Greenaway's films pose as clever, erudite and innovative. Yet his style and grammar originate and remind viewers of films made in the World War 1 era of film-making: the frame composition, use of mid-shot, the static camera. It may be well to rub against mainstream movies with this style but it is not new. Perhaps like that other "innovator", TS Eliot, he draws more from the past than in looking forward as an authentic innovator would or could.

Yet Greenaway's biggest failing is that he cannot write. His dialog and even plot structure is mechanical and logical but without the vitality of another dramatic logician, Brecht. Where this weakness is most apparent is in his humor, which is poised and logical, so the joke is dead before it's delivered. The result is tedium: if it's not funny, it has failed: ask a stand-up comedian to justify their act if the audience doesn't respond. Perhaps the well-read director could learn something from Freud on humor.

Finally, like Woody Allen, Greenaway has manipulated his actors over the years to work like clones. They speak the lines with a bored, smug air like narcissistic adolescents.

This film, despite its design and lighting, is meretricious.


This is a baffling film.

The beauty in sexual relations between men and women is shown degraded by a set of men and women who can only be described as a collection of oddballs and misfits.

Greenaway acknowledges his inspiration to Fellini's film "8 1/2" but whereas Fellini is a titan of world cinema, Greenaway is not.

He has none of the maestro's lightness of touch nor his ability to convey feelings and emotions with a deftness of clarity.

He is pretentious, the film being divided into chapters with a written introduction to each, as if the viewer has to be guided into the film except that the written notices only stay on screen for a few seconds, not long enough to be read by the audience with the result that they are mostly ignored.

As for the women, only two can be described as lookers, Palmira, played by Polly Walker and Giaconda played by Natacha Amal. The rest ooze with ordinariness. Both the women and the men retreat from the harsh light of reality into the dim shades of fantasy.

Greenaway obviously wants to make the point that sexual fantasy does not lead to happiness. The women themselves are depressing since they render their services in exchange for money. Relations between men and women are debased into a commercial transaction.

There is no sense of joy or happiness or love in the film, indeed there are several scenes that are deeply unpleasant :

The suggestion of an incestuous relationship between father and son, Philip and Storey Emmental played respectively by John Standing and Matthew Delamere. The callous disregard of both men that Giaconda is carrying their child, she in fact, gets pregnant twice, the first foetus being aborted and the second time, she is sent away to a destination chosen by the men from a flight book. Both men having sex with a woman who has no legs, (the half woman in the title). The beastiality that exists between Beryl, played by Amanda Plummer, with a pig named Hortense. Father and son sharing women between them. Women enjoying being beaten sexually. The father sleeping with the corpse of his dead wife.

Mercifully, none of these scenes are shown sexually, only hinted at.

The hinted degradation of women is such that there cannot be any wonder that the film was booed at when it was first premiered at Cannes. What is more extraordinary is that the actresses in the film lined up to defend it, showing yet again that there is no limit to the naivety of women and that women will fool themselves into being exploited by men.

Greenaway's directorial style is pretentious, it is a triumph of style over substance, a depiction of Film as Art accompanied by the abandonment of common sense.

Greenaway tries to attain the sublimity of surrealism but only succeeds in showing the banality of human relationships.


Writer/Director Peter Greenaway cements his title as the High Lord of Art House Pretension with his latest exercise in obnoxious self-indulgence, 8 ½ Women. The film follows a wealthy Englishman and his son on their mutual quest for sexual satisfaction, as they lure and blackmail women (guess how many) into joining their personal collection of concubines.

Think of any possible way that this premise could be offensive, and chances are Greenaway's done it. The female characters are little more than a catalogue of fetishes for the two protagonists to partake of. There's the Kabuki-obsessed Mio, the ever-pregnant Giaconda and Beryl, who's got a thing for farm animals. Giulietta has no legs and uses a wheelchair, she's the "half woman," get it? Greenaway vehemently denies all accusations of misogyny, but if this isn't it, then what is?

The film goes on to eroticize anything and everything having to do with Japan, a continuation of themes from his snore-worthy (but less sexist) 1996 film, The Pillow Book. But where the The Pillow Book was erotic and graceful, 8 ½ Women just gets horny and exploitative. Greenaway's work is tasteless and arrogant in its fetishism, and the only person likely to enjoy watching it is the auteur himself.


I dont know about you, but I've always felt drawn to 'ART' cinema. The first 'art' film I managed to get a hold of was Peter Greenaway's "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover", which blew my mind and creative spiret into overdrive. The film was the ultimate paradox, both beautiful and grotesque...this is what 'art cinema' was about, exploring intellectual ideas and bringing the visceral to the screen with purpose. Life, real life, can be like living in a madhouse, and art expressed shows it for what it is. I love movies of all types, but especially those that both entertain and have something to say, whether I agree with it's stance or no...

"8 1/2 WOMEN", is a dry, clinical 'comedy' where a father and son gather a harem to fufill their many sexual fantasies. There is only a very brief allusion to Fellini in the film, unlike what the previews have suggested. The main focus of the film falls on the 'close' relationship between father and son, brought together after the mothers' death. In the early scenes of the film the fathers' sadness is believable, you can feel his pain. What happens afterwards is plain by Greenaway standards, the gathering of the harem, observations on love and death, and flesh displayed for the sake of flesh...One could argue this, but I feel the movie to be shallow and pointless. And the idea that this could be a comedy is perplexing to me. The acting for the most part if fine,...especially good are Polly Walker and Amanda Plummer(though poor Mandy should put her clothes back on) What the film lacks is a compelling story, and the usual Greenaway touches of excess that made his other films so wonderful to watch.

While filled with moments of insight, and the occasional taboo, "8 1/2 Women" is too cut and paste to be considered art, too bland to considered 'funny', and simply too dull to be considered worthwhile.

Save your money...I can only recommend this film as a sleeping aid.

4 out of 10


Stilted, stagy, strange and opaque, if visually striking ... a wannabe-erotic fantasy. Really boring, way too much male nudity (including father-son incest), and just a sort of shameless pointlessness. I will confess, however, that certain passages of dialogue, taken on their own terms, do have a lulling, haunting quality.


I am giving this pretentious piece of garbage a 1 simply because i don't believe there is a worse movie in the world.

I hate this movie, i hate the acting, dialog, setting, writing and directing. I hope everyone that was involved in this movie burns and rots in the darkest circle of hell.

Damn this disgusting waste of time.

I pray every day that this movie is just a figment of my imagination. i pray that i dreamt the movie, and that i will never have to see it at

my local video store again.

BURN IN HELL


To overcome the death of his wife, an old man does what anyone in his position would naturally do (at least in a Peter Greenaway movie): he and his son populate their home with eight and a half (one has no legs) women and embark on a sexual odyssey. This being a Greenaway film, there is lots of pretentious and uninteresting blabbering and of course there is unnecessary male nudity. In fact the father and son share a bed sleeping in the nude. Gross. Besides, who wants to see an old guy full frontal? For those who are not into the homo-erotic scene, one of the women likes to do the nasty with horses. There is no story - just a random collection of dull scenes.


To borrow from Dorothy Parker: This is not a film to be tossed aside

lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

This is an excruciating mess. And I'm a Greenaway fan.

MIND-NUMBINGLY AWFUL

"The Mummy Returns" has much more artistic merit


Greenaway seems to have a habit of trying deliberately to disgust his viewers. This film opens with incest--and purposeless, meaningless, casual incest at that. That's Greenaway's big problem. He prefers parlor tricks to shock over actually doing anything meaningful. Technical skill isn't enough. He's just a bit perverse for the sake of perversity.


This movie was awful in the worst way: you just didn't care. You didn't care what happened in the plot; you didn't care about the characters. Everyone was devoid of heart. I ended up walking out about an 45 minutes into it because I simply didn't want to subject my mind to it any more. There is far too much sex in the film. Sex can be okay; it can even make the movie (hence Karma Sutra) but the intercourse here was not beautiful or sexy. It was just ugly. Don't see this film.


I am sorry to say that it was one of the worst films I've ever seen. Although visually fascinating (e.g. the use of colour was absolutely stunning), it was pretty boring and disturbing (see the father/son incest).

What's more, music is totally absent, and if you think of those wonderful soundtracks by Michael Nyman (who wrote the soundtracks for most of Greenaway's films) then you can imagine what a difference it makes.


somewhere i'd read that this film is supposed to be a comedy. after seeing it, i'd call it anything but. the point of this movie eludes me. the dialogue is all extremely superficial and absurd, many of the sets seemed to be afterthoughts, and despite all the nudity and implied sexual content, there's nothing erotic about this film...all leaving me to wonder just what the heck this thing is about! the title premise could have been the basis for a fun (if politically incorrect) comedy. instead, we're treated to cheap, amateurish, unfinished sketches and depravity and weirdness for its own sake. if i want that, i'll go buy a grace jones cd.


Movies have put me to sleep before, but no movie has ever done that twice, so it took me three sittings actually to finish it. The dialog was bad. Women spoke stiltedly and the men were caricatures. And two of the supposedly Japanese women looked Chinese, had Chinese names and spoke with clearly Chinese accents. I'm still trying to figure out why the Emmenthal men were sexually wrapped up with each other. 10 minus 8 1/2 equals a tough choice: Do I give this movie a rating of one? or two?

Movies have put me to sleep before, but no movie has ever done that twice, so it took me three sittings actually to finish it. The dialog was bad. Women spoke stiltedly and the men were caricatures. And two of the supposedly Japanese women looked Chinese, had Chinese names and spoke with clearly Chinese accents. I'm still trying to figure out why the Emmenthal men were sexually wrapped up with each other. 10 minus 8 1/2 equals a tough choice: Do I give this movie a rating of one? or two?


La Chute de la Maison Usher, or The Fall of the House of Usher as it's know amongst English audiences, starts with Allan (Charles Lamy) heading for the Castle of his good friend Sir Roderick Usher (Jean Debucourt) who sent him a letter saying that his wife Madeleine is ill. Once there Allan finds Madeleine very sick & her husband Roderick determined & almost obsessed to paint her portrait. As Roderick paints Madeleine becomes weaker & weaker almost as if the picture is draining the life out of her, Allan tries to help his friend but tragedy soon strikes...

This French production was co-written, produced & directed by Jean Epstein & was the second of two filmed The Fall of the House of Usher adaptations during 1928, honestly I don't know the original novel was published in 1839, I mean you wait 89 years for a filmed adaptation & two come along at the same time! Anyway, I feel that I have a bit of a problem here as I have read plenty of positive comments about La Chute de la Maison Usher & maybe I'm not the right sort of person to write a comment on it but I have to say that it simply didn't do anything for me. I didn't like it, obviously the first thing to say is that this is a silent film & therefore it relies on imagery but even so I thought the story was weak, I thought as a whole the film was boring & dull even though it only lasts for about an hour & it really didn't do anything for me at all. La Chute de la Maison Usher was made almost 80 years ago & that is literally a lifetime, the world, cinema & tastes have moved on a lot since then & I found no enjoyment in this film. I feel this film has dated badly & probably wasn't that good to start with anyway. I never felt for any of the character's, I never cared about anything that was happening & I found it all rather tedious to sit through, I'm sorry if I've offended any silent film fans out there but that's the way I felt.

Director Epstein does an OK job, a lot of people ramble on about the imagery in La Chute de la Maison Usher & I will freely admit it definitely has it's moments but I thought they were few & far between. Shots of people's mouths moving & not actually hearing what they say just seemed weird to me, I didn't like the music & the version I saw kept the original French language insert cards which were narrated by guy with the most awful sounding thick French accent which was also off putting. Based on the story by Edgar Allen Poe I doubt this has much resemblance to it apart from one or two basic elements, stick with the fantastic Roger Corman House of Usher starring Vincent Price.

Technically the film was OK considering when it was made. You simply cannot tell about the acting as no one ever speaks although the film is full of unnatural exaggerated movements to try & suggest emotions or reflect what's happening which works to an extent but after a while just looks a bit daft.

La Chute de la Maison Usher will appeal to those who crave a bygone era, who live in caves or who are stuck in the past, for me I like my films to have a story, not to bore me & to have sound & I'm sorry if that last statement makes me sound like an uneducated idiot but that's how I feel. The world has moved on since 1928 & for the better.


This flick reminds me some really bad science-fiction movies from 50's and 60's.It is not scary or interesting,but it's dull,cheesy and stupid.Special effects are laughable,all actors are ludicrous and the ending is simply awful.Don't waste your money,rent or buy something better.I give it 3.5 out of 10( I found this turkey quite amusing because of its stupidity).


"Plants are the most cunning and vicious of all life forms", informs one dopey would-be victim in "The Seedpeople", a silly, flaccid remake of "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers", "Day of the Triffids", and about a thousand udder moovies. And why are seeds moore dangerous than plants, one might ask? Because, according to the same dolt, "seeds can chase us". Yes, I can remember one horrifying incident when the MooCow was just a calf, being chased all the way home from school by ravenous dandylion seed... Yeah, right. Unfortunately, the "monsters" in this seedy little turkey kind of look like shaggy little muppets, some of which roll around like evil tumbleweeds, others which sail about on strings. There's not even the tiniest inkling of terror or suspense to be found here. For reasons left unexplained, the seed monsters are knocked out by 50 volt ultra-violet lights, even though they can walk about in the daylight, which has about 1,000,000,000,000 times more uv energy. As you can see, not much thought was put into this cow flop. The MooCow says go weed yer garden instead of wasting your photosynthesis here. :=8P


While most of the movie is very amateurish, the Kosher slaughter scene is played up, but not untrue. Kosher law says that an animal must be conscious when the blade touches it's skin. The Kosher slaughter scene is accurate as anyone knows who has seen one, or has seen the Peta film showing a Kosher slaughter, in which the animals throat is cut, and the esophagus cut out while it is still alive, conscious, and obviously suffering. We must remember that history is written by the victors. Is one even Allowed to even THINK that maybe the Nazis were right??

Doesn't it say anything that the Nazis had outlawed this vicious religious slaughter, and the Jews are still practicing it even today?


I would perhaps give 6 or 7 to this propaganda film because it shows when and how a propaganda film becomes successful. If there are people who watch this piece and think that "well then Jews must have done something to be treated the way they were treated in WW2", then the movie is very cleverly made to conceal 'why's and 'how's as well as mix correct and false observations on how a people live. What more can a propaganda movie aim for? The part in which an American movie about the Rothschild family is included is re-used very shrewdly here, for instance. The question of why the Jew keeps his wealth away from the officer is never asked. No one mentions the system of taxation within that particular social strata.

Besides, the level of excitement (or, the level of disgust) in the movie increases slowly and the solution-like end of the movie suits the aim and the musts of doing propaganda. The audience would leave in joy and gratefulness to the times that are coming up...well done.

In the movie, there is a kind of simplicity that addresses the most basic emotional perception of the audience. The movie is kind of history today, so no need to fuss much about it actually. However, in this simplicity of words of ethnic degradation, a careful watcher can find relevance to today's cultural hatred, violence, decivilization as well as the problems of integration. Overall, fine trash.


The Eternal Jew (Der Ewige Jude) does not have what we today would call the markings of a scholarly document: rather than naming experts or sources to support what it says, it simply says, without opposition, what it wants us to believe (one will concede that American newsreels of that period were also much less regulated than would seem ethical to a modern audience, often inserting dramatized scenes and passing them off as actual news footage). Add to this directed propaganda the fact that filmmaker Hippler was "preaching to the converted," not so much asking gentile Europeans to hate the Jews as validating the feelings so many of them must have held already, in order to have allowed the holocaust that followed. The weakest link in the film's logic shows in its "rat" analogy, wherein it goes on to explain the behavior of rats, and then adds something to the effect of "Well, Jewish people are like that too." Similarly it characterizes Jewish people as ugly by showing ugly Jewish people in comparison to attractive gentiles; the accompanying leap of faith is that ugly is bad. The film appears to contradict itself a few times, for example by attacking Western painters who portrayed Old Testament characters as light-skinned Europeans; thereby the text admits that so-called "Hebrew" ethnicity is in fact an ingrained aspect of Christian culture. It also shows ghetto Jews willingly living in roach-infested filth, despite the supposed treasure they've hoarded, and then flip-flops by saying that these same undesirables live in wealth and luxury as soon as they leave the ghetto. Incidentally, who wouldn't? The use of scenes from a well-known American film, House of Rothschild, shows an equally blurry deployment of logic. First the film is denounced as having been made by Jews; then it is apparently used by Hippler to verify the deceptiveness of Jews (the aforementioned pretense of poverty by ghetto Jews, shown as a means of avoiding taxation, although the Rothschild character's "spin" is that Jews are taxed excessively); finally the Rothschild film is once again execrated for implying that the famed banking family invented the checking account. This apparent indecisiveness in whether the American footage is shown positively or negatively might become clearer with repeated viewings, but at first sight it makes for some murky moviewatching. For all of Eternal Jew's imperfections, I was at first surprised that the IMDb viewer rating for this film is as high as it is, just shy of a "5" to date. I'd say the reason is that EJ's documentary value has exceeded its original purpose, offering us, unintentionally, a look into the lives of European Jews as they would not be seen a few years hence. Needless to say the film's very badness also provides an historical insight into bad, or simply evil, filmmaking as a propagandist's tool. About this time I should expect director Hippler to flip-flop once again, springing forward to say "That's what I meant to do all along!" The scenes depicting animal slaughter are particularly gruesome, and show same as decidedly inhumane, contrary to the intent of Kosher law to prevent animal suffering. I would like for someone who has seen the film, and has some knowledge of these procedures, to comment on whether the portrayal is accurate.


That shall be a documentary? I saw it (which is forbidden in Germany) and I have to say, that it was the worst documentary I've ever seen. It is nothing but one big lie from the beginning to the end. Who can doubt after this trash that all Jews were supposed to be killed in the concentration camps?


1940. - A visit to the Lodz ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, recorded by a German cameramen with the naive co-operation of the Jewish community, is combined with archival footage, clips from international newsreels, and excerpts from related cultural films to portray the World's Jews as swindlers and parasites. This 'documentary' interprets Jewish life from the viewpoint of traditional anti-Semitism and Nazi ideology. A candid, cinematically-unique expression of racial hatred. I personally find this film frightening and highly offensive. One can only hope that such pictures as this will never reach the screen again.


This film is justly famous as one of the most horrible examples of propaganda ever produced. The insistent equation of Jews with disease is simply

pathological, and even worse it almost becomes believable for brief seconds

through its sheer repetition. The fact that something this crude works, even

briefly, is an object lesson in itself. You have to have a strong stomach and a firm grip on yourself to sit through this, and I wouldn't recommend trying unless you have a good reason.


Having seen "Triumph of the Will," I can only say this movie is ghastly, even measured against the historically low "standards" of the time. Naturally it's all totally fabricated and prejudicial. This is what one would expect of 1930's German propaganda. Unfortunately, the quality of the presentation, itself, is hackneyed and cheap. It's also so blatantly ridiculous that even contemporary Germans must've left the theater holding their noses. In a genre renowned for its base appeal, lack of originality and unapologetic wrong-headedness, this film doesn't even qualify as "bad." It would have to improve significantly to attain that status!


Interesting? Hardly. The 'scientific evidence' the movie provides for its point (which is basicly that Jews are a cancer) is so stupid and lame, it's almost laughable (if we didn't know what happened in that era).

Important? Nah. I can't imagine Germans (even at that horrid time) would like or believe this movie. Compare it to Riefenstahl's Triumf des Willens. Now that was I movie I was impressed with. This is just silly garbage.

'Best' part is a scene from M (one of my all-time favorites) where (the jew, as the announcer so eloquently keeps reminding us) Lorre plays a child-molester and murderer. In the eyes of these film-makers, only a depraved mind can do so. Uh-huh. Didn't know M was Hitler's favorite movie, right?

No, it's just plain STUPID. Even for it's nazi-propaganda genre. 2/10.


This Book-based movie is truly awful, and a big disappointment. We've been waiting for this move over a month. Many film reviewer were hopeful for it. Also in newspapers and TV, it made big sense. When 29th April comes, many people regretfully noticed that movie is really awful. Why? First of all story was so monotone. It has been many indefinite scenes, sometimes it's hard to realize what's going on. The actresses, out of Hulya Avsar, weren't harmonized with their roles, especially Vildan Atasever. She acts better in comedy films, In this movie, a kind of drama, she couldn't disposed of her previous role. And finally Movie is too short, just 66 minutes.


How cynical are the writers, to pander so. I may be an American citizen, but I don't need to see other Americans pat each other on the back for an hour and half in order to enjoy a film. I'm astonished that so few have commented on how utterly jingoistic, sentimental and trite the dialogue in this film really is. The historical inaccuracies of the film are not as gross and offensive as in "U-571" (which changes British submariners to American ones) but you still walk away feeling a little slimy. Really, the Germans in this film do nothing but admire the Americans between battle scenes! How sad, unnecessary! I'd just like to say to the writers: it's obvious to many of us that you can't capture real people, with real problems, under real pressure, and that you've taken some very well tested shortcuts. Lucky for you there will always be nationalist nutjobs to appreciate your sugar-coated tripe.


I usually read reviews before I watch a movie. Guess what, I didn't do that before watching TLB, and I have to say I was very surprised to see the above average rating at IMDb. I found it to have a total lack of story. You just get dropped into it (and, sadly, not in the way Saving Private Ryan dropped us into the movie), and it also has a sudden end, which was very unsatisfying for me.

I have to admit, the wounded soldiers looked pretty realistic to me, especially with the low budget in mind. But prepare yourself to have a laugh... Some guys are being tossed through the air after an explosion as if they are Olympic gymnasts. A mid-air corkscrew or somersault during WW I is a bit too much for me, especially when it's performed countless times during the movie...

But the parts that really got me laughing until I almost cried were the scenes containing close combat. The screaming and shouting German voices...unbelievably funny. It seems as if they are spoken by one single actor / voice performer, because they all sound exactly the same, and it just sounds like a 'typical' German voice.

I would absolutely NOT recommend this movie to anyone, except to people who just want to have some laughs because of the sad and corny quality of it.


I want to say the acting is bad, but I think it was the directing that made it so. I never thought much of Highlander (same director) but that one could be blamed on the 80s.

This one however, has no excuses. People get shot while exiting trenches with a man in front of him!? Those kind of mistakes, along with an unclear time line, weird battle tactics, sub-par cutting and poor visual effects, makes this one a sub-par film over all.

Then like so many other have commented, all this American bullshit. The German general being practically scared of his captured American private. Be prepared to swallow a lot of it, although in small doses.

To sum it up, a not horrible but still definitely sub-par war movie in all aspects.


When this movie was first shown on television I had high hopes that we would finally have a decent movie about World War I as experienced by American soldiers. Unfortunately this is not it.

It should have been a good movie about WWI. Even though it was made for television it is obvious that a real effort was made to use appropriate equipment and props. But the writing and directing are badly lacking, even though the makers of this movie obviously borrowed freely from quite a few well made war movies. War movie clichés abound such as the arrogant general who apparently does not care a flip about the lives of his men. When will Hollywood realize that, even though there have been plenty of bad generals, most combat unit generals have seen plenty of combat themselves and are not naive about what the average grunt experiences? The first part of this movie appeared to be "Paths of Glory" with American uniforms. Except that "Paths of Glory" was emotionally gripping. Later on there was Chamberlain's charge (except uphill) from "Gettysburg" and even the capture of the American soldier by a ring of enemy soldiers from "The Thin Red Line". But in "The Thin Red Line" the soldier was alone when captured. In this movie a ring forms around the new prisoner in the middle of a battle.

If this movie used a military adviser they ignored him. Even though the actors (and I never could forget they were actors while watching) mouthed military tactics I didn't see very much of it. The American soldiers would stand up to be shot while the Germans attacked. And the infamous Storm Troopers, who were apparently blind, appeared to use no tactics whatsoever in their attack. In the real war, the tactics were what made storm troopers so effective. But the silliest scene was the attack of the German Flamethrowers. In this scene the German flamethrower operators walked in a broad line towards the defending Americans. If that had been real they would never have gotten close enough to use their flamethrowers before they had all been dropped by the defender's bullets.

Okay, so most war movies are unrealistic when it comes to the tactics shown. But it is still disappointing. But what really turned me off to this flick was the typical anti-war anti-military angle that movie makers seem to think is important. True, war is hell. But most American soldiers, even though they grumble and gripe, tend to believe in what they are doing and can be rather gung-ho about it. My Grandfather served in World War I. And even though he died four years before I was born I have been told how proud he was of his service.


After watching this movie I was honestly disappointed - not because of the actors, story or directing - I was disappointed by this film advertisements.

The trailers were suggesting that the battalion "have chosen the third way out" other than surrender or die (Polish infos were even misguiding that they had the choice between being killed by own artillery or German guns, they even translated the title wrong as "misplaced battalion"). This have tickled the right spot and I bought the movie.

The disappointment started when I realized that the third way is to just sit down and count dead bodies followed by sitting down and counting dead bodies... Then I began to think "hey, this story can't be that simple... I bet this clever officer will find some cunning way to save what left of his troops". Well, he didn't, they were just sitting and waiting for something to happen. And so was I.

The story was based on real events of World War I, so the writers couldn't make much use of their imagination, but even thought I found this movie really unchallenging and even a little bit boring. And as I wrote in the first place - it isn't fault of actors, writers or director - their marketing people have raised my expectations high above the level that this movie could cope with.


My God, what an incredible movie it is! Reminded me so much of the similar scene in Mel Gibson's movie "We were Soldiers" when "the Company is not lost, they're just cut off" And the other scene in Pearl Harbour when the British officer says to Ben Affleck "If all Americans are like you, then God help the nation that goes to war with America!

Put all 3 movies together and you would have enough BULLSHIT to fertilise the entire Sahara Desert.

The story of the cut-off Battalion may be real enough but the movie could have done without all that American preachy jingoistic propaganda attached to it. There were audible groans in the cinema during the above-mentioned scene in Pearl Harbour (no kidding either) The Lost Battalion however is really in a class of its own .

"Americans think they are unbeatableinspired bravery. " I actually cringed and damn near puked at all the swill being spewed out throughout this diarrhoeic disaster (the movie that is)

The fighting scenes were well made (3 stars for that) but if the script is manure, then wrapped even in brightly coloured ribbons, it is still manure. The writer, James Carabatsos, also wrote those other screamersHamburger Hill, No Mercy , Heartbreak Ridge. Someone, please shoot him before he writes any more such garbage.

The Director, Russell Mulcahy is an Australian too. God, the shame!!!


1) I am not weapon expert, but even i can see difference between U.S. army riffles in WWI and WWII. In movie we can see privates, armed with "M1 Garand" (invented in year 1932!), not authentic "1903 Springfield" (aka "Silent Death"), who privates use until WWII. Difference - M1 can load 1,5 times more ammunition and 3 times more fire rate! M1 was semi - automatic, Springfield requires reloading after every shot. Little difference?! 2) German army uniforms has borrowed from 1940 Year too. Especially - helmets. German helmets until end of WWI have significant pike on top, we cannot see even one in movie. And if we make little additional search in archives - how much truthful is this "True Story"? I am surprised, how much "truthful" can be film directors in a pursuit of cheap propagation.


This movie has the made for TV stink all over it. Though, it started out with great intentions, featuring great looking sets and authentic props and costumes. The film quickly degenerated into horrible on the nose cheesy dialogue, and rushed TV sappy melodramatic acting. The characters were so sappy that at times I thought that they are about to degenerate into a bilious puddle of goo, and the action was so convoluted and poorly cut that it looked as it the soldiers were merely standing around and taking turns shooting at one another. The Germans were so unrealistically depicted that it was painful to watch. The only thing that the German officers talked about was how wonderful the Americans are. Please take my word for this. I am a huge fan of the war genre, and this movie is crap. Nevertheless, this DVD does have an excellent extra feature, covering letters from the WWI front lines, thus making this rental not a total waste of my time.


I ended up watching this movie before even going through any of the reviews, on the request of a female. Just out of curiosity, I thought, let me find out if there are people who actually recommend others to watch this movie. I am quite shocked to find such long and positive reviews on this website that makes me conclude that it's a scam.

As far as my opinion goes, I have to ask,"are these filmmakers retarded or do they assume that the viewers are retarded?" The movie is atrocious on so many levels and I'm not even talking about the story or presentation.

So, these bunch of guys plus one girl (the lead actress) form a Music band; guessing from the constant presence of guitars it is supposed to be a ROCK band. Hell, when did dancers started becoming the part of a Rock band??? Anyway, let me accept it as the-Bollywood-version-of-a- Rock-band, but amusingly enough all the scores which actually had these two guitarists doing all kinds of cool "ROCK GESTURES" and I am assuming they were playing the instruments, the sound of the guitar was completely missing!!! I simply can't comprehend the magnitude of stupidity here....

I am just going to conclude here because it is absolutely not worth pointing out any further flaws in the movie. Bollywood directors seem to have no shame anymore!!!!!!!!


The movie is plain bad. Simply awful. The string of bad movies from Bollywood has no end! They must be running out of excuses for making such awful movies (or not).

The problem seems to be with mainly the directors. This movie has 2 good actors who have proved in the past that the have the ability to deliver great performance...but they were directed so poorly. The poor script did not help either.

This movie has plenty of ridiculous moments and very bad editing in the first half. For instance :

After his 1st big concert, Ajay Devgan, meets up with Om Puri (from whom he ran away some 30 years ago and talked to again) and all Om Puri finds to say is to beware of his friendship with Salman!!! What a load of crap. Seriously. Not to mention the baaad soundtrack. Whatever happened to Shankar Ehsaan Loy?

Ajay Devgun is total miscast for portraying a rockstar.

Only saving grace are the good performances in the second half. Ajay shines as his character shows his dark side. So does Salman as the drug addict.

Watch it maybe only for the last half hour.


I just wondering what is the purpose of making movies like this? the profit? and to whom they are referring what intelligence must use your brain to watch something like this crap? This movie is watchable by under 3 years old children if you are adults don't try to watch it. Thats the reason i think Hollywood started to use cartoons in movies with actors like this you must forget the art of cinema , be sure that you ll have tons of pop corn to consume for time to pass till this movie ends also get many cola's hamburgers your laptop your cellphone this movie can be used easily in a restaurant but for sure not in a theater , my dog who is always next to my family when watching a movie left the building.The sure thing is that this movie is referring to people with no demands from the cinema art.The only thing that this movie can be used is for watching it when making the supermarket shopping list.I am giving 2 stars for supporting the India's cinema efforts but for nothing more or less..


The film was written 10 years back and a different director was planning it with SRK and Aamir in lead roles

The film finally was made now with Vipul Shah directing it And Ajay and Salman starring together after a decade HUM DIL DE CHUKE SANAM(1999)

The movie however falls short due to it's 90's handling and worst it's loopholes

The film tries to pack in too many commercial ingredients and we also hav the love triangle

Everything is predictable and filmy and too clichéd

There are loopholes like how Ajay runs away from London Airport and makes a place for himself with no one? even the way he starts his band is not convincing The second half gets better with the twist in the tale of Ajay destroying Salman but sadly the climax falls short and the film ends on a bad note

Direction by Vipul Shah is ordinary to below average Music is the worst point, most songs are mediocre

Amongst actors Ajay gives his best shot though he isn't convincing as a Rock singer yet he does superb as the negative role Salman however irritates with his punjabi and talking nonsense he only impresses when he gets drugged and thereon Asin is nothing great just a show piece Ranvijay should stick to MTV Om Puri is okay


The movie is a total crap. We have two good actors who are miscast and a meat-head of an actor Salman Khan just to attract the female audience. The story is a crap. The characters poorly sketched. Non existent story telling. No editing to speak of. Ajay Devgan as a Rock Star..that is a dream in itself. The movie drags along to the point of decadence. The whole charade about Arjun bringing his Manna to London, let him grope his girlfriend and let him not play at Wembley (Vimbley in the dubbing process) is absurd. Salman Khan's over the top acting or faking is too painful to watch. I remember seeing some good movies from this Producer Vipul Shah but this is not one of them. It seems all the good directors are falling prey to the Box Office mania..that the Mumbai Media Morons have created. This is yet another crap movie in the lines of "Wanted" with idiot actor like Salman Khan who has no place in a Good Hindi Cinema. He is good to the Indian Cinema as Titanic was to the Winter Cruise Business. On a positive note-I like Asin character dancing Bharatnatyam when she changes to the Western style dancing when the teacher is not looking.


Maaan, where do i start with this god awful movie. Bad bad bad story telling. I do not know what the director was thinking when he made this movie. Namaste London was quite an enjoyable movie to be honest..even the soundtrack was good. But in this one..oh my good..for a movie which is supposed to be a musical one..the songs are soooo bad. AR Rahman should have been the music director.

Given two great actors a much better job should have been done by the director. Even though the first half sucks, the last 30 mins of the movie are OK. Performances from Salman and Ajay save the movie from being a total disaster.

Watch it if you have nothing better to do. The last good movie from Bollywood i watched ( and i do watch a load of them) is Dev D and Wake Up Sid.


Who were they kidding with this? There was just too much in this film that was hard to digest. Right from when Arjun (Ajay Devgan) unknowingly wishes death on his father to when he arrives in London with his uncle(played by Om Puri) only to abandon him minutes later. The only problem with that theory is that anybody who has ever passed through London Heathrow knows that such a fête would be impossible to pull off and especially not by an Indian. But the film problems do not end there, there's the issue of the two main leads (Salman Khan and Ajay Devgan) passing as rock-stars on the verge of achieving their dreams. I mean yeah we saw success come to Susan Boyle (a woman in the UK achieving her dreams after age 50) but that was a rare case. It was really hard for me to suspend my disbelief because I felt that the casting of Salman and Ajay was just ill-conceived. They would never cast Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi to play the same roles so why should we be forced to watch Ajay Devgan and Salman Khan (men well into their 40s) prance around desperately trying to hang on to their 20s? Let's not even talk about the most self-conscious actress on screen today, Asin. This is her second film (that I have seen) and she is just hopeless as an actress, so conscious of her looks that she only concerns herself with looking good and voguing for the camera rather than giving in a good acting performance. It's just hard to believe that she turned down all those other movie roles to star in this fluff and then be so fluffy as an actress, nothing to write home about at all. And to top all of that, the film just boringly dragged on. There's nothing special about it at all, trust me you will predict every clichéd thing that is going to happen in it.


Vipul Shah has done some really impressive work as a filmmaker in the past. 'Waqt - The Race Against Time' and 'Namaste London' were entertaining and interesting to watch. 'Singh Is Kinng' was fun, which he produced. His latest outing as a filmmaker 'London Dreams' comes up as his careers weakest fare.

'London Dreams' has a mediocre storyline, it's about how success turns friendship into hatred. Agreed, it has the potential but when you watch 'London Dreams' you wonder what's happening? This film has maybe the worst climax in recent times. Vipul Shah the writer puts Vipul Shah the director down.

The first hour is boring, The second hour is better; but again the climax is horrendous. How can anyone forgive a person who decided to destroy you? I won't. Ajay Devgn suddenly decides to go to India and ask forgiveness to his diaper buddy, thanks to his uncle Om Puri. When he reaches India, rather than slapping or abusing him Salman welcomes him with band baja and says he was the reason behind the entire fiasco? Was Vipul Shah's intension to show Salman's character as a GOD? If yes, than you've failed completely. The only question I want to ask Vipul Shah is that, would you welcome a person who destroyed you with such a great reception? Write what you feel, don't fool us {the audience}, we are sensible enough to understand what's good or not.

This is a musical but the music by Shankar-Eshaan-Loy is terrible. Not a single song stays in your mind.

Salman is superb though. He carries the film on his shoulders and does really, really well in the emotional scenes. But again his character is shown as a GOD, which makes him look like a retard in the end. Ajay is equally good, but Salman has over-shadowed him completely. Asin is wasted, and what is a great talent like Om Puri doing in this film? Rannvijay hams, though Aditya Roy Kapoor excels. Brinda Parekh is alright as the vamp.

On the whole, this dream remains a dream!


London Dreams, directed by Vipul Shah, is a frustratingly foolish film about foolish people. It's the kind of film whose central conflict could be instantly resolved if the characters concerned simply sat down and had a chat. Ajay Devgan plays Arjun, an aspiring pop-artiste obsessed with performing before a cheering crowd at London's Wembley Stadium. He becomes jealous of his devoted best friend and band-mate Manu, played by Salman Khan, who is evidently more talented than him, but nowhere near as focused or ambitious. Arjun decides to sabotage Manu when the latter's popularity threatens to outshine his own. Now here's where a heart-to-heart might have helped. Had Arjun explained what this Wembley fixation meant to him, Manu would have graciously backed off and let Arjun fulfill his childhood dream, and we'd have been spared the agony of watching the rest of this uninspiring drivel. But director Vipul Shah and his writers are in no mood to do us any favours. London Dreams is packed with unintentionally hilarious gems like that back-story involving Arjun's grandpa who committed suicide out of shame for getting stage-fright at a packed Wembley concert. Or the ridiculous incident at a show where Manu must take over vocal responsibilities after a blast of confetti practically chokes Arjun into silence. The idiocy, however, doesn't end there. In his attempts to shame Manu publicly, Arjun uses his connections to get Manu hooked onto drugs. A buxom groupie urges Manu to down a couple of tequila shots with her but replaces his salt with cocaine. Before you know it, Manu has acquired quite the appetite for the addictive white powder, practically chomping it down like dinner. If that isn't silly enough, there's a crude scene later in which Manu chases after the said girl to find out who she's been taking orders from. The pursuit ends in a dark London alley where the girl gets down on her knees pretending to do the unmentionable so as to mislead Manu's girlfriend who's been secretly following after them. Wait, there's more! Expect to howl hysterically when Arjun snaps off his belt and whips himself mercilessly to banish all thoughts of romance or lust towards the band's lead dancer Priya (played by Asin) because nothing and no one must distract him from his musical goals. Too generously inspired by Milos Forman's Amadeus for it to merit any comparison with last year's Rock On!, Vipul Shah's latest is a clunky melodrama that's as loosely directed as it is scripted. The film goes for broad humor, over-the-top emotions, and basically chooses loudness over subtlety. That works for Manu's character, with Salman Khan playing him all loutish and lovable, but in the case of Arjun, Ajay Devgan comes off too passive with a performance that is mostly internalised. When Arjun does reach boiling point however, it results in an awkward pre-climax scene in which he lectures a packed concert hall and is understandably pelted with plastic bottles as punishment. Of the remaining cast, there's not a kind word I can say for Asin, who practically lit up Ghajini with her ebullient charm, but disappoints here with unnecessary over-acting in a thankless role. Ranvijay Singh and Aditya Roy Kapur, reduced to mere sidekicks in the band, show up at regular intervals, usually to utter some inane dialogue like, "We'll rock it dude!" For its dim-witted writing and sloppy direction, London Dreams is ultimately a tiresome watch. If you must, watch it for Salman Khan who's turned buffoonery into a bonafide acting style. It's the only thing that'll make you smile in this sad, sad film.


The Lack of content in this movie amazed me the most. First i though that people was going to compare this to Rock On! but i'm really surprised myself to say that this was worst than Rock On! So-so story Horrible cast Ajay Devgan Jamming with Salman Khan and Asin you gotta be kidding me. The music was Okay Khanabadosh was the track of the movie the rest was bad! Vipul Shah hasn't still learn from Singh is King's critically bashed comedy. Now Asin.. where do she come from sorry for Asin's fan out there but she suck*d big time in this movie seriously bad acting she didn't look good at all overdose of make-up! My final verdict go watch Aladin with your family instead wasting your time here.


It's a bad season for Bollywood with all the big releases with a massive hype surrounding proving to be duds at the box office. London Dreams is no exception to that. Let's dissect it... It's all about chasing your dreams and how far will you go to achieve it. Sounds impressive right? But unfortunately the film is not.

Arjun (Ajay Devgan) is an aspiring musician who wants to make it big someday. His dream is to perform in Wembley stadium in front of a cheering 90,000 audience calling out his name. He is joined by two brothers, Zoheb & Wasim (debutants Aditya Roy & Ranvijay) and a ravishing Priya (Asin). Together they form "London Dreams" their dream band. After impressing the chief of a record company, they become overnight sensations. Arjun is secretly in love with Priya which he doesn't want to reveal till he achieves his goal. Arjun then brings his childhood friend Manjit Khosla aka Mannu (Salman Khan), a carefree flirtatious guy who has got no ambitions in life, to join their band. Mannu is a trained musician and a real talent for whom later Arjun become envious for Mannu's superior skills and his affair with Priya. Arjun with the help of Zoheb plans to blight Mannu. What happens next forms the rest of the movies.

Coming to the technical aspects, we feel only the shadow of Vipul Amritlal Sha whom we have admired in Namaste London. Felt like he simply visualized the screenplay. To cut it short, a glorified cameraman. Screenplay by Suresh Nair dulls even though it has its moments. Defined in a predictable fashion, the screenplay bore you to stiff. Camera work was awesome in capturing the beauty of London. It's the only entertaining part while watching songs.

Few songs are hummable while others are passable noisy fare. Ajay was the one who stole the show with his negative character. Salman is monotonous and he irks you. Asin is forgettable and I don't that she will make it big in Bollywood. Aditya Roy is impressive while Ranvijay is strictly OK. Brinda as the bitch is what we have seen in innumerable movies. Ompuri is ongoing with the proceedings. I don't want to pen down about the flaws as it will be a herculean task.

Finally let me put it simple and straight, London Dreams is a soulless movie which you may better enjoy on DVD.


First thing first . In this genre movie the first thing you need is a good music , and thats where Mr. shankar and his party fails.

music is completely pale and uneffective. On other hand there is AJAY DEVGAN , WHO HAS REMOVED A LETTER 'A' from his spelling , done good job but was of no use to a bad casted movies like this.

ASIN is like a doll which is used to amuse public, even though she is good to look at but her role in movie is to dance, actually she is dancing member of a rock band and i don't think any rock band have there dancer as a member of band.

in nut shell this movie is a piece of crap a piece of ***t. watch it if you wanna get fooled.


Below average movie with poor music considering a movie based on music??? Ordinary Script & Direction with full of blunders. Salman Khan was at his usual acting. Ajay's performance deteriorating with time as his looks,especially his styles as a Rock Star were pathetic. Asin was just a showpiece only. Overall I felt like wasting my money in cinema. Salman Khan remains as immature as 10 years ago compared to Aamir Khan. There were many songs in the movie all boring except "Man Ko Ati". The Most Important Song to impress the UK Music Sponsor was most unimpressive. "Khanabadosh" can be very easily understood by an English Music Sponsor. The other movie I saw last week was "Wake Up Sid" which was simple slow love story with good direction & acting despite average music


I couldn't believe some of the horrible dialog coming out of people's mouths, and the end reel of bloopers attached to body of the film was a real hoot. And we get titty shots of Angelique Pettyjohn (sort of) and Loren Crabtree to boot.

A teleportation device activated by psychic Angelique Pettyjohn brings an alien container to an underground lab out in the desert. According to director Fred Olen Ray, they were leftover sets from the Klaus Kinski film, ANDROID which gives the film an increased value beyond how cheap it looks.

Inside the container is a midget alien (played by Ray's son) who starts clawing people to death. It was pretty funny watching this little 'creature' in a black reptile suit with what looks like large beetle shells attached to it, running around in the dark. We even get to see the little thing stamp and tear at a poster of ET, which I thought was hilarious.

And then there's what looks like a snake that also comes out of the container that gets hammered to death by William Fair, after the mini creature chews into Frank McDonald's neck in the kitchen. A low budget take on ALIEN, I suppose...

The whole thing ends abruptly, looking like they ran out of film at the end before the blooper reel comes in with the end credits. Talk about a lack of funding...

Fred Olen Ray also mentions in the director's commentary that they also weren't sure if Aldo Ray would make through the shooting and remember his lines. He barely did.

Low budget cheese sneeze. It's fun to watch, I'll grant ya that.

4 out of 10


If you're watching this movie, you're either a Fred Olen Ray fan, you found it on the $4.99 shelf at Suncoast and thought "what do I have to lose?", or you spun around the video store with your eyes closed and rented the first movie your finger touched.

This movie is hysterically bad. It's got everything a terrible movie needs: a screenplay featuring jaw-dropping dialogue and baffling detours in the plot, wacky science involving psychics and other dimensions, continuity that seems to travel through wormholes in time and space, actors that are not only wooden, but seems to border on befuddled, gratuitous nudity (not all of it is what you necessarily would ask for), and of course, a 5' monster played by what I assume is Fred Olen Ray's kid.

Underneath it all, however, there is something resembling heart -- as if Mickey & Judy decided to get together all the kids in the neighborhood and make a monster movie (hey! my dad can direct it! yeah! We can use red paint from my johnny's dad's hardware store, and I know this ex-stripper who can act in it!).

Watch for the blooper reel over the credits -- you get to find out why the final cut of the movie was so crappy.

Incidentally, Biohazard II...the Alien Force is also worth a look, but doesn't have the same enjoyably crappy veneer this one does.


I was always curious about this film because it is so tough to find, so when I stumbled upon it on Ebay I forked over the $10 and bought it, now I understand why its so rare! This film is SO bad, so terribly written and hopelessly low budget that the ending credits, which show all of the cut scenes where they fumbled their lines, are literally the movie's highlight. The film is about a psychic (Pettyjohn, cast for one obvious reason, her topless scene) whom uses her powers with an experimental machine to pull objects from another dimension into this reality. When she pulls in some kind of box like object the military nonchalantly throws it into the open back of a truck with one soldier to guard it, and gee, what do you know? SURPRISE! A kid in a foam-rubber monster costume pops out, instantly kills the soldier with a scratch across his face, then escapes to a nearby city. But rather than deploy half the armed forces of the county to find it and protect the public those in charge just leave it up to Pettyjohn and Ray to find it on their own, but no matter, this movie blows all its credibility LONG before then. This barely escapes being voted a 1 by me only because of unintentional laughs, somebody needs to alert the producers of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" if they don't know about it already! 2 out 10, really, REALLY bad!


Occasionally one is served a new entrée from foreign films. That is their great attraction. They take from life and serve it up raw. American films, rarely dare to touch the forbidden subjects of society. Too many hang-ups and a morbid fear of financial failure. The Almighty dollar, determines their selections. Something which invites European directors. In addition, audiences world wide remain hungry for "different" films, especially those which offer a savory bite out of the wretched, suffering body of humanity. Despite the fear of directors or producers, many audiences yearn for beauty, poetry, and the pristine flavor of life. That is what the film "To the Left of the Father" offers to curious audiences. A family locked in the belief that unity of family stems from the unity of it's obedience to tradition. Yet when the patriarch of a family forgets it's members are flesh and blood humans, filled with raging, unbridled dreams and dark passions, then the two are set in motions against itself. Selton Mello plays André a son who seeks to control his inner passions with the stagnant philosophy of his father. Raul Cortez plays his Father. Simone Spoladore is Ana a young woman who seeks to quench a forbidden thirst from the family waters. Leonardo Medeiros is Pedro, the elder brother. The film offers much, but does takes an extremely inordinate amount of time to say it. ***


"Boom" has garnered itself a something of a reputation. With heavyweights Taylor, Burton, Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams and Joseph Losey, one might be tempted to think, how bad could it be? Well, it's a lot worse than you could possibly imagine.

The sad and disturbing fact of "Boom" is that is seems to signal the decline and fall of the aforementioned heavyweights. It was only director Joseph Losey who having plummeted the depths with "Modesty Blaise" and "Boom" (some may wish to add "Secret Ceremony"), managed to recuperate and in 1970 create his best work, the wonderful "Go-Between".

Saddest of all is the work of Tennesee Williams. From the mid forties until the early sixties, Williams penned a number of plays which have gained classic status, remaining in theater repertory throughout the world, many becoming much praised films. When William's muse deserted him, probably owing to his notorious substance abuse, it deserted him for good. Williams at his best is an actor's dream providing many unforgettable performances. (Were Ava Gardner or Deborah Kerr ever better than in "Night of the Iguana" ? ) Taylor in particular, shone in both "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Suddenly Last Summer". There is an anecdote in which supposedly Taylor asks John Gielgud whether he would teach her to play Shakespeare, to which he replied "if you will teach me to play Tennessee Williams". Had Gielgud seen "Boom" he would have held his tongue. Taylor simply has never been worse, turning in a cringe inducing performance. Despite her face photographing well, she is decidedly podgy. Besides the physical decline, from this time onwards she would basically lose credibility as a serious actress with a string of completely forgettable (and worse) roles to her credit.

Much the same could be said of Burton. Following his short lived theatrical stardom, he won fame and fortune in Hollywood. But the body of his work from this point onwards (1968) would be unremarkable to say the least.

Noel Coward had long ceased being a force in the theater where his drawing room comedies had been replaced by the likes of Williams and the British "angry young men". He seems to be enjoying himself camping it up, but barely manages to amuses, that from the man who claimed such a talent.

The only cast member who maintains her dignity is young Joanna Shimkus, who in a few years would forego a promising screen career to become Mrs. Sidney Poitier.

"Boom" reeks of self indulgence; it's simply out of control. A rather sad pointer to careers gone wrong rather than a camp fun fest as some have suggested.


Boy, this was one lousy movie! While I haven't seen all of the Burton/Taylor collaborations, I can say with confidence that this is the worst. This rich but ill woman (Taylor, of course) owns this beautiful island in the Meditteranean, ruling over a put-upon staff when she's suddenly visited by this traveling poet, who mouths platitudes. In fact, the whole film is just a talk fest, with much of the talk making no sense. Even in 1968, no one could make heads or tails of this pretentious nonsense, and the passage of time makes that even more clear. If it weren't for the beautiful cinematography and scenery, it would deserve a negative rating. The only thing this film is good for is its unintentional laughs at the expense of the stars.


This astonishing waste of production money is filmic proof that the rich and famous can be just as stupid and wasteful as politicians. From a (silly) play by Tennessee Williams and directed (with a dead hand) by Joseph Losey and starring Taylor and Burton and Noel Coward - this project filmed in a spectacular cliff-top mountain island mansion in the Mediterranean must have seemed a sure fire winner when presented to Universal in 1967. The result is so absurd and tedious that it almost defies belief. Visually the film is spectacular but that is the force of nature that has allowed the setting and the fact that a real home is used instead of a set. The shrill antics of a screeching Taylor, Burton's half asleep wanderings, the loony dialog, Noel Coward laughing at himself, the ridiculous story and plot devices and the absurd costuming simply irritate the viewer. BOOM is a disgrace, a waste of money and talent and clear proof that lauded famous people can be idiots just like the rest of the planet's plebs. Not even fun. Just terrible and mad shocking waste.


WOW! Pretty terrible stuff. The Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor roadshow lands in Sardinia and hooks up with arty director Joseph Losey for this remarkably ill-conceived Tennessee Williams fiasco. Taylor plays a rich, dying widow holding fort over her minions on an island where she dictates, very loudly, her memoirs to an incredibly patient secretary. When scoundrel Burton shows up claiming to be a poet and old friend, Taylor realizes her time is up. Ludicrious in the extreme --- it's difficult to determine if Taylor and Burton are acting badly OR if it was Williams' intention to make their characters so unappealing. If that's the case, then the acting is brilliant! Burton mumbles his lines, including the word BOOM several times, while Taylor screeches her's. She's really awful. So is Noel Coward as Taylor's catty confidante, the "Witch of Capri."

Presumably BOOM is about how fleeting time is and how fast life moves along --- two standard Williams themes, but it's so misdirected by Losey, that had Taylor and Burton not spelled it out for the audience during their mostly inane monologues, any substance the film has would have been completely diluted.

BOOM does have stunning photography---the camera would have to have been out of focus to screw up the beauty of Sardinia! The supporting cast features Joanna Shimkus, the great Romolo Valli as Taylor's resourceful doctor and Michael Dunn as her nasty dwarf security guard...both he and his dogs do a number on Burton!


Whatever rating I give BOOM is only because of the superb location photography of Sardinia and Rome. Otherwise, this is only for hardcore addicts of ELIZABETH TAYLOR (her downward phase), and RICHARD BURTON (his miscasting phase). Tennessee Williams wrote "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" and is supposed to be very fond of this adaptation of his play--but apparently, he was the only one. Taylor reportedly hated it and Burton needed the money.

Whatever, it amounts to a hill of beans with Taylor posturing and fuming in her shrill manner, exploding at the servants and exchanging bad baby-talk with no less than NOEL COWARD who seems to be a visitor from another film when he finally appears.

It's so campy that among Taylor fans it's probably considered a "must see" kind of thing. But if you can sit through this one without a drink in your hand, you're way ahead of me. Sadly, this is the film that signified the end of Taylor being taken seriously as a film actress, even after winning two Oscars. For Burton, it was equally disastrous and the critics called it a BOMB. Judge for yourself if you dare.


Is rich, ailing Elizabeth Taylor courting the Angel of Death on her island fortress in the Mediterranean, or is she just overreacting--or more precisely, overacting--as usual? Actually, both are applicable in director Joseph Losey's wandering, meandering mess called "Boom", appropriately titled since tempers in the lush, luxurious setting are nearly ready to explode. Richard Burton climbs Taylor's mountain uninvited; she dresses him in a samurai's robe complete with saber. Though great-looking in widescreen, the picture is otherwise quite deadly, a failure even Liz 'n Dick-philes should shun (the stars' collective "what the hell!" attitude to their late-'60s film careers reached an ego-mad nadir here). Pointless, confused, and maddening, "Boom" is a catastrophe--although screenwriter Tennessee Williams, who adapted his own unsuccessful play "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore", was said to be quite fond of it! * from ****


I have an awful pan-and-scan videotape of "Boom!", and I want to see it in all its widescreen glory. So I voted "1" and hope you will too. Together, we can pull this movie down into the pits of cinematic dross, and hope that someone will see an opportunity for BIG MONEY in releasing "Boom!" in its Director's Cut Extended Version. The movie is one of my howling favoritesyou just look at the people involved, the director, the actors, the cameraman, and you say to yourself, "Yep, I guess you can fool some of the people for a lot of time." Producers considering the DVD release of "Boom!" should note that, everywhere it's been shown, there have been sellout crowds in the theaters. But it hasn't been up to Frostbite Falls yet.


The movie appeals to public due to charisma of Ben Stiller and notoriety of J. Aniston. It seems that we have here a recipe for a successful title, but there's nothing successful in this movie.

Polly is very well played by Aniston, no doubt. This is the kind of character which suits her perfectly.

Bem Stiller is the same troublesome guy like in " Meet the parents", but in this movie the comic scenes are few compared to the title mentioned above.

The script is very poor with nothing special at all. With this two well payed actors the things could get a lot better - but what can they do when there is such a poor story and script.

4 out of 10.


I realize several Ben Stiller movies are out or will be out this year, but perhaps he should insist on quality, not quantity.

I was dumbfounded at what the filmmakers thought passed for comedy in "Along Came Polly."

Stiller's Reuben is grating, charmless and ranks as one of the worst performances of the year. Stiller's schtick is getting tiresome. He undoubtedly has comic talent, but he needs to either find another schtick or take a break, find some material that is actually funny. Because his movies are going from painfully humorless to excruciatingly bad.

There's absolutely no chemistry between Stiller and Jennifer Aniston, which is a shame because she's a good, smart actress with a promising career. As long as she keeps making more movies such as "The Good Girl" (in which she's terrific) and less like "Along Came Polly," she'll have a career of which she could be proud.

Aniston tries desperately to overcome the limp material with which she's working, but it's a daunting task for any actress. With the exception of a few moments with Alec Baldwin, as Reuben's boss Stan, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Reuben's best friend Sandy, there's nothing funny in this awful film. Other supporting characters, including Debra Messing as Lisa and Hank Azaria as Claude, are annoying. Azaria's accent is not only stupid, it's terribly unfunny.

The premise of "Along Came Polly" certainly showed promise. Unfortunately, it needed a writer who could actually turn it into a good comedy, instead of this lame, dull, boring excuse for a comedy.


I saw this for free, thankfully, and wish it was better than it was, but it's really the same old stuff that movie studios seem to foist on us in the last ten years.

Ben Stiller and Jennifer Anniston play a couple who are opposites- and yet they are attracted to each other.

If that plot line doesn't take you by surprise and thrill you, the movie won't either.

Lots of sight gags and fart jokes. Halfway through the movie I began to realize that Ben Stiller really isn't that funny, but he tries VERY hard. And Jennifer Anniston really isn't that pretty, but her HAIR looks great. And Hank Azaria and Phillip Seymore Hoffman must have got paid a great deal of money to be in this kind of average ho-hum movie, I've come to expect more from them.

What was interesting was that I saw this after I saw American Splendor, which is a truly funny and original movie- and I compared the two in my head, and found myself wishing that the movie executives would be forced to sit through those two movies back to back- perhaps that would knock some sense into them and

they'd start making better movies with unknowns rather than this formulaic stuff that plays best on airplanes.


This has to be one of the worst films I have ever seen. The DVD was given to me free with an order I placed online for non DVD related items.

No wonder they were given away, surely no one could part with money for this drivel.

How some reviewers can say they found it hilarious beggars belief, the person who includes it in the worst five films ever has got it spot on.

How on earth a talented actor like Philip Seymour Hoffman could get involved in this rubbish is unbelievable. Mostly toilet humour and badly done at that.

Anyone wanting to be entertained should avoid this at all costs.


Okay, I absolutely LOVE Ben Stiller, although I am lukewarm about Jennifer Aniston. I do not think this girl can act in the least. Every movie or sitcom I've seen her in is very hard to get past her fake acting. It sounds like she is just standing there reading right off the script. This movie only had one good thing about it, and that's that Ben Stiller was in it. This plot is so used and abused it's ridiculous. How many movies have this same type of plot?? Can we say "Forces of Nature??" Not only is the plot so old, but the outcome is so predictable, it's boring. I knew everything that was going to happen before it did. It was a bore, but watching Stiller is always a delight!!!


Make no bones about it. There are a lot of things wrong with this movie. It's clichéd the whole way, not very funny, predictable, and illogical. Let's start at the beginning: characters. There's the boring, luckless guy - giving Stiller another notch in his boring, luckless guy belt - the allegedly wild, but in reality just fairly normal, love interest - whom Aniston plays well, but really needed no effort to do so - the fat, jovial friend, and then the assortment of clichés: an annoying daredevil Australian guy, a confident Spanish guy, etc. The storyline: the beginning is slightly unusual, but thereafter goes into the standard any-movie style, with every plot turn as predictable as your average knock-knock joke. The biggest problem was that Stiller's character's "development" really seemed to come from nothing - like your average school play, the writers knew where he started and where he ended, but didn't put enough stock into properly telling the middle bit. Finally, the alleged 'jokes' were nothing but highly watered down versions of standard gross-out humour; there was a regulation chunder scene, sweaty fat men, etc.

In conclusion, the simple fact about this movie is that learning the meaning of the word 'shart' was the only good thing. Hamburg really dished up a dog's dinner here, and the sugar coating of Stiller and Aniston may have lured the viewers, but the taste left at the end was just as rancid.

Final comment: This film may have been dreadful, but Aniston still picked a better between-Friends-seasons movie than Kudrow's odious 'Marci X.'


This film offers absolutely no imagination in it's premise nor in it's execution but these are just two things that come to mind after watching this so-called comedy that has no energy to speak of. Story is about nit-picky over analytical insurance risk manager Reuben Feffer (Ben Stiller) who finds his new wife Lisa (Debra Messing) cheating on him with a scuba instructor (Hank Azaria) after only one day on their honeymoon. Upon returning home Reuben and his best friend Sandy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) go to a party and run into Polly Prince (Jennifer Aniston) whom they went to school with years earlier.

*****SPOILER ALERT***** Polly is forgetful and sloppy and lives carefree which is the opposite of who Reuben is as a person but they start to date and Reuben starts to change as a person as he starts to try out new things such as salsa dancing and eating spicy foods. But one day Lisa comes back and wants to remain married to Reuben but he really doesn't want to but Polly decides to leave as she doesn't believe in marriage to begin with.

This film is the second directing effort by John Hamburg who wrote two generally unfunny screenplays in "Zoolander" and "Meet the Parents" but those two films seem like classics compared to this stale piece of drivel. It's very easy to say something is not funny but I think with this film it's even easier to figure out why. This film is totally and utterly predictable from start to finish with every scene looking as if it's only happening because of the ridiculousness of the script. Hamburg who also wrote the script seems to have written this without any thought of trying something different and at times he seems to be trying to generate the same energy as "There's Something About Mary" but instead the events seem incredibly forced. Did anyone really think the blind ferret was funny? If you do, your easy! A few times during the film characters would inexplicably have these emotional speeches that are supposed to summarize everything but all they achieve is overstating the obvious. Stiller works a lot but maybe he should work less and just wait for the better scripts to come his way because this film doesn't work as a comedy or as a romance.


Considering the potential this move had, the reality was disappointing. While it's always nice to see Jennifer Aniston in a movie, even that couldn't turn this around. Most of the action was predictable. The jokes were flat to mildly amusing. And the characters were not very interesting. I wanted to like this film, but it just never happened. Ben Stiller was hilarious in "There's Something about Mary". Here it looks like he's just going thru the motions. If they have to lift plot points from "Friends", they should have known something was wrong. The toilet humor should have stayed in the closet :-).

Watch "50 First Dates" instead.


Ben Stiller doesn't so much act as react. And he does it very well. He is very dependent on the comedy going on around him. In There's Something About Mary, the stand-up hair scene only works because of Stiller trying to keep a straight face. When he confronts Mary's other two suitors, he is the unfunniest guy in the room but the scene is hilarious.

In Along Came Polly, the formula breaks down for reasons that are difficult to fathom. Stiller is surrounded by an array of comic talent. Hank Azaria and Philip Seymour Hoffman get the best lines, of which there are too few. Having said that, Hoffman relies a little too much on bodily humour - you know we are in trouble when they go to the fart jokes to raise a laugh. A basketball scene where Hoffman hams it up is completely overplayed (though it throws up one predicament in the form of a shirtless opponent that does raise a smile - noticeably through Stiller's reaction). However, everyone seems to be acting in a bubble, there is very little reaction. Hoffman and Stiller's characters could have played off each other much, much more. Aniston again reprises her Rachael role, but Stiller is no Ross. It is more of a "Joey with a crush on Rachael" scenario.

Polly is a by-the-numbers rom-com and that is its failing - it lacks heart. You don't root for the characters. With a little bit more work we could have had a deeper story, but in the end the film's failure comes down to poor writing. Worth watching if it pops up on TV on a slow night, but you'll regret forking out cash to see it.


When I saw that this movie was being shown on TV, I was really looking forward to it. I grew up in the 1980's and like everyone else who has grown up in that era, have seen every 80's teen and summer camp movie out there. So I couldn't wait to see this movie that totally spoofs that film genre. What a disappointment!! The movie was nothing but a bunch of really bad jokes and gags over and over, with hardly any plot and no substance. And the filmmakers attempts at dark humor totally failed-some of these so-called jokes didn't come across as anything but downright cruel and offensive. The only good things about this film were the wardrobe, music, and acting. It was nice to go on a nostalgia trip and see all of the summer clothing styles from the 80's, and the same goes for the music. And the acting was top-notch throughout: almost all of Hollywood's best comedians were present. Too bad they didn't have better material to work with.


I was dying to see this once I saw the ridiculous MEATBALLS poster and divined that it had to be the best satire ever. What a brilliant idea for a satire--the genre is rife. Unfortunately, the finished product (as I think all involved probably realize) is a catalogue of missed opportunities, not-quite-there performances and (thankfully!) a few extremely hilarious, inspired bits. Janeane Garafolo, who is very striking, looks really bad here, probably because she is uncomfortably struggling to make her flat role funny. David Hyde Pierce is just sad to watch, trying to hard to be funny and looking like a Castro nerd. Molly Shannon is so funny just SEEING her makes you laugh, but somehow her segment fails to snowball into something hysterical. Paul Rudd had great teen mannerisms and was sexy as hell, the other guys are also really funny (the nerdier ones). I think the problem is the director just doesn't move things along at the right pace. He starts out very deadpan, and that sets the monotone. But when he lets things get really outrageous (the drug sequence is the second funniest moment I've had all year in movies, the first also coming in a lame movie: Andrea Martin in ALL OVER THE GUY complaining about the movie IN & OUT), it's just plain funny. I wanted this movie to work so badly, but it just didn't. The clothes and styling for 1981 are 99.9% PERFECT, and the very few songs used are also perfect. This ends up as a medium-bad MAD TV episode, complete with frustratingly overlong sketches.


IT IS A PIECE OF CRAP! not funny at all. during the whole movie nothing ever happens. i almost fell asleep, which in my case happens only if a movie is rally bad. (that is why it didn't get 1 (awful) out of 10 but 2).don't be fooled, like i was, by first review. a waste of money and your time! spend it on other stuff. at this point i'm finished with my review but i have to fill in at least ten lines of text so i will go on.... (ctrl+c, ctrl+v) :))) IT IS A PIECE OF CRAP! not funny at all. during the whole movie nothing ever happens. i almost fell asleep, which in my case happens only if a movie is rally bad. (that is why it didn't get 1 (awful) out of 10 but 2).don't be fooled, like i was, by first review. a waste of money and your time! spend it on other stuff. IT IS A PIECE OF CRAP! not funny at all. during the whole movie nothing ever happens. i almost fell asleep, which in my case happens only if a movie is rally bad. (that is why it didn't get 1 (awful) out of 10 but 2).don't be fooled, like i was, by first review. a waste of money and your time! spend it on other stuff.


If you can believe it, *another* group of teens return to *another* lakeside cabin three years after *another* one of those fatal 'accidents' claimed one of their number. Low and behold, a psycho wearing a patterned hockey mask (a cheap papery one at that) turns up to waste them one by one. This mechanical 'Friday the 13th' knock off gained slight notoriety as one of the first digitally-shot features, but that's where the interesting facts end and all that remains is a predictable, amateur production with sub-par performances and a recurring boom-mic intrusion. A last-second twist does little to lift the spirits, and 'Memorial Day' is something best tossed in a lake and forgotten about. One for insane slasher collectors only.


I have to say although this movie was formulaic throughout with a plot stolen from films like Friday the 13th/I Know What You Did Last Summer, this movie wasn't that bad. In fact it wasn't as bad as most of the Horror films Hollywood has released recently. The killings although at times a little too imaginative were in most instances just that, original. The cast was mediocre which is to be expected from low-budget features but much better than what that much bigger studio Artisan/Lions Gate has been offering. My only real complaint that wasn't due to the film's budget, which must have been small, was the contrived "twist" ending. I'm sorry but this is what put this film in the bad category for me. The ending was just stupid and tacked on. Before that I was a little bored, but actually enjoying it. 4/10


Three years ago, Rachel(Therese Fretwell) was partying at the lake with her friends when her brother falls out of a boat and drowns. Rachel's friends think it is time for her to stop beating herself up and taking blame for something she had no control over. So grab the brew and something to chew and head back to the same lake that has been in Rachel's constant nightmares. As expected, a bloodbath has already started when two of the friends are splattered before even heading to the party. This flick has the feel of a high school play where everyone forgot their lines and 'winged it'...very badly! Writer Marcos Gabriel gave himself the meatier role as Rachel's boyfriend Leo. Outside of Fretwell and Gabriel there are some pretty lame acting and a few characters you would like to choke the crap out of before they get 'offed'. Giving attention to a few more players that had the nerve to appear: Erin Gallagher, Andrew Williams, Jasmine Trice and Derek Nieves. This is one MEMORIAL DAY you wouldn't mind missing.


First off, I had my doubts just looking at the DVD box and reading it saying that it was about of bunch of teens gathering at a lake where they will find do or something. Any movie that has a premise like this has failed miserably, even as a slasher movie, except for the first Friday the 13th.

I wanted to get up and stop watching the movie at least 10 times, but I just kept thinking that it had to get a little better. It didn't. Usually, I think every movie has something that you can take from it. This has nothing.

Do yourself a favor, and find something constructive to do for 80 minutes. Like, give yourself papercuts, or eat dirt.


It seems evident from this adaptation that he did not. Not only did he leave the plot behind, he made up his own! The things that he chose to leave in were so ridiculously unbelievable that I was happy he chose to leave out some of the most important parts of the novel. The plot was hazy, inconsistent and choppy to say the least. I don't want to say anything mean-spirited about the actors, but they can't act! Dickens is difficult, of course, but this is pathetic! Micawber was nothing more than a mid-nineteenth century Kramer, and the less said about Betsy Trotwood the better! If you want to see the real Copperfield, watch the wonderful 1999 BBC adaptation. As for the screenplay writer,I think he read the Cliff's Notes!


I wouldn't recommend this unless you're keen on David Copperfield and want to "complete the set". There are some good performances (e.g. Uriah Heep) and well directed moments (e.g. the beating), but on the whole it really pales in comparison with the 1999 BBC version, as well as earlier versions.

There are inexplicable changes to the story that really serve no great purpose except, possibly, to dumb it down (the stolen jewels being a case in point). The American cast were poorly chosen: Sally Field is a good actress, but she is wrong as Betsy Trotwood, and her English accent is only slightly better than Dick Van Dyke's cockney. I can see why Michael Richards was chosen to play Mr Micawber; he hams it up rather too much, however, and becomes irritating. He also speaks his lines in an accent that goes beyond eccentric and becomes simply preposterous. Anthony Andrews is menacing as Mr Murdstone, but one almost expects him to don a black cape and tie David's mother to a railway line (though this is perhaps partly the fault of Dickens).

I got this for free with a newspaper. It helped pass a Sunday afternoon, but I felt more disappointed than charmed at the end of it


I'm guessing the writers have never read a book of any kind, much less a Dickens novel, and certainly not David Copperfield, and that they based their screenplay on another poorly written screenplay, possibly an adaptation of Copperfield, though just as likely anything else, from which they randomly discarded about a third of the pages and then shuffled the rest, along with some random pages from a screenplay that someone's eighth grade nephew had written for an English class, and for which he had received a failing grade.

If the casting was a bad joke - e.g., Richards as Kramer playing Micawber - which it was, then the direction and acting were the poorly- delivered punch lines. Getting beyond Kramer as Micawber, if possible, Ham was such a complete ogre, hunch-back and all, that I was half expecting at some point to see him being pursued by an angry pitch-fork and torch wielding mob of villagers. Uriah was almost as much of a clown figure as Micawber. Mr. Murdstone evoked about as much terror as that Muppet vampire from Sesame street. The actor playing older David was, I believe, actually a woman. In any case, looking perpetually as if he wished he could find a mirror to see how pretty he looked, and fancied that he looked quite pretty indeed, he could scarcely convince us that he was writing with a quill pen. And while we're on that subject, in one of the many gross inaccuracies perpetrated by the half-wit producers of this embarrassment, in the unnecessary shots of David writing his story he appears to be somewhere between 18 and 21 years old, when he should be in his forties. Perhaps the greatest transgression, although it's difficult to choose, was the invented showdown between David and Murdstone as he courted a third wife in Switzerland, preceded of course by the invented death of Murdstone's second wife. While they were at it it is a wonder they didn't send Heep to the guillotine, and have him deliver Sidney Carton's famous last words. It couldn't have made things much worse really. It might have been far far better.

There are literally thousands of small and large sins against literature throughout this miscarriage of art, and anyone who watches it runs the risk of severe and permanent damage to all aspects of their sensibility.


Right up until the end the bad guys have the upper-hand - always - which kind of put into question the competence of the good guys. A couple of innocent-man-accused-of-a-crime plots are irritating. Some unnecessary dialogue in which various dull legal issues get debated. This is just a mediocre dumb old western, so what's this nonsense about trying to keep things "realistic"? Cagney's atypical presence in a western is one of the few - if not the only - entertaining thing about the movie. Somewhere around the middle there is a ridiculously-timed marriage proposal; sort of like "Where is the Kid hiding??!! Where is he?!... Oh, and by the way, will you marry me?"


There are so many goofy things about this movie that I can't possibly name but a few:

BOGART's character: 1. His name  Whip McCord (too easy, so I'll leave it at that. Boy, it makes `Humphrey' sound good.) 2. His long, curly hair and silly sideburns. 3. His Black Bart get-up, complete with spurs! 4. Not sure what shade of lipgloss they've got him wearing, but it ain't none too flattering.

CAGNEY's character (Jim Kincaid ): 1. His lipstick doesn't do him any favors, either. 2. The man is being swallowed by his hat during the entire film! Could they not find a hat to fit him? Even a LITTLE?!!?! 3. His pants are too tight in the rear. 4. He blows the smoke off his gun one too many times, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

If you are a casual Bogart or Cagney fan, and figure it might be a change of pace to see them in a western, do yourself a favor and forget that thought. EVEN THE HORSES LOOK EMBARRASSED! (That is, when they don't look bored.)

In all fairness, I admit that westerns are my least favorite film genre, but I've still seen much, MUCH better than this.

On a comedy level, or as high camp, The Oklahoma Kid works. Otherwise, it's viewer beware. Therefore, see this only if a) you must see every western out there b) you are a TRUE Cagney or Bogie completist c) any of the above comments appeal to you. Woah..


In Hollywood in the 1930's and 1940's, I think that every studio can make a western, except Warner bros. The few times they try, it always ridiculous (except, perhaps, for They Died with their Boots on - which is a cavalery western.) I have read that Humphrey Bogart, seing James Cagney with this big cowboy hat on his head, said that he looks like a mushroom. True! Cagney and Bogart are too urban, too XXe century to be credible in a western movie. The story here had no suprise, and it did't help. Every 10 minutes, I figure I can see Bogart and Cagney drops their little guns and put hands in a machine gun to get away from the set in a 1930's black car.


I started watching this movie expecting some barely tolerable Hammer horror film wannabe... and I wasn't far off. There's a fair amount of glimpsed gore, and they threw in lots of nudity, but the latter half of the movie presents a few ironic twists. Holy cow, they actually put a little thought into the story, and didn't completely fall into the predictable stuff one expected at the outset. And dare I say it, some of the "gratuitous" nudity wasn't so gratuitous after all, because it fit in with the story and setting.

Don't get me wrong, it's still overall a bad movie, but as bad movies go, it's a shade more intelligent than the REALLY horrible tripe like Mesa of Lost Women and Robot Monster.


Man, what the hell were the people who made this film on? And more importantly where can I get some? The opening scene sets the tone for the film: a woman writhing naked in a circle of fire, transforming into a werewolf. And this is no Rick Baker 'American werewolf' transformation, folks. We're talking some of the worst makeup ever captured on film here. I can just imagine some stoned Italian spreading glue on naked Annik Borel (who plays Daniela, the film's protagoness (is that a word?)), and asking her to roll in fur. That's how bad it is.

From here on in it doesn't get much better. Minutes are wasted as the scenery chewing male actors waffle on about Daniela and her condition or something (I can't remember, but the dialogue is so bad if you don't laugh at it you'll cry).

The funny thing is Daniela isn't even a werewolf, she's a psycho who goes mental whenever there is a man around (understandable, as she was raped as a child) so she thinks she becomes a werewolf like her ancestor (the opening scene). She can't help but tear out the throat of every man she meets, and she only wants to be loved! Things start looking up for Daniela as she meets and falls in love with a buff stuntman who doesn't trigger her 'episodes'. Check out the montage here, one of the cheesiest you'll ever see (laughing and hugging after diving headfirst through a window).

Daniela's luck doesn't hold out as the film takes a brutal turn, she is suddenly viciously beaten and raped by a group of thugs who kill the stuntman. Reminiscent of "I spit on your grave", Daniela extracts bloody vengeance on her rapists.

This is 100 minutes of my life I will never get back. But hey, that's the game you play when you're a film geek.


Don't listen to the misleading title "Werewolf Woman". The Europeans are well known for putting an emphasis on sex and nudity over actual scares in their horror films, but this one here is just a bit too much. "Werewolf Woman" seems to have a sleazy sex scene copped off with the title character going crazy and brutally killing her partner. Fun the first few times, but a hundred minutes of this becomes very monotonous quickly. Shes not even a werewolf, but a schizo chick whose ancestor was hanged for lycanthropy. The film can't even decide its tone, with the first ten minutes (a flashback) being legitimate supernatural horror (I thought I was in for a trash classic after these) to a rather poor character study of the female being repeatedly abused and tortured to a revenge thriller. At the end, the director insists this is based on a true story. Yeah, all right.

To be fair, there are a few entertaining aspects of the production. The title werewolf woman is a looker and there are a few nice gore effects and nude scenes. However, these become rather monotonous quickly. Also, the dubbed dialog is pretty hilarious in a camp fashion, especially the worlds most swinging doctor (he drinks on the job). Unfortunately, the film becomes pretty irritating fast. There's no actual plot or anything else really. Its a shame, because reading a description I felt the film had some real potential. "Werewolf Woman" is far overlong, slow moving, and a bit too pointless, even by the standards of the exploitation genre. (4/10)


"La Lupa Mannara" aka. "Werewolf Woman" of 1976 is a film with a highly promising title, but, sadly, the film itself is pretty far away from being a must-see for my fellow Italian Horror buffs. You won't hear me say that Rino Di Silvestri's film is entirely bad - it has its stylish moments, and the first half is actually great fun to watch (though the fun is unintentional). The film also profits from an exceptionally exhibitionist leading actress, Annik Borel. However, the film, which has no real plot (at least no linear one) often makes no sense at all, and it drags incredibly throughout the mostly superfluous second half.

Daniella (Annik Borel) has strange dreams about a dancing around naked in the night before turning into a Werewolf Woman. Since she was a raped as a girl, Daniella is afraid of men. Then, when her sister (cult siren Dagmar Lassander) comes to visit with her husband, Daniella suddenly feels attracted to the husband and subsequently turns into a Werewolf Woman herself... or something. The storyline really doesn't make the slightest sense, which makes the film a lot of fun to watch throughout the first half. The leading character Daniella is some schizophrenic mixture of frigid hysteric and lusty nymphomaniac, who occasionally turns into a werewolf woman. Director Di Silvestri chose to make up for the plot-holes with a lot of of female nudity, which works fine for me. There are also some pretty well-done gore moments. The film is never even slightly suspenseful or creepy, but it is very entertaining in the beginning. Also, there are no attempts to hide that this is a slice of sleaze, the camera often does close-ups on the Miss Borel's private parts for the simple heck of it. I'm not complaining. Then, for some reason, Di Silvestri chose to make the film longer by completely changing the direction in which it was going. While Daniella is, at first, a typical werewolf, who cannot help but follow the urges of her curse, this suddenly changes when she meets a guy (Howard Ross, who was in Fernando Di Leo's "Il Boss" of 1973). Suddenly, she goes back to normal again, and the subsequent part of the film does not at all go in hand with the first half. It gets pretty damn boring after a while; all things considered, it probably would have been better for this 99 minute film to be only 70 minutes long. At the end, they even want to make us believe that the absurd story (if one can call it that) is based on true events. "Werewolf Woman" has some redeeming qualities; my fellow Italo-Horror fans can give it a try. However, if you wanna watch Italian Horror/Exploitation cinema from the 70s, there are hundreds of films that you should see before seeing this one.


This Italian film from the '70's is NOT even in the class with Dog Soldiers, The Howling, or even that awful American Werewolf in Paris, BUT...it is fun to watch. I'm talking about watching the lead actress, a stunning blonde, run amok in her birthday suit. We're talking about graphic, complete nudity...it's obvious that she is a real blonde...humma humma humma!! The story is a hoot, the SFX are childish, and the acting (for the most part) stinks. The only redeeming value of this movie is all (and there is a LOT) the nudity & sex scenes. Tame by HBO standards, but still fun to see when you find yourself without a date on Saturday night. OK...HERE'S THE SPOILER...There is NO werewolf (except in the opening scene of the heroine(??)'s ancestor. The girl just imagines that she's a werewolf...in other words, a clinical Lycanthrope.