Dead Above Ground

This movie rocks. I rented it off the TV after I watched the trailer and it looked, "semi-scary". It's somewhere in between the 80's and the 90's although there's a brand new VW beatle in one shot? The clothing that these teenagers wear are so stupid. The lines that they say are sooo dumb! We were rolling in laughter! The crazy goth kid says, "How do you expect to understand anything I'm saying...you're like 2 astroplanes (?) beneath me." Good one! Then one of the kids is about to throw up, so he says, "I'm going to do the yellow yawn" - another good one! They have the token black guy, who says at one point after seeing a dead person, "let's get this party popping' baby". So cheesy!! I'm going to watch this movie again just so I can write down all the cheesy lines. I CANNOT believe that this movie was actually produced! There are also major gaps, loopholes, and tons of inconsistencies. Can't wait to watch them all again =).

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.

This could possibly be the worst B film that has ever made it to print. What was Stephen J. Cannell thinking? Aside from the fact that not one person in the film can act and the characters are limited caricatures of most other B movie characters, the plot lacked anything substantial. There wasn't even a worthy death in this film and it does little to appreciate the "Celtic ways". I can't believe I let it take 98 minutes of my life. Don't let it "kill" 98 of yours. :O) Heck, even Antonio's looks did nothing to save the film. Distributors should have given it the "ax". The writer & director should have prayed to the powers that be for forgiveness before the entire genre laughs them out of the industry.

After the death of troubled Goth student Jeff Lucas a series of mysterious and brutal murders rock a small coastal town. As a massive horror/slasher fan I recently came across a cheap copy of this on DVD & had not heard of it before. Despite it's obvious low budget it starts off with a pretty cool opening sequence. Sadly it then goes downhill with it's poor script, bad acting ( in particular the guy playing the investigating sergeant), silly seance scenes & predictable plot. Its also tame in the gore department. Having said that it does falls into the so bad that it's slightly entertaining category. Check it out if you're an obsessive slasher fan like me, otherwise best avoided.