Sin salida

Sigh…the stupid government once again attempted to create an inexhaustible and indestructible soldier, and of course the experiments went terribly wrong, burdening us with a half man-half mutant who pukes an awful lot and squeaks like a little girl whenever he's upset. Lance Henriksen stars as the honest scientist who immediately quit the experiment upon hearing it was a military project, but he returns (bringing the whole family with him) when he finds out his beloved guinea pig has gone on a killing spree. "Mind Ripper" certainly is a watchable horror movie, but it's very unoriginal and features pretty much every lame cliché you can think off (including the estranged father/rebellious teenage son sub plot...yawn). The characters are like wooden puppets, the dumbest things are being said and done and there's a completely pointless dream-sequence...coming from the monster!!! There's a handful of interesting gory scenes to enjoy and some of the isolated desert-locations are effectively eerie. Lance Henriksen is adequate as always, even though this is yet another inferior production he stars, and Giovanni Ribisi surely deserved a better motion picture to make his debut in. For some reason, this anonymous 90's thriller is also known as "The Hills Have Eyes part 3". Is it because it handles about members of the same family being terrorized in the desert? Is it because Wes Craven was once again involved, as a producer this time? Or maybe it's because the monster gets bald near the end like the freaky Michael Berryman in the 1977 original? Who knows...Who cares? Wes Craven probably financed this project because his son co-wrote the script and it's always moving to discover that your offspring is equally untalented as you are. Not recommended!

I just bought this as part of a Wes Craven DVD box set (along with Scream, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Last House on the Left) and felt ever so slightly conned. The film is not directed by Wes Craven (he has an executive producer credit) and a dream box set would omit this sci-fi B-movie in favour of Nightmare on Elm Street (I would settle for The People Under the Stairs).

With that being said, this is an ideal film for watching with a gang of drunk mates after a night in the pub. It's a creature feature in a remote claustrophobic environment and it ticks along quite nicely on a sub-Alien template, taking advantage of all the usual sci-fi horror clichés. The monster is cheap but effective and it is sympathetically played. The rest of the characters are just monster fodder and are badly underwritten, though a father-son theme breaks through to complement the monster-creator theme. Lance Henrikson, the brunette girl in the shower, and the bloke who plays Phoebe's brother in Friends are worth watching. The rest of the cast stink. There are enough gruesome moments to keep a drunken audience's interest. It's also fun ticking off the clichés as they mount up, and laughing at the obvious dialogue. I defy anyone (after a few drinks) not to laugh at the last scene.

So not a classic sci-fi horror, but an entertaining mess of a movie with redeeming qualities, best viewed with friends and alcohol.

Lance Henriksen is the name actor in this Wes Craven produced horror film. Set in an underground desert facility, it follows the events that happen after some government scientists inadvertently create a humanoid monster when they inject a virus into a dying man in order to save his life.

I have a bit of an immediate dislike of any sci-fi or horror films that fall under the category I can best describe as 'corridors underground (or in outer space)'. These low budget genre films feature characters running away from a deadly enemy in confined locations with lots of corridors. The reason so many of these types of movies are made is that the sets required can be cheaply knocked together. The issue, however, is that the vast majority of them turn out to be very tedious and highly unoriginal. Mind Ripper is another in this line of not very good movies. This one throws some highly uninteresting family melodrama into the mix and needless to say it doesn't add much value. The best moment for me was probably the part where the monster suddenly killed all the sympathetic characters in a frenzied attack; I was thinking at the time that this was quite interesting and a nicely unexpected turn of events. Turned out it was a dream sequence from the monster's perspective. Sigh.

This movie seems to be the equivalent of watching all of the outtakes from the original Aliens film. It's fun to see Natalie Wood's daughter and Giovanni Ribisi in a film, but other than that, there's nothing at all entertaining about this.

It's a trifle, of course, and it IS hard to know what attracted Wes Craven to such a degree that he lent it an "Executive Producer" credit, but it does have some interesting touches. The first is the compassion it shows for the "monster". In fact, although many have made the "Alien" connection (mainly because of the underground tunnels and shafts), it really plays more like a variation on the "Frankenstein" myth; there is a scientist who wants to "play God" and a sad creature that is forced to become murderous (and his killing method owes more than a little to Cronenberg's "Rabid", too). Another interesting idea is the way all the characters are initially presented as either bland or obnoxious (and boy are the two male teenagers obnoxious!), only for most of them to reveal some redeeming side later on. And the gore fans will get some moments they can appreciate in this one, particularly an eyeball-piercing in close-up! Lance Henriksen reportedly said that this is one of those films that "pay your alimony", but at least he handles it like a pro and doesn't show any contempt for his audience. The film's worst part is the ending, which gets so far-fetched it's almost funny. But all-in-all "Mind Ripper" is worth one viewing. (**)