A Town Has Turned to Dust

Two hundred years in the future, in a radioactive scrap metal mining town on the almost completely abandoned, draught ridden, dying planet Earth, a young man of a "second class race" is lynched for the supposed beating and attempted rape of the wife of the town boss before he can be taken off planet to the new home of humanity for trial. The act exhumes an old guilt that begins the final disintegration of a town already half buried in the ugly dust of racism and prejudice.

This was a nice surprise as Sci-Fi Channel movies are hit and miss. Steven Lang does an excellent job as the useless, haunted town drunk and Sheriff Harvey Denton. The "Cain and Abel-ish" brother like relationship between his character and Ron Perlman's town boss and mob ring leader Jerry Paul is well done by both actors. You can see it there dying, being killed by time, guilt, booze and power. The abusive love-hate relationship between Jerry Paul and his wife Maya (Barbara Jane Reams) is very realistic, scary in its unhealthy depths of possession and desire to care and be cared for.

Definitely worth a buy.

There are very few of Rod Serling's stories that don't hold much interest for me. The *Original* "A Town Has Turned To Dust" wasn't one of them.

But we've seen this countless times in Hollywood: A story written by a brilliant writer gets hacked to pieces and then is handed to a director who wants to "take the story in a new direction" or "show the audience the *real* intent of its writer(s)".

Heres what I want Hollywood to do with the greats of the past: Leave them ALONE. Stop standing on the shoulders of giants because most of Tinseltown is creatively bankrupt.

Enough is enough.

Until then I remain your,

Avid Fan

A town turned to dust is an average scifi movie, with a weak story. I did not like the story, because the same story has been the story for tons of other movies. But to my opinion, the art direction is good. So after all i did not feel watching this movie was a waste of time, altough some parts are boring and the acting is not always at a descent level. My advice is: watch it, if you like nice art direction, otherwise skip it.

A Town Has Turned to Dust is not great, and has things wrong with it. However, I didn't think it was that bad. The storytelling is uneven, sometimes it is thoughtful and elegiac, but in others it it awkward and disjointed. The special effects are not up to scratch either, in fact they are lacking in their design and some have no reason to be there. The message the film has that racism and oppression are timeless is well-meaning but felt rather dated to me. The pacing is also rather sluggish at times so the more disjointed scenes of the film lack momentum. However, the film is shot well and has beautiful scenery. The soundtrack is decent, and the script is thankfully not cheesy but has a touch of thoughtfulness. The characters, especially Stephen Lang's are clichéd in hindsight(I have seen the drunken sheriff character so many times) but actually manage to be interesting. Ron Perlman's character is surprisingly multifaceted. Lang and Frankie Avina give good performances, but the best thing about A Town Has Turned To Dust is Perlman, while essentially ruthless you do feel some element of sympathy for him. So overall, a decent attempt at a western but doesn't quite come off as well as it could have done. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I write this as a warning to those who may be pondering whether or not to rent this "movie": don't.

I love Twilight Zone, and am a huge fan of Rod Serling. So I was rather excited when I saw on the video case of this movie at the video store that it had been written by Serling.

I turned it off after only 20 minutes. I find it extremely hard to believe that Serling could have written anything *close* to this movie. If he did, the Sci-Fi channel mutilated and amputated beyond recognition.

The scenes are disjointed, the effects are cheezy, and the acting pitiful. Pick up your fav Twilight Zone episode tape instead.