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This was yet another big screen outing for a US TV show from the sixties It is amusing enough but was very much to formula. Intelligent Martian lands on Earth and meets the not too bright humans, in his view.<br /><br />The usual wackiness ensues with the human, Bridges, eventually bonds with him and helps him to get home. Along the way he also gets the girl, Hannah.<br /><br />This is a nice outing for some pleasant Hollywood stars who I had not seen for a while.<br /><br />Pleasant enough to pass some spare time if you have not got anything better to view. | 0 |
We went into this movie because my husband had enjoyed the original version of `My favourite Martian'. We had our 6 year old daughter with us. She wanted to leave halfway through the movie which was fine with both her parents! The parts we did see were only occasionally humorous, mostly either too silly or gross. I would expect that this movie might appeal to kids between 9-12, if that. It's definitely not suited for younger children. From what I've heard the original series was by far superior and if you are going to "relive the past" you'll probably be disappointed. | 0 |
Shazbot, is this embarrassing. In fact, here's a list of 100 that makes up the embarrassment: 1.) a failed comeback for Christopher Lloyd. 2.) Jeff Daniels basically playing the same role he played in the live 101 Dalmatians remake which wasn't too juicy to begin with. He sure has a funny way of promoting his Purple Rose Theatre... 3.) Disnefluff. 4.) another disappointing reminder that Wallace Shawn is to Disney what Jet Li was to Bob Hoskins in Unleashed. 5.) Ray Walston, the original martian from the TV series, played a bit part (read "cameo") in this flick and died two years later of lupus. Coincidence? 6.) awful special effects. Seriously - awful. 7.-100.) that damn talking, farting suit voiced to an annoying degree by Wayne Knight ("Newman!"). My favorite scene? HA! HA ha, ha! Ha ha ha ha ha... Whew!... Good one. You - You're a joker. Okay, let's wrap up this review with a moment of silence for this franchise's agonizing death, and if you would like, you can say a quick prayer that Disney doesn't forget this travesty and do something silly like a movie adaptation of "Mork and Mindy" starring Tim Allen......................................................... | 0 |
There is no possible reason I can fathom why this movie was ever made.<br /><br />Why must Hollywood continue to crank out one horrible update of a classic after another? ( Cases in point: Mister Magoo, The Avengers - awful! )<br /><br />Christopher Lloyd, whom I normally enjoy, was so miserably miscast in this role. His manic portrayal of our beloved "Uncle Martin" is so unspeakably unenjoyable to be almost criminal. His ranting, groaning, grimacing and histrionics provide us with no reason to care for his character except as some 1 dimensional cartoon character.<br /><br />The director must have thought that fast movements, screaming dialogue and "one-take" slapstick had some similarity to comedy. Apparently he told EVERY ACTOR to act as if they had red ants in their pants.<br /><br />Fault must lie with the irresponsibly wrought script. I think the writer used "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" as an example of a fine comedy script. As manic as that 1963 classic is, it is far superior to this claptrap - in fact - suddenly it looks pretty good in comparison.<br /><br />What is most sad about this movie is that it must have apparently been written to appeal to young children. I just am not sure whose children it was made for. Certainly no self-respecting, card-carrying child I know!<br /><br />If they HAD to remake "My Favorite Martian", why didn't they add some of the timeless charm of the original classic? <br /><br />Unfortunately, IMDB.com cannot factor in "zero" as a rating for its readers, that is the only rating that comes to mind in describing this travesty.<br /><br />One good thing did come from this movie, the actors and crew were paid - I think. | 0 |
This is the third parody of the scary movies and hopefully the last. This time the spoof is mainly on The Ring, Signs and 8 Mile for some weird reason. In my opinion this movie was very pointless and unnecessary and not even funny. I laughed maybe three times and that is not enough for a comedy. I really enjoyed the first two but this one was just plain dumb. If your jokes consist of corpses getting beat up and people constantly throwing stuff at each other then this movie is for you. In my opinion, if your smart enough stay at home and save your money and please stop making these kind of movies, they just keep getting worse 3/10. | 0 |
You could say that the actors will make a movie, but this clearly proves that statement wrong. Most of the characters in this film lack anything to hold on to. They play the part of cardboard cut outs being moved about in predictable and uninteresting ways. The story is very simple. It could be summed up in a few words, but I'll hold back in case anyone reading does want to see this film.<br /><br />I had to fast forward the parts where Jack showed us how to be an obnoxious eater. I'd have to say that 70% of this film revolved around cooking, eating, or getting ready to eat. Quite frankly, I'd rather not spend my time watching Jack chew noisily with an open mouth. Personally, I could have done without the footwear references and jokes that pepper the first half of the film too.<br /><br />Outside of my own personal dementia, the film really lacked anything worth it's time. There were countless scenes and camera shots that felt like it was dragging. When something happens, the reactions of the characters are vague and dry.<br /><br />Best not to look this one up. | 0 |
The movie was watchable while Nicolson was on the screen. However, I had to fight against passing out from boredom when the film depended on Meryl Streep to carry scenes without Jack; she was as bland as could be. The relationship between the characters was nothing special; these characters have been portrayed before -- and much better. It felt like a based-on-real-life scenario in the absolute worst sense: 90% of daily life is boring, and not worth writing about or watching. Why Ephron felt her life and relationship with Carl Bernstein was interesting enough to write about escapes me. Perhaps she wrote it as therapy -- for many writers, putting an episode from their life on paper is cathartic. Fine: but then why anyone in Hollywood felt this story was worth filming remains a mystery to me. | 0 |
This should be a great film... Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson co-starring as two newspaper writers. Mike Nichols directing. Uh uh. It's dull dull dull! Pointless and predictable! Slow and unfocused!<br /><br />It's a cookie cutter 'boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy has affair, girl leaves boy' story. Now theres an original concept! After squirming through two hours (was it only two? It felt like six.)I wasn't sure whether it was a comedy, a romance, a tragedy or a soap opera. It was done in 1986. I'm sure all of us did things sixteen years ago that we rather would forget. I hope the damage to the reputations of Streep et al is beginning to heal and that the emulsion on the master is beginning to fade. It's not that it's such a bad picture. It's just that it's such an un-good one. | 0 |
I saw this film at its New York's High Falls Film Festival screening as well and I must say that I found it a complete and awful bore. Although it was funny in some places, the only real laughs was that there appeared to be o real plot to talk about and the acting in some places was dreadful and wooden, especially the "Lovely Lady" and the voice of the narrator (whom I have never heard of) had a lot to be desired. J.C.Mac was, I felt, the redeeming feature of this film, true action and grit and (out of the cast) the only real acting. I am sure with another cast and a tighter reign on the directing, this could have been a half decent film. Let us just hope that it is not sent out on general release, or if you really want a copy, look in the bargain bin in Lidl. | 0 |
I watched mask in the 80's and it's currently showing on Fox Kids in the UK (very late at night). I remember thinking that it was kinda cool back in the day and had a couple of the toys too but watching it now bores me to tears. I never realised before of how tedious and bland this cartoon show really was. It's just plain awful! It is no where near in the same league as The Transformers, He-man or Thundercats and was very quickly forgot by nearly everyone once it stopped being made. I only watch it on Fox Kids because Ulysses 31 comes on straight after it (that's if mask doesn't put me to sleep first). One of the lesser 80's cartoons that i hope to completely forget about again once it finishes airing on Fox Kids! | 0 |
...though for a film that seems to be trying to market itself as a horror, there was a distinct lack of blood.<br /><br />There was also a distinct lack of skilled directing, acting, editing, and script-writing.<br /><br />Jeremy London put in one of most appalling performances I've ever seen - his "descent into the maelström" of madness is achingly self-aware and clumsy. Oh look at him twitch! Oh look at him drink strong spirits! Oh look at him raise his brow, and cock his head at a jaunty angle! Oh look at his unwashed, greasy dark hair! Oh listen to his affectedly husky voice! He must be a tortured artist/writer/genius! Oh, yes, out comes the poet-shirt - it's another boy who thinks he's Byron. (Or Poe.) Oh for the love of... did someone give this guy a manual on "How To Act Good" or did they just pull him out of a cardboard box somewhere, the defunct little plastic toy-prize in a discontinued brand of bargain-bin cereal. Okay, that was a stupid line - but that's only because London's performance has melted my brain with its awfulness.<br /><br />Katherine Heigl is cute, and very briar rose, but has yet to grow into her acting shoes in this film - she delivered her lines like she was being held up, in fact, her whole performance was very wooden, her poses as stiff as her lines - who knows, perhaps she was just reacting to, and trying to neutralise, Jeremy London's flailing excesses, but if that's the case, she takes it too far.<br /><br />Notable is Arie Verveen as Poe - while his character's role is confused, he delivers the best performance of the piece. He, quite simply, looks right, but it's more than that - he has some sort of depth, I believed that he had a life beyond the dismal two-dimensional quality of the rest of the characters. Huh, maybe it's just because I like Poe, and could thus just let my mind wander and invent while he was on screen - whatever, he had an interest factor otherwise missing.<br /><br />The rest of the characters are a faceless blur - there are all the usual caricatures: the perky blonde best-friend who's a bit of a floozy; the smitten local cop who's a bit of a dork; the protective older man who perhaps has too much un-fatherly interest in our heroine; the scheming old witch, etc., etc., yawn, yawn. <br /><br />As with the 'distinct lack of blood for a horror movie' issue, none of the themes that they mention (and that London's character mentions - so scathingly - in his attack on Poe's writing) are followed through on. As another reviewer said - there was potential here: murder, incest, - genuinely shocking stuff, but instead they skirt away from the issues, and cut away from the violence (a raised candlestick swinging through the air - closing in on it's victim - then---cut to black! This is fine in a Noirish traditional horror, indeed, it's expected, and is fondly received when it happens - it's a dear convention, especially when accompanied by fake lightning bolts and intense Siouxie eye makeup - but in 'Descendant' it just comes across as clumsy, or as though the editor got queasy at the last minute and cut it out.) This could have either been a very tense psychological thriller - the horror of palingenesis/delusion/madness - or a simple (and fun) slasher movie: it tries to be both, or neither (something new and exciting!), but either way it fails dismally. The only horror element of this entire movie is it's epic dullness.<br /><br />I think the editor (if there was one at all) must have been drunk when s/he chopped this thing up - there are awkwardly foreshortened scenes; scenes that appeared to be out of order (but that could have just been the poor script). LIkewise the director & cinematographer - there were some very strange shots and framing that I think were meant to be tributes to Hitchcock or Browning, but just ended up looking silly (again, fine in a noir, but this was trying to be something else.)<br /><br />The whole thing perhaps may have been funny (in that way that previous reviewers have mentioned - "OMG how did this get made?!?") if I had been in the mood for some trash- bagging, unfortunately for me I had settled on the couch, with the lights down low, with the express intention of scaring myself silly - this is a very poor film, and I'm afraid I can't recommend it to people, not even for laughs.<br /><br />Please, please, don't waste your time or money on this - either borrow a real horror/thriller film, or find yourself a copy of Poe's fantastical tales, either way, you'll have a far more enjoyable and frightening night than you could ever hope to achieve with this rubbish. | 0 |
I don't usually comment, but there are things that need to be said. Where to start...<br /><br />The acting, on Jeremy London's part was horrible! I didn't think he could be so bad. The plot could have been good, had it been well directed, along with a good solid performance from the lead actor. Unfortunately, this is one of those movies you read about and think it has great potential to be entertaining, but get disappointed from the start. <br /><br />Well, at least I got good laughs. I wouldn't waste my time if I were you. | 0 |
The Film must have been shot in a day,there are scenes where you can see the camera reflections and its red pointer,even the scenery's green light that blends with the actors!!!The plot and the lines are really awful without even the slightest inspiration(At least as a thriller genre movie).Everything that got to do with Poe in the movie,has a shallow and childish approach.The film is full of clise and no thrilling.If you want to watch a funny b-movie for a relaxing evening with friends then go for it you will enjoy it (As I Did) but there's no way to take this film seriously! | 0 |
actually, it was pretty funny... in a "god, how the hell did this movie get made" kind of way. if you life making fun of movies... which i kinda do... go ahead and watch it... but if you're actually thinking "is this a good movie?" eff off.<br /><br />this movie sucked from the very beginning scene with the worst acting i've ever seen in any movie.... usually they get five minutes into it before you realize "this movie might suck".. but no, you know right off the bat. this movie talks about edgar allen poe... never tried to explain it though, to people who haven't memorized poe's life story... so i don't know if any of what was said is fact.<br /><br />this movie is about a writer "ethan poe" hookin up with his cousin "ann".... they're both descendants of edgar allan poe... or are they?!? apparently, people give a what their ancestors did. this guy ethan poe is actually ethan "usher", who is supposed to be descendants from the story "the house of usher" that was written by edgar allen poe. ann's brother shows up sometimes to try to rape her... ann's also being stalked, at one point in the movie, by three different people on the same street (seriously, three... they're like right behind her glaring at her and she doesn't even realize). the characters that are being murdered throughout, show up at the end to try to save the day.... but they can't. at the end, ann shoots ethan while he's trying to kill her best friend. of course, before she shoots him she has to scream out "nevermore!" this movie should be seen nevermore! | 0 |
This is surely one of the worst films ever made. Each scene is painful. You will groan at the flimsy attempts at humor, the awkward camera work, the sexism and racism, the ridiculous story line, the wooden acting. Poor Joan Bennett; she is the only one in the movie who is not an embarrassment. In all, dreadful. | 0 |
I have to say I hated this movie. I don't like to say that because Gerard Butler is in it. About a half an hour of boring conversation, sorry to all who actually care about the plot, I started fast-forwarding to Gerry's scenes. I really don't know the ending, I was that bored with it. If Gerry wasn't in it, I probably either done one of two things: fell asleep or turned it off, but Gerry is the bright light of this movie, as he is with most of his earlier movies. If you're a fan of Gerry's don't worry, he's as adorable and precious as he always is, but if you actually want to watch the movie for the plot, good luck because you'll need it, either that or lots of coffee or soda to keep you awake! <br /><br />4/10...and that's just because the casting director had the sense to put Gerry in this movie, even though they had no idea of how to spell his name! | 0 |
I love Zombie-Movies and I love amateur-productions. And Meat Market 2 starts really promising with a nice homage to Fulci´s Classic "Zombi".<br /><br />So I leaned back and waited to be impressed. Okay, some of the makeups are great for such a no budget movie and some actors (the vampirelady and the cook) really stand out, but else there´s nothing.<br /><br />I didn´t expect a new Romero here but there is not one sequence in the whole movie which has even a little bit of suspense or shock value. The director sure knows how to stage body rippings and interesting eating habits, but now (after two parts) it´s time to learn something more.<br /><br />In MeatMarket2 Gore rhymes with bore - for me that´s not enough - sorry.<br /><br />** out of ***** | 0 |
About the worst movie in distribution right now! I love zombie movies and saw this in the used rack so I thought why not? Oh my god a shame to zombie movies and fans to the genre! Whoever made this movie needs to put away your camcorder and go to film school! There are so many gore hounds out there who have put time and effort into their films and they have something that this film doesn't dignity. I know it what it takes to make films and I'm sure there was a lot of money and time spent in making Meat Market but none of that money and time went in to making it good. You need actors, a script, a real camera, invest in some books on how to make independent films. I don't know how you got a DVD release but whoever did that is either a really good friend or banging their head on the wall. In gore films it is quality not quantity, the effects are weak! I was so angry that this is actually in stores and that I couldn't get my money back. Please if you have seen this film write here and put an end to shlock. I know I'm being very harsh, I only had 10 lines so I'm trying to get to the point. | 0 |
This film was the recipient of the 1990 Academy award for Best Animated Short Film. Over the last few weeks, I have seen dozens of the nominees and recipients of this award from the last 30 years and I really think that this film might just be the worst of them all--yet it wasn't just a nominee but it won!! I assume that 1989 must have just been a horrible year for the genre.<br /><br />The film shows a group of characters that look a bit like super-skinny Uncle Festers. The appear to be simple articulated figures who are moved using stop motion animation. All are identical--with the same faces, bodies and clothes. The only difference is that each has a different number drawn on their backs. They are all standing on a large platform that is suspended, as if by magic, in space. Each has a pole and their is also a box on the platform. The platform begins tilting slightly and in response the men move about in an effort to balance the platform. This goes on and on and on and on for the longest time. The only relief from this tedium is when one of them acts rather nasty towards the end, but it just isn't enough to make this fun to watch in the least. Aside from passable stop motion animation, this short offers nothing of interest to me....NOTHING.<br /><br />By the way, the great short KNICK KNACK also came out in 1989 and I have no idea why it was not among the nominees. It was a GREAT short and was far better than any of the nominees that year or the year before. Perhaps Pixar's success in previous years resulted in a bias against them, but KNICK KNACK is so clever and so funny it seems almost criminal to have ignored it. Could Pixar have not entered it? This seems unlikely. | 0 |
This movie was horrible, simply put. It was so bad I registered with IMDb to warn you of its dangers.<br /><br />I am a campy horror film expert, per se. I have watched "Redneck Zombies", "House of the Psychotic Women", "Slumber Party Massacre II" and many others. I know my schlock. And I know this movie sucks.<br /><br />Three fourths of the film is comprised of scared individuals running from one side of the screen to the other. When they are not running, they are spouting non-sequitur lines, devoid of emotion or motivation. When the actors begin to be acceptable, the direction falls to pieces. There were so many jarring low-angle shots; I figured Leif Jonker had a 3 foot tall tripod. He used what I call the "Leif Maneuver" several millions times: that is, zooming out from an object of interest like an amateur. Apparently the film crew couldn't get up early enough to film a sunrise, so they filmed a sunset... and played it in reverse. With direction this lazy, you are actually impressed with the final gory scene. The only thing you can figure is that the last five minutes was filmed before the first eighty-five minutes.<br /><br />If you want a good (bad) gory movie, rent "Riki-Oh" or the foundational "Dead Alive." If you are a schlock buff, and are looking for a challenge, give "Darkness" a go.<br /><br />Quote o' the movie-<br /><br />Vampire: It's die time! | 0 |
Yes, I know I'm one of the few people longing to trample this movie into the dust of oblivion.So let me me tell you why I feel this way. In truth,had it been advertized as a Zombie film or the like,I might have enjoyed it.But right now,I'm totally speechless.<br /><br />*SPOILER...Though I'm not sure what's to spoil* Let's start with the first HUGE flaw. If I did not know that the movie is called "Darkness - The VAMPIRE Version" and had I not seen some sequences where some individuals seem to be sucking blood, I would not have seen the connection with Vampires. I mean, FANGLESS???? Give me a break!!!<br /><br />Second bad point: what's with the Metal? It appears that all young people, but mainly those so-called "vampires", are into various kinds of Metal,judging mainly by their shirts! Don't get me wrong, I've been into the more extreme forms of music for almost 15 years, but nobody 's going to scare me by showing me some ridiculous teenagers in Iron Maiden (of all bands!!!) T-shirts running around,pretending to be Vampires! "Pathetic" is the only only word that I could use here.<br /><br />Third weakness: the actors. Wait a minute. WHAT actors?! You mean the director's wooden friends! Words would be a waste here.<br /><br />Yes, alright, the movie is very gory, but what difference does that make? It WOULD have been a strong point and something to enjoy if the "briliant" director had not chosen to create an ARTIFICIAL vampire topic in this movie. I wanted to see Vampires,but was treated to some stupid looking kids I would have loved to use my baseball bat on. The Film-makers should simply have advertized the movie saying "cheap B-grade horror with no plot but a lot of gore" !!!<br /><br />This movie is blasphemy against the whole concept of Vampirism. And it makes me sick. | 0 |
When I borrowed this movie from a friend (thankfully I did not buy it) on the package (which truly looked bad and ugly) was printed "The ultimate vampire horror". After watching it I thought that the marketing campaign was probably more expensive than the film itself. The "story" begins when a teenager (surprise!) is chased by some vampire/zombie-creatures.<br /><br />Lighting, sound and everything reminded me of my first attempt to make a holiday-video on a ten year old VHS-system if not worse. I gave the movie a 2 out of 10 and only because the promo-T-shirts looked kind of cool. I don't want to dis' film-students or splatter-movies generally but I've seen Braindead and I've seen a 20-dollar-budget movie from students that was ten times better than this crap. | 0 |
<br /><br />I am a big-time horror/sci-fi fan regardless of budget, but after watching countless horror movies late night on cable and video, this has to be the worst of all movies. With bloody special effects (what looked like a roast covered in fake blood or ketchup that kept being shown over and over again) and people running around screaming from left, then to right, then back again. It should have stayed with the beginning convenience store scene and stopped there and been 15 minutes. Instead, it is dragged out very long. It is very, very x5 low budget. Many scenes were way, way too long. Narrator sounded very amateurish like a random person out of junior high was talking. This is the only movie to rate lower in my opinion than Manos, Red Zone Cuba, Benji,and Godzilla vs. megalon despite their higher budgets. 10 snoozes, try to stay awake through whole movie in one setting or better yet, avoid it like you would an undead brain-eating mob. The Why-Did-I-Ever-See-This-Piece-Of-Zombie-Dung-Blues. Epitome of nauseatingly bad made movies etc..ad infinitum. -infinity/10 | 0 |
I found Darkness to be just too DARK. It had a kind of cool idea and some ambitious ideas, not bad action scenes and a few splashy moments to make you go UGH! BUT, it was underlit to the point of confusion. You don't really know what is always going on in the dark scenes and for a film that is shot on Super 8 Film, you already have all that nasty grain to deal with. As with Nathan Schiff movies, it's just too much. Director Leif Jonker seems to want to make an original film, but he lacks the know-how to do it. The camera is never pointed in the right place, lack of fundamentals such as how to shoot simple dialogue scenes and how to light a movie hurt as well. The actors are all pretty uneven and hammy. But despite these negatives, the music is good, the gore is plenty and ranges from silly putty to really good appliances. Is this a classic like it says? Is it worthy of the two discs worth of praise? NO. But it is a good first try. Now if these guys would stop patting themselves on the back about this movie (from what I understand here the only one they have ever finished) for a while and try again, they may do better. | 0 |
A small town is attacked by a horde of bloodthirsty vampires. The only hope is a lone avenger and a group of ragtag survivors.<br /><br />Released in 1993, "Darkness" garnered something of a cult following upon release. It's easy to see why-it's loaded (and I mean freaking loaded) with gore, and it's energy and enthusiasm, like that found in other no-budget cult horror flicks like "The Dead Next Door" and "The Children of Ravensback", is actually rather infectious.<br /><br />While that may be true, that's sadly not enough to save it. The film was shot on a Super 8, so the image is grainy and dark, making things very difficult to see (it would have been great if it had obscured the protagonists dreadful mullet.) Also grating is the soundtrack, made up of annoying Casio Keyboard and even more annoying Death Metal (seriously, what is it with these no budget horror flicks and bad Death Metal?) While one isn't expecting Oscar worthy performances, the acting is still strictly amateur hour, as the actors sometimes seem almost confused instead of frightened or threatened.<br /><br />In the end, I'm sure fans of no-budget gorefests will love this. Everyone else though, will wish there was a little more meat on the ribs. | 0 |
"Darkness" was entertaining to some degree, but it never seemed to have a plot, lacking one more so than other films that have been accused of this detriment; i.e. "Bad Taste". It started off really good, with a man running from something. It was very creepy for these first few minutes, but after a time the film just became entertaining on the level of gore, which was hard to make out at some points due to poor lighting and horrible recording quality anyway. The film was hard to believe because of the juvenile acting, which most of the time, seemed like some friends talking to a video camera, making lines up as they went. That, with a lack of any plot whatsoever, made it look like the film was started without, and ended without, a script of any kind. As said before, gore was this film's only drawing point, which much of the time was hard to make out. | 0 |
First of all, the actor they have to play Jesus has blue eyes... half the actors they have playing Jews have blue eyes. Aren't there enough brown-eyed actors out there? Jesus being depicted as having blue eyes is one of my pet peeves. He was a full-blooded Jew! Second of all, what is it with old English-language movies that are supposed to take place in non-English-speaking countries, and everybody has English accents? (Another example is David Lean's "Dr. Zhivago".) Aren't there enough either Jewish actors or actors who can do a Israeli accent? The movie often is not true to the Scriptures, and so seems to doubt the legitimacy of Jesus's claim to be the Messiah. In the bible, when Jesus is baptized by John, a voice comes from heaven saying "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17, Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22). In the movie, John the Baptist says this! The screenwriter seems to be trying to portray the believers as crazy, as well. For example, in the bible, the angel Gabriel tells Mary she will become pregnant with the Son of God (Luke 1:26-38), but in the movie, we do not see or hear any angel - Mary appears to be talking to a moonbeam, and when Mary's mother hears her talking to someone and peeks in on her, she doesn't hear or see anyone either. Also, in the movie, when Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees in the Temple in Jerusalem, he says, "You shall not see me here again, not until you learn to cry, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord', for I and my father are one and the same." The correct line (Matthew 23:39 and Luke 13:35)is "You will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" Period. Jesus never claimed to be God. The movie cuts out a lot of important parts (the Sermon on the Mount is very expurgated), but then spends a lot of time on stuff that isn't even in the bible (a whole scene with Mary Magdalene talking with a john). It seems like the screenwriter, instead of wanting to do a movie version of the Scriptures, wanted to make a movie about what he thinks might have really happened behind (and between) the scenes. The movie has one gem though - during the scene where Jesus tells the parable of the Prodigal Son, at Matthew the tax collector's house, I had tears streaming down my face. It is the best movie I've seen about Jesus's ministry (but that isn't saying much, because the others are just terrible). "Jesus Christ Superstar" is my favourite movie about Jesus's last days ("The Passion of the Christ" is way too graphic), though I like how "Jesus of Nazareth", instead of just ending with Jesus's death, continues on and shows his resurrection. | 0 |
This is one of the worst films I've seen in years!! You could randomly pluck 5 people off the streets and they could act better than anyone in this film. Absolute waste of time watching it. I only gave it a 2 as I like gory films but this is just plain rubbish. The acting (and I use that term VERY loosely) is abysmal, someone please tell me that the 5 main actors in this were making their first ever film?? Don't waste your time watching this. Hostel was a better film by some way. I cannot believe that someone has spent money making this, I hope for the producers sake it only cost $50,000 to make - it looks like a school project, made by kids who haven't got a clue. Did this even make it to the cinema?? | 0 |
First of all, this is a low-budget movie, so my expectations were incredibly low going into it. I assume most people looking at the info for this movie just wanted a bloodfest, and essentially that's all it is.<br /><br />Plot? There really is none. It's basically Saw but in China and a whole hell of a lot worse. Cast? There is none, period. Special Effects? Absolutely awful in my opinion... There were cutaways and the blood was often completely unbelievable because of amounts, splatter, color, texture, etc.<br /><br />I believe the purpose of this movie was supposed to be a brutal, shock film. Now it had some great potential on a bigger budget but poor scripting, poor dialogue, awful acting, what seemed like camcorder video shots, and just plain unbelievable "gore," made this movie truly awful.<br /><br />There are movies worth taking a chance against some reviews, even "b-rate" movies deserve some opportunities (blood trails for example was the most recent I saw against reviews that was worth it), but this was simply awful. I hope that people considering this movie read my comment and decide against it.<br /><br />I'm all for brutality and shock, but the overall unrealism and truly awful acting makes for an awful experience. Save your time/money and chance something else, you won't be disappointed. | 0 |
This is the kind of movie that's so extremely bad that you cant stop watching it because you keep telling yourself that 'it cannot continue to be this crappy all the way to the end. It just cant'. You know, 'worse than Jaws 4'-kind of bad.<br /><br />I honestly think I've only seen ONE movie that was worse than this, and then we're talking religious crap about how you'd end up in hell for lying or watching football.<br /><br />Gore? Indeed and lots of it. Well made gore? No way.<br /><br />The acting is beyond bad and all the lines are lousy clichés. Same goes for the storyline which only really consist of sex, blood and violence, like so many other gore movies.<br /><br />If you're hoping for a mix between Ichi the Killer and August Underground
keep looking. You wont find it in Live Feed. | 0 |
just watched it, me and my better half could not believe how awful and badly acted it was. If anyone else thinks its good then you must be easily pleased. I actually gave up a night out to watch this, its all been done before. IE. hostel springs to mind, but at least that did not make you cringe with the bad acting and lack of story line, same old stuff, re-hatched,i read so much about this film, i even recommended it to my mates, my fault,someone said it was good! no more gory,horror or reeling back in disgust than your average "scary movie" it has to be said, please don't bother with this movie. get mary poppins. now thats scary! I'm off out now, go to the cinema and watch something scarier than this, little miss sunshine maybe | 0 |
I'm all for a "bad" horror movie but this was just a pile of dog sh!t! How anyone can call this movie cool or decent is beyond me. If you like rushed editing to cover the special effects, bad acting and a bad script then go for it! There was no suspense whatsoever and the gore factor was laughable because it was so fake. I'll take Hostel or Wolf Creek over this pile any day. My partner gave up after about 20 minutes, she knows a stinker when she sees one. I on the other hand stupidly sat through the whole movie just to wait and see if it got any better. No such luck! I haven't sen his other movie Torched and I doubt if I'll bother now. | 0 |
I watched the Unrated version of this film and realised about 30 minutes into it that I was never getting my time back. I persevered to the end hoping that the dialogue would improve, the martial arts would look realistic eventually, the special FX would actually look special. I was so wrong. I love Horror, I am a complete gore hound. I number some of the eighties splatter flicks amongst the greats of the film world. This however was not made in the eighties, if this film had come out in the early eighties the fax could be forgiven for looking so bad. It wasn't so it hasn't got that defence. The dialogue is terrible with so many bad lines I was wincing at the writing rather than squirming at torture. I don't like Hostel, never have, I thought it was over rated, over hyped and I felt nothing for the protagonists, however it shines as a beacon to greatness next to this garbage. The back of the cover for Live Feed promised a twist you would never see coming, I'm still waiting for the twist that was promised. | 0 |
Where to even start? The horrendous acting? The nonsensical plot? The bargain basement effects? The completely loathsome characters? The choppy editing? The headache-inducing Casio keyboard score??? The embarrassingly racist remarks ("Watch it, Charlie!", "Back off, Jackie Chan!!"??? The constant misogyny??? I am a lifelong horror fan, and I have no problem at all with the current "torture-thon" trend of movies. However, this is a poorly-made piece of garbage. I think I suffered more pain watching this than the characters did dying in it! If you like girls being forced to eat stir-fried penis, really poor soft core porn and think lines like "I'm gonna find that b**** and staple her c*** shut!!" are clever, LIVE FEED is for you.<br /><br />As for me, I feel the need to go wash my eyes out with oven cleaner to prevent from ever seeing this movie again! | 0 |
This has to be the WORST movie ever!!! The acting is scarier than the movie. Lots of blood, but no idea where it comes from, cuz they don't even show you the cuts. I can't believe I wasted my time watching this movie. We laughed like we were watching a comedy and not a horror movie. This is a disgrace to horror films!!! For one if they are in Asia why is there a white cop driving past Waste Management trash cans?! There's so much of another language that you don't even know what's going on half the time. The film editing is a joke, my teenager could do better. And if I went to a movie theater and that nasty old man was working the window that would be the first clue. DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! NOT TO EVEN SEE HOW BAD IT IS, YOU WILL BE SORRY YOU DID!! | 0 |
Live Feed is set in some unnamed Chinese/Japanese Asian district somewhere as five American friends, Sarah (Ashley Schappert), Emily (Taayla Markell), Linda (Caroline Chojnacki), Mike (Lee Tichon) & Darren (Rob Scattergood) are enjoying a night on the town & taking in the sights. After a scuffle in a bar with a Japanese Triad boss (Stephen Chang) they decide to check out a porno theatre, as you would. Inside they are separated & quickly find out that the place belongs to the Triad boss who uses it to torture & kill people for reasons which aren't made clear. Can local boy Miles (Kevan Ohtsji) save them?<br /><br />This Canadian production was co-written, produced & directed by Ryan Nicholson who also gets a prosthetic effects designer credit as well, one has to say that Live Feed is another pretty poor low budget shot on a camcorder type horror film that seems to exist only to cash in on the notoriety & success of Hostel (2005) & the mini craze for 'torture porn' as it's become known. According the IMDb's 'Trivia' section for Live Feed writer & director Nicholson wrote it after hearing about certain activities taking place in live sex theatres, for my money I reckon he wrote it after watching Hostel! The script is pretty poor, there is no basic reason given as to why this porno theatre has a big fat ugly freak dressed in bondage gear lurking around torturing & killing people, none. Was it for the Triads? Was it for his pleasure? Was it to make snuff films to sell? Some sort of explanation would have been nice. Also why did he turn on the Triad boss at the end? If your looking for a film with a coherent story then forget about Live Feed. It seemed to me to be some sort of uneasy misjudged mix of sex, S&M, horror, torture, gore & action films which doesn't come off. I mean just setting a horror film in a porn theatre isn't automatically going to make your film any good, there still needs to be a decent script & story, right? The character's were fairly poor clichés & some of their actions & motivations were more than a little bit questionable. It moves along at a reasonable pace, it's fairly sleazy mixing gore, sex & nudity but it does look cheap which lessens the effect.<br /><br />Director Nicholson doesn't do anything special here, the editing is choppy & annoying, he seems to think lighting almost every scene with neon lights is a good idea & the film has a cheap look about it. Available in both 'R' & 'Unrated' versions I saw the shorter cut 'R' version which really isn't that gory but I am prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to the 'Unrated' version & say that it might be much, much gorier but I can't say for sure. There's a fair amount of nudity too if that's your thing. I wouldn't say there's much of an atmosphere or many scares here because there isn't & aren't respectively although it does have a sleazy tone in general which is something it has going for it I suppose.<br /><br />Technically Live Feed isn't terribly impressive, the blood looks a little too watery for my liking & entire scenes bathed in annoying neon lights sometimes makes it hard to tell whats happening, it to often looks like it was shot on a hand-held camcorder & the choppy editing at least on the 'R' rated version is at times an annoying mess. Shot on location in an actual porn theatre somewhere in Vancouver in Canada. The acting is poor, sometimes I couldn't tell if the actresses in this were supposed to be crying or laughing...<br /><br />Live Feed is not a film I would recommend anyone to rush out & buy or rent, I didn't think much of it with it's very weak predictable storyline lacking exposition & which goes nowhere, poor acting & less than impressive gore (at least in the 'R' rated cut anyway). Watch either Hostel films again or instead as they are superior. | 0 |
I just want to start by saying this is the first review of a film I have done on the net. I felt the need to warn people about this film because it truly is one of the worst films I have ever seen. After reading interviews with the director he says he respects constructive criticism and so i will try to avoid bashing the film just for the sake of it and offer my opinions as to why i found it to be so catastrophically terrible.<br /><br />1. The actors. I know the budget may not have allowed for great thespians but with Nicholson working in the industry for over ten years surely he knew some actors who were at least average.<br /><br />2. The incredibly lame make up and special effects. Once again budget obviously interfered with what was originally intended but after working in make up for so many years there is really no excuse.<br /><br />3. The obvious similarities to Hostel. Whilst not being exactly a rip off it sure does try to cash in on the former films success. Only problem is Roth knew where he was going and exactly how to get there...<br /><br />4. The music. Not at all creepy or haunting not even sickening just plain annoying.<br /><br />5. The script in general. All dialogue was forced and terrible! Also the sub plots about the theatre and the guy who comes in to save them were weak as and almost like an afterthought.<br /><br />6. The editing. WTF. How jarring, and not in a good way. nuf said.<br /><br />Seriously I would like to hear the director's thoughts on my post (he no doubt frequents his pages on IMDb.) cause buddy... what were you thinking. Surely at some point during either the shooting or editing you realised what a turkey yolu had on your hands... Sorry I don't want to be harsh but you must have more talent than this i hope your next feature that gutterballs movie or wahtever is better, hopefully practice makes progress.<br /><br />But in the mean time avoid this like the plague. I want my 81 mins back with interest. (At least I didn't pay to watch it.) | 0 |
An obvious b-grade effort to cash in on the Hostel/Saw buzz, my expectations for this film were low (really low!) and yet it still managed to disappoint on every level. The acting is so bad it's not even funny, the plot-line is non-existent and the only scare was realizing that I had wasted 1hour 21 minutes watching it! I'm surprised to note that 34 people gave it a 10 star rating. I can only suspect that 33 of these are Cast and Crew. The 34th is possibly the directors mother? - although I'm sure even she would find it hard to go higher than a 2! DVD extras include an hour long "making of" feature. Which raises the question, "Why?" (although perhaps it serves to demonstrate what not to do!). Avoid at all costs. | 0 |
2005 gave us the very decent "gore porn" flick Hostel, and 2006 gave us Live Feed; a not so decent rip-off of Hostel. Live Feed follows pretty much the same formula as Eli Roth's earlier film, except this time the dumb kids are in Asia rather than central Europe. The plot focuses on these dumb kids, and one of them has annoyed one of the locals so they find themselves in trouble. The locals decide to lock them all in a theatre, and kill them. Despite the fact that I'd heard some less than favourable things about this film before seeing it, I still hoped that it might be at least half decent because director Ryan Nicholson previously made the very decent 45 minute rape and revenge film 'Torched', but this film falls down simply because most of it is either ridiculous or boring. The film is obviously trying to hark back to the good old days of Grindhouse cinema (which Hostel did, successfully), but it really doesn't come off. Surprisingly, considering Nicholson's previous work in special effects - not even the gore is impressive...although it is a lot better than the acting! There's not much else I can say about this film...it's bad and not in a good way. Avoid it! | 0 |
I agree with the last reviewer that this movie had terrible acting. Yes, there was a lot of gore and some nudity. But it was overshadowed by a slow-moving, meaningless plot and dumb ending. Where was this supposed to be filmed anyway: a Canadian Chinatown or Hong Kong? Hostel was a much better movie and I would recommend seeing that instead. A technical annoyance I had with the DVD is that if you shut off the Spanish subtitles, they return after a few scenes and then you have to go back to the main menu and turn them off again. Also, don't waste your time on the deleted scenes because there's no audio and it just looks like tourist footage. | 0 |
Anyone who has said that it's better than Hostel is talking complete crap, believe me I'm not a fan of Hostel but this is just ridiculous. This is just another shot on camcorder, straight to DVD, low on ideas waste of your time, I can't believe how many of these films there are and I'm yet to see a decent one. In the 80's video nasties, gore and horror movies were made with no budget but a great story and a load of new ideas and most importantly the heart and soul of the director who had something to say. Now they just seem to be pumped out in an attempt to trick people browsing in Blockbuster to rent a copy, until people stop doing this then I guess these films will keep appearing. This film is so low on ideas it's just amazing how it ever got made, the acting is also terrible, the location completely unconvincing and the soundtrack is so annoying it beggars belief. This waste of time has absolutely nothing going for it, unless you're on a quest to compile a list of the worst movies of all time. My best/worst part of the film is when a female character is pointing a gun at someone and threatening to shoot them if they don't back off, you can see that she isn't even covering the trigger with her finger just holding the grip. An absolute joke. | 0 |
First I'd like to excuse my bad English.<br /><br />I'm not a HOSTEL-hardcore-fan, but I liked that movie nevertheless. Live Feed, however, SUCKED BIG TIME! I have never seen a gore-movie with superb acting, but hey, who's surprised? The acting in Live Feed was... well, not there! I've seen some commented this as it must have been a school project or something. Okey, but not by students in media or acting school. This was NO class at all! And what about the story? A really sad rip-off on Hostel. And what about the gore? What about the psychopathic torture scenes that supposed to make your guts twist and leave you cold-sweating? That was the most disappointing about the hole movie! Short, quick and NO edge. More like an execution rather than a torture. Okey, there where buckets of blood, but it didn't even look real. The slaughtering and the violence reminded more of Braindead than Hostel or any of the Saw-movies. And Braindead was fun! Okey, I laughed at Live Feed a couple of times, but that was more out of disappointment than out of sheer fun!<br /><br />So instead of wasting 80 minutes by watching Live Feed, watch ANYTHING else! | 0 |
I wasn't at all a fan of the 2005 gore fest hit "Hostel", and most of these lame ass knock-offs are just as bad or worse - yet "Live Feed" managed to keep me somewhat entertained for about the first 30 minutes. Started off with plenty of sex and sleazy settings, followed by some good death scenes involving the Chinese Organized Crime Squad and a 7-foot, leather-aproned butcher... What put me out of the movie was the tough 'hero' with the guns and a grudge saving the day... I would call this movie mediocre, at best, since a premise mainly involving obnoxious young people being slaughtered in a seedy porno theater, doubling as a hideout for the mafia, is appealing to me. If only the torture was prolonged enough to be thoroughly effective, then my rating would have differed greatly. Unfortunately, most of the gruesomeness is heaped together in one scene, leaving the rest of the movie to conclude as a revenge-type scenario. So, basically, it IS just a low-budget "Hostel" rip-off with the redeeming use of gratuitous sex, almost constant during the first half of the film... Overall, I would say don't bother with this one. | 0 |
Some gorehound-friends recommended "Live Feed" to me, and basically I can't really complain as the film certainly does deliver copious amounts of gross smut and buckets full of sleaze, but it is of course not a very good film. More than obviously cashing in on the latest trend in horror cinema, the so-called Torture Porn, Ryan Nicholson tries to surpass every other film in this sub genre (and that includes the role models "Hostel" and "Saw") with its sick & twisted make-up effects and thoroughly depraved shots of naked co-eds tried up, suffering and begging for their lives. There's no actual plot to describe. Five utterly brainless twenty-something friends take a trip to Asia. One of them has Asian roots, but other than that I don't really know why they opted to travel there instead of to Cancun. They're clearly not interested in the continents culture and even cause a hectic scene when they witness a local butchering a cute puppy dog on the market. The quintet subsequently dives into the lurid night life and one of them accidentally insults the leader of a criminal clan. A simply apology clearly doesn't suffice, as the gangster follow them into an adult theater and gradually subject all of them to vicious torture. One girl has her breast impaled and another poor wench even has a poisonous snake shoved down her throat; yikes. "Live Feed" is surprisingly boring despite of all the bloodshed and the amateurish production values are quite difficult to overlook, even if you're used to watching independent fan-boy trash cinema like this. The fat bloke depicted on the cover, an oriental S&M executioner, is admittedly quite cool and he's also the most talented of the whole bunch, because he at least keeps his mouth shut the entire time. I wouldn't exactly recommend this pile of filth, but hey, if you like loud & hideous metal music, nauseating torture footage and dim-witted losers, go right ahead and watch! | 0 |
This movie is a lot like the movie Hostel, except with *BAD* acting and not much suspense. The gore elements are there, but you don't really feel anything for the characters, making the violence not very effective. Some parts are just strange... like forcing a snake down someones throat. What's up with that? Is that supposed to be scary or gory? It's just kind of stupid. As for torture, there really isn't any (except for the guy getting blow-torched in the beginning, which they don't show anyway). The main bad guy keeps saying "make them die slowly", yet the butcher kills them all very fast. The deaths are all relatively quick. Yes, I did watch the "unrated" version. So, overall, not the worst gore movie I've seen, but not at all good either. You won't miss anything if you skip this one. | 0 |
There was no characterization in this movie and really shows how much this talentless hack who directed this needs to learn his craft. All his characters in this movie were so unlikable and I could care less. The best point in this movie was the end credits and the hour long shower after this cause I felt so damn dirty that I wasted money on this stinking load. Hey genius....triads and yakuza are from two different places learn something about Asian culture. The dog scene in this felt so tacked on and useless. This DVD does prove useful I do love my new coaster.<br /><br />So kids don't waste your cash on this crap buy Hostel instead. | 0 |
Whoa nelly! I've heard a ton of mixed reviews for this...but one of my go to hardcore horror reviewers really found it to be disappointing. Man was he right on the nose! This movie was acted by pure amateurs. They HAD to have done one take, maybe two on each scene, the movie seemed soooo rushed. The script was also poor....they had lines that tried to be unique but failed. Miserably. "Get your meathooks off of me!" Oh man, I hate it when movies try to do that. It happens all the time with comedies...but, with a horror movie and with below average actors....the results are incredibly pathetic. The lines and scenarios were all very predictable. But what made me feel so negative towards this movie was, again, the damn acting. It was awful. Besides by the little Asian guy who worked the booth. I thought he was great.<br /><br />The movie is about 5 stupid dumbsh!t tourist who are on a vacation in Asia. They end up at the wrong place and fall into the hands of a mafia run sex/slaughterhouse. Sounds like a cool story. But watching someone with a bad case of diarrhea is probably more fun and intense to watch. The only reason this is considered horror is because of the killing. There wasn't a trace of suspense.<br /><br />I like many other horror fans were dying to get their bloody little mitts on this. But unfortunately with a HUGE capital U, the movie was incredibly disappointing. I did enjoy the ankle break and the blood effects. The flabby chicks were also so so.<br /><br />Everything about this movie screams amateur. This is Ryan Nicholson's first feature length, and for the most part he failed. There's no denying he has a sick sense of humor and taste for horror. I pray his next movie doesn't play out like another B horror flick...unless he tells us that's what it's gonna be. Even after this disappointment I'm willing to give Ryan another shot. From what I've seen of him, he's a true, dedicated man to the genre. Good luck next time, because this was bad news. | 0 |
This film is not deserved of the next few minutes I will spend criticizing it, but I know many people, like myself, rely on IMDb.com to assist in deciding on films. For that reason alone, I am writing this.<br /><br />"Live Feed" is like an Asian version of 1976's "The Incredible Torture Show" (aka "Blood Sucking Freaks") http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077247/. Torture, dismemberment, murder, cannibalism... sure, it's all here along with a third-grade script, pathetic acting, and a perverted failure of an attempt at black comedy.<br /><br />The film takes place in China, yet everyone speaks English. There is an abundance of girls in the film who are horrified by the butchering of dogs in a marketplace, yet are sexually excited about entering a porno parlor. One gal who is disgusted by the filth in a restroom stall moments later is still there having at it with her friends boyfriend (how he even got in there might be the only engaging thing about this whole film.) The film is absolutely awful, even for a B-movie. Even if you were to download it for free, it would be an insult to your hard drive. | 0 |
'Say Yes' is one of those flicks that you keep hoping is going to get better, but it never does. It's the kind of 'motiveless psychopath decides to menace an innocent couple' crapfest, so beloved of straight to video film-makers. <br /><br />The dialogue is clunky and, in several places, poorly translated. The acting is uniformly poor, especially from the villain of the piece, played by Joong-Hoon Park. He seems to think that by not blinking and trying to talk in a deep voice he is making his character seem threatening, when all it really does is make him seem a bit simple.<br /><br />The plot deserves special mention, as it is idiotic beyond all belief. The 'heroes' don't think it overly strange that their hitchhiker threatens to kill them. The 'heroine' twice manages to miss seeing the villain when he is no more than a foot away from her. The villain gets past a police checkpoint (while wearing a shirt covered in blood, and a bloody head bandage) by showing the cops a burnt corpse in the passenger seat of the car he is driving. The villain is punched, clubbed with a shovel and stuck through with a pitchfork, but never seems to be impeded by these, rather serious, injuries. And don't even get me started on that terrible 'twist' ending. Sheesh.<br /><br />The only plus point in this film, for me, is Sang Mi Chu. Who is very pretty, but really no more than a mediocre actress.<br /><br />Overall, this film comes off like a poorly written, flaccidly acted and shockingly directed attempt to copy 'The Hitcher' and 'Spoorloos', but it fails at every turn due to a lack of talent in everyone involved. | 0 |
I have seen many good Korean Movies including thrillers and movies with darker overtone, but this one sucks. The director seems to be a sadist, who happened to get someone to produce some junk. The movie lacks any sort of entertainment value and is not even a thriller. I can't believe someone really made such a movie. Even though acting is OK, the story line and the feeling it leaves is awful.<br /><br />I am sure, I am not going to see any movies of this director. No sense of movie making, and utter disappointment in having thriller moments. All this has is showing scenes with psychopath wasting the reels with badly shot scenes and showing more blood and violence thinking that makes it thrilling. Very disappointing movie and I strongly recommend skipping all the movies of this sort. | 0 |
There's nothing worse than renting an Asian movie and getting an American movie experience instead.<br /><br />It's only my opinion, but a good thriller is dependent upon the establishment of likable, intelligent characters. As far as likability is concerned, the protagonists in Say Yes are a quaint married couple. Nicely done. Unfortunately, they are stupid beyond belief. Let us count the ways they mishandle being terrorized by a stalker.<br /><br />1. After a hitchhiker threatens to kill you, be sure to tell him what hotel you're staying at when you drop him off.<br /><br />2. Beat the hell out of the stalker in broad daylight and in front of dozens of witnesses, thereby allowing him to press charges of assault.<br /><br />3. Don't bother telling the police about the stalker and simply assume (for no apparently good reason) that the cops were bribed by him.<br /><br />4. While trying to escape, let your lady out of your sight as much as possible to ensure that the stalker kidnaps her.<br /><br />5. After getting help from someone to find the stalker after kidnapping your wife, be sure to send them away as soon as possible so you can face him one-on-one. No point in being unfair, right? <br /><br />Now, I'd never expect that any person would be immune to making a few mistakes under these stressful conditions, but the characters in Say Yes are so dense and make so many unbelievable mistakes that it's effectively impossible for the viewer to care about their safety, since they are victims of their own doing. This kills the enjoyability of the entire film. <br /><br />In case you were wondering, the scriptwriters didn't stop with dim-witted characters. Since they themselves are surely dim-witted for writing this crapfest, they decided to make situations so absurdly unrealistic that all sense of reality goes out the window.<br /><br />1. The stalker kills a cop inside a police station while the protagonist is asleep no more than ten feet away.<br /><br />2. The stalker engages in all sorts of dubious activities in broad daylight and around tons of people, yet no one other than the married couple seems to notice his odd behavior.<br /><br />3. The stalker survives an absurd amount of violence that would have killed any human being.<br /><br />4. The "suspense" scenes had no imagination whatsoever. In fact, some scenes were direct rip-offs from American movies.<br /><br />The only positive is the decapitation near the end, which was a pretty brutal scene since it was inflicted upon the wife. It's too bad the filmmakers followed it up with an outrageously stupid ending that comes out of left field.<br /><br />Truly, the Koreans behind the making of Say Yes should be ashamed of themselves. Better yet, they should just move to California and take employment with people who make movies with a similar disregard for quality and intelligence. | 0 |
After sitting through this pile of dung, my husband and I wondered whether it was actually the product of an experiment to see whether a computer program could produce a movie. It was that listless and formulaic. But the U.S. propaganda thrown in your face throughout the film proves--disappointingly--that it's the work of humans. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but quotes like, "We have to steal the Declaration of Independence to protect it" seem like ways to justify actions like the invasion of Iraq, etc. The fact that Nicholas Cage spews lines like, "I would never use the Declaration of Independence as a bargaining chip" with a straight face made me and my husband wonder whether the entire cast took Valium before shooting each scene. The "reasoning" behind each plot turn and new "clue" is truly ridiculous and impossible to follow. And there's also a bonus side plot of misogyny, with Dr. Whatever-Her-Name-Was being chided by all involved for "never shutting up." She's clearly in the movie only for looks, but they felt the need to slap a "Dr." title on her character to give her some gravity. At one point, Cage's character says, "Don't you ever shut up?" and the camera pans to her looking poutily down at her hands, like she's a child. Truly grotesque. The only benefit to this movie was that it's so astonishingly bad, you do get a few laughs out of it. The really scary thing is that a majority of the people watching the movie with us seemed to enjoy it. Creepy.... | 0 |
National Treasure is about as over-rated and over-hyped as they come. Nicholas Cage is in no way a believable action hero, and this film is no "Indiana Jones". People who have compared this movie to the Indian Jones classic trilogy have seriously fallen off their rocker.<br /><br />I can't really figure out what kind of target audience this film was shooting for. Maybe the pre-teen audience will like it, but I found it to be absolutely ludicrous. I also can't imagine adults or young adults to find this to be that great of a film. Simply put: it's just OK at best.<br /><br />National Treasure is unimagined and uninspired, borrowing what it does have from "The Da Vinci Code". I would recommend waiting for that movie to be released in 2006, and passing on this nonsense.<br /><br />The whole idea of being able to so easily steal the Declaration of Independence and run around all over Washington DC and Philadelphia with it (while never damaging it once), while fighting the "bad guys" and experiencing what is supposed to be "non-stop action" is absurd. I particularly loved the scene with the Declaration folded in its tube laying in the middle of a busy road while cars whiz by it without damaging it. Oh brother! <br /><br />Reminded me of that episode of the "Brady Bunch" where they go to the amusement park and Mr. Brady loses his architectural plans. Except, that episode of the Brady Bunch was much better than this whole film! <br /><br />The idea of such huge treasure that nobody believes exists being buried within a secret ruin of the US is outlandish. Literally, there are thousand of undiscovered "priceless" items in this treasure trove. Yeah right!! Ridiculous!! <br /><br />Even worse, the speed and accuracy of which Cage finds and figures out what are supposed to be "tough" clues to these ancient riddles are pre-posterous!!! Oh.. the humanity! <br /><br />The performances by Cage, Voight, and the other actors in "National Treasure" are as stiff ,wooden, and flat as they come. However, when you're working with such lousy dialogue, it's hard to fault the actor's 100% for that.<br /><br />National Treasure is an OK film to see once. I can't recommend it beyond that and would definitely NOT purchase this over the top, outlandish scavenger hunt of a mess.<br /><br />Rent it if you must see it first....... | 0 |
Well it looked good on paper,Nick Cage and Jerry Buckheimer collaborate again, this time on a mix of heist movie, Da Vinci Code,American History 101 and Indiana Jones. But oh dear, this is to Indiana Jones what Speed 2 is to Speed. A reasonable cast(including John Voight and Harvey Keitel) battles against a puerile script and loses badly. The film is little more than an extended advert for the Freemasons.However these Freemasons are not your usual shopkeepers who use funny handshakes and play golf, these Freemasons are the natural descendants of the Knights Templar (and nobody mention 'From Hell' or Jack the Ripper.)I don't think I've revealed any plot spoilers because there are none. There is virtually no suspense, no surprises and no climax- it just stops. National Treasure aims for Dan Brown but hits the same intellectual level as an episode of Scooby Doo sans the humour. | 0 |
Nick Cage is Gates, a treasure hunter (oh, excuse me... treasure "protector", whatever that means) who is descended from a long line of treasure hunters. One of his ancestors had been given a clue to the whereabouts of a huge treasure that our Founding Fathers, most if not all Freemasons, had decided to hide because they just didn't want to finance their Independence all that badly.<br /><br />The first clue turns out to be in a long-lost ship hidden in the Arctic. Gates and his crew, consisting of financier Ian (Sean Bean), Movie Dork Riley (Justin Bartha of the immortal "Gigli") and a couple of faceless lackeys, enter the cargo hold of the ship. They immediately spill out tons of gunpowder all over the floor, not that this is significant in any way. At last they find the clue (a skeleton is hovering over it) and it turns out to be a pipe with writing... on it. Sort of. Don't ask me to explain.<br /><br />It's a riddle, and despite the fact that his expedition is clearly miffed at not finding the actual treasure, Gates wanders around yammering to himself about the meaning of the riddle, in this frozen cargo hold, while the crew just stands around slack-jawed. I mean, come on. Someone should have been a little vocal in their disappointment of coming all the way to the freaking Arctic and not finding anything interesting, but they just stand there as Gates enters his own world, solving the riddle.<br /><br />The next clue turns out to be on the Declaration of Independence. Ian decides to steal it. Gates is appalled. Various characters deliver gratingly obvious exposition (get used to it). All this leads to Ian's lackey pulling a gun on Gates, and the gunpowder going off in a big explosion. (oh, that's why they spilled all the gunpowder! Huh!!) Ian and his henchmen make their escape, and Gates and Movie Dork Riley walk nine miles in subzero temperatures to an Inuit village in order to stop them.<br /><br />To stop them, Gates concludes after trying the FBI and Super Archivist Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), Gates and Riley must steal it themselves. Riley then tells Gates in excruciating detail why they can not steal the Declaration, because it's so protected with metal and laser eyes and high tech security blah blah. Gates then tells Riley that there's an opportunity to steal it from the Preservation Room. Does Riley know what the Preservation Room is, Gates asks? "A place where they make jams and jellies?" I am not kidding; that's the actual line. Bartha doesn't deliver it like a joke, either. So Riley does all this research about the Library of Congress and the Archives and water and sewage, fercryinoutloud, but doesn't know what the Preservation Room is. This pretty much indicates what level this script is on.<br /><br />To make the rest of this short, Gates does in fact make off with the D of I, in a ridiculous break-in that could only happen in a movie. (I also hate the way they depict computer monitor technology in movies -- full of improbable and impractical graphics and fonts.) Abigail Chase ends up tagging along for convenience's sake, and as an obvious "love interest" angle. At one point, the three of them, on the run from the law, discuss all their plans really loudly in a clothing store, surrounded by people.<br /><br />A series of clues and the kidnapping of Gates' father, played by a dyspeptic Jon Voight, leads good guys and bad guys alike to a huge Indiana Jones fun-house located underneath New York City. Odd that the subway builders never found this thing. Gates and Gates Senior lead Ian off on a wild goose chase. Ian believes they're trapped in a cul-de-sac and leaves them there. However, after they're gone, Riley asks how they're going to get out. Gates...<br /><br />... oh boy ...<br /><br />... presses a button and a door opens. No, I'm serious. A button, like they might have on a vacu-flush lavatory in an office building. Good thing he knew where that was. Anyway, after some more knob-twiddling, they find this immense treasure room (remember, this is all underneath Manhattan!) full of all sorts of historyish golden things. Riley gets to deliver a really stupid line. Again. And FBI officer Harvey Keitel forgives them, arrests Sean Bean, and allows the two chemistry-less leads to get married.<br /><br />For any viewer, I think it would be hard to ignore all the exposition, the leaps of logic, and the stereotyped characters for very long. Though some of its exposition involves nice history lessons inserted into conversation at random moments. I'd like more conversations like that in my life. | 0 |
People like me will tear this movie apart. It's just not realistic. The Plot is sooooooo predictable. You can anticipate everything that happens convientantly Of course, they find the treasure and become filthy rich, and trick the bad guy. We've seen it a million times before. The writers of this movie must think that the majority of the movie going public is stupid. They must be right because The majority of people actually liked this film. I mean solving riddles in a matter of seconds. The secret treasure room hidden under the Manhattan subway? You'd think with all the work that's gone on in New York underground That room would have been discovered before. and all that was constructed during the civil war? PLEASE And the love story between Ben and Abigail?? how cute, and I thought the romance in Clive Cussler novels was weak. They just fall in love like that, in 2 seconds WHATEVER I'd be more concerned with saving my own ass then getting some. the hell with the girl and the stupid piece of paper. 1/10 Garbage | 0 |
I watched this movie last night on one of the pay-per-view channels, and while watching it I quickly wondered why I bothered. In all honesty I really did expect something more from this film. Maybe something along the lines of 'Conspiracy Theory'. Why? Maybe because of the casting. I mean, Nicolas Cage and Harvey Keitel, after all. Not to mention Jon Voight and Christopher Plummer. Now I'm wondering, why did they bother? But instead of an absorbing action cum mystery drama I was caught up in a pastiche of breakneck silliness a là 'The Goonies', which to my great surprise appears to have garnered some actual critical praise. Perhaps it's because 'The Goonies' was clearly targeted toward the pre-teen and teen audiences. Whereas 'National Treasure', judging from the previews, was seriously intended to appeal to an adult audience.<br /><br />Suspension of disbelief is one thing. It's how one can enjoy sci-fi and horror. But I found myself actually resisting the heaping tablespoons of paranoid and conspiracy-laden tripe being shoved at the audience. Oh, the screenwriter threw around all the jargon intended to evoke a sense of serious engaged wonderment. "Wow! The Masons. The Knights Templars. You know, this could really be true!" I think the writer really lost me when Gates said the Founding Fathers hid the treasure to keep it out of the hands of the British! And just were did the Knights Templar come from? New Jersey? Oh, I forget. From France! Which goes a long way to explain how it ended up in Philadelphia during the Revolution. It was brought there by agents of Napoleon! Anyway, you see what I'm getting at. The premise of the movie is interesting. And I really do think it could have succeeded as a serious mystery drama. But it just comes off as another kid flick in grown-up clothing. In the end I think it asks the audience not simply to suspend belief but to render itself willfully ignorant to an insulting degree.<br /><br />I've just finished watching several items by Werner Herzog and Istvan Szabo. It's a shock to switch from fine dining to Hollywood Big Mac and fries.<br /><br />Okay, okay. If you pant over chases, explosions, and 'gee-whiz' gimmickry you'll enjoy 'National Treasure'. But it's the sort of movie, well, have you ever stood outside a cinema waiting to get in while the previous audience comes out? And all the young kids are talking excitedly among themselves and saying things like, "Wow! Did you see how that thing blew up? That was so cool!" 'National Treasure' is that kind of movie. | 0 |
This movie is like the thousand "cat and mouse" movies that preceded it. (The following may look like a spoiler, but it really just describes a large class of movies) There is the passionate, wise main character, his goofy but well-meaning sidekick with his ill-placed attempts at humorous comments, the initially-hostile but soon softened gorgeous lady who triggers the inevitable "unlikely" love story, the loved ones taken hostage, and of course the careless evil adversary with his brutal minions. Everybody has seen tons of these movies already, and "National Treasure" is like any one of them, with only a slightly modified wrapping. Every turn of the story was easily predicted (and I can assure you I am not the sharpest tool in the shed). I am quite tired of feeling tricked for money after exiting the theater from a Hollywood movie, and if you have ever felt that way too, heed my warning; stay miles away from this movie. | 0 |
"National Treasure" (2004) is a thoroughly misguided hodge-podge of plot entanglements that borrow from nearly every cloak and dagger government conspiracy cliché that has ever been written. The film stars Nicholas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates (how precious is that, I ask you?); a seemingly normal fellow who, for no other reason than being of a lineage of like-minded misguided fortune hunters, decides to steal a 'national treasure' that has been hidden by the United States founding fathers. After a bit of subtext and background that plays laughably (unintentionally) like Indiana Jones meets The Patriot, the film degenerates into one misguided whimsy after another attempting to create a 'Stanley Goodspeed' regurgitation of Nicholas Cage and launch the whole convoluted mess forward with a series of high octane, but disconnected misadventures.<br /><br />The relevancy and logic to having George Washington and his motley crew of patriots burying a king's ransom someplace on native soil, and then, going through the meticulous plan of leaving clues scattered throughout U.S. currency art work, is something that director Jon Turteltaub never quite gets around to explaining. Couldn't Washington found better usage for such wealth during the start up of the country? Hence, we are left with a mystery built on top of an enigma that is already on shaky ground by the time Ben appoints himself the new custodian of this untold wealth. Ben's intentions are noble if confusing. He's set on protecting the treasure. For who and when?
your guess is as good as mine.<br /><br />But there are a few problems with Ben's crusade. First up, his friend, Ian Holmes (Sean Bean) decides that he can't wait for Ben to make up his mind about stealing the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives (oh, yeah brilliant idea!). Presumably, the back of that famous document holds the secret answer to the ultimate fortune. So Ian tries to kill Ben. The assassination attempt is, of course, unsuccessful, if overly melodramatic. It also affords Ben the opportunity to pick up, and pick on, the very sultry curator of the archives, Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger). She thinks Ben is clearly a nut at least at the beginning. But true to action/romance form, Abby's resolve melts quicker than you can say, "is that the Hope Diamond?" The film moves into full X-File-ish mode, as the FBI, mistakenly believing that Ben is behind the theft, retaliate in various benign ways that lead to a multi-layering of action sequences reminiscent of Mission Impossible meets The Fugitive. Honestly, don't those guys ever get 'intelligence' information that is correct? In the final analysis, "National Treasure" isn't great film making, so much as it's a patchwork rehash of tired old bits from other movies, woven together from scraps, the likes of which would make IL' Betsy Ross blush.<br /><br />The Buena Vista DVD delivers a far more generous treatment than this film is deserving of. The anamorphic widescreen picture exhibits a very smooth and finely detailed image with very rich colors, natural flesh tones, solid blacks and clean whites. The stylized image is also free of blemishes and digital enhancements. The audio is 5.1 and delivers a nice sonic boom to your side and rear speakers with intensity and realism. Extras include a host of promotional junket material that is rather deep and over the top in its explanation of how and why this film was made. If only, as an audience, we had had more clarification as to why Ben and co. were chasing after an illusive treasure, this might have been one good flick. Extras conclude with the theatrical trailer, audio commentary and deleted scenes. Not for the faint-hearted just the thick-headed. | 0 |
Having read some good reviews about this film I thought it was about time I go and see it. Well I don't know why I bothered. Basically this family is entrusted with a clue that leads to a whole big stash of ancient treasure, hidden by the Knights Templar during the War of Independence. Apparently it had to be kept out of the hands of the British at all costs. Firstly, why did said Knights move the treasure from Europe to America? How did Nic Cages character figure out that 'Charlotte' was in fact a ship? How do they figure out all the clues and riddles in about a minute? And how could two people suddenly become master thieves and steal what is probably the best guarded bit of paper in the world? These are just some of the plot holes in this inane bit of Hollywood action gone wrong. Cage has been in some great action movies - 'Face-Off' and 'The Rock' - so why has he lowered himself to this? Is he getting too old?! His character is pretty annoying really - Somehow this 'ordinary' guy steals the Declaration of Independancd, outruns thieves with guns, escapes from the FBI and generally seems invincible. The whole film doesn't really make any sense and all in all it was quite a disappointment. | 0 |
Everyone in a while, Disney makes one of thoes movies that surprises everyone. One that keeps you wondering until the very end. In the tradition of Pirates of the Caribbean, this movie is sure to turn into a ghost, and kill and rape your village. It's terrible. If you want a mindless, senseless, predictable "action" movie, go right ahead. I believe that young kids might enjoy this, as they like it when Good ALWAYS wins. But me, I like movies where it's a toss up who's going to win. This movie never lets the Bad Guys have the upper hand. By the end, when th heroes are left in an "inescapeable" pit, you just KNOW that they can get out. Everything works out perfect for Cage and his friends, he never has to think over a riddle or clue for more than 10 seconds, no matter how complex it is. See this movie if you want to see some impressive set designs, not if you want to see good acting, or a good film. Go watch a superman movie, it would be much shorter, and the kids would like it more. For instance, the scene where Cage is fleeing from armed gunmen, and the bullets are all deflected by a the railing of a fire escape. (And I'm not talking about a fence or anything, just ONE LITTLE POLE) This movie shows the decay of films and the film industry to cheap gags and dull, unrealistic action, which this movie provides in huge quantities. | 0 |
What a disappointment! I hated the mummy but this one was even worse! It was very tiring and unbelievable and at a certain point I found myself sighing and yawning all the time. I can't believe that people actually liked this movie. The role of Nicholas Cage wasn't very convincing. The whole movie felt like a grand tour around America's most wanted buildings. The never stopping flow of hints and combinations wasn't very convincing either. I stopped paying attention around 30 minutes. What was supposed to be a happy night out became a total disappointment. What a drag... I guess I've just seen too many movies to enjoy National Treasure. | 0 |
And so the great rewriting of history continues Hollywood style.<br /><br />This was senseless ridiculous rubbish.<br /><br />Its shocks me that such an amazing amount of money can be spent to produce what is the most contrived, poorly acted inaccurate film I have ever seen. It is appalling.<br /><br />Nic Cage's brief flirtation with serious acting appears to be over. I can only assume that Leaving Las Vegas was a glitch in an otherwise litany of dreadful films.<br /><br />Diane Kruger proves that her performance in Troy was no fluke, she really can't act.<br /><br />Harvey Keitel should be ashamed of himself for working on such tripe.<br /><br />Only recommended for those either recovering from a recent lobotomy or people of an opinion that America invented the world. | 0 |
How this film gains a 6.7 rating is beyond belief. It deserves nothing better than a 2.0 and clearly should rank among IMDb's worst 100 films of all time. National Treasure is an affront to the national intelligence and just yet another assault made on American audiences by Hollywood. Critics told of plot holes you could drive a 16 wheeler through.<br /><br />I love the justifications for this movie being good... "Nicholas Cage is cute." Come on people, no wonder people around the world think Americans are stupid. This has to be the most stupid, insulting movie I have ever seen. If you wanted to see an actually decent film this season, consider Kinsey, The Woodsman, Million Dollar Baby or Sideways. National Treasure unfortunately got a lot more publicity than those terrific films. I bet most of you reading this haven't even heard of them, since some haven't been widely released yet.<br /><br />Nicholas Cage is a terrific actor - when he is in the right movies. Time after time I've seen Cage waste his terrific talent in awful mind-numbing films like Con Air, The Rock and Face-Off. When his talent is put to good use like in Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation he is an incredible actor.<br /><br />Bottom line - I'd rather feed my hand to a wood chipper than be subjected to this visual atrocity again. | 0 |
WOW, this movie was so horrible. I'm so glad i didn't have to pay money to see this horrible movie. it was like a history nut went on a coke binge! the previews of it made it look decent but it was REALLY bad. i will say the idea sounded decent but come on. it was really really bad. If u sat down and thought about it you would also realize it was UNREALISTIC. come on back in the day u think they had all that stuff to work with. It wasn't like ben franklin sat down one day and made a damn riddle. it was completely ridiculous, and it you want to see a bad movie then by all means go see this one. All and ALL HORRIBLE movie it might actually be on my top 10 WORST films I've ever seen. | 0 |
I almost drowned in CHEESE watching this movie. In fact I could not even finish it. I want my money back. One more of Hollywood's feeble attempts to come up with a new idea. Good thing I keep a bowl of lemons in the fridge. Just in case. They should of gave Nic Cage a hat and a bull-whip. Swashbucklin'. Cage's performance in Raising Arizona or Leaving Las Vegas beats this "lemon". People who are completely and totally marketed(and most of them are) should love this movie. If this film had been animated, I would have taken it more seriously. I would of rather paid to see a completely stupid movie that did not try to hide it. In my opinion, this was a incredibly stupid movie and it made a even more incredibly sad attempt to try and hide that FACT.<br /><br />All the SHEEP seem to love it though. | 0 |
This is the most elementary sort of traditional ghost story, not even enlivened to any great extent by the use of Irish locations. If the great M.R. James had ever come up with a tale this thin -- doesn't James in fact have a story called "A Thin Ghost"? -- he wouldn't have bothered to have it published.<br /><br />Orson Welles appears in the limp endpieces as a favour to a brace of old friends, this film's producers. His presence and the one movie industry in-joke would have earned this will-o'-the-wisp its Oscar nomination. This is yet more proof, if any more were needed, that the Academy Awards have never been any guarantee of merit. | 0 |
It kept my attention to the end, however, without spoiling the film for anyone....... when she fixed the fridge by getting a book from the library, you knew how the film would end when she went back to library for a book on self defence against and assassin. The film, for me, said nothing of worth.... is becoming an assassin really a remedy for mental illness or just another symptom. | 0 |
This film is described as a action/comedy. The first 15 minutes and James Belushi's presence point to it being a humorous gangster film.<br /><br />However, the introduction of the ridiculous female lead begins a number of ludicrous plot twists which do little to conceal the contrived ending. The film moves between comedy(description used loosely) and surreal drama with some out of context adult scenes thrown in. The lead female (the Angel of the title) is poorly acted and the actress is not helped by the script which requires some unbelievable, extremes of character to be portrayed. James Belushi is the only one who handles his part well but is also let down by the poor script. One to avoid. | 0 |
I'll be honest- the reason I rented this movie was because I am a huge fan of Kyle Chandler's (most notably from Early Edition). Since he usually plays the good guy, I wanted to see him as in a different role (out of curiosity). The plot itself also drew me in; a wanna-be hitman (Tony Greco- a.k.a. Mr. Chandler) must kill a person at random before he is trusted with the life- or, rather, the death- of a witness who will testify against someone in "the family". The movies was nothing like I expected. It was sick, I hated the end (if you saw it, you'd know why), and there were so many unnecessary parts. Basically- it was filthy, and made little sense. Yes, it was a mob movie, and yes the guns do go BOOM. But there's more to a movie than that. This film acted as if it didn't have the time to go into detail- just deal with it and understand it. The acting really made up for it- James Belushi was pretty amusing as "The Rose". Sheryl Lee made Angel seem as believable as she could get. She surprised me the most. And Kyle Chandler was equally convincing as an anxious newcomer to "the family". If only the script did justice to the actors. | 0 |
I can't believe the positive reviews of this movie - I thought it was one of the worst, most poorly executed and poorly acted movies I have ever seen. And the plot was completely ludicrous (sp?). She starts making out with him while he's tied to the chair? puh-lease. The worst part was that it wasn't even bad in a good, laughable way. Just plain terrible - I couldn't figure out why they even bothered to show it on HBO. I thought Belushi was ridiculously silly - very unbelievable as an "eccentric" hit man. idk, I could go on - again, I am shocked by the positive reviews. The only thing that kept me watching it is that it's fascinating to see how a movie can go wrong and what makes it bad. And the ending didn't disappoint in its silliness either! "live by the sword, die by the sword..." ridiculous. | 0 |
Dissapointing action movie with an interesting premise: a young Mafia would-to-be killer (Chandler) must demonstrate to his boss that he is a good man for the service so he goes to California to take some lessons with a very known professional killer (Beluschi). First and most important task: to kill a young woman (Lee) that is a completely strange for all of them. But is she a easy target? The movie goes on and on based upon this principal idea but the result is just bad routine; even the weird twist at the end does not save the movie. Good performance by Chandler. I give this a 4 (four). | 0 |
Consider for a moment what it must be like to be Uwe Boll. Somewhere, perhaps in those places that Jack Nicholson said 'you don't talk about at parties', Boll knows that David Lean had head lice as a child that had more talent for film making than him. Gore Whores, metal-heads and the socially dysfunctional may bump into him on the circuit and tell him otherwise but general audiences find the Teutonic helmsman's output so bereft of originality, wit or imagination that he's become the internet's bogeyman an online discursive synonym for photochemical excrement. Boll does his best to ride over these naysayers, exploiting tax credits available in Germany and Canada to keep working and raising money from a network of dentists as Zero Mostel did with old ladies in The Producers. The difference being that Mostel's character knew he was making bowel fill. Maybe Uwe knows it too.<br /><br />Such is the level of hostility toward each new 'Bollbuster' that IMDb patrons sabotage their ratings by voting 1 before they've seen it. Boll's attempts at silencing his critics by challenging them to a boxing match and knocking them out just made them more determined. Indeed he's probably the only filmmaker that's boosted thesaurus sales as critics search for inventive ways of describing garbage.<br /><br />This onslaught has made Uwe a very thick skinned man, so much so that he must feel like he's wrapped in a carpet, but one who feels as if he's bullied by the entire world. Like most people in that situation he lashes out, determined to upset as many people as possible with the memory of a tearful evening holding Variety's review of House of the Dead, never too far from the surface. This 'I know you are but what am I' strategy for reclaiming the initiative produced the blunt satire of Postal, which attempted to napalm the dissenters with jokes about 9/11, Christian fundamentalism, Jihad, Nazism and paedophilia. Such a litany of invective requires a satirist with the mind of Peter Cook and the visual imagination of Chris Morris but the closest Boll gets to either man is the o in their surname.<br /><br />In Seed, shot back to back with the aforementioned game adaptation, Boll is back with a story about a sadistic serial murderer (is there any other kind?) who gets the chair only for two attempts to fail in permanently curtailing all signs of life. Mindful of the fictional law that says anyone still alive after 3 attempts must go free, though if you'd been fried with that much electricity why would you want to, they pronounce him legally dead and bury him, only for the disgruntled killer to resurface and begin a whirlwind tour of his gaolers.<br /><br />Boll begins his 'exploration of nihilistic rage' with Seed watching footage of animals being tortured for experimental purposes. From there we're treated to the killer's stock in trade kidnapping dogs, babies and grown women and allowing them to starve to death on camera only to become maggot food. We're invited to reflect on what a depraved race of amoral meat sacks we all are our inhumanity to each other and our fellow creatures acting as a lighting rod that acts as a catalyst for the most disgusting vestiges of the human condition. Yes, we're worthless, gormless sadists and worse than that, we won't give Uwe a good rating on the IMDb. In short, humanity is bunk.<br /><br />Of course you might think that Uwe relies on our worst excesses for his livelihood and with that in mind it's a bit of a bipolar piece, on one hand hating its audience and positively basting itself in the sour milk of human kindness the milk that poor old Boll has had to drink for so long, while simultaneously whipping out its member and inviting those with a pornographic lust for on screen depravity to marvel at its sheer arse splitting girth.<br /><br />The result says nothing about society and its discontents, more the corrosive effect bad press is having on its director. Poor Uwe is obviously a very angry man one scene in which a poor woman gets her brains hammered to a pulp while tied to a chair, no doubt a surrogate for his own fantasy's about dispatching various web critics. That it's there but takes an avant-garde approach by failing to be attached to any kind of narrative thread, shows that Boll is a pornographer whose happy to engage with the blood lust of his audience and knows that plot is surplus to requirements. He's made a film which is competently shot but utterly desolate. "I wanted to make a horror movie that was no fun" Boll told the audience at the film's world premiere and he has, on that flimsy manifesto, succeeded but if this was supposed to convince the director's detractors that he was a serious genre filmmaker, he'll need something genuine to say as well as a better, more original way of saying it. | 0 |
First off... I never considered myself an Uwe Boll Hater since I think I never even saw one of his movies but after seeing this cheap excuse for a movie named "Seed" (which is the name of the serial killer this movie is about) I am close to joining the hate club. This movie makes absolutely no sense at all... the plot is a joke and although Boll clearly tries to get attention by shocking people 90% of this movie is just plain boredom. You can sum up this movie like this: <br /><br />1. Hooded killer watches clips of animals getting tortured on TV. This is real life footage from pelt farms and the movie opens with the ridiculous reason of "making a statement about humanity" and giving a Peta address. Since this movie has no message at all and is the worst piece of torture porn-exploitation you already have a reason to hate the movie from the beginning onward.<br /><br />2. Death by electrocution with a pretext that gives away what happens later in this movie printed on screen so every retard gets it.<br /><br />3. Cops watch videos of animals, babies and women starved to death and decomposing in Seeds basement, having stupid nightmares and crying into their whiskey because Seed is such an evil bad mofo. Although the acting is OK the movie takes a dive every time it tries to incorporate any emotions... <br /><br />4. Cops bust Seed in his house, act stupid and get slashed in the dark. This sequence reminds me of a video game, you barely see anything except flashlights. Seed is a super killer that is everywhere at once and all cops act stupid enough to be killed... except for one who busts him.<br /><br />5. Seed gets the chair and we see his electrocution as lengthy as everything else in this "movie"... he won't die and we are reminded of the opening statement that he must be set free if he survives 3 electric jolts. Guess what... they just bury him alive to solve the problem.<br /><br />6. Seed comes out of his grave, kills everyone off in another slashing part and then seeks the main cop to take revenge on.<br /><br />7. A woman gets her head bashed in with a hammer in an endless sequence from one point of view just for the fun and shock value of it. <br /><br />8. Seed captures the cops family, lures him to his house, threatens to kill his wife and daughter. After killing his wife with a nail gun the cop shoots himself in the head considering thats whats Seed wants (its hard to get into that guys head since he not just wears his mask even in prison but also never utters a word ... the movie has barely any dialog anyway so don't mind).<br /><br />9. Boll goes for a nihilistic shocker end where Seed locks the daughter in with her dead dad to rot like the persons we saw on video on sequence 3.<br /><br />This is it... no message, no plot, no reason, no face behind the mask, no background except a stupid story that Seed was burnt as a child.<br /><br />This movie relies purely on few key scenes and their shock value. I hardly remember a movie this empty of any emotion or message or entertainment. Its like watching August Underground ... thats fine with me, some people will enjoy this brainless snuff. But what is really hard to stand about it is the pseudo-message in the beginning and the fact that the movie is well made considering camera-work, effects and even the acting is too good for this waste of celluloid. <br /><br />So how does Boll get money to make such "movies" when thousands of talented directors work on shoestring budgets?? "Seed" is not just the essence of ridiculous, its living proof that the free market is flawed ... lucky Uwe that the German taxpayer is paying for a lot of this waste to get deductments. | 0 |
Over the past year, Uwe Boll has shown marginal improvement as a filmmaker, cranking out the competent "In the Name of the King" (a "Lord of the Rings" clone) and the proudly vulgar, post-9/11 satire "Postal." But then came "Seed," and the counter was reset to Zero, keeping his bid for legitimacy and respect that much further out of reach. And I'm a fan of the guyhis films exhibit a uniquely screwball vision, and are never dull.<br /><br />Spawned from his frustration over the savage notices his early films received, "Seed" is a colossally misguided attempt at social commentary, and an even worse jab at creating an iconic slasher mythology (Boll often seems to be taking a page from Rob Zombie's successful reboot of "Halloween"). The antagonist is Maxwell Seed (Will Sanderson), a mute, hulking brute who's slain 666 people and sits on death row, awaiting execution; after unsuccessfully frying the beast, he rises from the grave to seek revenge on those who put him there...and so begins a string of wholly gratuitous mayhem.<br /><br />Trying to create a new-millennium slasher in the vein of Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, Max Seed is too nondescript and boring to leave an impression, ultimately resembling a washed-up pro wrestler doing "The Toolbox Murders" on a succession of equally boring victims. Furthermore, Seed's character and Boll's "message" run contrary to one another: the death penalty is wrong, sure, but are we really expected to sympathize with a soulless killer who's left a couple hundred corpses in his wake? I think not.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Michael Pare acts like a listless, long-lost brother to James Remar's character on "Dexter": a cop who sits at his desk a lot, thumbing through newspaper clippings, and watching pointless stop-motion scenes of decomposing animals and people trapped in Seed's lair. By the time he and a bunch of cardboard cops storm Seed's hideout, the sequence is so drawn-out, ill-conceived (the lighting is almost non-existent), and unexciting (despite a healthy dose of gore) that it almost put me to sleep.<br /><br />The shoddy film-making isn't limited to just that sequence: "Seed" appears to have been shot by a drunken cinematographer, since the camera bobs and weaves endlessly, a technique that's more stomach-turning than the gore itself; these protracted takes of very little happening only draw attention to the meandering, almost non-existent narrative. At 90 minutes, the film is distended enough to be considered a form of torture, which might have been Boll's intent all along.<br /><br />Pure genius...I guess the joke's on me. | 0 |
Short Version: Seed isn't worthless. It's just derivative and inferior. And soulless.<br /><br />Long Version: If you have never seen any of the films comprising the vaguely-defined "psychological horror" genre, this movie will probably melt your face off. Maybe not, but it will give you a good burn. The opening montage of real animal abuse will be sufficient to open your eyes to possibilities of brutality-on-video, and the (only) memorable gore scene later in the film will perhaps be more than you can handle. The climax will play with your emotions in a way that perhaps no other film has.<br /><br />But that's if you don't have much experience with the genre. If you've seen the real thing..."August Underground's Penance," for example, you will, as I did, find it terribly difficult to stay awake until the end of the film.<br /><br />Other reviewers have compared this to the video nasties of old. I understand this comparison. Like the video nasties, "Seed" is more violent than a mainstream horror film and less subtle. But the reason the video nasties are still known to us is not only for the above reasons--those that are still popular had something special. Permit me to be ambiguous, I think you will understand: those that have stuck around had "soul".<br /><br />Take this quote from Gabriele Crisanti, director of "Burial Ground," on an interview on the new-ish DVD: "...we will never have more films like these, because today, technology has surpassed imagination. And technology is cold. So many things will disappear because small films like these won't be produced anymore. Today we have great, exceptional tricks that are very expensive, but they are cold. Today a horror, a terror film of this kind costs more than a million dollars. These films were not so expensive...they are real effects, made with our hands".<br /><br />Perhaps it is wrong to take the comparison to old school horror so seriously. But Crisanti has hit the nail on the head. Even at their most seemingly exploitational, the best of the video nasties were pursuing a primitive "truth." And this is where Boll falls short. It's like he's seen the movies and not understood them. Everything on the checklist is there...BS about "making a statement about humanity," an obscene torture scene, etc. But it is, as Crisanti puts it, "cold." The gore is all CGI. The whole thing feels like scenes pieced together from other movies of various genres. And the pacing is sooooo slow. Man, so slow.<br /><br />Another interesting note: the one gore scene really reminded me of a video game.<br /><br />Anyway, enough BS. Weak movie. | 0 |
While not as bad as his game-to-movie adaptations, this hunk of crud doesn't fare much better.<br /><br />Boll seems to have a pathological inability to accept that he doesn't make good movies. One of these days he'll run out of money and stop inflicting the world with his bombs.<br /><br />The acting was sub-par, the dialog sounded like they were reading TelePrompTers and Boll's special little 'touches' were seen throughout the whole thing.<br /><br />Like all Uwe Boll movies, this one just shouldn't exist.<br /><br />Plain and simple.<br /><br />Just like Uwe Boll himself shouldn't exist. >_> | 0 |
Hello. this is my first review for any movie i have seen. i went through the trouble of doing this to tell everyone that this is quite literally, the most disgusting movie i have ever seen. I feel like the movie was porely made, which i will give some understanding due to budget constraints on making it. I felt like i was watching a very bad remake of the movie saw. Which i can agree, saw as well is also very graphic, but, i did like the movie saw.<br /><br />The scene where he takes the hammer to the head of the tied up victim in the chair is the most disturbing scene i have seen. the scene lasted almost forever, well actually, it was probably around 5 min but still. i want to note that i like some horror movies and i do give credit if they are good. this director uwe boll, and his group of people used to make this movie should think it over before making another one similar to this one. one final note haha!! FOR ALL THE PEOPLE WHO ENJOY WATCHING ANIMALS BEATIN TO DEATH, LETTING ROT, WITH WOMEN AND CHILDREN AS WELL AND A FIVE MINUTE SCENE OF SOMEONE GETTING THERE HEAD SMASHED IN WITH A HAMMER then you will enjoy this movie, if not, and you like horror, go with a higher budget film, like saw for example. I cant believe people actually make movies like this. anyway sorry to anyone who loves uwe boll and took it to heart, this is just my opinion on the movie. | 0 |
The name Uwe Boll is automatically linked to bad horror/cult cinema and every new movie he releases which is about two, three per year immediately always receives negative ratings and harsh criticism. You're actually almost tempted to think this is just a contemporary hype. You know, like it's popular to hate Uwe Boll whether you liked his movies or not. Let me just assure you that this is NOT the case. Uwe Boll is a terrible writer/director and quite frankly a menace to the entire film-making industry. "Seed" is another most unfortunate of proof that. In here, Boll tries so desperately hard to come across as controversial and shocking that he overlooks numerous other elements that any movie essentially needs to exist, like a plot, a narrative structure, character development, tension building
"Seed" is a hideous movie, full of gratuitous filth and incompetent padding footage. I once read that "Seed" was Uwe Boll's interpretation of the nowadays popular horror trend of Torture Porn flicks, but that's not even close. The film inarguably does borrow some influences from "Saw" and "Hostel", but basically it's just another umpteenth dull slasher with an indestructible killer and video game violence. <br /><br />The first 45 minutes of "Seed" are beyond boring and actually just confirm all the obvious things you already knew were going to happen. For you see, Boll was stupid enough to begin his film with a (hyper- fast) scrolling text explaining there's a federal US law claiming that death row prisoners have to be set free if three attempts to electrocute them fail. So you know this will happen later on, but still the first three quarters are wasted on catching a serial killer and bringing him to the electric chair. Seed is a mute serial killer who supposedly slaughtered 666 victims (exaggerate much?) who wears a bag over his head. He watches real-life animal cruelty footage (and thus WE watch real-life animal cruelty footage; thanks for that Mr. Boll) and videotapes people as the slowly decompose in their cellar (including a crying baby which is really sick and twisted). When he's finally captured, during the most amateurish and implausible police manhunt ever filmed, and put on death row, the film even becomes more retarded. After being buried alive because the electric chair couldn't fry him, Max Seed crawls back to the surface and goes on a brand new killing spree; this time mainly focusing on the people who arrested and executed him. <br /><br />The senseless plot twists and complete lack of story depth of this movie go way past being just bad; they're downright infuriating and insulting the intelligence level of the average horror movie fanatic. Multiple twists and sub plot in "Seed" are simply impossible to accept by the reasonable functioning human mind because they're just too dumb! Nobody believes that cops and prison staff members will just bury a mass murderer alive without shooting a few bullets through his head first. Nobody will accept that a fugitive convict cannot be found for another six months even though he went straight back to the exact same hideout place where they first caught him! "Seed" is full of retarded little things like these and the movie gets dumber with each minute that passes. Personally, I refuse to accept that the cast & crew members didn't notice this as well. It really makes you think that Uwe Boll simply neglects all advice and criticism, and just stubbornly shoots his movies the way he wants to. I imagine his yelling stuff like "shut up and do as you are told" to his actors whenever they remark that the scene they're shooting doesn't make a lick of sense. <br /><br />Just for the fun of upsetting people, there's a gigantically overlong sequence where Max Seed smashes an elderly lady to death with a hammer whilst she's tied up to a chair in the middle of her own living room. Instead of shocking, as Boll intended it to be, this sequence masterfully epitomizes how pathetic and wannabe controversial the whole film in fact is. "Seed" is horrendous, it's disgusting, it's pitiable, it's
Boll. | 0 |
badly directed garbage. a mediocre nihilist sadistic gorefest ... if you are the sort of person who likes that ... see a shrink. even if you are that person it doesn't make this a good film, the acting is really poor, the story full of plot holes, the director really should just give up and find a real job as he has no talent for this one. I can see why people dislike uwe boll .. we have had a few of his films on lately and this is the best of them, which is really sad! A complete absence of any sort of humanity seems to suit some people but here it just grates. Horror films can be full of desolation, they can be miniature works of art, they can be just good viewing when there is nothing else on ... SEED is just really really poor. | 0 |
From the beginning of the movie I had a feeling like its a movie about another Jason's from Friday the 13th. And It is... Dispute that the movie starts interesting. But as the times goes by its just a pointless movie about muted, supernatural, silent serial killer. I mean he goes under the guy's bed without making any sound, not seen by anyone. He was supposed to be blind after failed execution but he walks and kills people like he used to. I'm tired of it. For me it's all over the same thing.<br /><br />In another words - unreal. Too many mistakes and confusing information.<br /><br />Well scene with tide up woman looked impressive but just at first time :} For that and for intriguing intro 2 stars. | 0 |
This movie is unbelievably ridiculous. I love horror movies, but this is the worst one I've ever seen. I am a huge fan of gore, but most of the deaths in this movie aren't shown. It just shows us the already dead bodies, and the only death scenes that they actually show in this movie are terrible. The graphics look so obviously fake. The actors are awful as well. There is no real emotion from any of them. Not only did I waste my time watching this piece of sh*t movie, but I had to subject myself to actual footage of animals being beaten during the beginning of it. If I could rate this a -10, I would. F*ck this movie. It's crap. <br /><br />Don't watch it. | 0 |
After having seen and loved Postal (yes, I actually loved Postal), I decided to try another Uwe Boll film and I picked out Seed because I happened to stumble on it in a local DVD-store and it's supposed to be one of his better films.<br /><br />While the first 10 to 15 minutes of the film were very promising and seemed like the beginning of a not too mainstream psychological thriller, it soon went downhill from there and eventually degraded into one of the most generic slasher films I've seen so far, including a massive amount of plot holes, unrealistic emotional responses and sub-par acting. It seems like Boll tried his best to come up with a decent plot but after a while just gave up on it. Maybe he should stick to comedy?! The few good things about this film is that he does manage to create an overall creepy atmosphere, that the special effects are better than I expected and the soundtrack does go well with the overall atmosphere, but the unbalanced pacing of this film combined with the utter generic nature thereof makes he last half hour quite tedious to watch, which ruined my experience altogether. There are a very fairly well done shocking scenes, but they seem to be there for the shock value alone. And let's not forget the camera work that was pretty nauseating at times.<br /><br />I hope Uwe Boll will one day learn what makes a good film, because between a lot of horrible films he does seem to make a decent film every now and then. Seed just isn't one of those. | 0 |
If at least the cruelty and drawn out deaths had a purpose to the story to justify their inclusion but the script was just unintelligible and just plain stupid.<br /><br />It went nowhere, the story had no legible continuity. It was just a bunch of drawn out pointless snuff scenes and a really stupid ending tacked on as if to say.. "the end *beep* you my haters and my few defenders for watching my garbage."<br /><br />I don't get it, a masked murderer who never had his mask removed in prison, a prison rape scene that was suppose to be the guards raping a a ugly deformed serial killer and getting killed by him and nothing else? no explanation, no punishment, a really weak main cop character that was a waste of a actor like Pare, who didn't try to off the guy who killed his cops, tortured a baby, a woman and a dog and sent them to you to watch on video.<br /><br />Cops who for some unknown reason all wandered off in the dark by themselves (individually) in his farm house at night like a bunch of poorly written teenage characters to be killed one at a time like a bunch of idiots, and no other cop hears them die in the darkness one after the other and just keep wandering around for no reason till each is killed in turn. <br /><br />A bunch of horrible real life animal snuff scenes in the beginning for no reason or explanation, was he reminiscing, was he watching it to masturbate, was it comedy for him... what was it? nope Boll just thought to throw it in to upset animal lovers.. whatever. <br /><br />then Pare believing the word of a psycho path to let his family go if he kills himself... a more gullible, stupider cop you never saw in a film. <br /><br />I dunno why I try not to totally hate his works. I try to find some reason to explain a horror writers art but this stuff... pure crap. <br /><br />Boll what are you doing anymore? I hope you figure it out because I know a lot of more deserving people who can't dream to get the budget you get over and over again to make their movies.<br /><br />If you want to see Boll actually at his best check out "Postal" it was actually okay. | 0 |
I was so disturbed by the real footage at the beginning of the film that I felt sick to my stomach and ended up shutting the movie off. How any can give this film more than a rating of 1 baffles me. I know that the intent of the movie is to shock, but showing actual footage of a dog that had been skinned alive (holding back vomit as I type) - PLEASE! I shut it off after the scene with the decomposing baby. I had had my eyes covered most of the time up to that point. No wonder this movie was found at the bargain bin in HMV. I really have no desire to see any other movie by this Uwe person. Anyone who enjoyed this needs therapy. Period. | 0 |
This would have to be one of the worst, if not the worst, movie I've ever nearly seen. (I couldn't watch it all the way through). Purely and simply it's gratuitous violence just for the sake of it and the ridiculous story line only adds to the lacklustre and incompetent filming. Sick. And only suitable for those with a love for manic mutilation. After murdering several hundred men, women and children, Seed is finally caught after effortlessly killing several more police officers that finally get a tip as to his whereabouts. He's sentenced to death by electric chair and miraculously survives! Buried alive, he digs his way out and plots revenge against those that put him away and flicked the switch. Needless to say, more gruesome murders ensue... | 0 |
"Seed" is torture porn...no doubt about it. But, strangely, Uwe Boll has written, produced, and directed a more polished film than any other he has made in recent memory.<br /><br />Every time I watch a Boll film, I feel that some pages of the script must have gone missing. There are simply huge gaps in the story and dialogue. Of course, nothing makes much sense, either. The films are somewhat surreal in this respect.<br /><br />*****SPOILERS***** <br /><br />Why do the six cops who go to arrest Seed split up and go their separate ways when they get to the darkened residence, unlike real cops who would enter and clear the house in pairs or by threes? Why don't the cops ever use their radios? How can the bodies decay so quickly, a process that would normally take many months? (I KNOW it's time-lapse photography...but Seed would never be able to stay on schedule killing people if he always waited around for the previous victim to decay to the point shown.) How come Seed gets to wear bib-overalls and a mask while he's waiting on death row instead of typical prison uniforms? How can Seed enter a maximum security prison, stroll around the cell block, and then walk out again without being stopped or even noticed? If nearly 80 people (according to some newspaper articles shown in the movie) have been murdered, why is there only one investigator working on the case? Why did the investigator suddenly decide that he should go look for Seed at Seed's house, where he was originally arrested and where he murdered his victims? (Didn't he think of doing this sooner?) Why does the police detective go it solo, without back-up and without even letting dispatch know what he was doing and where he was headed?<br /><br />This is particularly frustrating when Boll obviously goes far out of his way to make sure we understand why the electric chair fails to work properly. He spends several screen minutes in setting this up, when he could have spent them making other aspects of the film at least a bit more logical.<br /><br />*****END SPOILERS***** <br /><br />In short, the film just sort of serves as a framework for a few assorted scenes (perhaps Boll would think of these as his "visions") of a brutal death by bludgeoning, gunshots to the head, execution by electrocution, and the skinning of live animals raised for their pelts. (The opening scenes of animals being skinned were indeed unnecessary and disturbing, but I understand their purpose in the context of the film.) The centerpiece is undoubtedly the bludgeoning death of a middle-aged woman by Seed using a hatchet. It's obvious that much time was spent on this and it vaguely reminds me of the classic scene in "Reservoir Dogs", though without the Steely Dan soundtrack.<br /><br />Is this a good movie? No. Is it worth seeing? Only if you are a dedicated fan of the torture porn genre or if you are absolutely determined to see a sample of torture porn. As I said at the start of this review, even though this movie is pretty disgusting and can be sickening at points, it is truly much more competent than most of Boll's movies. Perhaps he will continue to improve as a filmmaker. I can only hope that he progresses beyond torture porn and continues more in the vein of "Postal". | 0 |
This movie shows a clip of live animal mutilation of an animal getting hacked by a machete and getting its skin ripped off. I know these horrible things happen in the world, but Im watching movies based on the fact that what Im watching is not actually happening on the screen. These live animal clips are not meant to be in movies, they are meant to show people that belong to certain organizations to help the horrible things that humans to do other species.<br /><br />This should be banned and destroyed. I have also contacted Netflix and other resources to collaborate getting this movie off the market!!<br /><br />This movie should be removed from the public. The person who made this movie needs psychological help. | 0 |
Set in the 70s, "Seed" centers around convicted serial killer Max Seed (Will Sanderson), who killed 666 people in 6 years. He is sentenced to death, but in the electric chair he doesn't die, even after being shocked three times.<br /><br />Detective Matt Bishop (Michael Paré) and other officers cover up this secret by burying Seed alive. Seed breaks out and goes after the people who put him in his living coffin.<br /><br />Filmed by the worst director in the world (Uwe Boll), "Seed" is nothing more than a snuff film about trying to stretch the envelope of decent society and fails to deliver in any aspect of a storyline. And he said this is based on true events because if a person survives the electric chair after being shocked three times, they will be set free. This is an urban legend, and it would never happen. Much like Boll's other abominations ("Alone in the Dark" for one), "Seed" is just utterly horrendous. | 0 |
My god, what's going on? a Uwe Boll film and positive comments? Wow!<br /><br />Nice to note that most of the positive reviews are coming from newbies to Boll's work. I myself, as I have stated in previous Uwe Boll reviews, only watch his films in the hope that one day he will actually make something good. I mean..IT MUST HAPPEN ONE DAY!<br /><br />Alas, Seed is not that day. I don't quite know where to start with the lame attempt at a horror film that Seed is. The thing to remember people is that all the sickos in the world are that way due to having watched various sick acts on video or the net.....or so Mr Boll believes. I still can't for the life of me figure out why footage of real animal abuse and killings was needed in the first 10 minutes of this film. I understand the concept that Seed (the killer) is a sicko and enjoys watching such stuff.....but can't understand why Mr Boll thought putting REAL footage in the film would work. Maybe to shock us? Hmmm.....well, I for one am not squeamish and can handle seeing anything on film. I DON'T though, find the use of real animal cruelty footage entertaining in the slightest. If you were trying to shock me, it didn't work. It just reminded me how messed up the world was because such things happen and also because Uwe Boll is allowed to continue making films. This sort of context may have worked for films in the 70/80's (Cannibal Holocaust) but not todays market.<br /><br />With that out of the way, we can move on to the fact that Uwe has managed to give the film a very cheap feel all round like BloodRayne 2. You can just tell that there wasn't a huge amount of money floating around for production.<br /><br />As per usual, Mr Boll does not really care for making a decent story as we are treated to boring shots of police officers watching various videos of Seed's victims in the first 25 mins. Each of these videos ends in a speeded up decomp of the victim. It's all very boring and tedious. I won't comment on the toddler scene as it's laughable and just another cheap 'shock' factor.<br /><br />If you manage to sit through the first 25 mins then you will be treated to the police officers walking through a very dark house in order to catch Seed. The lighting here is horrible and Uwe has the old 'I'm not using a steady cam' fiasco that he did with BloodRayne 2. Watch as the police officers die in ever stupidly increasing ways until such point as Seed is caught. This scene is soooo bloody stupid you have to see it to believe it. The cop actually tells Seed he could have shot him. For some un-be-known reason, the cop doesn't shoot him. Given that Seed is a sicko that kills kids as well as adults, you'd have thought at this point in the script that sense would prevail.<br /><br />From here we are treated to a stupid execution scene, followed by the cops burying Seed alive (and they know he is alive..why not shoot him in the head????), followed by Seed getting out of the ground and then killing some random woman with a hammer and then kidnapping the one of the cop's family.<br /><br />What I'm trying to get across to you all here is that it's just plain STUPID! It's not even Hollywood horror stupid....just plain dumb. Uwe Boll can not direct ****. Anyone with any ounce of taste would agree with that statement. Anyone who watches this film and found it entertaining in any way shape or form needs to take a serious look at themselves as a person. <br /><br />Once again we are treated to a poorly acted, directed, lighted, produced, scripted piece of UB crap. | 0 |
I quote Oedpius Rex because it is a tragedy that this film was even made!!!<br /><br />This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen! I am in no way an Uwe Boll hater like most of the humourless people on IMDb! <br /><br />Uwe Boll movies like Postal and Tunnel Rats are hilariously bad and therefore entertaining. But honestly, this movie was just horrible. I hated it so much that I'd give it a zero star rating if I could. The story is just crap! It spends four fifths of the film building the plot and then they have the middle which is just scenes of grizzly horrible tastelessly done murder! The finally end it with a "villan wins ending" which is totally acceptable but surely it could have been more tasteful than this! <br /><br />I am not against Uwe Boll (like I said earlier) nor am I against violent movies! I f**king love violent movies! I loved the Saw movies, the Hostel movies, Tokyo Gore Police, The New York Ripper, the 28 movies, Dog Soldiers, My Bloody Valentine, Last House on the Left, Watchmen, Wolf Creek, every Tarantino movie, every Sam Peckinpah, even Cannibal f**king Holocaust! But this! OMFG!!! <br /><br />This was just cruel, sadistic and perverted! And look at the movies I just listed! If I liked Cannibal Holocaust and not this then it must be bad! Uwe, don't go all dark again! You're funny when you are light hearted, just like Ed Wood. This was just an awful experience! I felt horrible all over after seeing this!<br /><br />DO NOT WATCH!!!! AVOID AT ALL COST!!!!! | 0 |
I am ashamed to have this movie in my collection. The most redeeming factor to owning the DVD is the short film in the bonus features. My vote for this movie is a big fat ZERO. Don't misunderstand, I'm a horror girl. but i want some meat behind the story, not to mention i prefer the evil to happen to humans, not to be tricked in to watching, what seemed like forever, clips of animal snuff. Acts of brutality interrupt achingly long silence and poor acting. If i was forced to make a comparison to another film, the only one that comes to mind is Cannibal Holocaust. Bad, boring, pointless and a wholly uncomfortable watch. | 0 |
If you like to see animals being skinned alive, their heads smashed, dogs throats being crushed my men stomping on them, then this one is for you! But if you are somewhat normal, and don't need to see real footage of animal cruelty, pass this one up. This movie tries to shock the viewer, and it sure does.With the animal snuff at the beginning, and the killing of babies in the movie (fake at least)its was enough to make myself turn it off.I've seen movies like this before that show slaughterhouse footage (BTK movie) and this kind of footage should not be allowed in a horror movie.We watch gore and horror because we know its just make-up, and special effects, so we shouldn't sit down to watch a movie and see the real killing of animals, its not what we rented the movie for.If anything, there should be a large warning label put on these types of garbage movies so people won;t be surprised by it. As a very hardcore horror fan, this one turned my stomach. The entire movie cast and crew need their heads checked. | 0 |
The only reason "The Norliss Tapes" deserves ANY stars is the presence of Angie Dickinson in the cast. Other than getting to see Angie Baby in a pre-"Police Woman" performance, there's nothing else worth seeing here.<br /><br />THE SYNOPSIS:<br /><br />*** MINOR SPOILERS ***<br /><br />David Norliss is tapped to write a book on the supernatural. One day he mysteriously disappears after phoning his publisher and suggesting he has stumbled across something that has placed him in mortal danger. The entire series for which this miserable pilot was written was apparently intended to be a series of flashbacks via the "Norliss tapes" -- a set of audio tapes the writer recorded while investigating cases of the supernatural.<br /><br />In the pilot episode, a wealthy sculptor dies -- but not before purchasing an ancient Egyptian scarab ring from a local occultist who assures him the bauble will give him immortality after death. We soon discover the ring itself doesn't grant immortality. Instead, it only reanimates the sculptor's corpse, allowing him to escape his crypt so he can run around town draining pretty girls of all their blood.<br /><br />Blue-faced, yellow-eyed and growling out ARRRGHHHHHHs you haven't heard since you last watched "Scooby Doo" cartoons, the sculptor attacks his wife (Dickinson) one dark night. She escapes and, via a mutual acquaintance, contacts Norliss to get his assistance in solving the mystery behind her late husband's uncanny reappearance on her estate.<br /><br />So is this guy a vampire? No. There's no vampire in this story despite what you may have read or heard. The sculptor doesn't drink his victims' blood -- he collects it. How? Don't know. We only see him attacking, never collecting. Why? To fulfill the second part of his bid for immortality. It turns out the reanimated sculptor will only be allowed to live forever if he builds a life-size statue of a demon named Sargoth out of a mixture of clay and human blood. Once it's finished, Sargoth plans to inhabit the statue, using it as his gateway into our world.<br /><br />THE FINAL ANALYSIS:<br /><br />"The Norliss Tapes" wasn't picked up as a series for a very good reason... it was garbage. As you can see from my synopsis, the story is a paltry, ill-conceived mess. The acting and dialogue offer no better. This isn't even a contender for a "So Bad It's Good" Award. Sometimes bad is just bad.<br /><br />After years of hearing underground rumblings about the great merits of "The Norliss Tapes," I was very excited to find it airing on Fox Movie Channel on 10/15/03. I wish I hadn't set myself up for the fall.<br /><br />Having screened this groaner for the first time two days ago, I can only assume any applause you've heard so far from other IMDB reviewers is coming from those who are reviewing the show based on dim memories and the nostalgia of youth. Or perhaps they are simply loyal fans of Dan Curtis. Either way, they've offered you misleading reviews of "The Norliss Tapes."<br /><br />Pauly Orchid -- October 17, 2003 | 0 |
The director, outfitted in chains and leather, warned the audience at the SF Frameline Film Festival Friday night that we were about to see an "experiental" film. Experimental? Leave the video camera on the back seat of the car, let the tape roll and edit in all the pointless dreck within eyesight. A meandering pastiche road show manqué that starts nowhere and takes the audience no place. The gratuitous violence that opens the movie drove more than one patron from the Castro theater. I would have left, too, but my cine-buddy needed a ride home and has this thing about seeing even the worse merde through to the end. By the time the lights came up the audience had thinned considerably. Tepid applause. Pro forma questions of the director who seemed pleased with the product. Avoid this film! | 0 |
First off - there's absolutely no flirting going on in this film - with Anthony or anyone else. These people don't flirt - they just do it. Your first test of endurance is to wade through more than 15 minutes of intense violence and sexual perversion. This wouldn't be so bad - hell, I like violence and perversion as much as the next reviewer, but without a context to put it in, it is repellent. So you make it through the torture and mayhem. Then we meet Donna and the movie turns into something all together different - not better - just different: a road picture without heart. There are lame attempts at comedy thanks to cameos - broadly written and broadly played by broads like Judy Tenuta and Mink Stole (and a few hookers and drag queens, too). They all deserve better. The photography is purposely disorienting, so if you get motion sickness (or really ANY kind of sickness) - this flick is not for you. Come to think of it, I'm not sure just who this flick IS for -except maybe gay and bi-sexual S&M fans who like poorly scripted, poorly shot indy films about themselves. | 0 |
Had I checked IMDb BEFORE renting this DVD from Netflix, I'd have a couple of hours of my life back. I'm frankly suspicious when I see that a film's director also wrote it. In this case, according to the credits, the same guy was "writter and director" - unfortunately, an indication of the overall quality of this production. There were a few interesting moments (e.g., Judy Tenuta's scene reminded of her early comedy routines touting Judy-ism) which led me to rate this two stars rather than one. Those moments, however, were few and far between ... and I almost did not get to see them because the opening sequence was nearly incomprehensible to me, not to mention reprehensible in its violence. I admit I went back to watch that part again to see if I had missed something that would help me figure it out once I'd seen the whole thing. Nope, though I at least recognized who the characters were who would turn out to be important later. The "spinning camera" technique was overused and essentially pointless. I found myself talking to the TV screen: "What?!?" or "For goodness sake, get ON with it!" Not recommended. | 0 |
I respect Alex Cox the filmmaker, I really do. He's like the kid at school who you think at first is just trying a little too hard to be "different", a literary punk-rocker who has dipped more than his feet into spaghetti westerns and science fiction and fringe-culture and come out into the world ready to take s*** on... but then you see what he can actually do, the talent and raw feverish artistry and moments of true absurd hilarity capable of him, and you are ready to see whatever he has to offer. But there's two sides to his proverbial coin: he can either really hit it out of the park (Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Walker arguably) or just try just a little too hard and pull way too many pretentious rabbits out of the hat (Straight to Hell). Death and the Compass falls into the latter category, and while I respect its (mostly) original approach to tackling a detective-killer story, it too falls on its face and its weirdness becomes oddly dull.<br /><br />It has a strange enough set-up and already irreverent style to follow: a detective, Erik Lonnrot, is after a killer with a hell-fire voice, Red (something), and it seems that the killer is leaving disturbing clues with his victims: scrawled in blood on the walls are messages that, according to eyewitness Alonso Zunz (Christopher Eccleston looking as if he just walked off Shallow Grave without changing his look) has religious significance in the Kabbalah. We follow Lonnrot on his case, and his methods of going after the perp, which include following at first a triangular and then compass-shaped pattern on the map- this despite the protests of the flabbergasted Commissioner Treviranus (Miguel Sandoval), who also looks back in flash-forwards sitting at a desk and speaking to the audience in garbled but sad descriptions of his former employee and colleague after the fact of the case.<br /><br />Oh, Cox has his moments of creativity and interest, such as a shot where we see the entire scope of the harrowing depths of the police station where Eccleston's character is taken in by handcuffs ("For his own protection" says Lonnrot in case of getting lost in the wrong room) and we're followed in a long tracking shot- maybe the best or just most curious- where we're taken through very dark hallways with very little direction, lost in the maze of turns and oddities among the characters. And it's never something that isn't fascinating to *look* at, with Miguel Garzon's cinematography a morbid delight. But The plot goes through hoola-hoops to keep things so off-beat it might as well be beat-less all-together. The performances, save for a confident Boyle and for Eccleston at the very end, are pretty bad, especially Sandoval who just seems to squirm in his seat reciting the goofy dialog given to him to speak at the audience.<br /><br />While the murder plot itself contains an intention for the audience that this isn't something we've seen before, that it's in a society with a good many rioters and architecture suggesting Alphaville's next decrepit wave, it too fizzle's out very quickly. What's the conflict here? I was never that much engaged with Boyle's own personal mission to find this killer, and only mildly caught up in the few flashes of deranged scenes of the killer (and/or killers) going after people like in the building early on (Cox himself has an amusing cameo). And just when I started to think it was leading up to something spectacular, with Boyle and Eccleston in that big ("not as big as you think") building in the South section of the city, it suddenly gives us a "TWIST" that we know in the back of our minds is coming but hope isn't, and it deflates any of the humdrum mystery it's been leading up to. For all of Cox's uncanny touches as a filmmaker, for all of his opposition to spoon-feeding the audience with a 'conventional' approach, which I do respect, Death and the Compass ultimately cuts one off at the brain-stem; it's masturbatory. | 0 |
This wilfully bizarre adaptation of Borges short story is typical Cox. His strong visual sense is, as usual, undone by the appalling half baked acting of most of the cast. The film is definitely in the surreal tradition of Bunuel's Mexican period, and looks at times like a poor man's take on Lars Von Trier's Elements of Crime. Cox's apparent preference for single takes, jump cuts, and ambient sound recording all work against the film's effectiveness. Worth a look but ultimately disappointing. | 0 |
I liked Boyle's performance, but that's about the only positive thing I can say. Everything was overdone to the point of absurdity. Most of the actors spoke like you would expect your 9-year-old nephew to speak if he were pretending to be a jaded, stone-hearted cop, or an ultra-evil villain. The raspy voice-overs seemed amateurish to me. I could go buy a cheap synthesizer and crank out better opening music. And what's with the whole 1984ish police torture stuff? It was totally superfluous and had nothing to do with the actual events of the story. Cox added a lot of things, in fact, that he apparently thought would be really cool, but had nothing to do with the story. That's a big disappointment because one of the things that makes Borges' stories so good is his minimalism -- they are tightly bound, with no superfluous details. This movie is just the opposite. I stopped watching after the scene where Lonnrot is questioning the guy from the Yidische Zaitung, or thereabouts. I wasted $4 renting this, but at least I can get some satisfaction from writing this review and hopefully saving others from making the same mistake. | 0 |
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