Alraune - Die Wurzel des Grauens

The beginning of this made-for-Siffy movie starts out with a lot of promise, as far as Siffy Original movies go. The production values are high (comparatively speaking), the acting is good, the sound is synchronized with the video, there aren't any glaring, amateurish CGI effects, and the actors' names may tug at long-forgotten memories of low-budget movies you've seen in the past. Usually, in the first two minutes, I can tell if made-for-TV movies are worth watching or not, and, frankly, most of them aren't. The production values and special effects maintain their comparatively high standards (approaching the quality of a ST:TNG episode), but the acting, directing, and, especially, story end up dragging down the score substantially. I can't really blame the actors, because their characters were written to be really stereotypical, barely-developed fodder for CGI monsters. There isn't much you can do with that. I'm not sure how much of the blame lies on the director, either, because he, too, probably did the best he could with the material he was given. How do you make a movie about a CGI monster that hunts down a ruthless CEO and his nameless mercenaries, without it becoming one huge, boring cliché? I'm surprised the CEO didn't try to personally burn down the Amazon rain forest just for laughs, like a Captain Planet villain. Seriously, this movie is a live-action Captain Planet episode, with the same heavy-handed moralizing and 2D villains.

Oh well. With a better script, maybe this movie could have been good, but it's still watchable. Barely.

I wanted to like this movie, filmed in Shreveport, La. including a better cast than some of these SyFy movies have, but NO. Andre Stevens of Dallas fame and b-movie star produced this film it has some good special FX, and production values, yet the script never works, the actors never capture their characters. Watch it you sit thru the whole thing thinking wow this looks better than most Saturday Night flicks, even the monster is fairly cool looking, and when its over you'll think what happened to my last two hours. The actor from the Unit isn't bad but you just can't seem to connect to anyone in the film. A few inventive moments nothing more.

This film opens with a woman running through woods (being chased by a mainly unseen being). This is never a good sign. If you've watched pretty much any handful of random horror films, you'll know that 'woman running through woods' is possibly the most overused cliché of the genre (with perhaps the teenagers having sex and dying being a close second).

That opening is a kind of warning of things to come. Some films thrive on having a low budget. The lack of money behind the picture forces the film-makers to use new and more subtle techniques to tell the story. Not here. This film has no budget and it shows in every scene.

It's about a team of archaeologists, sent somewhere in South America (like the location really matters!) to retrieve something for someone (again, such details are kind of pointless in the scheme of things). However, this 'South American' jungle looks suspiciously like some nice grassy fields in America. Plus the 'natives' also look a little Caucasian, considering they are supposed to have lived in the hot jungle all their lives.

The acting isn't all bad, but the dialogue is. Just because the film is set in a wood (sorry, jungle), the writers seem to want to make the characters talk like they're out of Predator. Yes, there's something hunting them, but whereas Predator used a monster that was actually there, the makers of Mandrake spent the entire $2.50 budget on some 'creepy' CGI tentacles. Woo.

If you like cheesy monster-munching movies, then you probably know plenty out there which will amuse and entertain (try things like Deep Rising, Tremors, or Grabbers to name but a few). Mandrake is not one of them.

Mandrake is about an expedition group funded by a very rich guy named Henry to retrieve a dagger...little do they know...a great evil lurks in the jungle!!

The film was surprisingly good...the acting was decent...CG was bearable and the storyline was original. It isn't your typical syfy for those reasons I'd say.

Although it was an above average syfy type movie...I found it not the least bit scary...maybe one or two parts during the film stood out for "frightening" but, other then it was somewhat boring.

The movie was also very predictable. What you think would happen...happens. So at times it would become hard to watch and hard to get into the movie.

All in all, it was not a total bust because the monster was original and the acting was pretty good. But other then that it's your typical syfy predictable not scary film.

In a fictitious Latin American country, the soldier of fortune Sgt. McCall (Max Martini) leads the Vargas Expedition sponsored by the powerful Harry Vargas (Benito Martinez) and formed by the archaeologists Dr. Felicia (Betsy Russell) and Lin (Wayne Pere); the local Santiago Zavala (Nick Gomez) and a baggage carrier through the jungle. In the base, Carla Manning (Jon Mack) gives support to McCall's team and is the liaison with Harry, who is obsessed for a dagger.

When they reach a tomb facing south in a sacred ground, they open the tomb and finds a dagger with a ruby craved in a skeleton and Lin removes weapon from the grave, accomplishing the objective of their assignment. Dr. Felicia advises them that the tomb has a warning advising to not remove the dagger. Soon they discover that nature and the Yamballi tribe are chasing them; further, the previous expedition sent to the forest to retrieve the dagger has been slaughtered.

"Mandrake" is a TV movie released in Brazil on DVD. The story is absolutely predictable and the adventure of the expeditionary team is not scary. In the end, watching this film was a waste of time in a Saturday afternoon. Better off if I had taken a nap. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Raiz do Mal" ("The Root of the Evil")