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OK, so that's an incredibly cheap shot, but it's and incredibly cheap movie. I can remember watching this on Saturday afternoon TV as a child and thinking it was scary. I was sadly mistaken or just way too easily frightened. The giant leeches look like wet suits with rubber donuts stuck to them. Give some credit for the music working to set scenes . . . unfortunately the weak cast just doesn't carry it off . . . So, yes it was never intended to land an Oscar nomination, but great B-movies still entertain between the borderline special effects & acting often because of campy scripts. This movie is simply bad.

An outstanding cast delivering outstanding performances. Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, James Woods, Anne Heche and, child actor, Daniel E. Smith provide a formidable base for a cast that has no weak links. The lesser roles filled by people like Ray Liotta and Shawn Hatosy are right on the mark.

Even the educational dialogue on the shortcomings of our health care system worked (for the most part). The only place it faltered was the occasional slip across the thin line between emotionalism and sappiness. There was also a somewhat muddled message about the morality of John Q's actions. He was motivated by a good cause and he and his family have been severely wronged . . . but his actions put others at risk; that was wrong and leads to consequences that must be faced. That doesn't mean that he had any other choice or that the end result wasn't positive.

Washington is truly one of the great actors working today and movies like this and 'Training Day' are providing vehicles for him to prove it.

Sooo . . . first let me be honest that I thought I was buying a DVD of 'The Exorcist'; you know that movie with Linda Blair. Somehow I missed the Roman Numeral 'III' stuck in the middle of the 'O' in Exorcist on the cover. Took me about twenty minutes to realize something was drastically wrong with this movie, or at least my expectations of it. You see, I'd never seen the first Exorcist, still haven't, but I knew there was supposed to be this rather gifted child star. Nope, not in this one. And some really outstanding special effects, especially for 1973. Nope, there are some reasonably passable gore scenes, but nothing like a spinning head, and, considering it was 1990 when this one was released . . . what a disappointment.

Now, I have always had a lot of respect for Mr. Scott. . in fact his 1971 black comedy "The Hospital" still ranks as one of my favorite movies. But what drives a gifted, principled actor to sign on to a project like this? I really hope he thought it would turn out far better than it did.