Dead Above Ground

Good god, didn't Stephen J Cannell SAVE any of his money? This is a guy with dozens upon dozens of hit TV shows, and he's producing THIS crapfest? Nobody can act, the plot is lame, the FX are pretty bad (the world's PHONIEST bird attack), about the only thing this turkey has is several fairly attractive girls in skimpy outfits, and not enough of that to make me feel like the hour and half was well spent. Where do we begin? The "football" player, who's all of 5'9", 135 pounds (waterboy, maybe?) who's "gotta get his scholarship", the token black couple with some horribly bad "urban" slang, the "rich-bitch", the Goth chick, oh yeah, every stereotypical character is here, the principal of the school wears bow ties (lives in a mansion, but drives an AMC Pacer?), the coach is a macho type, and the incredibly hot school counselor who is referred to as "Dr.", but looks to be 24 or so....yeah, lotsa shrinks that young. To make matters worse, Corbin Bernsen shows up, as does Robert Conrad (Cannell must still have the negatives) and the cop is played by Antonio Sabato Jr, with a hairdo that could withstand Hurrican Ivan and looks dorky beyond belief. HIs character is also incredibly stupid. Good god, people, if you're an actor who has made a few good films or been in a hit show, please, save your money, find some solid investments, just put it into a savings account if you have to, but please don't let your career fall to this level. Do infomercials if you have to, but please, please, don't do crap like this if you're desperate for money. You'll feel better working at Burger King than making this kind of garbage. This is the kind of flick Ed Wood would pass on making it's so bad.

while this movie is marketed at a horror film, let me just say right out that is in fact the exact opposite. it is so funny in its awfulness. you know how ed wood movies are funny because they are so bad? well dead above ground is right up there. you can tell that the crew had good intentions of making a scary movie but it is so forced and benign. actually the movie is quite painful to watch at first. i finished it floored and amazed at the stupidity of it all. Cliché characters, zero plot continuity, unrealistic dialogue, cheesy special effects... it's got it all. BUT after watching it again, this time with a group of friends... it has now become one of our most quoted movies! As a group, we found it hysterical! It is so rotten, it's fantastic! Who could forget such memorable lines as, "KABOOM! Coach scores!" or "Stop laughing! You're all dead above ground!" A ridiculous portrayal of goth kids, an inept tough-guy cop with feathered hair, a completely unromantic 5 second sex scene, and a cliff-hanger ending! What's great is we still sit around talking about how much we hate this movie yet we still talk about it! Prepare for hilarity with this piece of cinema!

This film is awful, however you've gotta see it to believe it!

Stephen J. Cannell & Chuck Bowman should be ashamed of themselves!

The whole plot was trashy, I have seen better acting in The A Team. The only thing that really saves the movie is Lisa Ann Hadley's beauty.

Basically, rent it but don't buy it!

I wanted to take an axe to my own face when it became apparent, after the scene where Corbin Benson was killed (offscreen), that I would watching yet another slasher film based around teenagers at a school. It's like the film wants you to hate everyone immediately - you've got the jock, his fashion conscious girlfriend, her blonde pal, the wisecracking computer geek (who, it turns out later, can hack the police database), two token black folks who talk awful, cringeworthy hip talk, and two way over the top goth people, one of whom spouts the most insane babble about astral planes and netherworlds.

So that's your stereotypes right there, and don't be thinking this film is going to play against convention, because it's not. Our goth guy makes a horror film, gets ridiculed, and ends up driving over a cliff. A year later, another guy turns up (now living at the goth's house) and says he's been dreaming about the goth guy and bad things are going to happen. We all know that's slasher speak for 'everyone's going to get killed' right?

However, in order to get to the kills we've got to got through teen drama fluff (the jock and his girlfriend and her parents), an adult love quadrangle (the school shrink, the old teacher, the gym teacher, and the cop), the goth chick mourning for her pal, and not a whole lot less. I'm sure half the cast had died of old age before the killings started, and that's when the film truly enter the realm of "Pure Crap".

There's hardly any gore here at all! I think one or two killing happened on screen, with the rest being after the fact. Here's a warning to put you off buying this thing - by the end of the film most of the cast are still standing. There's also a sex scene that's about as erotic as jabbing at a jellyfish on a lonely beach in winter, a heavy metal soundtrack, and more psychobabble about Pagan spirits that you'll be able to stand.

Not a good film at all. Where's the beef?

Stephen Cannell?! The man behind the A-Team? And my favorites "Rip Tide" and "Wiseguy"? This... TURKEY... is an example of what the poorest written low-budget horror film would look like. I mean, a team of monkeys could do better than this.

I've seen many, many horror flicks, and this rates so far down there. It's completely unwatchable. I mean, there's no payoff anywhere. It's an insult to view. Even worse that George Lucas was drawn into this for no reason. Worse, the acting, characters, story, dialog, plot, and everything else just suck, suck, suck.

On the positive side, if you're looking to make a horror film yourself, view this film to see how NOT to do it. If you have an idea that's even a little better than this one, you can be one- up on Cannell himself. Speaking of which, WHY was he even in this film? He looked like this old dude in a film that presents a plot SO implausible... it's an insult. To whit: the coach gets fired, yet hangs around the parking lot to harass a teacher (Cannell), and he doesn't do anything about it. The best part of the film is Sabato, Jr, though you have to wonder why he had anything to do with this piece of detritus.

The original title was "Director's Cut", and according to Cannell's website the movie would allow them to "experiment with new narrative ideas, visual styles and different approaches to editing". Also on the website "We were really stepping out," said Bowman. "So we needed to keep absolute creative control." Uh, yeah. Just promise me never, EVER do it again.