Dustwalker

I've been around IMDB long enough to realize that some people just seem to love to leave crappy comments for movies. not every film can be the "worst" ever made. i mean, i'll leave "santa claus and the ice cream bunny" to fill that spot for me.

this film is slow and creepy. the acting is no better or worse than any other independent horror movie, but the story stuck with me after it was over. that's the sign of a good scary story, told well.

a small dying outback town has a visitor from far away, and the townspeople are being systematically taken over by a parasitic alien lifeform. we're just as in the dark as the unaffected residents who don't understand what's going on.

the scenery is gorgeous and it reminded me of another sci-fi story i read a long time ago, "stinger" by robert mccammon. another story of a desert community terrorized by aliens.

Just watched a Hulu movie called Dustwalker I'm not entirely sure why. At first it was Lovecraftian psychological horror. (Look at the image art on the movie poster and dvd cover for reference to why I thought it'd be more Cthulhu-related.) Then the 10 minute mark hit and the plot got thrown out the window. Too many plot devices that were never explained and left unanswered for the duration. The first one was that town's only cell tower is down...which we find out because the tech pulls out his cell phone and calls A friend in town...who answers /on her cell phone/. This isn't even a spoiler since /NEVER COMES UP AGAIN/. Also, I HATED the ending. I'll spoil that below. Spoilers start here:: I have a few questions: 1. Why is the movie called Dustwalker? The creature never goes near the dust storm (which itself is a one-and-done plot device that never gets explained. The thing goes underground as it's primary mode of transportation. 2. How the hell does the ALIEN speak and understand English within a couple hours after arriving on earth? 3. Can we talk about how the creature is half scorpion, half Resident Evil dog thing, but Is also a centaur? 4. The ending. Ugh. So. The entire movie is spent with survivors running from people gone murder-hobo who exist only to kill all humans and infect them with alien DNA or whatever. Then big bad comes along (the third of 4 times we see the creature), and takes all of the infected people, puts them in a pit and freaking /IMMOLATES THEM/ with its "now I'm a dragon-scorpion-demon-dog-thing" magical fire breath. That's it. The whole premise of the movie sucks so hard that the writer literally figured it'd be easier to just set it alight than try to fill in all of the plot holes.

If you're a fan of really campy, tropey bad films, go find one that doesn't suck and watch that instead. Overall, I give this movie a 2/10 stars, and that's just because I like psych horror (though this one down played the horror aspect.)

Not the worst I've seen, and that seems to be the best thing I can say about it. It's a low budget film, so I can deal with bad special FX's. But the acting was bad, and characters were unbelievable. The story itself wasn't too bad, with a better director it might have succeeded. A writer should not direct their own work, especially amatuers. It was very slow, all the way through. Not really worth a watch.

Okay watch at best, might watch again, but can't recommend.

This is an Australian movie, so its a whole new cast to me, and I only saw the thumbnail, so I was excited to see what a Dustwalker is....I'm still kind of wondering.

This is a "small town under threat" trope, but the seemed to have a vested interest in making sure in keeping the audience guessing. They accomplished this by sort of shifting goalposts though, so every time you think they've established something they're going to work with, we're on to the next stage of problems, and the previous stuff, while it mattered for where we're at in the story, isn't currently relevant anymore. It sort of gave me this continual feeling of disappointment throughout the movie, even though the action is ramping up.

Even the production value was pretty good, they clearly got the look they wanted for the effects, granted it was likely a small budget.

It's a great concept, and I actual enjoyed the structure of events, but the audience needs to see more of some parts, and a less of others. The writing just wasn't paced well enough for me, but I can't write it off as a bad movie entirely: hopefully other people like this more than I did.

The Dustwalker is a basic budget alien thriller from down under. Its limited funding shows from the get go but its not a bad little film.

It has the benefit of a rather unique setting that's suitably isolated, a small Australian outback town that fits in well with the back story. Having actors who actually know how to act helps this film too.

The action such as it is, is a bit mixed. Its a little too slow for my liking and its budgetary restraints stop it from doing anything novel that would have lifted it.

I think with decent money this could have been a winner but as it stands its only "ok".

5/10 from me.