A bubbling crude is unearthed as a developer excavates the ground where it lives for a sewer system with designs on creating a city. Currently a hotel resides where the sewer was created and this icky sentient life form begins spreading it's goo to people within it, once it touches the skin, it enters the blood stream causing the victims to hallucinate, psychologically preying on their worst fears, often resulting in death.
This creature feature has an ecological message behind it as our hero is a Episcipaleon nature loving priest(..an "environmental crusader"), played by Kevin Sorbo, attending an environmental conference at the hotel where the killer goo is moving through the pipes, causing people to lose their marbles, seeing mostly dead people(..people whom they harmed or feared in the past). Natalie Brown is Kaley Spence, the hotel administrator whose grandmother was an Ojibway(..appropriately a proud people whose spiritual believes are naturalistic regarding treatment of the earth and nature)and she wears an emblem around her neck symbolizing their beliefs. She will join forces with Sorbo's Father Douglas in their mission to uncover what it wants and how to stop it. Peter MacNeill is a "rent-a-cop", as Deadmarsh, with a checkered past(..he also has a history with Douglas) who operates security for the hotel. Brendan Beiser is kooky scientist(..and nature freak), Dr. Connoly, who is obsessed with the new life form, wishing to stop the plans behind further disturbing the creature's home, through the building of a new city where it resides.
The message the filmmakers wish to convey comes off rather silly considering how the creature looks and how it's able to strike back at humankind for it's greed and avarice. The cast, to their credit, give it everything they have, straight-faced and convincing, under the circumstances of the wonky premise. I like Sorbo, believing he has the looks, build, character, personality, and charisma(..I was particularly fond of his Hercules series as a teenager)as a bona-fide heroic lead, but he seems to wind up in crap like this all the time..he deserves better, I believe. He's been successful on sci-fi / fantasy television series, but in junk like this, even Sorbo has a tough time rising above the excremental material. I thought the lovely Brown was also quite good, but she's saddled with the "agnostic who comes to accept her heritage" role, once the the goo-monster threatens her life at the end. Whenever the black goo is about to appear, the filmmakers establish it's presence through the rattling sound of the cicadas. I found the idea that this goo could just land on the skin and immediately cause those it contacts to hallucinate rather hard to swallow. Of course, the evil land developer, with his goals for progress, by causing the land he chooses to disrupt(..with harm to animals such as squirrels and field mice)possible harm, MUST be punished. I guess the eco-nuts might enjoy this hogwash.
This creature feature has an ecological message behind it as our hero is a Episcipaleon nature loving priest(..an "environmental crusader"), played by Kevin Sorbo, attending an environmental conference at the hotel where the killer goo is moving through the pipes, causing people to lose their marbles, seeing mostly dead people(..people whom they harmed or feared in the past). Natalie Brown is Kaley Spence, the hotel administrator whose grandmother was an Ojibway(..appropriately a proud people whose spiritual believes are naturalistic regarding treatment of the earth and nature)and she wears an emblem around her neck symbolizing their beliefs. She will join forces with Sorbo's Father Douglas in their mission to uncover what it wants and how to stop it. Peter MacNeill is a "rent-a-cop", as Deadmarsh, with a checkered past(..he also has a history with Douglas) who operates security for the hotel. Brendan Beiser is kooky scientist(..and nature freak), Dr. Connoly, who is obsessed with the new life form, wishing to stop the plans behind further disturbing the creature's home, through the building of a new city where it resides.
The message the filmmakers wish to convey comes off rather silly considering how the creature looks and how it's able to strike back at humankind for it's greed and avarice. The cast, to their credit, give it everything they have, straight-faced and convincing, under the circumstances of the wonky premise. I like Sorbo, believing he has the looks, build, character, personality, and charisma(..I was particularly fond of his Hercules series as a teenager)as a bona-fide heroic lead, but he seems to wind up in crap like this all the time..he deserves better, I believe. He's been successful on sci-fi / fantasy television series, but in junk like this, even Sorbo has a tough time rising above the excremental material. I thought the lovely Brown was also quite good, but she's saddled with the "agnostic who comes to accept her heritage" role, once the the goo-monster threatens her life at the end. Whenever the black goo is about to appear, the filmmakers establish it's presence through the rattling sound of the cicadas. I found the idea that this goo could just land on the skin and immediately cause those it contacts to hallucinate rather hard to swallow. Of course, the evil land developer, with his goals for progress, by causing the land he chooses to disrupt(..with harm to animals such as squirrels and field mice)possible harm, MUST be punished. I guess the eco-nuts might enjoy this hogwash.