Review – Lake Dead

The location where this was shot looks a great deal like the motel used in the genre classic Motel Hell. But that and a mid-range body count is all the two pictures have in common. The label description calls the members of the victim parade “teenagers,” though they look about as school-age as the cast of Grease. In any event, two or three of them inherit a motel in the middle of nowhere. The sheer worthlessness of the property itself isn’t helped by the presence of a clan of backwoods serial killers. See if desperate

Review – Boogeyman 2

Oddly enough, this one’s a little better than the first one. The original rolled the dice and came up empty. This one sticks a lot closer to standard slasher movie structures and conventions. The result is mediocre, but at least it isn’t totally annoying. The story is an unimaginative reheat of Nightmare on Elm Street 3, with most if not all the plot twists telegraphed a mile away as the Boogeyman slaughters mental patients using methods tailored to their phobias. Mildly amusing

Review – Unearthed

From a movie that promised a monster dug up by an archaeologist, I was hoping for something more, well, archaeological. I guess there was a brief, disposable mention of the Anasasi around midway through, but the vast majority of this is a desert southwest Alien rip with an “ensemble” cast of uninteresting candidates for monster chow. See if desperate

Review – The Deaths of Ian Stone

So how many critics before me have called this a nightmare version of Groundhog Day? Our buddy Ian keeps getting killed over and over by the same eerie conspiracy of monsters. There’s a point to it somewhere, but it’s slow to emerge and flimsy when it finally does show up. Overall this seems to be little more than a cheap excuse to string a lot of monster killin’ vignettes together into what loosely amounts to a movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Seven Days to Noon

Though nuclear terrorism isn’t exactly a novel concept in the 21st century, it’s tantalizingly ahead of its time in this British production from 1950. A scientist working on England’s A-bomb program becomes disgusted with the immorality of the endeavor. He steals a briefcase nuke (another bit of radical thinking at the time) and threatens to blow up London in a week if the government won’t agree to disarm. But it isn’t just the concept that’s novel. We also lack a clear-cut bad guy. The mad scientist is sympathetic in a way – his heart clearly in the right place even if his head isn’t – and his pursuers are English genteel rather than Jack Bauer rabid. Even the small touches are great, particularly the eerie searches through an evacuated London. Overall this is way better than many subsequent, more sophisticated productions. Buy the disc (assuming it's available on disc; I watched this on TCM)

Review – Dances with Wolves

As if trying to single-handedly make up for decades of anti-Indian racism in westerns, Kevin Costner serves up a version in which the Sioux are the do-no-wrong heroes and the cavalry are the unequivocal forces of evil. That might be somewhat closer to the truth, but it’s not much more entertaining than the traditional version. Indeed, such a simple-minded, heavy-handed presentation makes the pro-environment, anti-discrimination message ring false. Oh, and the damn thing drags on for nearly four hours’ worth of bad acting and animal death. What a pain in the butt. See if desperate

Review – Dark Breed

Y’know, film-makers who have special effects this crappy probably shouldn’t make the whole movie depend on them. And though I deleted this from the Tivo before I checked the date, I assume it was from sometime after Predator came out, as the monsters – when they do eventually show themselves – are a pretty tragic rip-off. Aliens possess astronauts who then return to earth and do a lot of really boring stuff. See if desperate