FerusMD

Not the worst horror film I've ever seen but not for lack of trying. Being a long-time fan of horror movies as well as circus and carnival thrillers, I was looking forward to enjoying a feature combining the best of both worlds minus perhaps the extreme surrealism of Alex de la Iglesia's "The Last Circus". This one, unfortunately, failed to deliver at any level. Had I been shackled before the screen, I would have seriously considered chewing off a leg to escape the very real horror of a complete and utter waste of film stock. Here's hoping the wonderfully spooky atmosphere of Chippewa Lake Park will one day serve as locale for a well-executed and memorable fright film. Closed for the Season? Closed for a reason.

Jim Jarmusch's nihilistic Gothic take on penny-dreadful Old West mythology is a black canvas on which the gray shades of a life interrupted twist and play about each other sketching a nightmare vision of pity, power and pain.

It is composed of elements familiar yet uniquely skewed. Unsettling in its ugliness alone, it is made even more so by the effectiveness of the transcendent humor which is its underpinning.

It is snake-oil and acid chased with nitrous. And certainly one of the most daringly creative films of this or any other age.

It might not be your father's Doc Savage, but this oft-reviled film debut of pulp fiction's pre-eminent adventurer is not entirely without merit. Possessing a low-budget inventiveness and an unapologetic high level of camp, it can best be regarded as the missing-link between the Republic chapterplay and Raiders of the Lost Ark.