input: Trash/bad movies usually ain't bad because I will find them enjoyable. This one is so bad that I am out of words to describe it - its below "bad". There is an instruction in the beginning of the film that tell you what to do during the movie. Needless to say, the instruction and a dozen of beer couldn't help me seat through the entire film. One tagliner compares this one to KILLBILL which is certainly unthinkable and an insult to our intelligent. Obviously. this tagliner had a plan to tempt you into buying this DVD.

If you are considering renting this one, put it down! If you are thinking of buying, Dont think! If you unlucky to have this dvd, dont play it, throw it in trash bin immediately.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: A mediocre Sci-Fi Channel original picture. A little squirmish, but not much. The nuclear powered submarine U.S.S. Jimmy Carter is on a mission deep below thick frigid ice near the North Pole when it is attacked by giant super charged electric eels. A member of the crew (Simmone Jade Mackinnon)thinks she has devised a way to communicate with the monsters, but is not given much chance for vague reasons. Also among the crew are:David Keith, Mark Sheppard and Sean Whalen. This movie could have been somewhat better if the eels/monsters were not so cartoonish.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: Where's Michael Caine when you need him? I've seen most of the many seasons of MST3K, but this rare pre-1st season flick (episdoe K-20) is easily one of the worst movies ever made. Three "stars", Lee Majors, Chris Makepeace and Burgess Meredith, struggle through the worst batch of cinematography ever, delivering lines which must have been written by a secret Dick Cheney-style workgroup composed of Exxon and GM lawyers trying to cut funding for mass transit and energy efficiency research. Looks like it was filmed in almost total darkness, possibly on Super 8. Makes Logan's Run look like the cinematic Sistine Chapel crossed with Shakespeare. I can't imagine watching it without the commentary of Crow and Servo since it's unwatchable even with it. Clearly what's needed in Hollywood is some sort of 401K which prevents the need for actors to take on bad movies like this in order to pay for their health care. With its "rights to pollute and drive" theme, by the end, I'm half expecting to see a Charlton Heston cameo where he delivers his "cold dead hands" speech. Lee, I could have forgiven you for this in 1989, but 1981?

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: I dunno sometimes...you try and try and try to be charitable towards all the B thru Z grade movies out there, but once in a while a particular movie just tests your patience until you want to slap everyone involved. "Bat People" (which I saw under the title "It Lives By Night") is just such a movie. You can't watch this without thinking that it really should have been an episode on "Night Gallery", and not one of the better ones, either.

The movie has something to do with a doctor who gets bitten by a bat and consequently starts to morph into a Were-Bat who drinks human blood. (Actually, you'd think if he was turning into a real bat, he'd be eating mosquitoes by the gallon bucket, but because this is a cheap, lurid horror movie, blood's the word.) In spite of the fact that he has grand-mal seizures at the drop of a hat, and black-out episodes almost every night, his friend and fellow physician, Dr. Mustache Aspen-Extreme, insists that he's just having an 'allergic reaction' to the rabies shots. Meanwhile, the world's most obnoxious and stereotyped county sheriff suspects the doc of being responsible for the brutal murder and exsanguination of several local girls (and one wino). Also meanwhile, the doctor's wife decides that denial IS a river in Egypt and alternately patronizes him and nags him to distraction.

It's not so much that the acting is bad - you can tell that the actors are making professional level choices, and are trying to bring some juice and life to the script, even the guy who plays the sheriff. (Okay, it IS pretty bad, but it's bad in a cliched, wooden, professional way). It's just that everything about the acting, the way the scenes are paced, the costumes, the dialog, the script and the story line in general sets your teeth on edge and makes you want to, well, slap everyone involved.

I think the movie had an outside chance at being a spooky, unsettling little cult favorite, BUT:

1)The director needed to beat Michael Pataki, an experienced character actor, with a chair until Pataki agreed to ACT, and not just channel Dennis Weaver.

2)He also needed to find a script that made a little more sense with regard to the whole "Bat Bites Human, Who Then Turns Into A Bat" scenario.

3) He also needed the actor who played the doctor to find a little more physically believable bit of stage business for his 'episodes', instead of resorting to "Man Has A Seizure" page from the Little Golden Book of Cliched Acting Mannerisms.

4) He needed to rework the whole 'wife' character, make her both more intelligent, less shrill and waaaaay more observant.

I would never voluntarily watch this film again, except with the help of Mike and the Bots. It's bad, but it isn't bad in a silly, humorous or interesting way. Still better than "Battlefield Earth" or "Waterworld", though.

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pos/neg ans:
negative