Review – Skeleton Man

Does whatever a skeleton can. Which apparently is mostly just sucking. Honestly, this is one of the most inept productions I’ve ever seen. It’s bad even by Sci Fi Channel standards (assuming the channel can in fact be said to have any standards). I’m genuinely astonished that anyone – producers, backers, even actors such as Casper Van Dien with established records for having no taste in roles – ever looked at this script and said, “wow, we should really make this into a movie.” Half the stuff that happens in this thing doesn’t make a lick of sense. For example, one of our Army commando heroes attempts to kill the bad guy by stealing a tractor-trailer rig and trying to run him over. I can only assume that this departure from the Predator-rip-off plot was prompted by the gullible financiers’ decision to pay for a truck explosion apropos of nothing. Still, even in such an astounding festival of awfulness one element has to take the prize as worst thing in the movie. And that element is the villain. The title character is a blade-wielding guy on horseback who seems to show up more or less at random to hack the supporting cast to bits. He would have been a lot easier – well okay, maybe at least a little easier – to take seriously if he’d been dressed in anything other than a “grim reaper” outfit that looked like it came from the Halloween costume aisle at Party Warehouse. Wish I’d skipped it