This film is pretty typical of the WW II spy genre. Performances are okay but nothing special. Most of the story takes place in Canada, where the RCMP are responsible for catching enemy agents. The entire scenario is very easy to figure out so there are no real surprises as the various characters show their true loyalties. The ending is neatly wrapped up in a satisfying manner.


Apparently that's the moral of this movie. The movie could have been an interesting depiction of a true story, but it isn't. Mainly coz the screenwriters and director have done such a messy (and in one instance, downright vulgar) job, that a child wont believe the ludicrous goings-on in this braindead movie. The guy meets his ethnic friends in broad daylight while working undercover as a proNazi. He tells the Nazis he represents rich people interested in the cause, and the Nazis believe him straight out without even asking for any credentials. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. All this is explained, in a not-so-subtle case of begging the question, by a dialogue about the Nazis which goes "These guys believe anything.. Greed has made them blind". Or shaving the head has made them stupid.


Despite the pedigree, this version of the classic newspaper story is a real stumble by the great Billy Wilder. It's a head scratcher why he would even want to make it. He's one of the movie's funniest, most talented, and above all, most original voices, so why remake an old warhorse like this? Walter Matthau is the shifty editor and Jack Lemmon is his ace reporter. Matthau wants Lemmon to cover the execution of a local radical, but Lemmon wants to leave town and marry Susan Sarandon. Matthau is funny but Lemmon is really at sea with this...he stutters over his dialog, is way too old for Sarandon (who has NOTHING to do) and actually does not have all that much screen time with Matthau. All that aside, there is a great supporting cast to relish, including David Wayne (very funny as a fuss-bucket reporter), Vincent Gardenia, Cliff Osmond, Austin Pendleton, and a few others. There's also a pretty disposable appearance by Carol Burnett as a hooker!


which was made in 1931 with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien. Or better yet, watch His Girl Friday, which was filmed in 1940 with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell (with Hildy Johnson recast as a female reporter). This 1974 version feels leaden and uninspired by comparison. Why remake a movie that has already been done beautifully--twice? Billy Wilder should have known better than to try.


Brilliant? I don't think so. A huge waste of talent just going through the motions. Why so lowly rated? I think you'll find that the critics have all seen and loved His Girl Friday (Cary Grant & Rosalind Russell) and this pales by comparison.


This movie is an inferior remake of "His Girl Friday".I found it to be unfunny and laced with profanity.Where is Cary Grant when you need him? I like Jack Lemmon (see "The Apartment")but not in this movie.I also like Carol Burnett,but she misses the mark this time.The sex of the characters that Jack Lemmon and Susan Sarandon portray are flipped in this movie.I think the characters were funnier and ahead of their time in "His Girl Friday".


I think this is the most boring, worst film I've ever seen. Absolutely PAINFUL to watch... can see the ratings weighted by journalistic types who simply LOVE to watch themselves portrayed as hardworking, conscientious types---instead of the jack-of-all trades, master of none dabblers who seldom penetrate down to the truth, but rely upon and create imagery having little to do with the reality they report. This movie drags on and on... on a par with "The Frisco Kid" for the perfect drive-in movie where absolutely nothing happens to detract from the "action" in the car!


OK, in theory this film does sound interesting. In execution, it's terrible, far more terrible than one could ever ask for. The idea is that there's a dog-napping ring that's supplying a neo-Nazi fast food empire run by a Hitler-like Pope, which is all well & good, and there's a junkie fetus and a drunken ventriloquist dummy helping out a couple cops who are investigating the whole thing. However, it's got super-amateur filming, acting, and effects, and put me immediately in mind of something I never wanted to think of again which was a flick called "Zombie Toxin", another no-budget piece of crap that washed up on our shores from the British Isles as well. However, despite its resemblance it appears that these films share no actor or other staff unless the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Evolved is so bad that I finally stopped it as the evening wore on because I wanted time for an antidote, something ELSE to watch before bedtime so I wouldn't think my entire day had first been wasted by work and now THIS. I think I would be hard-pressed to find any less-talented people than the ones that were responsible for this mess, and boo and hiss to Troma for even putting it out, although my uh, respect for Troma has waned increasingly over the past couple of years as Lloyd Kaufman continues to get more unbearable with his shameless huckster shtick. Here it is 5:15 AM and I'm already in a bad mood writing about this...well I'll cheer myself up and go to work, so you KNOW this film must have been bad. 1 out of 10, don't even consider renting this at all, really.


Oh God, where do I begin? The murder in the alley? The bad guy with the shark mask? The Nazi Pope? The clumsy lip synching by the plastic woman in the wheel chair? The plastic woman having sex? All the above? Yes and much more.

Lets cut to the chase: this movie is awful. The first thing is the bad script. Crappy burger chain using human remains funded by the 'Nazi Pope' with crappy F-rated detectives on their tale. And somehow related to a shark-man who wants revenge. Already makes your head hurt.

Then you got the crappy sound editing and the lousy camera work. Could they get the mannequin to lip synch right or was that out of the budget? And what is up with the mannequin sex scene? Just plain retarded in every aspect.

Quite frankly this is the worst movie I have never seen such bad acting in all my life. In fact, this is the worst movie I have ever seen so far in my life. The only comparable film in horrible quality is "Deady Drifter" - aka "Out" with Danny Glover. But this one, with its non-ending ending and lack of brain power prove to be the undoing before this one ever began.

Sucks, sucks, and yes - sucks. "F"


Far North is one of the worst films i have ever seen. A pointless tale that fails to entertain (except for the unintentionally hilarious ending) or inform, it's one saving grace being it only last for 89 minutes.

The film plods along for 70 or so minutes without a lot happening, except for a man falling in love with a young girl, and the other, older girl looking slightly annoyed. It is then revealed that the older girl saved the younger girl from some soldiers. However, 70 minutes or so into the film, she feels the need to strangle the girl she saved and cut her face off when she reveals she is leaving with the man. Pretty unconvincing stuff.

At the start of the film i thought that possibly this film would have a political theme about mining coal in the Tundra, but not so. No information is given to WHEN this film is set, except for the presence of soldiers, so assumingly during war time.

Even the scenery isn't convincing, the boat scenes on the rivers are clearly backdrops.

This film will bore you to death for the vast majority of its duration, with an ending that will baffle you and probably make you laugh. Do yourself a favour and give this one a miss.


I read some of the comments about that film and really thought i was gonna watch something worth watching, but..... The film in itself is very quiet, there is hardly any talking, which i personally don't like. You get to like the characters through their actions, but even then I was not impressed with it. The ending is very disturbing and fair enough it might happen far in the north but not everybody want to watch a film about a disturbed middle aged woman. My advise watch this if you really and even really bored, but overall the film was not to my liking and I'd say to any of my friends not to bother with it, even though it's got good actors in it.


I'm awestruck by the people who wanted this movie to win the Oscar for the best movie, where do these people live??? One this movie is lifted from the Oscar nominated "The Miracle Worker" which also won the best actress that year. Well you could say that remakes also get an Oscar, nut it needs some originality. Amithab's acting is at its pathetic worst. It would have been a great theater production but for the screen it just didn't do it. Where is the fairyland where all this is happening, there is not a single things that seems to be related to India it seems more to be set in Britain with the British speaking good Hindi. In all it was melodrama at its worst.


At first, when I saw Black, I was really impressed with the movie and the way Sanjay Leela Bhansali made it. The slick camera movements, the camera angles, the snow... everything was impressive. A few months later, I happened to see the same movie at the American International School in Lesotho except that this was not made by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and it was an animated movie. At first I thought the smart boys in Hollywood remade Bhansali's film. Only later did I realize (when I got hold of the DVD cover) that it was made much before Black even started production.

Why did Bhansali make this movie? Its a frame by frame COPY of Helen Keller's story (often shown in International primary schools to growing kids). Sanjay Leela Bhansali or anyone associated with the script of Black should feel ashamed claiming credit for Black's script. They haven't even thanked the original screen writers of the original movie in the opening/closing credits of Black.


Not surprisingly, many people feel this movie has been over-rated. And its true.

The story of a blind girl, a social outcast changed by a great teacher should have been a much more beautiful story with great talents to act the parts. Anyone could have done better than Bacchan. He totally overacted in this one. And why not? No director seems to have control over him, for many would blindly go and buy tickets if they see his name in a film. hence the director seems to have left him on his own.

And what about the kid? She has a lot of potential, but directorji has misused her to look like a crazy kid instead of a blind girl. .

the only sensible thing in this movie is Mukherjee. She has played her part to the fullest. but she cannot stop me from saying THIS MOVIE ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!!! watch only if u are forced to!


Its a bit late for me to post this review. But memories were rekindled after the Saawariya fiasco of the apparently great Sanjay Leela Bansali. I was in India at that time, and many people talked about Black as if no one every made a movie like that ever. First of all its a remake, so attributing a "genius" tag to Bansali is uncalled for. I also did not appreciate the fact that he did not admit to the fact that it is a remake of The Miracle Worker. I mean, be a man. Tell the world you are making a remake. Secondly, in Bollywood, overacting means good acting seems to be the norm. Rani was as shrill as you can see. You can paint emotion but if the colors just bleed than it looses its grace. Bansali just went overboard. Some scenes make no sense. The empty rooms with slide images portrayed in the background. The needless filled sets. They distracted more. The film has its moments. Especially the one where Rani meets AB after a long time. I will not go into more details for the sake of those who haven't seen it (yet). In the same week, I had the good fortune of seeing Million Dollar Baby and.. boy.. what a difference. To see how emotions are handled subtly.. now THAT was a treat. Perhaps Bansali ought to learn from Eastwood.. if he gets down from cloud 9 that is...


After watching Black, I wished I were blind and deaf so that I would never have had to endure this movie or its fantastic reviews.

When I watch a film like Black, I can say that the director is definitely talented. He manages to make a film without any songs, with most dialogues in English and an unusual story-line and get away with both rave reviews and house-full theatres. Or maybe, it has got away with rave reviews and house-full theatres because it has no songs, has many English dialogues and an unusual story line. Maybe people are so tired of the usual good film that an unusual bad film seems extraordinarily good.

Despite all its unusuality, Black is filled with clichés and highly predictable "sentimental" dialogues. The only thing moving in this film was me, shifting in my seat, trying not to run from the theatre. Rani Mukherjee, who plays Michelle, a girl blind and deaf from birth, and Amitabh Bachchan, who plays her teacher have been said to have delivered fantastic performances, yet I found it to be their worst performances that I know of. Rani Mukherjee has her head cocked to one side through the whole film, yet it is only the blind who do that, to catch sound, which is out of the question with Michelle. It seems critics and audiences see overacting as brilliant acting; in some scenes there is so much overacting, the movie seems bizarre and unreal.

What is most unreal is the script and the dialogues. Michelle joins a university where the teachers are not trained to deal with a student like her, and because of this, Michelle graduates only ten years after she joins. Why? Simply because her typing speed on a Braille typewriter is too slow for her to finish her examination within the time limit. Surely a college that has managed to handle a blind and deaf student can find a different way to test her. The script does not even deal with the problem in the end. They take the easy way out: after having failed several times, Michelle, in a fit of rage, suddenly manages to type at a furious speed after ten years of not being able to do so. The location and time-setting of the movie are very unclear. The whole movie takes place in an English-Hindi speaking town when Charlie Chaplin movies are releasing. They seem to be completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Then there's the case of Michelle's sister. She is a normal person, who gets an abnormal lack of attention from her parents because of Michelle's constant needs. When she gets frustrated with her parents and Michelle for the same reason, she is portrayed as a sister who isn't understanding, who is completely to blame, who is a character made to take the audience's fury. One should really sympathise with her, someone who from childhood gets a highly inadequate amount of her parents' attention.

After all the other fantastic reviews that this movie got, mine must seem like blasphemy. Well, everyone's entitled to their opinions, and I'm expressing mine. What really bothers me is not how bad Black is, but the fact that the Indian audience considers something of such mediocrity to be fantastic. And that's my opinion on everyone else's opinion.


Before commenting on the movie let me give my scores for the actors' performances. Baby Michelle: 6/10, Michelle: 7.5/10, Teacher: 6.5/10, Father: 7.5/10, Mother: 8/10, Michelle's sister: 7.5/10. Screenplay: 7/10, Art Direction: 8.5/10, Cinematography: 9/10, Music: 9/10. Direction: 7/10.

Well, that's the summary of the whole movie BLACK. Good try, from Leela Banshali. But if you ask me about ingenuity, I would rather go for RAINCOAT, by the contemporary film-maker Rituporno Ghosh. Black's weakest character I think was baby Michelle, I was mid-way confused whether I was watching a scary-movie or Hellraiser kind. There was no need to make faces like that (ghost movies) for young Michelle, that was not a blind girl's acting. Till date the best child actress from India was the one who acted in Anjali (my rating-wise).

The strongest part of the movie was cinematography and music score, simply brilliant, and even the art direction too along with few acting performances.

In fact the cameo role by Sen and parents role was superb. Rani's role was very nice, but not a 9/10 role! Amitabh was nice too, but the main fault of the movie, I think was the haphazard screenplay, which effected the overall quality as well as direction of the movie. Despite all its hype in India (may be because it's one of the first times a movie is without songs and all of sentimental flicks here and there), I can't rate this movie at par with Italian, French or Spanish classics. Even not with THE AWAKENING, stellar roles by DeNiro and Williams. This year too Hollywood came up with Finding Neverland, Sideways, Closer; Black doesn't even comes closer to them.

But still, I will rate this movie good, because it is of one of the first and boldest attempts to revolutionize the trash-can Bollywood stories and movies.

For Bansali, "..Still Miles to go before you Sleep..."! Don't work for getting awards, make a nice movie, just 15 steps ahead lies the success (the line taken from your movie)...GRAB IT! In fact, the most intelligent Bollywood movie I have ever seen (not copying from any Hollywood or European movies) is : MOKSHA...though it went flat amidst Indian audiences.

Still I feel, Rituporno's movies are better than Bansali's.


OMG were do I begin this movie was so stupid. First of all Bollywood cant make movies anymore they just copy western books and movies. I don't want to spoil a lot of it for you people who think its good but they just copied it read the book "The Letter A" same story only the letter A was true and it took place on a farm jeez bollywood get some creativity.

The casting was alright but that girl when she was young lol now that was funny. She looked like she was possessed or something. Jezz what are they trying to make a movie or a bad version of the Excorsit

Well thats all I have to say if you still want to watch it be my guest but bollywood needs creativity. A begger in India can become a movie writer at this rate. They just need to get some western book and there u go one stupid movie.


I watch the movie because it's been rated in my local magazine. I thought I should give it a try. Then again, it's nice. But even though it's full of child imagination in it (robot friend in school, entering game's world, be friend with a cute girl friend...), the story is to typical towards the end. I know earthquake happened a lot in Japan, but please, why must you make the earthquake happened while Jun is on the top of the chimney? It's spoiled the whole movie. The climax has made the movie quality decrease... Like the story writer is so lazy to think about the scene. I think the scene is the worst part, because the earthquake made me laugh rather than be scared of Jun's fall...


It's interesting to note, having read some of the comments posted here that cinema does have an influence on people's lives. How could anyone explain why Hudsucker Proxy made some people so enthusiastic unless it be that it reminded them of It's a Wonderfyl Life? Capra's movie was seriously overrated because there is a need around the Christmas holiday for people to feel good, be close to their families and friends and so on, things they generally do bad or unconvincingly around the year. The 40's and 50's which inspired this movie had something that the Coen's didn't have: a good crew of actors.

How can anybody compare Gary Cooper, Carry Grant or Jimmy Stewart with Tim Robbins?His character is badly written. What should I think of him otherwise that he is an imbecile "with a heart". I am appalled at this cliché Hollywood has been throwing at us for decades with the dumb guy that manages to teach the bad guys a lesson, get the girl and save the day. Are we to think that Hollywood encourages people towards tolerance? Don't make me laugh. The story doesn't manage to be more than trivial but some people like it because they are conditioned by years and years of watching junk in the cinema that this is what a masterpiece should look like.

The story is trivial and the fantastic element is embarrassing even for a kids movie, something this could never be given the tendency of most everybody to commit suicide.

The acting is awful, but considering the actors didn't have what to play it's understandable. Tim Robbins is nothing more than a cartoon. What do we know about his feelings, about his background...about him as a HUMAN BEING? He is just a Hollywood cliché supposed to be funny and prompt sympathy. I think Tom and Jerry had more humanity than him. Paul Newman was unbelievable...in a bad way. I don't understand what was in his mind that made him accept this part. He made some good movies in his life, did he really need the money. maybe a subscription for retired actors would have suited him better.

Having seen all the Coen's movies I am left with a bitter taste after this one. Astonishing pair of movie maker, sometimes lamentably fails... Hey even Orson Welles or Kubrick had their drawbacks. This shouldn't discourage anyone from enjoying their movies (I recommend Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink and Fargo). However, seeing their more recent productions such as Intolerable Cruealty or The Man Who Wsn't There I have to notice that their talent seems to slowly go down the drain and maybe they just got lucky a few times. Who knows, I hope not. Maybe they'll give us another Blood Simple.


Set in 1959, "The Hudsucker Proxy" has the feel of a 30s comedy, or it seems to be trying to have that feel. There are some great visuals, but the whole thing left me cold. If this was supposed to capture the fun and repartee of the 30s comedies, it failed miserably for me. Lots of those old comedies had some unbelievable stories, but the character development was such that you had some identification with the people. And the actors had such grace and charm (think Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn) that you couldn't help but be captivated. Here the story and characters have no basis in reality whatsoever. And you have Tim Robbins giving a performance that looks like he just got out of acting 101. Paul Newman goes through the motions and Jennifer Jason Leigh does a Katharine Hepburn imitation that made me weep with longing for the real thing. Charles Durning is wasted in his two absurd appearances.

There were so many things in this movie that made me physically cringe that it took some time after it was over to recover my equilibrium. There is a guy who does a parody of Dean Martin in a scene that comes out of nowhere; I asked myself why that scene was in there, and I found myself asking that about most of the scenes in this movie. There is a bellhop who is a Red Buttons clone and is every bit as irritating as the real person. A scene in a beatnik bar is so clichéd that I feel ashamed to have seen it.

"The Hudsucker Proxy" did serve one purpose for me and that was to make me realize that those old 30s and 40s comedies are special. They come from a time and a place that can never be duplicated, with actors for whom there is no replacement.

A quote from Paul Newman in this movie summarizes my reaction, "This is embarrassing."


It's about as campy as high school theater with an ending as satisfying as a sharp stick in the eye.

The movie itself is a farce. It borders on utterly ridiculous at times even by the standard of farces. There are enjoyable story arcs and a bit of workable humor, but the few redeeming elements (namely the love arc) of the movie are completely crushed by a rushed and largely unresolved ending. It's the most unsatisfying satisfying ending to a movie I'll ever seen.

I won't pretend that there's no entertainment value to the movie, but it can't be taken seriously on any level and it ultimately ends up being an overall let down.

If you like fantastical Broadway-type entertainment with no value placed on story, then you will probably like this movie. Otherwise, skip it.


There can be only 1 conclusion, The Coens are aliens from planet KzOrp and drugged mankind with a substance that makes people like, no love! their movies. Unfortunately, I must have been hibernating somewhere in a deep cave when they did so.

I got annoyed by the boredom I felt watching The Big Lebowski, Fargo made me want to strangle newborn puppies and after 20 minutes of the rampaging not funny dialog in Hudsucker, I simply felt depressed.

This is in-the-face parody at it's worst, everything is overdone from acting to scenery to story. I absolutely despise movies with Jim Carrey but compared to this movie, they are actually quite passable. You know which movie came to mind watching this? > The original Charly and the Chocolat factory. Mind you, that is a children's movie.

Who in their right minds can endure movies like this? No character is likable for it is not a character but a cartoon-figure, every turn in this so called story can be seen coming miles away and slapstick really had its highpoint way before even my former life started.

I live for humor, it's what keeps us going right? - a deep big sigh for completely failing to see how so many people find this amusing.

1/10!


Why do all movie Quakers have paper thin convictions to their morals? If this had been a movie about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, they would have him gunning down racists by the second reel. If they approached the life of Ghandi the way this movie treats Quakers, Ghandi would have been bombing churches.

I am an atheist, but if there are any people on the face of the earth who do not kill, no matter the circumstances, it is the Quakers. If you were to believe this movie, Quakers are blood thirsty zombies out to seek revenge on anyone who crosses them.

EVERY PRINT OF THIS FILM SHOULD BE DESTROYED.


An obvious cash-in on Timothy Leary and his "turn on, drop out" LSD preachings of the 60's. Of course, this being corporate Hollywood, they turn the Timothy Leary character (well played by Richard Todd) into a money hungry CULT leader "who must be stopped!" Amusing for today's self-appointed "hip" audiences by its dated hippie iconography and the fact that the evil head hippie is played the TV series LOST IN SPACE's Goddard!


After university professor Richard Todd "drops out" in protest of the expulsion of two clean-cut students who print an underground newspaper (The Tomorrow's Times!), he takes a jaunt to San Francisco to check out the action and finds nothing but bubble-blowing, hip-shaking, body-groping kids frolicking in the park (nothing too outrageous: the dancing blonde has flesh-colored undies beneath her dress, and all the couples are boy-girl). Quickie product filmed on the Columbia lot has nothing to say about religious cults (the theme is brought up, but only to be exploited). It is so poorly-made and naïve (and, ultimately, conservative) that it runs the risk of being endearing. Too bad nobody came up with a competent script to help the picture over that 30-minute hurdle. How much LSD does one have to take to get through relics like this? * from ****


Hip professor Richard Todd (as Jonathan Barnett) resigns from his university, protesting the expulsion of implausible hippies James MacArthur (as Larry Osborne) and Susan Oliver (as Patricia Cross). Mr. MacArthur and Ms. Oliver publish an "underground" newspaper. Mr. Todd believes defending the publication of their "Tomorrow's Times" is a freedom of speech issue; but, his college administration terms it a "pornographic rag". After advocating LSD use on Joe Pyne's TV show, Todd is evicted from his apartment. Jobless and homeless, Todd moves into MacArthur and Oliver's San Francisco pad. There, he becomes a Timothy Leary-type hero. Mark Goddard (as Elliott) plays a dealer who can take you really far out.

Counterculture garbage from producer Sam Katzman and director Arthur Dreifuss.

Bad trip, man.

Bummer.

* The Love-Ins (1967) Arthur Dreifuss ~ Richard Todd, James MacArthur, Susan Oliver


This movie is very average: SFX are childish to non-existent; plot is paper thin; acting amateurish. Teenagers on a "love lane" parking expedition ( the belle brat of the city's lawyer and a lower class boy her father knows nothing about ) by mistake hit & kill an invading alien with their big clumsy 1950s car. Alerting the police, they are tested for alcohol (=they are drunk), accused of manslaughter and jailed...or is it a set up? Couple of bums wandering from city to city seeking "opportunities" splits after drinking in a solitary pub in this small provincial town: one goes home to bed; another takes a ride and after he spots a spaceship, wants to set up a freak show to get rich quick. Too bad aliens attack & kill him injecting him a large dose of alcohol, and he is whom the two youngsters are accused of having murdered. The bum who went home sleeping stars in some "comedy moment" scene, and there is also some hillbilly redneck trying to chase youngsters away from his property ( a character reminiscent of minor Laurel&Hardy supporting actors ) who provides comedy relief. Minor plot twists, such as the two teenagers escaping from the police station. This movie is a bizarre concoction of comedy, parody and 1950s-styled sci-fi. In the end the teenagers are cleared of suspicion, while a goofy -yet pompous- military expedition inadvertently causes the spaceship to blow up. In the end invading aliens (= middle school kids wearing poorly sewed costumes ) are surrounded by teenagers in their funky 1950s cars, and burn up once exposed to direct light. Very modest movie not worth watching twice.


This sure looks like a hurry up and get this thing over with movie. A perfect movie for when your mind is not totally on the movie; such as the drive in theater fare of the late 50s. This flick might even be funnier than it is scary.

 A young couple in the heat of their passions discover a bug eyed creature from who knows where. These alien beings have detachable hands that crawl and have an eyeball and fingers that inject alcohol. Got your interest?

Fun to watch for a laugh. Yes that is Frank Gorshin. Also in the cast are Steven Terrell, Gloria Castillo and Lyn Osborn.


Did anyone think this was funny in 1957? The Saucer Men have nice heads and sharp claws, but the cast of this dreadful comedy is strictly L7, Daddy-O. Pitsville, USA. AIP could only make decent comedies when Roger Corman was at the helm, and this film has good ol' Edward L. Cahn calling the shots, so you know it's going to be formulaic AND boring.


Some little green men (I'm not kidding) from outer space invade a small town. Good thing the "teenagers" (all of them obviously in their 20s) are out to get them!

I saw this on TV when I was about 13 or 14 and loved it. I distinctly remember the crawling hand scaring me. Now, over 20 years later, I hated it! It has some atmospheric scenes, but... The plot is laughable even by 1950s standards..."little green men"! Ha ha. The acting is horrible...look at the cast...all unknowns (deservedly) who remained unknowns! The "special" effects are mind boggling--they are so BAD!!!!! The aliens look funny, not scary and, I swear to God, I saw the wires pulling the "crawling" hand! This isn't even bad/good--it's too boring for that. Young kids (VERY young kids) might like it, but it's too boring for adults. A waste of time.


Probably the most famous of Troma's back-breakingly self-conscious attempts to create a cult classic by deliberately making a bad film, 'The Toxic Avenger' is a porno-grade comedy horror in which a goofy pool attendant falls into a barrel of chemical waste and mutates into the scourge of the city's criminals. This is the kind of incompetent garbage that would be made bearable only by either good-natured silliness or barking mad humour; but since the tone here is rather nasty, and laughs are pretty much absent (funniest line: 'What the sh*t?'), we're left with zero comic timing, a cast of gurners, plenty of tiresome sound effects, public domain music and unbelievably amateurish editing. Pretty much worthless.


I have seen my share of bad movies... Battlefield Earth, Freddy Got Fingered, Bottom's Up, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Garfield: The Movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Aliens Vs. Predator 2: Requiem...

But this is the worst movie I've ever seen... I can't bear talking more about it. It ruined my life and view on films... Don't watch it. Never.

Well, I never expected anything, but the cover said that it inspired Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino, two of my favorite directors, in their youth and early film-making, so I thought it would be interesting.

Not even in an Edward D. Wood Jr. movie did I see worse acting or special effects. If Warner Brothers gave their "Batman Begins" script to a three year old without money or friends, he could have made a better movie. I swear.

I'm serious, it shouldn't have been made. It just left me with a bad bad feeling of wasting my life. I felt lonely after watching it. Thank God I got a discount at the video store... I even sold it back to their sorry asses - double the price!


I can say the most positive thing about The Toxic Avenger is that it knew what it was. Sure, it's a horrible, horrible, incredibly bad film, but at least unlike other top worst movies of all time, this one knew it was meant for B-Movie status. Or at least for some midnight views or drinking games.

For someone who has not seen a singe "Troma" film ever, until last night, I was pretty shocked on the lengths these directors and writers went. From the extreme homophobia, to vehicular manslaughter while drinking and driving and actually shoving a shot gun into a toddler's face. I'm guessing this (1986) was far before the PC-movement or they simply wanted you to turn your brain off. Sure, you would have to turn off your senses while watching, but as much fun as some of the movie was, it was hard to ignore the blatant disregard for taste/humanity.

Yeah, I mentioned some of the movie was fun. It was, only because it was so over-the-top in its bathroom humor and bad special effects/voice-overs. (Man, that Toxic voice-over was hilarious, though I never knew if it was one of the jokes.) I didn't, however, mention the deliberate misuse of transporting toxic waste because it was an obvious set-up and part of the overall camp of the movie.

Nerdy, nerd, nerd Melvin's the janitor in charge of the mop at a gym and is getting picked on. Why? Because he's misunderstood? No, because he's such an exaggeratedly bad form of geek that makes Napoleon Dynamite look like the captain of the football team. And he should honestly never be let out of his house for his own safety.

At any rate, he sort of works by mopping and goggling the bimbos until a plan is hatched to rid the gym of this eye sore by humiliation that turns into him leaping out of a window into, you guessed it, toxic waste. From there, this Frankenstein's Monster with a brand new voice and body seeks out justice for whatever reason you can think of. But, this is not a Batman vigilante. This one not only has no conscious of murder, he slaughters.

I could say this is where the movie gets silly, but that was from frame one. No, this is where is where the movie gets sick and turns more horror. Sure, there are more comedic, intentional or not, moments, but they layered on the gore and violence and some of the oddest characters lifted right from Garbage Pail Kids cards, and no, I'm not talking about mutated characters. These were the humans.

I honestly can't recommend this movie to anyone other than the midnight-movie, drinking (or other forms of controlled substance) or lovers of bad movie groups. I will say though this movie is obviously set up as a comedic fun-ride and not to be taken seriously for a second, the underling messages of homophobia and violence against kids still is very disturbing.


although it was kinda hilarious,it was downright terrible. i have never given a film a one, but this one deserved it. the violence was just too much and my favorite flick is John Carpenters "The Thing". for chrissake, an old lady gets beaten and a kid gets purposely run over. now it did give me a few laughs, but this was a complete disgrace to the film genre and should not have gotten almost six stars. it makes me sick to think people actually liked this film. house of the dead was a somewhat better movie than this. the best thing i liked about the movie was the comedy, though. the mayor was a pretty funny guy and the kid who played Melvin was a RIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Any adult male who preys on minors should be - literally - whipped to within the proverbial "inch" of his life. And if this individual also is a teacher doing so with a student, salt and iodine should be added liberally to the resulting wounds.

However, I don't think we have to praise what we feel is a mediocre presentation simply because it addresses a serious problem. I couldn't disagree more with those who have proclaimed this a strong movie about this important situation.

The parents here, along with their victimized daughter, all moved more slowly than postal workers on Valium for the first 1 hour and 50 minutes -- then screamed like Banshees on "Speed" for the final 10. Gary Cole, as the villainous - and thoroughly vacuous and unctuous - teacher, is a very credible actor. But here his performance and character sounded like Jethro from "The Beverly Hillbillies" displaying a "dark side."

Even though this film was made a few years ago, and this problem is perhaps a little more evident today, the principal's speeches about teachers and school officials hugging and touching students to make them feel good, etc., was incredibly stupid and naive on the part of the writers. Anybody with even minimal intelligence knows that in the workplace, school - or anywhere else, males should avoid even the most cursory of physical contact. There are many, many scenarios where even the most innocent physical contact can be misrepresented by one of parties involved, or by someone observing. And even the most tentative addressing by one of the parties will find attorneys gathered as if there were a chemical plant explosion or a group of ambulances (to "chase") at a massive freeway pileup.

All-in-all, this is a serious subject deserving of a much better approach than this flick provided.


I think as long as we agree that 99.9% of the "movies" that are shown on the Lifetime Movie Network (LMN) are broad brush cinema cousins to paperback trash novels, everything's fine.

"For My Daughter's Honor" is no exception. As usual, it's "based on a true story"; there's little real character development, but there are plenty of implausible actions. Amy succumbs so easily to the coach's advances that her character should have been made to be six years old instead of thirteen, and even then, a 6 yr old would've run like crazy.

As is LMN's credo, all men must be either idiots or perverts, so Amy's Dad is too wrapped up in his struggling business to notice anything amiss...too bad, Amy! Amy's moronic friends think the coach is great since he buys them wine and lets them drive his truck...too bad, Amy! The principal of Amy's school can't/won't do anything, since he's a limp noodle who doesn't want to get crosswise with the popular coach, and since the football team is more important than any girl who's being traumatized by a teacher....too bad, Amy!

The coach's wife must sleep like a hibernating bear, since the coach wanders his house at midnight and leads poor Amy off to some empty bedroom for some "extra credit". Really too simple-minded to be taken seriously.

Oh yes, eventually the coach goes to the slammer. But who gets blamed? Yikes, it's Amy!

LMN movies are like salted peanuts: tasty, bad for you, and somewhat addictive. I admit I'll watch one now and then just to see how far the story will wander off into the surreal. But LMN truly believes it's performing some sort of service by running these preachy, poorly written monstrosities. They do take on serious subjects, but always bail out when it comes to quality acting and directing, and then go for the "Men are Evil" conclusion.

This movie could have been A LOT better, since the subject deserves a better rendering.


OK, just saw the movie (rented it, thank god I didn't spend more than 2'50 Euros on this thing) and hey, can't remember the last time I saw something sooooo bad... Oh, and if someone got what the hell is going on, I'll be glad to know it... my sister and I are still discussing our views on what we have just seen... Double crossings? people gone bananas? no one cares for the dead guys? And, is both main characters the same character?

Mamma mia...


The same title explains it: "No debes estar aqui"-"You must not be here". Obviously, the director is trying to advice us, because the film is so bad that when I went out from the theatre I thought: "I shouldn't have come". The film is supposed to be an Internet-basis thriller, but it does not have suspense, horror or anything interesting.


Yet another one in the long series of godawful, ridiculous and utterly predictable horror/thrillers made in Spain in the late 90s/early 00s. And this is one of the very worst ones: not only it consistently sucks, but it doesn't have one single original moment. It starts like "Fight Club" (Tristán Ulloa even dresses like Brad Pitt/Tyler Durden!), continues like "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and ends like "Se7en", with halfway stops in "Lost Highway" and "Body Double". Characters are clichés of the worst kind, specially the vomitive mama's boy and the cowardly fat girl. And you see the "big plot twist" coming before the movie reaches its mid-running time.

Absolutely nothing worth watching here. It doesn't even have eye candy to save it, as, even if there are two absolutely gorgeous girls (Pilar Punzano and Marián Aguilera), you hardly see anything of them (except for a breast in close-up, which means it could be a body double).

I long for the day when Spain stops making half-baked ripoffs of American hits and starts attempting honest genre movies. Things like this bomb really hurt the industry.

1/10. Save your time and money.


Dick Tracy is on the hunt of a mysterious criminal known as the Lame One ( he has a bum foot, but I think the title describes the villian's general appearance ), leader of the mysterious Spider Gang. The Lame One along with his hunchbacked assistant kidnap Tracy's brother, alters his appearance, and goes out fighting him endlessly throughout this boredom. This serial moves incredibly slow ( mainly this isn't a Whitney/English chapterplay ), the acting outside of Ralph Byrd is dead wood, especially Smiley Burnette. Even when the master criminal is unmasked, the audience is forced to say, Who was this guy. Add a really dumb, sentimental ending, and well you get the pic. Don't judge the next three serials based on this one. In terms of serials, 4 out of 10.


I've watched only 4-5 serials, so I don't have a lot to compare this

to, but so far it's easily the worst of the lot. The overlap from

chapter to chapter is too great (too much material repeated in the

new episode that was seen in the previous episode). The acting is

poor, especially Ralph Byrd (if he stood still for a moment, he'd be

attacked by a woodpecker). The "comedy" of Smiley Burnett is

nothing to smile about (he's even worse here than in the Gene

Autry movies). The character with the most brains in this serial is

actually the 12 year old kid, played by Lee Van Atta. And perhaps

most of all, has anybody seen Dick Tracy in this film? I must have

missed him, because no one in this movie even remotely

resembled the comic strip character. Low budget is not enough of

an excuse for low tech here. At least the director could have put a

watch on Ralph Byrd's wrist, & pretended it was radio controlled.

The two low budget jungle serials I watched with Phyllis Coates

("Panther Girl of the Congo" & "Jungle Drums of Africa") were way

better than this, & so was a low budget jungle serial with Clyde

Beatty ("Lost Jungle"). Not that those were great serials, but they

were better than this one, so tells you something about Dick Tracy.

If you'd like to watch a better crime serial, I recommend "The Green

Archer." That & the serial I'm in the middle of now, "Captain

Marvel," are far superior to Dick Tracy. I rate it 3/10.


After reading some reviews and watching some clips from "Enchanted", I decided to give the movie a try. I grew up with the Disney Princess movies, so I thought a parody of them would be hilarious. Unfortunately, I could only last about forty minutes before I had to turn it off.

The beginning of the movie is hilarious. The song sequences were so over-the-top, a great parody of the classic princesses. In addition, Giselle's reaction to New York City is pretty funny too.

However, as soon as the lawyer and his daughter were introduced into the movie, things went downhill quickly. The lawyer was just so unlikable, and his daughter was annoyingly unrealistic. In addition, Giselle's antics went from being cute to annoying. (I think the scene that really put me off was when she drank out of an aquarium and spit out a beta fish... Nasty stuff.) It's a shame, because the premise of the movie seemed so good. It just got stale too quickly.


Ya gotta love Al Adamson. Only he would (1) take footage from a 20-year-old movie about gorillas in diving helmets ("Robot Monster"), (2) combine it with clips from a 30-year-old movie about elephants with hair mats glued to their sides ("One Million B.C."), (3) throw in parts from a God-knows-how-old Filipino movie about midget cannibals, half man/half lobster monsters and beer-bellied Chinese cavemen with snakes growing out of their shoulders (all of the aforementioned footage being in black and white), (4) spend $11.43 shooting new "connecting" footage (in color, no less) with an apparently--to be charitable--confused John Carradine and a bunch of actors who have trouble remembering their lines (among them a vapid blonde who is so incompetent that all her dialogue is dubbed in by someone else and who doesn't even have the decency to make up for it by getting naked), (5) put it out under at least 10 different titles and (6) try to pass each one off as a new movie. Go, Al!

This is Al's masterwork, the film by which he will always be remembered. Orson Welles had "Citizen Kane," Michael Curtiz had "Casablanca," Francis Coppola had "The Godfather," Al Adamson has "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet." You're in heady company, Al. You deserve it.


Huh?

What?

Vampire cavemen? Sex replaced by flashing multi-colored light bulbs? Guys in dinosaur suits? A film half made of stock footage?

This isn't just bad, it's inexplicably bad. DO NOT WATCH THIS ALONE. Make sure to have a friend or two with whom you can swap wisecracks about this... this... HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS.

The end of this movie has nothing to do with the beginning. The middle has nothing to do with the end or the beginning. Not only does this planet change colors, but apparently at least one woman on it manages to change races, switching periodically back and forth between Filipino and Caucasian.

And remember, kids, the red radiation is the most dangerous to human life. Here, let me demonstrate with this spectrum gun.

WHAT THE HELL??????


Ooo-kay. Try and follow this: it seems that there is a plague of vampirism running rampant on Earth, and scientist John Carradine is the only one who has a snowball's chance to save us. It seems there's this planet somewhere where vampires are known to exist, so John and a team of dunderheaded astronauts whoosh off to see if there's anything on this planet that might bring about a cure. Still with me? Okay. When Carradine and crew land their $1.95 toy spaceship on the distant planet, things get hopelessly goofy: the so-called "horror" of the Blood Monsters that inhabit this rock is portrayed almost completely by tinted stock-footage from an old Filipino caveman flick. These scenes contain: hopeless-looking bat-men that glide on wires, ridiculous lizard-men that couldn't make it into a Toho soundstage, and vampire-like cavemen wearing tusks from the local Filipino five-and-dime. Carradine and his hapless away-team are baffled by what's going on...needless to say, so is the audience. For those who desire quality cinema--avoid this like the plague. For the rest of us...don't miss.


Not plutonium. This movie stinks. How embarrassing for John Carradine. But then, judging from past endeavours, it is impossible to embarrass either Carradine or director Al Adamson. There is no depth to which either will sink. And on top of it, here we have a movie that steal clips of stock footage from the likes of "Unknown Island" and "Robot Monster". Pathetic. Simply pathetic.


Ah, they don't make them like this any more.

Horror of the Blood Monsters is truly a crazy film. It's a biscuit-taking exercise in Z-Grade film-making of the variety that makes you say, 'I cannot believe they did this!'. It's a curious mixture of ineptness and experimentation that results in a somewhat unforgettable cinematic experience. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is entirely down to your tolerance for premier division crapola.

As has been stated many times, the film incorporates segments from a few old movies, including a Filipino caveman adventure and dinosaur film. These are linked together (loosely, to say the least) by sci-fi and horror sections, which in themselves don't seem to be connected very well either. In other words, it's a shambles. By, my word, it's a fun shambles to watch.

The story is half-hearted at best. The film-makers certainly didn't treat it with very much importance, so neither will I. Instead, I shall give a stream-of-conscious list of things that this movie contains.

We have vampires with plastic teeth. We have narration by a madman called Brother Theodore. We have a mission-control that is run by a man and a woman and a bloke with a clipboard. We have a chain-smoking space crew lead by an ancient doctor played by a (drunk?) John Carradine. We have a space-ship made out of a bottle of detergent, the interior of which consists of a table and two extremely uncomfortable looking wooden deck-chairs. We have special-effects of the special-needs variety  the outer space scenes would look unrealistic in an episode of The Clangers. We have an elephant with door-mats stuck to it, crap dinosaurs and space gazelles. We have crab-men, bat-men, snake-men and midgets. We have a war between good cavemen and vampire cavemen. We have a cave-woman who changes race depending on who she is on screen with at a given time. We have morally dubious brain-surgery, performed in order to allow for inter-stellar communications. We have epic battles of extremely badly choreographed proportions. We have a space age psychedelic sex machine. We have an alien atmosphere that changes colours constantly in order for the movie to incorporate old black and white footage seamlessly with the colour bits, or because of radiation or something. Generally speaking, we have a lot of things going on in this movie.

It's a laugh-riot.

It goes beyond so bad it's good  it's so bad it's experimental. I would say, celebrate it. It should cheer you up.


As soon as I saw Al Adamson's credit as producer and director at the beginning of "Horror of the Blood Monsters" (1970), I knew I was in for a rough ride. Adamson is the man responsible for "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" (1971), easily one of the worst films I'd ever seen, and I still hadn't forgiven him for that awful evening. In this one, Adamson's buddy John Carradine and his crew of dorky associates blast off from Earth, are damaged by a solar something-or-other, and land on a planet inhabited by dinosaurs, vampires, lobstermen, batmen and cave people. Unfortunately, all the "good" stuff has been ineptly spliced in from a B&W Filipino vampire/caveman film called "Tagani" (1965), a film that, compared to Adamson's, looks a model of cinematic professionalism. The planet is also affected by "chromatic radiation," so that the inserted B&W scenes could be variously tinted red, yellow, blue or green. To add to the nonsense, Adamson cuts back to Earth in total non sequitur to show us how people will make whoopy in the future; something to do with orgasmatron-type electrodes they wear to bed. Anyway, this film is truly a labor to sit through; another Adamson abomination. You know it's bad when you find yourself wishing that you were watching the original Filipino caveman movie, without all the stoopid sci-fi claptrap that Adamson & Co. added later. Infinitely more entertaining are the extras on the DVD that I just watched, including trailers for "Tagani" itself AND six other Filipino horror films; some of the wildest, most amazing coming attractions I've ever seen. The makers of "Tagani" should have sued Adamson for turning what looks like an interesting film into some true cinematic torture. Rent this one out at your own mental peril! You'll notice that the acronym for this film is HOT BM: appropriate, given the steaming pile of crap that it is!


This film atrocity must be seen to be believed. By comparison Plan 9 looks like Citizen Kane. Any movie that can combine vampires, space travel, lobster-men, bat-pygmies, snake-men, & cavemen into one utterly illogical, incomprehensible "plot" gets a special place in my bad movie lovin' heart to begin with. When compounded by adding tinted black & white stock footage as a plot device, a 50-cent plastic toy spaceship with a bic lighter for propulsion(I swear I'm not making this up), and a "Spectum Analyzer" that is clearly a caulk gun, it transcends the normally accepted standard of "so-bad-it's-good". The WORST of the worst.


Horror of the Blood Monsters starts out by giving the impression that it's a Vampire film with some inane stupid narration (by someone called Brother Theodore apparently, uncredited) that claims Vampires are widespread on Earth & are slowly taking over the human race. These Vampires were created when alien Vampires landed on Earth centuries ago from the 'Spectrum Solar System' & that the infamous scientist Dr. Rynning (John Carradine) is heading a space expedition to the 'Spectrum Solar System' to do some research or something, I don't really care as Horror of the Blood Monsters is already as stupid as any film I've seen. So, Captain Steve Bryce (Bruce Powers), Bob (Fred Meyers), Willy (Joey Benson) & their glamorous assistant Linda (Britt Semad) together with Dr. Rynning take off in the XP-13, a state of the art spacecraft (well, as state of the art as you can get from a spacecraft made out of a washing up liquid bottle, some wires & painted silver). Not very well guided by Colonel Manning (Robert Dix) & a bird named Valerie (Vicki Volante) back on Earth they unfortunately hit a meteorite & are forced to land on an uncharted planet that suffers from 'Chromatic Radiation' which turns the sky different colours. Once safely landed the team come across various creatures & warring tribes. The encounter a woman named Lian Malian (Jennifer Bishop) whom they do a little DIY surgery on & are able to make understand & speak English perfectly. They must find a way to repair the XP-13, avoid all the hostile creatures, sort out the entire planets problems & make it back to earth safely...

Produced & directed by Al Adamson who also has a small role during the opening sequence as a Vampire, Horror of the Blood Monsters is as bad as you could possibly imagine & perhaps even worse. The script by Sue McNair has potential, isn't too bad in itself & even tries to add a moral message at the end but in the hands of the infamous Adamson Horror of the Blood Monsters is a real chore to sit through. The incompetence is astounding, lets start with the process 'Spectrum X' which means most of Horror of the Blood Monsters takes place in annoying colour tints, the entire screen is bleached a single colour & it got on my nerves so much it's untrue, I simply hated it & can't see anyone disagreeing. The film goes to great lengths explain this with the useless 'Chromotic Radiation' nonsense, in fact Horror of the Blood Monsters if full of stupid inane scientific babble which means nothing & Carradine's character is particularly guilty of this. None of the characters are developed & I hated them all, I never cared for anyone or was in the slightest bit interested in what happened to any of them. Adamson's direction is pathetic & he slows the film down to a snail's pace, he fails to create any sort of excitement or pace & the fights are so poorly choreographed their laughable & beyond tedious. Horror of the Blood Monsters uses different footage from various other films including One Million B.C. (1960), Unknown Island (1948), Robot Monster (1953), The Wizard of Mars (1965) & Tagani (1965) which is where the real reason for the 'Spectrum X' colour tinting is discovered because some of these films were Black and White so Adamson could just tint the whole screen one colour & it would match the rest of the film, brilliant stuff Al. The props like the wobbly aluminium painters ladder on a supposedly futuristic spacecraft, costumes, sets like the truly awful looking spacecraft which consists of a wooden table some old fashioned computers & some of the most basic chairs ever that appear to be two planks of wood nailed together, continuity with the XP-13 having taken off but the footage on the control rooms monitors suggest otherwise & those tribes all of a sudden are able to speak English, the special effects are as bad as anything I've seen & just about everything else are terrible, this is real bottom of the barrel stuff. The monsters are rubbish, there are some stupid looking bat-men, a half a crab man, I say half because he always remains half submerged in water so we never get to see below his waist & the Vampire cavemen have the most fake looking plastic fangs in film history. The acting is so bad it's hard to imagine it could be any worse even if they tried. I hated Horror of the Blood Monsters, sure it has a wonderful title but it is a really crap film. It bored me to tears & I couldn't wait for it to finish. Sci-Fi horror films don't come much worse & it's not even worth a watch in a so-bad-it's-good way either, avoid at all costs.


Yes, ol' John Carradine is back, playing yet another crotchety old coot, this time in Vampire Men of the Lost Planet, aka Horror of the Blood Monsters, aka about 57 other titles. This one is a classic. It's a vampire movie! It's a space movie! It's a caveman movie! It's 3 treats in 1!! In the first part of this chilling opus, an annoying narrator waxes poetically about the vampire culture on earth, as we watch a bunch of half-doped vampires attack some stage extras with toothpicks instead of teeth. Then, we are whisked to Mission Control, run, apparently, only by 1 man and a woman with lots of cleavage. Then we see our plucky astronaut team, lead by the irratible Mr. Carradine, who obviously needed some ruffage. Then they land in the middle of a Filipino caveman moovie, where they help the good cave people fight the bad cave people...sort of. The "special effects" are the real eye candy here: most impressive is the Chromatic Radiation, which changes the film's color from blue to yellow to green to whatever gell the cameraman chose at the time. Watch quickly for an elephant with carpeting glued to it's hide, several wandering water buffalo, a couple of saw-toothed iguanas, furry bat people who fly on strings, lobster people who attack with claws, pre-historic midgets who attack with bows....the list goes on and on. This is Roger Corman at his worst. MooCow says check it out for a hoot, but don't say you weren't warned!

:=8)


Director Al Adamson's 1970 sci-fi/horror/cosmic/vampire exercise in hallucinogenic film-making.

Could there possibly be life on this distant barren planet? How would this world be able to evolve a race of mutant cave-dwelling vampires? Who are these strange lizard-beings and malnutrition-ed buffaloes? Can our hero astronauts survive their own bad acting? Is Dr. Rynning really only 64 years old when he looks like he's 105?

These are the burning questions which will keep you on the edge of your seat when you watch 'Blood of the Horror-' ... I mean, 'Horrors of the Atomic-' ... I mean, 'Vampires of the Cave-Dwelling-' ... oh, forget it!


Bad, bad, bad. Not even the good kind of bad either. You can look at most any Ed Wood project and say "That movie was terrible, but it had heart" but, not this one. It was on life-support, bloated, pumped full of morphine and waiting to die.

Don't get me wrong, I love terrible cinema (Plan 9 From Outer Space) is part of my movie collection, but there's no excuse for this one. The sadder thing is that I regrettably paid a $1.99 to watch it on the 'Classics On-Demand' channel. That's 90 minutes I'll never get back.

Anyway, the storyline. It opens with some 'vampires' preying on hapless victims in LA? New York? Who knows. The vampires are clad in 60's era chic attire, lurking in the darkness to unleash their plastic-toothed evil upon the world.

Jump ahead... Scientists? from earth are traveling to a far-off planet and after a run-in with an unknown energy force end up making an emergency landing on a planet replete with cavemen, tinted cut scenes and lizards wearing latex appliances. Come to find out, this is apparently the home world to the vampires on earth. Whoopee.

After seeing John Carradine's excellent performance in 'The Grapes of Wrath' and then in this dreck (and apparently many other titles in the genre), it makes one think that someone was really hard up for a paycheck. Sad, truly, truly sad and almost heartbreaking. It made me think of Lugosi at the end of his career. Who knows, maybe he actually enjoyed working, no matter how crappy the project was.

Anyway, the cast and acting were as cardboard as the scenery. The irritating 'tinting' of the scenes (which allowed the insertion of clips from other awful movies) was a distraction. Overall, in my Top 10 of the worst movies I have ever seen. A must miss at any price.


Well, if I wanted to say something nice about this film, I guess the color and quality of the DVD print were good. Sadly, that's probably about all I can say that's positive about this dud! By 1970, most of the ultra-schlocky sci-fi films were a thing of the past. However, HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS proves that this genre of bad films was still alive and twitching! The film begins with a horribly narrated segment about vampires. Then, rather abruptly, the film switches to an outer space film. Given the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury programs, you'd think they'd have some impact on how the film portrays space travel, but this isn't the case with this bizarro throwback from 50s sci-fi films. The set is exactly like these 50s films--with nothing resembling a real space ship and all the appearance of a cheap set. Additionally, the crew are hilariously inappropriate--with the clichéd busty woman, a very old man with heart trouble (John Carradine) and some men who spend much of their time ogling the lady.

Now I have compared this film to earlier low-budget sci-fi films, but this isn't totally fair. At least most of these previous films TRIED to look realistic--this film has the worst special effects for space I have ever seen. It really appears as if the budget was not more than $.79! For outdoor scenes on the vampire planet where they land, magenta-colored filters were used--though later they abruptly became green filters, red and then yellow filters! They also encounter several silly creatures. One looked like Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street--in reality, an elephant wearing a fur skin! Others were the usual small lizards running around on tiny sets. Then, some rather random caveman video is included--that is, until you find out they are VAMPIRE CAVEMEN!!!! Oddly, in the middle of all this, the film abruptly switches back to Earth several times to show a couple making love "the new way" (complete with lots of electronic equipment). These scenes aren't really explicit nor are they "hot"--just random and pointless. At one point, the lady voices her dissatisfaction with his performance--I couldn't agree more! Then, of course, it's back to the vampire planet for more 1,000,000 BC-style entertainment. Much of the caveman material isn't blended at all into the plot and it just goes on and on and on. Watch them fight again and again--mostly in an effort to pad out the film. Possibly the most interesting action that takes place in all this were the fights between the cavemen and the crab-human-bug hybrids as well as the fight between the cavemen and bat-monkeys. These fights were unintentionally pretty funny and at least offered a mild diversion.

Sadly,though, no matter how inept this film is, generally it's very dull and not even worth seeing so you can laugh at its ineptness. A truly bad and silly film--worthy of any Top 10 Worst list!


I saw this film in the early 1980's as part of a triple feature at the local drive-in (so please if I error on the details, my apologies). At that time it was titled "Night of the Wolf" or "Cry of the Wolf" or some such non-related drivel. It starts with vampire attacks on women in the night (in poor lighting). Then it goes to launching a rocket into space (internal shots only). We wade through long dialogues over what the plot is about (while walking around in a cardboard set). The Ship lands on a planet inhabited by vampire cave-men (all shot in black & white through a red filter). They find, rescue, and flee with the only non-vampire cave-gal (which is never really explained). The crew escape back to Earth without a solution to the problem (luckily the red cloud dissipates freeing Earth till the next time.) The nightmares still linger in my head about this, truly the worst film that I ever saw.


Chernobyl was a tragic event, caused by human error, and a very poor design (The reactors had no containment buildings, just 1 major example!).

Not mentioned in the movie, how much pollution is really there. There are many more pollutants than just radioactive materials, all much more mutanogenic than the radioactive ones. Moreover, the narrator just cites the nuclear disaster as the cause. This is at a time when nuclear power is necessary to our economy.

The birth defects shown are horrific and tragic, and all very heart wrenching, but truly how many children are effected? There are 1,000's of birth defects in the US and other countries, all can be attributed to causes other than nuclear radiation. Ever hear of the "March of Dimes"?

As for the scene when she holds up the Geiger counter, and says how scarred she is, either by a lie or incompetence, she is using it inaccurately. The selector switch is on Total Count, not on a count by minute (CPM rate), as it should be. Is the total count on over 1 minute, five minutes, several hours, several days? The "clicks" registered do not match up with the count displayed either. It appears to me that it is at maybe a couple of hundred counts per minute, not 13,000 counts every single minute (The LED would look steady at that rate!). Yes there is radiation levels higher than average world background, but there are beaches in France and India, Ramsar Iran, and other places that have very high background counts, and there are relatively few incidences of cancer and birth defects.

Are children with birth defects a good charity? Of course! But one should not lie, by omission or ignorance about it to collect funds.


This film is certainly a testament to the power of images. I defy anyone to watch this and not feel the pain of the children featured. Sadly, though, its shock value is not matched by actually bothering to substantiate its case.

The use of those tragically deformed children may have great emotional impact, but the documentary didn't bother to actually provide any evidence that their deformities were the fault of Chernobyl. That's because there isn't any, or for that matter any evidence that the level of birth defects has gone up in affected regions (with the exception of babies of pregnant women who actually worked on the cleanup at the time). A further claim was that the infant mortality rate was "three times that of the rest of Europe". This is true, as far as it goes. But the IMR is no higher than Belarus's post-soviet neighbors, and can be explained by the declining standard of living and quality of medical facilities.

I could go on, but just about every other claim made in the documentary is either misleading, strongly disputed in the scientific literature (I made the effort to check after watching the documentary), or plain bogus.

If you're a film student, this film is indeed technically brilliant. But it's based on a complete and utter distortion of the real picture.


I'm shocked to hear all the glowing commentary about this film. It's unfortunate that i'm limited to a thousand words to describe how bad it truly is. The basic plot is a character named Raymond Joshua, a rapping drug dealer played by Saul Williams, gets arrested for drug possession, then bailed out by a fellow prisoner - SERIOUSLY - then must decide whether to go back to prison. For starters the quality of the film is poor, a good twenty minutes could be cut out removing these slow motion flashbacks that are just time killers. Yes it was low budget, but many other small films don't look this ridiculous. In particular the chase seen in which Joshua picks an arbitrary point to climb up a white picket fence, despite being chased by overweight 50 something detectives that randomly burst into song, literally.

The biggest problem with the movie is the unrealistic character of Joshua, amongst other problems. He is not a typical drug dealer or rapper despite whatever the poor black men have no chance message this film is going for. When asked if was guilty of the possession of the marijuana Joshua responds "I mean I don't know", yet throughout the film he breaks into poems/raps that clearly display his tremendous vocabulary, you aren't just born knowing these words. It's clear that he was well educated, yet not very educated in basic laws, or the principals of using your education to get a legal job.

While in prison, Joshua breaks up a inmate riot by yelling a poem. The poem is pretty entertaining, it goes on to blame whitey for everything and his inspiring words stop everyone from stabbing each other. He then meets a female poetry teacher who happens to see the riot stopping poem, a foolish plot device an indie film fan would never forgive in another situation, but hey THIS IS REAL. In the one poetry class Joshua goes to, which is the last one due to budget cuts of course, his instructor goes on a whiny diatribe about how good the people in the prison are. This despite the previous poem by an inmate being titled "I shot three mother" you can guess the next word "and I don't know why".

A very interesting and entertaining character named Hopha, a prisoner who goes around in a lab coat for some reason, then bails Joshua out. Joshua then goes and hooks up with the poetry instructor, and has a week to decide whether accept his guilt, or flee or something. The films climax is him performing a poem to a small club that goes wild afterward. Once again the bad editing is at work here as he rattles off 20 seconds of poem, then starts over, I'm fairly sure it wasn't meant to be that way they just didn't feel like doing another take. Then a member of the audience yells an expletive that clearly should have been deleted because it makes the whole scene look ridiculous.

I really worry about people being inspired by this film or wanting it shown in public schools, the latter a possible sign of the apocalypse. It seems a lot of commentary's from outside the U.S. like the film, I really hope this isn't the only vision of America you have. Film is not reality, the best it can do is present a situation that might have some truth in it, something this film does very little of. If you want a better film about prison injustice try Brubaker, it cuts to the heart of matters more and is of much better quality. I could go on about other errors in the film. A first time offender getting ten years for a small amount of weed. The screaming character Jimmy Huang who is billed high on the credits for yelling briefly, to his credit his scene is worth watching. The abundance of over and underacting. The intentional, yet not clever, cameo of Marion Berry. I could go on for hours but lets just say my rating for this film is ONE ONE ONE. . .ONE ONE ONE.


i was pretty captivated by the story - i think i especially liked the end of the film. it made me want to know what happened afterwards to this poor fellow. it is a terrible story and one that has not been told enough i think. it is very nicely shot as well.


Well I just saw this film first thing Friday (opening). I was seated near a gentlemen who was having quite a reaction to every scene, and in one scene (not a good one for the acting - but I will get there in a minute) he literally started waving his arms and shaking his head. I look over and the man was tearing up and I though he was nearly about to breakdown in full tears. Seeing such a powerful reaction to some very early scenes in the movie, I thought to myself, "Maybe this is the guy who wrote it??" The novel I thought, unaware at the time who wrote the screenplay. So immediately upon my return, I googled Bret Easton Ellis pics and reviewed many photos. I would bet my life it was him next to me today. Hair a little longer and darker than in some photos, but same nose, and face and exact same eyes. Again he was right next to me so I was not seeing him from across the theater. I asked (whispering) if he was OK. He said yes, then a moment later (after another reaction) quietly got up and moved to the back of the theater. A while later he exit in the middle of the film.

Now, for the film itself. This is no "Less Than Zero" which would be the closest genre comparison of the Ellis filmography.

While some of the veteran actors gave decent performances the material seemed more shallow than the LA socialites the film was following. But after watching the film I suspect this is much more the fault of the directing than anyone else. It takes the proper hand and understanding of Ellis material to make it work on the stage or film. Unfortunately, two of the lesser performances came from actors we see much more in the film. Foster and Raido seemed like actors "acting" like the types rather then being the types. While the veteran actors seemed to add depth to their performances (beyond the material presented) these two "acted" on a very shallow level, as though trying to imitate the type of person they thought they were playing. Apparently giving their character little thought.

The movie sets up many broken and damage relationships and a couple of potentially heated situations, before it suddenly ends.....What??? The entire film ends up being a slice of life (many tragic life's) type of film, with little story or payoff as the ending comes abruptly. At the end I could care less about there problems or issues and the story and directing doesn't help those feelings.

Now I am not a person who goes to films to see naked women (a little to old to make that the priority and was unaware of this one), but when the movie was over all I could think was "at least Amber Heard was naked / half-naked a lot and she looked good!" In the lala land of skinny, to outrageously bony women, this one has nice curves. But its sad when you leave a film thinking "where was the story" and you know you will only remember the girl who looked good in "THAT FILM" cause the title and film itself will be forgotten quickly! Now I have not read the Ellis novel, but he did help write the screenplay. Based on his reaction, I can't help to feel this film is not what he imagined it would be. It certainly was not up to what Hollywood has been able to do with some of his other works.

To Ellis (as I am sure it was), remember the feeling you had while watching the film. And make sure the next time you sell your story to Hollywood to get paid enough money so you can take it a little easier when the "Filmmakers" butcher your work (who likely did not want you interfering with them cause THEY know how to make films, not some writer)! Or in this case, they at least produced a very unsatisfying film.


Let me get one thing straight. There are very few movies I won't sit through. No amount of shock or horror or immorality or amorality or even cheesiness will deter me. Practically the only thing that will is poor film making. The type that is lazy and bland. Mostly I manage to avoid these type of thing by never watching films with Vince Vaughan but once in a while you let your guard down. I could claim it was Billy Bob but it was probably Winona. What can i say? I am weak.

This film has nothing to offer and nothing to say. The bass monotone of the soundtrack that washes over the disparate and poorly written open 15-20 minutes tries to imply a threatening atmosphere of doom or something but you cannot imply meaning without there being meaning. There was more to the eighties than bad hair and depeche mode. We already know that blonde people are shallow and sex without love is a meaningless experience ("but as meaningless experiences go its one of.....").

Films are difficult to make. But there are a few simple rules that will help. Establish character and motivation. Give the audience something to care about or at least intrigue them with something unfamiliar and new. Don't pretend you have said something when you haven't yet. Try to earn the respect of the audience with good dialogue. Multi-layered narratives can work but weak trivial garbage on top of trivial garbage is still ... well you can work it out.

Of course i might be wrong. Some people seemed to like it. But then a lot of people thought shoulder pads were a good idea. And some still do.


I had good expectations about "The Informers". Being a fan of Bret Easton Ellis' writing, knowing that he co-wrote the script himself, and with a cast that includes names like Billy Bob Thornton and Mickey Rourke, it had everything to be a new cult favourite, right? Wrong. I'm not familiar with Gregor Jordan's previous work ("Two Hands", "Buffalo Soldiers"), and given his speech before the film première at Sundance on January 22nd, I don't doubt his good intentions about this project. Unfortunately, a good movie isn't made just of good intentions. As in most of Ellis' work, the protagonists are a bunch of shallow, pretty rich kids (Jon Foster, Lou Taylor Pucci, Amber Heard, among others) and their just as shallow elderly peers/parents (Kim Basinger, who played Foster's lover in "The Door in the Floor", now plays his mother, who's depressed because of her husband's  Billy Bob Thornton  affair with the confused newswoman terribly played by Winona Ryder; less serious is Chris Isaak as Pucci's womanizing father, who seemed to have fun playing his character), in 1983 Los Angeles.

Jordan said during the Q&A that this is a movie about Los Angeles, and that Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" was an inspiration for it. It's light years away from the depth, originality and brilliance of "Short Cuts", though. Jordan doesn't know how to direct this sort of material; it pales in comparison to Mary Harron's insanely secure hand over "American Psycho", also based on an Ellis novel. "The Informers" doesn't even engage the audience like the flawed, but fairly entertaining "The Rules of Attraction". It tries too hard to be a cool movie and fails, almost always, miserably. The overall acting is pretty mediocre, although Isaak and Pucci bring some life to their characters. Foster, who was great in "The Door in the Floor", shows that he's not yet ready to play a lead (and he didn't even have to carry the movie on his shoulders à la Christian Bale; this is a big ensemble where nobody really stands out, and I'm including a pre-Wrestler Mickey Rourke and the late Brad Renfro, who plays the perhaps only likable character, in the list).

Jordan said Ellis was afraid to show up for the movie première at Sundance, probably predicting the criticism that was to come. I don't blame him (and I feel for Jordan too since you gotta respect someone who has the guts to face the honor - and pressure - of having your movie premiering at Sundance). Although nobody was impolite during the Q&A, the movie got trashed by the critics afterwards.

I have no idea how well this is gonna do at the box office, although Amber Heard's constant nudity will certainly catch some attention and give her lots of job offers (too bad her acting skills are still rather poor). I wouldn't call "The Informers" a terrible movie, just a very forgettable one. The final scene (not the conclusion, but the very final scene itself) is disturbing, sad and yes, memorable; but by then you feel like you wasted too much time with something that's been done several times, and much better, before. 4/10.


I don't know how this movie got made, it is not even a story. I kept waiting for it to start. No arc, no character development. I watch lots of movies and usually find something redeeming. Nothing here except some decent acting and cinematography. I am so surprised at some of the actors in this film that they would decided to waste their talent on a project like this. If someone could explain this film I would love to understand what it was trying to say. Maybe a warning to the youth of today that are starting to behave like those of the eighties? Or possibly it is just an exercise in acting and cinematography? I haven't seen a movie this bad since JCVD's "the quest" and that was actually better. People seriously, watching this movie is worse than being one of the character in it.


The informers is not a bad movie, but it is definitely not a movie you would like to see twice. Various stories are told and lives are exposed in this film but nothing shown really gets to the viewer. It's main aim is to show the very essence of some of the luxurious lives of California big shots at the end of the 80s.

While intensive drug abuse, cheap rock n' roll and sex is going on the director shows confrontational situations within families, adolescents that have everything and nothing at the same time and Micky Roorke, that was probably in this film as a source of information about the 80s cocaine as the new trend and career downfall. No complains with K. Basinger and Billy Bob though there is no mayor performance in the cast. Script could have been much better and it's far from original.

There is literally no need for anyone to watch this film unless you want to see the dark side of fame and Hollywood which is definitely a cliché.


OK, with the decent cast that this movie has, there is no reason it should suck this bad. The genres listed are crime, drama, and thriller. But it is none of those. Change the genre of this film to gratuitous sex and social drug use, bad movie with 80's soundtrack, and 90 minute AIDs PSA. They are much more accurate.

crime - 1/10. There is a bit of small time drug dealing and a kidnapping that has absolutely nothing to do with the (nonexistent) plot in any way.

drama - 1/10. Drama implies that there is a story and character development. This movie has no protagonist, no antagonist, and worst of all, it has no premise. For any movie, one should be able to say one sentence that describes what happens in the movie and that is known as the premise. I doubt that anyone who has seen this movie or worked on the production of it can come up with a valid premise for it.

thriller - 0/10. Thriller is used for movies that have you on the edge of your seat and have you guessing about what twists and turns the main character will see next. As I mentioned before, this movie has no main character and no plot to contain twists and turns. At no point during this movie did I feel worried or even care what happened to any character. This was the complete opposite of thriller. Put this in the UNthriller category beside watching paint dry and bellybutton lint.

I hope I saved anybody else from watching this piece of crap.


A series of vignettes that go back and forth signifying nothing that we didn't already know about the Hollywood types and the like who live there. With apologies to the good Hollywood types and the like who live there too. Sooooooooorrrrrrrrrrry!

A while back I did a review on JUMPER and called it pointless. This movie is pointless too. No plot, no story, absolutely pointless. I kept waiting for this to start for surly there must be a reason this was made. Wrong again. No reason. Later I was waiting for something else: for it to end. They say a watched pot never boils, but actually it will in time. But continually watching this movie I saw that nothing here would ever boil.

Now, not all was bad. The acting by all was excellent. Maybe they thought they were part of a larger movie, score, epic. Hmmm..Wrong. But, the acting was terrific even though the performances didn't relate to everything else going on. Well, actually, they did, but loosely, verrrry loosely. Just not enough to be called a story.

I must say Kim Bassinger's performance outdid anything she ever did in the past. Really good in this pointless mess. As for the rest of the cast, all were very good in this pointless mess.

You will see: a Director or Producer (Thornton) trying to get back with his wife(Bassinger) to stave off the 50% she will get in a divorce; college kids doing drugs and sleeping with everyone and I mean everyone; a father and son trying to reconnect and failing; a rock star with such ugly, disgusting and shameful behavior; and last but not least a failed kidnapping of a child for ransom by Peter (Rourke). I kept thinking that maybe this is another version of CRASH, and they will all somehow come together at the end. Not to be. Like I said: Pointless.

The title. The rock group was called The Informers. Maybe no one could decide what the title of this mess would be and settled on that. Again: pointless.

You will also see a lot of nudity. Maybe that will hold you. You will see simulated sex. Maybe that will hold you too. OK, OK I plead guilty. Hey, there's not much out there these days.

Violence: Yes. Sex: Yes. Nudity: Yes. Language: Yes.


Apparently you must give it at least 1 star. It is unwarranted.

The film is a complete f%^&ing waste of time. The film just seemed to be one appallingly long cigarette commercial.

There is NO STORY. I kept waiting and nothing develops, luckily I have FF, can't imagine what it must have been like to have to sit in the cinema for this piece of dreck.

None of characters even if they are not horrible people are remotely likable or appealing so I could not care less what happened to them. Chrissy died, so what? who cares.

When Chrissy, a minor character of absolutely no interest, none of them are interesting, died my only thought was thank heaven the film is over.

I am baffled at how such a competent cast was put together. The cast lead me to believe the film would be good Wow! that was a complete assumption on my part. I am sure they are all hoping this film will sink into oblivion as quickly as possible.

AGAIN NO STORY! UNLIKABLE PEOPLE! Nothing that can hold a persons attention.


I am a huge fan of Bret Easton Ellis, I traveled two hours once where he was giving a book signing. I own all of his movies--and I'll probably buy this one, just to complete the collection--but this film wasn't interesting. Forget the people who say they are self-indulgent, narcissistic, lascivious, promiscuous, drug-addled twenty somethings, I mean, that's just the characters they play. Great directing, leads the actors to not look as if they are acting, but not in this movie. Gregor Jordan messed up. The characters weren't interesting, you can have movies where the characters are cold, detached, and live meaningless lives, and make them interesting, these characters weren't interesting, I didn't care what happened next. That's all I ask from a movie, engage me. The characters lives and acts can be pointless, but they have to be interesting. It's a rule. You can make a movie with no plot, but events must happen.

What we get with this movie is a moral play. Something happens that is traditional of the Hays Code in the 1950's, where, even if it the character's don't deserve it, if they ruin the moral compass, say a girl is promiscuous, she must be punished. This film is pointless, meaningless, it's everything the characters were supposed to be but weren't, and worst of it all, the film was uninteresting. With all the bad reviews, with Bret Easton Ellis bashing the movie, I went in with low expectations, and the film was able to be lower than than those expectations. And that's really disappointing, because when I first heard about it, before there was a trailer, before the characters were nailed down, when they were still talking about one of the Olsen sisters as an actress, I was thinking this film was going to be great.


This is a pretty pointless movie about how shallow the 80's were. There is sex, violence, drugs and some bad behavior in this, but the plot is so pointless you just don't care and feels like a waste of time. The only good part about this movie is when it shows Amber Heard naked, but after those few scenes the rest of it is some more shallow and boring stuff. Besides Amber Heard naked, the awkwardness of the film got a bit of my attention especially from the beginning but that is about it, didn't live through the 80's nor do I care, maybe someone who did might enjoy it or people that are fans of the book. But I doubt even that, just about shallow people being connected to one another in some way.

4/10


The Informers is a story of various upper class individuals and their disconnect with themselves and others. Featuring a large ensemble of characters and the usual cynical tone of writer Bret Easton Ellis, it takes a lot of time to know the character well enough to even care, and character development is probably not as great as it could have been.

If you a big fan of the author's body of work (his novels or their adaptations) you may as a completist make an extra effort to enjoy this but aside from two or three memorable moments, such as the conclusion, things are rather flat.

Director Gregor Jordan's filmography is getting progressively worse since the amazing Two Hands, which was made back when he had little money to work with, away from big Hollywood influences. Here, he fails to provide any structure. Only the pacing and tone remain consistent.

There is a sense that the screenplay adaptation (by Ellis himself) butchered his novel and a sense that the producers further butchered the screenplay. Actors parts (Brandon Routh) were completely cut and this movie must have been an editing nightmare. Overall, it was probably too late to scrap that one but I strongly suspect the only reason it got made in the end is because of many people who are fans of the writer and his work.

The problem is, outside of American Psycho, none of his novels has translated very well to the big screen. Probably time to appreciate his writing in novel form and forget about films.


Based on a book by Bret Easton Ellis, this film deals with exactly what one word expect from Ellis: the 'decadent' 1980's. We follow various members of the (mostly) upper-crest socialite establishment as they engage in (unprotected) sex, drugs & rock and roll. On the other side of the spectrum is Peter, a low-life hit-man (Mickey Rourke, fresh from his award winning turn in "The Wrestler")

The biggest flaw is the film's trying (in vain) to make the movie adaptation (somewhat) cohesive when the book was anything but. It doesn't help matters that none of the characters are sympathetic or even relatable in any way, shape or form. They're are pretty much empty vessels, which I guess is the point, but the film just comes off as a bland retread of similarly narcissistic vacant slice-of-(decedent)life fare. It's all style and no real substance to speak of (except of those taken by the various characters obviously)

Eye Candy: Amber Heard & Valentina Garcia bothshow T&A (Amber multiple times); an extra shows T&A and a quick shot of muff

Eye Candy for the ladies:Austin Nichols bares his bottom; Mel Raido shows his ass & goes full frontal as does Jon Foster; and a couple extras show ass

My Grade: D

DVD Extras: Director & cast commentary; 'Human Intersections: Making the Informers' featurette; an ad for Blu-Ray; and trailers for Assassination of a High School President, Dark Country, Blood and Bone, Fire flies in the Garden, The Maiden Heist, Fragments, Dark Streets, The Human Contract, What Goes Up, Tyson, Rudo Y Cursi, Adoration, and Season Sets for Rescue Me & The Shield


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Guys, this movie sucks! I wasted my 1 hour and 30 mints to watching this crap and I was thinking why people makes this type of movie? Then how can they made some great movies too?? Well, the title and "Genere" made me interested about it, so I watched...well, if you guys want to waste your 12$ money and 120mints from your life then please watch it! Nothing to say more, only typing now to complete my 10 lines quota. Well, do something good, better watch some porn than this crap.

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The Informers really is an unusual kind of terrible, but there is actually a very real possibility that it is a misunderstood work of unparalleled directorial ingenuity. The off-kilter overdubbing, the soft focus camera-work, the trite youth-gone-wild bullsh*t dialogue, the nihilistic soft-core group sex - its all exactly like a DTV Zalman King production, and nothing quite sums up the rank, dilapidated sleaziness of the early 1980s than a DTV Zalman King. If Gregor Jordan's career ends up warranting serious critical reappraisals in the future, then this is going to be the gleaming, once-misinterpreted jewel in some chancer's festival retrospective.

But from here, its just appalling. The good actors involved are coasting (Billy Bob Thornton in particular looks as if he's performing from the vantage point of a prozac coma) and the bad actors are left to use their questionable skills to turn every other scene into full-tilt soap opera. The screenplay (co-authored, surprisingly, by Brett Easton Ellis himself) is completely unaware of itself, and so tiresomely arch and condescending that it feels, again, like a product of the 1980's rather than some kind of commentary of it.

Reeling off a plot synopsis would be beyond pointless, as it consists of little more than a series of unconnected, uninteresting things happening to some deeply unlikeable people. Everyone appears to be operating under the assumption that this is a satire, but the funniest thing about it is the sheer inappropriateness of the supposedly suckerpunch coda. No prizes.

American Psycho aside, if you want a to see Ellis' rather one-note universe rendered shrewdly on screen, you should really check out Roger Avary's severely underrated Rules Of Attraction.


I have never read any of Bret Easton-Elis' books but apparently he wrote American Psycho and that movie was very good. This one isn't.

A "capable" but frankly D-list cast plod their way through this dire script with little enthusiasm. For those that didn't know apparently LA/Hollywood has a dark side to it and the inhabitants spend their time doing drugs and having casual sex (I thought they spent their time going to bible class and singing Kumbaya with the smurfs). I suspect they realised early on it was a turkey and just did their job as quickly as possible. The late Brad Renfro was the best of the bunch.

A few subplots intertwine (badly) and nothing of any consequence happens whatsoever. Apparently the book is quite different and has vampires in it or something so god knows what the screenwriters were thinking here because there's no undead chomping on the lifeless actors faces, although this actually would have made the movie vaguely interesting.

I would tell you what happened, but frankly I don't really know myself because the whole thing is so disjointed. Did I mention the script is AWFUL! I don't know if the writers really suck or if the book is just rubbish but there is no story or point to anything that happens.

A few people have speculated on some kind of "AIDS being spread amongst the characters" sub-plot, but there is no real evidence to base this on any more than there's a sub-text in Teenwolf that predicted the current global financial crisis. Apparently in the book it's made clear the girl that dies at the end had cancer anyway, so this is probably just people looking for something more to this film than there actually is. Which wouldn't be hard.

If you were involved in writing, producing or directing this movie please don't ever create anything for film ever again as you are terrible. Thanks!


This film is among the worst I've seen in ages--not because it's bad, but just because... well, there's no one to care about. Don't get me wrong--I'm not one of those people who needs likable characters (my favorite American films include Five Easy Pieces and Carnal Knowledge-- movies filled with despicable people), but I do require something or at least someone interesting. This film has neither.

There are a few performances which kept me from giving it one star--namely Kim Bassinger and Winona Ryder, both who seem to be getting better at acting as they mature, and someone who I kept thinking was doing a *great* imitation of Brad Renfro. Ha! (I thought this was made after Renfro died.)

There's really no reason to see this film. Never has a movie with kidnapping, murder, cocaine, bisexual threesomes, and a rock band--with LA/Hollywood in the 80s as a backdrop--been so dreadfully boring. If you don't want to take my advice and do plan on seeing the film... well, bring a good book. I don't recommend the one this movie's based on.