Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: This film is so unbelievable; - the whole premise is bunkum; the fact that a serial killer (vampire or otherwise) could fly around untraced and kill as many people as the film implies is laughable. The vampire himself would not look out of place in a Bela Lugosi film. Most of the acting is so wooden the actors should be treated for dry rot. I await the day when someone makes a decent film from a Steven King novel (with the exception, possibly, of Stand by Me). This film suffers from what most Stephen King films do - lack of money used for the "special" effects, poor actors, appalling characterisation and dialogue. This film is cheap, tacky and fails in everything it tries to do.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: Fashionably fragmented, yet infuriatingly half-realized character-study, an examination of the different personalities of two college roommates: a talented but undisciplined star basketball player, and a pot-smoking, womanizing rabble-rouser. We never learn why these young men are friends. They may share confusions about the world and their places in it, but they don't seem to have anything else in common. Making his directorial debut, Jack Nicholson--who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jeremy Larner, based upon Larner's book--doesn't introduce us to the characters with any clarity, nor he does shape the scenes to help us identify with anyone on the screen. There are some very decent performances here (particularly from newcomer William Tepper in the central role), but most of the picture is unformed (perhaps intentionally), sketchy or unsure. Bruce Dern plays the hard-driving basketball coach, Karen Black is the older, married lady Tepper is having an affair with, and Michael Margotta is Tepper's wayward friend (in an off-putting, over-the-top performance). Nicholson fails to set up the sequences with any particular flavor, preferring (I assume) to let the character interaction dominate the film's tone; his script is no help either, and as a result it is unclear whom we're supposed to sympathize with. Small, random moments do work (a supermarket fight between Tepper and Black, Dern visiting Tepper in his dorm-room, all of the scenes set on the court), however the entire third act of the picture is an excruciating mess. Hoping to juxtapose an all-important b-ball game with a sexual assault, Nicholson shows no style at his craft (nor does he earn points for chutzpah, as his staging of these events is squashy and ugly). When a director goes out of his way to humiliate his actors, one has to question his motives in doing so. Perhaps if "Drive, He Said" ultimately made some sort of powerful statement in the bargain, audiences could forgive the filmmaker for his lapses in judgment and taste. Unfortunately, the perplexing closer is as dumbfounding as much of the rest of the movie. *1/2 from ****

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: I bought this video at Walmart's $1 bin. I think I over-paid!!! In the 1940s, Bela Lugosi made a long string of 3rd-rate movies for small studios (in this case, Monogram--the ones who made most of the Bowry Boys films). While the wretchedness of most of these films does not approach the level of awfulness his last films achieved (Ed Wood "classics" such as Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space), they are nonetheless poor films and should be avoided by all but the most die-hard fans.

I am an old movie junkie, so I gave this a try. Besides, a few of these lesser films were actually pretty good--just not this one.

Lugosi is, what else, a mad scientist who wants to keep his rather bizarre and violent wife alive through a serum he concocts from young brides. They never really explained WHY it had to be brides or why it must be women or even what disease his wife had--so you can see that the plot was never really hashed out at all.

Anyways, a really annoying female reporter (a Lois Lane type without Jimmy Olsen or Superman) wants to get to the bottom of all these apparent murders in which the bodies were STOLEN! So, she follows some clues all the way to the doorstep of Lugosi. Lugosi's home is complete with his crazed wife, a female assistant and two strange people who are apparently the assistant's sons (an ugly hunchbacked sex fiend and a dwarf). Naturally this plucky reporter faints repeatedly throughout the film--apparently narcolepsy and good investigative journalism go hand in hand! Eventually, the maniacs ALL die--mostly due to their own hands and all is well. At the conclusion, the reporter and a doctor she just met decide to marry. And, naturally, the reporter's dumb cameraman faints when this occurs. If you haven't noticed, there's a lot of fainting in this film. Or, maybe because it was such a slow and ponderous film they just fell asleep!

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer:
"Everything a great documentary could be"?? Yeah, if one is deaf, dumb, and blind. Everything but meaning, wit, visual style, and interesting subject matter. Aside from that. . .

Seriously, volken. This is a movie that is completely inauthentic. An adventure doc with no adventure, a war doc with no feeling for war, a campy send-up with no trace of wit. It means nothing, feels like nothing, and carries the implicit message that absolutely nothing matters. No wonder it has so many IMDb fans! Of course, going in you know a movie starring the great Skip Lipman will have no culture, no intelligence, no wit (other than a corrosive adolescent jokiness), and no recognizable human emotion just adrenaline. "Darkon" isn't a movie -- it's a panic attack! Avoid. There too many real documentaries and too little time in life to waste it on toilet build-up such as "Darkon".