Don't Panic (1987)
1/10
Don't Panic!! It'll be over soon...
5 October 2013
Warning: Spoilers
This is one seriously bad film. But on the plus side, it's one of the funniest, most watchable bad films I've ever seen. Unfortunately, my rating scale does not account for such minutiae, and I have to assume it was designed to be an entry in the 'horror' genre. And by that definition, it's beyond the pale. Having said that, if you want to see a bunch of actors stitched up to say and do things which will haunt them for the rest of their days... Well, my friend lets catch the last train to crazyville.

There's this Ouija board, see? And some Mexican friends who somehow thought it would be a lark to try out American accents, give it a go. Needless to say, they unleash DARK SPIRITS THAT THEY CANNOT CONTAIN. But first, we have a love montage of our main protagonist going out with a girl he's known for all of a few hours. They try on stupid hats, go for a pedal-boat ride and hold hands on the boardwalk, while a cheesy 80's pop song blares out. This is far more horrifying than anything that follows.

After all that romance crap is over, we FINALLY get to the good stuff... the lead character running around in his dinosaur pyjamas at night to warn someone at a hospital they're about to become brown bread. The truth is, one of his buddies at the satanic ritual the other night was possessed by a renegade spirit, and is now wearing a stupid mask and speaking with A VERY DEEP VOICE. The soul of the individual who was taken over now dwells in a television set, and relays information through a static screen in which his face appears, which is a bit annoying when you want to watch Corrie. Our hero is the ONLY ONE who can make sense of all this mumbo-jumbo. Everyone thinks he's nuts, though. Just because he crawls around on his hands and knees, makes stupid noises while pulling faces and rips all his posters off the wall. How on Earth did they reach that conclusion? So, all who were present at the seance get killed one by one courtesy of THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE (Thanks, Elvis). so they all stumble straight into his grasp every time, like they've had a lobotomy. Maybe they did in real life too, to sign up for this dismal nonsense.

Ultimately of course GOOD WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER EVIL, though our permed hero has to sacrifice himself to save THE WOMAN HE LOVES. (You know, the one he met just the other day) Arr, shucks. Not to worry though... before he shuffled off this mortal coil, he was given a rose... and as long as that rose is in full bloom, he will always be with her. Said flower is as dead as he is at his funeral right at the end, but it comes back to life again just as his beau chucks it into his grave to prove that THEIR LOVE IS ETERNAL. Then, as she smiles, her hair in blown back by an invisible breeze. The ending credits roll. I am not making any of this up.

What this review fails to do, is encapsulate just how dreadful the acting is, the fact that no-one behaves like any human you've ever met throughout, and the completely pathetic attempts at scares. Sure, we can laugh. But someone GREENLIT this script. Someone PAID people to make it. And when it was over, someone saw it and thought it was FIT FOR RELEASE. The mind boggles... 1/10
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