No Spoilers (there are no actual spoilers anyways)

I just saw this movie at a preview in New Delhi(PVR) i.e. on Wednesday (two days before the release) and i was really looking forward to this one. But as in the case of most Hindi movies ,I was disappointed yet again. The movie starts off real slow with unwanted sound effects (not even effects but those silly bangs and booms to give the audience a jolt)(a cheesy one includes sounds of a tiger roar now and then) which sounded inappropriate at times. Well, nothing i mean NOTHING happens till one and a half hour of the movie(what happens is the same old sightings of those zombies roaming in the house) and what all happens after that is silly (totally silly).

But the thing that bothered me most is that there are numerous plot holes in the story. In other words, this movie is made of three things: Plot holes, Plot holes and Plot holes. The screenplay (or the story) is pathetic. Many things remain unexplained and its like they are showing whatever they want to without even thinking about it once.

First i thought 'God, they have copied 'The Shining' because there was this boy who goes about the house in his small cycle and his dad is a writer and then when he starts seeing the ghosts i thought 'Okay its Sixth Sense now' but it was not even so. The Ending sequences are really stupid and seems like the director and the screenwriter are complete idiots to have thought of making such trash. The visual effects were as if they are of a B movie and were nowhere near visual effects (a kid could have done them up).

SPOILERS HEREIN - Those who want to know what it is about

The kid sees a zombie family and roams around the house speaking to them and playing with them. The zombie children live on a Banyan Tree (don't know if Bargat ka pedh is Banyan) and there's a small shed in the backyard of the house also. Some stupid scenes include a ball hanging in the air going here and there.

So his parents(The incredibly talented Sushmita Sen and that guy from Satya) hire a 'Bai' who steals their stuff and is hit by one of the Ghosts (zombies)(the scene is hilarious). She tells the boy not to tell his parents about her and even threatens to kill him. When he tells his parents they become worried coz of the weird things their child is talking about but then the maid gets killed and all the stuff is found which she stole so Sush realizes her kid was indeed seeing the ghosts all the while.

Also there is that funny short guy from Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon who features in all of Ramu's productions (He was also in Hungama). He seems to know the story behind the family in the house and jumps in front of Sush's car whenever she goes to the hospital (she is playing a doctor)

Throughout the movie the kid keeps seeing the zombie family (which is not at all scary) and one night he and his parents go out for a movie, Sush's sis Radhika (played by Piya) is alone in the house and her boyfriend Murali comes to the house (Purab that channel [V] VJ) and starts playing with her in bed and then suddenly he disappears (The crappy part starts now).

MAJOR SPOILERS

Radhika starts searching him and then gets killed by the zombies. When Sush and people return they find Murali killed in bed and Radhika hanging by the tree. Even the husband gets killed and the boy is also smacked by the zombie family (who are now joined by Radhika and Murali zombies). Susmita comes to know about the tree through that mad guy (Small funny guy) and when she returns she sees her little boy lying on the floor and now her husband is also a zombie. She picks him up and runs for her life. Starts her car and goes round and round coz her neck is being held by her zombie hubby. Her car crashes into the tree and it goes on fire but Sush escapes out of the car and faints. The mad guy is very happy to see the tree in ashes and even pees in front of the tree but when he turns back the zombies are not gone. (Stupid no?).Sush wakes up in the hospital and finds her son okay and then when she picks him up the last shot of the scene shows the boy (her son) is also a zombie i.e. he died when the ghosts smacked him.

All of these things are unexplained and are pretty dumb. Do not watch this movie and if you are very eager to see it... rent it on DVD or something. But i might add that the only thing worth watching is Susmita Sen and her acting (does a great job after Samay). But i sense that the director is good and should get another chance. Rating 2 out of 10


5 star is good for it really it didn't seem like it wood be even a worth watch but it is. this was categorized as a scary movie..........to a 10 yr old he may pee his pants but i don't think it should for the later,this i would say because the ghosts in the movie(a Totally GRUDGE MOVIE RIP-OFF)are shown a lot of times in daytime.......that totally ruins it.....we can clearly see the white powder on the ghosts..............and lot of the movie is 'The Shining' 's RIP-Off.........i don't remember whats scenes are but some like when the kid rides the3 wheeler bicycle and the camera follows him like the same way in the shining......and the background music too was playing same.....DAMN!!!!,i would also say that the story is bit like the the shining.i didn't like the ending and the twist ain't that good too if u see the movie then i am sure ur gonna realize the fault that the director made (u will have to pay attention to know more faults .....there are a lot of faults) .....the ghosts die becoz the tree burns down becoz they wre living there but at the final shot they show that kid has become a ghost........how the hell did he get away ????i mean he should have died too after the tree burn down .it could have been better too bad it had to end like this......................The Whole movie could have been a better . but ill still rate it a worth watching film for its effort.........u don't get to see that lot scary movies in bollywood ,u get movies with stupid fake stunts with no good plot.


I started cursing myself about 20 mins. after the start of the show. One tends to think what has happened to Ram Gopal Verma's quality of production. This movie certainly digressed from the main theme of horror movies - "Its supposed to scare ya !" ..

Almost the entire movie is clichéd .. there is no proper story .. and the director thinks that by adding weird sounds, it will sound scary .. you could almost guess what was going to happen next .. there is no proper story in the movie ! There should have been some history about why the tree killed people .. why did all the people decide to appear in the end together ? why could they not start the carnage earlier .. pathetic movie .. sushmita can act and she does a good job but the direction and the story is just nonsense .. "bhoot" was so much better .. I just saw exorcist (the beginning) a couple of days back and I thought it was pretty good ..

Man !! the next time I go to a Ram Gopal Varma production, I'm gonna make sure I don't got for the first day show, it would be more sensible to ask someone who has already seen the movie ... it seems he is losing his touch ..


Ram Gopal Varma creates more mysterious garbage! This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It is so bizarre, repulsive, and stupid. Varma was right--this movie is very scary--so scary that it scared the audience out of the theaters! By the end of the movie, I was laughing my head off. That's not a good sign when you're watching a horror/thriller. The climax is so disgusting and utter nonsense! Do yourself a big favor and avoid this one! I must say, though, that the child artist was awesome! He really looked as if he just saw a ghost. He definitely deserves some awards for his performance. Sushmita also did a good job.


This movie had a collection of interesting supporting actors such as Peter Cushing, Ronald Lacey, Trevor Howard and the great Sean Connery.

However, it completely fails on the lack of acting ability of Miles O'Keefe, who did a lot of movies of the fantasy variety before being consigned to Direct to DVD Perdition.

The plot is that Sir Gawain has been given a year to live by the magical Green Knight, after which if he has not solved four riddles, the Green Knight can have his head. After a series of adventures rescuing a fair maiden from the magical city of Lyonese, and a battle with evil forces, Gawain has a final confrontation with the Green Knight, by which time you really and truly will not care anymore.

Parts of this movie look good, others look kind of cheesy even for 1984.


Yes, Sean Connery did not want to be Bond forever and for the most part you can say he has done a rather good job of doing roles other than Bond. Then there are the head scratchers like that turn as a villain in the very dull "Avengers" movie. Or like here, where he decided to say the heck with serious acting let me be in one of those horrible films with one of those guys who can not act a lick in this case Miles O'Keefe, also seen in the dreadful "Cave Dwellers", which was also a sequel to another one that I have heard is bad itself Ator. Granted the movie "Zardoz" was strange too, and it made no sense as well, but it had a certain style and actually seemed to work even though there are still parts of it I have no clue as to what they were about. This one is just bad with an ending that makes one go what the heck just happened there. Did they not remember to write a good ending so they had to end it in the most vague possible manner. Not really much to say about this movie, only that Sean Connery is the only reason I gave this movie a two because he is a favorite actor of mine. However, he does not really add anything to this one, but it just makes the movie surreal just because an actor of his caliber is in it.


Abysmal screen adaptation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" which not only frequently abandons the source material but is devoid of any of its themes or meanings. The result is a strictly one-dimensional swords and sandal shambles which fatally chooses to take itself seriously. Miles O'Keefe is as bland as one can be in the role of Gawain whilst the action sequences are staged totally without panache or energy. The sole highlight (for me, anyway) among the mess was Sean Connery's lively portrayal of the Green Knight yet its not enough to rescue the movie. Overall, the whole thing is a sorry excuse for a film production and (considering its release in an era where action-adventure was being taken to new heights through "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones") one has to wonder what the filmmakers ever saw in it.


I had to watch this movie in a medieval literature class I am taking in college, and to be quite frank, it was one of the worst films I have seen in the course of my life. The plot mixes both the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Countess of The Fountain(a.k.a. Owein) but seems to leave out the whole meaning and message of each work of literature. To someone watching this movie, who has not read these works before may not be as...repulsed...by it as one who has.However, even someone with no knowledge of the texts will still not enjoy this movie.Really the only good thing about it is Sean Connery. I don't like giving bad reviews, but I just can't recommend this movie to anyone.


This movie starts with a lot of promise. The opening scene, featuring Sean Connery, is very entertaining. However, Connery disappears for most of the rest of the movie along with any talent that anyone else may have exhibited. The movie jumps from place to place with no coherent story. There is no sense of time. The editing is laughable. After the first 5 minutes there is nothing worth watching in this film.


When I first heard about this movie I knew right off the bat it would be hilariously bad. Think about it...first off it's made by Cannon, one of the most incompetent movie companies of all time (just about 95% of all the movies they ever made were laughably bad). Second, the hero of the story is none other than Miles O'Keefe himself wearing a big dopey blonde wig that makes him look more girlie than tough. Then to top it all off we have Sean Connery in a role he'd probably rather forget as the "Green Knight", but he looks more like a Christmas decoration then an actual magical knight. Not only is he covered from head to toe in green glitter, but he has pieces of holly stuck to his head! Throw all these into a blender and you have a really horrible unintentionally funny film.

The story revolves around Sean Connery challenging all the knights at a particularly wimp-filled castle to use his own axe to chop off his head. The deal is they get one blow to chop Sean's head off, but if they don't succeed he in turn gets to take a chop at their head. At first none of the knights are willing to accept his challenge, but then when the King gets so frustrated at his weak kingdom and offers to accept Sean's deal himself, the brave Miles O'Keefe jumps in and accepts the challenge instead! The King is so proud he makes the young Miles O'Keefe an instant knight! What happens next is ridiculous. O'Keefe takes his swing and chops Sean's head clean off...but then a really fake Sean head laying on the floor is then seen telling his body to come and pick up his head. The headless body walks over to the head, picks it up, and puts it back on his neck. Miles O'Keefe, realizing that he's just been fooled by a magical knight into giving up his own life, prepares to have his own head chopped off in return. However, Sean Connery decides that he will grant the young O'Keefe one more year to live his life before he will chop off his head. He also gives O'Keefe a really boring riddle that if he solves in that year, his life will be spared.

The rest of the movie revolves around Miles O'Keefe in a fake crappy stiff armor outfit traveling around the countryside trying to solve the riddle, fighting danger every step of the way. There are not only tons of cheesy battles, but movie mistakes galore and plot holes aplenty. If you're a bad movie fan then definitely check this one out. You'll be happy you did.


This truly has to be the worst film ever, a bunch of five year olds would surely be able to write a better script, construct more realistic sets and props and act to a higher degree than the actors in this movie seem to have demonstrated and still be more understanding to historical accuracy!

And can someone please explain the wigs? Surely not adding to historical accuracy (for any century!) or even 1984! Added to this the poor soundtrack which seems to suggest that the director, at gunpoint, forced some lonely spinster from the organ of a church in Dunny-On-The-Wolds, Surrey to sit down and construct (with a timescale of half an hour) the film score on a budget of £5 and a pickled egg!

I can only describe it as one horrific car crash, so awful, you just stare in disbelief, knowing that you should look away and hoping that no one else will catch you looking! Poor Sean Connery, did he desperately need to pay the mortgage for another month?! Dire!


"After the first 5 minutes there is nothing worth watching in this film" (xnix444).

Yes, but even the first 5 minutes are really bad. The intro with the sword seems to be stolen by 'Conan the barbarian' (also 1982), but in quality not even close to it.

"It has possibly the worst score in film history." (eightx10)

Yes, that is also true. The score is scary!

"The production values are terrible; the writing, nonexistent." (yngue)

Yes, I agree and have nothing more to say about that. Even "The Barbarians" (1987) is a true masterpiece compared to this crap.

Rating: 1 of 10.


This was is hilariously bad. One of the most ineptly made movies I have ever seen. Sean Connery has one good scene at the beginning, but even it has some really cheezey effects.

And the MUSIC. It has possibly the worst score in film history. I heartily recommend this film to all those out there who (like me) respect an unapologetic bad film.


Now...can we take any movie seriously, whose awful soundtrack is a boring copy of the HE-MAN cartoons soundtrack? I feel sorry because this movie is NOT one's typical B production...they shot scenes in lavish locations in England, Wales and France, and were thus beyond typical B stuff... However, this is yet another Golan-Globus-Cannon actioner that turns out awful. Barren the barely decent Connery & Cushing, lead actors seem out of a high school rehearsal; O'Keefe stars as not-so-clever low-steroid musclehead. The storyline is interesting, but what you watch on the screen isn't after all... It's supposedly a deeply philosophical quest for the self and what you watch is a Richard Pryor thing. When the second red knight uses the sword, you clearly see it's fake and not a real sword. I won't watch it again.


Juvenile fantasy/adventure with an impressive cast of old reliables (Sean Connery, Peter Cushing, Trevor Howard, Lila Kedrova, Douglas Wilmer and Wilfrid Brambell) all operating below-par alongside the resistible - indeed wooden - presence of would-be star Miles O'Keefe (fresh from two similarly low-brow Ator films). Bafflingly, Connery went on to the equally unappetizing and silly HIGHLANDER (1986)...even if, I have to say, that one's something of a guilty pleasure for me!

The hairstyles designed for the film give new meaning to the phrase "bad hair day"! Besides, the look of the film is pretty cheap (I watched this via MGM's pan-and-scan DVD, which certainly did it no favours); the death-knell is delivered, then, by the inappropriate and ultra-cheesy electronic score! Certainly harmless in itself but overlong and not exactly rewarding in any way; strangely enough, the director had already tackled the story a decade earlier in GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT (1973), which is yet another film that I haven't had the opportunity to catch up with since missing out on it on local TV in my childhood...though I can't say that I'm particularly looking forward to it now!


Yes, this is a bad movie. Very bad, actually. Most of the script is garbage and it does no justice either to the original Gawain and the Green Knight poem or to Chrétien de Troyes' Ywain (or Owain). However, it's far from being the worst movie ever made, and latent somewhere in the badness there is at least an acceptable adventure film. Or might be.

I mean, the film looks pretty good (it was shot by Freddie Young) and benefits from the use of real castles instead of fake-looking sets. And Connery's Green Knight is quite a sight. His costume has received a lot of scorn, yet I find it impressive. Sir Sean is aware of being in a bad movie and just has fun with his supervillain part (remember when he used to do so instead of his non-acting nowadays?), which is the best role in the film, and transmits said fun to the audience.

I wish director Stephen Weeks would take back and recut the film. He'd have a lot of work to do, yet he could come up with something decent (apparently a lot of footage was cut, maybe part of it is worthwhile, maybe not). I would actually like Mr. Weeks to read this comment and think about it, maybe for a future DVD edition to replace the indefensible MGM Pan and Scan botch job from 2004 (If anyone reading this can contact Mr. Weeks, please feel free to pass these lines to him). Here's a list of what should be cut:

-As much silliness as possible. That awful, childish and really unfunny humor is what really sinks the movie and turns it into a retarded cousin of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". Gone should be the toilet jokes, the goofy fights, the "Don't you see I'm playing" moment with Rhys-Davies, the inept sidekick who kills the wrong knight... You get the idea.

-All scenes featuring Morgan La Fay. Not only the character serves no purpose in the story, but she looks terribly anachronistic (notice the painted fingernails, not to mention her circus tent) and her scene with Connery makes the Green Knight appear less majestic, less supernatural and less powerful. And her toad form is just ridiculous. Get rid of all that and make the fight against the Black Knight the first of Gawain's adventures.

-The fight scene with the Black Knight's empty armor. Hey, it's 2005 now, there's no longer need to shamelessly rip "The Empire Strikes Back" off, is there? Plus, it features the aforementioned toad.

-The epilogue. It was the most "huh?" coda ever to a film until the live-action "Dungeons & Dragons" (a movie that, unlike this one, has absolutely zero redeeming features) came along.

-There's nothing to do about the casting of Miles O'Keeffe as Gawain or his pathetic wig, but at least a couple of shots where he makes an awful ape-like face (one of them during the fight against Ronald Lacey) should disappear.

-Contrary to popular opinion, I do like parts of the music score (particularly the main theme and the one in the scene where Gawain re-encounters Linet, which gets reprised at the end of the closing credits). However, I do think it should be re-orchestrated, to make it sound less computerized and low-budget, and add spectacularity to the images. Still, it's better than your average James Horner...

I realize that the excision of these elements would not make a masterpiece out of this baby. Yet, complete with the possible reinsertion of any worthwhile cut scenes that could exist, it might become an entertaining adventure movie with good pacing (which currently, at 102 minutes, it totally lacks), not boring, not intelligence-insultingly silly, and worth watching for any medieval buffs such as myself. Unfortunately, in its current form, yes, it pretty much sucks. 3/10.


When visiting my grandmothers house on a Sunday afternoon i'm normally susceptible to all sorts of tripe that pass as Sunday Afternoon Family Films. Today I was treated to this, but Sean Connery is in it, it can't be that bad can it? Yes it can. This is far and away the worst film i've ever seen. The acting is horribly bad, but not in a funny way. It's beyond laughter. The concepts are completely implausible and the whole thing is just horrible. I don't know why Connery was involved in this but I bet he wishes he wasn't.


This is hilariously bad,which is some sort of reason to bother seeing it.The charisma free O'Keefe struggles to play an Arthurian knight, Sir Gawain, but no more so than the rest of a distinguished cast, including Sean Connery as the Green Knight.Connery looks embarrassed throughout, as well he might. It is a mishmash of Arthurian legend, medieval history and myth quite lavishly shot, but the giveaway is the producers - the Golem Brothers, makers of more cinematic rubbish than probably anybody else in the history of cinema, providers of homes for actors on the slide. Connery's career was in one of its troughs at the time. The miracle is he climbed out of it to become the sexiest man in the world. Not even Michael Caine could have made a worse career choice.


Poor costuming,

Bad acting,

Some OK sets,

and Lame plot.

Not representative of the Rennaissance in it's lack of accuracy.

The fantasy portion can't even begin to pull you into the story. Bad wig on Gawain.

Overall the worst movie I have seen in a very long time.

All I can say is Sean Connery must have needed money very badly to act (if you can call it that) in this monstrosity. Don't waste your time!


I have seen a lot of bad movies. One of my favorite pasttimes is watching bombs and making fun of them. This film, however, surpasses almost every one in terms of confusion and all-around ambiguity.

Having read the classic epic poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," I know that there is a plot to the story. However, watching this atrocity--I hardly dare to call it a "film"--you wouldn't be able to tell. The desperate stab at entertainment makes infinitely less sense than the plot of 1998's "The Avengers" (another waste of Connery's talent), and is so painful to experience that even I, a veteran of the worst of the worst, almost succumbed to the urge to throw a lamp through my TV screen. I kept watching in the vain hope that there would be a point to the random events I was witnessing.

There wasn't.

The lead (I think he was intended to be romantic, but failed) is wearing one of the worst wigs I have ever seen, and does absolutely nothing that makes sense. There is a love interest, who follows the tradition of "Blade Runner" by turning into a bird and flying away. The production values are terrible; the writing, nonexistent. It strays so far from the original literature that I still have difficulty connecting the two in my mind.

The only redeeming factor is Connery's presence; unfortunately, he is on-screen for only a few minutes at the beginning and end of the film (kind of like Charlton Heston in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes"), and is given no passable material with which to work.

As much as I adore Sean Connery as an actor, I can't help but wonder why he hasn't shot the agent who is responsible for putting him in some of these roles. Of all the bad apples of his distinguished career, this is by far the most rotten. If you value your brain cells, avoid it.


This movie is perhaps even more campy than "Conan the Barbarian" but it's also a lot worse.

For an adventure movie it's way too boring. The action and sword-fights look pretty lame and poorly edited. On top of that, there are simply too few action moments within the movie.

You can never get yourself to care for any of the characters. Characters just come and go in this movie. Way too many. There is no consistency in the story. Every character is in it for like 5 minutes and than disappears out of the story again and the next character get introduced. This is a sort of approach that is common for adventure movies but in this case they simple just overdid it.

The story is very simple. The way the story progresses is just incredible bad and disjointed. It doesn't care that it just doesn't make much sense. The story heavily relies on its adventurous/traveling elements but those moments are done so incredibly bad in the movie, that the entire movie becomes a bad one, that at times is a real drag and annoying one to watch. The movie tries to conceal how bad it is by putting in humor, to make this seem like a comedy but it doesn't fool me, or prevents me from seeing how incredibly bad this movie is made and constructed.

Amazing that so many well known, respected actors agreed to make an appearance in this movie. I'll admit, the only reason that I ever wanted to see this movie was because it featured Peter Cushing in one of his last film roles. Besides Peter Cushing, the movie also features Sean Connery with glitters, Trevor Howard, Ronald Lacey and John Rhys-Davies. Hope they still enjoyed themselves. I surely didn't enjoyed them!

The movie is good looking in a campy sort of way, with simple looking sets and costumes. The atmosphere is made even more campy by the horrible '80's synthesizer music. My head nearly exploded! Also Miles O'Keeffe performance make this a campy one. Apparently his voice got even dubbed by Peter Firth. Perhaps to conceal his bad delivery of lines? O'Keeffe is best know for playing Tarzan in the huge flop "Tarzan, the Ape Man", with Bo Derek.

A really bad movie in its sort and simply not worth watching.

3/10


So, imagine you are handed a terrific story idea--a 14th century Middle English masterpiece which has stimulated numerous translations into modern English. What would you do next? In this case, the decision was made to completely ignore the original story, to completely ignore the original's aesthetic coherence that continues to invite translation and literary adaptation, and, for that matter, to completely ignore the idea that movie goers generally like to see something movie-like. A thousand chimpanzees with typewriters could have done better in two weeks time than Weeks and crew have done here.

This film is a crime against cinema. Absolutely unwatchable. Perhaps actionable.

Questions: (1) why is there no Mystery Science Theatre episode based on this film? Too easy? (2) Why, apart from another film by Weeks in the 1970s, have there been no other cinematic adaptations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? Or have there been such films?


Regular readers of my review list will already know that I am a great fan of the slasher genre. For the past thirteen years, I have thoroughly enjoyed hunting down the many rarities that the cycle has to offer and then sharing my opinions with other collectors across the globe. I personally was not over impressed with Wes Craven's Scream trilogy, but I must admit that I have paid close attention to the overwhelming effect that the three movies have had on horror cinema. Just like being transported back to the glory years of the early eighties, video-stores have once again been over-populated with masked killers and screaming teens. After John Carpenter's Halloween kicked off the boom years two decades earlier, the majority of the bandwagon jumping genre entries were American, British or Italian productions. But this time around we have witnessed slashers from as far and wide as Germany (Flashback), Thailand (303 Fear Faith Revenge), Korea (The Record) and even India (Sssshhh). This was the first of two Swedish entries that were released in the same year.

Director Martin Munthe launches Camp Slaughter with an intriguing text that leads us to believe that the events we are about to witness are based upon a true account. Well it worked for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so why not? Next up we meet Constance (Karen Bertling), a middle aged woman who blames her husband for the fact that he never gave her the blonde-haired blue-eyed daughter that she so desperately craved. Instead the couple ended up with a rather dopey looking son called Adrian (Christian Magdu). They say that if at first you don't succeed then try again, and try again she certainly did. Only this time she swapped partners and tried with her own son! Constance's dream to have a blonde-haired and blue-eyed daughter was not fulfilled after her incestrial efforts and instead she was blessed with a hulking maniac that she decided to keep padlocked in an underground chamber for the rest of his life. Twenty five years down the line and we learn that (unsurprisingly) a remote woodland retreat has been built within walking distance of the madman's underground lair. Cue six dumb teens, plenty of beer and a broken padlock and away we go on a murder marathon!

Camp Slaughter was critically ripped to shreds upon release and most of the unenthusiastic reviews that I've read came from Swedish authors. I was expecting something as bad as The Night Devides the Day or Carnage Road after reading so much negativity. The major critical point from the aforementioned scribes was that the cast struggle with speaking English, instead of their native language. I am fluent in Polish, Russian and English; but under the extreme pressure of trying to deliver a convincing dramatic display, I must admit that I'd feel much more confident speaking in my native Spanish tongue. That's why I guess it's somewhat unfair to criticise such a young cast on the quality of their performances. In this day and age, the majority of cinema fans don't have a problem with subtitled features, and perhaps that's something that the producers should keep in mind for future reference. But the biggest problem with Slaughter is Munthe's pedestrian direction. The movie seems to take an eternity to pick up the pace and then when things finally kick off, the shocks always feel somewhat half-hearted. The maniac is portrayed as a retarded bogeyman and he only kills the kids if he inadvertently bumps into them whilst wandering through the woodland. This immediately cuts out the suspense that's usually conveyed in stalking scenes, which only seemed to slow things down even more. It reminded me a lot of that other pathetic Swedish slasher Blodaren.

Screenwriter Alina Warne made some of the most bizarre decisions that I've ever witnessed in slasher cinema. Her peculiar obsession with bunnies (unfortunately not the playboy kind) makes very little sense, and she even went as far as to call the killer Bunnyman? There's one point in the runtime where Constance begins singing (about pretty bunnies, naturally), and for a moment I had to double-check that this wasn't the first slasher musical. Even though its obvious that Warne knew the slasher guidelines inside out, she still breaks one of the most essential traditions of the cycle. Trudy (Erica Earlson) spends the majority of the movie without drinking, smoking and she turns down constant sexual advances from one of the randy guys. So we have an untarnished virgin amongst the group, surely she's got to be the final girl? Well strangely enough she won't be turning up for the sequel. It was quite a shock that she was murdered, especially when every other cliché in the rulebook had been underlined and dotted. Some of the dialogue is also hilariously inept at best and the feature was in places poorly scripted.

Camp Slaughter has become impossibly rare outside Sweden already and it's only one year and a few months old. I was somewhat surprised then when I read that a sequel is in the pipeline, which must mean that this wasn't as unsuccessful as many would have you believe. I for one don't think that Munthe's slasher opus is as bad as its hideous reputation makes it sound. Unlike many of its cousins, it's competently lighted and beautifully photographed and it has the odd moment of credibility. In fact there's a couple of neat touches on display and as long as the director cuts out the mundane tekno soundtrack and learns from his previous mistakes, Camp Slaughter 2 could be a contender. But for the moment if you must see a Swedish slasher then get Drowning Ghost instead.


Story: A bunch of teenagers go to a camp and get killed. According to the people who made this film, it's a celebration to low budget horror movies, especially Friday the 13th. I love those movies, but I truly hate this one.

Camp Slaughter has nothing of what once made the Friday the 13th movies great. 20 years later, the special effects are even worse, truly terrible. The acting never was a major factor for the success of Friday movies, but compared to the acting in Camp Slaughter, the whole crew should have gotten Academy awards. Neither does Camp Slaughter have any of the kind of self ironic humour that always where present in the older low budget movies. And worst of all: it has no originality what so ever. Everything in Camp Slaughter has not only been done before, it has been done much much better before. In fact: it has never been done worse. Camp Slaughter is not a celebration to Friday the 13th. It's a rip off that, if anything, gives the whole genre of low budget horror movies a bad name.

And no, it's not even so bad it's good. It's just so bad it's almost unbearable

Before seeing Camp Slaughter I had only given one movie the worst grade ever, a 1 out of 10. After seeing this, I'm actually considering upgrading the other movie, because I'm not sure there is another movie that completely lacks every quality in the way Camp Slaughter does. A movie couldn't possible be more pointless and boring.

So terrible it's below the scale. Avoid at all costs.


This movie is quite possibly one of the worst to ever make it out of an editing room. It has nothing, lousy camera work (I think I found three shots that had some form of focus, no color correction anywhere... a complete mess), an even worse script and no acting whatsoever (and why, oh why did they do it in English?).

I can try to find anything positive about this movie... and still fail utterly. Not even as a joke would this work. I've seen the pre-release of another Swedish b-horror called "The Unknown". It was made with 1/10 the budget, but is way way superior to this one in all aspects.

To put this short: NO, do NOT see this movie. No matter what you expect, you WILL be disappointed.


This movie is the worst horror movie i've ever seen. Everything sucks; the actors, the plot, the lines, EVERYTHING!

By the way, this is a Swedish movie, with Swedish actors, but they all speak English, and it sounds terrible... their grammar isn't exactly 'perfect'. Another thing i have to mention is that you can clearly see a cameraman in a scene where they're driving a car. In the extra-material, they even speak with the cameraman that screwed up the scene.. hmm?

If you'r planning to see this movie, don't expect too much, just expect to laugh... a lot!, then everything's gonna be alright. ... but as a comedy, it definitely worth a peek ^^


I had hope that this movie would be a good fall back to the 80's genre horror flicks and that is what it attempted to do, all be it very poorly. This movie was very bad, and bad in a very very bad way not a way in which you want to watch it and laugh at it bad. The biggest problem of this movie is that it is a Swedish film with Swedish actors speaking English. I feel that if this movie was in Swedish the actors probably would have been more comfortable in their roles. Instead it felt like they were trying to remember their lines instead of getting into their parts. I would like to see this movie again in Swedish and preferably with a new soundtrack, the idea is there but the actors are having to work way to hard to remember their lines.


There simply are no spoilers in this "movie". Although the picture and sound is good for being produced for a B-horror film, the rest of it is poor acting and scenes you've seen in at least 50 movies before. To make things even worse, someone had the idea that Swedish kids speaking English was a great idea, probably so the movie would have a chance of getting shown in other countries!

Here's the plot: A crazy lady has a son together with her own son(!) which is then being kept in a hole in the woods. Of course, this monster of a son escapes, and of course there's teenagers in the woods (sounds familiar?). You don't need a diploma to figure out that Bunny-man (that's what he's called in the end credits) will go Jason on the teenagers, but i guess that's what horror-flicks like this should be all about. The problem is that not once do you get scared, not a single scene looks real, and all acting is terrible. In the end, all you do is sit there and get angry at yourself for watching this, maybe, just maybe, you'll have a laugh at the poor acting, or the strange unreal scenes (There's one car scene that made me laugh like crazy, cause it's so unbelievably unrealistic)

Watch it, don't watch it, that's up to you, i'd rather rent any part of the Friday the 13th-flicks and watch it again. I'm stealing my last comment from Comic book guy in the Simpsons: Worst movie EVER!


Nobody likes a bad movie, but sometimes you come across one that is so extremely bad it actually becomes enjoyable. This is the case with Camp Slaughter.

Director Martin Munthe's idea of paying homage to his favorite slasher films (Friday the 13th) is by making one that is even worse. The so called effects were outdated even twenty years ago, and the story is a joke. However, you may not notice this since you are so busy laughing at the actors. Not only do they read their lines in the worst form of Swenglish, there's also an embarrassing lack of devotion and experience.

You just have to watch this.


I'm the kind of person who quite often rents movies i know i won't like, just because laughing at bad movies can be almost as much fun as seeing something i really appreciate. Sometimes this tactic goes terribly wrong however and the rented film proves to be too bad even for laughs...

Camp slaughter is a story about a few kids who go out to a cabin in the woods to party (although mostly it just seems they want to whine and complain at each other). Of course since this is a murder story bad things happen. Soon enough the kids are being murdered one after one by the ruthless monster "The Bunny Man".

This sucks. It stinks. It's terrible in every imaginable way. It's bad, and not bad in a good way. Basically what we seem to have here is a couple of friends taking their DV-camera out into the woods filming a murder story. That is fine by me, what i wonder is why they released it to the public! And why on earth it appeared on the big screen (because it did in Sweden a short couple of weeks). The problem here is that everything is too lousy, to the point where it's not even fun anymore. The ambition the filmmakers had seemed to be somewhere along the lines of "Friday the 13th". To say they fall short is the understatement of the century.

What disturbs me even more is how easy it would have been to make this a lot less horrible. First of all they could have used Swedish instead of English. It's not a good idea to use a language none of the cast is fluent (or even acceptable) in. Their English is terrible and make many scenes laughable although they try to be serious. Also, a serious re-write of the script was needed. A little much-needed comic relief and more of a "tongue-in-cheek" approach could really have helped raise this a bit above the 1/10-mark.

As it is, this film is unbearable. It is poorly made, horribly acted, terribly scripted. Stay away from this. If you want b-movie fun and something to laugh at there are films more worthy than this terrible outing. I rate it 1/10, simply because there is no lower rating to give.


An honest attempt at doing the same thing millions of movies have done before. Not even amusing in its horribleness.

It's a familiar story, with extremely familiar characters. Scarily so. There is the fat one, the athletic one, the rebel, the nerdy girl and all of them do exactly what you expect them to while being stalked by an escaped bunny man.

It starts off with a somewhat creepy yet overplayed idea of a twisted family...then it just turns to crap. After they find their friends dead, it becomes of dire importance to go back into the house to retrieve a pair of pants and Nikes.

It's ridiculous. And the "acting"...I got the feeling they were fed lines as things were happening.

One girl stabs another (it's not a spoiler because nobody can possibly care enough about the plot to be disappointed when the predictable happens yet again) and apologizes...but she's kind of laughing when she does it.

Too many examples. Not even enjoyable as a terrible movie. I wasted my time so you wouldn't have to.

Please, don't see this movie.


The movie looks like its been taped by some local kids doing a homework for their drama lessons, but even if so.. it would still get F minus as a grade. As the title tells its about some teenage people getting slaughtered. So after watching 1 hour of the movie I found out that it would be more fun to eat my own "***".. at least I wouldn't have such an awful aftertaste in my mouth as I had when watching this movie. The people in this movie would never even get a role in a commercial for toilet paper. Don't watch this movie, eat your own ... instead.. I recommend you watch the "Jason movies instead". Or why not Freddy vs Jason, Scream.


I usually don't give 1 or 2:s to movie because there is always something in a movie thats good, This movie however has nothing good in it. Everything with this movie is horrible, the story, the music, the acting, the jokes(what jokes?) And to top it all the actors don't even know the English language. I really don't get it. Swedes are among the best of the non-English speaking people at English, so why pick people that are as good as a bunch of kindergarden-children. It really sounds terrible, and it also makes the rest of the world think that all swedes suck at English which really isn't the case.

I really like watching bad movies because i can laugh at them, But this isn't even funny, in any way. I know it tries to be funny, but fails miserably. like someone already posted, "its not even so bad its good, its just so bad its unbearable" I can safely say that this is the worst movie i have ever seen.

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!! PS: Bunnyman???!?!! What were they thinking? DS


You know, during this entire movie i expected everyone to start whipping off their clothes and start making-out. Look, the acting is appalling, trying to ignore it is futile. Things just don't add up, i mean i know its low budget and all, but if a person is repetitively stabbed, there will be at least a little blood on the knife! The acting could have been improved if the actors felt the moment, i felt like screaming it after a while! I'm all for independent movies, but if the movie is as bad as it was, then you shouldn't use such a good looking cover! And also, a psychic ability should have some sort of introduction (but don't worry, its only a 3 second thing that has no follow through, so no plot spoiler here)!


May contain spoilers- Starts out very similar to Friday the 13th (flash back to a year when something bad happened at a camp). Very bad acting, low budget (sometimes not a bad thing), horrible music, and even worse plot.

I found myself asking if it was a Lion's Gate film because of the the horrible films they have been putting out but to my shock it wasn't. This movie was horrible. Blood color was very off, death scenes totally lame with nothing new to offer.

This movie ripped off other films in attempt to appeal to people who like the horror genre of the 80's. Unfortunately it was a total waste of time, DVD's and money. I can't even believe this film was distributed!

Really is a very bad, lame movie. No originality except possibly the end- which by the way STINKS! They say the good movies leave you wanting more and this one makes you wish there was never one to begin with.

Save yourself and avoid this one.


This movie ranks in the worst of the worst. While the fun in slasher films often lies in their inherent stupidity, Camp Slaughter takes it to an entirely new level.

The actors must not have shown up for the filming of this movie, and been replaced by extras who had never acted before. They make Junior High drama class drop outs look like Oscar winners.

Speaking of Junior High, the script reads like a pre-adolescent's English homework after seeing the major slasher movies. Its a patchwork of movies, borrowing entire scenes and themes, with no regard to their contexts or relevance. Bad dialogue, overblown and unrealistic uses of vice (drugs, sex, alcohol, etc.), no suspense build-up, and an anti-climactic ending. I wouldn't give this script a passing grade at any level.

In the end, when it comes to slasher flicks, while Scream proved imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Camp Slaughter shows that imitation isn't far from ridicule, and this movie can only be summed up with that one word: ridiculous.


At the start of the movie, the idea seemed good enough, but as it develops, is just a boring story of an evil child that, when kidnapped by a very nice group of people (who just wants to get some desperate money to get a straight life and don't hurt the little child...blah blah), starts practicing his ''art of doom'' with voices inside their heads and a few spooks leading them to get killed. Sounds familiar?!... I rate it 3/10 for some good acting, but that's it. The story is absolutely predictable and done like 1000 times before, the plot is boring and lame as hell, the subplots for each character are so boring, depressive, and badly explored,that i don't think any actor could do any better with such bad material to work on, the dialogues are lame and foolish, etc. I couldn't see any essence on this movie, is just another empty hole in movie making. My advice is, if u'r interested on the ''anti-christ kid'' stories, there's a bunch of movies out there with the same basics, and quite more watchable.


"Whisper" began on an interesting note, but began to lose it's "spark" about halfway through when it hit me like a ton of bricks that it was simply a compilation of purloined concepts from numerous other horror films - namely "The Omen". An ex-con and his girlfriend join up with a pair of criminals to kidnap a lawyer's 8 year-old son and hold him for ransom. They take the kid to some empty campgrounds where they plan to wait out their crime. The kid, however, unleashes some kind of telepathic power on them, playing mind-games and causing "accidents". Soon, his captors become the captive since his evil and limitless abilities hold no bounds... This movie contains a familiar and tediously subdued plot with the overly sensitive bad guys, the articulate kid with mind-powers, and a completely predictable "twist" ending. There's more plot holes than there are fish in the sea, the characters are all irritating, especially the kid, and there is not an original FRAME in the entire film. I detected hints of "The Shining" (snowy area and even a man-chases-boy-with-axe scenario) and, as mentioned, "The Omen" - with a scene even stolen straight from "The Omen 2" involving a frozen lake. Avoid "Whisper" at all costs...


This was truly an awful film, towards the middle I was mostly laughing. The plot was infinitely stupid and, as it's been said in the message boards, the script was in desperate need of a thorough rewrite. The characters were not convincing at all in part because they were so oblivious to this kid behaving really strangely right from the beginning (He was never scared! How could they fail to notice that? He looked as if he was on a boring school trip). No one was surprised he could draw like some professional comic book artist or that locked doors didn't stop him.

There's something called "suspension of disbelief", well, with this film it's not a suspension you needed it's an obliteration. The direction and the actors were OK, nothing outstanding, nothing outrageous. I liked the bird's-eye view of the snowy landscapes (reminiscent of Shining, like a few other things) until they started to get overused.

Whisper was like a serious version of Home Alone where Kevin the funny kid was replaced with Damien the satanic kid (from The Omen). A stunt that could have been pulled on South Park but didn't need a movie of its own.


The story for WHISPER: kidnappers get more than what they bargain for when they kidnap a kid with psychic/supernatural powers.

At the isolated cabin where the kidnappers are hiding him, the evil boy plays with their minds and they start dying one by one.

That's it.

It's pretty obvious the people involved with this film do not know anything about horror films. The kidnappers are, in my book, scum because kidnapping is not cool at all. IMO, these kidnappers deserve to die. So when the Damien-like child started toying with these criminals, I wasn't terrified or on the edge of my seat. I couldn't care less about what was going to happen to them because, well, they're scum. So, where's the horror element to the story? Exactly. This is NOT a horror film. You need to empathize with the characters' plight in order for the horror elements to work properly. This never happened in the whole super slick film.

The kidnappers were all good looking and young, so I guess that's how the director thought viewers would sympathize with these criminals. Oh no, don't kill that beautiful babe. Don't kill that Metrosexual guy with the white belt.

Yep, one of the kidnappers actually wears a white belt. How gruff. How much time did the wardrobe department spend on this unintentionally funny detail? Was it an inside joke? I couldn't concentrate on anything else other than the white belt when that character was terrorized on the frozen lake.

Okay, enough with the white belt.

Obviously influenced by Japanese horror films, WHISPER is more about mood and creating suspense than gore and violence. Think of this as a Japanese version of THE OMEN (there are two death scenes which are identical to those in DAMIEN: OMEN 2). But it even failed at that. As anemic as the story was (no one notices the massive painting in the room?; what are those wolves about anyway?), the main problem was the idea itself. The film could have worked if the writers actually knew something about horror or how to play with guilt vis a vis kidnapping and other human emotions but the drama fell flat. And because the horror never registered, WHISPER was doubly forgettable.

In the end, it's just one of the many boneheaded horror films made these days!

(Notice the big disparity in the Useful Comments compared to the other reviews. I guess the crew has been logging in and voting not useful! LOL!)


Even as a double feature this DVD isn't worth the rental. Both movies were bad with little value. The first one Wiseguys vs zombies was as cheap as they come and somehow got chosen to be on this set with another bad offering Meat For satans Icebox, the second half of the feature. Bad acting in both movies. MFSI looks like it was filmed with home video equipment and had the worst music ever. WVZ had little more to work with but it look better and the music was good in points. Meat had better gore scenes and had nude, but not very pretty ones. I'm just going to stop buying movies from Troma. They are always releasing bad movies and I am surprised they still have fans.


A troma movie usually promises gross gags, nasty jokes, and toilet humor throughout but this one only came through on the last one. Obviously the producers of this garbage had nothing to work with.

No money.

Cheap equipment.

A total of three locations.

No nudity.

And no talent whatsoever.

Bad acting and bad zombie makeup killed any chances the crew of this movie had of taking a not-so-bad idea and turning it into something entertaining.

It wasn't a total failure tho. Compared to the other movie on the disc, this one looks Oscar worthy. If I HAD to pick something about this movie that made it worthwhile I would have to say that the story had potential to be good.

Mafia hit men fighting the undead is an original idea, but the director who also starred spent too much time trying to make hisself look cool, but that is hard to do when you can't act. Terrible horrible excuse for a movie. Shame on you Troma for putting this piece of $#!* out on an unsuspecting public.


Honestly, this is without a doubt the worst movie I have ever seen, and I have seen more than my share of stinkers. Seriously, there are lifetime movies with better acting than this. Effects and makeup look like they were done by the people that the Power Rangers production team refused to hire due to lack of talent. The plot is nearly nonexistent (and that's being nice). If you ever made silly home movies with friends on your mom's camera when you were young, it was probably on this level (the only difference being that they had about $50 more to spend than you did). This movie should have remained an inside joke between friends and never seen the light of day. Note: I'm not pretentious, I own and enjoy lots of B movies. I just don't want anyone to waste their money; if, after this, you still feel some strange curiosity to buy and watch this movie, remember that you will never have back the time spent watching this, and will hate yourself for that for the next year at least.


A huge Troma nut since I was a kid, (thanks Dad!) I've grown over the years to better understand and appreciate the purpose that Kaufman & Co. stand for. And as always, I eagerly purchased another statement of antithesis from the rebel provocateurs of avant gore skinema, Troma's "Dogpile 95 Vol. 1". Call it totally crappy. Call it too extreme for the mainstream crowd. Call it anything but stupid. Because this is truly independent cinema at work! Although the double feature's selections are about as "Indie" as you'll likely find. "Wiseguys vs. Zombies", at least in my opinion, really isn't much aside from a statement. With home-brew indie films, I feel the budgetary constraints and lack of resources that come along with the territory should be made up for with a really good story or at least entertaining acting. Unfortunately, WVZ lacks it all.

If you're able to get along with the acting, homemade gore, and home movie quality, there's still not much of a story or funny acting to be found. There are some chuckle-worthy moments in a pretty much watchable film. But overall it just doesn't leave much of a good impression outside of the whole "fight for truly independent cinema" mood set by the release.

I would never recommend it to anyone outside of a good example for what YOU can do at home if you really want to. (Which is pretty well the point.) But as a movie, "Wiseguys vs. Zombies" is just kind of a dud. I hope they had fun making it though.


Lets go to japan and hang around in different parts of the hotel.

Then lets go out to the street and see, "whoa, this is different from America"!

People don't talk English! Signs are not in English! People sing karaoke! People eat different food than in America!

OK, lets go back to hotel room, and talk about our relationship that has lasted two days, and if we should go back to America. After all, that's where the family is.

I decided, we are going back to America, it is a better place after all.

This trip to japan was very educating, the view from my hotel room was great.


Wow. Kind of a 'cute' movie, riding on that independent film vibe of the individual's search of meaning in life, struggling mightily against an ignorant and heavily cynical world. Sounds like a downer? Never fear, this movie spends 85 percent of the time making fun of japanese people.

If these were scathing attacks, perhaps this movie could almost pass as parody, making fun of stereotypes by overkill is quite effective. Except these were literally, 'let's make fun of the Japanese as bizarre little benign aliens who want to become like us.' This is about two white people trying to have fun in an alien land, shaking their heads at the ridiculous customs of these funny little people, marvelling at how the Japanese could be so different from our own sensible caucasian perspectives. There is no japanese character in this movie who is not grossly caricaturized. Also, whenever Sofia Coppola directed a long lull in the film, hey, insert reocurring joke about height/accents/culture and make the audience laugh, again! There is no such thing as a tired joke in this movie, some jokes are methodically inserted every 15 minutes.

Actually, it's really worthwhile to watch Sofia Coppola deftly direct the profoundly subtle relationship between a 21-year-old yale philosophy major and a washed-up 55-year-old actor. Sure...they both...don't like their lives, do like to drink at the bar, eat food (hey at least no more jokes about monkey brains, huh? good thing this wasn't a korean movie), crack jokes about the japanese! The movie should have the tagline, "How any two white people, no matter how different in age and personality could become soulmates once thrust into this horrible technologically advanced but spiritually backwards world." Or "Peter Pan and Wendy in Captain Hook's Oriental Nevernevernightmare." This movie can be metaphorically summarized by how any two people can fall in love on a deserted island, a deserted island full of poisonous snakes, fetid water, quicksand, and erupting volcanoes.

I challenge anybody in the world,including any type of funny little aliens, to logically prove that the particular setting of Japan was necessary to the plot of the movie. Would the relationship between Bill M. and Scarlett J. be any different, if say, it took place in manhattan? Absolutely not, but we wouldn't have the 'comedy' aspect of the movie. And what makes it comedic? Are you laughing at comedy, or are you laughing at the Japanese, these common, stereotypical jokes? I challenge somebody to find any shot in this movie of a japanese person (or perhaps apes in japanese costumes) who isn't acting silly or over the top, as part of a joke, a joke in which the japanese are the being punched by the line.


To my mind this is just an average ordinary silly film. The entire film takes place in an hotel. This is just fine but by showing some shots of a Tokyo skyscraper hotel heaven only knows what Ms. Coppola wished to convey. May be she wanted to depict that as people live in high buildings their feelings,emotions become low. A word about the bewildered American in Japan oh no Tokyo. Bill Murray looks utterly lost as if he has not been paid his salary for playing the part in the film. Scarlett is fine but she could have done better. The worst thing about this film is that Japanese people were caricatured. It is as if all the Japanese people use very long sentences even for expressing simplest of ideas. For all those lost souls interested in Japan bashing, please watch Alain Corneau's film "Stupeur et tremblements".


I was watching this movie and it came to a point where it had dragged on so long that I was anxious for it to be over, so I checked the time and only fifteen minutes had passed since the beginning of the movie. I spent money to rent it so I kept watching it for another 45 minutes...still no plot after an hour. I would say what the movie is about, but I don't know that it's really about anything. It's a conglomeration of pointless scenes that don't make up a story. I was expecting a great film considering it's 8.0 ranking here at imdb, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how one person would think this movie is in any way good, let alone fifteen thousand. This one has apparently done well at the film festivals, so that should be enough of a sign to steer clear of it. Indie movies are indie for a reason...they suck. This is a great one to rent if you struggle with insomnia.


Imagine hearing the major critics on the top of the roof on the skycraper sing boisterous praise for one of the five hundred 'qualified masterpieces', and Lost in Translation somehow received the honor bestowed on Sofia Coppola and company. Big mistake.

Lost in Translation is one of these movies that at first you might be seeing a terrific movie, but as it progress it become drab, droll and tedious without justification in substance. There's really no story to speak of -- only paper-thin basic with inanely banterous dialogue.

There may be a merit in cinematography that raise the artistic value of this movie, but because the story is non-existent and the characters utterly unsympathetic & boring to watch, cinematography -- stationary in some scenes and moving in others -- somehow negate the enjoyability of the movie by focusing on the ludicrous aspect of tedium as if Sofia could bring back the element of silence inspired by silent films of the early 20th century.

Lost in Translation (er, Sofia) abuse the silence element as the expression of meaning when it really add *nothing* of substance to the aesthetics of the movie, artistic or otherwise. It's utterly meaningless if one does not understand the express purpose of silence at the right moment to convey the humanistic value of life in the hectic and modern world. Sofia is being altruistic to the detriment of the audience when it comes to the vanity of the characters as portrayed Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson which generated zero empathy that makes the movie even less interesting to watch in a continuous manner without becoming fidgety or letting out relaxing yawn. There's nothing of interest what happen to the main characters and why should the audience give a care.

Sofia made the blunders in filming and keeping the scenes from the fate of being tossed into the cutting room trash bin that are particularly unintentionally humorous in being unabashedly pretentious or idiotically embarrassing. Like the English pronunciation-mangling Japanese hooker in the hotel room and the pointless, unromantic conversations with Bill & Scarlett characters who somehow fall in love while possessing ice-cold personalities that would make Mr. Freeze blush in humbled shame. And the movie moves in the glacial pace that makes it atrocious to watch -- it is the cinematic exercise in tedium for the sake of artistic expression, without tightening up. It drags on and on until the audience feel nothing but contempt for the characters and especially the screenwriter/director responsible for torture by mean of boring the audience to death.

Sofia once mentioned her favorite movie director is Terrence Malick. Mr. Malick is a completely different filmmaker who knows how to convey the meaning of silence in the poetic setting because Malick has experience observing nature and human qualities as a former philosophy professor & translator. Sofia did not because she doesn't get the aesthetics combined with silence without the backbone of a rich story and characterization. The Virgin Suicides, Sofia's debut movie, is well-made and competent, but Lost in Translation is such a trainwreck in terms of lackluster substance & poor, drag-on editing that lend to experiencing boredom. This boredom probably reflect the period of boredom at certain points of her life, and she parlay that experience as a form of torture to inflict the mental anguish of tedium on the audience in vengeance.

Scarlett Johannson and Bill Murrey, while accomplished movie actors in their right, do the barest minimum except mug to the camera in the aura of exulting "Sundance Film Festival" self-importance that elevate this movie to the new level (more like bottom 100) in high art, with moronically sedate monotony & meandering tedium thrown in. Bill's acting is nothing special save comedy and Scarlett is moderately competent but technically bad in dramatic acting (which makes it a safe bet she'll never be nominated for Best Actress Oscar in her lifetime, UK's BAFTA Best Actress award clinch for subpar, vacant, minimalist acting style partially blamed on Sofia's tepid, fumbling directional style & a future hard-*** director demanding spectacular acting notwithstanding).

Frankly, I do not know how Lost in Translation screenplay appealed to Scarlett and Bill Murray. It may be a character study, but does it delve into humanities, psychology and philosophy? No. It's more like a staid travelogue populated with non-descript characters that say absolutely nothing but dumb banter then fade to the pretty backdrop with the main characters wandering for a few minutes too long. This script won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for nothing but silence, banter, silence, banter, silence, inaudible whisper, fade to end? When the critics claim the movie have substance that the audience could not spot and decipher and call us stupid for being oblivious, I say the true design of Lost in Translation is that it is an introvertible proof The Emperor's New Clothes carry a valid allegory that apply to Sofia's vapid, utterly worthless filmflam that, next to Corey Haim's 1989 video diary "Me, Myself & I", might serve as an ideal audio-visual torture device. Because Sofia wants the audience to experience what she endured, and so we the viewers get the taste of her bitter medicine of a puerile existence, similar to what Vincent Gallo did with the cheerfully self-indulgent "Buffalo 66".

Zero star out of four


I was appalled that Sofia Coppola won an Oscar for her drab screenplay. First of all, the characters were unsympathetic and out of touch with the world. An actor receiving 2 million for a few days work and a directionless Yale student tagging with her photographer boyfriend. I doubt many of us here have the privilege to be bored in the most expensive hotel in Japan.

The stylized ennui of the whole pic was so pretentious. Scarletts panty shots and staring at the window didn't elevate or convey any emotion at all. I really had to force myself awake at times when the whole film veered into an extended travelogue or a home movie. I kept on waiting for the nonexistent plot to arrive.

Finally, the 'crocodile dundee' style racism showing the Japanese as one dimensional morons or subservient. The prostitute scene was a cheap play for laughs. Much like, most of the Japanese scenes which were the 'look at the wacky Japanese' variety with the help of Bill's snide comments. If Sofia wanted to portray loneliness and isolation, she could have easily done it without the racist undertone.


I should preface this review by saying that my husband and I both have advanced degrees, and we see 50+ independent films a year. So filmic subtlety is not lost on us. We drove for an hour through horrendous traffic to see this highly-rated film, yet this is the only movie in 25 years of adult moviegoing that we have ever walked out of. It reminded me of the worst excesses of 60's French New Wave. Long stretches of people staring. Long stretches of silence and monosyllables. More long stretches of loud noise and incomprehensible voices. Short cut-in scenes that advanced the story (what there was of it) and characters not a bit. We get it; we get it--these people are ALIENated. Big deal.

Can I care about two people who are supposed to be intelligent, yet they can't think of a thing to do to amuse themselves in one of the world's major cities? Can I believe in a young woman who's supposed to be a recent philosophy graduate of Yale, who can't think of anything to do with her time but stare out the window of her expensive hotel? Can I believe this same young woman came to Tokyo with her working husband, yet seems totally at a loss when he actually leaves to work? Can I believe that someone who is interested in philosophy so much that she majors in it in college can only be happy bar hopping, dancing, smoking weed, and singing karaoke? Can I believe that a faded Hollywood star who is being paid 2 million dollars for a commercial would come to Tokyo absolutely alone, without even an aide of any kind?

And most of all, can I call a film that does nothing more than follow these two hapless and uninteresting people around for several days without a trace of drama or art profound?

I think not. Don't waste your money. This is one of those rare instances when I can only conclude that there is some vast critical conspiracy to hoodwink the American public. Surprise! The emperor has no clothes.


What is it about this turgid piece of rubbish that attracts such high praise? It's long, it's dull, and it goes absolutely nowhere. There are no spoilers in this review - there's nothing to spoil. The story, such as it is, centres on one dull American who meets another. To make this story more interesting, it's set in Tokyo, not the US. Whoopee! The characters are still dull, but they're in an interesting place. This could have converted the movie into something that had a pulse, but unfortunately Ms Coppola sucks the life out of one of the most vibrant cities in the world and reduces it to a caricature. Tokyo deserves better than this - and it's had Godzilla to contend with...


I have seen some truly awful films in my life, but this scrapes the bottom of the barrel.

It's as if a bunch of film-school try-hards were sent to Japan, without a script, and told to produce the most pointless cinematic experience possible. Partway throught the film, these film-school rejects meet a representative from the Japanese Tourist Board who pays them to insert further meaningless 'postcard' views of Japan.

So, what could I learn from this film? - Gee, aren't the Japanese quirky and strange - Gee, isn't it difficult when I am in another country and I can't speak the language - Gee, isn't it strange that I feel alienated when I am in another country and make no effort to genuinely appreciate the culture or people - Gee, even shallow people can 'connect' when they meet other shallow people and decide to have a good whinge.

The most insulting part of this whole mess is that it is currently rated, on this website, as the 175th best movie of all time.

I weep for humanity.


Lost In Translation is a very well-crafted film. Lance Acord's cinematography is nothing short of masterful. The acting from the leads is nuanced, characters memorable.

The film's casual racism, however, is deeply regrettable. Almost every scene revels in the throwaway mockery of the Japanese: accents, language, culture, stature: all are subject to a torrent of snide belittling by the film- makers. What's more shocking is that more attention hasn't been called to this. Put another way: if this film was set in Africa and contained similarly juvenile mockery of the populace, there'd doubtless be uproar.

All in all, a well-made film severely let down by an unforgivable streak of crass racism.


A boring movie about boring people acting bored and being bored and boring the audience. A few good lines in the movie where one might crack a subconscious smile, but not a real smile, certainly not a giggle. There is no action, just Bill Murray playing Bill Murray, moping around Tokyo, boring everybody he meets. Scarlett Johanson sitting around looking bored. This is the worst movie I've seen since Neighbors. Anyone who watches this movie will sit there thinking, hoping, that eventually something will happen, that there will be a laugh, or something, anything, will happen to break the slow motion dragging along, wondering if they should get up and leave now or have faith that maybe something is going to happen, but it never does. If theaters gave refunds when people were dissatisfied with a movie, this turkey would have been dropped like a hot potato the third day out. I have lost all faith in critics. I guess they think this movie was deeeeep.


A movie said to be Irish-English-Swedish was enough to make me watch it when it was on TV, but I must say I'm disappointed. The movie starts out in Ireland, Finbar disappears, then half the movie goes by, and then suddenly Finbar decides to phone up his old friend Danny, telling him he's in Sweden. If the movie was half-interesting and believable in the beginning, after Danny goes to Sweden, it becomes decreasingly interesting and believable.

The scenery is really nice (even though I personally can't stand being in the north of Sweden because of all the snow and the freezing cold), but lovely nature pictures of it doesn't make up for the complete lack of anything resembling a proper plot. It's far too weak! Why did Danny go all that way and through all that trouble to search for Finbar, when Finbar was a completely selfish prat who no one in their right mind could really care about (let alone the movie audience!) - which we learn from the first 5 minutes of the film? The story's so full of plot holes it could compete with a Swiss cheese!

The only good thing about it, apart from the scenery pictures, is the Irish accent, and a chance to recognise some people who were in "Michael Collins", plus Lorraine Pilkington ("Monarch of the Glen"). That's about it. Sure, you can watch this movie if you've got nothing better to do, but you'd be better off watching something else.


Many Irish films have failed because they try to be too commercial - The Courier (attempt at an Irish gangster film), I Went Down (attempt at an Irish Tarantino), the list is elsewhere. The makers of Finbar have obviously learned a lesson from this, and have made a film that is totally un-commercial. The settings are boring (nondescript Dublin housing estate, Sweden). The acting is execrable. The plot is feeble.

The main character is trying to find Finbar (after a lot of tiresome teenage angst), but the scintilla of suspense that this search might have evoked is spoiled by the fact that Finbar is an obnoxious bore, and not worth finding. In short, too much Finbar, not enough disappearance.


***SPOILERS*** Illogical and over plotted thriller that has so many twists and turns in it that it leaves you lost in the woods halfway into the movie without a compass to help you find your way out. Robbing their own bank four bank employees take off with 10 million dollars in cash but have one of them the crazy and vicious Kendell, Lori Ann Triolo, badly wounded in a shootout with the bank guard.

Finding this mansion on their way to the airport, where the four robbers plan to make their getaway, the head hood former bank manager Beckett, Andrew Divoff, decides to spend the night there until the heats off and the rain, which is pouring down like a tropical monsoon, stops. to Becketts and his gangs big surprise they find out that the mansion, which he thought was deserted, has new owners the Sawyers.

Moving into the mansion just that afternoon the Saywers Rodney & Jennie, Mario Van Peebles & Holly Robinson, don't know who to call or turn too for help and are quickly overpowered by the hoodlums with their son Malik, Michael J. Pagan, hiding upstairs. Rodney who at first went outside to check the hoods car is startled to find the wounded Kendell in the back seat with a gun pointed to his head.

Malik who saw what was happening sneaks downstairs and takes off with the 10 million in stolen cash but later stupidly hides the money in the fire place having the millions, and the only reason that Beckett & Co. kept his parents alive, go up in smoke.The movie gets really nuts when Rodney's friend and local lawyer Pendelton, Hal Lindan, pops in to check if every things all right. Pendelton is secretly told that it isn't, with Rodney using some kind of sign language which should have had he leave and call for help. The big jerk instead of getting help or calling the police on his cellphone after he's allowed to leave by the hoodlums bursts in like he was a member of an AFT assault team and gets himself shot to death for his brainless effort.

Playing for time Jennie puts on a Doctor Kildare act in trying to save Kendell's life only to end up killing her because she had no idea of what she was doing, which has her. Kendell's lover Beckett then goes crazy with the two, Annie and Rodney, taking off in the confusion together with the now out of hiding Malik and barricade themselves in an upstairs bedroom.

Meanwhile Beckett is slowly going insane hallucinating that he's now the man of the house which makes his two fellow bank robbers Sykes & Henley, Vincent Gale & Dean McKenzie, a wee bit worried about his mental condition. the two start to feel that it would be better to take off with the money, they still don't know that it's been burned to a crisps by the absent-minded Malik, and leave him to flounder around in his own fantasy world.

Hard to take ending with the three remaining hoods being knocked out by a falling chandelier with Beckett rushing to the garden thinking that the 10 million is hidden there and getting both his feet caught in a number of bear-traps set all around the house by the mansion's handyman Billy, Josh Holland. It turned out that Billy just happened to be Beckett's lovers, the dead Kendell's, brother!

There's so many plot-holes as well as illogic action taken by both the Sawyers and the bank robbers, turned kidnappers, lead by the out of his bird Beckett you need a road map to just follow the story. Even if you want to enjoy and watch the movie "Killers in the House" as a decent made-for-TV thriller your brain short-circuits your emotions by not being able to make you overlook the fact that the film, or the people in it, make absolutely no sense at all in what their doing!


This movie doesn't require much critique. It was the typical, boring, cliched Hollywood action garbage that litter movie channels these days. The family "miraculously" escape death time and time again while the bad guy descends into madness, yadda, yadda. No depth, one dimensional characters. Why is junk like this being funded? It was "watchable", but I knew what was coming around each corner. Could we PLEASE get some intellectual movies?

3/10


I have to agree with the comment above about the rampant illogic. When Mrs. Sawyer conked one crook near the end with a toilet tank cover, she could have finished him off and taken his street-sweeper shotgun. She did neither. I agree also with the comment about the crazy lawyer who tried to be a one-man tactical team. I don't understand how three thugs with semi-automatic pistols would yield to an old man with a bolt action hunting rifle. But, once they did, why didn't Mrs. Sawyer grab the weapons they tossed on the floor and arm herself and her husband? A few talented actors, but a script without a sense of direction, so it was a waste of time.


Anyone who knows my opinions knows exactly what I think of Herschell Lewis's films in general. I would have passed on writing any more reviews of them until I and a few friends spent (and I mean "spent" in the sense of "exhausted", "used up", "wasted") an evening watching "The Wizard of Gore". Naturally, I had seen it before, but my attention was always focused on the extremely inept (yet still revolting) gore effects. Then, one of my friends watching pointed out just how dull the bits in between the gore scene were. Quite true. Even the lead-ins to the supposed shock scenes crept along at a snail's pace, completely dissipating any tension there might have been. It is almost impossible for anyone to pay attention to this film because for most of the film, nothing happens. Then, when the gore scenes come, you haven't been engaged by the film in any way. You really just don't care about what happens next. The Lewis cult people should give it up. Lewis is incompetent as a director and his movies are not innovative - just dull, repulsive little cinematic abortions.


This movie was also released under the title, "The Mad Magician".

The plot is that a cheesy magician named "Montag" performs tricks that seem to mutilate female volunteers who then mysteriously die of the very same injuries they suffered on stage. Then for no apparent reason, he steals the bodies and takes them to a mausoleum in the same cemetery...

A group of reporters and cops attempt to solve the apparent mystery. Or maybe it's all a dream... In all probability, it is an opportunity to put gross special effects on the screen when the Hayes board went away and the MPAA was still trying to figure itself out.

Of course, the special effects are so poor that they are laughable.


Although I have read countless accolades for many of the gore films of Hershell Gordon Lewis, I found the "gore" in this film to be incredibly stupid. Sure, there was a lot of fake blood--but the gore?! It often consisted of obviously fake mannequin heads and cow guts that just looked nothing like people guts. Perhaps in 1970 people thought this was realistic, but today with improved technology and an increase in the level of gore in films, this and other gore films of Lewis just seem dumb (despite their receiving a plug in the recent film, JUNO). This isn't to say every one of his films was bad...just all but 2 or perhaps 3. 'Genius' is a word way too casually used for Hershell Gordon Lewis. I prefer to use words like 'schlock-meister' or 'wizard of crap'.

In this film, a stage magician specializes in gory tricks. He saws women in half or drives spikes in their heads--and yet they are just fine after the trick is complete. Oddly, hours later, they collapse--dead with injuries sustained from the tricks--as the injuries re-appear. The problem for me is that the guts are just stupid looking and the guy starring as the magician (Ray Sager) is a truly awful actor. Sager yells his lines and annunciates in a strange manner--and sports hair that looks like it was colored white using White-Out! This act comes to the attention of a local TV personality and her reporter boyfriend. She wants to book the magician on her show and later he wants to investigate him because all of his stage volunteers keep coming up dead hours later. It all culminates in a TV appearance where he tries to use his evil psychic powers on everyone in the studio AND at home! And, when it ends, the movie actually isn't quite complete.

There are lots of mistakes made due to the little-known fact that Lewis is a lemur--this would explain the sloppy direction. Here are a few examples: the woman who collapses dead at a restaurant is still clearly breathing, the newspaper that you see at the 43 minute mark looks nothing like a real paper (the font and style are all wrong) and you can see the different cut and pasted portions peeling off if you pay attention.

There is a tiny germ of a good story here but because the entire production is so sloppy and stupid, I can't recommend it to anyone except bad movie fans or those who actually believe that Lewis could direct. I could also see that many see this movie just as misogynistic as it's a film showing contempt for women as you see them hacked to pieces. But, considering how bad and stupid and poorly acted it all is, most who MIGHT be offended might just instead see the whole thing as a waste of time as opposed to something patently offensive.


This might have been an excellent short. And it works wonderfully as a fetish movie if seeing young women getting tied up and mutilated is your cup of tea. As a feature movie it's just dire.

Unusually for a horror movie, it features a young professional woman in one of the leading roles -- and she doesn't even get raped and mutilated in the first five minutes for being a harlot! She investigates a magician who performs gory tricks in his show, with the same girls he performed his tricks on later dieing accordingly. This repeats itself no less than four times (if I counted correctly), each scene lasting maybe ten minutes and being as linear as train tracks in a desert, until her boyfriend muses: "All those girls who went on stage in the show died in the same manner later in the evening. Maybe there's a connection?". His girlfriend is so impressed by his cleverness that she proceeds to fornicate him out of gratitude -- and rightly so. It was the most intelligent moment of the entire movie.

I'm not asking for too much, am I, here? I just want to be entertained. For that, I'm willing to forfeit good taste, intelligent plot, competent acting at the door. In the Wizard Of Gore, though, Herschell Gordon Lewis reveals himself as a gore fetishist. The premise of blurring reality and imagination may be interesting, but it's never developed into a story. Fail!


* Just to get this out of the way: Just because I give this a low score does NOT mean it isn't an enjoyable movie. It simply means it's inferior to other movies.

1970s horror cinema seemed to be in conflict with itself. It's obvious that a lot of horror directors of the time wanted to make serious, mature, realistic, truly terrifying pieces Straw Dogs, Alien, The Exorcist. It's also obvious that a lot of horror directors of the time wanted to make immature, cheesy, ridicules piecesSuspiria, The Omen, The Wizard of Gore. It's almost impossible to believe the two polar opposites could come out of the same decade. But I guess every generation has filmmakers who grow up and those that don't. With all of that said, The Wizard of Gore is the only movie in the latter group that I can actually find pretty cool. It's no masterpiece. I'm not even sure it's even worth a watch, but if you do watch it, it's not that bad.

The plot is very creative for a 70s movie, and that threw me off guard. I was planning on typing this section of the review ranting about how unoriginal the movie was, but I can't do that, for which I'm grateful. The first 20 minutes are an absolute blast. However, sadly, after that point the plot takes a predictable average-man-turned-detective turn strait into a pit of boredom. The scenes that were initially pretty cool just turned repetitious and even a little annoying as they replayed over and over again throughout the movie. By the end of the movie, you'll easily start to see that you've just watched a predictable episode of The Twilight Zone, complete with cheesy reversal-of-expectations ending. The acting is laughable, as you probably expected. It's really saddening how such a great premise received such terrible execution.

Speaking of executionshow was the gore? Well, first and foremost, the gore effects are some of the worst I've ever personally seen in a 70s movie. People are replaced by obvious mannequins. The blood looks more like ultra-red clown paint than realistic plasma. Guts are represented by what appears to be red and black wads of paper and look about as much like real organs as jelly doughnuts do. The actually amount and intensity of the gore isn't even that special. This is an exploitation film, so, obviously there is going to be a decent amount, but it's nothing compared to today's standards whatsoever. The pretentious losers who call this the goriest movie of all time, or even one of them, really need to watch popular movies. Just because a movie is obscure like this one does not mean it's gory. Just because a movie is popular doesn't mean it's made by weak pansies. In this case, that generalization I just made proves true.

But regardless of all that, this is still a decently fun movie. It isn't going to make you throw up, but it will make you laugh, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you're a hardcore horror fan that must see any and all horror films, this isn't going to be the worst you see. If you're just a casual viewer, there is no reason for you to even waste your time here. Go watch a Takashi Miike movielike Gozuand you'll get the same experience, but with a much better story and much better production value. If you want over-the-top gore in similar style, check out Brain Dead. There is just no reason to watch this movie unless you absolutely are forcing yourself to do so.

Overall, The Wizard of Gore is fun, but not fun enough. It's gory, but not gory enough. The story is creative, but quickly falls into clichés. I give it credit for trying, and I'm glad I viewed it, but it's no classic. Then again, neither are most of the movies that are labeled such.

1/10


So the basic premise is a stage illusionist gets girls on stage and basically mangles them, but hey presto there OK at the end. But then they die shortly afterwards with the same wounds that they got during the act. That's about it, oh and there's a 'twist' at the end. I cannot help but compare HGL with Ed Wood. The similarities are all too obvious for all to see. Question is are they trying to be badly made or are they just badly made? I've no idea but I get the feeling HGL knew what he was doing, and through that I feel cheated. It wouldn't have hurt to put a bit more effort in. The gore is there naturally (in fact the title probably refers to HGL rather than the illusionist), but most of it could be created in your own kitchen. There's a whole 'what is reality' thing going on which is never properly addressed, which it should have been if that was his point. I've seen an interview with HGL in which he came across very well, but I think it's more the case of him talking a good movie rather than delivering one. I love low budget movies but this one has no style and the narrative jars at every corner. Will I try another HGL movie? Yeah probably, I'm a sucker for pap and maybe one day I'll get it. A mildly diverting oddity.


I like exploitation cinema. I like the cheesy violence and sex, the low quality scripts and no budget direction that comes with the genre. It's fun brainless carnage packed with oddities and quirks used by directors whom while trying to score a buck or two also test the censorship boundaries to their limit and sometimes succeed in making something that really stands out. With that cleared, H.G. Lewis's The Wizard of Gore is a forgettable piece of trash with a sort of interesting concept behind it. It's not about it being bellow the standard grindhouse experience, the splattery violence is indeed present here, no it's about the presentation, specifically about the lack of such.

A magician performs tricks. Tricks never before seen, tricks of a gruesome violent nature. In the opening titles he cuts his head with a guillotine, shortly after reemerges fully intact. After a short introduction and a few minor tricks he chooses a volunteer from the audience, a woman, it's always a woman. Straps her on a bed and then proceeds to cut her in half with a chainsaw. All is done in clear view, and we see everything. He plays with her guts and innards and suddenly, just like that, she is whole again. Returns to her seat and shortly after the show is over dies the same way she was torn in two by the chainsaw.

Lovely little idea for a horror and I must admit it was the reason why I chose to watch "The Wizard of Gore". The quality of the movie didn't matter much back then as I mentioned already, I like the low-grade cheesy stuff. But the surprise of just how bad that quality is came as complete shock to my senses. It was low, lower than that which I had found entertaining and even lower than that which I found dull. The only possible comparison I can think of is Michael Bay doing a no budget film. There is no dread for horror. There is no cheese for brainless carnage. There is only some of the worst gore effects, camera work, editing and audio captured on celluloid. It's an endless repetition of the same scene with just slight differences. The horrible gore gets even worse, looks laughable with each passing sequence. So absurd as to how Lewis wants you to believe a mannequin stuffed with red paint is a human body. With every minute it becomes more and more unbearable indeed this truly is a torture show. I'll restrain myself from commenting on the horribly annoying acting since that was never an issue worth noting in such type of film.

The Wizard of Gore is an amateurish film showcasing horror as bad film-making and in a sense it truly is terrifying. Such a shame because a plot like this deserved something better.


Unlike some members of IMDb, I don't reward craptastic movie making with high scores, even if the craptastic film in question turns out to be a masterpiece of pop kitsch. Which is the case here.

So Wizard of Gore only gets three stars, mostly for the stomach-churning stage sequences wherein the putative 'Wizard' disembowels, maims and punch-presses his victims to death in front of a live audience, only it's OK because it's all an 'illusion', only it's NOT really OK because the victims all die horribly soon after. It's a compelling concept - murdering women in full view of an audience and getting away with it because the REAL illusion is that they weren't harmed - but it's literally the only thing the movie has going for it.

Everything else about the movie is grade Z - from the stiffs who are trying to act to the 3rd grade metaphysics in the scripting to the technical sloppiness and low budget of the sets, costumes, and lighting.

In fact, this movie contains the single most memorable 'goof' I've ever seen in a movie: Montag is trying to put a subject (and the audience) into a trance, and he's looking into the camera doing his 'you are getting sleepy' spiel, and he's going along, and then he says (and I am NOT making this up):

"Concentrate.....*c-croncentrate* with every bit of your being....!"

"Croncentrate"?!?! Shouldn't the director have done a second take? (Or worse, he did several takes and this is the one they KEPT?!?). Or shouldn't someone have caught this in post production and dubbed a correction? (Of course, I am assuming the movie was actually "produced" which clearly was not the case.) Apparently no one (including Lewis) was actually paying attention while the camera was rolling. Or after wards. Geez, even "The Astounding She Monster" had better production values than that, and ASM only cost $11.98 to make.

I don't want to beat on Lewis too severely (although he WAS partially responsible for "Monster A Go-Go" as well). "2000 Maniacs" was much better than this (at least for the first half), and his "Blood" trilogy was somewhat better. I'd suggest someone who wants to investigate HG Lewis would be better off starting with those films.


When this movie appeared in the 1970's poll, I could not avoid laughing. I saw it back then at the local Drive-In with a date. This is classic Drive-In date fare. It is bad, but then, that is part of what taking a date to the Drive-In was about. You didn't want anything too good. It had sufficient scaries and jumpy spots to make it perfect date stuff. In the unlikely event you ever find a copy of this movie, grab your honey, pop some popcorn, turn out the lights and snuggle up on the couch (make sure you are alone in the house). The nostalgia trip with far outshadow the movie.


H.G. Lewis tried to top "Blood Feast" with this somewhat creative clunker about a magician who saws people in half-- literally. The goopy blood flows freely helping cover the dreadful performances and Lewis's usual incompetent direction. Only interesting as a curio from the era before "Friday the 13th."


Hokey story but the ice skating scene is a hoot. Skaters play the old "cakewalk" game on ice skates. The actors and stunt men did an incredible job with a simple concept taking pratfalls and sliding across the ice. I've never seen anything like it.

The rest of the story is full of cringe-worthy sexist gibberish, but there are some fun moments. Stereotypes abound: the evil newsman, the imperious tycoon, the simpleton stringer. The plot is classic boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back. "She's stubborn and he's too proud."

There's also a fun drinking song (newsmen of course).

The actors seem to be theater-trained - they seem to shout like they're afraid the mike in the last row won't hear them. But it's still fun.


This is an incredibly dull, boring and dumb film, an amalgam of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and THE MORE THE MERRIER. Heiress on the lam takes a job in her grandfather's emporium, shadowed by reporter who's wise to her identity, looking for a story. Neither Fredric March nor Virginia Bruce can raise this turkey above a mediocre level. What is wonderful is Patsy Kelly's inspired comic supporting performance (which should have netted an Oscar nom). She's hilarious, especially in her Vibrato scene, demonstrating a vibrating machine. Oddly, the film earned an Oscar nom for Scoring- there was about ten minutes of music in the entire film, underscoring the Main Title and four scenes and none of it was above the mundane. More studio politics, I guess. See this for Patsy Kelly, but for naught else.


This film has almost no merit. It is the pseudo-intellectual, senile gibberish of an impotent, burnt-out one-time maybe genius. What some reviewers view as highbrow filmmaking is nothing but a compilation of name dropping (Hannah Ahrendt, Simon Weil, Iris Berry, - if you don't know who they were, so much the better, if you do, you ought to be verly impressed), vicious anti-American tirades so fashionable these days among the French ("Americans have no past, therefore they borrow others' history") semi-allusions to historical figures and events. The story (?) itself is incoherent and incomprehensible, the characters repulsive, full of bellyaching, Weltschmerz, negativity, lack of irony or humor. The only good thing is the stunning black and white photography of the first part of the film.