Reviews

As far as low budget monster movies goes, this is right on-par with what you'd expect: mediocre acting, a loosely-constructed fantasy story, and CGI that is obviously not polished or in any way professional looking for the year it was made in. Could have done a lot better than that! It's good for what it is in its budget/class, but on the overall scale of "worst to best movies I've ever seen" it definitely doesn't score more than a 4 out of 10. Maybe it's because I've never been one for the mid-20th century type of movie making this resembles; I guess the director's age really shows ;) The biggest minus points in this movie are most definitely the effects, and a story that is simply not believable enough to keep my interest. It lacks suspense, it lacks reason; the choice of background story for the gargoyles is shallow and poorly-researched, as well. The movie has a surprisingly slow pace and is predictable after the opening scene that is obviously there to catch people's attention more than actually providing a good setting for the rest of the movie.

OK, I understand that for die-hard Johnny Depp fans, this is probably something they have looked forward to and can enjoy. While I enjoy the actor's performance in general, the movie as a whole is very, very disappointing.

It's a little hard to give a proper review on a movie that has, well, no real direction to the very sequential (I wouldn't call it "linear" because it's got too much randomness for it) events occurring in it. If not true to its title, it seems like whoever wrote the script or the book it was based on in a drunken stupor, going from one "adventure" into the next and shambling and swaying through it. There is no real binding plot, no "larger picture" that is interesting enough to be captivating, and it seems tied together with a far-fetched, almost haphazard thread to try and give it some semblance of coherence.

As said, the main actor's performance is enjoyable, which is a plus, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend it. A giggle or two, maybe, and suitable for in-flight entertainment or afternoon TV, yes, but not for much if anything else.

I was surprised to see an overall score rating on IMDb as low as this movie gets. This movie is entertaining, has good humor, even has sound logic "in the universe it's set in", what more could you want? Giving scores of 1 out of 10 means you found it absolutely unwatchable, and in my opinion this movie would certainly not count for that.

Acting is good, although on rare occasions feels a little forced - the only main reason it's not getting full marks from me. Effects are up to standard, there is a story to it that is well-executed and it's entertaining and keeping your attention. It also provides nice hints and jabs to previous blockbuster movies that feel natural and are honestly acted out - kudos for that! Just because a flic is a comedy doesn't mean it's necessarily a kids movie; and this movie underlines that once more: there are a lot of adult jokes and insinuations, that kids wouldn't get at all.

More can't really be said without getting into spoiling the movie - so I'll just leave this review with the recommendation: watch it if you like comedy with a good dose of sci-fi!

A rehash of the old concept - Adding some things from modern video games, but otherwise it's just another rehash with a forced story to try and have it make sense. As such there is nothing original in this movie, with its only plus point being good acting.

Mediocre in the GFX department, about on par to what you'd expect. Same for the (lack of) story, and the necessary and predictable "heavy family values" one can expect from a modern Disney Studios movie.

If you want to push 3D movies, then you could be more original than doing this. Seriously...

My opinion? Don't waste your time and money on watching this. Mildly entertaining for an afternoon outing - at most.

I honestly expected more from a relatively recent Tim Burton movie than this one turned out to be. Overall quite unimpressive. Ranging from the poor cast choice for the main actors, to overall weakness of the script and story, the only thing that doesn't make it entirely awful is the fact that some effort was put into creating the scenes for the different parts of the story, but it barely pulls this movie off the mark for me. All in all, the "revisiting" by the son of the stories told over and over by his dad his entire life makes for a predictable, closed story with a weak execution; I'm sure it may have some significance for some people, but it absolutely lacked any sort of atmosphere, magic or feeling, except for a few scenes that actually looked halfway decent.

Overall, an unimpressive rendering of an unconvincing story, with decent acting but a poor choice of cast, some obligatory eye candy, but not convincing, compelling or mood-setting enough to make a difference. A disappointment. Definitely not worth more than a 3/10, almost a 2/10.

First things first, this is obviously a very low budget movie. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but you get what you can expect from something like that: cheesy acting, poor camera work and sound, and some laughable special effects.

That being said, it was decently made for what they had to work with. On to the actual contents of the movie: with a title like this, you know beforehand what you'll get - And in that respect, this movie definitely doesn't disappoint. The title is cheesy, and says it all: A woman only prison being plagued by a werewolf menace. The story is thin but decently executed, and they actually made some effort of keeping it going when they were not preoccupied by having a drawn out chase scene or getting down&dirty with each other.

Lots of gore, lots of blood, lots of female nudity and lots of sex. It's like visiting the 70's all over again. If you're fond on this kind of movie, it's decent enough to watch. If you want to have a laugh at how cheesy it is, definitely go for it! It gets a 5 out of 10 from me, for taking something predictable and making it halfway decent.

A lot of people seem to like this movie, and I guess an equal lot hate it. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, I'm part of the latter.

The movie, overall, is too surreal and bizarre to pass. Perhaps if you are in a certain state of mind and/or enjoy psychoactive substances, you can enjoy this movie, but otherwise, it will probably just leave you with a sense of "I have no idea what is going on" and "That makes no sense" - even if you keep your wits about you it seems to veer off on tangents and loses cohesion regularly, and from the start.

Maybe for the cult lovers who like spending afternoons at movie houses watching obscure films, it will be interesting (if they manage to make sense of, or rather, are able to absorb the bizarre sequence of events).

Of course it includes all the "obligatory" elements a movie like this is supposed to have to keep the interest of the already more limited crowd this was aimed for, but even those seem forced, and don't seem to be included but for the sheer fact that it's customary. It doesn't add anything to the movie.

All in all, too bizarre and outlandish for its own good.

I had expected this sequel to be in line with the first D&D movie with regards to the general feel and content/quality, but was quite disappointed.

The visual effects were notably a lot worse, a lot of jerky, stuttered animation in the movements of the creatures, not at all the same kind of quite natural movement I expected to see after having seen the first movie. Lack of detail, cheesy transitions, poor interaction of rendered with real-world elements. There are more different creatures from the fantasy realm in this movie, but none of them are executed well, or even convincingly. Cutting corners with lots of gray and black.

Then, the acting: Sure, it's not been a strong point in the first movie either, but once again, a lot less convincing to put the characters down. No depth to them, feeling more like a high-school play at times which is also indicative of poor directing and a scripts with no real interest in telling a story, but rather to "produce".

I like the fantasy genre, I enjoy the setting this movie plays in. The medieval feel of all the extras was good, and some nice stunts there with the (many) explosions, but overall: a thin story, poor acting of the main characters, and horrendously B-movie special effects make this movie one that only barely scrapes a score of 3 out of me.

It's is OK to watch once. And only once... If you can sit through the 1-3/4 hours of it without getting fed up with it or tired of seeing the poor execution.

I picked this movie up based on what little information was available on the box, and found interesting enough to give it a try. I didn't know much about the apparent "name" this movie had before I bought it, but before watching it I was told it was based on a novel by a well-known writer and had a good cast, so I expected something along the lines of that. I was sorely disappointed.

The only real thing this movie did for me was to convince me never to read a book by P.K. Dick. The concept of execution is interesting, with its live-action-animation style. It also made it very disorienting to watch, and added only to the feeling this movie was just one thing: a description of a drug-hallucination inspired, gritty, depressing life of someone who doesn't even get much of a character built throughout the movie. A collection of conspiracy theorists, people wasted on drugs, spiced up with (plenty of) course language and nudity to try and make it more interesting than it really is. With no progress in story at all until the last 10 minutes or so leading to an inconclusive and hurried ending.

The movie seems to constantly side-track, as if to try and make more time, with irrelevant and self-created problems by the people involved. The supposed plot-twists are still predictable, even with the attempted distractions, and it seems too much attention is paid to try and make it confusing, but it does nothing to help with the very thin plot and story.

If you enjoy seeing people lost in addiction, and enjoy watching random tangents resulting from it, you -might- enjoy this movie, but if you don't, good chances are you will hate it as much as I did. It gets a 1 out of 10 despite the effort in creating a new style of animation like this.

This movie is obviously geared towards the "old school" transformer lovers. It is also a surprisingly mature movie.

Like many people I expected it to be a kid's movie, with lots of animated series alike flat humour and little story to it apart from the "fight against the Decepticons". Nothing was less true: the movie is surprisingly mature, has lots of humour in it that a kid would never understand. Lots of jabs towards current politics in the USA as well, some surprisingly daring in how blatant they are.

The characters: another surprise. Having seen many transformers episodes myself in the past, I didn't expect much depth to the robots' characters, but they are clearly individuals, and a good effort was made to make them more alive than just "a sentient robot". They are unique in their own way, and each individual was put down solidly in this movie.

The action: as expected, a lot of action. A lot of destruction, too.

The plot: More than a few plot holes or bad logic there, some so obvious that I was surprised it passed in the script and got executed in the movie. It's probably the only big downside to this movie.

In general: A nice movie if you don't mind the story of the transformers being taken in its own direction, and can forgive the holes in logic and story, and certainly if you like the old school transformers.

Recommended to see at least once and decide for yourself.

Highlander: The Source takes place in the near future, in Eastern Europe that is going to hell with crime, gangs and riots.

The first thing that comes to mind watching this movie is that is must have been a fan-flic. And not from fans of the actual movies, but rather from the series instead, which was mildly entertaining but had no real story to it.

The same goes for Highlander: The Source. It's mildly entertaining, and has no real story. The whole concept of the previous highlander movies is bypassed, but thankfully they still keep enough sense to not mess up the time line for the other movies, of which one is set in the future. Of course this also means more predictability in the already thin script.

The acting is far from convincing, there are some decently choreographed, but poorly executed fighting scenes to be found, and a very unlikely scenario sketched, to force a reason for this movie, that follows up on a series that, well, is already pretty much done and finished. The story has been told, making stuff up "along the way", especially the way it is done for this movie, doesn't really make for a very convincing or interesting movie. A low scorer, and not recommended for anything but maybe a matinée movie to entertain some adolescent kids..

Since I watched this movie separately from the other ones of the Horrorfest, there is little to relate to in that context. However, for a movie on it's own, it's a decent film. One thing about the movie that bothered me was the dark camera-work. Many scenes are so underexposed it can have you guessing what is going on; although this can work well for some movies, it doesn't really work well for this one, and puts all the more stress on the cliché story of a mining town plagued by zombies. Let's be frank: it's a zombie movie, plain and simple. With the expected blood and gore, and expressionless faces of the zombies in question. A slow starter too, a lot of time of this movie is spent establishing the story, drawing it out in initial guess work, only giving bits and pieces of the story one at a time. It builds up after about half-way through though, and eventually you get treated to a well-rounded story with a beginning, a middle and an end. The acting is good, the camera-work could do with some improvement in places, especially the lighting. The story is predictable but interesting enough, so it's worth a 7/10 in my book. Worth watching once or maybe twice.

This movie, in all its length, is compelling and absorbing to watch. The reason for that is more because of what it doesn't show than what it does show. There are no real heroes, the feel of the movie is one that is gritty, down-to-earth, naked truth.

The inevitable result of what man has done to man is painfully and often gruesomely put to the screen. I'll be frank: lots of people die in this movie, in explicit detail. It has strong gruesome violence and terror throughout.

The acting is, for all rights and purposes, excellent. The tension and heavy emotions involved in the situation in the New Mexico Desert this family finds itself in are very real.

Definitely worth watching if you can stomach the detailed graphic violence. Definitely not one for the faint of heart!

This movie wanted to be so much more than it turned out to be. A lot of potential in the story, but some rather poor director's work never made it come alive.

The movie itself is enjoyable to watch, if you can punch through the Spanish actors struggling with their English, and the sometimes laughable B-movie effects (although in other places the effects are once again quite good). The acting in many cases is amateuristic and very, very poor for all the people that are not main actors.

Some good make-up and special effects are a plus again however, but overall it leaves much to be desired. Your mileage may vary on this one, as it has its strong points and weak points. Some nice diving work and underwater camera-work. The atmosphere is there too, which makes for a nice setting despite the weak acting.

Nothing but praise about this movie.

I have not played the games (that this is apparently based off) or seen any other material related to the story, so I went in fresh. Pleasantly surprised about both the complexity and depth of the story as well as the stunning atmosphere, amazing creatures and effects, and compelling viewing this movie has to offer.

It shows excellent, well-balanced acting from everyone in view. The story keeps on building, as well. Even if you don't know what to expect (like me) it will have you fall from one level into the next seamlessly.

Not for the faint of heart though, a lot of disturbing horror elements definitely spice up this movie, but even with all the visuals there, the story is and remains very strong and leading. Simply excellent, a definite must-see.

This is not the kind of material I would expect to be made in the year 2005. Lots of shaky camera work to hide poorly done special effects, and the whole movie feels more like an Art College project than a professionally produced movie. Obviously very low budget, and unfortunately it shows, too.

It's a zombie movie, nothing special, nothing original, too many loose ends in the script and an inconclusive ending. At least some of the acting was OK, the actors definitely tried to make the best of an otherwise very poor set-up. I do not recommend this to anyone unless you really like zombie movies with a passion.

From the same year as American Werewolf in London, I guess this movie caught the shadow of that blockbuster everyone knows, and is therefore not very well known. However, the special effects are great for this movie, and even though not as focused on the actual transformation, the werewolves in this movie are excellent. Even paying attention to making them digitigrade (toe-walking) and generic body shape that people never saw before (older werewolf movies always had the very human looking shape to them).

The plot itself is quite rich for this type of movie, with some twists here and there. Unfortunately quite a few (too many) sequels of this movie were made that really aren't worth watching, but this (first) one is certainly one to watch. Even if very old by now, if you look past the aged "movie-scares" that are in there on a few occasions, if you like werewolf flics it still remains a good movie to date.