Problem: negative
=++++=
Answer: Yes, indeed, it could have been a good movie. A love biangle, (sorry for the poetical license, but is not a triangle!) an interesting story, unfortunately badly told. The image is sometimes weird, sometimes OK, the picture looks crowded and narrow-sighted. The sound needs more attention (it usually does in Romanian movies), the light and color filters are sometimes badly chosen. The soundtrack is short and is not helping the action. About the acting... sorry but the best actress is the landlady. The others are acting immaturely and cannot convince the viewer. The acting is poetical when it should be realistic, and realistic when it should be poetical. It's a picture for adults, told by the children. Bother only if extremely curious.

Problem: negative
=++++=
Answer: Another day stuck indoors, another film to watch. Having finally completed my Christmas shopping yesterday on a cold and foggy afternoon, I had nowhere else to go to escape "The Land That Time Forgot". Or rather, I had nothing else to watch.

Doug McClure, that bastion of leading-man actors, leads a handful of Allied sailors sunk by a U-Boat somewhere in the Atlantic in 1916. Capturing the U-Boat (in a scene that defies logic and reason), they eventually find themselves on a strange island, apparently untouched by human hands. Together, they explore the land and discover dinosaurs and Neanderthals! Can they escape before becoming a permanent resident of the land that Time forgot?

Despite being made few years before "Star Wars", these films are light-years apart in terms of special effects. The model shots are little better than anything you would expect to see in an episode of Gerry Anderson's "Stingray" and the creatures aren't much better either. When the T-Rex (I'm assuming that's what it was) was killed, it fell in the same way that zombies do when you kill them - frozen in mid-walk and collapsing, arms and legs held out like a sleeping cow that's been pushed over. Granted, the sets aren't too bad but the lousy acting and endless explosion noises (which all sound the same) do their best to ruin credibility and your enjoyment of the picture as a whole. Characters are neither believable or worthy of your sympathy as they fire their guns at seemingly anything that moves. In the end, I just didn't care if they got off the island or not and by the time the end came, I was more relieved than entertained.

Costumes are authentic enough until the cavemen arrive and it is bear-skin bikinis and loin cloths all round. And although it was fairly obvious from their actions, you wouldn't have known that some characters were German from their accents. The whole thing just lacked some polish and cohesion, leaving the viewer confused in places and nonplussed in others. Overall, this film barely registers a ripple of excitement these days although you can find some small amusement in trying to work out where Colin Farrell is. I spotted his name in the credits and half expected a baby to appear with an Irish accent and suspect facial hair. Oh well. Nothing particularly great here to see then, but just about OK if you're eating your lunch and the weather is preventing further activity.

Problem: negative
=++++=
Answer:
Bela Lugosi plays a doctor who will do anything to keep his wife looking young and beautiful. To this end, he drugs brides during their wedding ceremonies to make it look as if they are dead so he can steal their bodies. I'm not exactly sure what he does with the bodies. I don't remember it ever being fully explained. All I know is that he extracts something from them and injects it in his wife. (I'll just guess that it's spinal fluid. Spinal fluid was all the rage of mad scientists in the 40s.) You can pretty much guess the rest from here.

There are a couple (well, really more than a couple, but I'll only write about two) of problems that I have with this movie. One is the way Bela is used. Sure, he does a decent enough job in his own overacting sort of way (BTW, the rest of the cast is simply abysmal). But, to have him hiding in the back of a hearse or having him creep into the female reporter's bedroom to do nothing is just silly. Also, why have him beat and/or kill every henchman he has? Is it to make him look evil? Well, someone who is kidnapping comatose brides doesn't really need to be made to look more evil.

The second problem I have is the idea of drugging brides. Why brides? Wouldn't any female under the age of 20 do? Watching Bela go through these gyrations to get his victims, I was reminded of the idiotic Fisherman in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. In each case, there would appear to be an easier way of reaching your objective than employing a seemingly impossible plan that depends way to much on circumstances out of your control. (BTW, an alternate title for this movie is The Case of the Missing Brides. I guess that partially explains the need for 'brides'.)