Fred Vogel, director of the (mostly) effective faux snuff August Underground trilogy, takes the basic plot of Sam Raimi's The Evil Deada group of people travel to a remote abandoned building where, one-by-one, they fall victim to an evil spirit that possesses their bodiesand gives it the ToeTag treatment: the characters are universally loathsome; there is plenty of swearing and female nudity; and, of course, Vogel (with help from make-up FX guy Jerami Cruise) delivers oodles of violence and general nastiness.

Unfortunately, despite sounding like a gore-hound's dream-come-true, The Redsin Tower is actually a rather disappointing film that suffers badly from an uneventful beginning (a good 40 minutes pass before anything really interesting happens), some rather confusing moments and an unnecessary sub-plot (featuring a psycho ex-boyfriend of one of the girls), and bloody awful lighting that often makes it impossible to see what is going on.

Vogel would have done much better if he'd 'borrowed' more than just the plot from Raimi's 1982 masterpiece for his first stab at a 'real' film. Had he emulated the actual structure and pacing of The Evil Dead, which was a non-stop horror roller-coaster ride, then the result might've been much more successful. Instead, the first half of the film is wasted watching a despicable bunch of losers do nothing but take drugs and talk about sex; the second half is spent watching them stumble around an old building in the dark before being killed. And with absolutely no-one likable in the whole movie, it's hard to give a damn what happens to them anyway.

Even those viewers who settle down to watch this film purely for the gore will end up feeling a tad cheated. Although there are some violent deaths (my favourite being when a pretty goth chick gets axed), everything is shot in such poor lighting that it's almost impossible to see any of the bloodletting clearly. It's a shame that the only special effect that really sticks in my mind is a very silly looking bat creature.

With his undeniably powerful faux snuff movies, Fred Vogel certainly made a name for himself on the underground horror circuit. However, if he wishes to create such a stir with fans of more 'traditional' horror films, then he really needs to come up with something better than this.


Story by Bruce Campbell, produced by Scott Spiegel, starring Sam Raimi, and directed by Josh Becker - the crew that made The Evil Dead. This is like a movie a couple of drunken friends would make over a weekend. Not a single thing is believable about it, from the main character's limp to the 30-year old they got to play a high school student. This is NOT a good movie, yet I can't call it totally un-enjoyable.

The story starts with some day-for-night, Midwest-for-Vietnam battle scenes in which Stryker gets his leg shot in a disastrous attack on an enemy village. This information could have been relayed quickly in any number of ways, but the first 20 minutes of the picture is devoted to this. It's all padding and has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, except for Stryker's fake limp and his Marine buddies showing up later on. Cut to Michigan years later. Stryker is coming back to his hometown at the same time a maniacal cult is cutting up the locals. But nobody notices until the Cult Leader (played by Spider-Man director Sam Raimi) kidnaps Stryker's potential girlfriend. Then he and his military pals bring on the violence.

The violence in this movie is so poorly executed, it's laughable. The squibs are visible underneath the actors' clothes, the blood is obviously red syrup, and the fight scenes are the least exciting I think I've ever seen. It's a rare movie that's so bad it's good (and funny). Most movies that people recommend for the same reason are usually so bad they're just bad. I don't expect anyone to rush out and see this based on it being a terrible movie. Most of the dialogue attempts to be taken seriously, but the occasional brilliantly stupid line comes up. "Don't touch the sacrificial fluids! Okey-dokey?" Or when the Cult Leader claims to be Jesus Christ reincarnated, Stryker simply replies, "No, you're not." It was all I could do to muffle my laughter and not wake up my roommates.

http://www.movieswithmark.com


"Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except" is a Rambo-style revenge yarn with a little Charlie Manson thrown in for good measure. Sargeant Stryker, a 'Nam vet, and his patrol, are harassed back in America by a cult headed by hippy-looking Sam Raimi, the future director of "Spiderman". They hatch a plot to take bloody revenge on the cult members and gore follows. Unfortunately, since this film is captained by Josh Becker, the director of the awful "If I Had A Hammer", the passable "Running Time", and the execrable "Lunatics - A Love Story", the execution is flawed. The acting is deliberately over the top and inconsistent, and the special effects are cheesy, but the main problem with "..Except" is its uneven tone and pacing. Though a tale of vengeance, it has long, boring passages of puerile, pretentious dialog and the action sequences are unconvincing. It's like Becker decided he didn't want to be associated with an exploitation film, so he tried turning the rig around during shooting. The result is a very questionable "cult" film.


There is not one thing that I really liked about this movie. I thought if Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi were involved, then this would be a decent flick. Boy, was I wrong. I found the story lacking. All but like two of the death were worth a darn.


If you're Australian and this flick means something to you, i.e. you and the future love of your life enjoyed it together on a first date, forgive what I'm about to say. "Snapshot" is a huge snore. It should have been better, Simon Wincer is a director of talent and taste and Anthony Giname is an excellent producer. But the script was obviously written by a moron. Besides scenes like the usually wonderful Chantal Contouri explaining her lesbianism to the main character by telling her, "I bang a different gong", which you can at least laugh about, it has a totally confusing and ridiculous ending, preceded by about 90 minutes of snoozy dialog and cartoon cutout antagonists, none of which have anything to do with reality. Even the beautiful Sigrid Thornton being topless can't save it. She plays Angela, a hairdresser-cum-model who, the opening would have us believe, has been incinerated by someone. The remainder is a flashback. If the pacing and script don't reveal, after about 10 minutes, that she's not truly a corpse after all, then you may be able to actually get into this. I could not. It's a mess of 70's clichés, which, since it came out in 1981 (although it might have been on the shelf for a while), you've got to believe were stale, even then. The ending is a disagreeable mess. The person you were supposed to believe is a stalker, is not. The killer isn't the stalker either (or maybe he's a different stalker entirely). Contouri and Thornton happily wind up driving down the street in the ice cream truck owned by the stalker's (who isn't the stalker) ice cream truck, after running him over. Confused? Welcome to the club. At any rate, it's all wearing, inconsequential and ultimately anti-climactic. No scares, no thrills at all.


Quite recently I watched a marvelous documentary on Australian exploitation cinema entitled "Not Quite Hollywood: the True, Untold Story of Ozploitation"  which I highly recommend to anyone  and it really stimulated me to track down a lot of titles I've never even heard about before. "Snapshot" is one of them; a peculiar psycho-thriller/melodrama hybrid that coincidentally came out shortly after the huge box office success of "Halloween" and thus had to be re-titled "The Day After Halloween" in order to make extra money and cash in on the success of John Carpenter's classic. Obviously this movie has absolutely nothing to do with Halloween, Michael Myers or Haddonfield and hopefully not too many people will be beguiled by this cheap marketing scam. I'm not even too sure "Snapshot" fully qualifies as horror, since the film barely features any genuine moments of fright. Despite the still relatively low number of independent cult movies produced in Australia around that time, "Snapshot" is an adequate and professional accomplishment with proper production values, respectable performances and ambitious story contents. Heck, the film is so ambitious that the drama overrules and the thriller elements never really even come through. "Snapshot" is much more of a satiric portrait of the sleazy and dishonest advertising/modeling industry than it is a nail-biting suspense thriller. Director Simon Wincer ("Harlequin", "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man") seemingly never ceases to enlarge the melodramatic universe surrounding the main character Angela, but actually there's very few action. 19-year-old Angela is lurid into shooting a topless modeling ad by an eloquent and she promptly gets offered a job as the face of a perfume brand. Angela is very enthusiast and moves in with her photographer, especially since she's tired of her domineering mother and dead-end job at the hair dresser salon. She rapidly adapts to her new classy life and doesn't even have to bother anymore about her stalking ex-boyfriend and his (not-so) inconspicuous ice cream van. However, she learns this is predominantly a rotten world full of greed, betrayal, false promises, sexual harassment, blackmail and danger. As said, "Snapshot" is a plain straightforward coming-of-age drama falsely advertised as a genuine horror movie. There are two noteworthy sequences near the very end, but they hardly seem worth waiting for. This could be an interesting and compelling viewing experience, but then you better know beforehand to expect a serious-toned film instead of a brainless slasher imitation.


The novel from which the film was based was a very good Maine novel from Ruth Moore. From everything I've read about the movie plot and focus, the story was changed drastically. They really ought not to have put the author up on the credits. People wouldn't want to read the book after they gutted the story for the film.

Anne's character wasn't opposed to Hod's going to sea at all!!!! I don't know where they came up with that one for the film and other stuff.

The novel's author Ruth Moore must have flipped out when they tore her story up and created an entirely different one.

Read the book, Spoonhandle, if you can find a copy.

I'd still like to see the film someday for its location cinematography and it's always fun to see the young Dean Stockwell.


This is almost grade B category in film making - the story is a simple one of an orphan who is attracted to the sea, surrounded by adults who try to keep him from it- no wonder he runs away and steals to get money to hop busses. Dean Stockwell is the boy, Jean Peters (Miss Bland) and Dana Andrews (Mr. Bland) are the on again-off again lovers who may decide his fate. Black and white camera work of Maine harbors is attractive. One 6 minute sequence of a totally implausible rescue during a storm at sea earned an Oscar nom for Special Effects - must have been a very sparse year in this category. An okay film for kids, but nothing special for adults.


Anyone who has given this movie higher than a 5, has never seen any other DBZ film or are just hardcore fanatics. I have been watching the series for over 10 years and seen only 2 other films besides this one. So Im gonna give you a brief list of whats HORRIBLE about this film.

First its pretty short, you got all these elements and different stories colliding with each other and being condensed as much as it possibly could be in a 50 minute film.

Its not even live action animation, its friggin cartoony as hell and reminded me of when I was 10 years old being amused by the childish pokemon crap, If you watch any other DBZ they barely do that corny Animee face gesture bs, and if they do it its appropriate. In this film they do it too much it gets on your nerves on how fruity it is.

If you seen the series you know how long it would take to wear down Goku or Vegeta, in this movie, Goku and Vegeta give up pretty easily and are left to consider their last resort of fusing very shortly after meeting Janemba. Then they fuse and Gogeta fights for about half as long as Goku and Vegeta tried against Janemba.

Janemba, what a cool villain, but jeez you barely get a grasp of his character, you don't learn much about him or have the time to really take him in. I know in the Show you get like 40 episodes to take in a villain, but in other movies you get a real good sense of who Cooler or Brolly was, feel their pain and harbor a little bit of their revenge for the sayains.

Janemba is more like, "hey I just came out of nowhere, but since I am a threat to the universe I might as well destroy all natural order, hey who are these guys, woops Im dead" Its such a dumb story! Its a real crappy movie TRUST ME! If you guys liked this garbage you have never seen any other DBZ film because this Movie was a huge let down. I cannot believe how many people actually say this is the best DBZ movie ever.


The saying "sequels ain't equals" is definitely demonstrated in this completely lackluster follow-up to the earlier brilliantly witty "Fritz the Cat".

While both films portray an anthropomorphic view of 70s counterculture using animals, and both use the shock value of drugs, sex and cursing to stir up a reaction; this movie by a totally different production team completely lacks any of the charm, personality, or essential feeling that made the earlier film so appealing.

While I am not a member of this counterculture and don't relate to it personally very well, I did try to keep an open mind while watching both movies, and neither one really shocked me that much - maybe because they're getting older and I've witnessed more shock value in recent movies. With the original FRITZ THE CAT I got the impression that the "naughty" stuff was true to life, and helped make the characters real and interesting. With NINE LIVES the whole thing just felt like some very bad schoolboy joke that merely shows off the "smutty" bits for their own sake, and doesn't go anywhere with them. It all seems just a bit overdone. The take on Nazi Germany had a teeny bit of satirical value, but it hardly seemed to be worth the trouble, and the idea has been done a lot more effectively elsewhere.

Summing up: don't waste your time with this one, unless you're a fanatical completest. But go and enjoy the original FRITZ THE CAT, if you feel you can handle it.


Following the success of 'Fritz the Cat' and the hasty killing-off of its main character by its disgusted creator R.Crumb, cynical shark and Saturday morning cartoon hack Steve Krantz cranked out this sequel. And apart from a funky musical score and some pretty good animation, it's much the same as the original - noisy, needlessly offencive garbage that revels in shock value for its own sake. The film tries to be 'hip to the trip' with endless drug references, sex scenes and racial stereotyping, but succeeds only in coming across as a complete mess. Once in a rare while, a good idea does emerge from the quagmire, only to disappear again in a welter of self-indulgence, grossness, gutter language and rank stupidity. And if you haven't got at least 70 minutes' worth of material to begin with, there's no way you're going to make anything like a worthwhile film - and it's not long before the Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat shows its true worth by including more padding than you'd find in a cheap mattress. Pointless hallucinatory sequences, meaningless 'experimental' scenes, bunches of re-used animation, 'far-out' light shows...you name it, this film grabs at all the straws it can find in order to struggle through its alloted running time. If you get bored before the end, you're not missing anything, because there is no resolution, no big finale, nothing. Krantz and company just keep sticking half-baked idea after lame 'joke' until they've finished. Rather than buying or renting this, invest in a couple of R.Crumb books instead. You'll be better served by them.


Just a couple of thoughts after watching nine lives of fritz the cat.

First of all i think it's nothing more than a cash-in on the first movie. Second the animators are not the same, the director is not the same, actually quite a lot isn't the same as the first one, which is a bad thing, since this second fritz movie doesn't have a proper story line, or a good script, actually it doesn't have anything of the things that made the first movie so wonderful. The feeling is gone.

Still it's Fritz the Cat and all is not lost, but all through the film i get the feeling that the director just took all the ingredients of the first fritz movie and mashed them together to a lifeless pile, sticking them in here and there, maybe because that's what he thought the fans wanted (and that would make more money). Then he managed to portray Fritz as somewhat of a loser, which he may be, in some people's eyes', but i don't think that's the feeling you get from the first one. This one is more rough. It's almost abusive to the original. So my suggestion is; if you haven't seen any of the fritz movies, watch the first one only, this one isn't quite worth while. Afterwards you could try the second, but don't get your hopes up.


WTF? This is one messed up movie. I guess I should have expected that with anything remotely related to Robert Crumb, but this movie redefines the boundaries of tastelessness for me. I was sometimes incredulous, often distgusted, and never amused. The only value to this movie is as a historical record (made in 1974) of a sick and twisted mind. I like subversive material as much as the next guy, but come on!


I think that I went into this film expecting something completely different from what the film actually represented because I was expecting something completely raunchy and funny. While I appreciated the animation, I was left pretty flat by most of the social commentary/satire. There were images and messages that I of course understood (Hitler, Kissinger, etc.) but the majority of the subject matter was fairly relevant to the present time.

Unfortunately, especially during the bizarre psychedelic freak out moments I found myself looking at the clock which is actually kind of sad considering the film was only just over an hour to begin with. Having said that however, I am glad that I finally saw this film so that I know what it was actually about, and I give the filmmakers a lot more credit for having created something that transcended novelty smut.

--Shelly


but that's it. An R-rated animated film has Fritz (a cat) being told off endlessly by his wife about his drug habit, being on welfare, being bad in bed etc etc. As she screams at him, he sits there totally stoned out of his mind and drifts off into different lives. The emphasis here is on sex, vulgarity, tons of swearing, explicit violence, buckets of blood and plenty on racial issues (in one segment, New Jersey is sold to black people!). In other segments: Friz meets an alcoholic, flatuant Jesus Christ; is an assistant to Hitler and psychoanalyzes him; is an astronaut; in a pointless 30s segments and trying to cash his welfare check.

How this got an R rating is beyond me--there's enough explicit material here for a strong NC-17. The film never stops moving, the animation is very good but there's no real story. The sequences are very strange (to say the least) and take pot shots at everything from religion to race to sex and drugs--but why? There's no point or point of view. Also there are pointless psychedlic light shows with bad 70s music. They bored me silly--I fast forwarded through them. Also the constant swearing, violence and sex wore me down and got dull after a while. And the racial issues are handled quite offensively (for black and white) and are VERY 70s.

Not really worth your time. Skip it. "Fritz the Cat" was better.


You'd have to be pretty stoned to enjoy the Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat. Besides the dreadful animation, the non-stories and the incredibly dated dialogue, the (arguably?) racist depictions of African Americans are incredibly offensive. The only bright spot is the psychedelic trip sequence which may have inspired the similar segment in Beavis and Butthead Do America. Watch it at your own risk---you'll feel dirty afterwards.


The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat succeeds in being offensive, but that's about all it does. Unlike the South Park movie, which came out in 99 and had a lot of comparisons to the Fritz the cat serious, Nine lives is neither smart nor funny. It's disgusting, just like Crumb's comics. Pederasts and serial killers need only apply.


Robert Blake is a boxer who is framed for a murder and has to try and clear himself.My notes said "Dull Barely watchable film this stinks". Which I think sums it all up. The problem aside from a plot thats too obvious for words and direction, which gets points for trying something different but which fails in execution, is that this is Blake in one of his more "interesting" performances. He's clearly got some kind of a performance on his mind, the problem is that it comes off rather bizarre and not really watchable. Even his attempt at channeling Jack Nicholson in a diner ala Five Easy Pieces doesn't work. The cut of the film I saw ran about 65 minutes which means that a chunk of time is missing (IMDB lists a run time of 85 minutes), but given whats here I wouldn't ever try a revisit.


I am an otaku and a fan of the Final Fantasy games. I liked the Final Fantasy movie, but hated the old OVA series. This is in many ways worse than the old series. From the begining this series looks like it might be a somewhat decent and entertaining fantasy, but after a few episodes you will see that this is not much better than Pokemon. The digital cell animation is cutesy and digital-looking. The 3D is blocky and out of place; much worse than the awful 3D in Candidate for Goddess. The characters are one-dimensional, whiney, and annoying. The voice acting, while pretty good, isn't anything particularly special. The story is cliched, much more "like a videogame" than the video games. Deffinately geared towards children. The only redeeming qualities are some surreal landscapes and semi-interesting homages to the games. 3/10


I couldn't wait to take a look at Final Fantasy Unlimited after reading the article in Newtype magazine. Silly me, I assumed that the games' great characters, interesting plots and beautiful art would be present in the anime. The number of positive reviews for Final Fantasy Unlimited on IMDb.com is mind-blowing. Granted I've only watched the first episode, but it was repulsive and filled with clichés. Normally I'm the type of person to stay with an anime long after it goes bad, but lately I've completely lost my patience. I guess my main disappointment is that I expected it to live up to the games.

In all fairness, it was brash of me to drop this series after the first episode. But you have to be one hell of an anime to make a person go through these stages in twenty minutes:

1. "Well, this is alright."

2. "What?"

3. "Ugh! Wait, maybe it's a comedy!" (And it worked alright as an unintentional comedy)

4. "Life is too short." *Fast-forward, peek at next episode, turn off TV*

*Shrug* And I'm no FF expert... But I notice that in the beginning of the FF games I've played, you usually see the main character doing *something* really *cool* or nice. Here, we just have a bunch of random people freaking out over a huge light in the sky. So what? Who cares? Then we meet our protagonists.

The characters are nothing new. The bad-ass of the series, whose name I didn't learn because he's *so* MYSTERIOUS, seemed like he was crammed with every trait a dark loner could ever want: He has a dark cloak, long matted hair, unusual tattoos, broken glasses that obscure one eye AND amnesia! The twins, who appear to be the protagonists, are annoying even for anime kids. Some of their lines seemed to be ripped out of a bad fan fiction: "You're the ghost here lady!" "Ai! Remember your manners! Sorry, my name is..." And last but not least is a large-busted female we meet in the first episode, who the girl twin hates for some reason. When we first meet her, she speaks a few cryptic lines into a cellphone. In retrospect, this could have made for an interesting character. But somehow I completely forgot about that. I never attached to the characters because nothing about them sticks out to me.

The animation was as mediocre as the characters. I mean, sure it's colorful and digital, but the designs just lack that spark. I know that every additional line adds up real quickly in animation and that a TV show could never have the detail of even the FF sketches, but this is *really* minimalist. I've heard comparisons to Digimon's animation; all I can say is that even that had more detail than this. And besides, the Digimon designs always struck me as full of energy; these just look... typical. Maybe the lion's share of the animation budget went to the crappy 3-D special effects?

I dunno. Maybe I have really bad taste and no patience. But I would only recommend watching it so you're familiar with what people might bring up in conversation.


Watchable but nothing special. It reminded me of a sci-fi channel TV movie. Woulda made a mediocre Twighlight Zone or X-files episode.

I rate it a 3 because if you spent any money watching it, you might very well feel ripped off.

Some people might rate it higher because it's an indie, but I'm an average movie watcher, not a film-school teacher. I rate all movies by one standard.

It had a low-budget feel from the start. Camera and sound work were fine, The few small special effects were OK, so I guess it was the acting and directing that made it feel cheap. All the extras looked like acting students who like to stretch their lines out to get more face-time on camera.

The Baldwin brother looked like De Niro compared to the other actors, and no that's not a compliment. If you thought the movie "Unbreakable" was the bestest movie ever, then you might like this variation of the same theme.


This movie bombed so bad at the theaters in 1936 that RKO didn't make another color musical for 16 years!!! And it still stinks today! And to make matters worse... the DVD copy they are selling is a Black and White, 16mm bootleg print, that they somehow got copyrighted.. or at least they claim to hold the copyright. This thing has bad film splices and grainy picture quality. Plus the DVD jacket confuses Frank Morgan who is in this picture and was the Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz" with Harry Morgan who is not in this movie but was in "Mash" on TV. Real film historians!!!! Yeah right! I would have liked to seen the color version though, just for the fun of early Techocolor. I should learn not to take free movies from "friends". Do yourself a favor... don't buy dollar DVD's and never take free movies from friends! Oh and BTW, saying it is "digitally remastered" just means they transfered the film onto a digital DVD. They love to play word games.


The DVD is in B & W. Remastered but lacks any depth --- still looks old. Set in the 1800s the "Dance Master" does a lot of 1930 style tap dancing. Frank Morgan is funny but the rest is almost a waste of time. The whole problem with the culture and his teaching WALTZ dancing was how putting his right hand on the lady was an offense. I can't tell if this was for the 1936 audience or part of the 1800s culture. A few times a Mexican band played a few bars of Malaguena and then mixed it in with some other music style. Plot holes--The main character was kidnapped and forced to work on a pirate ship. Then he is let loose on land-the map shows LOS ANGELES; but he is clearly in Mexico... The map shows California is a state although in the 1800s; I believe the map is wrong for that era. Then when he is walking into town; the pirate ship leaves him--there is no explanation at all....


Joan Crawford chopping down the orange tree in her garden in "Mommie Dearest" was a lot scarier than the maniac chopping up dumb slasher-victim characters in "Stage Fright". Part of the reason is that she wasn't wearing a goofy owl mask while she did it. The killer in "Stage Fright" isn't so lucky.

In a turn of events that gives new meaning to the word "contrived", a group of actors become locked in a theater with a homicidal maniac who likes to dismember or otherwise mutilate his victims. The plot allows for a group of potential victims mostly distinguishable by their gender and/or hair color.

Typical of the best (and the worst) Italian horror flicks, "Stage Fright" is an exercise in style and violence. Unfortunately, it's a little spotty in this one. There are some interesting camera tricks (a la Argento and Bava), some attempts at gruesome gore, but no real scares or tension. Since none of the characters are behaving in a way that any rational human being would behave under the given circumstances, it's difficult to relate to what's going on in the picture. Take, for instance, the setup:

The bitchy, obsessive director of a low-rent musical alienates his cast members by hurling abuse at them as they rehearse. The female lead has a twisted ankle, yet the director isn't concerned about that. The wardrobe director convinces her to sneak out with her during a break so she can get her ankle looked at by a doctor at the "local hospital", which turns out to be a **psychiatric** hospital (cue ominous music). They just happen to be housing an ex-actor who went insane and cut up a bunch of people into little pieces, and by a strange coincidence he escapes and hitches a ride back to the theater by hiding in the back of the station wagon our two heroines are driving. It isn't long before the wardrobe girl gets a pick axe in her head, and when the body is discovered the police and the media show up. Unconcerned about clearing the crime scene, or the fact that any of the actors could be a potential suspect, the authorities just haul the body away and leave two policemen in a car to guard the remaining actors. The director forces the actors to continue their rehearsal, and nobody apparently considers that, oh I don't know, someone was just pick-axed to death and the maniac who did it may possibly still be around.

Yeah.

Well anyway, that's all you really need to know about the plot, the rest of the movie is people getting lured off on their own and slaughtered in various "creative" ways. The best thing the movie has going for it is a giddy sense of twisted humor, as in the final sequence (the one that proves the psycho killer in movies like this is NEVER dead). There's a little tension at the end with the "last one left alive" trying to stay out of sight. Otherwise, it's hard to ignore the irritating music, illogical motivation, or the fact that the killer is wearing a large goofy headdress that makes him look like an owl.


When my husband and I went to see this movie, we chose it purely because a) it wasn't one of the ridiculous movies already out, and b) it got a good rating on Rotten Tomatoes. At the snack counter, a poster proclaimed, "One of the most uplifting and optimistic movies of the year!"

After watching that movie, we concluded that the poster reviewer either was completely high, wandered into the wrong theater by mistake, or thinks that Schindler's List was a wacky comedy. The Road has to be one of the most depressing, pointless, excruciating movies you could ever see. It will make you want to go home and stick your head in the oven.

The first 7 hours of the movie contain an endless slog through a desolate landscape bereft of plant and animal life. Only bugs and humans remain, somehow. Everything else on Earth has been burnt or smashed by some unacknowledged Doomsday Event. The director leaves it up to the audience to somehow figure out what kind of reasonable scientific explanation could account for anyone surviving for any amount of time after all the oxygen-producing plant life plus everything else in the food chain between bugs and people bit the dust. Apparently it happens through the magic of Dole Pineapple Chunks, the search for which takes up another 4 hours of movie.

Once you get inured to this laugh riot, you eventually start to disassociate from the main characters. The Boy in the book is supposed to be 6 or 7. In the movie, though, he looks to be about 10 or 11, but seems to still act 6 or 7. He comes across as a total feeb and you start to wonder how a kid born on the cusp of a complete apocalypse manages to have such poor coping skills. The Kid was supposed to have been running into dead bodies and cannibals practically every day of his life so you'd think he'd be over it after 9-10 years, but no, he manages to seem traumatized at every instance.

Dad doesn't help things out much as he spends his days talking to the kid like he's three and tucking him in and carrying him around every chance he gets. I'm sure that'll help grow hair on his chest, Dad! It's nice to see that no matter how shitty the world gets, there's always a parent willing to overshelter their kid from the reality of their situation.

Dad also seems to make poor survival decisions. The poorest decision comes when the two find a friggin' BOMB SHELTER FILLED WITH FOOD AND WARM BEDS, but after a couple days they need to abandon it because they heard somebody walking around up top. Apparently this is the only bomb shelter in existence that didn't come with a lock on the hatch, and everyone knows how easy it is for a starving bum to breach a cement bunker with a steel trap door on it. It's much easier to pile a bunch of crap in an old push wagon and hit the road again to defend it in the open air against every marauder and sneak thief that walks by, while you slowly die from exposure.

But one can't point fingers at such glaring plot holes, because This Is Such A Serious, Award-Winning Oscar Contender! You can tell this movie is an Oscar contender because the kid cries real tears and there are at least a couple scenes where the audience gets treated to a rear view of Viggo's naked ass and nutsack. Everyone knows that if Viggo is letting you see his junk, he's very much into his role and you should respect his process by taking his nuts very seriously like he does.

There's a scene somewhere in the middle where The Mom (Charlize Theron) decides to end it by walking out into the freezing winter in her sleep shirt to die in the woods, because she can't take it anymore. By the end of the movie, you'll be wishing you'd walked out in the middle too.

There was one very uplifting part to our experience, though: After leaving the theater, my husband found a five dollar bill on the ground. That cheered us up immensely. There is life after this movie!


The cinematography is spectacular and unlike many others I enjoyed the soundtrack, but this is a Titanically boring "adventure." A Man and a Boy, trying to outrun the Apocalypse, wander into danger, hide, whisper, cower, run, escape ... then wander into new danger (and repeat steps 2,3,4,5 and 6). Between dangers, the Boy cryptically asks the Man colossally significant questions ("Are we the good guys?" ... "Would we ever eat people?"), and the Man reassures the Boy with all the right answers. And they gaze into each other's face for hours and hours it seems at a variety of camp fires on their trek to the sea. After about a half-dozen mainly implausible dangers, uninteresting escapes, pretty camp fires, and lame father-son heart-to-hearts, plus one tableau of emaciated prisoners awaiting to be eaten, I was looking at my watch, preferring to stick a fork in my eye than see one more faux-frightening episode. For me, the only superlative for "The Road" is it is the most unlikable movie I've seen.


So, I see a lot of other people have said good things about this movie, and I really have to wonder what they see in the movie that I missed.

I see a lot of stories intertwined, marriage, fatherhood, religious references, survival attitudes, etc. But to me, it was just blah...

If the intent of the movie is to make me feel what the characters are feeling, it is extremely well executed, I felt gray, lonely, cold, and like i wanted to kill myself rather than continue on to the end of the movie, but like them, i suffered through...

I understand there is a time and a place for entertainment movies and a time and a place for "make a point" movies, but this one fit neither of those bills in my mind. I appreciate a good "life's a struggle" movie, but again, this wasn't it...

The acting was OK, I wouldn't echo "great" like others have commented, but then I don't think it would take much to act out this movie... I found the cinematography to be pretty good, there were some very good shots, and the makeup was pretty impressive... but it all added up to a lot of parts without any real glue to hold me to the movie...

Better luck next time to the cast and crew... if you had to ask me, I'd say skip this and move on...


I read the book. I didn't find it particularly good, and I've read a lot of post apocalypse SF. These fall into two categories: "realistic" attempts to examine behaviour in the aftermath of some catastrophe. The most recent one I would recommend is Octavia S Butler's Parable of the Sower.

The second category is nihilistic despairing romance. Anna Kavan's Ice - where the world is smothered in ice - and some early Ballard are in this category. So is The Road (book and film.

The Road is basically ridiculous. Neutron Bombing? Nuclear Winter? Giant Asteroid hit? Plague? Humanity eaten by Giant Mutant Pink Ants? The author doesn't tell us because he simply hasn't thought it through. Unlike most regular hard sf apocalypse writers who usually work our their premises carefully You can pick out the sheer silliness of it all yourself but I just put out a few pointers: 99%+ of the population has died in 10 years but they don't have clothes to wear or a decent tent.

Only two rounds of ammo? Just so the author can set up a fake dilemma.

Farming Humans for Cannibalism? If you have food to feed humans, you would eat it yourself, rather than loose calories.

Leaving the bunker - the height of stupidity. Wait out and try to rebuild. And one presumes that the people who set it up would have a) stocked it with weapons and ammo b) medical supplies. So when the Dolt (we can't really call him a Man) gets shot with an arrow he should have had antibiotics etc so he wouldn't die.

Medical supplies: ditto the Ship. Question - why does he swim back - are there no life rafts or lifeboats left on the Ship? You could carry a lot more supplies safely.

Maddened brigands and bandits: this comes to the heart of the matter, even bandits are likely to negotiate first. They can't afford wounds, loss of members, and may even want to recruit more people into their gang. Safety in numbers.

It's just ridiculous that there is no government at all surviving, or people banding together for skill sharing and mutual defence.

Why would the nuclear family with the dog accept a lone boy into their group? Unless he had skills that were useful he's just a worthless mouth to feed? If you have read anything about people surviving in adversity, without having a rose-tinted view of humanity, The Road is hokum.


This film is a dull disappointment at best. I have not read the book nor plan to. It astounds me how many people are impressed with this unbalanced, relatively lacklustre film. The dismal scenery wouldn't be so much the problem had the material itself been worthwhile.

I'm not one to be afraid of bleak material. A work of art should never have to explain itself but there has to be structure, variety of themes, ideas, coherence and plausibility. The Road is a plausible story but tailored to an audience without a sense of humour, people who happen to revel in pessimism and continually find the much abused 'redemption' theme somehow original in an industry saturated with Holocaust films and romantic comedies. (If it isn't the rush to the airport scenario/make-up scenes, its the release of a prisoner.) The human character is far more complex than this film would you lead to believe. The acting is good, acceptable but at times it would be nice to see a smile, let alone a nuance as opposed to the three blasting emotional tenors of fear, anguish and sorrow. Imagine listening to a song with only minor chords and you'll understand that there is virtually no spectrum here, let alone a hint of subtlety in the performances. Viggo is good but one gets the impression he could have 'mailed' it in (to borrow a much-used cliché).

One thing I continually find difficult is that for a man who is determined to get somewhere like Viggo's character, wouldn't he have greater emotional tools as well as survival skills to get to his goal? We understand he has endured a great deal and a man can only take so much but wouldn't there be evidence of his deeper will in his coping? Watching the film I only saw physical reactions to the hostile environment and never human, below the surface ones.

The viewer has to ask his or herself - is watching this film an exercise in spiritual let alone intellectual masochism? Without any character development, without a sympathetic lead, the audience is only trudging along miserably with our two supposed 'heroes' and for a discerning viewer, one should eventually feel cheated with this film's reliance on the visceral to provide sustenance instead of a story. There is nothing really at stake in this movie beyond survival. The post-apocalyptic world of The Road is empty, colourless and seemingly devoid of relationships. Sure the father loves his son and there are some tender moments but the unconditional love for the child by the father cannot carry a story.

But somehow I get the impression that the politics of Oscar will somehow keep this film on the clunky pop-cultural radar. For me, it is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes and I'm tired of seeing Viggo's ass.


In this low-budget '50's sci-fi movie, a young woman (Kathleen Crowley) awakens only to find herself being an apparently lone survivor of some event and everyone has disappeared, eventually she runs into a few more people. They find out that the place has been evacuated on account of an invasion of robots from another planet. The movie is fairly decent, until said robots (or in this case, robot, as thats all the budget allowed for) shows up, then it loses all sense of forward momentum that the film had going for it.

DVD Extras: Commentary by Producer Herman Cohen; 20-minute video tribute to Mr. Cohen; Biographies; Theatrical Trailer; and Trailers for "Horrors of the Black Museum" and "The Headless Ghost"

My Grade: C-


Perhaps the most unscary villain in existence invades Chicago.

When you first get a look at the cumbersome robot who shoots very slow moving laser beams, it's difficult to stifle a laugh. How could anything so stupid be considered scary at one point in time?

But the film's badness doesn't stop there. From the "Electronics Department" of the Military, and their semi-serious banter about the technology of their half human, half machine aliens, to the many, many shots containing the inept main characters looking out their windows through the curtains (curtains play a large large role, they hide the fact that there are in fact only two real sets in this film), Target Earth is borish, banal, and most importantly, a bore.


The plot line is so simply you'll swear you've seen it before...

People wake up to find that their city has been evacuated and is under siege by alien robot thingees (of which we never actually see more than one on screen at any given time.) While survivors try to keep one step ahead of the monsters, the Army is bravely trying to figure out how to defeat them.

Can't say the movie was all that great. It was clearly done on a budget, with characters talking about what was going on rather than showing us things going on. (Something a modern film would never do.)

The acting was fairly decent, but the threat just wasn't all that impressive.


Four people (Denning, Crowley, Grey, and Reeves) meet by accident on the streets of a city that has been emptied overnight of people, except for a few dead bodies. They learn from a newspaper that the city has been invaded and evacuated by everyone else. The cars have been disabled, so the four refugees hole up in the suite of a hotel, making do with candles, beer, and canned food. There WAS a fifth member of the group, a witless little character, but he ran out into the street and was rayed to death by a wandering robot. The invading army, as it turns out, consists entirely of these robots with their death rays. They're impervious to bullets and can destroy airplanes, presumably with the same rays. A gun-toting evil murderer invades the hotel sanctuary of the survivors and puts moves on Crowley (who has fallen in love with Denning after knowing him for only a few hours). The resulting fight sees Grey killed and Denning wounded before the burly Reeves manages to strangle the killer.

The scenes of the survivors are inter cut with scenes of the requisite military and scientists trying just as hard as they can to devise a means of disabling these robots. They finally succeed -- surprise! When the robot army is exposed to sound waves of a certain frequency, it "cracks their cathode ray tubes." (Your television set is a cathode ray tube.) The army comes to the rescue at the last moment, too late, alas, to save Reeves but soon enough to whisk off Denning and Crowley.

A cheap and boring movie, I found it almost impossible to watch. Well, sometimes the cheapness can't be helped. A budget will stretch only so far, as we all must know. But this thing could have been written and acted by members of the robot army, who look like they're made of Lego's or like unusually angular Gorts, although we only see one of them at a time.

The dialog sucks. The plot is unoriginal. The special effects might better have been suggested than put on display. The logic of the plot is terribly flawed and the direction careless. (Carefully pruned, it might have been a decent episode of The Outer Limits.) I'll give just one example of a jarring lapse of common sense. The vicious murderer is holding the others at gunpoint and Grey suddenly remembers where she saw him before. He's the guy that murdered that hooker on Skid Row! That's right, admits the evildoer. His picture was all over the papers. They'll be looking for him on every street corner, Denning observes. Not if I slip out through the sewers and get out behind the enemy lines, the murderer sneers. The entire city has been evacuated and is now occupied by indestructible robots who kill people and repulse the military with unknown rays -- yet they'll be watching every street corner for some nobody who killed a hooker! Santa Clause could waltz past the army without interference under these conditions! Well, another example. At the very beginning, Crowley wakes up to find the city empty and she wanders the streets. She stumbles across a dead body and Richard Denning at roughly the same time. They introduce themselves and explain where they spent the previous night. Minutes of frippery go by while neither asks the question: WHAT HAPPENED? It could have been good, even with the inexpensive sets and the second-tier (but seasoned) actors. As it is, it's rather a painful experience except for those who really enjoy cheesy SF movies, and there seem to be legions of those.

The producer, the late Herbert Cohen, provides an audio commentary on the DVD and he seems like a good-natured guy. He's generous with his credits and he didn't mind if people laughed at the crummy effects when the picture was released and he still doesn't mind.


I saw the last hour of this movie on TV when I was about eight years old and the robot walking along the deserted city street was an image that has stayed in my brain for 40 years. I had dreams about that robot periodically throughout my life. I never learned the name of the movie until recently and, of course, was disappointed when I viewed it again. As an adult I can appreciate the character studies but I wanted to see an army of robots. There was only one and it had little screen time. It seems to me now that it would have been easy enough with some different placements of the single robot and clever editing to make it appear that as if there were many of them.

Anyway, that said, the robot was pretty original looking. I've seen many robot movies of that time period, and this one didn't look like any of those. It's little to recommend this film, but old science fiction buffs shouldn't miss this one. It shows how much can be made of so little.


Target Earth is the very first of Herman Cohen's exploitation cheap low budget Sci-Fi films. To put it bluntly, the movie was so lousy that I felt cheated for having bought the DVD based on other user comments here on this forum. The invasion force was only one man dressed in a Robot Suit. There were no sound effects of the robot whatsoever, except for a clink noise when it walked. Most of the movie was dialog from the supposed alcohol intoxicated characters, which was annoying. There was no charm or cult intrigue, which is characteristic in many of the adorned fifties Sci-Fi flicks. This film lacked anything that would make it a worthwhile purchase. I could not even laugh at this movie. My Target Earth DVD went into the trash, would not give it away.


At most times books and movies have very different styles and completely different constructed stories. Some of the book stories and styles simply don't translate well to the big screen. The book "Phileine zegt sorry" written by Ronald Giphart is one of those books that doesn't translate well to the big screen. As a movie "Phileine zegt sorry" leaves a pointless impression. It's one of those movies which makes you wonder after you have seen it; Why did I even watched this in the first place?

It's pretty obvious throughout the entire movie that it's one based on a novel. It features some typical book elements that I'm sure work well in the book but feel completely pointless in the movie. It also has some characters walking around in the movie that feel absolutely pointless and serve no purpose at all. On top of that it's incredibly irritating that most of the New York characters are played by Dutch actors, almost as if there weren't any available actors in New York. their American-Dutch accents are notable and at points even irritating.

The two main actors Kim van Kooten and Michiel Huisman are really great but van Kooten couldn't prevent me from being irritated by her character Phileine at times. Her character is over-the-top and really pushes it at times. I would had dumped her almost immediately! but again, this is not van Kooten's fault, she plays her character with lots of profession and passion., simply blame the story.

Appereantly this was supposed to be a comedy but there are no real laughs here. Also as a drama it isn't serious enough. I think this is the main reason why this movie leaves an overall pointless impression. The movie is just mostly about Phileine talking rudely about mainly sex and acting like an uncontrollable young hormone filled-woman.

The movie however deserves credit for how it looks. The cinematography by Bart Pot is most excellent, especially for the scene's in New York, where this movie is set for about two-third of the entire movie. The editing by Peter Alderliesten keeps the pace high. Robert Jan Westdijk isn't an horrible director he has just been given horrible material to work with.

I can't think of any reason why someone should ever watch this movie.

4/10


Too little depth, too bad. Following the book by Ronald Giphart word for word, this movie doesn't have much to say. It doesn't fascinate the viewer, it's just another love story that has been tried to make interesting by making the main character talk into the camera in the middle of some scenes. Makes you remember Saved by the bell and Ally McBeal. The Lead-role is played by Kim van Kooten, and if you like brunettes you'll probably like her. Good for you because the sex-scenes could make up for lack of story / plot-line. She ends up saying she's sorry for all the things she's done, big deal. This scene (which should be the climax of the movie) doesn't seem to express it's importance to the viewer. An average movie that has some humorous scenes in it and Kim van Kooten is a very attractive woman ;)


Genre: Drama / Comedy / Romance. This is what IMDB says. It's a drama to see that it isn't a comedy and you'll probably get romantic with the audience, since watching the screen will ruin one and a half hour of your life.

As Dutchman I mostly feel embarrased with the typical Dutch movies of the last decades. Swearing, sex and agression, preferably a book converted to a movie. Here it's the same.

For those of you who know BNN, the Dutch broadcasting organisation that has a trademark for rudeness, dumb&dumberness and programmes full of sex and swearing: yes, this movie has its trademark all over it.

The actress Kim is overacting as a bitch and the story is so dumb that I really can't believe the hype when it was released.


Even though the author of the novel (Ronald Giphart) has a cameo in this movie where he states that the movie is in fact a lot better than the book - this film is absolute crap.

I love Giphart's books, and Phileine Zegt Sorry is one of his funniest, but the adaptation is too slow, has too little funny moments to be a comedy, the actors are worthless (surprisingly, even Kim van Kooten's performance is below par) and the storyline proves to be too thin for a movie. And as usual in Dutch film, everything is covered up by lots & lots of nudity.

 My conclusion: stick to the book and spend your money on some of Giphart's other novels instead.

 2/10


At times, I'm proud to be a Dutchman. I admit it. Then, there are other times, when I feel quite ashamed. Funny thing that mostly happens after watching a Dutch movie.

I can live with the shortcomings the Dutch film-industry has, like little money and few actors to carry a movie. But that is not an excuse for the complete and utter garbage Phileine Zegt Sorry is.

The first thing that went wrong is that the movie is based on a book by Ronald Giphart. Now, I don't think anybody above the age of 16 that has a good pair of brains appreciates his work. So why make a movie based on one of his books? 'Ik ook van Jou' was crap as well, so why go for yet another one?

Even the combination of Westdijk and Van Kooten (which worked well in Zusje) can't make this waste of time, money and tape work, as the story is stupid, the characters not believable and the ending one of the worst in movie history (oh my, she said sorry!).

Everything sucks, from the 'mother who has sex in her daugthers bed with 4 guys at the same time', through the 'robbing When Harry Met Sally thing' right until the Dutch actors playing Americans, and making a crappy job of it. Stupid beyond belief.

Now here's the best part: this movie actually won several awards in Holland. Dutch cinema must be dead. Get me out of here!

1/10 and a place in my bottom 10.


If someone ever sees the movie, you have the biggest spoiler of all in the title The title says, she will say sorry. So any anticipation is gone. Even the cover of the movie is the ending of the movie..

It's not a bad movie, in a Dutch sense of way, but help me with this spoiler galore.. Change the name in `Phileine' Make a nice cover of her and her girlfriends going out (a theme) or use the James bond theme (excellent shooting) even some of the nice special effects (her flying trough the roof would do great as a cover But this? sorry I can't say anything about spoilers here because they are bad but I guess the commercial managers have outdone themselves, because my best guess is that an actor / director would never allow this


This is the twenty-fourth Bulldog Drummond film, and the last purporting to be even remotely serious, as the final Drummond film, 'Bullshot', was to be a complete spoof. But of course this one is not serious. It is cornier than an ethanol refinery, and raises inanity to the height of the ionosphere (like the SST-1 in the film perhaps), or should I say I-wanna- sphere, as in 'I wanna be sick'. Everyone's tongue is so far into his or her cheek in this film that they all have holes in their faces. Betty Box, this time without her brother Syndey Box with whom she co-produced the predecessor to this bit of fluff, 'Deadlier than the Male' (slightly less fluffy, but equally inane), here returns with her final offering of a pseudo-James Bond film using the name, and no more, of Hugh Drummond, and the name, and no more, of Drummond's villain nemesis Carl Peterson. Peterson is played here by James Villiers, trying as hard as he can to be deeply villainous but unable to convince. For those of us who knew James, who was so witty and fun-loving, the idea of his being a villain was ludicrous. Wrong choice! Daliah Lavi is the lead villainess. She was in so many films in the sixties, and had been in the Bond film 'Casino Royale', but I never understood her appeal. She must have put a spell of producers or directors somehow, but she never managed to be truly sexy, despite all the absurd hype about her and her feline movements as 'one desired'. The fact that she couldn't act is irrelevant, as she was not required to. Joanna Lumley got her first film part in this picture, but was uncredited. She has made up for that later! This film has an absurd plot, which goes so far beyond pastiche that - well, I did say how high the inanity went, didn't I? James has got all these girls in short skirts who are robots, you see, 'under my complete control' as he boasts, who kill on command, and when they are not needed, he or Daliah Lavi presses a button in the neck of the girl and she goes to sleep. They also have libidinous capacities, so we are led to believe. How Betty Box, a woman, could produce a film pandering in such extreme measure to the most ridiculous male fantasies of the pliant woman (one you can turn on or off, every hectored man's dream??) is beyond my comprehension. As for Ralph Thomas, the director, there are no words. Once again, as in the earlier film two years before, we have babes in bikinis toting machine guns, killing people while saying 'poor little man' and smirking and simpering and wiggling their busts. The sixties eye makeup, the bouffant hairdos, the wigs, the eyelashes, my God. I'm a Bulldog Drummond viewer, get me out of here!


How the mighty have fallen.

This series began as very innovative in some regards with interesting characters. Some stories were downright interesting. Many were even INTELLIGENTLY written in some regards (a compliment one can only offer very few TV series today). Also, there was a theme and a purpose.

The intrigue and purpose seemed to peak around the end of the first season. Season 2 continued to be interesting. Only the Great Maker knows what happened in Season 3!

While a few interesting individual episodes still managed to sneak in to Season 3, this season was a marked decline. They had lost the original purpose from Season 1 and the redoubled anxiety we saw in Season 2. Now, in Season 3, they seemed aimless and downright pointless in many ways. The role of the Andromeda in the new Commonwealth was absurd and not completely clear. Most importantly the goals of the first 2 seasons seemed utterly ignored. They weren't even engaging in missions to build and strengthen the new Commonwealth as you might expect; instead they were puppets, albeit rebellious puppets, of naive political powers.

The only element which remained somewhat intact in Season 3 were the characters. Yet even then, one could not see them in their new roles. Would Dylan not say "hell with this, we have things to do"?

The end of Season 3 was such that it looks like it might mark the end of any worthiness to the show we once knew as Andromeda. One got the feeling the writers didn't like the show they'd created so they just pointlessly smashed it all. They had a monumental event handled in such a poor and pointless why that it left the viewer saying "why did they do THAT"? It seemed like a cheap and senseless way of saying "OK, we producers have changed our minds so we came up with the quickest, most pointless way to change almost everything without having to waste more than an episode doing it". We're not talking about a sudden and shocking plot twist like you might see in the best of shows. There was no sense of PURPOSE to this one. No promise of a PAYOFF for having changed the rules. No - rather it smelled of taking an eraser to the script and aimlessly wiping out huge elements.

While I can recommend the first two seasons of Andromeda to most SciFi fans because they appealed to many people on many different levels, I cannot recommend Season 3 or beyond to anyone who appreciates intelligent or well done writing. This series is no longer what it once was.

If the producers are merciful they will put Andromeda out to pasture before it becomes primarily an object of ridicule and the punch line to many jokes.


I feel the need to post a comment on this title because I've seen a few comments from people who are surprised at the positive user response for such an awful show.

What is truly tragic about Andromeda is that it is a show that never realized its full potential. This is due to the powers that be and their decision to remove Wolfe from his post as head writer of the show.

From Season 1 to the halfway point of Season 2, Wolfe was the head writer of Andromeda and the show was quality in every sense of the word. Wolfe took his experience from shows such as Star Trek: Deep Space Night and invested it in Andromeda, bringing life to intricate plot-lines and vibrant characters functioning in a realized Universe.

As Season 2 began to move along, the usual first season clumsiness that one expects from new TV shows had totally dissolved and an epic plot line was beginning to come to life.

This was tragically cut short when Wolfe was fired. After this unfortunate event, nearly all of his work was thrown out of the window as the series took an entirely different direction in favour of mainstream approval and a more episodic format. The most painful example of the latter is embodied in the decision to do away with the character of Trance in favour of a new incarnation of the character designed to be sexy.

The series began to spiral downwards even more, until it was finally too difficult to watch. Andromeda soon began to buy into nearly every science fiction cliché in the book, and when it ended was a pathetic worm of its former glory.

Four stars out of ten for 1.5 excellent seasons and 3.5 awful ones in a show that tragically never met its unimaginable potential.


I couldn't stop watching this train wreck, because I always kept hoping that they would recapture some of the wonder that was originally established before the end of the first season. This show jumped the shark after the writer changes and while I liked Mr Sorbo's work as an actor in previous endeavors, his dumbing down of the show was a bad move. The plots didn't make any sense, it was just gun fights for no apparent reason, and there isn't a bad guy out there who can aim worth anything. Thats it thats all there is to it in the end. I could end this comment right here however the site posting rules want me to print at least 10 lines of text. Well here you go I'm typing some more text and I should repeat that Andromeda was fun in the first couple of episodes, and there seemed to be some sort of interesting back story to the whole thing but beginning in the second season, it lost touch with all of that possible storyline and became a senseless gunfight occurring over and over again and again.


The first episode actually seemed very promising and had a great potential. But unfortunately it developed into a series for people who love seeing a lot of laser weapons shooting and spaceships shooting it out.

A series that suffered much by episodes in between that did not pursuit the storyline and seemed not to fit in continuum. Sometimes you wondered why they did not use powerful objects from earlier episodes.

The main characters were:

Captain Dillon Hunt - Name should have been captain Perfect instead. So political correct it makes you want to puke. Strangely enough Mr. perfect have no troubles killing innocent prison guards while he time after time jeopardize the mission and his crew to protect female criminals. Always blaming others for their flaws and never admitting his own even when they nearly get everyone killed. If there is a female in the episode then he is always good for a kiss and more. When he starts kissing with woman number ten you start to see a pattern. It is fine with romance but always and with every woman he meets is plain stupid and annoying. In season 5 he even becomes even more righteous and use every opportunity to tell his crew how bad they handled themselves even if it is his error that put them in that mess. Worst thing is they chose such a bad actor to have the main role. I noticed several times it looked like he smiled when approaching his crew after they just had great personal loses.

Andromeda - The worlds most powerful warship. Still anyone can get unnoticed on board and make every kind of sabotage on the ship. And never does it intercept transmissions from enemies on board to the outside. Sometimes two small space-fighters can nearly destroy Andromeda and other times it can destroy an entire fleet alone. I often wondered how come no one build a more powerful one the 300 years it was gone.

Trance - First 3 seasons she should have been the mystery of the crew. It got fast boring and when you finally get the secret it is really not interesting.

Harper - Character with more potential than always just being the puny scientist. My personal favorite nerd.

Beka - In the last horrible season her role finally flowers and she is permitted to be more than Dillons puppet. She should have been written that way all the time.

Tyr - The only character that developed throughout the series. Unfortunately that was destroyed in the end by incompetent writers.

Nietzscheans - An unbelievable race that never really seems plausible. Unfortunately they have a very big role in the series.

So if you want a series with interesting characters and stories then look for something else. This is very far from good sci-fi. It seemed like the writers ended up not knowing if they were writing a superhero or sci-fi series, and it turned out bad both ways.

All in all I have a hard time understanding why many good sci-fi series die after one season or less and this lasted 5 seasons.


Andromeda isn't even Scifi. Its fantasy, like star wars. It set in a Scifi looking world, but there is no substance. Only a lot of bad acting and childish story's Some of you Ppl say you like Star trek but love Andromeda. Shame on you. Even Deep space nine has more heart than Andromeda. I'm glad that Gene was lucky enough to come up with Star Trek since a lot of his other ideas are crap.

Series like Andromeda is what gives Scifi a bad name. Just a lot of flashy lights and ugly costumes. And a main character that is some kind of superhero without any depth at all. He can do anything has no flaws. While the other crew mates just run around and look weird.

If you compare it to Star Trek TNG that deal with really existential and moral problems and encounter thought provoking anomalies. That often are rotted in real science.

Although a lot of the scientific terms are often outdated or wrong, but compared to those in Andromeda its almost a science documentary.

And I'm not saying that everything has to be scientifically correct to be good. But this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Andromeda. To feel that your immersed in a story you have to have some feel of that this is real. I just cant believe in something as silly as the Andromeda future.

I just cant understand how anyone under ten could like this crap.


First season or two were great, but that is only what is worth in Andromeda... It seams that Sorbo fired writer and continued to create Andromeda so that he can look like a great hero. At the opening he was just 300 years old starship captain stuck at the edge of the black hole. Later we find out that he is special, and soon after that that he is a member of an ancient race. Also at the opening main characters were equal, an later there is only Hercules, sorry Capt Hunt and every one else is nothing more then a sidekick. And what the hell is the story with Tyr?!? that is the worst turnaround ever in the worst direction. It is sad to see what can one man's ego do to the great and promising show.


First season seemed reasonable. It had some 'unrealistic' edge, but generally it was a reach setting with possibilities. It had consistent developing global plot.

Second season introduced big amount of mindless action. Some episodes became of little relevance and/or with multiple silly moments. Commonwealth development became something inessential, some episodes involving Commonwealth activities were a joke. Last episode added substantial chaos to global plot (as it turns out, it was already too late to damage the series).

First episodes of third season made no sense at all, like if story was being invented during filming by passing-by random people, having no idea about global and even episode-local plot. I couldn't continue after that.


I, as a rabid "Trekker" who really liked all of Gene Roddenberry's work, really hated this show. It was truly bottom of the barrel. I was amazed it lasted 5 years, though here in the DC area we only saw it for three, as it got dropped due to low ratings, I guess. The spaceship looked like a toy, the acting was, well not even acting, and the writing was set for 10 year old's. Kevin Sorbo, who I understand is as nice a guy as there is, must have done strictly for the money. I doubt we'll see this show pop up again in furhter syndication here in the states, though it will probably make it's way over to Europe where it will be a bit hit, due to the strange taste's over there.


Having seen the first 2 episodes of kingdom hospital, i must say that i am already really disappointed. At first it seems like a remake of Lars Von triers "Riget" but stray of from the original, which is a lot better and much more scary.

I agree with PenGuhWin, the story works when it follows the original, but completely falls apart when they try to change it. It could have worked but it just doesn't.

2 seasons of Riget was made and a third was planned, but it was canceled because some of the actors died.

By the whats up with that anteater thing.?


This is just awful! Having seen the "original" - Riget - you wont need to argue with me on that statement! I hope this teaches people a lesson. Don't remake exceptional good movies or series for that matter, - You might mess up, and mess up bad!

Would it have been too much to ask for keeping it real? Why all the altering of the perfectly good story? Why have my beloved spooks gone? Why add ridiculously plain, well known, easy-to-see-thru horror to a masterpiece like Lars Von Trier's "Riget"? It makes me feel someone stole and got caught, - Do i make my point ?

Stephen King, You are not the King of Horror!


There is obviously an audience out there for very dumbed-down versions of masterpieces but it still hurts. Lars von Trier's original Kingdom works on so many levels - entertaining, scary, thoughtful, full of lifelike though odd characters and the genius of the "dogme" style of filming created by von Trier. But this version is only horrific in it's wasted opportunities - populated by blandness and distracting in its use of animation (CGI) and badly worked out (edited?) sub-plots. It is a disappointing collection of ugly features that once made up a renaissance classic. I give it 2/10 because you may be looking for background imagery for a techno-party and this would suit well. In summary, I cannot understand how King can put his name to this - it can only be the dollars. It must have been a lot.


This 'remake' of Lars Von Trier's series does not do the original any justice. It annoys me that they have felt the need to film this poor imitation, apparently purely because the original is in a foreign language. They have lost all of the subtlety and almost all of what made Von Trier's frightening, along with the beauty that Von Trier captured. I don't know what Stephen King was thinking when he began writing this but I wish he hadn't. And Baxley's treatment of the script, particularly his choice of music, leaves a lot to be desired.

Do not bother seeing this if you have seen, or intend to see, the original, because you will only be disappointed.


Stephen King has officially lost his touch. I saw hints of his newfound mediocrity riddled through the bad-but-watchable ROSE RED. But this pretty much solidifies it. For whatever INSANE reason Lars decided to take his BRILLIANT miniseries RIGET and sell it to ABC and Stephen King so they could make RIGET, American STYLE, aka KINGDOM HOSPITAL. I'm not exactly sure where communication between Stephen and the muses broke down but it was somewhere before he started writing this piece of trash. Every week is 40 or so minutes of nothing happening. It doesn't even seem that all these little things are building up to anything. It just feels pointless to watch (which is why I quit after episode 5 or 6). Nothing makes sense. Now I know what a lot of you are going to say "That was the idea behind the original." Well, there's a huge difference between surrealism, and not making any sense. The original had a lot of stuff happening that seemed odd but it was all the purpose, and it was effectively understood by the viewer.

But this...I would rather bathe in the waste product of all of New York then stand for this mini-series a second more. If you really know your film, you should have already seen RIGET aka THE KINGDOM. If you haven't, you should. But don't waste your time with this mini-series which is on a descending spiral towards the honor of worst mini-series of all time.


Although very weird and grotesque, the original Lars Von Trier's "Riget" is much better than this "americanized" version. The characters, the plot, the hospital itself... everything is lost in this remake. An I tell you, "Riget" can get really, really spooky. Also, some of the characters' evilness is completely lost in this remake.

Sometimes it seems like producers treat the US audience as if they wouldn't understand or enjoy the weirdness of some Europe's film work, and I'm remembering The Office, another TV show originally broad-casted in the UK's BBC: the original series is far more fun, much more real and politically incorrect...

Go for the original, it is a masterpiece.


I didn't watch Ridget by Lars Von Trier. I just saw this series collection box at a store, was FOOLED by it's cover and bought it. Hey, I'm not the first who falls into that tale. So I am here to alert you. What is this Kingdom Hospital about anyway? Do we have ghosts of little girls, do we have blood gushing out someone's eyes? No. This series is supposed to be something like "bizarre dark comedy". But you do not laugh. You do not cry. You won't be scared or confused. You will be looking at your TV screen cursing the advertising studio that made that ludicrous DVD cover. And asking yourself "hey, what happened to Stephen King? Did he eat some rotten tacos before doing that?" Yes, he probably did.

The thing is, if you're going to make something about a hospital with bizarre sense of humor, you should create an atmosphere in there. I felt like I was watching ER second season after ingesting some cough medicine bottles. And it wasn't fun as it sounds.

SPOILER

I never thought that someone would think that a anteater could be threatening. Those quiet animals NOT even have teeth. They eat ants for crissake! A angry koala would more scary than a "anteater from the underworld". WATCH OUT! IS THE LONG TONGUE OF DOOM! Blah.


Years ago I saw Riget, the original Kingdom, and loved it. Then I saw this series when it originally aired and I could only get thru 4 eps before giving up. Recently I finally saw Riget II, which was even more riveting than the first part. Since a final Riget has so far never been completed, I thought I might try to watch the Stephen King version to at least get some kind of closure, no matter how awful a miniseries it was. Unfortunately it was not worth it, not even close.

Lars Von Trier is credited as an executive producer for this series, but many times that means a person got some $$ but had no creative input whatsoever. It's more like a buyout. That's the only logical explanation.

This series uses about a quarter of the plot devices from the original, "decompresses" the narrative to inflate the airtime to surpass the original's length and throws in some "side" episodes which have virtually nothing to do with the larger arc. The last 15 minutes of this 13 episode miniseries I literally had to fight to stay awake. I'm sorry to be so harsh but it was like a masochistic exercise in finishing this series. I guess I just wanted to see how awful it could get. Maybe if you never saw the original it would be better, but even as its own work this whole thing was about as good as a 9th season X-file ep. Sorry again to be so harsh.

Good: Ed Begley, Nurse Carrie (the nurse who fainted all the time), Lona (I actually liked her a bit better than the original portrayal), evil doctor (one of the few original concepts which looked OK), Jack Coleman (ie HRG himself, playing a new character based on King's own experiences)

Bad: Everything else. 4 main leads (Drusse, Stegman, Hook, Draper) - average and forced acting, tho the writing sure didn't do them any favors. Glacial pacing. Sideplots which stuck to the main body like an unwanted hepatoma. The "baseball episode" and the "miracle priest" eps were unnecessary and from a story point of view didn't even adhere to any kind of internal logic. The additional budget also really hurt the whole production. The original was almost filmed documentary-style (ie - Blair Witch / The Office). This was filmed in a much more conventional manner, lots of overdressed sets, music that was so present that it lost its effectiveness when it needed to be, CGI that stuck out like a sore thumb etc... There was a good bit of footage recycling in the finale ep as well. Talk about masochism. Every time they did a gag from the original it was done in the least shocking, least visceral way possible. Tho the "covered mice" shot in the 12th ep made me chuckle and think about how Standards and Practices censorship can actually make a scene more funny.

Anyways if you are a fan of sophisticated comedy/horror check out the original Riget and Riget II. The ending of Riget I is probably one of the greatest cliffhangers in serial TV. If you started watching this when it first aired and never finished, then don't bother, it only gets worse with every episode. Some of Stephen King's writing I absolutely love (Dark Tower series, Stand, Shining) but this was a huge misstep and atypically lame.


Stephen King's version of the Danish Miniseries "The Kingdom", about a hospital filled with oddballs and ghosts, manages to render what had been a funny, thoughtful, and eerie story into a boring piece of dog poop. Skip it and make the effort to find the original by Lars von Trier, you'll be glad you did.

In his other works, King is good at occasionally creating scary moments, some even filled with prolonged dread; yet what makes his novels readable and other television projects such as "Rose Red" watchable when wading through the banal characters, plot points and scenes, is here lacking, which is strange. It may be explained by his inability to create the subtle forms of eeriness on display in his source material, which used quiet and stillness, not as the preface to a suddenly scream, but a soft murmur. King doesn't have the patience, and instead fills up the spooky quiet with incessant yammering.

Gone as well are the often comic and/or obsessive, yet believably human characters which were the backbone of the original series by Lars Von Trier. King instead treats us to boring clichés reminiscent of one dimensional characters from his other works.

The charmingly arrogant, scheming and blustering doctor Stig Helmer, one of the original series' many treasures, is robbed of his intelligence and turned into Dr. Stegman, a craven moron whose own arrogance, bluster and scheming ways would have seemed too broad on M.A.S.H. King can't stand to create mere A-holes, they must be inhumanly evil and stupid. Yosemite Sam was more nuanced and received less cloyingly saccharine comeuppance from his adversaries, although Yosemite's comeuppance was distinguished by being funny: no such luck with Stegman, and the Kingdom Hospital is plagued by King's inability to write intentionally funny lines. (Unfortunately the hilariously awful similes which turn up in his prose works have not appeared to have made it into his scripts, but there are laughs to be found here in the dialogue.) We are also treated to elements familiar to readers of King: tedious interior monologues; annoying singing by various characters; inhuman, snarling bad guys; a wise-cracking, delightlessly sassy god-character (here, a giant anteater); and writing which leaves nothing to be spelled out by the audience. This last quality is perhaps the most annoying of King's as writer, his inability to allow for ambiguities, to let something remain less than obvious.


A script that's a total mess, story lines that go absolutely nowhere and generic characters did not help this American version of "Riget" to stand on it's feet.

At first I have to say I was attracted by this series because it seemed like offering something new and more complicated than your average "Jack Bauer-hour". I understood the fact that this adaptation needed time and space to find a steady pace, so it was OK for me to wait for 5-6 episodes to see the sparkles flickering on my TV screen...

Alas, it was all to no avail. The main story had no direction and although the hospital was clearly the central setting it did not give any sign of coherence to the series. The characters were rough caricatures of people and, sometimes, even their dialogue lines made no sense. It was like listening to stereotypical mambo-jumbo and, it may sound "arty" for a while but on the long run it brings nothing more than a head-ache. The level of acting was also average, even for a TV show. No explanation was given on anything and having a week's gap between each episode made the whole thing difficult to watch so I gave up after half season. I suspect that in DVD format, it's maybe easier to follow but I really don't have the guts to go through this series again...

This show was really really bad. But as I said earlier the worst part of this deal is not the quality itself rather than the abandoned promises... Looks like they promised us the stars but left us dangling in the gutter, instead.


Normally I do not run down writers or producers , but in this case I feel I must . Stephen King did not and I repeat not write "kingdom hospital" he simply bought the rights to it . I am not upset about this I am more annoyed that King's version of "Riget" has been nothing more than an expensive but poorly made copy of a masterpiece . The other problem I have is that Kings version lacks that certain dark humor that helped to make "riget" the masterpiece that it is.

FYI I only give this 1 Star because the system wont let me give any less.

Thank you Stephen King for fouling up !


This is not genius, this is the direct opposite of genius, and I'm actually stunned by some of the comments this series got. I've read most of King's books. He's not a bad author, but a movie maker he's not. Von Trier's Riget was a masterpiece, and you'd think that a remake which rips off most of the dialogue and plot would be at least decent without too much effort. Wrong. The acting is poor, and actors poorly chosen- all actors either look like models or are meant to come across as idiots. Dr. Stegman (Stig) is not nearly as evil and cynical as he was made out to be in the original series, and there are some very obvious attempts to live off the past popularity of twin-peaks. The humor of the original is lost in King's remake, which is too bad since it was the humor and not the ghost story that made the original so great to begin with.

I never expected anyone to fill Ernst-Hugo's shoes, but at least King could have tried to give some kind of personality apart from tedious stereotypes to his characters.

Even if you don't compare this series with the original, you still end up with a series for the masses, filled with oversimplified characters, jokes that aren't funny (the talking dog- OMFG), poor acting, and a way of telling the story that's insulting to the audience's intelligence. This series was made for making money. And that's okay, as long as you're open with the fact that that was the only purpose. But there's absolutely nothing genius about it.


now my comment on this, isn't gonna reflect much on how Stephen king did it, more on what he stole from the original, for Gods Sake Even Dr. Stegman's ending line is ripped off to the core, just replacing Danes with Maine. The Original story is a Masterpiece, why mess with perfection? At Least Riget actually exists in real life (the Hospital in Copenhagen is Nicknamed "Riget" which Means "Kingdom", Due to it's Extreme size) And to round it all off, maybe Stephen could have continued the series instead of remaking it, since two actors died after making the second one (hence why there isn't gonna be a third). Stephen if you run out of ideas, don't just copy - work for it!


Being a rather cheap copy of Lars von Trier's original i found this mini series annoying after the first few minutes. While for Stephen King this may be rather good, i find it just a disgrace when you compare it to the original. Within minutes i found myself confronted with all the clichés i hate about cheap TV horror - exaggerated characters (sometimes combined with weird appearance to make sure everyone realizes something is wrong), exaggerated camera perspectives, puzzlingly stupid dialogs (just to remind you something is wrong here) and of course the typical horror soundtrack. It appears like this is just one of those typical American remakes that only serves to target a broader audience, less demanding, less daring, streamlined and average. Not for me.


I give this movie a 4 for its sheer awfulness. I must preface my "review" by way of noting that I have only seen this movie once (at about age 8, with my parents, at the drive-in). For this memory alone I give the movie an extra point or two. I remember the plot and I remember the secretary mentioned in the previous commentary. I also remember, even as a young child, thinking the plot was really stupid. By no means would anyone consider this a really good movie but it is a really fun movie -- even if it wasn't intended to be funny. No spoilers here as one may consider the whole movie already spoiled. I believe this was on triple bill where diner customers were fed humans as specials of the day based upon the victim's last name (a woman named "Poultry" served up as breast of chicken). Does anyone remember the name of this winner?


This film is so boring that you will probably want to turn it off half way through, should you be so unfortunate to watch it. Think I'm exaggerating? I wanted to turn it off, but sadly I'm one of those who has to finish a film once I've started watching. The idea behind it actually sounds quite cool - cat food being made out of human bodies, which gives the cats a taste for human flesh. Sadly they didn't do the idea justice and the film turned out to be a bore-fest. There is very little gore, and when the corpses are ground up all we see is them being put into a machine, and a pink pulp coming out of a nozzle. They re-used this scene several times throughout the film to save on budget. Avoid this if you're looking for an entertaining film because you won't find it here. It's not even entertaining enough to pass the time, not even "so bad it's good".


I have to say i enjoy most bad movies that are so bad they're good but this is not one of them.this one is really bad,i thought it would be like the classic b movie the undertaker and his pals but it lacks the style and humor of that film,the concept for this clunker is a greedy nutty business man uses human flesh grinded in a big meat grinder to make expensive cat food.which makes the cats rabid killers who go nuts after eating the cat food with human flesh,Ted V Mikels who made the b movie classic astro zombies made this on a budget of $1.98,well not really but the acting is so bad,its frightening.even the cat attack scenes look fake.amazing that this makes plan 9 from outer space look like gone with the wind.Ed Wood Jr could've done a way better job directing this.if you want to waste about 90 minutes then by all means watch corpse grinders.but as a cult movie i say it is way below its mark.Ray Dannis(undertaker and his pals,severed arm)has a very brief role.and they actually did a sequel in 2000,why?


I rented this film simply because from time to time I enjoy watching a bad movie--you know, ones that are so inept and stupid that they're good for a laugh. Well, the film was pretty much what I expected, though the quality of the production was not quite as horrible as films by other contemporary "artists" like Al Adamson, Larry Buchanan, William Grefe and Ray Dennis Steckler--but it was very, very close. That's because one or two of the non-professional actors didn't totally suck and the story was goofy enough to keep my attention.

The film begins with a lady letting a cat into the house--and the lady is immediately attacked by a flesh-craving pussycat! Then the scene switches to some cretin and his insane wife at a cemetery gathering corpses to sell to the cat food company. This pair looks pretty much like typical guests on "The Jerry Springer Show". Well, the dirtballs who buy the corpses take the bodies back to work and stuff them in a silly looking machine that grinds them into puree. Oddly, though the corpses weigh between 100-200 pounds, the container catching the puree is only about big enough to hold a Pomeranian, but this is a minor detail. A bit later, a doctor is bitten by a flesh-hungry cat and he and his nurse (who looks a bit like a stripper) go off on their own to investigate. What I really liked was how they didn't even bother going through the police--putting them, of course, in harm's way. While there's of course much more to the film than this, considering it's basically about grinding corpses into cat chow, there really isn't much point in going further.

Cheap sets, amateur acting, a silly script (that must have later inspired the film EATING RAOUL), over-acting fog machine and tepid directing, this is a cheapie horror drive-in film and nothing more or less. Despite the topic, the film is pretty tame stuff and is good for a laugh or two--but lacks the true awfulness to make it a cult classic.

Oh, by the way, if you were wondering, they were NOT using sign language in the film. I am proficient in American Sign Language and it's not even close to this or other sign systems.


The original exploitation classic-though far from enjoyable on almost any level concerning some guys who turn cats into human flesh eating monsters because the cat food they make is made with people. The cats can't get enough and when the flesh tainted food runs out the cats turn on their owners. Poorly put together on almost every level this is an example of the absolute bottom of the barrel material that used to actually play movie theaters in the early 1970's. Director Ted Mikel is a hack, but is so lovable a person (I generally like the guy thanks to his smile inducing interviews and commentary tracks) that you can pretty much excuse the garbage he mostly turned out. Mikels wanted to make films and he didn't care how they turned out so long as he was producing something. More power to him, but I wish he wouldn't subject us to the ones that are little more than his home movies


It's been nothing but trouble lately, for the two managers of the Lotus Cat Food Co. The gravedigger who's been supplying them with their food's main ingredient--freshly disinterred human cadavers--has been pestering them for monies due, and a suspicious doctor and his hotty blond nurse have taken to snooping around the premises, after the cats that consume their product have begun to turn into maniacal killers. Anyway, that's the setup for Ted V. Mikels' 1972 shlock classick "The Corpse Grinders," a distinct improvement on his previous horror film, 1967's "The Astro-Zombies" (one of filmdom's all-time worst) but not by much. That previous film had boasted a nearly incomprehensible plot and was truly a mess; "The Corpse Grinders" at least has a story that hangs together, outlandish as it may be, although the acting, scripting, editing and camera-work are all fairly inept. By any objective standard that one might wish to use, this film is hopeless garbage, but STILL, somehow, it manages to entertain, what with its one-of-a-kind plot, a few scantily clad women, some grotesque characters (a one-legged mute secretary in a fright wig; the gravedigger's wife who talks incessantly to her doll) and some mild gross-out scenes (a cat dissection; bloodied-up cat attack victims; the freshly ground "meat"--in actuality, probably hamburger meat or Play-Doh--being pushed out of the grinder) that should gross out only the most squeamish. And, at only 71 minutes in length, the film grinds by fairly quickly. Thank goodness!


Mediocre zero budget wannabe grindhouse horror flick, written by none other than Ted Mikels and Arch "Eegah!" Hall, about cat food manufacturers over acting outrageously and using human cadavers as the secret ingredient in the most popular cat food in town, and thus creating a horde of (or at least one or two) bloodthirsty kitties. The cat food makers are employing a guy who looks like the guy from "The Hills Have Eyes" to even raid graveyards for more people to run through the "grinding machine", until a woman's body turns up in a local doctor's office after being attacked and killed by one of said kitties (why did they take an already dead woman to a doctor?) then the doc and his nurse start poking around the cat food maker's building, and find out what his secret ingredient really is.

If you watch this in the right frame of mind it may be worth a single viewing, just to have some laughs from the horrendous acting by Landau and his assistant, and several scenes of people being put into the plastic grinding machine and raw hamburg coming out of the other end - but this movie's pacing drags on forever and it's brief one hour running time seems much longer than it actually is.

** out of ****


NO redeeming qualities what so ever. Deserving to be called one of the world's worst movies. Directed by Ted V. Mikels and co-written by Arch Hall Jr. Get the hint yet? Talk about a low budget; how about NO budget. Yes, that bad. A creepy tale of a factory whose cat food transforms mild mannered felines into man-eating beasts. Trying to act in this movie are Sean Kenney, Warren Ball, Sanford Mitchell and the busty Monika Kelly. Fun to hoot and holler at!