The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon

The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon: 1 out of 10: Well I was two minutes into the film and my girlfriend jinxed us. “Hey you know this movie isn’t that bad”. I turned pale… real pale. You don’t tempt the Gods like that. Not with a made for Sci-fi Channel movie. Not when one where the lead is Shannen Doherty. The words barely left her mouth and a CGI puppet began sliming a Frat Boy in a diaper. The Horror…. The Horror. If I am going to start somewhere I have to start with the Frat Boys in diapers. The movie claims these are Aztecs still hidden in the Grand Canyon at the end of the 19th century. (I know I know) Apparently they have been hiding from the white man for many years. Not to mention the Havasupai and the Painte and the Pai and the tourists at the Upper Canyon Ranch and perhaps the boys in blue down at Ft. Mohave. Anyway this lost tribe of Aztecs, like some Japanese WW2 sniper still hiding in a palm tree in 1971, is hidden in the Grand Canyon. What seems stranger is that they consist almost entirely of a hereto thou undiscovered group of Aztecs whom look like white college football players wearing diapers (well more of a mawashi) and war paint. I am all in favor of multicultural casting but I can’t believe that it isn’t a little insensitive to portray Native Americans as well extras in a Fire Island movie. Hold on a second Fire Island Movie????… The men are all buff and practically naked. The two woman are wearing pants and done up in to look twice their age. The monster spews slime on the buff boys for no good reason. Oh God no it’s Jeepers Creepers 2 all over again. The homoerotic horror film strikes again. Now I’m not sure that the over the top homoeroticism is directors Farhad Mann’s doing (or even intentional), but Mann is responsible for both Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace as well as Return to Two Moon Junction so with a track record like I am prepared to blame him for a Swine Flu outbreak let alone this film. So what else went wrong? Well the Quetzalcoatl design is all wrong (he looks like a puppet) and his CGI is bad by even the very low Sci-fi Channel standards. The sets look like Kirk and Spock are going to beam down at any moment. Half the explorers are grossly overweight; an unlikely condition in the far west wilderness that far from a Wal-Mart. As noted above Shannen Doherty who isn’t even forty looks forty-five and Heather Doerksen who isn’t even thirty looks fifty. And they have a five minute flashback at the end that repeats the entire film. But let’s face it buff white frat boys in diapers getting slimed from off camera and pretending to be Indians. Yeah that is just all sorts of wrong.

Apparently the Spanish under Cortes and the many that followed did not completely destroy the Aztec civilization. Some of them managed to make it all the way to northern Arizona and found a hidden valley near the Grand Canyon. In the 19th century archaeologist Duncan Fraser heard some rumors about them from some of our native Indians who had better sense than go poking around the canyon looking for these people. But he got lost and now his daughter Shannen Doherty is putting together an expedition to find dad.

There was some basis for locating the Aztec civilization where it was. The Colorado River area from the Grand Canyon down to wear in empties in Mexico was the last area explored and mapped in the lower 48 states, it wasn't done until after the Civil War. So something could have been there, maybe.

Poor Shannen Doherty, she must have cursed the day she left Aaron Spelling twice, walking out on both Beverly Hills 90210 and Charmed. Is this all there is Shannen, chasing after dad among the Aztecs and that nasty serpent God of their's Quetzacoatl.

Quetzacoatl made the journey north with his followers. He's one ugly looking deity as well. But he flies, spits out some paralyzing green slime, and tears people apart with his teeth and talons. Good enough reason to worship anything, not to mention he's survived a few hundred years longer than thought.

I liked the monster, but the rest of the cast looked like they slept walked through their roles. One other woman, Heather Doerksen, a feminist and suffragette is part of the expedition. She's out for the Lost Treasure Of The Grand Canyon and nothing else. Her ideas however may be what really destroys the last remnants of Aztec civilization.

Shannen Doherty ought to team with Luke Perry for one of these Science Fiction Channel originals. At least there's an established chemistry there.

Of cause, a TV budget allows for just so much. There is a golden rule in the receipt of a good movie, that one is "You are only allowed to create one lie". But with some creations, this rule can be hard to obey, if you do not come up with an extra million in the budget.

When this is said, the movie contains some great ideas with a great potential for exploring imagination and the inner child - but remains childish, or something that could fit a children's channel, if it were not for the blood and gore.

There is no excuse for poor timing (like when few seconds to act, becomes 30 seconds of horrifying embarrassment), no excuse for poor scenery (like when two prehistoric native Americans are running on a path carved by 21. century wheel tracks) or when someone shot in the leg, is switching between unbearable agony and a little limp - with seconds in between.

The actors delivered a far more convincing B movie act, which I would say were disgraced by an incompetent crew, a story that wouldn't even convince a 5 year old and a cutter and director who seem to have made a last effort in destroying this movie technically.

It's one of those cheap movies that they make by getting two well known people (not necessarily stars anymore), two take a week out of their "busy" schedule to make a quick film.

The story in the film is pretty decent about an expedition to find another exception gone missing in an attempt to find a treasure of a long lost civilization that worships a CGI monster like a God.

I also like Micheal Shanks performance as a snobbish archaeologist on the expedition for a personal agenda. It also has a great set of interesting characters played out by some good actors, including the other name in the movie Shannen Doherty.

It's one of those things that when it repeats on Syfy, you'll catch it and you'll like it, but it's not worth going out of your way to see.

Filmed in Thompson-Nicola Region, British Columbia, Canada, this film is no ware near plausible. But it can be a lot of fun no one stays in the car or rather where they should be. Everyone sticks his/her nose in and gets it bit off. The dialog is lackluster, the graphics are pathetic. Yet it is fun to say "don't touch that", and "will they ever learn?"

It is the early 20th Century and we have horses, wagons, and whatnot. Dr. Samuel Jordon (Duncan Fraser) and his team of archeologists are being snacked on by an unseen force. Meanwhile back at the ranch or should I say dig, his daughter Susan (Shannen Doherty) is worried and decides to look for her father at the location where he was last seen in the Grand Canyon. She takes along the standard character set of friends; clumsy, gutsy, sneaky, and mysterious. Will the team find Dr. Jordon in time or will they also be dispatched in the underground labyrinth overlooked by, you guessed it Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. And is there time enough for love?