Some genius in the casting department wants us, the viewers, to believe that Perky Meg Ryan is a surgeon, and not just a surgeon, but one who's never had a patient die on her. I suppose she's never seen ER, either. Anyway, Whispering Nicholas Cage, the guardian angel who's supposed to be taking the dying man's soul into the after-world is mesmerized by Perky Meg Ryan who, one has to admit, isn't feeling so perky. In fact, he watches her as she sits and has a good cry, which is all well and good, but shouldn't someone be doing something about that soul who's just wandering around the hospital?

So Whispering Nicholas Cage, who frankly doesn't exactly scream--or whisper--angel, goes and talks to his Angel Buddy(tm) and they have a deep discussion on whether or not people see them, just as they hang around a convenience store that's being held up. Angel Buddy(tm) declares that no matter how despondent Perky Meg Ryan has become, she doesn't need to see him.

But Whispering Nicholas Cage goes back to the hospital anyway to console poor Perky Meg Ryan. She sees him looking in on another patient, and they talk. His name is Seth, and he starts to meet up with her at random times. That and he watches her when she can't see him, too, which is just a shade too close to angelic stalking for comfort. So it turns out that the angels live in the library and listen to the sunrise. Great. Perfect sense. And the patient that Perky Meg Ryan has just saved is actually a fallen angel.

Whispering Nicholas Cage takes this fallen angel out to lunch to pump him for information and learns the meaning of Free Will(tm) which God has given to all his creations, angels included. Perky Meg Ryan also learns that Whispering Nicholas Cage is an angel, mainly by stabbing him, but is totally turned off by this fact. She tells Whispering Nicholas Cage to buzz off, she's going to go marry her boyfriend in Lake Tahoe.

SPOILER!!!

This makes Whispering Nicholas Cage not so perky and he leaps off a tall building in a single bound. The only time, in fact, when he doesn't whisper is when he's ecstatic that he's bleeding. So he runs to the hospital where they tell him that Perky Meg Ryan has run to Lake Tahoe to get married. (Didn't she tell him that earlier?)

Let's recap, he's been shot down by Perky Meg Ryan, fallen off of a building, ridiculed by construction workers, and then mugged of everything including his shoes by random guys. And he's still glad he's human. He wanders around barefoot in the rain for a while until a guy takes him to Tahoe. He finds Perky Meg Ryan once again not so perky because she's just dumped her boyfriend, and they have a night of wild passionate sex.

The next morning, Whispering Nicholas Cage scalds himself in the shower and Perky Meg Ryan gets hit by a truck. Frankly, I'd say being a human has pretty much sucked for Whispering Nicholas Cage. He spends the rest of the movie sulking, and yet, just in time to deliver the moral of the movie, Angel Buddy(tm) reappears and asks him if it was all worth it.

Of course he says yes, but I don't buy it. Sorry, but one night of wild passionate sex does not a lifetime make. Perky Meg Ryan should stick to fluffy romances that at least don't pretend to have a moral. And I don't know what Whispering Nicholas Cage should do, except perhaps get that nasty case of laryngitis taken care of.


I could suspend disbelief of angels and half angels living among us - I may even believe it. What was unbelievable to me is when Meg Ryan leaves the house while newly human Nicholas Cage is in the shower just to get a peach or pear or whatever fruit it was. I just can't imagine that she would be apart from him for even a few minutes when they are finally together. Then - I really can't believe the whole no helmet/look ma no hands/closed eyes bike ride. Are you kidding me? I actually enjoyed the movie up until these scenes. But this part was so unbelievable it just really turned me off.

It was disappointing because I love nearly all the actors - even the supporting cast.

Oh well. Hopefully Cage & Ryan will team up again one day.....

Bridget


Gene Autry stars in this 1938 vintage musical western. Things get shady when crooked real estate developers 'hoodwink' poor honest cattle ranchers. Worthless mining stock is sold for the asking in a desert mining town. Gene and his sidekick Frog Millhouse(Smiley Burnette)put the kibosh on the white-wash, when word circulates that gold has been found. The guitar slinging cowpoke sings several tunes including "Love Burning Love" and "I'm Beginning To Care". Even Frog strains his vocal chords with "She Works Third Tub At The Laundry". Other cast members include: Carol Hughes, Ed Cassidy, Polly Jenkins, Ivan Miller and Sally Payne. All in all...the Autry movies are pretty much formulated.


WARNING: SPOILERS! Me and my 9th grade English class watched The Old Man and the Sea movie after reading the book. Overall, I think this movie was pretty bad. The movie was different from the book because there were new characters, Santiago's daughter, who wanted him to live with her and she didn't even try to have an accent. The other main characters were Earnest Hemingway, not played by him, and his wife. Having Hemingway in this story was an interesting idea, but all of the scenes with him are either parts from the book modified to have him in it, without really changing them, or really boring, which just makes it longer and makes it take more time to get to the interesting part, when he catches the marlin. Also, they left out the part where he caught the dolphin, so, in the movie, he was out there for days and he never ate. The new parts did not add to the story at all, except for taking up time. Seriously, I could hardly stay awake while watching it, and I have never fallen asleep in class.

The movie did not help me imagine or understand the story any better because it didn't look like how I imagined it would look. It was also really fake looking, when he saw the giant marlin, it didn't look all that big, and also, it was just a movie on a green screen and it looked like the fishing line went through the marlin at one time. When the marlin was strapped to the side of the boat it was the same size as the boat and the book said it was a few feet longer than his boat and it looked like it was made of rubber. When it was dark it looked like he was in a boat in the middle of nowhere. The movie was also less interesting because it did not say what he was thinking, so you didn't feel as attached to him, and a lot of the stuff he thought was important or interesting. 3/10 stars.


This was not a film worthy of Tony Quinn. It pales when compared with the Spencer Tracy version. The Quinn effort did not follow the book except a little. People were brought in for some unknown reason who were not in the book and didn't add anything to the story line. The original was a LOT better and followed the book almost to the letter. I realize that the original version was become hard to find, but I bet a look on ebay, Google, or Amazon would turn up a copy. I think that you would really enjoy it. I have a copy of the original Spenser Tracy version and plan to watch it with the book in hand to see how close it is to the book


A couple of days ago, I watched 'Troll 2' on video and I was astonished with such a bad flick. This 'The Horrible Dr. Bones' has not had the competency to be worse than 'Troll 2', what seems to be impossible, but it is almost there. What a ridiculous trash 'movie'! Certainly it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The title is very appropriate: Horrible! The ham 'actors' and 'actresses' combined with amateurish direction; awful screenplay; poor effects and make-up, all blended together is a synonym of crap. Fortunately, the videotape does not smell. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "O Terrível Dr. Bones" ("The Terrible Dr. Bones")


If you are a zombie, you might be able to relate to this film.

I cant believe any of the cast put there names to this, it is shockingly bad. The acting is unbelievably bad! I wasted 72 minutes of my life watching this film, and i want them back.

I am ashamed to say that i have watched this god awful steaming pile of crap. Most bad films are quite amusing, but this really is so bad, its not even funny.

Every copy needs tracked down and burned. So bad is this film, i cannot describe it in words! Do not even curb your enthusiasm by watching it, please just stay away! TERRIBLE!


Okay, i was at my local video store to rent some movies when I came across a tape. I looked at the cover and it showed a scary ugly man and the title said "The Horrible Dr. Bones". The cover looked good and I read the back and it sounded like and interesting film. So I rent it for two dollars. I watched from beginning to end and I was very disappointed! It was like the worst film I ever seen in my entire life! I wasted several minutes of my life! The effects are just plain terrible and fake! The effects look like rubber plastic props bought from a little Halloween store for kids I mean seriously! The storyline is terrible! The characters are annoying! The acting Sucks! Literally, nothing in the film makes sense. What a dreadful movie! It's a good thing a didn't buy it! I know what they were trying to do but it did not work at all! They just wasted their money he-he! Please people....this is a warning....don't watch it! Save yourselves!


*SPOILERS* This is the single worst film I have ever seen, and by some distance. It starts off with terrible visuals of someone's head exploding, and at that point I thought it might be a funny film. I WAS WRONG! The next hour consisted only of pointless crap about a band being signed to a record label. Seriously, nothing else happened! It was just so boring! The plot was unveiled 5 minutes before the end, there was a tiny bit of zombie action (without much gore - just hearts on sticks!) and then it ended.

When I was about 5 years old I was taught that a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end. Whoever wrote this thing should rightfully be scrubbing toilets or shovelling poop for a living! I love bad films that are funny, but I just couldn't laugh at this. It was very boring and very annoying. If you suffer from depression, I urge you to get someone to tie your hands down before you watch this film!


Our friend Doctor Bones is an independent record producer and DJ. He is very suave and fancies being a Svengali to youthful bands... nay, a Svengali to the world! Yes, the world with his amazing mind control voodoo R 'n' B.

Our heroes breeze their way through the audition even with some hanger-on moaning throughout. Then they drink half a bottle of wine between then out of picnic cups. They are an amazing band. The singer looks like an inept prostitute and they have a bassist but no bassline on their tunes.

Other stuff happens... I can't be bothered. Doctor Bones is a nitwit and his plan is rubbish. The band are horrible and like every other character, deserve to die, luckily most of the cast do. Bones is quite good when he's perving up the girl.

My favourite bits are the most telling. The running time is a weedy 72 minutes but in that they spend a good 10 auditioning no-hopers pointlessly until the Glowing Skull Stick of Doom red-eyes its approval. Also I like the 10 minutes tossed on a tour of the studio facilities.

The ending is quite nice because it's just openly thrown away, the heroes get a Box of Evil and we don't even see them react to it, the credits simply roll.

A horrible movie. It offends the ears too but not quite on the scale Bones intends. They namecheck Doctor Dre though, that counted as a highlight.


This movie is worse then bad, it`s boring. The plot (and I use the term in the loosest sort of way here) consists of a DJ/promoter wanting to take over the world by combining a certain type of music with voodoo (need I go on?). To do this he auditions for a new young group with the right sound and offers them the world (no pun intended) to sign with him. The acting is horrible, the special effects are horrible and the plot is horrible....hey, what do you know, I guess it lives up to it`s name after all. My recommendation...if you see it on the shelves at your local rental place...give it a wide berth.


Every once in a while, a movie on the video store shelf catches your eye. Not because it looks like it is going to be a quality film, but because it looks like it will be utter trash. This is a film of that type. For an hour and a half, one has to put up with atrocious acting, home video camera quality visuals, lame special effects, and a plot that never really seem to show up. To make the movie worse the viewer has to sit through about ten minutes of previews for action figures and the soundtrack for both this film and another one of equal bad quality. So, if you are looking for a useless cheesy movie about some guy who wants to take the world over with head exploding rap music (no I did not make that up) then rent this movie right away. If not, find something good.


Another reason to get SKY is that regular basic cable movie channels air horrible Horror movies like this! Really, there is nothing positive to comment about this crap. I really tried to be objective while watching it, heck, I tried to hard to not change the channel and put on some MTV in the worst case scenario. I truly can't remember why I decided to watch this one; probably because it got regular attention when it first came out. Now I understand that it was popular among some Horror fans because it's indeed a horrible movie.

The plot makes absolutely no sense and so does the supposedly villain. What the hell was that rap propaganda and sub-plot? The title makes justice to the horrible visual experience that this movie is...


Back when I was in college, instead of going to parties or trying to be "popular", my roommate and I watched a lot of movies.

Midway through the year, we would run out of movies we had actually heard of, and instead began to rent the most horrible looking films we could find (that is how we found Altered States). And It's how we came across the Horrible Doctor Bones.

It's been a few years, but recalling the movie and the plot (heh, heh), I remember some white-boy rapping, an absolutely terrible story, and the longest torso on Dr. Bones that you will ever see on a human. Normally, I am not the best judge of acting talent. For example, I really can't tell the difference in acting between Tom Hanks and Colin Hanks, besides one is quite a bit sexier.

If you are looking for some unintentional comedy, you have found the right movie.

1/10


Just the name of Dr. Bones in the title gave me a shutter, but not in the direction of being scared but of the movie being a complete waste of time. Believe me, if you watch this sad example of a movie, it is a total waste of time. Some of the worst makeup on actors/actresses and I use that term jokingly. The worst effect of someone being electrocuted that I have ever seen. A plot of dead zombies and living zombies which are controlled because of music? I guess the movie was about the dead, and there is no doubt that even the living in the movie were just as dead as this movie is. Skip it and watch another bad movie, "Plan Nine from Outer Space." At least in Plan Nine it is funny!


I have had this film in my collection for a number of years and sat down last night to watch it for the first time - I should have left it on the shelf!! The plot was obvious, the themes of British Colonial buffoonery and repression were overdone and unrealistic. The performance of Dr Azziz which switched from his hand wringing subservience to proud but embittered nationalist was just totally unrealistic. But the worst was the totally miscast performance of Alec Guinness as a Indian professor - it was comical in the worst possible way, he would have been more at home in a Benny Hill episode! Any Indian person watching this film must feel insulted at this completely inept portrayal and is easily his worst performance. However, the casting manager must take the blame when there are so many good Indian actors hopelessly underutilized in the film. I have read many of the other reviews and have to agree that this is not one of David Leans best and the Academy must have either been drunk or high when they made their Oscar nominations. If you like well shot scenery, this is for you, otherwise avoid.


The first 45 minutes of this was great, thanks to some wonderful cinematography, which is no surprise since it is directed by one of the best ever: David Lean. The muted colors were pleasing to the eye in a very peaceful way.

However, once the trip to the caves got underway, the movie began to become unappealing. The gist of the story - a young woman (Judy Davis) accusing an Indian of raping her in the cave - doesn't happen until halfway through this 163- minute film and even that is under question because nothing is ever shown. The rest of the film is a talky bore with the typical theme is so many of modern-day British films: class snobbery.

Also, Alec Guiness, no matter how much makeup he puts on, does not pass for a credible Indian man. It reminded me of all the white men playing American Indians back in the '30s-50s. In addition, we get the heavy-handed plug for re- incarnation and other obvious Liberal theological leanings.

An overblown, overrated English literary piece. Stick with the Merchant-Ivory films for similar but much better efforts.


Before M. Night Shamaylan started making horribly inadequate movies after the superior "Sixth Sense" Tobe Hooper twenty years earlier was following up his cult masterpiece "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with the dull and moronic "Eaten Alive". Neville Brand is Judd a mentally unstable owner of one of the most uninviting hotels on Earth. Why anyone of sound mind would want to stay here is beyond me. The soundstage it was filmed on doesn't help with its constant red horizon surrounding the place. None the less wary travelers attempt to brave the night there and are treated to being either skewered with a scythe, witch is a very inefficient murder weapon of choice personally, fed to Judd's pet crocodile or, just for the ladies, beaten and tied up. Why Judd does all this is never addressed as it seems everyone with a pulse draws his ire. I would assume that some of his guests had to live beforehand otherwise he wouldn't be in business very long. It is impossible to watch this without comparing this to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and realizing how woefully inept this is as a follow-up film. The scary thing about Leatherface is the fact that you can tell that this grotesque lifestyle is all he knows and will ever know. Judd comes off as a cranky old man very much in need of a nap. The cast is forgettable as Mel Ferrer stars in his first of two movies titled "Eaten Alive" and Robert Englund makes his film debut as Buck who like to fu......fornicate. I've had scarier nights at a Holiday Inn.


The reason this movie has twenty alternate titles is because Tobe Hooper and the film's distributors wanted to combat the terrible word-of-mouth that would inevitably arise once the film was shown to unsuspecting audiences. That's how bad this movie is--even its creators were ashamed of it.

Don't ask me what Tobe Hooper was thinking with this movie. One of these days I'll track him down and ask him about it. "Hey Tobe, why did you think we wanted to see a movie with Robert Englund as a sodomy-obsessed nutcase and a filty, rundown hotel with an obvious psychopath for a proprietor and a random, fake-looking alligator?" Maybe Hooper was drunk on the success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Maybe he was just drunk. I don't know. But this seriously has to be one of the worst, most unbearable films of all time.

In TCM you could sorta believe what was going on. Here we have what is probably the worst, least inviting hotel on the planet, but somehow people keep showing up and checking in. Are you people crazy? Just freakin' LOOK at that place! And look at the crazy guy with a scythe who runs it! And look at the giant alligator in the diseased swamp out front! Gee, honey, this place looks nice...

For some reason the sky is red throughout almost the entire film. Is it supposed to be on Mars?


***SPOILERS***

Death Trap is a film horror film with a difference. It is possessed of a special evil power most films don't have - an evil power to ruin a perfectly good day, suck all the joy out of your heart and make you forget you'd actually been enjoying yourself, or maybe even forget the whole IDEA of joy.

I'd been having a good day when myself and a couple of friends sat down to watch one of the 2 shiny new movies I'd bought. The choice was Lucio Fulci's surreal zombie meltdown "the Beyond" or "Death Trap", Tobe Hoopers follow up to Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Being huge TCM fans we went for Death Trap, after all, Tobe Hoopers second film has to be worth watching right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!

So very very wrong.

Death Trap is basically a cut price, hillbilly, Psycho rip off. At the start we meet a female character, who fleeing from trouble stays at a grotty hotel where the nutcase owner "shockingly" kills her. Except where Norman Bates was fixated on his mother, Judd has a pet crocodile. (and you'll never see the end coming, not in a MILLION YEARS!!!!....oh OK, the croc eats Judd)

Then some more people show up, including the worlds most annoying family, and a mildly amusing Robert Englund as a horny redneck. Most of them die, but not in any remotely interesting ways. Oh, and a pet dog gets eaten by the crocodile, possibly the highpoint of the film (unless you really want to watch the future Freddy doing "the nasty", in which case my advice is - seek professional help!)

The main problem here is the pacing (and the script, and a lot of the acting, and the unoriginality, but hey lets stick to the pacing). The film is desperately slow, and I can't believe it only runs the 87 minutes listed on the box. If so Death Trap must be possessed of another evil power - that same power doctors waiting rooms and tube station platforms have to make minutes seem like hours.

Pretty much everything Hooper did right with TCM, he messes up here. The film is ugly, lacking in real atmosphere, and just so damned slow! The fact that it's mostly filmed on one set, and in overlong takes often makes it feel more like a film of a really bad play than an actual movie, complete with horribly overwrought acting like the cast are playing to the folks at the back of the stalls.

Worse, there's no real tension - the only scene with any suspense has a child crawling under the hotel to escape the crocodile, and using a child in jeopardy to provoke a response from the audience is a pretty cheap shot.

Death Trap suffers the same problems as the 2004 Dawn of the Dead - it's not scary, or really horrible, or funny. It's just painfully boring, it killed the vibe of a perfectly good day, and made at least one of my friends fall asleep.

There are all sorts of conspiracy's to try and explain exactly how come this film is so bad (haven't these people seen Lifeforce???), like Hooper walked off/was sacked/the film was re-edited by the producer/the distributor/bigfoot/George W. but the plain truth is that this is an ill-conceived, poorly executed failure. You can see how Hooper was aiming for a similar effect to TCM (the psycho killer in the clammy southern setting, the sudden deaths and OTT performances), but this time it just doesn't work. Perhaps it's the stagebound production, but then perhaps it's just the crummy screenplay...

Afterwards, the only way to try to make the wasted 87 minutes seem worthwhile was to then lend the film to some TCM loving friends and inflict it on them too. They didn't rush to thank me.


Director Hooper's mainstream follow-up to his seminal THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) doesn't live up to its predecessor  or its own middling reputation as a blackly comedic macabre venture whose plot, basically, involves a crazy hotel owner deep in bayou country who feeds his customers to a crocodile living in the swamp adjoining his place!

The film, in fact, is a bit of a mess  generally heavy-handed and peopled by obnoxious characters (especially Neville Brand as the grizzled psycho, William Finley  the titular figure of Brian De Palma's PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE [1974] himself  as a weirdo staying at the hotel with his family, and a young Robert Englund as a yokel who deems himself the self-appointed local stud). Besides, it manages to embarrass a handful of Hollywood veterans (Brand, Mel Ferrer as the dying father of one of the latter's victims  incidentally, he'd be featured in another genre offering by this title, Umberto Lenzi's Italian zombie flick, which I had intended to acquire for this challenge but its late-night screening began much later than advertised and my VHS tape ran out[!], Stuart Whitman as the local cop and Carolyn Jones as the wizened Madam of the local bordello). Marilyn Burns, heroine of Texas CHAIN SAW, appears as Finley's wife and is once again degraded by spending most of the running-time strapped to a bed and, obviously, giving her vocal chords another workout whenever possible!

Though, as expected, the film incorporates gratuitous nudity by a variety of girls into its narrative, the best scenes involve Finley and Burns' little daughter being pursued within an inch of her life by Brand  who then unleashes the crocodile (which doesn't look that good, or even that much) on her! The abrupt high-pitched finale recalls both Hooper's own earlier film and Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977) which, coincidentally, I watched the very same day as this one; as far as I'm aware, Michael Reeves' WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968) was the first to use this highly effective practice  concluding events on a downbeat tone despite the inherent happy ending


Proceeding his debut, no-budget hit "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", Tobe Hooper moved onto more secluded inbreeder carnage with "Eaten Alive" - the touching story of a lonely hotel proprietor and his man-eating crocodile. None of the guests last through the night, yet a surprising abundance of folks happen to be cruising through the backwoods bayou late at night. We see an assortment of colorful characters wanting a room such as: a weary hooker, a masquerading wife with her severely disturbed husband and frantic child, a father and daughter looking for a missing person, and a young Robert Englund who happens to be an arrogant patron of the local whorehouse... "Eaten Alive" is basically Hooper working off the success of "TCM" to a visually lesser extent... Every interior and exterior is obviously a set and, as I mentioned, the characters seem to role in, one after another, just to be killed off by the croc. Not that our one-legged maniac isn't a delightfully zany guy, but the movie just FEELS very low-budget and effortless...


As a bit of a horror film buff, I'm always looking to check out some of the older b-movie horrors of the past, both to learn more about what makes for a good scare, as well as to get interesting insights into exactly how and why those things have changed over the decades. And I can safely say that "Eaten Alive" provided none of that for me.

This is the third film from Director Tobe Hooper (known mainly for his cult classic "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"). Once again, the film revolves around a mentally disturbed person, living within the southern part of the United States. This time around, the story is about a deranged inn keeper who, for reasons never explained, keeps killing the guests who come to his motel and feeding them to the large crocodile in the swamp next to it.

Those who are familiar with Hooper's style, will see a lot of similarities between this film and his most famous work, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", which was the film he made directly preceding this one. It is filled with the kind of strange and oddball cinematography, with weird neon lighting and close-up focusing shots on weird images throughout. But unlike the previous work, it doesn't really gel here. What once might have been directorial excess, is simply pointless and unintelligible nonsense. It is obvious he's trying to set an eerie and creepy atmosphere, but it is just so poorly crafted and lacking in any sense of commonality, that what is meant to feel bizarre and surreal, feels completely unbelievable instead. The script for this must have been about one page long, as that is how bad the plot and storytelling here is.

The acting is, also, very much below par, even by low budget horror film standards. It is shown that the inn keeper (played by Neville Brand) is out-of-his-mind, but we never come to understand why or what it is the guests do that sets him off. This lack of context makes it almost impossible to be scared by his crazy (re)actions and leaves you more inclined to scratch your head in puzzlement, than to feel any sense of dread or menace. None of the other characters really gets enough development for you to care about them, save that of Buck (played by a then unknown Robert Englund). His performance is the only one to have any real resonance at all and even that isn't very much.

Perhaps Hooper thought he could capture lightning in a bottle for a second time, like he did with "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" a couple years earlier (even going so far as to bring back Marilyn Burns to play the part of a victim once more). But as this film shows, it isn't something you can force or easily recreate. As a result, "Eaten Alive" never really comes to life or finds it's own voice (a point only belabored, by the fact this film has been renamed many different times). It just stagnates and meanders, providing no real thrills, scares, or even the macabre tone of TCM. If you are a Hooper completist, you might derive some kind of enjoyment or interest from this outing. Otherwise, you are best just to skip on this uninteresting and plot less bomb. The reason this film is highly overlooked, isn't because it was ahead of it's time. It is because efforts this poor are better off being forgotten.


Hooper has been responsible for some serious crimes against cinema as well as some gems (and a few downright bizarre numbers as well - Lifeforce anyone...) but this is just unwatchable - it is no visual flare in evidence at all. 1/10


I heard so much of this film that I decided to check it out for myself. I had expected more out of this film, it had a few things that kept me interested though; it had that Tobe Hooper quality and strangeness that he happens to manage in most if his films. I did not expect this film to take place entirely on a stage setting though. This made the film look even more cheaper than it's low budget and it could have been so much better if it would have been set in a real farm much like we see in "TCM". The characters were a real hoot in this film. I never knew just how UGLY Robert Englund really is until I saw him in this film with his big nose as big as Bozo the clowns nose and his head shaped like a used q-tip with a spare amount of hair attached. The one that stole the movie was the owner of the hotel, he reminded me of the eldest brother/sheriff that played in "TCM", I think that he would have been a good one for that part as well.


I saw Hostel tonight with a crowd that was very receptive to the experience. Mine was more hostile. The film opens like a teen sex comedy. We are meant to identify with three young guys, who's idea of fun is getting high and having sex with prostitutes. This first section is littered with naked women, in what might just be the least sexy presentation of naked women anywhere. One can sense director Eli Roth and his cronies giving each other high fives off-camera, much like the silhouetted threesome early on in the film, as they pay surgically enhanced women to take their clothes off.

The three men find themselves in Slovakia, and in what is referred to as an art show or an exhibit. Rich men have paid Russian gangsters to torture and ultimately murder a human being, our heroes? subjects? One by one, the men are tortured and killed in escalating graphic manners. The final man escapes, is involved in a car chase, and ultimately becomes what he was trying to escape.

This is, at its black heart, a very dumb movie. Probably, the most clever thing in the film, is the very weak parallel drawn between the legalized red light district in Amsterdam, and the illicit torture rooms in Slovakia. Everything else is just baloney. We don't really care about the three men, so the tortures that they endure aren't really effective at eliciting any sympathy, it's more that we're glad it's not happening to us. The motivations for the men that torture is never made clear, it's more a general sociopathic disconnect that's vaguely hinted at. It's also worthwhile noting that the one character that seems to be gay is singled out as the worst of the torturers, further contributing to the filmic stereotype of homosexual as homicidal.

One should also note the historical context of the film. This is an American movie, about torturing people, made at a time when America, right or wrong, is receiving flak for torturing prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere, and makes no mention of the current world situation.

It's also worth noting that the audience I watched this picture with cheered and applauded at each new horror. It all seemed so Circus Maximus.


I didn't like Hostel. The premise is frightening. The idea of being drugged, kidnapped, tortured, and killed by people who are paying to do it, is a great concept for a film. It's just too bad that the movie couldn't decide what it wanted to be.

It starts off like "Eurotrip" or any number of cheesy teen sex comedies. Lots of fake boobs and characters acting idiotic, in a fake atmosphere. Scenes in dance clubs that don't look realistic. You know, the types of places where people are dancing to loud music, but somehow can talk to each other in a normal tone of voice and everything is brightly lit so you can see all the movie extras pretending to dance in the background. Just like all the clubs, I've ever been to, right? Anyway, this goes on and on until the bloodshed starts, giving us absolutely no reason to feel anything for the main characters.

Then it turns into the horror film it should be. The scenes of torture are effective and psychologically scary if you imagine yourself in the situation, but in the context of the rest of this movie it just becomes ineffective.

Then the end of the movie turns into an unrealistic revenge fantasy that's played out, for the most part, for laughs. Kids payed in bubble gum help the good guy get away by smashing the bad guys heads in with rocks as they chew away and blow bubbles. The two girls and guy who set them up are easily killed when they luckily appear in front of the getaway car. The man that killed his friends just happens to be on the train on the way home so he can kill him and somehow not get blood on himself, then continue on his way. So is the movie supposed to be realistic, scary, or funny? It's falls short of any of these things. Eli Roth needs to pick one and do it.

The music is terrible. Not in the fact that the music itself isn't good, but for the fact that, A: it doesn't fit the movie, and B: There's way to much of it. There's a scene where the Characters are merely walking across a courtyard, and the music sounds like it should be a fight scene in Harry Potter. Completely out of place and distracting, further telling you this is just a movie no need to feel anything for the characters or get scared.

You can do a good compare and contrast between this movie and "Wolf Creek" which came out a couple weeks ago. Everything that is wrong with "Hostel", was done right in "Wolf Creek". Both movies are about young travelers getting into horrifying situations, however in "Wolf Creek" the characters actually act like normal human beings therefore you feel disgusted when they get tortured and killed. It's genuinely frightening and realistic, and by all means not "fun" to watch. It makes you feel horrible inside. It's REALISTIC HORROR. To make a stupid analogy. If "Hostel" and "Wolf Creek" were movies about Viet Nam, "Wolf Creek" would be "Platoon", and "Hostel" would be "Rambo: First Blood Part Two". (Note how neither would be "Full Metal Jacket" cause it's to good to be used in this analogy).

I gave "Hostel" a 3 out of 10 for a frightening concept, and the puke was a nice touch. . . If you're about to get tortured and killed chances are you're gonna puke. . . Realism, Eli. More realism please.


The plot, in short: Three backpackers, two Americans and one Icelander, does Europe by train with two major goals: To get high and nail as many women as possible... In Amsterdam they accidentally learn of a hostel in Bratislava, Slovakia where sex-mad women thirst for men in general, and American men i particular. They of course decide to go there and at first it seems the rumors were true. But they soon learn that the hostel is nothing more than a front for a bizarre club, where people can pay a huge fee to get to perform unspeakable acts...

My 2 cents: The director and writer Eli Roths biggest accomplishment before Hostel is Cabin Fever (2002) - weather or not that is something good is a matter of personal judgment. That he got two Evil Dead'ers (Scott Spiegel and FX-genius Gregory Nicotero) interested in his script is not at all surprising. But how he got Quentin Tarantino to executive produce (and thereby act as "posterboy" for his flick) is, to me, a total and utter mystery.

Hostel has potential, I'm not going to take that away from it. The thought that a place exists where rich people pay money to torture and kill other people is interesting. And a story about a kidnapped person who finds himself locked in that very place, waiting for his assassin, should make for a great film! The film is wonderfully lit, specifically in the torture chamber-scenes. And the set-dressing in those scenes are marvelous. It really feels like Roth found these places - and just shot them as the were. But the lighting, set-dressing and potentially-rich story, unfortunately, ends the positive things I have to say about Hostel.

It is frustrating to see a story that could have been so exciting and horrific get so utterly fumbled up! The movie is an hour and a half long, and takes a whopping 50 minutes to get to the place that is supposed to be the scene of terror and creepiness. The nearly hour-long "intro" is spent observing the backpackers while they party, get high and watch naked ladies in Amsterdams Red Light-district. When the story finally starts to focus on whatever is wrong with the Slovakian hostel it points everything out to such an extensive degree that it feels like Roth wants to put a stupid-hat on every member in the audience. I sat, in vain, and waited for him to take the lid off, go "ta-daa!" and show me something intelligent that I had missed. But it never happens and when the lid, towards the end, slowly slides off on its own accord it turns out that the ones you suspected were bad guys were in fact...bad guys. The ones you suspected were dead...were dead. And the entire movie ends the way you suspected it would all along.

Jay Hernandez (Paxton) and Derek Richardson (Josh) doesn't do to shabby in the two leads. But Roth has stayed true to Hollywood formula and chosen picturesque before personality, and the bigger part has unfortunately been given to Hernandez - instead of Richardson who I thought were more likable, and more interesting to watch.

Spanish director Koldo Serra made El tren de la bruja in 2003. A short-film about a man who agrees to partake in an experiment and suddenly finds himself strapped to a chair in a dark room. He hears metal objects being handled and someone pacing back and forth in the room. When the light is turned on it dawns on him that he will probably be tortured to death. Serras short-film is fifteen minutes long. It was filmed in two days and is scary as hell! Hostel is both longer and has, as it first seems, more story to build on. But it still wants to base the horror in exactly the same sort of scenes as Serras short - and fails miserably! Hostel is, probably, made specifically for an American teen-audience, where drugs and naked women represent half of the movies pull. Blood and bodyparts make up the other half. If you watch this and expect anything more sophisticated than some blood and naked breasts you'll be disappointed.


I'm not sure if this is a spoiler, so I figured I should do that to be safe.

First of all, I didn't see this movie voluntarily. That being said, it was even stupider than I expected. Probably the worst thing I have ever seen or could even contemplate seeing. The characters were lame(I couldn't bring myself to feel any sympathy for them), the story line sucked(mostly because the story was "see porn! meet creepy people! see more porn! watch people get their limbs hacked off by psychopaths for fun! escape! REVENGE REVENGE REVENGE!!"), the gore was over-the-top and completely sickening. I alternated between wanting to throw up and just wanting to cry, not because it was sad, or you felt extremely sorry for these poor people who were being mutilated to the tune of $25,000, but because I couldn't imagine any sane, semi-rational human being enjoying this movie.

I want my $7.50 back. And the hour and a half i spent with my hands over my ears waiting for it to be over.


This movie really could have been so much more. The idea would have been much better off with someone who actually wanted to make a decent movie, instead of a porno gorefest. The first half of the movie consists almost entirely of sex, talk of sex, drugs, and talk of drugs. Instead of, hey, maybe develop the characters a little so the audience might care about them and make their plights a little more tense, the filmmakers decided to have a lot of party scenes and annoying main characters acting like idiots until, uh oh, we didn't plan on being tortured, oops! The sad thing is, there are hints of something more intelligent beneath the surface, but the surface is piled so high with garbage that it's lost. For example, while at a sex club (wow, original!) one of the characters mentions something along the lines of "paying to do anything you want to a person," of course he means sexually, but we know the basic plot of the movie involves the same concept with death and torture instead of sex. One of the characters is supposed to seem like a nice guy, but still never really develops enough for us to care. The main character has absolutely no depth other than a childhood story and his shallow interaction with his friend. The last half or so of the movie actually starts to gain momentum, and the first half not been an entire waste of film, I could have walked away with more than a feeling that I'd just watched 15 minutes of an okay movie, and an hour and fifteen minutes of porn and senseless gore. Sadly enough, the idea of this movie was put into the wrong hands. A little less than halfway through, my friend turned to me and said, "Maybe I picked up the wrong movie..." to which I replied, "Yeah, I think you got Eurotrip by accident." I am baffled as to why they decided to write the first half like they did. I guess I was hoping for something deeper. Don't watch this expecting anything special, be ready for lots of nudity and lots of incredibly disturbing gore mixed randomly, the two not even seeming to fit like they would in a slasher flick.


I like a rip-roaring horror movie as much as the next guy, but this one just didn't do it for me. It certainly felt like it hit all the necessary marks, from nudity and dismemberment to bloody revenge, but at the conclusion, it just felt like eating cotton candy - no real nutritional value, just a sense that I had satisfied some of my prurient appetite without any logical payoff.

The movie was slow in getting started and then the sprinted to a singularly boggling ending. I walked out of the theater asking, "What was the point of all that?" And while this is described as horror, it really should be classified as thriller. There was no explanation or clever twist at the end. Just the end. I'm sure that it will attract an enthusiastic audience of young adults, but the evisceration by the critics will stem any hopes of huge box office.

If your expectations are low enough, and your tastes in gore sufficiently robust, then you are in for a good time. Otherwise, skip this and see a classic Hitchcock film. You'll feel better about yourself.


This movie was not only laughable, but morally degrading and at some parts repulsive to watch. The only reason that I went to see this movie is because I respect Quentin Tarantino's work in other movies, and just because his name was on this one, I caved. Some of the scenes were so STUPID that I found myself laughing at the screen. One scene containing bloody floor and a chainsaw to a leg was purely comical. Another scene where a one-eyed Asian girl jumps in front of a train after viewing her deformed face had me crying. The large amounts of nudity were also not needed and only added to the lack of morality in this film. I would not see this movie ever again and I would encourage others to do the same.


It's not funny. It's not stylish. Nor is it suspenseful, exciting, thrilling or chilling in any way. It's not intelligent enough to even be viewed as some warped social commentary and it's not ambitious enough to do anything other than present gratuitous T&A and gore in the dullest manner imaginable. Hell, it's not even entertaining. What it really is an exercise in being completely and utterly pointless aside from presenting violent scenarios and nude women with in third world countries with unlikely silicone enhanced bodies. Oh yeah, the plot involves a trio of students (two Americans and a foreigner) vacationing in Eastern Europe who eventually stumble upon a pay-to-slay type business that specializes in making your sickest dreams come true (i.e. customers pay a high price to get to slaughter a real live person). And I am using the world "eventually" because it takes around an hour for this movie to get to the real horror content. First we have to sit through an excruciating hour dedicated to the juvenile frat boy antics of characters who stay wasted on booze and drugs and pay hookers for sex. A whole hour of this crap.

Our "heroes" are stupid, irritating, immature, one-dimensional, unlikable and by the time their lives are in danger, you could care less what happens to them. I know I didn't. I was actually rooting for the generic, anonymous bad guys to tell you the truth. To make matters worse, this film has a tacked on ending that tries to let the sole survivor enact his vengeance. These scenes are absolutely ludicrous and riddled with coincidence that certain characters just happen to be at a certain place at the right time. Hey, there's three of them now crossing the street right in front of me just as I'm trying to escape the town! Well what do you know? How bout I run 'em all over! There's another one who happens to be on the same train as me as I'm leaving the country! Well I'll follow him into the bathroom... etc. etc. etc. The end.

This movie is absolute garbage from start to finish. It's nothing new or interesting. There is some gore, but it's pretty much what's expected and nothing too shocking for anyone who has already sat through films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Dawn of the Dead. Director Eli Roth may be 35 years old, but his brain functions at the level of someone 20 years his junior based on his juvenile screenplay and uninspired direction. Roth himself later claimed to make this film "to show Americans' ignorance of the world around them" and in the process only shows his own ignorance when it comes to film-making. Absolutelty the pits!


The premise of Ira Roth's "Hostel" is the European vacation of two All-American college boys, whom we meet in Amsterdam, where they get high but not happy. Paxton (Jay Hernandez), is a law school grad with no qualms about paying for whatever the market offers, which in Amsterdam covers a lot. He tries to cheer up his friend Josh (Derek Richardson), an aspiring author, by telling him that "life experience" is grist for the writer's mill. Josh wants badly to hook up with exotic women, but his sensibilities won't permit him to patronize the world's oldest profession, unlike his coarser compadre. His frustration fuels the "ugly American" ethos of entitlement that he brings to the party, and hamstrings his chick cruising moves.

Enter Alex, who gives the Americans, and an Icelandic traveling companion, one of those tips that must be urban legend by now: a hostel full of loose ladies that's not on any map, in a country squirming with lonely beautiful women, in love with the American accent. Our pleasure seekers don't care if Alex is a pimp, and they certainly don't suspect whom he's pimping out. They leave for Bratislava, in a Slovakia which, according to Alex, is bereft of men because of "the war." Just exactly which war, is something our boys might well have asked, before crossing a continent in search of hot babes. As it is, Roth disembarks them at Poricany, a town in the middle of the Czech Republic, near Prague not Bratislava, where our college educated youth fall victim to their own blinkered view of the world. Seeking frivolity in cold-blooded foreign streets, they end up being exploited to an unimaginable extreme and on a level that is unbelievable even in today's real world of sex tourism, pirates and child predators.

The mentality that wrongful deeds committed in another land somehow don't count, can flow from the mindset, common among some Americans, that other countries do not deserve equal status with our own. The "what happens in Bratislava, stays in Bratislava" view of the world is at the heart of the horror here, and to its credit, the film shows this to be a Weltanschauung shared by rogues from a number of nations.

Today, with our leaders supporting the spread of freedom and democracy throughout the world, the hedonistic abuse represented by sex tourism is downright un-American. Paxton doesn't care about anything except making memories to sustain him through the upcoming busy months of cramming for the bar exam. Perhaps the global perception that such selfish attitudes are especially emblematic of Americans is why, in "Hostel," the disturbed torturers pay more to vivisect bearers of our passport than any other group on the albeit limited menu.

When the boys finally enter the hostel midway through the film, a small TV in the lobby is showing an overdubbed version of "Hostel" producer Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." The claustrophobic tension in that film added excruciating horror to the anticipated violence. In "Hostel," much of the violence is so non sequitur that you never quite believe in these silly butchers or their patient cadre of chauffeurs. The upshot is much less horror, more disgust and, one can only hope, no arousal.

When a victim does cry out "Why?" he might be speaking for the audience: Why make this movie? And when the pay-as-you-torture psychos pause to bare their souls to bound and bleeding victims, these scenes visit real torture upon moviegoers in the painful forms of pathetic acting and pitiful dialog.

Here, sadists have ceded their place to wealthy psychopaths, especially German-speaking men, who pay to "get their medieval freak on," that is, if one can get medieval, by definition, with a chainsaw or acetylene torch. During an uninspired escape attempt sequence, Paxton is cornered by an American businessman (Rick Hoffman), whose years of global sex tourism have left him unsatisfied and obviously insane. He is now ready to graduate to torture and murder for his sexual gratification.

Perhaps there is an audience of Americans willing to exchange their ignorance of Europe for the misshapen image that risks becoming the pop culture residue of this movie: a Sybaris for bored backpackers, where women resemble lingerie models, preschoolers gang bang mercilessly, and where the occasional ex-Nazi still hobbles about his same unspeakable errands, more circumspect in his depravity than forty-odd years ago.

To judge by "Hostel," there is certainly a surfeit of silicone in Slovakia. We are shown plenty of gratuitous female nudity, but only between rounds of bloodletting: Tarantino carefully segregates titillation from torture.

Dressed in the anonymous business suit and tie preferred by the weekend torturers, Paxton attempts to practice a bit of "Old Testament Law," before returning to civilization secure in the knowledge that he can "out-Herod Herod." Throughout this film "Josh" never quite appreciates the jokes; while "Pax" never finds the peace that comes from exorcising one's own demons---he just cuts his vacation short, so to speak.

In the final credits, thanks are given to, among others, Chloe and Major League Baseball! These entities deserve harsh censure if they paid for product placement. One star, hacked to bits.


My English is not very good (and i'm sorry for that), but this ''movie''is one of the stupidest I ever seen! Low budget movie with stupid, simple and awful story about 3 guys going to Bratislava (capital of Slovakia) to have some fun with slovak horny girls and they get killed by unearthly brutal people of small country Slovakia. This movie shows Slovakia like some kind of backward, poor and dirty country. If you know Slovakia, you know that this movie was filming in Czech Republic(there is a lot of signs with czech language on it, also the language they speak is czech), which is lovely country with beautiful history. You can see kids robbing these guys on the street by daylight!?What is that? This is not Kosovo, Afganistan or Iraq. They are not in the war or something. You should check some websites about this. Everybody who knows something about Eastern Europe, and saw this movie, know that this is degradation of this two countries and the producer Eli Roth is moron!!! It is a shame, that they earn money on this lame, full of lies rude stupidity!


Well, it wasn't so much a 'horror' movie as it was a 'horrible' movie.

I expect that this director will go on to make great snuff films and little else. I guess if I was a 15yr old boy who enjoys endless mindless killing interspersed with plenty of tit shots, I might enjoy this POS.

No one else will enjoy this mess. Except maybe former Nazis.

These days all you need to get a movie deal is apparently the promise that you'll employ the producers wanna-be girlfriend and have at least 5 violent gory deaths. Plot, storyline, or talent not included (or necessary apparently)

The only good thing about this movie is that I didn't have to pay for my ticket to see it. :P And ladies if your boyfriend/husband takes you to see this movie, dump him. He's clearly got something wrong with him.


This movie is just plain awful. The violence, sex, and language is gratuitous. The characters are flat, the story banal, the acting stiff, the music contrived, and to top this all off, it's one of the most shallow movie I've ever seen.

Creative writing professor Jack Harrel, in his essay "What Violence in Literature Must Teach Us," defines violence as gratuitous when it is "free, unearned, or unjustified."According to Harrell, for violence to be warranted in a piece (whether or not it's in the horror genre), we must care for the characters, the violence must occur for a reason, and the violence must come at some cost.

Hostel meets none of these guidelines. First of all, the main characters are unworthy of any of our sympathy. Backpacking through Europe, the three, all male main characters' main interest throughout the film is getting laid and smoking pot. That's their entire motivation. Isn't the feeling of horror generated from the viewer worrying about a character getting hurt or killed? How is this suspenseful feeling supposed to happen when the characters are constantly saying crude things like "you're so gay" and "pu**y" and taking pictures on their phone of their sexual exploits in a bar bathroom stall, and screaming when a male character puts his hand on their leg? The only thing this does for me is offend.

Why does the violence occur? Apparently for a fee one can have the thrill of killing someone in whatever means they wish. Unfortunately this has absolutely nothing to do with the "story" (I use this term *very* loosely here). All of a sudden the main characters start disappearing from the "story" and start entering some kind of green lit "killing room" where they get tortured to death by some demonic person who has a short cameo earlier in the film. This is not a reason. When we find out later how this killing is sort of like an attraction for rich adrenalin junkies, the only thing one can possibly feel is apathy. Apathy for the story. All *this* just for *that*!!!

What cost does the violence come at in Hostel? None. The people who get killed are worthless to us and the people who are doing the killing are worthless to us. We care not when some of the people who are doing the killing get killed because we are not sure if they are the ones in charge. There is absolutely no moral bone to chew on here.

Lastly I'd like to talk about one thing in particular that really upset me about this film. Towards the end of Hostel a woman kills herself after looking at the reflection of her newly disfigured face. This is probably the most gratuitous and shallow point of the movie. It's also supposed to be its most dramatic point. First of all this character is only known to us as an Asain women who's friend also goes missing and doesn't want to party. That's it. When the main character rescues her from the hands of the killer due to her screaming, which reminds him of when he let a little boy drown a few years ago, we are surprised to find her in the "green killing room". Her eyeball is dangling out of her socket at this point. Our "hero" decides to finish the job and cut the "tenticles" that keep it attached. As to the importance of this I can not figure. But when she takes a look at her reflection and then throws herself in front of a train in very dramatic fashion I become upset. Think of how many people in the world are "disfigured." Apparently life is not worth living unless your beautiful. That is the only message this movie could possibly have.

How horrible.


What was the author thinking (or perhaps drinking)? Does he know anything about Europe, Eastern Europe, Slovakia, Bratislava. I think he's a total imbecile. Half a million people lives here. It's not some kind of medieval village, where bloody killers live and crime is overwhelming. Or maybe Americans still think that Eastern Europe is some kind of wild land, the land of poverty, devastation and murder, and it's dangerous to be even near those places. Well then they are f**king idiots if they think so. Such films create a negative image of Eastern Europe, of the Slavs and I think it's a shame that such movies exist.


Something has gone horribly wrong. I'm not sure what Eli Roth and Quentin Tarentino were thinking when they put this crap together, but it's a laughable attempt at a shocking horror film. It wasn't as violent as Saw, it wasn't as tense as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, and it's filled with more ridiculous horror clichés than I could list in 1,000 words on IMDb. To have a preview that warns squeamish people with bad hearts to stay away from the theaters, there were a lot of people in my theater LAUGHING. Throughout the entire film. That pretty much sums things up about this one. A laughable attempt at being shocking. Just track down the original Japanese film instead. Or watch "Audition". Or "Ichi the Killer". You'll be better off. The other worst movie that I've seen in a theater? Wes Craven's THEY. And I'm not sure which of the two is worse.


Yes, the movie is scary. Supposedly there is still one special effect left undone. But new? I am a movie buff (in production/writing) who has screened horror since it began. Young males who are horny find beautiful females and then are punished in a horrible way. This is as old as the oldest horror movie. Watch any Simpsons episode where a character goes to a scary movie. The director has said he made the movie to make us think about where society is going in terms of pornography. Bullshit. He made it for the money. The vast majority of characters killed in movies are male. And in most of these, the victim can somehow be blamed, allowing us in the audience to say, "Well, I would never go that far, so it couldn't happen to me." The reality is, young children are often the victims of forced prostitution, torture, and murder. In the movie, wealthy people pay to torture and kill. What of those who see the movie and are not wealthy? Would any of us be comfortable watching small children be tortured and killed? What if they reminded us of our own children or young siblings? Would that be a lot of fun? Yet we all know that evil people start out with vulnerable people and move up to young males, if they ever do move up. Their favorite victims are children, then young women, then men, because this is the easiest order to get control over. Movies like this only propagate the idea that those who suffer are guilty. Innocent people in the world suffer just as much as, and often more than, guilty people.


If you watch a lot of movies, you see mostly bad ones. That's the realization I have come to at least. If you give your brain a little bit of credit I would say you would be lucky to enjoy 6 out of 10 movies that come out. I know that going into the experience by now. A lot of movies are just bad and that's okay, but some of them are bad AND they insult my intelligence. This is where I get angry and frustrated at Hollywood.

Before this movie was made I can just picture a bunch of Hollywood executives sitting around a long, oval-shaped table saying "Hey, everyone liked those 'Saw' movies so let's whip up something similar, and as quickly as possible regardless of quality!" I mean seriously the lack of plot in this movie is uncanny. The first 45 minutes or so is totally pointless and is more akin to the movie Eurotrip than anything that would be considered scary (there's about 10-15 boob shots for every interesting part in this movie, if that). Then when the movie gets to the subject matter that was advertised, we're subjected to a few "gross you out just because" parts. When the only surviving main character predictably escapes he coincidentally bumps into everyone involved in the setup so we can all feel better now that the good guys have been somewhat redeemed.

It's one thing for a movie to simply be bad. Everyone has their opinion. But when a movie with no plot is injected with a few gross-out scenes just to make it more like a successful movie of its kind it gets to the point of the viewer being insulted. Every event has to MEAN something to the plot but when you don't have a plot that creates a problem. In this movie you have characters running around Europe trying to get laid for half the movie and then the rest of it is a shameless imitation of 'Saw' but without any resemblance of a storyline. Do NOT go see this movie, unless you are the type that sees a couple gory scenes and comes out of the movie saying "That was so cool!" If you are, god bless you, but I like my movies to have a point.


I'd thought I'd seen the worst after open water but Hostel wins that honor hands (or stumps) down.

I bought this turkey after browsing the blurbs and pics on the back of the case. Looked to me like an organ for sale/black market thriller/horror possibility -- perhaps due to the surgical garb in one photo. Not. It will not become a part of my collection -- ever.

There is no plot. Nothing believable. No chance for a thriller. Nothing to hold you engulfed in the moment along with the characters. Law enforcement would shut down an operation (no pun intended) where kids from wealthy (or not) families just disappear wholesale in big bleeding batches. No care is taken in the selection of the unfortunates, anyone is fair game. The only requirement is that you be mindlessly horny (never question why the perfect 10 has to have you) and extremely naive so much so that it goes beyond belief. The rest is just hack and slash oh yeah, and saw.

So, it is just gore for the sake of gore. Pretty sick and in the end just sad. I should add SORRY to the list; sorry that I got SUCKED in (there's another addition) to buying it based on the cover art, hype and names attached to it. Needless to say I am more careful now.

Next week I'm going to take my mini-DV to the local butcher shop to see about filming a sequel. Cluck Cluck Moooo.

Do yourself a favor and save your bucks for something better (anything). And shame on you folks for just going for the boring gore JUST for the (like you don't have enough) money. I'd have given it a zero but one is the lowest. 0 out of 10.


This movie was not made by Who fans. Most of the great moments that fans will look forward to in the half-hour Tommy medley are simply missed or glossed over: In Christmas, they didn't show Daltry's screams after the line "Tommy doesn't know what day it is...", they showed almost *no* Townsend guitar shots in Pinball Wizard, there were excess crowd shots during the best moments of Go to the Mirror, and worst of all, in the second half of We're Not Gonna Take It (Listening to You), they robbed us of almost every shot of Pete's blazing guitar chords. Huge chunks of the film are shot from in back of the band. It's a very frustrating film to watch, and doesn't deliver the goods. I don't know if director Murry Lerner is just not a Who fan, or worse, for him at least, if he *is* a Who fan and this is all the *eight* cameras could deliver for him. To its credit, there are some rare numbers before Tommy, as well as some faves, that are very well shot, and sometimes the editing is brilliant. This might be enough to make some viewers happy, as long as you're not anticipating Tommy. The sound overall was mediocre in the transmission I watched from DirecTV; it may be different on video or DVD.


I was a little disappointed in this one as it didn't live up to my expectations. It was not nearly as good as Little Women - also written by Louisa May Alcott.

Part of the problem was the poor quality of the film itself on TCM. It had lots of scratches and white spots, as well as a soundtrack that dragged at times (especially noticeable during music). There was also frequent jumping to the film which was distracting.

I wonder the reason they replaced Katherine Hepburn's character, Jo March, with Kay Francis? Hepburn made the character so spirited - whereas Francis played it like milquetoast. The only resemblance was when Jo says the familiar "Christopher Columbus!" exclamation.

Jo March is married now with children. Her and her husband run Plumfield School Boarding school for children. George Bancroft plays a former shyster, Major Hurdle, who is "bequeathed" a baby boy, Dan, from a former hoodlum who was murdered. He grows fond of the boy and tries to live straight. When he is finally made to enroll Dan in school, he takes him to Plumfield.

There is one scene that was meant for humor - but I didn't find it at all funny. Hurdle's crooked buddy that visits the school with him gets his coat stuck in the school safe when he accidentally opens it. They go on and on with him trying to get it unstuck, finally cutting his coat loose, then trying to even the coat up - yawn, yawn, yawn.

The best thing the film has going for it is an adorable boy named Teddy (Richard Nichols) and Elsie the cow, who has the biggest, most expressive eyes. Apparently she was quite famous from the New York World's Fair and Borden milk ads.

Overall, I found the plot boring and the pace extremely slow. Not much to see here - unless you are a huge fan of Alcott and want to complete more of her film adaptations.


This film is cute to the point of being saccharine sweet. It tells the story of a too good to be true school mistress and her pupils, and of a rough and tumble young boy whose life they touch. The treatment of the youngsters is improbable given the time period the film takes place in, and the film has a trite ending that ignores the realities of the situation the boy is in. Finally, the film features the original Bessie the Cow; that fact alone makes it too cute.


"Our America" tells of two black juvi's who are given recorders so they can do a radio documentary of their project/ghetto. An unfortunate but well intentioned flick, "OA" has nothing new to offer and appears to be a misguided attempt to expose the real truth behind the projects (drugs, gangs, crime, cockroaches, etc.) as if we haven't had our fill of ghetto flicks. What is worse, our heros play a game called "Knockout" which involves dropping rocks from a freeway overpass which everyone knows is as potentially lethal as the gangbangers shooting up the "hood" with their Uzzis and for which they receive a mere reprimand. Stupid tripe not worth the time. (F)


For what ever it worth this movie/documentary is extremely boring from the beginning to the very end. The keep on ever going of using both black/white and color film that keep on switching is really annoying and very much unattractive.

The story is same old same old, talking about the bad black people neighborhood and tried to bring out the truth and tried to make us the viewer feel bad for them. At end (if you even watch it to the end) you will actually feel bad and asked one self "How did I managed to watch this entire film?"The film is sure not worth a watch cause it is damn boring.

Rating: 4/10


Well this movie did not do it for me. I watched it 3 times and I found much of the dialog to be hard to decipher and there were long passages of very boring scenes { like the dancing scenes while the card playing was going on } . Nothing scary happens and I was hoping the movie had more of a diabolical evil feel to it { since it involves cards, evil, the devil, selling ones soul, etc..} .

I personally am a huge fan of slow burn, P.G. horror films, but this film is not nearly as good as other slow burn horror films like Curse of the Demon or Picture of Dorian Gray. In fact, after I purchased the 2 DVD disc set and watched it 3 times, I gave it to a friend of mine for his collection because I didn't even like the other movie included in the DVD set {Dead of Night} . Since I seem to disagree with many other reviewers on this forum, I think it may be necessary for me to make a small list of my top 3 favorite horror films and my top 3 horror films I think are most overrated :

Top 3 :

1. Curse of Frankenstein 2. Night of Living Dead 3. Shockwaves

Top 3 overrated :

1. Halloween 2. Dawn of the Dead 3. Last House on Left


I can't believe so many people are calling this a "great" movie, and I really have to suspect that someone paid the reviewer quoted on the box to say that this was "better than The Usual Suspects" (it isn't). Yes, it was made for less than eight thousand bucks, and it shows. Folks, it's a BAD movie! The characters are terrible, the acting is terrible, the story, far from being quick, is a bore. Some people will praise anything independent and low budget just for being that, but not me. Independent or studio, it still has to be good, and this isn't. Yes, I'll give Carnahan all the credit in the world for taking a cheap, awful flick and getting enough juice behind it to market the thing to where it is today, but that's all. This did not belong on the video store shelf, nor did it belong on a channel that viewers have to pay for. It's marketed as a regular film; it should carry a warning that notes what it really is: something just below "demo tape for rejected artist". Do not waste your time.


Have you ever watched a VHS (remember those?) that was copied from a tape that was already a copy? If you did, you'd know the quality was really bad by that point. That's how copies work...the more generations you make, the worse it gets. That's pretty much how I'd sum up this film. It feels like a Tarantino rip off, and all but Tarantino's first couple movies are rip offs themselves (you can call it an "homage" all you want...the dude steals stuff and makes a few minor changes).

The plot is pretty basic at best. A couple of friends decide to save their failing used car dealership by taking on more than they can handle with a random assortment of bad guys. Of course by the time that happened I was already bored to tears. The writers try to make up for a tired story with some snappy dialog and succeed once or twice, but overall the whole thing is just one big failure. They should really remove the "blood" and "guts" part of the title...there's not much of the former and none of the latter. The "bullets" part is up for debate as well since there's not much in the way of gun play going on. Sadly, there's not much of anything going onat all. Period. It's just bad...even for a low budget rip off.


Two used car lot owners, who we know nothing about, get involved with numerous shady characters, who we know nothing about, while being paid to watch a Pontiac convertible, which we know nothing about. Why would anyone be interested in a movie that explains nothing, and has zero character development? The obvious answer is you wouldn't. Throw in unending closeups of meaningless dialog, a "surprise" ending that is so ridiculous, it will leave you wondering if it didn't come from a different film, and other trivial nonsense that does nothing to explain this confused mess. Forget even considering seeing B.G.B. & O, instead seek out "Suckers", another low budget crime drama centering around a used car operation, that is absolutely brilliant. - MERK


Garbage. Honestly I don't know if this had any redeeming features. Hmmmmm....I think it was a short movie, but I'm not sure. Somebody tried to give two talentless, unsympathetic gimps hip, trendy, Tarantino-esque dialogue, but failed miserably. The hitman is utterly ridiculous in every sense. The acting stinks, the characters stink, the script stinks. I guess I kinda like the title though...


The teaser on the front of the movie box said, "better than The Usual Suspects!" I couldn't disagree more. This movie solely lacked any character development, was poorly acted, and had a dumb storyline. Don't waste your time.


This could have been a good film if it had a good director and someone to edit the script. Writer-director Joe Carnahan is a little too enamored with his Tarantino-like dialogue, a little goes a long way. Some of the acting is good, I like Carnahan and Dan Harlan as Danny Woo, but other times it is painfully low-budget. I give the film-makers credit for coming up with some visually interesting ways of filming the violent shoot-outs. Overall, the good bits are just a little too few and far between to make this really enjoyable.


Everything that can be bad about a movie is here. First off, if you're directing a very low budget movie, don't cast yourself in the lead. As clearly evident here, the lead flubs lines and ad-libs a lot to the already awful dialog, but since he's also the director/editor/craft service and everything, he can do what he wants.

This is another one of those "I think I'm just like Tarantino but I'm not actually even in the ballpark" movies. There are long scenes of bad dialog where a point is made, then repeated over and over and over and over for ten minutes. Some of it is so contrived and poorly written, it'll literally make you cringe (the Johnny Cash thing was amazingly bad). It's one of the problems with amateurs making movies these days: everything thinks by making pop culture references, you're the next Tarantino and it doesn't work that way. Editing in dialog was a huge necessity here but I'm guessing the writer/director/editor/grip didn't think so. I'm betting this script was done in one draft, that's it, let's shoot.

And editing and directing of the actual movie was pretty bad. Apparently the director has never heard of the words "establishing shot." 95% of the movie is done in extreme close up, much of the time the actor's faces aren't even fully in screen. There are lots of quick, useless cuts (a lot in black in white which does nothing other than remind you you're watching a poorly made movie).

I realize this is a low budget film, so when we see the crime scene and it's two "FBI" guys, a guy digging in the garbage who is apparently unfamiliar with the term "contanimating evidence" and an ambulance (which serves no purpose at all, the director must have known someone who works at an ambulance service), it's clearly evident there was no budget. If you can't make a realistic looking crime scene (at least have SOME POLICE and police tape is cheap), then don't have it at all. I had fast forwarded through a lot of the movie because it was pretty hard to watch. By the time I got to this scene, it was all I could stand.

Another amazingly annoying thing is the title cards that introduce EVERY SCENE. Because we're all too stupid to just get the scene without being introduced to it, we have to these annoying title cards that tell us what we're about to watch. Three or four times during a movie; that's okay. But every two minutes?

I do not refer to this as a "film" since it was shot on video and run through the "film look" software (like Magic Bullet) which only makes your video look like grainy video (although some of the cinematography on the outside stuff is done really well - I'll give them that).

What's move baffling to me is this guy actually got real directing work after (Narc and Smokin' Aces). What has the world come to? There's no doubt this guy has a huge ego (I don't know why). In his bio, he's actually got a bit about, and I quote: "...where his journey to greatness began." Someone shoot me.


I have no idea whether this was an indie movie (or even what the definition would be), but it was pretty pathetic. The plot was horribly slow, acting was horrible... I'd call it a bad B movie, but I think it was trying to be artsy. Only the fact that I'd forced my g/f to rent it (thinking it would be a great B) kept me watching the whole thing. If a plot won't go anywhere, at least make it intellectually stimulating (like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead). Truly one of the worst movies I've seen.


I watched "Thirdspace" and had to come on to IMDb and read the comments to see if others thought it was as unsatisfying as I thought it to be... and I am glad to see I am in agreement with others.

The plot is a good idea that was ruined by drawn-out segments that detracted from the flow of the story. The elevator scene was beyond ridiculous, too much fist-fighting, I never once saw a thirdspace ship destroyed before or after the climactic event, and you'd think that Sheridan might have once been rammed into by a passing ship!

On the bright side, effects were solid, Ivonova still rocks, and the audio commentary was fun to listen to even though not enlightening. This is one of the movies I won't pop in too frequently in the future.


Oddly, Thirdspace comes across more as a remake of 5 Million Years to Earth (i.e., Quartermass and the Pit) than anything. There's an ancient alien artifact that turns humans against each other and causes psychic disturbances. Stracynski's attempt at a Lovecraftian tale is okay, but both somewhat at odds with B5, mildly redundant (aren't the Shadows Lovecraftian?), and at the end goes for a big battle/finish (complete with a "blow 'em up" bomb tactic). Within the limits of a 90 minute movie, and with the obligatory bows to the B5 universe, Thirdspace seems oddly truncated.


I came away from this show feeling bored and empty. B5 is in the creators own words about the human condition. Apart from the beginning scene where Lyta talks about arrogance it is just another junk sci-fi movie.

Maybe if you're a fan of the usual stuff that gets trundled out in the sci-fi genre you may like this. Movies about monsters from other dimensions. However, I liked B5 for its emotional turmoil and because I came to admire the characters.

This show has it's moments for the fans but mostly its a let down for the B5 series.


This was part of a series of Showtime produced remakes of Roger Corman classics. I don't know if the world was clamoring for a remake of WASP WOMAN but we got it. Jennifer Rubin stars as the owner of a cosmetics company who starts to depend on the experimental work of an discredited doctor (Daniel J. Travanti) in order to maintain her youth. Hey, that is the exact same plot as CATWOMAN! Only this cost about $84 million less. Director Jim Wynorski fares well enough with this entry in his extensive filmography. The movie is filled with bad acting (most notably from Rubin), cheesy effects and bad dialogue. But it moves fast enough, contains plenty of nudity (courtesy of Maria Ford) and features some B-acting greats (Gerrit Graham, Jay Richardson). And, at the very least, you get to see Emmy award winner Travanti get attacked by a big wasp that used to be his pet cat.


The Wasp Woman (1995) was a made-for-cable version of the original 1960 classic B-movie. Well, this was made for pay cable but the film-makers didn't focus enough on the adult aspect of the story-line. Instead they tried to make a cheesy sci-fi/horror film with enough glad handing and back slapping to make this one unenjoyable. This remake was a lot better than the one made several years before, but it still is missing something. I mean you have a decent director Jim Wynorski and an attractive lead actress, plus the theme of the film. I don't know. Maybe I was hoping too much for an actual movie that delivers the goods.

Well, it was a decent made-for-cable-t.v. movie. But it could have been so much better. Believe me it could have. Who knows, maybe three times the charm!

Slightly recommended.


Other commentators are way to lenient with remakes of old, cheap, drive-in movie fare. Why do a remake that is even more cheesy than the original? Jennifer Rubin is not nearly good-looking enough (at any of the ages attempted in this film) for this role, not to mention that I confess that I spoke too soon in my comments on the remake of Not of This Earth regarding ridiculously skinny actresses. Like that movie the sets got worse as the movie progressed until some of the scenes looked like they were filmed inside a big packing box. The idea that drives this story is not very good to begin with and warranted no remake, unless as part of a general spoof of the 50's/60's cheap SF phenomenon. My advice is: if you see this movie on the rental shelf, keep walking. Roger Corman has had a long career and I presume he is very rich but he has pretty much been a synonym for fairly bad, low-budget movies. His real claim to fame is the number of careers he has launched for makers of better movies.


Perhaps for 1954 this was OK, but I do not think it stands the test of time at all. Generally faithful to the book, I do not know if this movie or book created the formula of a intellectual, a street wise punk, a country hick, etc, etc in a unit - but this movie sure follows that formula.

It's very traditional. Kids who are patriotic enlist in WW2 to fight. They meet women, become Marines and want to fight. The battle scenes are OK for their time, I do not need to see gore to make it real and this movie does not glorify war.

I found it interesting the DVD cover - shows scantily clad (for 1954) women, and 1/2 of the movie centers around the men and women who meet, fall in or out of love. There are historical errors which normally do not bother me - one scene shows Black Marines, they were not integrated in 1942, Army units relieved the Marines on Guadalcanel, Tarawa was over in three horrific days.

If you fast forward to 1987, you see pretty much the exact same formula in Full Metal Jacket, but with more graphic gore.

Maybe I'm too harsh. It's exactly what you would expect of a 1954 war movie made about WW2 - patriotic, sentimental, clichéd.


Battle Cry - from beer to eternity- this Raoul Walsh directed ode to the marines is a long slog-148 minutes- and most of it is spent following the marines on liberty and their love lives.Some of it works- Aldo Ray is surprisingly effective as big lumberjack who falls for the New Zealand gal - but for the most part this overwrought melodrama follows lesser lights like Tab Hunter.Based on a script by Leon M. Uris and featuring a score by Max Steiner this movie is over-sentimental and a middling soap opera.James Whitmore does a good job as Mac the Sargent and Raymond Massey is fine in his cameo as a general-but for the most part this is a less glamorous and more plodding retake on the From Here to Eternity vibe.The DVD has a trailer and text retrospective on Walsh's directorial career.Avoid this like a landmine. C-


This musical-fantasy-nursery-rhyme concoction seems to be a sentimental favourite for lots of people, but it just doesn't stand up. It's a live-action film that imitates cartoons, and the cartoons are better in most ways. The problem here is the forced jollity of the conceit, a romp through story-book land. The actors are wooden, the writing is dismal, and not even the scary Crooked Man scenery-chewing of Henry Brandon as Silas Barnaby or the good-natured fumbling of Laurel and Hardy can save it. Perhaps the nadir is the climactic battle scene between Old King Cole's people, helped by a platoon of tall wooden soldiers built mistakenly by Laurel and Hardy, chasing Barnaby and his ogre henchmenthey're all wearing shaggy brown Dr. Denton pajamas and ugly masks and little hornsinto the river. Every once in a while one Tom-Tom the Piper's Son or Little Bo-Peep burst into song. I wish they wouldn't. There are some exceptionally ugly puppets, the three rubber-headed little pigs, a fiddling cat, and a pesky mouse that looks a lot like Mickey if he had been carved from a block of soap and rolled around the sound stage by some obscure magnetic force. There are some good lines and some good bits of businesswhen Stan pretends to be Bo-Peep and gets married to Barnaby, Ollie is ready to leave him there because, after all, he is marriedbut nothing can save this well-intentioned, badly written, feverishly energetic, garish movie. A minority opinion, but nearly any other film version of the world of children's literature is heaps better than this.


The problem with Laurel and Hardy is that most of their best work is hard to come by at present. Only a handful of their features and shorts have been released on DVD, so something like Babes In Toyland seems good. But that's only if you haven't seen their other work. Babes In Toyland was primitive even for 1934 and even as children's fare. The costumes (especially of the "Boogie Men")are tacky and would barely fool a 4-year old. Stan and Ollie have a few good moments but I would estimate they only add up to about 10 or 15 minutes of screen time. The rest of the movie seems to assume that children are just complete idiots. Again, any child over 4 would be bored out of his skull by this travesty. Even Hal Roach -- in later years and in an honest moment -- admitted this was far from the best work by the comedy team. As one person commented this is like they were trying to imitate a cartoon. That's especially valid when you consider most cartoons from this era also assumed children were idiots and were so cutesy-poo that nowadays they seem not only silly but sickening. This film is am embarrassment to Laurel and Hardy and the truly fine comedies they made both before and after this.


When I read all the other comments on "Babes in Toyland" I was surprised to notice that all of 'em were written in a most positive way. "Babes in Toyland" seems to be an extremely sweet, charming, beautiful, and absolutely endearing film - movie that everybody loves! The only bad thing people could find was the fact that some sick idiot had the nerve to colorize it! I wouldn't like to be a kill-joy but I have to give my personal opinion - totally different point of view. I hated this sugary crap.

Now you must think of me as a guy who simply don't like Laurel & Hardy and old comedies generally. I'm a big fan of Laurel & Hardy and that's the main reason why I think this irritating film sucked. Would somebody tell me one thing about the good-old days? Why did they had to spoil so many of the comedy classics with way too many annoying musical numbers? Let's take Marx brothers movies for example. There were four blokes: Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo - one hilarious comic genius after another. And when I try to watch their movies and enjoy their brilliant anarchistic comedy I get stupid, irrelevant songs that interrupt my enjoyment at regular intervals.

"Babes in Toyland" made me feel disappointed and angry. I wanted to see as much of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy fooling around as possible. My wishes didn't came true. Laurel & Hardy, the two reasons why I wanted to watch this movie in the first place were buried under the amazingly childish story, bunch of foolish characters like Little Bo-Peep and Barnaby and a huge bunch of maddening songs. If you want to see truly an old feel-good movie for the holidays - one that's actually good - try Frank Capra's breathtaking classic "It's a wonderful life" and forget this one.

I say this once again: I have absolutely nothing against Laurel & Hardy, on the contrary: I love the two wacky blokes. I just can't stand this mushy movie. If "Babes in Toyland" really makes you feel happy, good for you. Then by all means watch the damn flick! If you have seen it as a child I can understand why you may still like it as an adult. If I have to see this treacly, sickly-sweet trash once again I get an overdose of sugar and need to vomit. If you wish to watch a superb Laurel & Hardy -flick check out "Sons of the desert" (1933) or especially "Our relations" (1936) and get ready for ceaseless laughter.


Laurel and Hardy star as boarders in the Little Old Woman's shoe home in Toyland. Her daughter, Bo Peep, is pretty, sweet, angelic and very virginal--which is exactly why the evil Barnaby wants to force her to marry him. So it's up to Stan and Ollie to save the day.

For some odd reason, this Laurel and Hardy movie has been elevated to classic status. I have no idea why, as it's a rather bland and stupid kids movie that completely wastes the team's talents. Heck, even most of their 1940s feature-length films are better than this! The only interesting elements are the beautiful sets and unusual costumes as well as the part where Stan marries Barnaby (who says the idea of Gay marriage is new!). Since this movie was first made, it's been remade several times--and each time it is a total bore. Even as a child, I hated this movie (especially with all its god-awful music) and wanted the REAL Laurel and Hardy instead!

During the 1930s, Hal Roach Studios (affiliated with MGM) periodically put the team in some really weird movies and this one may not be the weirdest one (that honor goes to either BABES IN TOYLAND of FRA DIAVOLO--an OPERETTA with Laurel and Hardy comedy segments!)--but it certainly is one of the worst full-length film they made--and this includes most of their rather lame 1940s and 1950 film (the only ones that are worse than BABES are THE BIG NOISE and UTOPIA). I guess I can understand trying something new (since Laurel and Hardy made 15 billion movies and shorts) but the results were often sub-par and they were usually much better in shorts. If you do want to see one of their GOOD full-length films, try to watch Sons of the Desert, Bonny Scotland or Our Relations--not this overly saccharine and limp mess.

By the way, early in the film, there's a 1930s style Mickey Mouse in Toyland. Inside is apparently a monkey. Both the Mickey and song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" were from Disney and RKO--apparently MGM Studios purchased rights or Disney (for once) wasn't in a litigious mood. Also, get a load of the Bogeymen. They look a lot like the dancing savages from the Marlene Dietrich film BLONDE VENUS!!


I won't be as harsh as the other writer, but this movie is pretty much a mess. It almost looks like a showcase for "up-and-coming" actors, anchored by Adolphe Monjou. I don't know why Andrea Leeds disappeared, she's no better or worse than anyone else from the era, and very pretty besides. Reminded me of Donna Reed. Kenny Baker is doing a great Dick Powell, only a few years too late. His type of part was becoming obsolete. He is very good here and 9 years later in "The Harvey Girls". But musical numbers come out of nowhere, and suddenly you hear Helen Jepson and Charles Cullman from the Metropolitan Opera, and see Vera Zorina the ballerina (quite funny in her comedy scenes). I never got the appeal of the Ritz Brothers. It's nice (and rare) to see Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Bergen's timing is impeccable, and Charlie, is, well, Charlie. I sort of see why they were successful on radio. Monjou is on autopilot, but he can't do much else in this creaky vehicle. Ignore the plot, watch the individual scenes. Pretty to look at, but don't think too much.


Legendary bad movie (Just ask Michael Medved who put it in one of his bad movie books) about a movie producer who's producing a string of flops. in en effort to get humanity back into his pictures he hires a small town girl to be his Miss Humanity and help him steer pictures in the right direction. Beautiful Technicolor turkey thats as wrong headed as the movie its suppose to be about. Full of ballet, opera and the finer things the film also boasts low grade humor from the Ritz Brothers, some middle of the road Gershwin songs and Charlie McCarthy. Its a movie or the upper brow, or what the low class would think is high class. Unfunny with a sense of humor that is off four ways to Sunday this movie elicits the gag reflex not the laugh reflex. Whats worse is that any humor that works gets lost via the "artistic" bits of opera and ballet. I won't even get into the romance which is just plain fake. A road accident of a film rightly consigned to one of the all time bad lists.


Sam Goldwyn's creative juices must have been frozen when he came with the idea of this film, a bad remake of the more successful "Ziegfeld Follies". This movie shows how imitation was the worst form of flattery. The ingredients that went into this "stew", might have appeared to be right at the super market, but what comes out as a result is an indelible mess.

George Marshall doesn't show any inspiration in the way the material is presented. The timing is off and the movie feels fake from the start.

Giving the film makers the benefit of the doubt, this project appeared to have been doomed from the start. The mere idea of a big Hollywood producer like Oliver Martin relying on the taste of a naive young woman with not an ounce of sophistication, or any idea what the movies were about, is not to be believed. Granted, those were other times, but it asks a lot from the viewer. The other thing that is wrong in the movie is the way the musical numbers are presented. The horrible ballet sequence about Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending and danced by half of the company tap dancing, while the rest are in tutus and toe shoes, is not to be believed, even if the creator was George Ballanchine, himself.

The Ritz brothers are obnoxious every time we see them. That song about the pussy cats has to be one of the worst ever. Kenny Baker singing "Love Walked In" while frying hamburgers is laughable, at best. Vera Zorina's Olga is another annoying figure, as is Edgar Bergen, whose only job is to act as a buffer between numbers. Adolph Menjou does what he can in a thankless job. Andrea Leeds appears as Hazel, who Oliver calls Miss Humanity.

Not even the wonderful Gershwin songs, or the cinematography of the great Gregg Toland can save this pastiche. As Wayne Malin has commented in this forum, "The Goldwyn Follies" turns out to be a camp fest about two hours too long!