Rock Monster

Four friends are backpacking across Europe, when their bus breaks down in rural Bulgaria they hike through a forest where they find an ancient sword stuck in a rock. One of the guys pulls it out and in doing so unwittingly unleashes an evil creature - the Rock Monster! The title alone should serve as a warning to potential viewers that classic monster movie this is not! I can't say much good about this made for TV film I'm afraid. Despite being set in a remote Bulgarian village everyone there seems to speak or understand English quite fluently, I'd have been happy to have had some Bulgarian dialogue coupled with subtitles but I guess so many viewers for these type of films are too lazy to read them. To its credit there are several Bulgarian actors in the cast. However a stunning barmaid called Cassandra (Natalie Denise Sperl) says that she'd love to go to the USA, judging by her "Romanian" accent I think it fair to say that she's already spent much time there! Amongst the cast we get non-actors to established actors, Jon Polito being the prime example of the latter though he really hams it up as a former communist military general. As for the Rock Monster itself the usually horrid CGI "special" effects are fairly reasonable plus there is a gore highlight in which a man quite literally loses the top of his head. There is a lot of romance plus a bit of comedy in the plot but I would like to have seen more horror, I found it rather boring.

Science fiction movies are almost a dime a dozen, so you need to do something fairly creative. This one simply puts a bit of charm in the movie. It isn't a classic, and I can't understand the votes of "10", but neither can I understand the votes of "1". The characters are fairly engaging, and the movie has its moments. It doesn't exactly have the cohesiveness of a sit down movie, but like most movies made in the last thirty years, it is meant to be viewed while doing housework, chores, or on the elliptical or exercise bike. It is more about scenes and atmosphere. An American in a backwards looking European countryside, straight out of the old vampire days, takes a sword out of a stone, and awakens a rock monster. Not great science, but neither is most Science Fiction. The movie gets a lift in the rating mostly due to the heroine's father, who does a parody of Robert Shaw in "Jaws", almost to the letter. The director had the good sense of humor to show some reactions to his speech, taking advantage of the comic double take. Bits and pieces make this a fairly decent movie. Not exactly memorable, but has some assets.

The bad guy, who has a megalomania problem, looks like a refugee from an Uwe Bolle movie, complete with the lousy accent, shaved bald head, phony make-up, and ridiculous black leather jacket costuming. Most of the time he's making "I will take over the world and here's how I'll do it!" speeches.

But the rock creature is even more pathetic. CGI animation that looks like it was done by Mickey Mouse, and the thing is less scary than Mickey is. It hobbles around, looking like it's going to crumble into a pile of fake-looking pebbles any moment. Meanwhile, Uwe Bolle, or whatever his name is, screams dumb comments to and about the thing any chance he gets to shoot his mouth off. The hero: some guy in an orange down jacket that he never takes off. At least this guy made an effort to act, as did his love interest and the guy playing the Major. But with a script this sloppy, they end up looking silly too.

Somebody smash this rocky horror with a sledge hammer.

I reserve that dishonour to the likes of Titanic II, Alien vs Predator, Dinocroc vs. Supergator, Super Tanker, 2010: Moby Dick and Quantum Apocalypse. But that is not saying Rock Monster is good, it is not, at least not to me. It gets plus points for some okay, if not great, acting, especially from the lead and Jon Polito, though David Figlioni overdoes it pretty badly, and a few moments of good-natured goofy charm. However, this is really one of those movies where the title itself tells you all you need to know. The story is incredibly basic and predictable, not much difficult from other creature movies of the SyFy channel, with some ridiculous suspend-disbelief moments, like the ending, and some of it feels rushed through. The final act completely falls apart, compared to some of the film's good nature this part feels like a completely different movie and in all honesty I lost interest. The script had a few quirks that I liked, but overall it was cheesy and all over the place, and the characters are stereotypical and not always easy to engage with. As for the effects, I have no better news, the Rock Monster/Creature of the title looks cheap and has no menace whatsoever. All in all, not one of SyFy's worst, but ridiculous and not much different from other SyFy movies of this genre. 3/10 Bethany Cox

I saw the premier of this, i orignially had high hopes for this film but after seeing it, I had different thoughts.

There are some elements from other films that they put into this film, like my title, sword in the stone, could they have thought of anything else creative? I don't think so.

Story was OK, acting was descent, it was so cheesy when Jason said "You'll go no further" classic line. I did'nt like the fact that the one Arician American person went away immediately, i think that they should of kept him until the end of the film.

I did'nt really like this film very much, kinda cheesy for me, hopefully they will have a better one than this.