Reviews

Possible Spoilers.

Let's mention the good stuff first: it has better acting than the first one. The photography is better, and the scenes don't appear to be as "stagey" as they are in the original.

The packaging for the DVD I bought doesn't have a printed index of scenes inside of it. I could see leaving out discount coupons for a theatrical release, but why leave out something so basic and standard as an index? Unless, perhaps, the filmmakers were convinced that there AREN'T ANY "memorable" scenes that the viewer would WANT to jump to.

Philosophically, the film has its problems. There's an awful lot of deception and lying by our Trib Force heroes and heroines- and that's just toward each other. The people don't seem to act the way normal folks caught up in this extraordinary series of events would.

And I'm sorry, but if anyone -even the anti-Christ- told me that those millions who vanished did so because of "accumulated nuclear radiation" (in the first film) from nuclear testing I'd have to laugh. You wouldn't buy that unless your entire cognitive ability had somehow been shut-off. This applies as well for the idea that the whole world would embrace one religion in order to achieve world peace (in the second movie.) If it could happen, the folks left behind would be more likely than not to EMBRACE CHRISTIANITY, not reject it. The Rapture is in the Bible, after all (even though the word isn't used.)

As you'd expect, Jews and New-Agers alike take a whupping in this movie. The greatest of theologians, a Jew, publicly confesses that his religion has been wrong all these years and that Jesus is the true messiah (which is patently untrue, as a close reading of the Hebrew Scriptures reveals.) The New-Age types get it from the rainbowish New Religion's emblem, which we get to see.

At least this one has a Bloopers and Outtakes section, thus showing that CT has a sense of humor of some sort. It makes the film seem more user-friendly, and makes the filmmakers seem less stuck-up on their own pretentions. I guess someone saw MST3K's "Poopie Reel" and took the hint.

I can only end by saying that Cloud Ten needs to work on its offerings a lot more. It's well acted, as I said, but the movie kept tripping over its own illogicalities.

Possible Spoilers-

One of the dumbest sequels ever attempted. Incoherent, badly-plotted, with some truly bizarre moments. The pointless tap dancing sequence and the idiotic collapsing house scene at the end (from which Burton's and Blair's characters traipse unscathed!) are enough on their own to drop the jaw and boggle the mind.

Once again, John Boorman proves that he can't tell a story coherently. This one is right down there with "Zardoz" and is light-years behind "The Emerald Forest," a film I didn't even like.

See this, but only to laugh.

I just watched this on DVD. Thank goodness someone finally realized that this cult classic deserves a much bigger potential audience than it could get from TV runs.

I love it. Niall MacGinnis's Dr. Karswell is at one and the same time both a cause for fear and himself a victim of paranoia. Dana Andrews is perfect as the rugged hero- the sort of character MacGinnis, oddly enough, had portrayed many years before this film was made.

Some people consider the film to be too talky. I disagree- I think that so much exposition was necessary to keep the viewer from becoming lost in the story.

Should the demon have been seen, or merely inferred? I must say that it is such an impressive piece of work that I think that showing it was a good choice.

*Spoiler* The victims die at 10:00 PM. Is it mere coincidence that in the current horror thriller, THE RING, the victims die at 10:00 PM? I think not! Karswell's death scene is itself fantastic!

An absolute must-see.

SPOILERS* SPOILERS* SPOILERS*

I saw this movie today, and I liked it. It wasn't scary so much as it was disorienting- the odd bluish-grayish-greenish coloring of the backgrounds contrasted with the normal appearance of the actors and actresses, for example. I also liked the way it begins- a few strange happenings which, by themselves, were apparently harmless but which taken together indicated strange things were afoot. The film as a whole is actually a hybrid- part horror, part detective story.

The ending was good, too- the mother and her son having been spared because she made a copy of the video, thus helping the vengeful spirit of the child to "be heard," and yet with the implication that now they must show the video to others, who will in all likelihood become victims themselves.

The soundtrack was another plus- the tinkling, slow piano seemed almost wistful and sad.

One thing I hated: David Dorfman's portrayal of the son, Aidan. Rory Culkin already did this in "Signs" (a film I despise,) and Dorfman gives it to us again: yet another big eyed, nauseously precocious brat who talks like a grownup and possesses the secret knowledge of whatever is wrong. It's too bad a kid like this couldn't have gone to work for the Government years ago- he could probably have told us all about North Korea's nuclear weapons program before Kim Jong-Il approved it.

Okay, forget about the wires that are clearly visible when an object is supposed to be levitating; likewise, ignore the Gumbyesque, stop-motion clay animation of some of the monsters. This was a show with such great writing and performances that you could easily overlook its unimportant flaws. Compare this with special effects-laden extravaganzas like SWE I: the Phantom Menace, where overwhelming effects did not save the film due to its poor storyline and laughable dialogue (and acting.)

(Spoilers, if that's possible): This show's episodes, like Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone," used the sci-fi as a vehicle to give us a moral. Among my favorite episodes were "O.B.I.T.", where the horror was not so much a planned alien invasion but that people could be so easily suckered into assisting it by appeals to their most base instincts; "The Architects of Fear," where an attempt to unite the people of Earth using a fake alien invader goes horrible wrong and we see that it would not necessarily bring people closer together (as the narrator says, "There is no substitute for soft caring and hard work."); "The Borderland," where a wealthy old man so desperately wants to see his deceased son that he decides to sacrifice his current, earthly existence (heroically, in my opinion) just for the chance of seeing his beloved son again, and "A Feasibility Study" in which neighbors, abducted by an alien race to see if humanity would be suitable as slave labor, come together and voluntarily choose to sabotage the aliens' plan by destroying themselves.

I am delighted with the DVD package of the first season's episodes. It serves as my own time machine.