LOVE STORY: unbelievably unconvincing and boring

PLOT: n/a

GRAPHICS: not very inspired this time

ACTION: occasionally good, most of the time you think "what's the point".

LIGHT SABRE USAGE: MOST UNCOOL!!

SPOILER: expect to see a muppet and a senior citizen battle it out with telekinesis and neon signs.


WARNING. MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. IN FACT, THE MOVIE ITSELF WAS SPOILED!

A New Hope. The Empire Strikes Back Return of the Jedi The Phantom Menace.... These are all pretty cool names, which is fitting, seeing as how Star Wars is the coolest movie series ever created by man. Then, we get Attack of the Clones. The name alone is disapointing. I think that the brilliant writer who created the characters of luke Skywalker, Han Solo and the like could come up with a better name than that, but unfortunately, the lame name is not the only problem with this movie. Problem number one is with the characters. The battle droids were bad enough in episode one, but then Lucas had to revive the walking scrap heaps for this one too, in which they were much dumber, and more boring, even the new, re-vamped "super battle droids". I mean, if the frickin gungans could wipe these guys out in ep. 1, why did the Jedi have such a hard time. Which brings me to another lame character. actually, multiople lame characters. The jedi in this movie were crap. Except for Yoda, Mace Windu, and Obi Wan, all we saw were a bunch of tentacle-headed, retarded looking alien farts with lightsabers. AND WHY THE CRAP WAS JAR JAR IN THIS PICTURE!?!?!?!?!?! Lucas must know that anyone above the age of two and a half hated Binks' guts. If he had to put him in the movie, he should at least killed him off. But no! Now we'll probably be stuck with binks in ep. 3, and even in the NEW SUPER ULTRA SPECIAL EDITION STAR WARS, in which he will be digitally imposed into the original trilogy as a special cameo. Great. Wonderful. Just what we need. Problem number 2. Okay, don't get me wrong, I love computer effects as much as the next guy, but there is such a thing as TOO MUCH!!! For cryin out loud, now even Yoda has to be cgi. I can understand a computer animated yoda for the fight scene, but throughout the rest of the movie, the only vestige of the real Yoda is Frank Oz's brilliant voicing. I mean, if they could make it look great with puppets in the 70's, why can't they now? Problem numero 3. Hayden Crapstensen. That is how i will now refer to this stinkbomb of an actor. No, not even an actor. A glamourized pretty boy who happens to look a little like what jake Lloyd may look like ten years from now. This guy was whinier, wimpier, and all around annoying-er than even Jar Jar. I absoluytely hated every scene he was in, which is sad, because most of his scenes were alongside Ewan McGregor, whose brilliant (as always) performance was the only thing that kept me alive during the movie. Now, dont get me wrong, there were still some good things about this flick. number one, Jango Fett. This guy was so cool, it made me forget what a retard young boba was in this movie. number 2, Mace Windu. Now, im not a big fan of sam JAckson, but he was just plain awesome as the coolest jedi ever to walk the streets of Coruscant. Number 3, Obi Wan Kenobi. The sole voice of reason, logic, and sanity in this movie. Too bad the action figure looks like it came out of a happy meal. And of Course, number 4, YODA! I only wish we could have seen him fighting more, because the short duel with the geriatrics poster boy Christopher Lee (who is a fine actor, but was duped into playing a lame character) was just not enough to satisfy my craving for midgit swordplay.

Overall, out of a possible 10, I give Attack of the Clones a 3


There used to be a time when Star Wars was the best thing since sliced bread. Of course I was about 7 then but nonetheless it was the ultimate for many people of my generation, and then we grew up but perhaps it is that I have grown up that I didn't enjoy this one wanting a film for adults. I entered the cinema expecting some good old fashioned galatic action despite the let down of the Phantom Menace but instead what I got was two hours of largely tedium.

At base level all the ingredients were there but there was nothing else, this film was completely empty at heart. What the original movies had in charm, in script and in the endearing performance of their cast (even Mark Hamill pulled it off in the end) was largely lacking here. The two leads of Christensen and Portman cannot act to save their lives, sadly in this movie their lives were saved and we'll have to experience more of their slushy badly scripted romance in the third. They have all the physical chemistry onscreen of a couple of neutered dogs.

The depth of their romance which is one of the central planks of the movie is comparable to an infants swimming pool, clearly George Lucas has been reading too much Mills and Boon and spent way too long on his special effects computers to remember just how humans work.

The supporting cast headed by Macgregor are patchy too though Macgregor is head and shoulders above the two teenage leads and at times manage to act with some gusto. Much has been said about Christopher Lee and Samuel L Jackson but they are just playing themselves being competent enough actors to just turn up for work and perform regardless of what he director says. Compared to their past performances they are both underwhelming too.

I've already mentioned the love aspect of the story, this was also supposed to be a dark plot with plenty of evil and of course Anakin turning to the dark-side. For what is supposed to be the defining moment of the entire series we get a whole three minutes of screentime where he kills people. As to get a PG rating the slaughter is glossed over and barely shown on camera it's left to the actor to communicate what happened but the evil growing in him is completely skirted around with a little bit of sobby stuff that simply isn't convincing - at no time do we see someone being corrupted by power which is really a lost opportunity.

Lost opportunities is what this film is full of though, inside is a really good story struggling to get out but the issues are dumbed down to make them suitable for children to understand. The lack of invention in it is also stunning, why introduce Jango Fett at all except to cash in on the popularity of Boba Fett, why have Kenobi hide behind an asteroid like Han Solo does in Empire Strikes Back with a star destroyer? Why did we get those terrible C3PO puns and what was it with Yoda ever having a walking stick if he can fight like a whirling dervish on speed? Why does a changeling keep it's face and not get a new one then try to kill Kenobi.

The only part of the script I did appreciate was the ever annoying Jar Jar being the cause of the rise of the Empire, ooh the irony. Script aside Star Wars has always been something of an effects movie but these days it's simply not impressive enough when compared to Lord of the Rings. The saturation of the colours throughout the film make it all look cartoony, and the CGI does look like CGI although it is much improved on the previous film with Yoda at last looking real. I imagine this is where the majority of the work went on the film but it's just not good enough. I do wish that Lucas would get back to the gritty colour tones used in the first two films, they certainly added to the realism but the Disney look seems to have infected the franchise too deeply.

Not only are many of the effects lacking any believability but Lucas can't direct action, something that is a major flaw in a film that has perhaps half of it as action scenes. We get lasers zapping everywhere but there is no coherence with the editing and it all ends up a bit confusing with none of the excitement that should be there.

The problem with editing recurs throughout the film with the love story intercut with the discovery of the clone army badly done, why do we keep coming back from an interesting story to one that just turns people off, something that was obvious in the cinema as you could hear people groan everytime the teenage lovers were on.

The sound though is superb, watching at home on my Dolby 5:1 did make it a bit more of an experience but if you are relying on technical details to carry a film then you really shouldn't be making it to start with. Anyone can buy a decent sound engineer for a movie, and just be limited by budget but not anyone can get a good performance out of an actor, then the limit is talent.

Let's face it that George Lucas is nothing more than a glorified technician being way past his limits is trading on the goodwill of fans from movies he did 25 years ago. He's no great director or writer and should leave that to others, perhaps then we can get the Star Wars movies that we all want, and perhaps he can come to rival the grosses of the old films again but I fear the magic will have gone by then. score - 4/10 for sentimental reasons.


I liked Ep I more than most, and had high hopes for this one. When I looked at imdb after the first few nights in theaters, read about Jar-Jar being almost totally gone and how much better this part was, I was really excited. I so wanted to like this movie.

But OUCH. Now first of all, the directing was utterly horrid. It was the worst part of Ep I as well, but Lucas really lost it here. The movie seemed to jump from scene to scene in the most illogical places, action scenes got interrupted, and just when you were getting into a better scene, you get hit with yet another boring "but I love you, but I am Jedi, oh no, boohoo"-scene. Excuse me, but since when has Star Wars been a soap opera instead of an adventure?

Furthermore, Haydensen was horrible, and even the old actors from Ep 1 seemed to have lost some of their interest. Most action scenes were either boring, badly directed or the effects really didn't look too good. I especially was opening my own wrists in the Arena shootout scene, looking at the princess just standing still and shooting around, without a hint of any kind of battle tactics or trying to take cover.

One scene, above all others, basically made me hurt, bad. The one with the princess and "Darth" on the meadow, riding a fat (bad CGI) blob, rolling around, laughing, jumping, kissing... God, me and my friends couldn't believe our eyes, how did that get into the film. Laughter was the only way to go.

Only in the very ending did the movie manage to create some of that good old star wars feeling, leaving some hope for a better Ep 3. I just wish lucas would give the directors seat to someone else...


At least Attack of the Clones is watchable. Actually, I have seen it a few times since the theater and it does get quite better. However, when you decide to watch it up against the original you realize it is still a weak movie.

10 years have passed since Phantom Menace. Which is part of the problem, THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN EPISODE 1! You could have had Anakin meet Padme at this age and the love story would have been much more realistic. Them meeting and falling in love could be episode one and the clone wars (more about them) could be two and the turn to the darkside could have been three. However, I digress. It starts off with an assassination attempt and Anakin meeting Padme. It is kind of creepy that they meet when Anakin was a child and he had a little crush on her and it has turned into this full born obsession.

There is another attempt on her life and a very cool (probably best action sequence of this movie) chase through the city. Rather than give away the rest of the plot, I will focus on the problems and good points of the movie.

Firstly, it is a much better movie than Menace. The pacing is better and the characters, while still a bit stiff, more relatable. We even get a glimpse into Darth Vader when Anakin slaughters Tuskan Raiders after they are responsible for the death of his mother. The lightsaber battle with Yoda at the end, while laughable, is quite entertaining.

The problems with clones are similar (just not as bad) as with Menace. The major being the script. I personally like the idea of forbidden love, even in star wars movie, but the lines used in it "e.g. the kiss i should have never given you," "i can't breath" are so cheese it makes you want to gag. The actors are not bad, the writing is.

Hayden Christensen is a good Anakin Skywalker, the problem was Lucas decided to make Anakin a whiny teenager rather than a young Jedi with demons (e.g. anger) he can not control. Christensen wanted to make the character darker, but Lucas stuck with Anakin being a whiny teenager.

Overally, this is an average to below average movie that I would have not watched more than once if it were not Star Wars.


Okay, the Star Wars saga is officially DEAD. It is nothing more than a meaningless, cold, moneyspinning franchise machine. The Phantom Menace was the first nail in the coffin, but Attack of the Clones buries the Star Wars magic once and for all. So much so that I don't think I will even bother seeing part 3. George Lucas, you have really disappointed me for the last time and you have lost a previous admirer. This movie was nothing but a predictable pile-up of meaningless eyecandy that is really nothing special compared to any other shallow blockbuster. On the contrary, it is worse, because the dialogues are so ludicrous and so inane that they make Lara Croft seem like a Shakespearian heroine.

Nuff said. Let's bury this movie and henceforth think of Star Wars as a trilogy that was rounded off in 1985.


I have this vision of what George Lucas must be like as a director. It's 4 in the morning, the lights are hot, everyone is wearing too many robes, and have been doing the same scene for 22 hours straight. Sam Jackson looks like he's about to pop a cap in someone's arse, but he's trying to be cool, look centred and all Jedi -- like in the last scenes of Pulp Fiction.

George has no where to go. Unmarried geek freak, he's capable of making money but never getting a stone's throw near actual art. "Okay people, one more time...and remember, more VIDEO GAME." It's not hard now, when lines too pedestrian to even laugh at are recited for the tenth, twelfth, twentieth time. Samuel L. Jackson has transitioned: from the mushroom cloud layin mutha, to all the dramatic power of a sleepy janitor leaning on his broom at the end of his shift.

I wonder if fans at Star Wars conventions will hold contests, to recite lines from this film with less feeling than the original actors. "That's possible..." is my favourite line (Jackson); though most any of Portman's and any of Christensen's will do. I won't say much about teen-Vader, his performance speaks for itself -- I can't fathom why an actual actor wasn't hired. Whatever the case, this film does make an excellent text for authors on how NOT to write dialogue.

Star Wars was never particularly impressive under close scrutiny. It's science fiction without science; general consumption space-opera. It works with plot, with character, with action. That Joseph Campbell informed mythopoetic tradition is nowhere to be found in this film. Under the thumb of toddler TV direction, it becomes tedious and silly. Characters do not bleed, their hair does not ruffle in the strongest wind. No one vomits over the outrageously distasteful subplot with teen-Vader openly lusting over a woman who helped raise him. When confronted, the princess tells him "it makes me uncomfortable." It makes EVERYONE uncomfortable!

What force does Lucas wield that allows him to wring all of the life out of even the best of actors? To stray so far from entertainment, or good taste? Perhaps he is a clone....


Renegades is set in Philadelphia where detective Buster McHenry (Kiefer Sutherland) is working undercover to try & bring down a dirty cop by arranging a robbery to steal six million dollars worth of diamonds, however things don't go to plan & the dirty cop doesn't show up & instead McHenry is forced to go through with the armed robbery with local mobster Marino (Robert Knepper) & his men. Things go from bad to worse for McHenry as bullets start to fly & people are shot & killed, the cops show up & all hell breaks loose & Marino, his men & McHenry try to escape en-route stopping off at an art gallery where Marino takes a fancy to an ancient Indian tribal lance on display & decides to steal it shooting Goerge Storm (Gary Farmer) in the process. His brother Hank Storm (Lou Diamond Phillips) is understandably annoyed & when he saves McHenry's life as Marino shoots him & leaves him for dead the two team up to bring Marino down, prove McHenry's innocence & get the Indian tribal lance back...

Directed by Jack Sholder one has to say that Renegades is a really lacklustre & lifeless attempt at mismatched partners teaming up together to bring down some bad guy action thriller & is in fact maybe one of the worst examples I have seen. There are plenty of great examples of this type of mismatched partner action thrillers from 48 Hrs. (1982) to Lethal Weapon (1987) & it's sequels to Midnight Run (1988) to Tango & Cash (1989) to The Last Boy Scout (1991) to the more recent Rush Hour (1998) & sequels to name but a few fine examples, unfortunately when compared to shining lights of the sub genre like the aforementioned Renegades is just plain poor in every department by comparison. The main aspect of these types of films that ultimately make or breaks them is the partnership, here it's a quick talking wise cracking Philadelphia cop with a blatant disregard for police procedure who gets teamed up with a quiet respectful native American Indian & it just doesn't come off since there's virtually no humour or memorable interplay between the two. I just never warmed to either of them although to be fair Sutherland does try & his character does come off as the more likable of the two. The plot is extremely bare-bones & very thin, basically there's this robbery where events take a turn for the worse for our two main character's & it becomes personal for them so they team up to bring down a common enemy. That's it. There's a supposed plot twist about a bad cop but it comes to early in the film & has no real impact on the story other than a cop is involved with the main bad guy. The action scenes are poor & very forgettable, there's a dull car chase & a few seen it all before shoot-outs where the bad guys can't shoot straight, no-one ever runs out of bullets & it's just a case of men standing there holding guns firing at each other. Yawn. The plot is extremely predictable & strictly by the numbers with these two mismatched partners hating each other to start with but growing to respect each other & becoming great friends & even putting their own lives at risk for one another, seen it all before & usually done much better with more humour & more excitement. I also hated the ending, I mean after killing people, stealing cars, threatening people at gunpoint, taking part in an armed robbery where innocent people are killed & breaking every rule in the book McHenry gets off scott free & even gets a vacation out of it!

The action scenes, if you can call them that, are poor with only a fairly sedate car chase to remember the film by & even that seems lethargic, slow & dull. The occasional shoot-out are dull & all look the same as each other, the plot twists are handled poorly & have little to no impact & Renegades is one of the worst examples of the mismatched partner action thriller genre I can remember seeing. For an 80's big studio big budget action thriller Renegades doesn't seem to be that well known, there are only sixteen reviews on the IMDb as I write this & only three external reviews. I can certainly understand why it's been largely forgotten about & why it doesn't seem to have any sort of a following.

Making less than $10,000,000 at the box office I assume that Renegades was a flop, the same years Tango & Cash is a much superior film using the same general template. Filmed in Philadelphia & Ontario in Canada. Kiefer Sutherland looks fat, out of shape & has a really bad moustache but managed to live this down & has gone on to have a fine career as a respected actor while Lou Diamond Phillips has made dozens of low budget straight to video action films.

Renegades is a really predicable, humourless, dull & plodding action thriller that throws two mismatched yet boring characters together to bring down an equally boring enemy. One to avoid, even newly converted fans of Kiefer Sutherland (beacuse of hit TV show 24) might want to skip this.


Very poor and unimaginative action pic which finds detective Buster McHenry (Kiefer Sutherland) teaming reluctantly with American-Indian Hank Storm (Lou Diamond Phillips) in order to catch some crooks who stole a priceless Indian spear.

The story, from David Rich, is little more than an excuse to get these two former brat-packers back together for one last fling. As a pairing they are pretty good, but neither of the two really put out in this flat, predictable cops and robbers garb. Jami Gertz (from "The Lost Boys") pops in as the heavy's girl.

Over all this was an all too forgettable way for these two young, potential laden actors to close out the eighties.

Tuesday, November 3, 1998 - Video


Renegades (1989) reunites two of the stars of Young Guns I and II. L.D.P. and Kiefer Sutherland are two guys out to get justice for the red man and the down trodden. One funny scene in this movie is when an old "chief:" goes out like his ancestors. Other than that there is nothing worth watching. The acting is mediocre and the direction is pedestrian. L.D.P. mugs for the camera whilst Kiefer Sutherland "carries" the movie on his tired shoulders. Too many movies like these were cranked out during the eighties and they're all bad. But if you're an L.D.P. fan then you'll be in hog heaven!

Recommended for L.D.P. fans. Others will want to stay away!!


in that dying minute of the action part of the movie, that seems to last an hour, the conflicts between the aspiration of the scriptwriter and the inspiration of the filming crew is revieled. from an A to a F in just 1 mínute, huh?

however what is more worrying, is that this recipe has been used to cook up that world famous jack 24 hour bauer story, that makes you wanna move to the country or beyond!


Kiefer plays an undercover cop who infiltrates a gang and takes part in a diamond heist where things get messy. They find out he's a cop and he almost gets iced. So here enters Phillips as a quiet dignified Lakota Indian who teams up with the hard boiled Kiefer because the diamond baddies stole his people's sacred lance. Yes, I said sacred lance. The supporting cast don't help matters any. Bill Smitrovich appears in the one note role as Sutherland's police superior and the moment Michael Moriarty shows up it's the "Hey I'm this movie's dirty cop. Yeah me!" dance.

The only noteworthy element to Renegades is how quick the police response time is. Anything breaks out and they're on the scene pronto! In most movies, there's enough time to kill twenty people, blow up a building and have a car chase before the police even show up.

I should mention the whole Native American Indian sub-plot and it's attempt at mixing culture fails miserably too. It's another variation on the whole buddy cop movie. The random factor is who's going to be the white guy's partner and having it be an Native American Indian doesn't change anything. Partnering up because of the sacred lance is without a doubt the absolute worse excuse to have two people join forces in an action movie I've ever seen too. 'They stole my secret lance - now we are partners'. Give me a break. It's not even so bad, it's funny. Renegades is a sad waste of nearly two hours if you're looking for it.


I actually didn't find too much all that disgusting about the relationship upon which two of the main characters embark, and I find films about unfaithful husbands and wives rather interesting. But cuts are choppy, and some of the dialogue is just plain stupid. The only really good scenes were given to Alan Rickman, playing the cuckolded husband, and such scenes are regrettably brief. It was a bold attempt at something that could have been very interesting, and the twist at the end almost makes it worthwhile. But I'd spend my movie renting dollars on something else if I had a second chance.


I rented this because I think Stephen Poliakoff is one of Britain's best story tellers. Clive Owen and Alan Rickman are good actors for which Rickman gets acclaim and Owen doesn't. Considering that the talent here was massive, this film is crap.

Those who enjoyed it might like to think of the rest of us as prudes. I've appreciated films which I found distressingly unpleasant (i.e. Dans ma peau/In My Skin). Yet I don't find incest distressing. It's something with which I've no personal or second-hand experience. I'm not convinced that it's inherently harmful, when consensual, so I'm not going to judge it.

The truth is that Poliakoff fell flat on his bum with this one. Some of the dialogue is worse than I'd expect from a second-rate Lifetime movie. I didn't understand (or feel as though I gained an understanding of) any of the characters or their motivations. Owen and Rickman gave good performances. Reeves was uneven, perhaps due to her having the most idiotic lines of the film, a la Harlequin. The direction and editing weren't very good either. I wonder if Mr Poliakoff was working with severe time limitations and was actually more concerned about the (now complete) development of the docklands (into something that resembles suburban American concentrations of office buildings with, arguably, no character, like Southfield and Troy here in SE Michigan) than telling a story about such uninteresting people.

Unless you're wanting to spend money to see every last inch of Clive Owen, surely available somewhere on the internet, there isn't anything here that isn't done much better elsewhere.


I expect this movie was made simply to shock or something, and perhaps it did in 1991 but now it's simply an interminable yawner. A primal no-no of screen writing is the over-use of time jumps, you know, when there is 1 minute of action then a flash on the screen telling is "two years later" etc. Too often this trick is used in this movie to cover awkwardness in the basic story and to cover gashes in the fabric of the script. This flick starts with several such devices. Time jumps can work if the script is top-drawer, which this one is not. It's basically a simple story of a cuckolded, self-absorbed imbecile and his neurotic, self-absorbed wife who is having it off with her rudderless, self-absorbed brother.

All I can conclude after drifting through this mess is that it is a story of arrested development in a trio of unbelievably childish adults leading fantasy lives in chic settings.

Worthwhile only for the photography and beautiful settings, houses, flats and parks along the Thames, not to mention the very attractive bodies of Saskia Reeves and Clive Owen, talented actors who are completely wasted as the two maddeningly inane and vapid leads. Alan Rickman can do little more than look befuddled and helpless as the wronged husband.

It's all rather sick, but not because of the incest issue, which isn't really very shocking due to the ineptness of the script, but more so because of the abominable selfishness and stupidity of the characters. The motivation for the characters' behavior is highly confusing, besides, who cares anyway.

Rubbish.


While Alan Rickman is perhaps one of the best actors around, this movie was NOT a vehicle that promoted him in any way, except to have him come in and out for those tension moments. A great actor like Rickman needs a stronger role to bring out his various talents in acting. This was a vehicle for Owen and his sister instead.

I hated this movie immensely, even with Alan Rickman in it (he is the only reason I saw it). Clive Owen, as nice looking as he is, was slimy in going after his sister, and his sister was even slimier for giving in. Incest is NOT a topic that ingratiates itself with viewers, unless they are morally deplorable in the first place. This is a movie you should watch with your eyes closed. Meaning, why bother watching it?


This involves two people Richard and Natalie embarking on an illicit affair . Bad enough that Natalie has just got married but the relationship goes beyond adultery since Richard is Natalie's brother . Yup you read that right . If you thought the incest plot from BROOKSIDE was bad you ain't seen nothing yet

Stephen Poliakoff judging by his previous work isn't a bad writer but he's written a very poor script here . It's been pointed out that there's no motive / explanation as to why Richard and Natalie have embarked on their incestuous relationship which is a mistake by the writer and is there a poorer subject for an audience than incest ?

Alan Rickman is an actor who I can take or leave , he's certainly best cast as cartoonish villains and as Sinclair the husband of Natalie he seems unable to do anything with the role . I also had a serious problem understanding how anyone could fall in love with Sinclair , he's one of those bores you find at every golf club propping up the bar as he tells everyone what a success he's made of his life , but even so I doubt if that would have been enough to drive Natalie into the arms of her loving brother - YUCK . If anyone gives an outstanding performance then it's Clive Owen as Richard , you almost feel sorry for him as he realises the relationship is over but seeing as the relationship is with a blood relative you may as well feel sorry for Adolph Hitler in that case


Loretta Young looks gorgeous. She gets to wear a lot of clothes. It's a little hard to buy her as an amoral, manipulative man-trap. But she works hard and this is partly because we know her oeuvre.

I have recently watched a lot of her early movies, which are not substantial enough to comment on. These include "Road To Paradise," "Party Girl," and "Big Business Girl." These are all early sound pictures and very creaky.

Here, though, Young is costarred with youthful and handsome Cary Grant. He hasn't quite become the Cary Grant who is rightly a fable in the history of Hollywood. But he's of course handsome and they are well matched -- if not necessarily plausible romantically.

The rest of the cast is OK. But the director was Lowell Sherman, who was excellent and has been underrated in later decades.


A Loretta Young vehicle. She plays Letty, a single mother with an obstreperous son, Mickey (Jackie Kelk). Letty has some sort of job wearing dresses at nightclubsit's a little obscure, but the point is, she gets to look pretty. Mickey gets knocked over by a milk truck driven by dairy magnate Malcolm Trevor (Cary Grant), and Letty, Mickey, and a shady lawyer try to get damages, but somebody's taken film of Mickey running and jumping, so they throw the case out of court and Mickey gets taken away, first by matrons, and then by the soft-hearted Trevor. Mickey rather likes the posh life, and the affection of Trevor and his wife Alyce (Marion Burns). Then the scheming Letty tries to get her son back by fascinating Trevoreasily donebut the noble response of the wife, first in not making a fuss, and then saving Mickey from drowning in the swimming pool, changes her mind. She dumps Trevor, though he's ready to divorce his wife for her, and walks away, teary-eyed. Big unselfish act, probably her first. The movie ends rather abruptly, after Letty's friend remembers some incident or other from the boy's infancy, saying something about how cute he was. Letty gazes tearfully into the middle distance. "Yeah," she says. That's the end. The bad girl goes good. Young does a decent enough job with this melodrama. The kid Kelk is knobby-kneed, big-eared, and a ham. Grant is mostly a stick figureany upright actor would do. Good thing it's only an hour long.


"Reefer Madness" (originally "Tell Your Children") was created to teach parents that it's never too early to scare the holy crap out of your kids. Through this film we learn that the soul-destroying effects of Marihuana (Mike Nelson explains in the commentary that this film was made before the invention of the letter J) far surpass those of cocaine or heroin. We see firsthand that even teens who can quote Shakespeare like nobody's business cannot escape its evils.

Here are some of the symptoms of casual Marihuana use:

- laughing maniacally while running people down in the street

- playing the piano too fast

- having sexual relations with people you don't really like that much

- accidentally shooting people you do like pretty well

- having no recollection of being framed for murder

If your child has experienced any of these symptoms, he or she is a Marihuana addict. The solution is simple: force them to watch "Reefer Madness" because if we don't heed its warning, "Reefer Madness 2" will be coming to a theater near you or you... OR YOU!


If the producers of "Reefer Madness" had intended to produce a campy, neurotic cult film, they could not have succeeded better. Of course, the film had a different intent, to portray the "frightful toll of the new drug menace - Marihuana is that drug - a violent narcotic - the real Public Enemy Number One"!

The film does have it's seedy moments in capturing the smoky atmosphere of the local drug hangout, where dope pushers bring their unwary teenage victims to turn them on to marijuana's excesses. But it takes a huge leap to make the connection between it's casual use and the resulting consequences of hit and run driving, rape, and even murder.

There are some memorable scenes - the frenetic piano player reminiscent of Seinfeld's Kramer, the attempted seduction scene of high schooler Mary witnessed by her boyfriend Bill, the aforementioned car accident involving Mary's brother Jimmy, and the jury room scene deciding Bill's fate where the light pull resembles a hangman's noose.

The film today is an incredible period piece that makes one think about how society perceived drug use and how the government attempted to influence behavior. For that it's worth viewing, if only once to experience it's cultish appeal.


I doubt that anyone still takes this movie seriously these days but it's funny seeing how people went paranoid about pot in the 30's. There are lots of wildly exaggerated or plain wrong comments and accusations in it. Best among them are that pot is more dangerous than Heroin, it will make you violent and eventually incurably insane.

The film details how smoking pot changes the lives of a couple of all-american teenagers. In fact, they're so clean cut, nice to their parents and just plain perfect that you're actually happy when their lives turn bad. On the way there we see some really funny overacting and the way that middle America thought people behaved after smoking pot. A single puff immediately has you in hysterics, after a couple of minutes it's down to pre-marital sex (hey, that's enough to get me hooked!), followed by a violent paranoia and finally of course, insanity.

The film is fairly standard propaganda stuff and follows the three important propaganda ingredients to a T. It's badly acted, exaggerated in hammering home a couple of points and frightening the uninformed about the fact that no one is safe from this great danger. It is however fairly lengthy for a propaganda movie and it's not as ridiculous as I expected. Although there are some really funny scenes that rightly make this a classic.


Ya gotta love old Reefer Madness. The outrageous claims they make in this movie about the way people are effected by Marihuana, should be reason enough to see this one.

If you've never seen it, then don't consider yourself well rounded.

3 out of 10 (that's a 'must see' 3 thank you)


with all the hype this movie has gotten over the years, you'd expect it to be a zany laugh riot...but it's not THAT funny (except the finale.) i think there may be an emperors-new-clothes syndrome with this flick, everybody expects it to be so utterly wacky that i'll be worth watching...but it's boring.

oh yeah...interesting...this movie was made when marijuana was legal in the usa.


1 star out of 10. I watched this thinking it was going to be a comical satire, but it's just an old film from 1936 made by a bunch of pompous, self-righteous, non-knowledgeable people about their paranoid "dangers" of smoking marijuana.

The acting in it is atrocious - beyond awful. The performers (and I cringe to use the word performer in regards to any of them)who were supposed to be portraying teenagers were, for the most part, obviously too old to be teenagers.

The word "swell" was apparently the overworked usage in 1936, just as "awesome" is the overworked word among today's young people.

The effects of marijuana on the characters are at times similar to what heavy alcohol consumption might be, while at other times the characters behave more like they've been snorting cocaine, and eventually it is compared to the symptoms of schizophrenia.

The film definitely shows how outdated it is in several ways - like when two characters are discussing a third one and indicate he's a bad egg, after all his parents are(gasp)divorced!

Naive teenagers are easily picked up on the sidewalk by dope soliciting adults that they apparently don't even know, and go with them to their apartment.

One man smoking a marijuana cigarette, cups his two hands around the cigarette and then blows out enormous amounts of smoke - obviously not even inhaling. Another man just sits in a chair and giggles insanely, while all the women turn into nymphomaniacs.

Some may find the film so awful as to be amusing. I was just bored by it and it's heavy-handed message.


Horrifically awful. One of the worst films ever made.

Don't watch it alone, and don't watch it sober. One of those films that you just HAVE to see, even if it's only for the overt propaganda and the deliciously maniacal acting!


Cindy Collins Smith's review (see above) explains the context of this film very well. I strongly recommend reading it before you read any of the other reviews (including my own - below).

'Epically awful' 'full of misinformation' 'a propaganda film which was so ineptly made that it had the opposite of its intended effect.' Much has been written about Reefer Madness and its importance in the history of film-making, so I won't bother to reiterate any of these opinions. Instead, I would like to look at Reefer Madness as a film.

How does it rate as a film?

Poorly.

It has a predictable, uninteresting plot, cardboard cut-out characters, racial stereotypes presented as obvious facts, a stiff script, an unrelentingly plodding pace, and it is very poorly shot. The dramatic points in the plot are so badly acted, scripted and filmed that the film fails to produce any real drama, and the only likable characters in the film are, sadly, the ultimate villains. The editing isn't too bad.

IMO, the fact that it was shot with very little budget over a very brief period and was not intended to be taken very seriously does not really help matters much. The low budget shows. Some competent acting talent was squandered. And the film really isn't funny unless you're high!

The plot is simple - a clean cut American Boy is given a joint in place of a cigarette and is, from that point forward, spun out of control down the path to lunacy, addiction, and violence. Saying any more would lead to a spoiler, and, just in case any of you are seriously considering watching this film, I wouldn't want to ruin what little entertainment value there is in it. Having stopped experimenting with drugs twenty years ago, I can not imagine anybody even being amused by this film unless they themselves were on drugs. It's simply poor. And poor does not necessarily = funny.

Unless a film is particularly artful, I will rate it according to its entertainment value, not necessarily its technique, theory or method. This, for me, is one of those films which does more harm than good - it is neither an effective propaganda piece nor a parody of one, and therefore deserves a single star.


Such a load of propaganda b.s. could only be a product of the isolationist, narrow-minded decade of the 1930's & the great depression. Put together by tobacco executives who felt that the market for cannabis threatened their tobacco crops, the film shows ordinary teenagers who go crazy on marijuana, laughing hysterically & running over people with their cars. In once scene a bureaucrat points to a cabinet full of crimes related to marijuana & describes one where a girl butchered her entire family. Anyone who knows anything about pot knows that it's one of the few substances that can actually calm down a homicidal murderer.

I saw the film as a comedy, because it really is ridiculous. The sound quality is terrible - besides the somewhat muted voices you can hear what sounds like a projector reel running in the background. Also the acting is second-rate at best. But, if you're in the mood for some 1930's tobacco propaganda, this is for you.


Things are different down at the malt shop in small town lily white America. Seems some surly gents are turning kids on with mind altering Mary Jane aka marijuana. The iniquitous soul stealing substance popular among urban hep cat Negroes and sex crazed Mexicans is making its final push into the white suburban middle class targeting its children. Before our eyes we see kids as fine as a May morning degenerate into crazed lunatics with uncontrollable appetites for nostalgie de la boue. Reckless behavior follows and comic scenes of debauchery ensue as the kids get existential, craving faster music, driving recklessly and becoming overtly more lustful. It all comes to a head when sweet Mary finds herself compromised by a craven Bogarter and then murdered. Law and order ultimately sets things straight but not before a guilt ridden member of the dealers haunted by flashbacks jumps through a ten story window to her death.

This cautionary tale of blatant lies and unintentional hilarity about demon weed is one of the first broad sides in the war on drugs. Amateurishly and clumsily patched together with sensationalistic blather and mad tokers it irresponsibly condemns what would turn out to be a medicinal panacea used by millions.

Having extensively researched and observed the herb in use during my college years I found none of the deleterious effects dramatized in the film. On the contrary I found among colleagues a more subdued good natured mood fueling a penchant to consume vast quantities of carbohydrates (as well as a more restrained appreciation of sex and music). By ignoring this "munchies" factor Tell Your Children loses a golden opportunity to dramatize and publicize the greater threat that faces this country-obesity. But in its day these insipid ravings allowed then kinda drug czar Harry Anslinger to develop a cottage industry to employ jobless revenue agents who lost their meal ticket with the end of Prohibition. They needed a demon and found it in a benign plant that could avoid being regulated and taxed and was pervasive among second class (Blacks and Latinos) citizens who were already being institutionally abused of their rights. When it crept into white society films like Tell Your Children warned of the impending apocalypse. It must have worked because the disaster thus far has been averted. But as the stern narrator soberly warned we must remain vigilant. Pass the Hagen Daz.


Why no one changed their name after appearing in "Tell Your Children," aka "Reefer Madness," I'll never know. Perhaps some of them did - I only checked a few names.

This is possibly the worst acted, campiest, most absurd movie ever made, a laugh riot from beginning to end. A cautionary tale is told to parents of high-schoolers (who must have all married late - they looked really past it) about the dangers of marijuana use among the young. Marijuana here is spelled marihuana and is described as worse than heroin or cocaine - one puff and you're hooked. The description of the symptoms is that first you break into uncontrollable laughter, then you become frenetic, and then, your mind altered, you do insane things. In this story, there was a hit and run where this kid just mowed down somebody in the street as if he wasn't there, a near-rape, and an accidental shooting blamed on an innocent young man who is brought to trial.

Well, I'm from the '60s, so right away, you know I'm howling at this thing. This marihuana must have been laced with amphetamine, because one thing you never see in stoned people is frenetic behavior unless it's toward food. It's mind-altering, all right - you totally zone out. These kids were dancing like maniacs. Also, there were no deep intakes of the weed which is then held a bit before expelling the smoke - no, these people were smoking this stuff like cigarettes except they weren't inhaling. At all. You never saw so much smoke.

Now to the performances. Let's start with handsome Dave O'Brien as Ralph, one of the older procurers of the young, who then introduced kids to this powerful substance. O'Brien is one who DID change his name when he turned to comedy writing. I would have done it right after this film. He had the uncontrollable laughter down pat - he did it constantly. And the film was made so cheaply, every time he took a puff, the exact same clip of him laughing was shown again. It was a totally unbelievable laugh, too. By the end of the movie his eye makeup was smeared so he looked like a raccoon. I'm not sure what that look was supposed to represent. I was actually going to write more about the performances. I'll just leave it that they were horrible and amateurish.

I gave this a 4 for camp value ONLY. It is a ridiculous movie. I am not a believer in smoking marijuana, I am not a believer in substance abuse, and our kids have enough trouble living their lives without getting into problems with marijuana, drugs, or alcohol. However, did people really believe this to be the truth in 1936? Or was this movie deliberately done as a gross exaggeration? If so, it is unconscionable, not to mention misleading, particularly to tell people that marihuana is worse than cocaine and heroin. Give me a break. I can only hope that when this film was released, people laughed as hard as I did.


In 1932, Harry Anslinger was named head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The position was not much more than a figurehead because all the bureau was involved in was the amount of morphine etc that were in medicine like cough syrup.

Well Anslinger wanted more power and the best way to get power was to put more "narcotics" under his control. So he set his sights on marijuana. He met and became friends with Charles Randolph Hearst (of Citizan Kane Fame) and they talked about their shared dislike of cannabis. Now during this time, there was a real movement to make paper out of hemp. Hearst didn't like this notion because he owned so many timber yards and such, so he and Anslinger agreed to work together to get hemp criminalized.

First Hearst started publishing false and sensational stories about the effects of marijuana.

Then Anslinger hooked up with a film producer and the end result was Reefer Madness....

crazy as it sounds, the scheme worked. The year after Reefer Madness was released, Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act which made possession and/or use of marijuana a criminal offense.


Plan 9 From Outer Space wasn't made as a work of art. It wasn't even made to be good. It was made for one reason and one reason only. To make money. And, being as bad ( and laughable ) as it was, it has become a cult classic as a result. I mention that by way of comparison. "Reefer Madness" falls into the same category, even though the production of it was somewhat better, with an added bonus for the folks involved with the making of it ...It was also meant to be used as a "teaching" tool. Teaching in this instance being synonymous with propaganda. Calling this flick "highly exaggerated" or "over the top" is putting it mildly. Which is exactly why, given the very pronounced change in society's view of marijuana, it is so much fun and rightly deserves the title "Cult Classic". Well done? Hardly. Fun? Oh yes. So ... I think everyone ought to see this at least once just for the fun of it. Parents, tell your children.


I learned a lot watching Reefer Madness (AKA Teach Your Children...hey did you know that the CSN song "Teach Your Children" is also also known as "Reefer Madness?" Small world, huh?). Amongst the points I learned, marijuana is a dangerous narcotic (actually narcotics are specific type of drug that includes opiates...oh well). Also, it can produce fits of horrible violence, and near incurable insanity. It's a good thing I don't do drugs, but even if I did this movie would have scared me straight.

I hear conflicting reports whether this movie was made as propaganda, or simply as a piece of trash meant to cash in on 1930s drug paranoia. Either way, it's a pretty inaccurate and humourous look at the effects of marijuana on some rather dumb teenagers.

Besides the rather loose and fast rules about drugs (Calling marijuana more dangerous than heroin for example), the producers also tend to have difficulty with things like suspense and continuity.

Perhaps the film was actually presenting that of an alternate reality, one in which marijuana really can drive a person nuts, not to the refrigerator. That would explain a few of the gaffes in the film, like the time when the car runs over the human at top speed, leaving neither the car nor the human with any visible physical injury. Or the time when a character is shot from across the room (in the back) by two men struggling on the ground with the gun. Even the Warren Comission wouldn't have bought that trajectory. And my very favorite moment of the film, when a woman leaps out of a high window, the old woman she's walking with has to run to the window and look down before reacting in horror. Cause, you know, she might have landed on a flag pole or something.

Then again, maybe this wasn't an alternate reality. Maybe the filmmakers were the ones all hopped up and they decided to goof around with the camera for 70 odd minutes. In any event, "Reefer Madness" will definitely teach your children that it is made by people who clearly had very little information on their subject, or how to make a good movie.


I watched this after taping it from an episode of IFC Grindhouse. It was so boring that I could barely stay awake watching it. Maybe it was because I have never smoked pot and never will that it didn't work for me on any level. It wasn't effective as propaganda or unintentional camp. I fast-forwarded it at some points just because I wanted to get to the ending.

Aside from the fact that I have never smoked pot and never will, maybe the fact that I saw it 72 years after it was made would explain why I found zero entertainment value. I applaud Dwain Esper for his hard work keeping the movie Freaks out of obscurity, but this movie just stunk.


It's very difficult to dramatize novels hinging on an unreliable narrator without losing their essence. David Cronenburg did a brilliant job with Patrick McGrath's "Spider," in part by turning the narrator's garrulous on-page viewpoint almost entirely visual. But this adaptation of another excellent McGrath novel (my favorite) doesn't work remotely as well.

Where the book is a fiendishly misleading quasi-Gothic that turns out to be quite something else, the movie plays like a routine naughty costume intrigue, part "romp," part Agatha Christie. Despite the very interesting cast no one is particularly good (and Theresa Russell gives one of her really bad performances, which unfortunately by now outnumber her few very good ones). The story's original macabre psychological intricacy is lost in favor of something much more broad, and the book's key revelation simply gets lost in the uninspired shuffle.

It's watchable enough if you're not expecting much, and should you care, on a couple occasions Russell and Sting bare nearly all. But you're much better off reading McGrath's slim, sardonic, nasty little novel, which is both a subtle parody of Gothic literature and a great piece of perverse unreliable-narrator gamesmanship.

P.S. You know a movie has misfired when despite such notable actors it goes through so many desperate name changes: Debuting as "The Grotesque" (its source name), barely released to theaters as ""Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets," then to video as "Grave Indiscretions."


Apparently, this propaganda film (funded by none other than Goebbels, with the aim of strengthening the idea of a "Volksfront") had the largest budget and took the longest to complete of any German wartime film. The producers mention that the events portrayed are rooted in historical events. Sorry. "Kolberg" is loosely based on the exploits of Ferdinand von Schill's Freikorps in the Hanseatic City of Stralsund. In the film, the citizenry, their patriotic passions aroused by the dashing Schill, successfully vanquishes the French troops. In reality (1809), the French routed Schill's Freikorps, decapitated him posthumously, and sent his severed head in a bottle to King Jerome of Westphalia (Napoleon's brother-in-law). Hmmm. I have to say that I prefer my Nazi propaganda straight, without the anachronistic melodrama. In short, this film can only be stomached by academics and true psychos.


Mike Figgis' 'Miss Julie', an adaptation of a Strindberg play, tells the story of a relationship struggling in the face of class divisions, and protagonists torn between their obsessions and ambitions. Figgis gets intense performances out of his cast, the music (written by himself) is excellent and in spite of its origins on the stage, he avoids an overly static feel; and the language (rendered in English) seems fresh. But the characters themselves are a little too archetypal, their feelings theatrically contrived into dialogue; personally I couldn't care too much about their ultimate tragedy. An immaculately made film, but somehow less than the sum of its parts.


I've previously commented that I find Figgis to be one of the most interesting directors around. He has his hits and misses, but he's willing to experiment and do something different.

This is no exception. Burrows may have been his bird, but she's excellent in this. And you can always rely upon Mullan to excel. You're aware of the theatrical origins, but the performances override that.


I have read four different translations of this play, directed it, and played Julie. I adore this play. So now, I hope my infuriated disappointment is understandable after seeing this film. The same linguist who had done my favorite translation of the play (Helen Cooper, the Methuen Drama Translation) also did the screenplay, so naturally, I expected something mostly faithful to the script. No, instead, Christine was written in as an intelligent sarcastic woman. The latter is especially bothersome because Strindberg himself wrote in his preface (around 6 pages printed before the play text explaining to the women and other invalids the action of the play) that Christine was meant to be a dull character, and empowering her alters the direction of the play. Albeit marginally, but it still does.

On a cinematic level, it's completely beautiful. The celluloid is very pretty, especially in the garden scenes. The costumes are gorgeous. However, the acting is awful, for the most part. Julie is physically gorgeous, but, her sexy voice is monotonous and absolutely massacres the character because of this. She constantly has a blank look in her eye and a dull expression on her face, which is the opposite of what she should have in order to match the intricacies of the lines that she's speaking. Julie doesn't have an independent thought of her own (which she admits within the text of the play) but she still regurgitates what she has been taught with extreme deliberate passion, for an attempt at control and to create a notion that she is far more intelligent than she is. This is lost within the movie. When she is attempting to seduce, she just doesn't look attractive; she looks childlike. When she is in the heat of a kiss, she looks weak and not in control. She is the submissive herself, SO prematurely. Her phrasing is disjointed in many places. At the end of the play we see very little of a shift in character outside of the fact that she has a bit of an airy gait and inflection when she is asking Jean to come up to her room alongside her. At the end of the movie, she isn't noticeably anything, which would be great if it were a part of the character, however, it didn't change from the beginning of the movie. So if this is another bit of inconsistency in regards to the script, I understand: translate a play that is meant to show how weak the gentry/women can be by showing how far they can fall upon the slightest suggestion into a film that shows no distance between where the gentlewoman had begun and ended. I do have to say that the hysterical monologue towards the end that was directed to Christine about "plans for the future" was superb, in relativity to the entire movie. The acting was believable (FOR ONCE) and I could feel that Julie was pathetic. It turned my stomach, and that's great. That's seriously great. She IS pathetic and she SHOULD have that effect on people.

However, the monologue that is meant to be the climax of the play was poorly built within the realm of the movie. Julie picking up the knife looks ridiculous. Different sections of it were executed well, but not nearly as fluently as it really should have been. The falling action of the monologue was very well done, however.

Also, Jean is Scottish or Irish and it doesn't make any sense. He lived in France for awhile as a doorman and wine waiter and then lived in Sweden. The actors' acting was just at par level and wasn't near good enough to sacrifice that bit of logic within the movie. It is embarrassing how overly angry he became upon Julie's waking of Christine. Besides, Julie's reaction to him throwing her aside isn't even close to the character that Strindberg scripted.

Direction, a loose translation, and casting are all culprits for why this beautiful play was so weakly constructed into film.

See Froken Julie (1951) if you would like to see a much more faithful, well done adaptation. Yes, it's in Swedish, but the subtitles give you a general gist. Better yet, read the Methuen Drama version of Miss Julie. It's an amazing piece. It doesn't deserve the treatment this movie gave it.


The plot outline says it all: A footman seduces a count 's daughter. The rest of the movie is spent listening to lies, betrayal, ideas, and hopes. This play was not meant to be converted into a movie, especially from the director of LEAVING LAS VEGAS (what they were thinking?). The sound was muddled, camera work was sloppy when it should have been straight (you can experiment but that not terribly) and the music was purely awful. The three main characters were OK and saved this movie from disaster, but how well could you hear them with terrible sound? A slap in the face to the actual play, where it should have stayed.


A small-town coroner, who has a young son obsessed with death, helps three women get away with drowning their husbands in this dreadful, pretentious film. While it cannot be denied that director Peter Greenaway has unique vision, the question remains whether his vision is worthy seeing. I appreciate his films in theory, but not in practice. There are a few interesting moments scattered about, but what's the point? What is this film about? And why should we care about the characters and the story? Those are questions Greenaway left me unmotivated to answer.


Thinking this was a horror movie (billed as such) and starring guys like Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill, I wound up disappointed.....even more so because this movie started off pretty well and had promise. However, that "promise" was never delivered. There wasn't enough suspense or action to keep my interesting after the first hour. It got way too talky for what it should have been.

Fans of the two guys mentioned above will be very disappointed. Lugosi plays the butler and does very little and Atwill literally disappears halfway through. Yet, both men got pretty good billing on the opening credits. It's misleading.

The story isn't bad but, outside of some good sound effects like the frogs and the crickets, is not the creepy movie it's advertised as being. Maybe in 1942 this creeped out audiences, but it wouldn't today. Then again, I only saw this movie when it was on TV and commercials were continually interrupting things. That's a big reason I don't even watch TV shows any more unless they are on DVD. Perhaps if this film ever comes out on disc, I'd give it another shot.


Wow. I was surprised. I remember Columbo positively, but this episode had poor acting, oh-too-obvious clues, and it just didn't "entertain". It was boring, pretentious and quite frankly, a bit immature. It was like the episode was made for pre-teens. I kept up with it because I'm a Star Trek fan (features, of course, Bill Shatner and a short appearance by Walter Koenig), and still want to like Columbo, but with this, I'm not sure anymore.

I could not empathize with the criminal (Shatner), I could not try to figure things out with Columbo, his genius was not obvious, as he just seems to come up with solution to the crime based on very flimsy evidence. When presented with Columbo's (correct) version of the crime, Shatner's character happily confesses. I mean, does he *want* to go to jail, if not get executed? It didn't seem like that to us. It seemed like he wanted to live his life without his victim, who was blackmailing him.

The whole thing was just too bizarre.


When I saw Charles Band's name attached to this one, I should have known it would smell worse than the pit from which the title character came. One has to wonder with whom the "starlet" slept, for it obviously wasn't her "acting" that got her the nod. As for the other characters, I can't recall ever seeing such a mish-mash of robotic emoting combined with overacting so ludicrous that it would have been over-the-top even in a spoof.

I find it amazing that this gobbler got such a high rating. Apparently the entire crew, plus their families, friends and pets must have been the only ones that voted. Overall, the DVD of "Dark Angel" is not worth the hellfire to melt it. Give it a miss.


This "film" has a pretty ridiculous plot, some of the wost acting I've ever seen and some fairly laughable effects, but it wasn't without a certain b-movie charm.

*** SPOILERS ***

Angela Featherstone is some kind of demon who works in hell punishing the sinners there, but gets bored and comes to Earth to punish them here instead. The premise seems to suggest God and Satan work together or something, and that heaven and hell are more or less the same place, and that demons are really good guys that simply punish the wicked. Interesting take, but all things considered rather stupid.

*** END SPOILERS ***

I haven't seen Featherstone perform in anything else besides the small part she had in Con Air, but her acting in this film probably comes close to being the worst I've ever seen. She is so wooden and unconvincing that I can only imagine she was merely hired for her striking blue eyes and red hair. Or perhaps they thought that was the exact deadpan humourless mode of speech this "fish out of water" should have. Either way, she's lucky to have worked in Hollywood again after her abysmal performance this film.

The "special effects" more or less consist of superimposing some flames on the screen and a hilarious animated red eye twinkle, there are some truly hilarious bad acting moments from other cast members, and most of the plot elements are stupendously dumb, but nevertheless I stuck it out to the end and didn't come away too disappointed. I have very low expectations when it comes to low budget crap like this.

4/10


Low-budget indeed! So many shots in this "film" were bereft of any visual detail or texture, its straight-to-video intentions were painfully apparent. Why did I start to watch this flick? Generally positive reviews found here and, more to the point, Videohound's four-bone rating (highest on the scale). This causes me to doubt the trustworthiness of anything the Videohound wrote. Did I finish watching this flick? No. Do yourself a favor; don't start.


Now I know why Aaron Spelling left Tori out of his will and the reason why her mother is not speaking to her. Tori should be ashamed of her work in this "film." So many flaws, where could I possibly begin? First of all, I don't know one Asst. District Attorney (Tori's character in the movie) who would show up to court sporting cleavage and wearing bright pink and lime clothing. Let alone fake blonde extensions. Can someone give her a believable character, please?!! Secondly, Tori's acting skills in this film leave much to be desired. I kept having 90210 flashbacks when she spoke and laughed in the movie. It was scary. Even a B movie is beyond her acting skills. She should stick to guest appearances on sitcoms that require very little acting and even less camera exposure. One thing surprised me: Dean McDermott is actually pretty good in this movie. However, even Dean's decent acting skills couldn't save the horrible writing, character development, and plot. It was actually quite laughable.


This was a really strange and confusing movie. I feel pretty bad saying this because I am a fan of Tori and Dean, not so much for their acting, but I do like their reality show. The movie seemed to be everywhere with the plot. I mean, the plot was good, but whoever wrote this didn't know how to make the plot work correctly. I think better writers and maybe if Tori and Dean would have gotten into their characters a little more, it may have turned out better. I think the acting was okay, but it seemed fake. You know they are acting, but when you can actually remember throughout the film that they are just acting, it's not really good. Well, at least they both got something out of the movie, a nice relationship.


Very confusing movie, and not in a Mulholland Drive type of way... Just that I wasn't sure whether I was watching a comedy or mystery. Some scenes seemed to be bit funny, but not quite enough to actually be amusing. At first I figured it was a botched comedy, but turns out it's a botched drama.

Some of the acting is just so ridiculously bad that you figure they can't possibly be serious, and it's not just Torie. The bad guys are likable in a cute "Home Alone" sort of way (clearly unintentional), the good guys are uninteresting at best. No chance was missed to play up Spelling's (limited) sex appeal, in scene after scene she gets hit on. One has to presume her agent used his clout to change the script in order to boost what's left of her career.


Predictable plot, poor direction, poor acting, and a number of logical errors make this film a disappointment. The redeeming quality of this film is in its usefulness as a training aid for dramatic criticism and showing the neophyte film producer how to make mistakes.

While the potential of the premise of this film would make any attempt worthwhile (and has done in serials such as Medium or Ghost Whisperer) the film didn't achieve what it might have. This was also a disappointment.

If it sounds like we're disappointed, we were. We stuck it out simply to see if it could get worse. In fact the show became a means to "spot the disaster". Not really what we were looking for when we started watching.

At least in real life the girl got the guy so, perhaps, not a complete waste of time.


This movie is so bad I don't know where to begin! First of all anyone can act better than Tori Spelling! She should thank the heavens above for her last name! She is not even a C rated actress whose limited looks can even help her! This plot was awful, uninteresting and the movie looked like it took about a day and a half to film! It did look much like a bad comedy with no climactic scenes at all!I was laughing out loud when her and the psychic had the "silent" conversation with each other! When Dean McDermott is the best actor( by a long shot)in the movie you know its a stinker! Has this guy ever made a good flick? He is nothing more than a male gold-digger using Tori for exposure because you can NOT convince me that he finds her the least bit attractive! They both suck and I hope they never make another movie again(especially together)!


I thought it was all very contrived and elements of the movie are a blend of others done before all meant to push forward a modern tolerant society alternative lifestyle movement.

Tony Curtis/Laurence Olivier had a similar dynamic in Spartacus. The version we saw had English subtitles so the characters appeared to be speaking an Elizibethan Shakespearean form "thou art a knave" , but the spouse said the spoken Korean was current colloquial. That was the initial thought, oh yeah, this is a lift from Shakespeare's Europe, the court jesters, men playing women's roles (wouldn't they at least shave??), the palace court and consort scheming away, a play within a play. "The Play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King". The costumes and roles we saw before in the episodic Dae Jang Geum series - (did they re-use the sets and clothes??), everything looked very familiar. I was looking for the palace cooks and maids in the background...

That being said, the "Captain" of the minstrels, Jang Saeng, comes off as an interesting, athletic, strong moral character, against any possible stereotyping as a limp wristed homosexual.

So, nice try, but too much "sampling" of previous arts.


Vendetta (1986) is about a b-movie stunt woman who goes into prison just to find out who iced her little sis. I wanted to take a shower after I watched this movie, I've never felt so dirty. Typical, cheap, whitesploitation, low budget sleaze filled with unattractive female harness bulls, prison matrons and tired looking, road worn actors. I wouldn't recommend this movie to my worst enemy. It's that bad. No redeeming qualities, No fun. Bad acting, sloppy directing and no budget make this one a real dog. Movies like this give trashy films a bad name.

Woof, Woof.


This film was very hard to watch. The film quality was comparable to a home movie, and I had a good laugh when the fly was buzzing about in a scene with Beth and her father. The lighting in most scenes was so poor that the actor's faces were obscured. The film lacked transitions between scenes and ideas, requiring the audience to constantly adjust to the awkward gaps. The Scottish accents were painfully bad and the acting was pretty stilted. I kept waiting for something interesting or unique, and was only rewarded with a 400 foot tablecloth attached to a wedding dress. It was amusing that Beth had to hold her head carefully to support the awkward headdress. Except for a few of the older actors (Beth's parents), the cast and producers clearly do not have a future in the film industry.


Enough already!!! This movie is pretty stinky. The scots' accents are not very convincing, the yanks can't act, the dialogue is creaky, the skunk is stuffed, and the jokes are weak. The only nice thing I can say about it is that it's not quite bad enough to make you stop watching. Oh, yeah, and I like the cheap film stock. To top it all off, the music is by Ed Bogas! Ever play an accolade game from the mid 80's and you'll recognize his work, especially in the "dancing" scene. Sorry, Mack, this bites.


If anyone is labouring under the misapprehension that Mickey Rooney can act, they will have their belief crushed in this dreadful work. In fact, the only decent acting (amongst the major actors) comes from Lewis Stone, but he looks so out of place with the rest of the cast, that at first you think he's the bad one. Stone's delivery is actually very well timed and delivered with aplomb, but this doesn't match the rest of the cast, and it is initially easier to put the blame on him, rather than the real perpetrators of the poor delivery. Oh yes, I should add that Judy Garland has considerable talents, but none of them are properly exploited in this filmic dross. 1939 was destined to be her best year (Wizard of Oz).

The script is dire, and worthy only of an essay written by an average 10 year-old. In fact, it is often worse, and quite confused. For instance, the scene where Rooney is asking Stone for money to buy a car is probably the worst bit of writing I have ever seen on screen. Actually, 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!' positively shines, and becomes worthy of an Oscar in comparison.

On a more personal level, I did enjoy the inclusion of the 'Ham Radio' scenes, as it was in its infancy in 1938. I found it interesting to see that all the procedures and conventions had already evolved into much the same form that is still used today. However, I should also add that this does not mean that the actors were up to the task of being convincing during the said scenes. Far from it, in fact.

To be fair, the technical values of this film are good, for the time. There are some nice camera angles and the use of light and dark was almost up to 'The Third Man' standard. Unfortunately, the script and acting let it down.

I have not seen any of the other Andy Hardy films, so I have no way of comparing them. Now I have seen this one, I am a bit loath to 'dip my toes' in any of the others! Overall, I gave this film a 2/10 rating, but I wonder if that should really have been a 1? It was a close run thing!


We're back in the Great Valley again, and this time the haven is disrupted when the water that feeds it stops flowing. Instead of trying to discover the cause, all the dinosaurs stand about arguing and watch as their beloved valley gradually dries up and eventually catches fire. No wonder this lot died out. Eventually another quest plot kicks in and an avalanche of parental advice and anti-bullying sentiment ensues, the soppy moralising about sharing and working together more than living up to the film's nauseating title. It's all very well intentioned, I guess, but the cutesy-poo tone and irritating characters ensure there's nothing to engage any adults nagged into watching it.


I was waiting with great expectation to watch this series. The promos on the ABC seemed like it was going to be a great watch. Sadly the presenter seemed to whisper his way through the Machu Picchu segment. (Was he frightened he may scare the animals away?) My husband who is somewhat hearing impaired couldn't understand a word and we finally put on the text. By the time he had got to Chan Chan I was nodding off and my husband was fast asleep. So much for what I thought would be an interesting and educational trip. Don't know if i'll bother with the rest of the shows next week!!! Can learn more by getting a good encyclopedia and a look on Google Earth.


Watched "Around the World in 80 Treasures" for the first time tonight - as I am just back from Cambodia, and heading for Tajikistan. Dan Cruikshank seems to me to be a complete charlatan. While he picks some interesting places for his 80 treasures (eg, this evening Samarkand and Bukhara), I was appalled at his treatment of the scripts and artifacts of the sites he visited in Iran. Hasn't anyone told him that it is totally unacceptable for him to rub his greasy fingers over the 2000 year-old scripts? What sort of model is this for the rest of us? In Cambodia, the restoration of Angkor Wat is proceeding well. They now have rope barriers to keep people half a metre back from the hieroglyphs etc. In the main Angkor, I saw not one person reach over to touch the carvings. How come 10,000 tourists at Angkor Wat are more culturally aware than Mr Criukshank?


I have visited many of the places in 'Around the world in 80 treasures' and really loved my travels. However, Dan Cruikshank has trivialized the history, culture social systems and architecture of these places to present an imperialist, pompous 'search for treasure' -(whatever that is supposed to mean). The idea of a treasure (in mysterious places, like the East) is a totally Victorian imperialist British concept and completely inappropriate for discussing the cultures of the places that this idiot visits.

He is an ill-informed waffler and a complete opportunist who hasn't even bothered to do adequate research into the places he visits - I doubt if he has much interest in knowing about these places. Rather the program is just about him and with his dramatics and animations he steals from these extremely interesting places to direct attention to himself. For example there is no need to emphasize the drama of the markets area of Calcutta through dramatic gestures, there is enough going on there already. So why doesn't he just let us enjoy seeing the place and tell us a few well researched facts, instead of forcing us to look at him?

I think Dan Cruikshank is shameful and should be an embarrassment to the BBC - and to the ABC who present his antics. The only way I can bear to view this program is to turn the sound off - even then I'm forced to see his ridiculous gestures as he dominates the screen. Watching this program is an exercise of frustration and I won't be punishing myself again.


Is this some kind of surreal joke? A clueless, maladroit windbag tours "his" selection of world "treasures" and is locked out, finds the treasure invisible in mist or bestows such comments as "absolutely stunning" (on the Easter Island statues!) while endlessly complaining about scheduling problems. World civilisation is here made stupendously dull presented by someone who achieves the difficult feat of being extremely superficial and tediously rambling at the same time while being apparently unable to get off-screen long enough for viewers actually to see or appreciate the "treasures" he is so earnestly and witlessly wheezing about. So shallow and brief is the treatment of each treasure here that if you blink, you will miss one or two -- but, sadly, you will not escape the whittering of the truly appalling Dan Cruikshank whose confidence in his own narrow and banal "Little England" aesthetic judgements is such that he needs no actual expertise in casting his pearls before us. This seems to be the same absurd Cruikshank who had a tiny flash of fame with his extravagant, apparently unsubstantiated claims downplaying the scale of the looting of the Baghdad Museum, asserting that the Museum was a legitimate military target and charging that the looting was "an inside job". (Not very surprisingly, Iraq does not figure as a location for any of these treasures.) In short, this bloke seems to be a rather irritating idiot and, putting it kindly, not exactly authentic in his excessively self-conscious eccentricity. Watch this at your own risk -- good earplugs or "MUTE" would certainly help. Highly recommended for gullible people with absolutely no prior knowledge of history or culture or anyone who is interested in seeing how very low the BBC documentary has now fallen.


This is the typical Italian sword & sandal epic : low budget, melodramatic cardboard acting, repetitive, horrible dubbings, sub-par action sequences, "loads" of homo-erotic imagery & one chiseled foreign bodybuilder on the marquee. In this case, a beardless Steve Reeves as the marathon's progenitor, Phillipides.

We start with the story of how Phillipides becomes champion of the olympics, as the credits & titles roll. This is immediately followed by a lengthy written paragraph, setting up the back story of the love rectangle between Phillipides and Theocratis' arranged wife (Andromeda) and his concubine (the mannish Karis). The front story is your basic power struggle, mixed in with conspiracy and some battles with the Persians. We can't forget the Spartans. Then toss.

These epics seem like historical re-enactments in terms of the dialog, acting, costumes, sets and battles. History is the casualty in most, however, as is the enjoyment level and consciousness. The historical aspect would have been the only saving grace. Instead, crack the grappa, watch this with friends and savor the unintentional comic genius present in this movie. It is a rare and beautiful thing for the genre, though most of good ones star Steve Reeves. Also see Hercules and Hercules Unchained for reference.

-Celluloid Rehab


I'm thinking that it's extremely unfortunate, from the perspective of this film or of those who would like to enjoy this film, that Jacques Tourneur seems to have departed from the production rather early. Certainly the pace of the film is completely dead in the water and the direction is more the listless early style of Mario Bava, who was uncredited for his direction of this film. Bava excelled when he was able to put aside plot and character and just focus on atmosphere, but this film did not allow him to do that. Instead it features many dialog scenes and a rather dull political story that Bava is unable to make digestible. The action scenes are fairly good towards the end, and there are some nice shots with the classic Bava lighting. That's about it.

Steve Reeves is our hero, this time appearing (as he did 3 years early in his debut in Ed Wood's "Jailbait") sans beard. He plays Phillipides, an Olympic champion caught up in the Greco-Persian war. He's in love with blonde Andromeda (Mylène Demongeot), whose father Creuso (Ivo Garrani) is part of an aristocratic plot to overthrow Athens' democracy and replace it with a Persian puppet government.

The first half of the film is basically setting up the romance and the war, and then in the second half you mostly see Steve Reeves running for what seems like 15 minutes, and then a huge naval battle with some interesting underwater photography.

Only a few of the shots in the film seem to bear any mark of Tourneur's style, such as the one that shows the Persian King Darius (Daniele Vargas) framed against his legions of soldiers in extreme closeup to contrast with the background. My guess personally is that Bava directed most of this film. It is a dull film even compared to Bava's Hercules films with Reeves.


Honestly, I am a fan of Sword and Sandle films. Unfortunately, this did nothing for me. Although the DVD I picked up promised "breathtaking action scenes", the lovey-dovey romance took over most of the film, and the most exciting battle scenes were relegated to the the tail end of the whole movie.

Phillipedes is a good example of a "perfect hero". He has very few character flaws, other than being seemingly obsessed with a woman supposedly not meant for him. The main women all swoon or fight over him. His acting was unimpressive, and he is much too perfect to really be an enjoyable character.

Theocrates is the classic villain. He quite plainly spends most of his time trying to stir up evil feelings against Phillipedes and abusing others. He was obviously engaged to Andromeda at the beginning, thus setting up 2 different love triangles. He dies a horrible death at the end of this movie, like every villain at the time.

Andromeda, I'll give her, is very beautiful, but is just the classic blonde. Obsessed with Phillipedes, she shows no real strength of character. She is simply an attractive goddess with few other attributes. Her name, as in the Ethiopian princess, is meant to give an air of extreme beauty, which is her only outstanding trait.

Characters like Karis took away from the plot. She was just there to prolong the movie and draw out the story, making it more difficult to follow. The dark-haired, cold hearted beauty, she obviously could never compare to the sunny-haired, bright-eyed blonde she is competing with.

Worst of all was the filmography. The whole movie was in a terrible state. The version I watched was dark, grainy, and in poor shape in general. The colors seemed very fake and out of place, even for a late '50s film.

Predictable plot, standardized characters, and fake sets? This was clearly not an action movie. It should instead have been labeled as a love story in the simpler days of our world.


The giant of marathon is Phillipides (Steve Reeves) - an Olympic champion and warrior called upon to defend ancient Greece against an invasion by Persia from without and the treason of Theocrates from within. In the course of doing that, he manages to get a couple of beauties to fall in love with him, of course.

In all honesty, 80% of this movie is for the most part uninteresting, dealing with romances that I really didn't care about and political machinations that were rather confusing to say the least. It had a cheap feel right off the top, performances that were plodding and, as an Italian-French production, was rather poorly dubbed into English. I give credit for the last 20% or so of the movie, though. The closing sea battle between Athens and Persia was a pretty good ride, as Phillipides and Theocrates finally confront one another in battle. Still, though, it's not a good movie. For the sake of that closing battle, it gets 3/10


Maybe its the dubbing, but this story of a Greek hero who is at first the key to taking control of Athens and later to beating the invading the Persians, should have worked. Certainly it's the best looking Steve Reeves movie, with some really good action sequences but this movie is awful.

If its not the the dubbing then perhaps its the editing and direction which appears to have taken the "lets use every piece of available footage" approach to film construction. Sequences go on and on and on. We Persians invade and we get to see every soldier land in Greece, and we see a boulder crash into a camera. Why couldn't the sequences have been trimmed. It makes things seem last for hours despite it only being 90 minutes long.

Another clunker from Reeves.


'Blue City' was nearly a contender in all categories for the Razzies in 1986. I can see why and, if you aren't hung up on a nostalgia trip or your best judgment tainted by seeing your favorite 80s stars in a relatively unknown film, then you'd know why, too.

'Blue City' is essentially the story of a hot shot young man (Judd Neslon) avenging the death of his father. He suspects foul play by city officials. And of course, Hollywood movies are incomplete without the love interest sidekick (Ally Sheedy). The problem with this movie is not really the story, but the fact that there is hardly anything to remind the viewer that the movie was meant to be a thriller. Nelson comes off as the most arrogant character, who readily insults even his nemisis. And the villains, despite this, really don't act like their bothered by this guy showing up all the time and accusing them of his killing his father (whether or not they really did). There seemed to be no sense of emergency or suspense on anyone's part, save maybe David Caruso in the supporting role. Aside from the Florida scenery and notable actors, this is one movie worth passing up.


I knew nothing beforehand about this film. I only watched it because Ally Sheedy was in the cast. This was one of the poorest films I have seen in a long time. In my opinion, the only actor who really put anything into his part was Paul Winfield. I like Ms. Sheedy no matter what film she's in, ever since I first saw her in War Games. Judd Nelson was inappropriate as the hero. The plot became more preposterous as the film went on, so that by the end nothing that happens surprises the viewer. The actions which the hero did were totally over the top, and he got away with all of them!! All in all, a film to avoid.


Android of Notre Dame: 4/10: Demented DNA dabbling dwarf seeks to cure ailing sister (her ailment isn't specified but I'm guessing Ali MacGraw disease as she becomes prettier the sicker she gets). He gets a living dead girl to experiment on from a blackmailing body procurer (Tomorowo Taguchi who has only one expression but it's a doozy and kind of reminds one of a Japanese Phil Hartman). Taguchi gets greedy, the living dead girl decomposes, the sister gets sicker and the dwarf goes to a bad place.

The script sometimes writes checks the F/X can't cash (The legs and flying saw blade scene is particularly unconvincing) And the movie concentrates so much on the anatomical gross out it starts looking like an alien autopsy film. Yet an overall goofiness survives throughout.

Maybe it was the complete lack of humor (This is straightforward Poe style moralizing), the video quality that reminded me of a Canadian television movie, or the fact that after watching companion feature Devil's Experiment anything looks good but this little film wasn't all that bad.


Android of Notre Dame is third Guinea Pig movie, the first is Devil's Experiment and second is Flowers of Flesh and Blood, and these first two are the sickest in the series. Mermaid in a Manhole is fourth, and the rest of the series I can't remember clearly in which order they have been made. Anyway, Android of Notre Dame is no better than the others, and it isn't particularly disgusting either, and that is a achievement when we're talking about Guinea Pig films! A funny looking dwarf tries to save his beautiful sister from a deadly disease by using dead girls as guinea pigs for his experiments. The experiments on dead girls are pretty vile, but dull too. They don't shock too much even though the film tries it very much. The severed head reminds me of Re-Animator but that's all these films have in common. The acting is again non existent and the film was pretty hard to sit through for the second time, even though the film runs only slightly over one hour. The scene in which the dwarf tears off his victims/guinea pig's ribs with sound effects, is perhaps the most disgusting scene in the film, but it is also very stupidly made and the make up effects look as realistic as ketchup flying to the wall.

Android of Notre Dame is one of the worst shock intended movies I've seen and the most trifling part in the series because it offers absolutely nothing significant for the viewer. Japanese cinema fans will probably check this out, and so did I, but the expectations shouldn't be too high, and that applies to the whole series, too. Even the first two are not as sick as they could have been, but they are still very rough and mean spirited. Watch if you think you're interested in this kind of sicko cinema.


Yet another disappointing installment in the "infamous" "Guinea Pig" series. To be quite honest, none of the films in the series are all that great, but this one REALLY sucks. Long story short - freaky dwarf guy tries to heal ailing sister through weird experimentation. The story is retarded, the "gore" scenes are laughable at best, the acting is non-existent...I honestly can't find a single redeeming quality in this mess. Unearthed does a great job with the transfer quality, but that doesn't save this piece of garbage. Not gory, not shocking...In my opinion "Flower of Flesh and Blood", "He Never Dies", and "Mermaid in a Manhole" are really the only "Guinea Pig" films worth looking at at all, and even those aren't masterpieces by any means. Leave this one alone... 1/10


Charming it is but the comedy's scarce. Just about all of this film leaves you wondering what went on. The plot is patchy to say the least, and the film doesn't seem to have the cohesion of other early British comedies you find these stars in. It came across as a complete mish-mash of experimentalism and surrealism, leaving you thinking everyone involved in it was on an illegal substance. Looking at what the director went on to do in his career, this film can be forgiven for being an example of early directorial teeth-cutting.

Margaret Rutherford was well cast, but it felt the director somewhat smothered her talents and over did the 'dotty' approach (and where did all the kids come from giving you that 'St.Trinians' feel in the last 5 minutes?). Richard Hearne left me wishing they had cast someone, not only with a personality, but with a skill for improving a lacklustre dialogue - Alastair Sim could have really done something to improve this film. And Sid James waddling along always moaning about his 'KNITTING'? - I ask you!. As for the Police? They would have been better cast in The Wizard of Oz as the Wicked Witch's bodyguard.

For individual talent, this film was interesting for observing what the cast can do on screen as an alternative to how you have normally seen them. As a film on the whole, it's pretty bad. I would say it's a cross between anything made by Fritz Lang and whoever came up with On The Buses. It just leaves you feeling slightly uncomfortable.

Get it just for the library, and leave it there.


In reading a lot of the other comments (and message board quips) it looks like those people who enjoyed this saw it at a midnight screening. I think there's something to be said about the energy of that. I've had a blast watching a movie that, in the light of day (or on the home screen) is unbearable. I wouldn't call this movie "unbearable" but it sure is filled with missed opportunities. I think, contrary to what one poster says, this movie does take itself too seriously. The whole scenario is absurd, which is fine, but the actors play it "straight" (for lack of a better word) too much, with the exception of the villains and the drag queen (but only when she's in drag). There really is nothing redeeming about any of the B&B residents; they're all bitchy, unfaithful, wimpy--kind of like all relationships at one time or another but all at once. The acting is horrible and it's like the editing department was staffed by the actors--every scene lingers on way too long, letting the viewer watch the actors stare uncomfortably (or cluelessly) at each other (or at nothing)--so they could squeeze out a little bit more screen time. My advice if you must watch this: Be under the influence of something, and make a game out of it. Whenever a character rolls their eyes or calls someone a bitch, have another hit.


The shoddy opening scene of a pretty ugly fat chick clumsily running away from something, pathetically falling down and faking fear sets the tone for the whole movie. Which is to say it's a really bad flick overall. Much of the acting is stuff you'd see in a bad high school play. The editing is a joke; parts just go black for several seconds as they try to transition from one scene to another. And, it's a drab looking production; they should have followed the advice in their opening song and used some color.

So it's a bad movie, but it's also disappointing because the premise of a campy slasher flick seemed to have potential.

There are a few funny parts/lines in the last twenty minutes or so, but maintaining enough interest to get to that point is extremely difficult.

It gets two out of ten stars as there are only two positive aspects of this flick.

1). The drag queen is pretty funny toward the end. Partly because he has good lines and partly because he plays the role well, but only when he is in drag mode. Prior to that he is just a dull character.

2). The opening song and go-go girl are pretty good. The segment has a very cool vibe like the opening credits of a James Bond flick but with a campy twist. So that segment is good, which also means that it is totally out of sync with the rest of the movie.


After seeing this film and reading that it is a documentary soap based on a 'real case', I asked myself what understanding we have of truth in visual or textual narratives. My first intuition was that in this film there are clichees put together in a stereotype way to tell a story with a conservative political message. Just the counterpiece of the more commonly told (and likewise simplistic) liberal story of the suppressed girl from the province, old fashioned and educated with narrow-minded moralist principles who moves to a urban environment and develops unimagined qualities, gets famous, discovers sex etc. Even if the story told in the "Hunt for the Unicorn-Killer" is "true" in the sense that the director was inspired by an incident with structurally the same facts - the way it is told, is absolutely incredible. Neither of the characters really wins any depth. The motives of the girl to stay with her friend who humiliates her and the motives for the friend to murder her out of jealoucy - even if the film insinuates that he never loved her stay obscure. The question why an explained pacifist kills her girl friend is answered in a too simplistic way, if the film suggests he was only having his ideas to make himself interesting and to seduce girls. I think it is also problematic to make a piece of fiction and pretend it to be real keeping the real names of persons and places. People might no longer distinguish between what was the case and what was just invented to make the plot more interesting. I think truth in narratives is more about cases being representative (even if they are invented) and told in a way sophisticated enough to come close to the complexities of real life. I rate it 1 out of 10.


Action?? Where...?

Comedy?? Well, they make a very very bad movie, worst then D movie, and too late, they saw what a mistake it was. What do they do then? Call it a Comedy!! Hahaha.. loooosers.

Horror?? Come on.. 2 drops of blood on a neck!! F/x is totally worst then zero.

Thriller?? lol!!!

C. Thomas Howell and Tony Todd!! For example.. In this movie!! Don't ask me why or how, it's over my head. I'm tired of all this low budget, low serious 'horror' movies. Why not try to make a good movie for a change...?

I recommend Hatchet and Feast instead...!!

// Cheers


This is the equivalent to Turkey a la King. You know, what your mother used to scrap together from Thanksgiving leftovers using gravy, the parts of the turkey no one wanted to eat and some rice. Well, enough about my childhood.

Anyway, what you have here are some actors who used to be name actors doing throwaway scenes so the directors can put their names on the cover, making you think that this is a better film than it actually is, mixed in with the usual vampire movie clichés.

What you have are some college kids who get mixed up in a fight between factions of vampires, and vampire hunters who have resisted the taste for blood, but are equally immortal. (No, I couldn't figure it out, either.) Lots of scenes with the head chick vampire trying to seduce the hero into the "dark side'.

Oh, yeah, and then there was the sound. It didn't sync up with the action, it seemed to be off by about a half second, so you see people keep talking after their lips have stopped moving. More annoying where the cutaways from the sex scenes. "Hey, you aren't paying me enough to actually take my clothes off, buster. That'll cost you extra!" You can imagine the lead actress saying before she goes back to her day-job as a stripper.

JoeB- watching bad movies so you don't have to.