Shepherd

A giant piece of crap, but an amusing one. If it had kept up the energy it has at its outset, and if it, you know, made any kind of actual sense by the end, it might actually have been a decent B movie. As it stands, it's definitely of the so-bad-it's-good variety. C. Thomas Howell stars as a "shepherd" (which was the film's original title before it was rebranded with a more sci-fi title), which is some sort of religion-based assassin. You see, it's the future. Great wars were waged on land which have driven the survivors underground. Now a handful of crazy religions are fighting it out down there. Roddy Piper plays the major villain, a Christian preacher who is sick of losing ground to a cult of women under the watch of Sophia (Marina Anderson). Howell is tasked with assassinating a member of her cult (Heidi von Palleske), but she and her son remind him of his dead family so he saves her and tries to keep her from other assassins instead. Oh, and David Carradine is along for the ride as a ventriloquist. It's all very nonsensical, but the silly (but even sometimes clever) production design is fun and everyone overacts to a hilarious degree - except for von Palleske who comes off like a robotic Jessica Chastain.

Although I was somewhat wary before watching this movie, because Roger Corman produced it, I decided to watch it all the same. Actually, for the first part of the movie, I thought, "Hey, maybe this might turn out to be good." That's because despite having a low budget, the movie's computer special effects, sets, and props were a lot better than you usually get in a Corman movie. However, the movie soon collapsed in my eyes. The story is pretty incomprehensible at times, and it was hard to get interested in the characters' plight at times. The action is also not that special, coming across as dull and badly edited at times. Howell does try hard, even taking off his clothes in one scene, but we didn't need to see that. If you're a fan of Carradine, be warned - his appearance lasts less than five minutes.

Planet Earth has suffered a terrible environmental disaster so humanity now survives underground split in to different religious cults . What caused the catastrophe ? I have no idea ? why is humanity split in to different ecclesiastical factions ? I have no idea . Since the surface of the Earth can no longer support human life how are the humans able to grow crops in order to feed the population ? I have no idea . What sort of producer thought this screenplay deserved to receive funding ? I have no idea

SHEPHERD is one of these films that creeps up late at night on cable channels . The sort of film where you consult the IMBb to see if it has any merits . The number of people who've commentated on SHEPHERD on this page hasn't yet reached double figures and this is a film that was released nine years ago . Perhaps the people who have never seen it are the lucky ones ?

As for the rest of the plot it's very routine . Grumpy former cop Boris Dakota whose wife and child died several years previously meets a woman and her child and it's up to him to save their lives , almost like a futuristic western . Throw in a former wrestler who now runs the God channel , a fascist Christian bloke who's trying to snuff out Boris , a ventriloquist , some T&A for the sake of it and you've got a mess of a film . I guess after seeing this Neil Marshall's DOOMSDAY is possibly a masterwork of cinema in comparison

If "B" movies, tired and corny scripts, and golf carts dressed up as some sort of futuristic mode of transport are your sort of entertainment, you'll probably enjoy this. Otherwise, forget it. The topless newsreader, though completely irrelevant, did give a few seconds of amusement.

I say "flick" because this doesn't deserve the appellation "movie", and certainly not "film". I regret paying for the rental, and although I've never walked out on a movie before, this would have been it, had I seen it in a theatre. A society living underground in the future (oooh, THAT'S original), lots of burning barrel drums, unexplained ambient light shining through windows, an ungrateful woman and her shock-muted son...the list goes on and on. C. Thomas Howell affects the husky voice of the stereotypical loner; you know like Eastwood's been done to death. He needs special sunglasses to remember his wife and child, yet in the flashbacks, he's the same age! Talk about a poor memory! I stared incredulously when the little boy Abe randomly pushes a code into a door and it opens! No tension, pithy religious (what religion?) under/overtones...saddest of all: I expected better from Roddy Piper;

Quite possibly the worst movie experience in my life.