Apparently, writer Clive Barker was so incensed by this laughably bad adaptation of one of his short stories that he decided the next movie to be based on one of his books would be directed by himself (the result being the rather excellent Hellraiser!). I can't say I blame the poor bloke: for an author to see his hard work turned into such a dreadful movie must be a painful experience.
It's an experience, however, that fans of really bad horror movies will probably find quite pleasurable, thanks to the fact that it not only features some truly terrible acting, but also one of the least convincing movie monsters of the 80s: the titular monstrosity looks like a bargain basement 'predator' (from the Schwarzeneggar movie)a bizarre combination of pro-wrestler, a Mad Max-style warrior, and a bog-eyed mutant pig with ridiculously huge fangs!
The film opens with an Irish farmer attempting to remove a huge, ancient, neolithic monument from his field (he's obviously a man not too concerned about his country's heritage); when he finally gets the stone to shift, Rawhead Rex, a monstrous, nine foot tall creature that had been trapped underneath, is set free...
The rest of the film is pretty much your basic 'creature on the loose' movie (dressed up with some nonsense about a church built on a site originally used in pagan, pre-Christian rituals) which sees the ancient beast creating bloody havoc in the rural community before finally being defeated by 'girl power'. Along the way, viewers are treated to some pretty cheap-looking gore, a funny moment when the church verger is 'baptised' in urine by Rawhead, a shocking performance by the actor playing the scared gypsy kid, and a wonderfully gratuitous spot of female nudity when a woman is dragged though a caravan window by the monster, causing her top to fall off!
