Reviews

Alright, I'll make this one short and sweet:

I went to see this movie, because I wanted a silly little spooky doll flick about a spooky doll doing spooky doll stuff. What I got was a life-sappingly boring marriage drama featuring special guest appearances by Generic Ghost Girl #43894337 and Beelzebub, directed by a man with a fetishistic obsession with utterly pointless zoom-ins.

What made this whole thing plummet down to a 2-star-rating for me, despite its rather high production values, were the completely vacuous characters and their never-ending conversations filled with nothing but tired platitudes and forced melodrama. After 40 minutes of scenes alternating between stale babble and the female lead gawking concernedly at random things while the camera takes twelve years to zoom in on nothing, I just wanted it all to be over.

The premise: The inhabitants of a quiet little mining town experience some major heebie-jeebies, when a murderous monstrosity is awakened and rises from its grave in an old goldmine to go on a vengeful killing spree.

My opinion: To be frank, this movie was exactly what I had expected it to be: A no-frills monster flick made on the cheap, just watchable enough to keep me somewhat entertained for 80 minutes. It even exceeded my expectations in some regards, given that many other Syfy Originals have much worse acting, far more annoying dialogue and worse pacing. This one went by really fast, had predominantly decent actors (with a few glaring exceptions, mind you) and, best of all, a really inventive monster. The "Heebie Jeebie" (it's not actually called that in the movie, but I think it should) is basically just this weird mess of decomposing flesh with limbs flopping all around and a gaping, uh, let's call it a "mouth" reaching all across its body. It's quite rare for a Syfy flick to have something visually interesting in it, so this grotesque, four-armed, multi-headed freakshow was a very welcome breath of fresh air. On the annoying side of things, however, there are a few bad performances, most notably by the protagonist's younger sister and her friend. I also thought that the movie could have done with a few less attempts at comedy, but again, I've seen this handled much worse in other Syfy productions. Oh, and the CGI is complete crap too. Goes without saying, though, doesn't it?

In conclusion, general audiences might shrug this one off as cheap TV trash, but if you're a fan of light monster horror and you're fully aware of the generally low standards of Syfy Originals (which my rating of this movie is based on, by the way), then I'd definitely say you should give it a chance, if only for the bizarre creature. It might pleasantly surprise you.

Let's get the story out of the way:

Agnes, a crotchety, though bizarrely well liked nurse taking care of the various ailments of a rural community, comes in conflict with the mayor when he refuses to grant a young and expecting couple a new home. As Agnes ultimately threatens to leave the community, outrage and shenanigans ensue, including such highlights as a boy hiding a rotten cheese sandwich in the mayor's office to make it all smelly and stuff, and a handful of villagers feigning illnesses to demonstrate how much they need nurse Agnes. None of this is particularly engaging or funny. Spoiler alert.

Alright, then. Another reviewer called this a quintessential movie to watch for anyone interested in understanding the German psyche. Now, I wouldn't go quite that far, but if you're honestly interested in getting a representative taste of good, old East German family entertainment, then this really is a perfect pick. It features the same grotesque banality of the conflicts, the same homeliness of the characters with their gleeful, almost proud simple-mindedness, and the same overall glorification of the working class and the status quo that characterized a very significant percentage of TV productions in the GDR ("Aber Vati", "Rentner Haben Niemals Zeit", the "Maxe Baumann" series of televised stage plays, "Barfuß ins Bett", "Geschichten übern Gartenzaun ", just to name a few more examples).

However, two elements that certainly do make this movie different from most of its contemporaries are the two Agneses. Not only is Agnes Heurig, the titular character, an outstandingly annoying, stubborn, thin-skinned, self-righteous and choleric monster of a human being, who treats anyone who doesn't instantly agree with everything she says like worthless garbage, but Agnes Kraus, the actress portraying her, was also blessed with an astonishing lack of talent and a unique "enunciation" that made me wish this were a silent film. The fact that most of the side characters in this movie are quite fond of Agnes despite her abhorrent behavior is as mystifying to me as Agnes Kraus' popularity in real life.

By the way, to give those, who didn't grow up on the Socialist side of the wall, a more concrete idea of this character, one could compare it to Tyler Perry's Madea. Although Madea is first and foremost an over-the-top comedic character whereas Agnes was at least intended to be kind of a semi-real person, they both share this righteous indignation, this hostility towards opposing views, and this "high-horsitude" that make them irredeemably unlikable.

I guess that in order to get even a modicum of enjoyment out of this movie, one would have to be fully on board with the main character's views, and also see some charm (or at least comedic value) in her grumpy, self-righteous stubbornness. I fail at both. It gets 2 stars instead of 1, simply because the actors around Agnes put up a decent enough effort portraying their dopey characters.

Yes, my friend, someone felt it necessary to produce a sequel to the already forgettable, but at least significantly shorter, "Harvest of Fear", and stretch it out to one hour and fifty-two minutes. I have no words.

Well, that's a lie. I have a few:

I think "Path of Evil"'s biggest problem, aside from overstaying its welcome by at least 30 minutes, is that it wastes too much time trying in vain to be a serious character drama, when it should be focusing on being the slasher flick it's being sold as. The overwhelming majority of the movie deals with the main character's baggage; his love for his ex-girlfriend, his drinking problem, his childhood trauma, and his inability to get his act back together again after the events of the first movie. Now, please don't get me wrong. Drama and murder certainly can blend well, the problem here is just that all those elements are not only *unbelievably* stock and cliché, they're also executed on a melodramatic "soap opera" level of quality.

It's not all bad, though. One thing I honestly liked about the movie was that the writers didn't treat the viewers of the first one like amnesiacs. None of the events of the previous movie were retconned in any way, and almost all the characters make a return. Pretty much the only offense to continuity is that the main character received a *massive* personality reboot, but that's fine by me, considering what a spectacular douchebag he was in the original. Such consistency is extremely rare for low budget horror sequels, so hats off to the writers for that. It does pose a tiny problem, however. The character who was revealed to be the killer who got away with it all in the first movie also appears in the sequel, and the people who remember this are probably not going to get too invested in the murder mystery aspect of this movie. There is a little surprise at the end, though, but don't hold your breath. Anyway, another thing of positive note are the gore effects, which are rather good for such a low budget production.

All in all, I don't think it was such a hot idea to take a movie like "Harvest of Fear", with horrendous characters and a weak story, and make an overly long sequel to it that's *all about* the characters and the story. It's almost as if the makers thought they had something of dramatic substance here, but ultimately, all this attempted seriousness just clashes with everything else and ends up as a hammy, drawn-out distraction that bogs down the entire movie.

The term may be a bit overused in movie reviews and comments, but if there's a word that perfectly sums up "Harvest of Fear", it's "generic". There's just nothing, not a single element, that would make this movie stand out in any way among the countless other low budget slashers out there, or prevent it from being the instantly forgettable experience that it is. Well, at least not in a positive sense. I gotta admit, the rate at which characters are introduced and immediately killed off again actually is pretty remarkable. It reaches a point where I cannot even identify a clear protagonist anymore. I mean, sure, it's not unusual for slasher movies to feature disposable side characters as fodder for the killer, but "Harvest of Fear" takes this way too far. There's a scene halfway into the movie where a group of teenagers discuss the killing of one of their friends, pondering whether they should still throw that party they had planned... and all I'm thinking is "Who the hell are you people and where did you come from?". Ironically, the one character who does get excessive screen time and some development is a spectacularly irritating police officer with some severe anger issues, who spouts nothing but aggressive, overly confrontational insults and one-liners at anyone who looks at him funny. He's the most unlikable person in the entire movie, and of course, he survives up until the end.

Another thing that bugged me a little was that the writers have taken the slasher movie "rules" and conventions, as satirized by films like "Scream", or "Behind the Mask", a bit too literally. Almost every victim in this movie is slaughtered -immediately- after having had sex, or consumed some kind of drug. Flash some breasts, get the knife. Light a joint, get the knife. Have a beer, get the knife, and so on; you get the idea. I don't know if they were intentionally going for a parodic effect, but this repetitive, predictable formula makes the killings almost comical.

There's also a halfhearted attempt at a murder mystery in there, but blah, who cares about "whodunit" if the characters involved are so disposable, one can barely remember their names?

All in all, "Harvest of Fear" is not at the absolute bottom end of the spectrum of low budget horror movies. The direction was okay for the most part and the way the death scenes were filmed indicated that this could have all been a whole lot better, if it hadn't been for this godawful script with its throwaway characters and overly fragmented back story.

Alright, "Frankenstein Island". Whatever image this title may conjure up in your mind, just forget it, because the actual goings-on in this astonishingly bizarre sci-fi horror oddity are guaranteed to thoroughly rape your expectations. In fact, there's very little that *isn't* going on in this one. You get a touch of ancient aliens, a spoonful of wild Amazons, a taste of science gone wrong in the pursuit of immortality, some channeling, occultism, semi-vampirism, zombies, a pickled corpse, mind control, martial arts and, of course, Frankenstein's monster is also waddling around somewhere in there. The movie is so chock-full of half-baked ideas and random nonsense, it makes you wonder whether the script was originally written on paper, or a padded wall.

It starts out harmless enough: Four balloonists are washed ashore a mysterious island after having crashed their balloon into the ocean during some sort of balloon-related world record attempt. Upon exploring their surroundings, the men encounter a rather welcoming tribe of friendly, albeit vaguely occult Amazon women in traditional bikini outfits. They all enjoy a little feast and a tribal dance party, but the fun ends the next day, when another, less friendly group of inhabitants makes their presence known, namely a handful of stranded shipwreck survivors, who have been on the island for quite some time. They proceed to introduce our protagonists to none other than doctor Frankenstein's great-great-granddaughter, who, too, happens to have a cozy summer domicile plus laboratory on this apparently very popular island, and her near-comatose husband, who possesses the remarkable ability to channel the ghost of the actual, deceased Dr. Frankenstein. As you might imagine, this is where things get a little weird.

Now, the main problem I had with this movie was its pointlessly complicated and at times quite hard to follow storyline. I don't think it was necessary to inflate this simple premise of a ruthless scientist doing strange experiments on a remote island with quite so much random fluff. As I mentioned above, there are enough half-developed ideas in this to fill three movies, and they're all haphazardly dumped on the main story without any sense of cohesion. It doesn't help that the characters, especially the bad guys, are pretty inconsistent when it comes to their behavior.

All in all, if you're up for a legitimate Frankenstein sequel, go with something like "Son", "House", "Ghost", or "Curse of Frankenstein", and steer clear of this one. However, if you're seeking out something with a "so bad, it's good" appeal, "Frankenstein Island" is definitely not a bad choice. It's all a huge, spectacular mess that'll make your brain beg for death, but at least it's not boring.

The story's pretty basic. A race car driver is kidnapped by "Black Ghost", an evil, chaos-obsessed organization, with the intention of turning him into the ninth in a series of cybernetically enhanced super-henchmen. However, after a successful operation, things take an unexpected turn, as the cyborgs, together with the titular Cyborg 009 and lead by their creator Prof. Gilmore, decide to rebel. They all flee to an island to form their own, significantly less evil organization in an attempt to put an end to the horrible war that's being secretly prolonged by "Black Ghost".

First, the bad:

The animation didn't wow me. While the character designs are pretty stylish, giving everyone their own distinct, identifiable look, some shots can only be described as cheap, with merely a few actual frames of animation and bland backgrounds. There's one scene in particular, where the protagonist is being prepared for the operation, that looks more like part of the storyboard than a finished and polished movie scene. Other times, individual shots were heavily recycled to stretch out certain scenes, which again, made the visuals more sembling a television cartoon than an animated feature for the big screen.

There's also some overly silly slapstick humor involving the shape-shifting cyborg, which would already be pretty unremarkable and generic all by itself, but in context, it radically clashes with the much more serious tone of the rest of the movie. Although I have to admit, that scene where he transforms into a statue of a naked boy and then shoots laser beams out of his penis did make me smile.

Now, the good:

Truth is, none of my previous points of critique weigh much in the face of what the movie actually does do exceptionally well, namely the action. Whether it's a jet flying sideways to cut enemy planes in half with its wings, an underwater fight against a killer octopus, or a glorious battle between flying cyborgs and giant, missile-vomiting dinosaur robots, the director really knew how to create action scenes that were fast-paced and exciting without making them seem "overedited" or chaotic. It's all pretty creative, and watching the individual cyborgs make use of their respective special abilities was just plain fun all along the way.

In closing, if all you're looking for is an hour worth of engaging, mostly creative, animated action, and you don't mind a not-too-subtle anti-war theme, then by all means, check this one out. I certainly had fun with it.

Alright, let's get the story out of the way: "The Mad Doctor of Market Street" tells the tale of "Dr." Ralph Benson, a hobby scientist who likes to do occasionally fatal experiments in the fields of resuscitation and suspended animation. When the law catches up with him, he attempts to flee the country, but alas, his means of transportation sinks into the Atlantic ocean, where he ends up washed ashore an island with a handful of other survivors. There, Doc Benson sees a chance to continue his experiments, as he manages to fool the resident tribals into thinking he could bring the dead back to life.

No one's ever pulled off the classic mad scientist with quite as much cold, sociopathic, yet strangely gleeful enthusiasm as Lionel Atwill did. It was for this very reason that I sought out this movie, and as it turned out, it was also its only saving grace. It's not that the movie is lousily produced; quite the contrary. The production values are rather high, as evidenced by the convincing and rather varied sets. What mars this one is simply the lack of a clear thematic focus. The movie shifts between wacky comedy, island romance, morbid medical thriller and (very mild) science fiction pretty much by the minute. I suppose this *could* all work together, but in this one, these elements just don't blend very well. Whenever there's a sense of tension, one of the comic relief characters pulls a stupid face or says something silly. Whenever the mood is lighthearted and even romantic, someone dies or Doc Benson schemes evilly. There's also a tad bit too much going on in terms of threats and dangers. The supposed villain of the movie is the titular doctor, but the real dangers are a fire on and the subsequent sinking of the ship, and a tribe of islanders, who are always on the verge of burning the group of survivors at the stakes for superstitious reasons. In between all of this, Doc Benson is more of an opportunistic, overachieving charlatan than a properly menacing villain, which only adds to the movie's overall vibe of inconsistency.

Literally the only thing that manages to be consistent throughout is Atwill's performance. It's just a delight to watch him deliver his admittedly awesomely megalomaniac lines (the character refers to himself as the "God of Life" and aspires to become the "greatest man who has ever set foot on this earth") with this unique inflection of his. Ultimately, this is why I'm giving this a 6 instead of the maybe much more appropriate 4. As mediocre as everything else about it may be, there's no denying that this one really is an absolute treat for Atwill fans.

Not many movies provoke such a strong emotional response from me, but this one, I can honestly say, I absolutely despise. Contrived premise aside, the utterly reprehensible cast of characters has issues (especially with consistency) way beyond the protagonist's overplayed porn addiction. For example:

• The mother, who's basically just this detestable ball of demanding self-righteousness and head-shaking disapproval, baits her husband rather bluntly with sex on the condition that he agrees to spend money on an expensive vacation. Later on, she worries that porn might give her son the wrong impression of what a real relationship should be about.

• The dad is being portrayed as a babbling moron whose insights into life are invariably wrong, stupid, dangerous, sexist and unhealthy, yet he's one of only two characters *in the entire movie* to point out that an increased interest in sexual imagery may actually be somewhat normal for a teenage boy.

• There's no reasonable middle ground whatsoever when it comes to the boy's sportive achievements, and everyone keeps responding to them in ridiculous outbursts of binary extremes. What I mean is, the coach and the parents praise the boy for getting accepted into the state swim team, but subsequently treat him like the absolute scum of the earth for merely placing third(!) in a national(!!) swimming competition. The mother even uses this supposed disastrous failure as an excuse to throw a fit about the boy's educational future.

• Speaking of fits, there's a scene where this lovely woman ponders her inability to properly communicate with her son... and you know what immediately follows this moment of profound introspection? Another hysteric fit where she shrieks at the boy's face for having brought poisonous porn into her idyllic home.

• The main character doesn't fare much better as far as likability goes, though his habit of lying through his teeth every chance he gets is slightly less annoying by comparison, given that he's actually *supposed* to be a confused person. Besides, douchy as he may be, the poor kid really is stuck in an uncomfortable situation. It's obvious that there's very little he can do to actually please his peers and family instead of provoking some overblown, negative reaction from them. In fact, the movie makes it rather clear that the *only* acceptable behavior for Justin is to either lie about, or suppress his true feelings for the sake of everyone else's happiness. Expressing an interest in real sex is bad, merely wanting to have real sex is bad, looking at porn instead of wanting to have real sex is bad, in essence, having a penis is bad. Yeah, Justin's got it tough.

Anyway, as far as the story's concerned, the whole thing is just a contrived downward spiral where relatively normal teenager behavior gives rise to pretty grotesque conflicts, like the alienation of exactly those friends who got Justin hooked on porn in the first place, or an act of severe (and rather random) self-mutilation by some whorish side character whom Justin had refused to have sex with. It all culminates in some ambiguous, suicidal death scene, but sadly, not the mother's.

All in all, this movie is a sickening experience for anyone who's ever spent as much as a minute in friggin' *reality*. The morals are blaringly inconsistent, the characters are either complete buffoons (the males), or hypersensitive harpies (the females) and the story is just a vehicle for the cringeworthy message.

First, let me be upfront and say that I don't know diddly dick about the Mondo culture in general. I've only seen one Mondo flick in my life, Mondo Balordo, and thought it was quite abysmal. This is why I'm in absolutely no position to adequately judge whether Mondo Collecto succeeds as a satire of this type of exploitation documentary. What I do feel competent enough to say, however, is that it definitely does succeed as a funny and affectionate mockumentary on the life of the collector.

The initial draw for me was the involvement of Ted V. Mikels, and in this regard, the movie really doesn't disappoint. His segment, where he talks about his collection of medieval weaponry, endears with Mikels' characteristic, sincere enthusiasm. This genuine passion carries over to another segment about a man who collects classic toys, mostly action figures, but subsequent bits featuring an eccentric Pez collector and a woman with a bizarre interest in Christian imagery (renditions of Jesus in particular) are a lot more fake and focused on comedic effect. They're entertaining nonetheless, though, mostly because the deadpan commentary by those two individuals is hilariously absurd.

However, later on, the movie drags a bit when things get a little too fake and scripted. There's a rather pointless and drawn-out skit involving a flesh-eating psychopath and, towards the end, a melon-humping sexual deviant. They don't seem to fit in with the rest, as the humor just comes off as forced in these segments.

All in all, I didn't really know what to expect from this movie when I bought it, but I certainly don't regret having done so. It manages to capture some sincere passion for the hobby of collecting, while also using it as a premise for absurd humor without relying too much on predictable stereotypes, and for this, I can only recommend it to anyone looking for a slightly different docu-comedy.

Alright, now, I have no idea if this was done as a deliberate comedy, a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek spoof of low budget sci-fi flicks, or if they were really trying to be serious here and just failed spectacularly, but Actium Maximus, this hideous, shrieking beast of a movie, is hard on the viewers' eyes and ears regardless of the filmmakers' intentions.

My biggest gripe with the movie was *by far* the audio. I had an absurdly difficult time understanding the dialogue (unless it was subtitled, which it mercifully was in many scenes), because the robotic/futuristic distortion effects that were used for most of the alien voices rendered their speech almost completely unintelligible, not to mention an irritating chore to listen to. Tragically, most of the (painfully jargon-infested) dialogue in this movie is expositional and pretty much essential to understanding the story and the setting, so not being able to discern what's being said definitely is a problem. Or maybe not, considering that ---spoiler ahead--- *none* of the established conflicts and crises are actually resolved in any way whatsoever. Instead, the viewer is given the middle finger in the form of a "To Be Continued..." message after over an hour worth of nothing but buildup. Delicious.

Of course, the other major issue are the visuals. I have absolutely nothing against "bad", low budget special effects in general, nor do I reject movies that deliberately opt for a cheap look, whether for comedic effect or just for style, but this disaster is where I have to draw the line. The effects in Actium Maximus are bad to the point of being a severe distraction and hindrance to the plot. After a while, I was no longer just sitting there, watching a movie, but actually squinting at the screen, guessing the contents of conversations and hoping to figure out what the hell the makers where trying to convey with the confusing, chaotic imagery.

All in all, Actium Maximus is a nasty, messy and overall grating ordeal. It gets a 2 only for some of its genuinely impressive set miniatures, and the somewhat admirable guts the producers must have had for even attempting an ambitious project like this on such a damningly tight budget.

A journalist admits herself to a mental health institute to investigate undercover the goings-on behind the curtains of the privately run facility. Things go relatively smoothly until patients start to disappear and an infestation of man-eating rats and a janitor, telepathically controlled by a humongous uber-rat, put a slight damper on her investigations.

Not really that much to say about "Rats" other than that, in a wide river of mostly sub-par monster and killer animal movies, it really sticks out as a relatively competent production. The story barely ever drags, with proper rat action taking place at an even pace, the cinematography is good, with some POV shots and unusual camera angles thrown in there to break up the monotony, and the cast, consisting of decent no-names and Ron Perlman as a bonus, never annoys. The special effects are somewhat of a mixed bag, though. While the practical gore effects and the scenes involving actual, live rats were pulled off surprisingly well, the additional computer animations are mostly just a laugh.

All in all, if you're looking for a cheap, little thrill involving killer rats, and you can get over some utterly abysmal CGI, then by all means, give this one a try. You could do *much* worse in this genre.

Just to get this straight, I have absolutely nothing against Syfy Originals in general. Mostly, they're refreshingly irony-free throwbacks to classic drive-in b-movies and those giant monster flicks that Hollywood and independent studios alike tend to neglect. This one, however, was quite different, and not necessarily for the best.

I guess my biggest issue, aside from the absolutely worthless protagonist, was the presentation of the story. An amazingly large part of the movie consists of very little more than a group of scientists *observing* the actual location of interest via monitors and meters. They analyze the data and discuss the mysterious threat that's supposed to be rising by the minute with as much melodrama as possible, but the fact remains that all we see is people *talking* about a dangerous situation from a safe distance. It hampers the sense of tension that's needed for a "Countdown to Doomsday" movie to work. It's not necessarily boring as much as it feels like a distraction from what *should* be the real focus, namely the actual sites of the strange phenomena. There are exceptions, of course; some of the later action scenes and special effects sequences really are pretty well executed for a TV movie, but they're only a minuscule portion of the whole.

All in all, "Stonehenge Apocalypse" is one of the weaker Syfy Originals I've seen. It's undeniably much more coherent and serious than many of the others, but it thoroughly lacks true excitement and tension. The fact that most of its major plot devices are mere references to established real world pseudo-sciences, inelegantly thrown in there like quotes from their respective Wikipedia articles, certainly doesn't help.

Alright, now, Larry Cohen's writing has always been hit-or-miss for me. I liked his "Maniac Cop" series, "It's Alive", "Phone Booth", and even "The Stuff" and "Uncle Sam", but for every enjoyable script he produces, there seems to be an equally awful follow-up, like "Captivity", or, well, this one.

The huge problem with "Messages Deleted" is how extremely desperate it is to come off as hip. It's laden with postmodern, self-aware babble about movie staples, story structure, clichés and so on. The main character writes screenplays and teaches scriptwriting in college; a fact that he won't *ever* shut up about. There is a tiny bit of character depth attempted when we see a few scenes of him caring for his demented father and being confronted with some sort of vaguely haunting past, but that's all ditched soon enough in favor of an endless stream of "I KNOW A LOT ABOUT STORYTELLING IN MOVIES! HEAR ME MAKE REFERENCES TO IT AND APPLY MOVIE ANALYSIS TO REAL LIFE!". Excuse the all-caps, but I'm trying to convey just how utterly annoying it is to listen to this gimmicky dialogue all the time, when it's neither natural, nor particularly insightful.

Regarding the storyline, all I can say is that for a movie that's so smugly obsessed with pointing the finger at "clichés" every chance it gets, it sure fails to steer clear of them itself. The whole thing is so bland, so mediocre, so utterly conventional that its self-aware pretense and attempted cleverer-than-thou attitude consistently fall flat. Even the core premise of a killer acting out a script is old and unimaginative. Not that it couldn't have been done well, but it's still a contributing factor to making this movie seem nowhere near as fresh as it wants to perceived.

Now, after all this misery, there's certainly a bit of salvageable material here. With the exception of Millie and Adam, all the characters are brought to life by pretty skilled actors. Matthew Lillard does a decent job walking the line between "I'm playing a serious character!" and "I'm friggin' Matthew Lillard!", and I always enjoy seeing a bit of Serge Houde, although he's merely the token douchebag cop in this one. Cinematography and editing are also competent enough, in my opinion, to elevate this movie from sub-par to average, but that's really as far as I'm willing to go.

In closing, "Messages Deleted" is a movie that's consistently stuck in an uncomfortable rut between making trite and often forced observations about the predictability of thriller movies, and conforming to those very conventions that make thriller movies predictable to begin with.

I think I should mention right away that I am not a huge fan of contemporary Asian horror. Yes, the movies usually do excel at creating very strong, haunting atmosphere, but from what I've seen so far, they are also extremely keen on blunt plot recycling. From my (admittedly limited) experience with this semi-genre, it feels like every other flick revolves around some kind of curse involving either a young woman, a child, or both, seeking revenge from beyond the grave, and this has simply gotten very, very old for me. It's reached a point where they all just blend together with their nearly identical themes, story lines, and even imagery and pacing.

Well, along comes "Chain" with its highly conventional premise that lead me to expect nothing but yet another Japanese curse movie. The first 20 minutes or so even reinforce this impression, as we see several school girls die gruesome deaths after having received (and neglected to forward) a threatening chain mail. As things move on, however, the movie deviates more and more from purebred horror to somewhat bizarre, darkly humorous satire. The girls' teacher turns out to be a crooked sex fiend, all characters have comically fetishistic obsessions with their cell phones, the death scenes become increasingly over-the-top, and the final conclusion is a complete farce and a death blow to all expectations. None of this helps making this supposed horror movie any *scarier*, of course, but it certainly does make it a very welcome, refreshing change of pace. I was genuinely having fun at times.

Now, on to the critique. The dialogue is abysmally stupid for the most part. I cannot tell whether this was mere incompetence, or a deliberate attempt by the writer to encapsulate the shallowness and naiveté of the school girl protagonists, but in either case, it's rather annoying and makes it very difficult for me to care about any of the characters. Again, this detaching effect may have very well been intentional, but it doesn't make for pleasant viewing regardless. I also thought that the movie's low production values, while not a hindrance for the most part, resulted in quite a few very cheap-looking shots and sequences.

In closing, I would recommend this one to both, fans of Asian horror and those who've grown a bit weary of its conventions, provided that they can handle a humorous slant. This is a hesitant recommendation, however, because even with its refreshingly funny overtones, the movie is still flawed in many regards, and those who are in for serious scares may perceive it as a bait&switch.

It was strangely difficult for me to write this much about "Grind", because everything that could possibly be said about the movie could much easier be condensed to a simple "Road Trip Ripoff". Similar characters, similar premise and similar conflicts, only this time, it's served with a surprisingly arbitrary side dish of skateboarding. I think this is actually one of my bigger complaints about this whole thing: It's not really a skateboarding movie. The skating scenes are periodically shoehorned in there, as if the director tried his hardest to get them over with as quickly and unimpressively as possible. Even the showdown, which is literally just one, long half pipe performance, is filmed in such a ham-handed, not to say *bored* manner that it could be trumped even by the skate scenes in "Most Vertical Primate". I'm hardly exaggerating.

Of course my other, much bigger problem with the movie is its humor. I read in the Trivia section that large parts of the dialog were improvised, and yes, that's definitely what much of it feels like. Not the brilliant kind of spontaneity, though, but the kind one might produce when goofing around with friends after a few too many beers, where guttural noises, witless sex jokes and, of course, farts become the epitome of hilarity. I mean, I'm not trying to sound snobbish here, but I believe this rambling humor that consists of little more than random noises and guys hitting each other while shrieking in drunk amusement just doesn't translate very well to the big screen. To put it bluntly, this comedy's comedy isn't funny. It's embarrassing.

All of this is quite sad, because one thing the movie definitely does have going for it is a relatively strong cast. The main group consists of adequate actors, and Vince Vieluf in particular is usually a pretty funny, unaffectedly likable guy. However, here he's reduced to a drooling moron, who makes noises all the time and giggles at the stench of his own feces. There are also special appearances by Brian Posehn, Stephen Root, Randy Quaid, Bobcat Goldthwait, various members of the Jackass ensemble, and Tom Green, just to name those I recognized right away. I've seen all of these guys deliver the goods before, but in this one, they're all shadows of themselves. Well, I guess Bam Margera did reasonably well, but maybe that's because he was one of the few characters in the movie who didn't actually try to be funny. He was just there as a celebrity skater.

In closing, I'm a bit saddened that this didn't turn out any better. I very much like the basic idea of a road movie comedy about a group of amateur skateboarders trying to get sponsored. It's a crying shame that this concept went to waste with such bland, unmemorable characters and their lobotomized humor.

The Good:

The visuals. Now, I'm not much of an animation buff, so my standards might be comparatively low, but I think this is where the movie (quite literally) shines. The world of Tamagotchi is filled with unique characters and odd, "living" architecture, all rendered in beautifully eye-pleasing pastel. Everything, from the buildings to the filing cabinets, has subtle faces, makes expressions and is in constant, organic motion. The characters, while stylistically simple, are all completely unique; in fact, despite a rather dense population, I could not spot even two identical looking characters in the entire movie. All of this contributes to an atmosphere of strangeness and wonder. In this regard, the movie definitely succeeds.

The Not-So-Good:

The story. This is the movie's biggest and most damning weakness. The core premise is that of a young girl's accidental teleportation to Tamagotchi World, the home planet of the famous virtual pets, but instead of focusing on this girl's adventures in this strange, new world, or maybe on her attempts to get back home, the story shifts focus almost every ten minutes. At first, it's about the girl, then it's about one of the Tamagotchi characters' fear of the dark, then it's about his little Tamagotchi sister hatching from an egg, then it's about the planet getting sick, because the sun has disappeared... you get the idea. So many random ideas, so little cohesion. The fact that these conflicts and their consequence-free resolutions are often unrelated to one another makes the movie feel more like a collection of short episodes and not like one, coherent storyline. It's a shame, really, because as I said above, the world design and the color palette certainly are nice enough to make for a good kids movie. To be fair, however, as weak as the story is, at the very least the movie's messages are not quite as ill-conceived and trite as they are in many other substandard children's movies and TV shows. They address the various insecurities a child might feel in the role of the older sibling, and encourage the expression of feelings and opinions even at the risk of offending others. That's a bit more substantial and practical than the usual "Be nice and love everyone" theme, I suppose.

In closing, I guess I would recommend this movie only to two kinds of people: Very young children and devoted fans of Japanese animation, who can get enough of a kick out of the vibrancy and radiance of the visuals to overlook the clumsy randomness of the story.

On a side note, I watched the English version of this, and some of the voices were ear-bustingly shrill. I cannot say if the Japanese original fares any better in this regard.

Let me just say that I am not a huge fan of horror comedies that rely purely on self-awareness, pop culture references and the ironic use of established genre clichés. There are a few good ones, like "There's Nothing Out There", "Behind the Mask", or Craven's "Scream", but most of them are so obsessed with self-irony that it becomes obnoxious and trite. For this reason, I did not expect "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" to entertain me even one bit. Well, long story short, I was ashamedly mistaken, because underneath all the genre parody and tongue-in-cheekness of this movie lies a genuinely creative premise, namely that of an "accidental" slasher in the woods, which lends itself to a few beautifully absurd and absolutely hilarious, darkly comedic situations.

Aside from the basic idea, another element I liked were the rather atypical protagonists. Normally, writers aim for identifiability with their characters, which I assume is why so many horror comedies feature the same selection of cookie cutter college kids, or sarcastic, working class slackers. Tucker and Dale, as a pair of good-natured, slightly naive hillbillies, were quite refreshing in this regard.

There are a few things I didn't like, though. Towards the end, for example, there's kind of a typical horror movie twist/reveal regarding one of the college kids, which I thought was neither necessary, nor all that clever. From this point onward, the movie changes gears from absurd humor to somewhat bland action. It's still watchable, but the showdown certainly sticks out as the weakest part of the movie.

In closing, "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" was a big surprise for me. It successfully dodged many of the pitfalls of modern horror comedies, did *not* try to be yet another "Shaun of the Dead" clone, and, for the most part, managed to walk the fine line between mere references and genuinely clever, situational comedy.

"For its time" is the big qualifier I'm applying to almost all the positive things I can say about "Himmelskibet", because, in my honest opinion, this movie's rather clumsily tackled themes and naive, overly saccharine messages have not aged very gracefully at all.

The number one problem here is the portrayal of the alien race and their civilization. Instead of awing the viewer with the strangeness of an alien world, or challenging our earthly views and beliefs by having them clash with otherworldly philosophies, the makers opted for a community of both visually and culturally very mundanely human people whom we are still meant to perceive as vastly superior beings based solely on the fact that they've managed to transcend violent conflict. While this may indeed be a very advanced notion, this warless society is still portrayed as so primitive, so superstitious and so tribally ritualistic, that it simply fails to make the aliens seem truly above us earthlings. They come off like pacifist, primitivist cultists in ancient Greek attire. Not only is this rather boring from a sci-fi perspective, but it also makes it painfully obvious that this alien race serves nothing but a purpose and one purpose only: To be a vehicle for a blunt anti- war/pro-tolerance message.

Moving on. One thing I definitely did like was the complexity of the story. There are many minor character developments and conflicts contributing to the whole (professional jealousy, for example, and a mutiny on the ship), rather than just one thick main plot thread, which is pretty unique for a movie of this vintage. Another thing is the overly expressive, theatrical acting performances that are so typical of the silent era, which I've always enjoyed. In this regard, "Himmelskibet" certainly delivers. The bad guys are characterized by dramatically evil mannerisms, while the good guys strike heroic poses and gaze wistfully at the sky. It conveys the moods and characterizations without any dialogue and is a lot of fun to watch.

In closing, I can only urge everyone with even the slightest bit of interest in movie history to give this one a chance. You might enjoy it for the beautiful black&white photography and the interesting (albeit extremely rare) special effects, and you'll spot many (then novel) themes and ideas, which would later become staples, even clichés of the genre. However, those of you, who want a good, classic science fiction movie that has stood the test of time, are probably best advised to look elsewhere.

Plot:

An alien creature, bloodthirsty and pregnant, goes on a violent killing spree after managing to escape from the infamous air force base in Nevada. A hardboiled female scientist and the local sheriff take up the hunt through the desert in an attempt to prevent more murders, and to catch it before the greedy folk from a nearby freak show manage to get their exploitative little hands on it.

My awesome opinion:

This movie's rating, presently at 2.1, is quite a bit misleading, I think. Sure, the plot's just a loose chain of contrivances for the colorful cast of characters to fall prey to the monster, the characters themselves are total caricatures, and the acting triggers the occasional cringe reflex, but overall, this really wasn't so bad.

One thing that I very much enjoyed was that, just like with their previous movie "El Chupacabra", the makers of "Alien 51" have largely abstained from the use of CGI. Now whether this was a production design decision, or just a financial necessity, I do not know, but the end result is an alien that's quite obviously just an actor in a rubber costume. Some may perceive this as silly, but personally, I find it relatively refreshing to still find some practical effects among the influx of recent indie horror/sci-fi flicks that rely almost exclusively on computer generated content. It's just nice to see a guy in a rubber suit every now and then. Eh, that didn't sound right.

Anyway, in closing, "Alien 51" is a shameless, unapologetic b-movie that certainly knows its place in the cinematic hierarchy. It never tries to be anything more than just a cheap, Direct-to-DVD monster flick, and if that's all you're after, you could do a whole lot worse than this.