10 minutes! So sugary I just about gagged, with WILD changes of heart that were completely out of character (Come on, should of used some that first wasted hour!) These actors are able to do MUCH better work. This was SO dumb I was happy to tape over it.

Let me offer some ideas: The Mother should have been much softer (or does she really hate Beth that much?) to begin with. Not being a Santa believer is fine, but...

Next, have Nick win her over some, like Beth. A last minute solution made this a waste of time.

Also, why CAN'T we take the characters to the North Pole? Other movies have done so with some plot device for some continued disbelief.

UGH! I wanted this two hours of my life back. (I kept watching HOPING it would get better) In short the best part of this movie is the advertising spot!


I can understand the appeal of a joyous Christmas movie. I can understand the appeal of having a man become Santa Claus. I can understand the appeal of the Christmas magicbeing saved by the unity of the new santa to the new mrs claus.

So where was it? They seem to like to just randomly skip from scene to scene without care for letting the audience know why. What happened? Why are things a catastrophe one minute and all fixed the next? I still have no idea.

For out of work B-listerers like Steve Guttenberg and Crystal Bernard I can understand this as the next logical career choice. But Mariette Hartley....you used to have so much class.

She must have been crying at the end because her agent couldn't get her a better movie to be in.

It takes more than a red suit and a forced ho-ho-ho to make Christmas Magic.


This movie seemed to be almost constantly when I was around seven, and at the time I remember it being totally scary and engrossing. My sister remains freaked out about the little veiny-headed people to this day, so, being the evil little brother that I am, I hunted down a copy to give to her for Christmas, and watched it first.

The story is that the hideous Kim Darby, in a hairdo seemingly accomplished by swirlie, has inherited this gorgeous house from her grandmother. Her husband, Jim Hutton, sees all the beautiful windows and space and pool out back and alland would rather live in an apartment in a high-rise. Throughout the movie, there is all this talk about how much work the house needs, saying at one point that a dinner party there will be like "eating in the subway," when all of this is utterly belied by the house itself, which is spectacular. Sure, it's decorated with a comprehensive cross-section of everything wrong with the 70s, but the house itself is a stunner. We later keep hearing about how the couple has "done so much work" on the house, thought we never see ANY evidence of this throughout the movie.

Anyway, Kim wants to make a study out of this, well, study in the basement, which features a big fireplace that has been bricked up and bolted closed. The handyman keeps telling her that she'd better not open it if she knows what's good for her, but won't explain why. Naturally, she opens it, and soon enough we're hearing little voices saying "We're free! We're free! She set us free!"

One thing apparent from the start is that Kim's husband is a major jerk. This little time capsule comes from the period in which men thought nothing of telling their wives that they are psychotic rather than even making the slightest attempt to hear what they have to say. Jim is also a bitch to Kim throughout, throwing constant attitude at her and caring about nothing but his job and reputation. There is a little bit of "topicality" in that Kim feels like he's going to only be worried about his job for the rest of their marriage, but it seems to me that their problems run far deeper than that.

So soon enough strange things start happening, caused, we soon find out, by this race of foot-high men in gorilla suits with strange veiny-headed masks on. For some reason they want Kim. Please don't put too much stock in getting an explanation for this phenomena-ever-as one never comes. You're like, is it witchcraft? Aliens? Ancient Indian burial ground? Ancient Chinese secret? And nothing ever comes. The little ape-men, always accompanied by an inexplicable and wholly ludicrous green light, creep out and cause havoc in the household at regular intervals.

After a few brushes with her furry friends, Kim is understandably freaked out and skittish (while her husband, with increasing annoyance, considers her a lunaticwho knew husbands were so eager to consider their wives plumb nuts?), which makes it surprising that she doesn't seem phased in the least when, at the height of her nervousness, the lights in the bathroom go out while she's taking a shower. Kim just showers away, taking no heed. I guess she just really, really had to get that crème rinse out.

Spoilers ahead! The attacks increase, with a corresponding drop in viewer interest. But they do at least offer the meager fun of seeing guys cavort around sets made of giant books and stairways designed to make them look small. During all this time, Kim never thinks of just leaving the house. You know, they DO have hotels, Kim. She is supposedly going to spend the night at a friend's house, though the friend never shows up and no one seems to think that's strange. The fools also, though by now it's obvious that the little men are afraid of the light, never turn on the lights. In addition to never considering just bolting up the chimney again during the day, while the little men are sleeping, which is the only method that obviously worked in the past. Idiots.

So it all builds toward a fateful evening-after the bearded decorator is killed-in which Kim is drugged by the little beasties. Her friend, Geraldine Ferraro, finally believes her, but still has no problem leaving her alone (while drugged!) to make phone calls and creep around outside. Her husband, now starting to believe her a little bit, leaves her in the house to go have a chat with the handyman. No one considers just taking her out of the house, which destroys any minor scares this thing may have generated on the weak-minded.

The whole thing has the air of the script being written way before the film was shot, and of no one caring enough to go back and adjust it. The biggest example of this is all the talk about the house being a wreck, when it's clearly ready for Architectural Digest, and there are other little instances where someone will talk abut something that never happened or whatever. Nevertheless, little creepy guys skulking around in corners does manage to offer a few chills. Someone could remake this movie and have a B-feature on their hands. Too bad such little effort was put into this version.

--- Check out other reviews on my website of bad and cheesy movies, Cinema de Merde, cinemademerde.com


This film was supposed to be tongue in cheek as I understand it, but it failed to pull this off in an at all amusing way. The whole story appeared to be driven by how much money they could make on product placement - awful. I am pretty sure it need not have been this bad, Bill Murray, and the Girls seemed wasted. Not since Hudson Hawk have I seen a film with a potentially amusing idea go so badly wrong.


I am not sure where they went wrong on this one. They tried to throw a curve by having the obvious suspect actually be guilty. They continued the trend of showing Ken Melansky bumbling around again before getting bailed out by others to do his job. The casting is inspired, with 4 beautiful actresses lead by Octopussy (Maud Adams) herself. They replace Burr with an Italian Tenor / Chef attorney. They even cast Eric Braeden, TV vet of the Young & Restless & the Rat Patrol as the victim.

I think the big problem is a flat script. It's kind of like the production company itself lost a lot of inspiration on Burr's death. If they had thrown in a funeral for Perry, it would fit the mood. There is very little fun in this one.

I only wish they could have given the lady actresses more scenes & more to do, but the story prevented that. I think you should skip this one unless your desperate for a mystery or perhaps like looking at an interesting casting experiment. That is all there is too this one.


The plot outline for this film promised so much, a group of French/Italian (its difficult to tell) female prisoners break out of their prison, and set out on the run, killing a few police officers and kidnapping a bus load of young tennis players, this seems a perfect setting for an "erotic thriller", but as is to be expected from a very low budget European film from the late seventies, the film fails to live up to any of this potential. This film is a laughable, poorly dubbed, appallingly edited story which tries to be intelligent, managing to achieve the seemingly impossible combination of pretentiousness and stupidity. The film has few redeeming features, but the main one is that it is quite a good laugh to watch with a few mates when drunk, especially at the hilarious musical score and the cheap and nasty production values, (at one point it actually switches from widescreen to normal, then back to widescreen a few minutes later). If you wanted you could probably kid yourself into thinking this was an art-house film since its foreign and attempts to deal with "issues" in societies, which it does rather clumsily, otherwise just watch it and laugh.


This is really bad. Awful dubbing, rubbish acting, badly shot, choppily edited and generally terrible.

I also didn't like the fact that the scummy rapist judge didn't get shot at the end and was allowed to completely get away with forcing himself on another woman! that was a sickening scene and its a fairly misogynistic film.

However, there are 3 plus points. All of them are the foxy women. Erica (Ada Pometti) is particularly sexy and has a great but brief sex scene. Patrizia Funari has a nice backside which is shown off. And the girl who isn't listed here but plays 'Susanna' is very gorgeous.

I shall be checking out more of their films!

However, they were the ONLY three plus points and thats why the film gets 3 from me. 1 POINT for each sexy woman!


Poorly written with wooden performances by the miscast actors.


"The mansion of a retired adventurer is the scene of some mysterious happenings, all apparently caused by the 'Curse of Kali'. The authorities and the adventurer's relatives all end up caught in the middle of these bizarre events, with plenty of suspicious characters to choose from. It's going to take some clever detective work to uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. The film begins in 1913 Asia, where the Hindu curse begins. Twenty years later, this connects with a group of investors gathering at a spooky old mansion, to collect their share of the Hindi's treasure. Supposedly, the Hindu curse resurfaces, claiming the lives of greedy treasure-seekers. The curse manifests itself as a stuffed gorilla (first seen in 1913 Asia) seems to come alive, and kill people. "Pocahontas" is somehow involved. Honest Injun.

*** House of Mystery (3/30/34) William Nigh ~ Clay Clement, Ed Lowry, Verna Hillie


Time hasn't been kind to "Regarding Henry" I remembered it like pleasant enough bit of sentimental tripe. But now, 19 years later is truly an embarrassing movie for everyone concerned. Every common place in place, every line of predictable dialogue could be anticipated by a 7 year old. The characters, if you can call them that, are a walking cliché. As if this was not enough, Harrisson Ford, mugging his way through it. A truly epidermic performance as phony as anything I've ever seen him do. The strange thing is that Mike Nichols , one of my heroes, has always been so spot on in the casting department. Wonderful performances in all of his movies, so, how can anyone explain to me this, scholastic performance by Harrison Ford. His scenes with his physical therapist, a good natured, African American, made me cringe. Everything so premeditated an, I repeat, phony. The only one with a tinge of integrity is the girl playing Ford's daughter and out of respect for her I'm giving "Regarding Henry" a 2 not a 1. Phew!


Story was relatively boring. Directing was definitely boring. Some of the dialogue was a little too predictable.

The one clever item was the deal with "Ritz" and trying to figure out for a moment how someone found Henry after he took off by himself. (I won't write a spoiler.)

This movie is _not_ worth the two hours spent on it.


I remember seeing the previews for this and really looking forward to seeing it. I thought it was going to be an honest look at the way a family changes when something like this happens to a parent, my family went through something similar when I was growing up, so to see someone like Harrison Ford take on this topic was something I really wanted to see. After I saw it, I was so disgusted. When something like this happens, the spouse and children have to adjust to a new life, and it isn't easy, and there's always a part of you that misses the kind of life you had envisioned. But in this awful movie, the wife is just pleased as punch that she gets to spend the rest of her life with a mentally challenged man, because he was kind of a jerk before he was shot, so you see, he and everybody else is better off because he was shot in the head and made retarded, the wife gets faithful husband, and the kids get the little brother they always wanted.

They could have made an honest and interesting movie about what some families have to face.If the movie had been about what families really face in a situation like this, it might have worked. As it is, I am offended by this movie to the Nth degree.


One of those high-budget, yet relentlessly schlocky movie-star vehicles which both pander and condescend to a mass audience; the pedigree talent involved may well warrant a viewing, yet the film is so pompous it makes viewers feel like chumps for watching. Harrison Ford plays a slimy, self-absorbed lawyer whose life takes a drastic turn after he walks into a liquor store being robbed. Annette Bening plays Ford's spouse who helps her husband through a difficult period, and has a rebirth of her own. This is precisely the type of material director Mike Nichols would have thumbed his nose at twenty years ago; working here rather joylessly, Nichols wraps all the phony uplift in cinematic Saran Wrap. The self-deceit (and smugness) hanging over the film is like a gray pallor. *1/2 from ****


Considering all the talent involved in the making of this movie (Mike Nichols, J.J. Abrams, the cast), one would have fairly high expectations of it.

One would, however, be horribly let down.

It's a hackneyed, shallow, almost insultingly lame movie. Harrison Ford's performance is just okay; I was particularly amused by the "slicked-back hair = evil guy, floppy hair = nice guy" idiocy perpetrated in the personal styling of his character.

I kept wanting a story that felt real, relatable, or genuinely touching to develop, but the whole thing was just painted in such broad strokes that the result was laughable.

The message of the film ("Sometimes it takes getting shot in the head to change you from an @- hole to a great guy!") is cheesy and obvious. This crew of folks is capable of producing much more complex art.

Sadly, this ain't it.


The title of this rather tired film should be called I'm In Love With My Best Friend's Husband! Such a simple plot seen in countless TV dramas and mini-series, I think to myself why time and effort was wasted in making this. I've always been a fan of Cheryl Ladd since her Charlie's Angels days, and she certainly proves herself an actress of all genres. However, it's Bess Armstrong who steals the show. Her reaction at finding out her friend's betrayal seems very true-to-life; her marriage may have been on the rocks, but it's still a shock to discover that he is involved with a person extremely close to you. Had it had been someone unknown to her, this movie would simply not exist!

My Best Friend's Husband could be factual in that sense, but the plot is certainly nothing new. In a nutshell, this film is one cliché after another, but viewers might be able to feel the emotion and anger towards the characters, and that is what makes it a little more interesting. 4/10


Absolutely nothing says, "I'm your BEST friend.", like sleeping with said friend's estranged husband.

It's a scary feeling knowing that this movie is being beamed out via satellite and other civilizations may honestly think that we're the imbeciles that most Lifetime movies portray us to be. I have to go, my best friend's husband is here to pick me up for our romantic weekend in Bali.


A wife is suffering because she is nearly an empty nester. She refuses to tell her husband word one until "I want a divorce". Nice. The best friend tries to help her out, and gets the "go away -- no come back" treatment. The husband doesn't even TRY to make it work. And nobody has answers for the daughter "It's complicated" -- hey, I'm adult, not a 5 yr old -- how about you explain it to me, OK? And then, the best friend somehow falls in love with the husband? She could do better. And she should! Hello, it's your BEST FRIEND's HUSBAND.

Oh, yeah. And him "Uh, you didn't return any of my calls. Did you get them?" - hey idiot, here's 100 dollars, buy a clue. No return calls = I don't want to talk to you.

Ugh...I can watch most of what LMN puts on when the wife has the remote but I walked out on this unrealistic debacle.


I really don't see why people like this program if it makes absolutely no sense and absolutely everything about it is dark and foreboding. This show is humorous only to those who enjoy the dark comedies and evil feelings that Zim projects. Absolutely nothing about this is interesting to those with more...refined taste. I watched this program and felt that Zim's character has no niceties about his character, and everything about him and the rest of the cast is evil and foreboding. It appears that everything on this show is evil and there are never any blue skies or any feelings of positive emotion that is not stemmed to some evil victory for the villain or the so called "hero", Dib.

Simply put, this show is a waste because apart from there being no good within any of the characters in the show, it seems to bring absolutely nothing to the table. It seems that this show consists of an alien from the "Irken" race of aliens sent out to conquer a planet and make the inhabitants of said planet slaves to the Irken race. Zim only got where he is in the story lines because he was a pest to the race's leaders.

This show has no appeal to those of us with a refined sense of humor and I thus spit on it and all who enjoy it, for the simple reason that it only conveys dark humor and insanity of the most vulgar variety.

My personal critique: Invader Zim is the show which the forsaken dark humored fellows have eked out.


Rubbish - Utter rubbish Why?

- Its not a comedy - Its Bad Acting - Not Storyline - Makes as much sense as my cat does - The characters are out of character - BADLY ADVITISED

Yeah - The list goes on

This IS NOT what French and saunders are used to doing, they should stick to making great comedy's like Ab Fab, Vicar of Dibly. Not this Rubbish.

Kill this series before it gives the great British comedy a bad name. Seriously, my dog is a better source of comedy when it is asleep!


I have to agree with folks here unhappy with J&J (called Clatterford here in North America). I rented the DVD to watch with my wife as a treat on her birthday. We watched the first two episodes and didn't laugh once! (Fortunately I'd also rented a Midsomer Murders DVD as well, so we watched that.) Some here have said "it's a dramedy." Huh? Nearly a dozen top comedians assembled for this show, and it's not a comedy? What a mistake. And for those who've said I have to watch all the episodes, rewind scenes I found slightly funny and watch them again, then let the whole thing sink in as I meditate on its comic subtlety -- huh? Those F&S shows are hit-and-miss, but it's not long before another sketch comes on. The J&J DVD was over two hours long... I think this is another instance of a higher standard of living (Saunders') making for a lower standard of writing (J&J).


OK, forewarned that the first episode was exceedingly slow, but promised that later episodes grew in depth and gentle village humor, I slogged through for the first five (a fan friend shared the first seven episodes with me in the usually strong theory that immersing oneself in characters one can lose yourself in their world) and skipped to the finale which involved amateur theatricals and somehow seemed emblematic of the whole enterprise. If there was something magnificent in six, I may never know.

The portrait of British countryside life is doubtless strong and faithful, but I guess I'm too much of a city boy. Fans of "Last of the Summer Wine" (though it had stronger character development) or "The Vicar of Dibley" (if you thought the humor in the latter is too intrusive) will doubtless take to this series like ducks to water, but others be warned: this has nothing of the warm character development of "All Creatures Great and Small" or the sophisticated humor of "Yes Minister" or "Hot Lead" (but also blessedly none of the camp of "Are You Being Served").

It is what it is, but I enjoyed my actual time in the British countryside with real people more than my few hours with this strangely insulting show.


Half-baked offering ILONA AMOS

EITHER all our funny girls are struggling for work or the chance to be part of a sitcom scripted by Jennifer Saunders is just too good a gig to resist. Whatever the reason, short of Victoria Wood, Julie Walters and Catherine Tate, the BBC has managed to sign up most of the country's top female comedy talent - plus David Mitchell - for the new comedy series Jam and Jerusalem.

A far cry from the champagne-swilling luvvies of Absolutely Fabulous, Saunders' latest offering centres on the goings-on at the women's guild in a small West Country town. Sue Johnston stars as Sal, the practice nurse at her husband's surgery, with Pauline McLynn (Father Ted) playing her best friend and workmate Tip. Dawn French, Joanna Lumley and Saunders herself are joined by Sally Phillips (Smack the Pony) and Doreen Mantle (One Foot in the Grave) as the ladies who supply the local church with crocheted bible covers and embroidery.

After her turn in The Royle Family, it's a common misconception that Johnston can do comedy - what she can actually do is expertly deliver good lines. But despite a solid performance here, my sides remained unsplit after the opening episode. Not only is the 'local church and busybody ladies' situation as worn-out as some of the old dears' hips, there's a disappointingly hammy, am-dram feel to the whole affair, relying on physical gags - such as crumbly Lumley's ill-fitting falsers and French's take on a village idiot - for laughs.

The question remains why Saunders chose this as her comeback vehicle. Perhaps it's in the hope of aping her former partner's success with The Vicar of Dibley. Or maybe I just don't get it, and this is a comedy that will creep up on you - like old age.


It's a bit of a harsh statement, but I personally thought the first episode was awful, not even a smile appeared on my face, in no way was it funny. It was the first programme in a while that I couldn't sit all the way through, I even thought there was funny moments in the 'Green Green Grass' (only fools spin off). With a cast of so much "talent", I thought there might have been at least a glimmer of something good, but no, possibly the worst comedy ever, I was always lead to believe comedies need to be funny. I personally am not a fan of "the league of gentlemen" but I can at least see some funny parts in that but this was so terrible I can't explain anymore. I can only hope that the BBC decides to cancel the show, if all the episodes are as bad as the first it will not be a hard choice. In all fairness, I should have known it was going to be bad as the previews and trailers (usually show best bits) were not funny. Maybe I am being too harsh as this was only the first episode but the whole idea of the pilot is to gain an audience that will continue to watch, so with that episode, i doubt many will watch the rest of the series.

This is my opinion but I think it is how the majority will feel in the end.


This stagey adaptation of a French play is fairly creaky but still provides the occasional chuckle as Frank Fay essays a double role as a husband missing with amnesia for five years. When he turns up on his 'widow's' doorstep one day as a trendy hairdresser, complications ensue. Harvey Thew's screenplay has a decent number of double entendres but is surprisingly restrained with the homoerotic subtext--especially when Fay is discovered in bed with James Gleason! Nicely though somewhat statically directed by Michael Curtiz, The Matrimonial Bed also features some nifty set design and a few memorable shots in silhouette.


Here is a film that claims to have "...the best horror effects in a decade." When in fact, the effects are horrendous. Right off the bat, they introduce the fakumentary with an eyeball being stabbed. Its just ridiculously dumb. Not only is it obviously fake, but just dumb. Of course all effects are fake, but try at the very least to make them look realistic and not high school level. One effect is of a zombie, but the funny part of the whole effect, is that there is no zombie makeup, just a rubber mask like ones sold at Halloween. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, "are they serious, or is this a joke?" This is something very cheesy to watch, but is watchable for a laugh. Video renters were gullible back in the eighties.


The personnel in The Arrangement reminds me of the LA Lakers basketball team ( around the time this film was made) when they had Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor on the same squad. There were great expectations for a team with three superstars but they never jelled as a unit and were a dismal failure overall. Such is the case with Elia Kazan's The Arrangement, a crashing, sloppy out of touch melodrama of marital infidelity and despair.

It would be hard to surpass the ten year run that Elia Kazan had a as film director from 1947-57. Just about everything he directed turned to gold and those that didn't then (Boomerang, Panic in the Streets, Face in the Crowd) have that respect today. In the early 60s he was still producing quality work (Splendor in the Grass, America,America) when he turned to writing a best seller (The Arrangement) eventually bringing it to the screen in the late sixties. Kazan, an actor's director if their ever was one and who translated the words and feelings of John Steinbeck and Tennessee Williams to film so well seemed to be at a loss with his own work and his ability to coax well measured performances out of his cast. Kirk Douglas, Deborah Kerr and Faye Dunaway are uniformly shrill from start to finish moping from one scene to another, making it hard to believe they could feel tenderness for anything. The scenes between Douglas and his mistress (Dunaway) lack intimacy and warmth, their passion forced. With his wife (Kerr) there is total detachment and not even a hint of why they got together in the first place. Kerr for her part seems like she's still in rehearsal. Lacking both sincerity and push she is badly miscast. Richard Boone as Eddie's overbearing old man adds to the disaster with complete over the top bombast, making a lot of noise and saying nothing that brings incite to the role.

Having failed at what he does best (directing actors) Kazan goes on to embarrass himself further by employing some of the latest techniques (including Batman pop art) to be au courant in this heady era of American film but in his hands he fumbles. Even the highly regarded cinematographer, John Surtees flounders with sloppy camera movement and uninspired compositions. It's as if everyone attached to the making of the Arrangement suffered from talent amnesia. Kazan had certainly lost his touch and The Arrangement in one full swoop symbolized that decline. As a film director he had nothing left in the tank.


Sensational cast in Elia Kazan's adaptation of his own book concerning a married executive with a mistress who attempts suicide. Aloof, disjointed melodrama has stars Kirk Douglas, Deborah Kerr and Faye Dunaway suffering in a well-heeled vacuum. Dunaway released a slew of pictures in 1967-69 and was probably at the risk of being dangerously overexposed; she's gorgeously coiffed and manicured, but her heavily made-up face and cool personality doesn't involve the audience (one hopes that Douglas will simply come to his senses and let her go). All the characters here are fairly unsavory anyway, and the actors are not helped by the campy lines of dialogue and uncompelling conflicts. *1/2 from ****


Elia Kazan may have bared his tortured soul in this autobiographical novel, but someone else was needed to bring it to the screen. Then again I'm not sure anyone could have made an entertaining film out of so dislikeable a subject.

The Arrangement is ostensibly Elia Kazan telling his story of his relationship with a tyrannical father which is the root cause of the middle aged angst he now faces. Our protagonist is not a celebrated film director, but Kirk Douglas a rich and successful advertising executive who one fine day decides to go out in the way that Princess Diana did.

It was not as fatal as poor Diana's crash. But all through this film you kind of wish he'd been put out of his misery. This man is selfish beyond all comprehension, narcissistic to the last exponent. Kirk Douglas has played some pretty rotten people on the screen, but even the cold blooded bank-robber/killer he played in his next film, There Was A Crooked Man, had far more going for him than this one.

He's married to Deborah Kerr who was coming up short with decent film roles in the latter part of the Sixties. She's the long suffering wife in this one and initially you feel sorry for her. But after a while I got the impression she was just glorying in her martyrdom as the long suffering wife. Douglas even knocks up his mistress Faye Dunaway and even after she gives birth and the child is thrown in her face, she won't leave him.

What she'd rather do is scheme with family lawyer Hume Cronyn and family doctor Harold Gould to get Douglas sent to the booby hatch. Not that he isn't giving them all plenty of good reason.

Richard Boone is Douglas's father and he blusters and shouts his way through the part the Anthony Quinn does in his more bravura roles. Kazan didn't have a tight rein on the cast. Or perhaps they knew this film was a travesty and each was determined to overact and be noticed the most.

Not the finest hour for all the talented people involved.


Being well past middle age, it's fascinating for me to watch films about middle-age that were made during my adolescence. I come to them hoping to get a clearer understanding of themes and concerns that I would have had no idea about at the time. This is not necessarily the case with Elia Kazan's "The Arrangement." At age 60, director and writer Kazan really really thinks he is saying something deep and profound about the emptiness of The American Dream, and attempts to do it with a candor he was not afforded in his earlier (better made) films like "A Streetcar Named Desire " and "Splendor in the Grass." Unfortunately in "The Arrangement" Kazan has the cinematic tools of the Now Generation working like a Trojan to put over a very old-fashioned story. No amount of nudity, quick cutting, raw language and clever juxtapositioning of fantasy and reality can breathe new life into this tired tale of a rich and successful ad exec (Kirk Douglashis chin doing all the acting) who finds out at age 45 that all he has acquired "Isn't enough." Were this the only film made in the 60s about the subject, perhaps it would have played better, but the late 60's and early 70's were jampacked with one movie after another about the same suburban ennui, and by comparison "The Arrangement" with its rather misogynistic undertones and off-puttingly distasteful protagonist, comes off as REALLY old-fashioned.

The pleasures to be found for me now are the reminders of what a beautiful and electric actress Faye Dunaway used to be. As the mistress, Dunaway is saddle with one of those male-fantasy roles of a woman who embodies all that men are drawn to and are afraid of. Cast as "The Redeemer of lost male souls", her character has no job to speak of, no goals, no shattered dreams of her ownshe just wants to be wanted by a man. Poor Deborah Kerr is really wonderful as the wife, but she spends most of the film chasing after the disinterested Douglas. Her character speaks of love, but one senses that Kazan thinks she is there for the money and security. Kazan seems unable (or unwilling) to entertain the notion that being the wife or mistress to a self-involved lout may not have been the fulfillment of The American Dream for either of these women either.

Though I enjoyed the film's glossy shooting style, period clothes and dated attempts at social commentary (Look! TV's in every room! Look! Commercials are everywhere! Look! The only ethnics these people come into contact with are the hired help!), I about had it when the film attempted to romanticize Douglas' comically loud-mouthed brute of a father. His death is seen as the end to a certain kind of male prideafter seeing him smack around his wife and tear up the son's college application, death seemed like good riddance to me.

Though it is painfully clear that "The Arrangement" is Kazan revealing deep deep truths about how he sees life, alas, in 2010 and at middle-age myself, the film had nothing to share with me. It was beautiful to look at but as emotionally superficial as if it were a movie made by the SPIKE TV network.

As a final note: Kirk Douglas is an ad exec in this film. As of this writing TV's MAD MEN is a big hit...just goes to show you that the media NEVER seems to tire of using the advertising industry as a metaphor for American artificiality. Zzzzzzz


A rich executive experiences a mid-life crisis, tries to chuck it all, and rekindles a relationship with a co-worker. The cast is pretty good: Douglas as the weary executive, Kerr as his understanding wife, and especially Dunaway as his mistress. Kerr boldly bares more than her soul. Also on hand are Boone and Cronyn, but the entire cast is wasted in this nonsensical drama. Kazan tries to liven things up with slick, annoyingly amateurish camera work but fails miserably, not helped by the lackluster source material, the director's own trashy, best-selling novel. The plot is rambling and uninteresting and the film drags on much too long.


I was on an overnight pass from the Army in 1969 when this movie was playing. My buddies and I thought it might be a good movie. We were starved for entertainment. This movie was so disappointing. It was too heavy for us, We were about to leave for Vietnam and wanted to see something light. Maybe I was too young or it was the events of my life at the time. But we all thought it was bad. I have remembered this movie all my life, as it was the last one I saw in the US. I do admit the the cast was good, that was why we chose that one. I have always liked Kirk. But in the end we found it depressing. I would watch it again if it ever came on TV, Just so that I could make another judgment after all these years.


It is hard to give a rating to old movies like this. This Italian/French film is a predecessor to modern fare like Meteor or Armegeddon.

No Bruce Willis, but Paul Hubschmid, the first Swiss film star. He is on a team of astronauts that included a Frenchman and a Russian and was selected for the first mission in space. Such international cooperation! Absolutely brilliant for the time. It will be even more amazing as the film goes on.

Don't look for great acting or fancy special effects. Stock footage is the norm and the dialog is corny, but there is a bright shining moment when they know they are all doomed and some scientist wigs out.

The solution to the falling meteor is the use of all the nation's atomic warheads. Like that would happen. You know the USA or Russia, probably both, would hold a few in reserve. I am sure the USA did, as I saw no missiles leaving silos.

It's interesting to see the first films of this type before CGI, which is why I am investing the week exploring them.


I think one of the most disappointing things in this film is the role of John McLaren.It's the same actor(Paul Hubschmid, who is sometimes billed as Paul Christian) from "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms". For one thing, it's not even his voice in the dubbing! He seems emotionless 95% of the time. Other character development is only so-so.I did get a kick out of all the old machinery. The plot was OK but not original. The movie seemed to just plod along without much in the way of action. The cinematography was very good(from Italy's Mario Bava).I expected much more from this movie but the fact that I only paid $5.00 for it makes it a little better for me to tolerate. I wish this movie was as good as I anticipated.


The film begins with a nuclear powered rocket flight to the moon. Something goes wrong and the pilot is able to eject. However, the self-destruct mechanism is not activated and the ship blows up in the sun. As a result, it causes so much havoc that a group of killer meteors are bumped towards Earth and the planet is doomed. While the whole idea of a nuclear explosion damaging the sun or having any effect on it is silly, the idea of rogue meteors is pretty cool--and has been the subject of several more recent films.

Unfortunately, while there is something to some of the plot, this Italian film also has a lot against it. First, instead of subtitles, it was dubbed into English. Some of the voices are just terrible (such as the reporter and the whiny sounding kid) and I always prefer subtitles. Additionally, since this film is brought to us by Alpha Video, you can safely assume the print will be terrible--which it definitely is. While some of Alpha's films are great because they aren't available elsewhere, too often they are grainy and never have captions. They are strictly a grade-z producer of DVDs--and this is no exception.

In addition, even if the film was subbed and a pristine copy, it would still only perhaps merit a 5. Overall, a forgettable film.


This French offering is not all that bad. Despite the obvious low budget there is enough to keep your interest. Special effects are crude by todays standards, but for 1958 are about par. Space flight experimentation goes awry when a missile to the moon explodes and causes asteroids to be thrown into a path toward Earth. Cast includes:Paul Hubschmid, Madeleine Fischer, Dario Michaelis and Fiorella Mari. In the name of survival the US and Russian rocket scientists work in tandem with hopes of saving the world.


"A space mission goes awry when the experimental rocket malfunctions, forcing the astronaut to eject in an escape capsule an sending the rocket into deep space, where it explodes. The explosion causes a group of asteroids to veer from orbit around the sun, setting them on a collision course with Earth. With the impending doom approaching the planet, the nations of the world desperately attempt to come up with a plan to destroy the rogue planetoids," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

"The Day the Sky Exploded" in English, with Swiss star Paul Hubschmid (as John McLaren) becoming the first man in space. The movie optimistically suggests admirable cooperation between nations of the future. Yet, its scientific knowledge misfires. The American rocket man's accident causes asteroids to run amok. Is it Armageddon, or can danger be adverted? Sit through acres of stock footage, and little excitement, to see the answer...


This must be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It is a shame that Colin Firth agreed to appear in it, although at least we came to see a lesser known part of him: that of the leather-clad arm-swinging Angus-Young-style-jumping former rock musician.

Sorry, but Amanda Bynes can't act. This would not be so noticeable in your average teen flick; the problem here is that her "charm" supposedly makes her be the object of attraction for a whole bunch of lads - even a cranky old princess gets fond of her, although the lady seems to like no one else, apart from her lapdog. Mmm...

I immediately distrust any movie in which the transformation of a character is shown not by virtue of the plot or acting skills, but simply by a change of wardrobe and hairstyle. Scene #1: Amanda Bynes in jeans and T-shirt - the "free, fun and relaxed" teenager. Scene #2: Amanda Bynes in long evening dress - the composed young miss with a circumspect expression on her face. She has changed! Has she? Mmm...

This brings to mind a previous comment by another user: "why does Amanda Bynes insist on one of those crap 'dancing like a berk while trying on clothes' montage scenes in every film she's ever made?" Yes, in fact, why are these 'trying on clothes' scenes in so many teenage films? Probably it has to do with the 'transformation of character' I mentioned before: the theory of filmmakers is that, as a teenager, you express yourself through what you wear. And since teenagers are still building their personality, this is symbolized with rapid, successive changes of clothes. Convinced? OK, right, maybe it is just because you need 90 minutes of film and only have material for 80.

Oh, and those awful "everything fits perfectly" parts of the plot: mom appears at the ball exactly when she has to, perfectly dressed for the occasion; sudden boyfriend Ian is ubiquitous and has 'chosen' to perform all kinds of low-profile jobs, although he attended the best schools and therefore (very convenient) has at least a piece of the necessary substratum to be rightfully considered a peer by "Britain's snobbish upper class"; etc.

Better see something else.


What a stultifyingly dull and inept portrayal of Britain! This movie was obviously written by an American who doesn't understand our country, and has probably never even been here (at least not for any length of time).

There were so many inaccuracies, not least the total misrepresentation of our political system, and the hopelessly outmoded portrayal of our "class culture".

This is an England that does not exist, and has never existed!

Worse still was the plot, which presented a nauseatingly sentimentalised picture of family life, not to mention a hopelessly unrealistic adolescent relationship.

If you want a good British movie, you'd be much better off with "The Ghost of Greville Lodge", or "One Against the Wind".


This movie is no doubt made especially for Amanda, cause it is damn silly and senseless, and worst of all it got really corny and tacky story. Just like her show.

Story: A girl left her mom stranded to go to England to meet her father (who doesn't know she exist).

There are too many stuff in this movie that is really cheesy, like a boy she just met  she called him Boyfriend, who happen to get every jobs in London, who is also happen to be hired in the Lord's party to sing in the band that can play any song, just ordered!!. Also the soundtrack and the acting suck.

And worst of all everything fell into place in the end which is really make it soooo irritating (because everything fell too perfectly).

But not everything about this movie is that bad. It got pretty good location, wardrobe has done a pretty good job, they managed to fool Colin Firth to be in this movie, and all the camera did work pretty well.

Recommendation: Yes, if you like The Amanda Show  Don't Watch It, for who don't.

Rating: 5/10 (Grade: D)


After a variety of sketchy farcical/romantic complications, the movie settles for a sentimental epilogue, and remains unsurprisingly dull. The biggest shock is Andrew Dice Clay - the comedian you love to boycott - whose 'Vin-Man'character utterly fails to get laughs transforming himself from a macho beast to a caring, sharing New Man via the 'Pretend You're Sensitive Handbook'.

Definitely a lightweight movie, without any heavy ambitions, and for the most part an unlikable one. With script and direction by women, it's considerably more arch and dehumanized than the usual sex comedy. Most of the men in this film are portrayed as belonging to a disgustingly hairy, penile-obsessed subspecies.


Director Genevieve Robert has attempted to make a comedy-drama that makes serious comment about modern day sexual relations, and with "Casual Sex?" she is well wide of the mark.

The storyline is very weak (concerning two young girls' search for the perfect guy), while the serious and moral content makes very little impact. Don't be deceived by the title.

Finally, the comedy only works very occasionally, but look out for Andrew Dice-Clay in a stand out performance as the 'Vinman'. "Casual Sex?" may have been much better made purely as a send-up of sex in the 80's.

Thursday, July 2, 1992 - Video


One of the strangest man-made laws of film collecting is that extremely rare and impossible to locate movies immediately become cult classics. No one seems to realise that the reason that most of these flicks have vanished in the first place is because they were so jaw-smashingly rubbish that they didn't shift first time around. It would take a pretty stupid filmmaker to recall and stop producing any feature that was flying of the shelves, wouldn't it? Titles like Hauntedween, Night Ripper and Don't go in the woods (especially Don't go in the Woods) are without a doubt a total waste of celluloid. But they still sell on ebay for prices that range from $50  to as much as a staggering $120 a pop, just because they've become as rare as a teddy boy's quiff. Judging by the posts and wanted lists that I've noticed scattered around on websites, Splatter Farm is among that number of missing obscurities that has inexplicably gained an undeserved following. I already own a copy of this pretty diabolical feature and can tell you right now that it certainly WON'T be getting a decent DVD release. Here are the reasons why

The story concerns two nameless and identically goofy-looking brothers who head out to the sticks for a vacation at their Auntie's secluded farm. Mrs. Lacy is an old coot who keeps telling herself that's she's incredibly lonely since her old man was the victim of an unfortunate 'accident' (an axe to the head!). Her only company on the green grass of home is Jeremy, the handyman who lives in a barn. Unbeknownst to pinkie and perky (the two numbskull siblings), Jeremy is a raving cannibalistic maniac with a taste for necrophilia too. In the first scene alone he's shown dismembering a patently unrealistic corpse, which looks to be made from paper mache. Before long the two nerds are stranded on the farm and have to fight off their auntie's sexual advances and Jeremy's murderous habits

How on earth this has become a cult classic is a mystery that's just beyond my wildest imagination. Ollie Kendall's Houseboat Horror achieved a similar kind of feat when that too took a one-way vacation into obscurity. But Kendall's admittedly poor splatter cheese fest looks comparable to Oliver Stone's JFK when levelled up against this dire mess. Splatter Farm isn't just stark ragingly bad; it's as humiliating for the buyer as it must have been for the people that were involved with the production. Now I know it's nothing to boast about, but as you can see from my review list I can safely say that I know more than most about slasher movies. I've seen them all, from the good (The Prowler/Intruder) to the bad (Last Slumber Party/New York Centre Fold Massacre). Well P.Alan's addition to the cycle is neither good nor bad - it's just ugly, and it doesn't even manage to get the basics right.

The first thing that you should know is that this was not even shot on a reasonable format. It's just your average everyday camcorder recording, which makes SOV flicks look like maxivision 48 cinema prints in comparison. The sound is no less than pathetic; and because this was shot only on a camcorder, the Casio keyboard-type score cannot be played at the same time as the dialogue. There's no boom mike available, so the tinny microphone picks up everything other than what you want it to properly and Ray Charles must have edited the whole thing whilst counting sheep. Yes there are gallons and gallons of gore and scenes that could get the movie banned even in Amsterdam, but it's so damn fake and poorly handled that it makes Violent Sh*t look like Tom Savini's finest hour in comparison. I won't mention the performances because basically there aren't enough slanderous words in the dictionary to do them justice. Besides, apparently you can't write swear words on the IMDb, which would leave me unable to give you a full description of the block-like cast members.

I want to say that I'm not trying to slander P. Alan's attempt to make his first movie. I think it's great that anyone with a camcorder can grab a few mates and try to do something creative with their spare time. All I'm trying to do is stop the numerous fans paying rip-off prices for a film that just won't deliver what you expect it to. It's certainly a twisted beast with hilarious necrophilia sex scenes that you won't see anywhere else. But like I said, chances are you could pick up a camcorder and make a movie of similar quality with just a couple of your mates and a gallon of corn syrup.

I really didn't enjoy Splatter Farm and I reckon that the only fun to be had is hunting down a copy in the first place. If you do manage to find a version available somewhere, then don't spend too much of your hard earned cash, because I'm telling you it's just not worth it. If you're looking for gratuitous gore and shock tactics then try and find an uncut copy of Giallo a Venice or The Grim Reaper instead.


Splatter Farm is a great film...if you are deaf and blind. This is most assuredly the most retarded film ever to be distributed with box art. We're talking production values lower than an extra value meal here, kids. Necrophilia, strange homosexual rape, and incest are not punchlines when you take them as seriously as the makers of this film. If Deliverance had been made by autistic baboons, it would be better than this. If I could have, I would have rated this movie lower than a 1, only a little nub of the first star would have been lit up. 1/10.


Do not believe the raving and ranting about this one, you will not find it shocking, or gross, or 'nauseating' as some other reviewers would have you believe. Once again we have a terminally boring and dumb oddity that no one has seen, and those that have feel privileged for some odd reason and thus, obligated to hype it up into something its not even close to being.

"F'ed up" and "sickenly far" are phrases some reviewer chose to use to describe Splatter Farm. Needless to say, that made me laugh almost as hard as the movie did! THERE IS NOTHING SICK OR SHOCKING IN THIS FILM. ITS ALL JUST WORDS. Sure there's some blood and gore, but when an entire movie comes of like a goof, how on earth can it be shocking? For example, the animal cruelty scene (token for any exploiter) shows man lifting hammer, cut to closeup of horse, cut to hammer being lifted, cut to closeup of horse, cut to horse naying and running away...yes folks, ready those pacemakers and prepare for the shock!

Or howabout the incest scene with the aunt and the nephew, here's how it goes.

Aunt: I'm feeling lonely, I drugged your drink. Cut to someone sitting on bed with a big sheet over them, bouncing up and down for 3 seconds (that is supposed to be the aunt and nephew doing it under the covers). End scene. And yes, thats as disturbing as this stinker gets. Every "shock" in this flick is poorly executed and lifted from either Nekromantik or Island of Death (others I'm sure) and just comes of as ineffective and funny(!), the type of reaction you shouldn't have.

The only thing more perplexing than the oh so "sick and twisted...I love it" kids praising moronic movies like this are the detractors condemning them for being so filthy and disgusting (eg. Cannibal Holocaust), anyone that enjoys it must need help. I mean I just don't get it. Like most exploiters, nothing comes off as genuine and is usually badly handled so why bother making a fuss? Anyway, if you're looking for shocks or hell, even just a fun time, don't be mislead. This one doesn't deliver the goods at all, fan of exploitation cinema or not.


You know how people joke about The Blair Witch Project being a dull do-it-yourself home movie? Well, Splatter Farm makes that movie look like Citizen Kane! Yes, I had the misfortune of actually renting this movie years ago and it was so bad it actually has become a running joke with my family. If we see a lousy movie we compare it to this one! Honestly, I can't believe it's even on this website. According to my video store, they get home movies like this every once and a while and sometimes they slip through the cracks and get on the shelf.

Don't be tricked by the other posters who see like they were probably some of the people who were in the movie, this movie had no story, no quality acting, no quality effects: IT WAS A HOME MOVIE.


I have no words to describe my experience! It's awful, cheap, boring, clichéd comedy (was it really comedy??)! In my opinion, 2005 has been a wonderful movie year for Bollywood with many good movies! But this one is a shame on this year! This movie probably belonged to 1980's, a tasteless decade in Indian cinema! In some news, I read Shaadi No 1 is last of David Dhawan's comedy! If that is really true (and not a publicity gimmick), I'll be the happiest!

I have never seen such bad acting in recent times! Script, Screenplay, Music, Direction, Cinematography... if there is a filmfare award for worst movies, this movie will get at least a dozen award !


shaadi no 1 is a real bad movie. the most important point that makes it bad is the corniness. i mean, if the Indian audience found the lines hilarious, then they must get a reality check. i mean, even a third-grader would have difficulties in laughing at those lines. the only reason i was laughing in the theatre was because i was laughing at the actors but not with them.

the acting too was pretty pathetic except sanjay dutt who did a decent job(although he got irritating in the second half). I also feel that sophie and riya sen must get some acting lessons.

i give this movie a 0.25/100. an advise, don't watch this movie at all.


one word describes this film "rubbish" if you've got a couple of hours to kill, please do something else rather than watch this sad excuse for a screwball comedy.

There's no plot to the "film", Sanjay Dutt's character is extremely annoying far more than the Aussie chap in Salaam Namaste.

I came away with a bitter taste after having watched this, surely the actors read the script before even agreeing to appear in this film? Forget get "straight from Cinema to DVD" It should be straight from cinema to the dump.

Totally unforgettable rubbish.


I can hardly believe that people like this movie. It was simply ridicules. David Dhawan has simply lost his mind. After Masti every director is exploiting the same script. The jokes were pathetic. Non-sense comedy and above all Sanjay Dutt. He was probably the worse in the movie. I mean his annoying one liner "missalen" sayings in that Punjabi accent were awful. Through out the movie he was the most annoying character and rather than funny. The script is quite loose. I mean how a stranger walks into the life of three married couple can and just pretends to know them. All in all for people who enjoyed this movie they need a head MRI.

Please! Do not waste your time and money on it and if possible do not even watch it for free.


Shaadi No.1 is a milestone film- actually a U-turn film with which Mr. David Dhawan has relaunched himself into the genre of over-the-top comedy with minimum sense and maximum words.Needless to say the film is not worth seeing even once and reasons are many- 1.If you have seen Mujhse Shaadi Karogi and Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya or even of them you could be having great expectations with this one and you would not feel anything sort of irritating disappointment.

2.If you thought that you could at least see six hotties (Ayesha, Esha, Soha, Arti, Sophie & Riya) then you won't get to see much of them.And when you'll get back home you won't even remember if there was one Miss Riya Sen (or some other actress) in the film.

3.If you saw Munnabhai MBBS and you think Sanju baba can tickle your funny bone like no one else then what you get from our original Bhai in this film is a score of not-so-funny shayaris which he proudly called Misals.

4.And if you didn't take all these things seriously and you decided to see it once for yourself then I will pray for you and I'll hope that a massive powercut occurs in your area and you are not able to watch the climax.

It's not necessary but let me mention that film is around three husbands played by Fardeen, Zayed and Sharman who (exactly like Masti) are not happy with their marital (read sexual) life.Then they go for 'Bahar ki Biryani' apart from 'Ghar ki Daal'- only to find themselves into the clutches of Mr. Lakhwinder Singh (Sanjay Dutt).Well there's little more I can tell about the story but it's pretty much like Masti.

Now I'd like to request (on the behalf of everyone who's starved of a good comedy film) that please move ahead of Three-Starved-Guys-Extra-marital-Affair kind of comedy.It is not the only way to make people laugh.


DD earlier made remarkable comedies though illogical yet funny

This is a weird film by him, he tried the MASTI formula and brought an identical story of 3 guys who hav 3 wives and search for love outside even the characters are similar

The comedy scenes are so cringe worthy, it looks like we are watching a stage play, the dialogues too are damn stage like

The spiderman jokes are so bizarre while the Sanju angle and all other stuff is contrived

The ending is the worst part of the film

Direction by DD is bad Music is ordinary

Camera-work is only saving grace

Amongst actors Fardeen Khan and Zayed Khan shout too loud and act artificially mostly Sharman excels in his part, though this isn't a patch of his best works Amongst girls Esha overacts, Ayesha is just there and the rest are all bad Sanjay is plain horrible, he hams it up badly


well i have seen this movie and would like to give marks below one. there is nothing about this movie to discuss. star cast is big like sanjay dutt fardeen khan ayesha takia etc. but what went wrong with David ? such a outstanding flop really i must admit that David should take some rest instead of making movies and casting big stars, all actors played a awful character they all are totally waste in the roles they played. start to end u will never find u scene to laugh on but that is the big reason to laugh to consider this movie a "COMEDY". oh bollywood stop making such movies copies and this kind of comedy with no storyline no plot , do some serious efforts. i only wanna say about this movie that "PLZ. DON'T WASTE UR TIME AND MONEY".


I was looking forward to watching this movie as the trailers looked good. It is directed by David Dhawan, who has given us a couple of entertaining movies in the past. Shaadi No. 1 has an incredibly large cast of actors and looked like a Hit. A lousy script about 3 guys who want to commit suicide because there not happy with married life (how realistic and funny). They suddenly make a deal with a man to fall in love with his spoilt daughters and dump them. After many appalling flirting techniques, they manage to romance these childish girls. Suddenaly, a stranger comes and tells them he knows about their affairs, and he will tell their wives. It then follows into cheap comedy, that doesn't make you laugh a single bit. Sanjay Dutt is the stranger, why did a Great actor like him make this pathetic movie. Fardeen Khan has given us some good films, but he seems to be making worser movie over and over again. Sharman Joshi was funny in style and maybe the least annoying character in the movie. Zayed Khan gives us another Flop movie, remember (Main Hoon Na = Anybody that makes a Shahrukh Khan film have a big advantage). Esha Deol and Soha Ali Khan give dreadful performances in annoying roles. Ayesha Takia looks sexy as ever and is incredibly cute with the sweetest smile, but her looks couldn't save the film. Riya Sen is another sex bomb, that couldn't save the film. Introducing singer Sophie in a unimpressive role. Finally Aarti Chabria who looks pretty but her acting once again was poor. I would of given this a 0/10, but because of the girls a 2/10. Out of all the girls, i would love to have a three some with Riya Sen and Aarti Chabria. Their is a song in this film Zara zara where Ayesha Takia shows her melon curves, wow i would love to suck them melons.


After the two pathetic ones- Masti and No entry we have another similar, regressive sick film. The reason is very simple. Those two were hits unfortunately. We have again three sick, married (surprisingly how come?) MCP types unable to control their libidos, and therefore chasing the skirts outside their marriage, and who ultimately are set right as per the norms of the happily married ones by one Mr. Lucky Bhaiyya. Throughout the film, he gives 'Misaals" (Examples) which he rightly call 'Missiles" as to escape them audience actually have to look for an outlet from the Theatre. The humor if at all it is called is sadistic, self-deprecating type. The characters look like buffoons as they mouth some gibberish trash lines that are called dialogs according to writer Milap Zaveri as usual. Also our trade pundits, should take a notice about the kind of stuff Director David Dhawan is capable of delivering when both of his regular writers- Anees Bazmee and Rumi Jaffrey are not with him. Finally, it is not Shaadi no. 1 but is Barbaadi no. 1. This reminds me of a recent joke going around in the industry. Director Kunal Kohli said he find it very insulting when he is not permitted in for the premiere of this film. Little did he know how fortunate he is as he escaped this intolerable, shoddy Stuff?

Story line - Are You Joking? Rating- No more Jokes please!


I finally saw William Castle's PROJECT X the other night and I was surprised by the story-line. It reminded me a lot of JOHNNY MNEMONIC or THE MATRIX and the whole cyberpunk genre of films or books. PROJECT X is seriously outdated because of the FX and the boring and cheap production values, which makes this movie look like a standard 1960s TV movie. But the story itself screams William Gibson: it's about retrieving some memory from a spy (played by Christopher George) who's suffering from amnesia and who might have the information about Asia's attempt to destroy the West. The amnesia was artificially induced in the spy by someone in order to prevent the information from reaching the authorities in the West. When the film starts, the spy is incased in some coffin-like chamber and he's in suspended animation. Scientists revive the spy and try to get that memory from his amnesiac mind with a holographic device that can see inside the man's mind when he's sleeping. The scientists also recreate a 'virtual reality" setting that looks like something from the 1960s where the scientists hope the spy will be duped and eventually hand them the missing memory (the spy knows a lot about history, which is the explanation for the elaborate set-up. It's also cheaper this way. No expensive futuristic sets. LOL!). Of course, someone tries to botch the scientists attempt to save the world. The story is filled with details like biowarfare, overpopulation, infertility, etc. The identity of the spy is repeatedly changed by the scientists, who keep referring to these new virtual personalities of his as a MATRIX!

JOHNNY MNEMONIC is basically an unofficial remake of PROJECT X. In JOHNNY MNEMONIC, the whole world is suffering from some sort of condition called Nerve Attenuation Syndrome. Keanu Reeves has information implanted in his brain (which has a chip) that could cure NAS. Keanu got this implanted info in Beijing and he only has 24 hours to bring the vital info to the scientists in the US. William Gibson basically reworked the ideas found in PROJECT X and updated them for JOHNNY MNEMONIC. For instance, In JOHNNY MNEMONIC, the world is already suffering from something and the cure is from Asia. In PROJECT X, the threat is from Asia and it's some sort of virus/biochemical/nerve weapon. And the action in both stories are governed by some sort of limited timeline.

While watching the film, I had a vivid sense of deja vu. The whole idea of advanced technology capable of controlling memories, and the "reality vs virtual reality" aspect seen in PROJECT X are the basic ingredients of the whole cyberpunk genre. PROJECT X was very familiar and yet, thanks to the look of the movie, very outdated too. As a movie, PROJECT X is not that good but it's interesting to see where the whole idea of memory manipulation started from.


I taped this film off of a cable TV broadcast, apparently a rare occurrence. The film doesn't seem to get any air time at all, and as far as I know it is not available commercially on VHS or DVD. As much as one would want to corroborate other people's opinions of less-well-known films, I cannot recommend William Castle's "Project X". I found the film wildly over-plotted and very much derivative of other, better films. Where it tries to present something different, I found it just confused. The acting is at its best moments routine, and occasionally goes way over the top. The special effects do not impress; the film eventually resorts to using animation and not very stylish animation at that. But give a gander to the cast and you'll see why. William Castle is most widely known as a showman and promoter. There isn't anything here like that, so the film has to stand on its own. It can't.


I was eager to see Pinero, liking the actor Benjamin Bratt. I thought it might be similar to other Hispanic themed films, like 'Before Night Falls', or 'The Sea Within' - both films that I enjoyed.

Unfortunately, that is not the case here. The film falls short on several levels. I thought Bratt overacted, more times coming off like a swaggering quasi-cool Hispanic Matthew McConaughey (and I don't think we need another one) rather than a 'street wise' urban poet.

His Pinero character does not have one shred of likability to him, and his art apparently does not age well, for I found the poetry he created somewhat shopworn. Like others, I could see no real reason that this guy was an important character or artist, or why exactly he was a 'New York sensation'.

The directing style was also confusing. It's probably just me, but I was sometimes not sure what decade I was in, what action was being 'staged', and what was actually happening in real time. This jump cut editing also seems a bit dated as well.

In short, I still like Benjamin Bratt (not that he needs an endorsement), but I did not find this to be a good film.


While I had the pleasure of seeing this film mere blocks away from the Nuyorican Cafe, I was crawling to escape the theater!

Benjamin Bratt certainly acts his heart out, and I applaud him for that, but it is hard to picture the supermodel-esque Bratt as the late poet/junkie/ex-con. This is a minor point, though. I was very disappointed with the music video style fast cuts and looping of time sequences. Often the camera never pauses long enough to leave an impact and let a character develop.

Also, I must confess, it is hard for me to separate the movie from my lack of respect for the "struggle" this man endured. Comments like "all people see us as is doormen, etc." is repeated a few times. While this can be true, how is that different than any other major immigrant group in history (each starts on the bottom and crawls up)? I think the scene in San Juan where a Puerto Rican man stands up and questions his "so-called" struggle says it all. Pinero's (movie) response is very weak.

I feel like parallels are being drawn to comparable figures in black-American history - it isn't apples-to-apples. Pinero was a troubled and gifted man, and was given opportunities that he squandered away. While the film mildly acknowledges that from time to time - the romantic "struggle" theme quickly swoops in and obliterates it!

I agree that every people needs a voice and Pinero was a very fascinating and influential one, but he should have been shown raw and non-romanticized, unlike this drivel. See "Short Eyes" if you want Pinero straight! See "Before Night Falls" if you want an un-romanticized struggle for artistic and political freedom.


MP, the man & the character in the film, was a loser from Day 1, who whined to be spared punishment for his sins because he was an artiste. Many gave him those breaks, which ironically just sped his path to a well-deserved oblivion, 1 this film should emulate. In fact, in the 10 or 15 minutes you've read reading this essay you probably know 10 times as much about Piñero- man & film- than the film says. While Leon Ichaso deserves a panning for his take with the film, in truth, the only vaguely interesting things about the real MP was his bad art & why it caught on (briefly & limitedly) & then disappeared- as a man he was a cipher, thus the film's worship of 'art' over humanity, not to mention its ridiculous conflation of import on MP by counterpointing the protagonist against documentary footage of celebrities like Muhammad Ali, Richard Nixon, Ayatollah Khomeini, & John Lennon). LI, however, failed to realize there was nothing to the art, to boot. Let me end this piece be reiterating that biopics need not be slavish to every dull detail of a person's life, but it cannot wantonly distort a person's life out of proportion with its reality. So, it's time someone finally told the truth about Piñero & the Nuyoricans.


A tour de force by Bratt, "Pinero" tells the story of NYC dwelling drug addict, poet, jail bird, playwright, thief, and actor Miguel Pinero in a busy cacophony of sight and sound which trades kinetics and verve for content, clarity, and humanity. In short, the flick plays out like just another screwed up junkie artist bio which doesn't crawl into the Pinero head to flush out the questionable humanity of the enigmatic protagonist. A film with limited appeal, low entertainment value, and poor coherence. (D+)