O Retorno dos Vermes Malditos

I saw Mongolian Death Worm as I had nothing better to do and had some time on my hands. I don't consider it an abomination, but there was a lot wrong with it. Sean Patrick Flanery tried his hardest with his role, and I liked the character of the Sheriff, but that was pretty much it. The special effects are very poor most of the time, the worms are cheaply designed and are not thrilling or terrifying let alone very well used, the direction was lazy and the editing didn't seem very focused to me. The dialogue was so cheesy and aimless it was enough to make me cringe in embarrassment, the story more times than not was dull and predictable with far too many suspend disbelief moments to be remotely believable, and the characters are not interesting and little more than clichés. Other than Flanery, the acting whether phoned in or over-played is terrible. Overall, a bad film but I've seen worse. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Really, really bad movies delight me. To be a really, really bad movie a film must reach new heights of absurdity and make one laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of the events unfolding. Such movies, you think, must be written by those clever fourth graders, Kyle, Kenny, Stan and Eric. They are full of action, admittedly, very predictable action, and must have poor acting (although, one wonders if Meryl Streep could do them with any realism). Mega Piranha was a really, really bad movie. Death Worm of Mongolia, wasn't. It was extremely ho-hum with worse than usual acting, a silly story line and immensely, immense worm critters that were predictable and fairly easy to kill and outrun. The only redeeming feature in the movie was the Mongolian "Sherriff", who spoke perfect cowboy type English and drove around in a truck marked Police, need I say, printed in English. It took forever for the storyline to unfold and was a disappointment when it finally made sense. Also questionable is the apparel of the doctor who is wandering around Mongolia with some medicines to help people stricken with a disease she knows nothing about. I question if a doctor visiting a foreign country would parade around wearing a tank top and pedal pushers. It just looked inappropriate and quite unrealistic. Perhaps she would don such an outfit inside the shack they were using as a hospital, but outside...in public...very poor taste. All in all, I am sorry to say that Mongolian Death Worm was not a really, really bad movie, it was just boring dreck!

OK, lets be up-front about this. There is a legend involving gigantic earth worms in the remotest parts of the Gobi desert. The West has sort of been interested in them since the early 1920s. There has been no confirmation of their actual existence, well not until this movie came along any way.

And then there is this movie. It is poorly scripted, crippled with an utterly predictable plot. The hands down winners for stilted and shabby acting go to George Kee Kee Cheung as the sheriff and Nate Rubin as the terminally irritating Dr Phillip. Nate is still cutting his teeth as an actor. George though should have known better. He is an accomplished character actor.

Sean Patrick Flanery as the lead and Victoria Pratt as the romantic interest make a better job of it, particularly Flanery. Even so they are cardboard cut outs of Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner from Romancing the Stone.

Of all the movies about Genghis Kahn's lost tomb and treasure, giant earth worms, medical aid posts by far the best I've seen. It was fun, in a completely daggy way, then the 90 minutes was up.

Really bad acting, bad plot and .. too much to critique.

My FAVORITE is that in the Gobi desert, we have grass, trees and it a significant resemblance to middle America.

Maybe that is why the Mongolians drive GMCs and the police vehicle says "Police".

Didn't anybody involved in making this movie give a darn? It appears not.

Cheesy movies can be good - Tremors for example, didn't take itself too seriously, but managed to engage us.

This one is just bad.

Where as "Tremors" was entertaining and brought something new to the world of movies, then "Mongolian Death Worm" hardly manages to step up to even half of what "Tremors" managed to do - even with its questionable sequels.

The story told in "Mongolian Death Worm" is about huge, subterranean worms that have been brought out from their slumber from far beneath the surface of the Mongolian steppes, brought about by a commercial oil drilling company, of course. As the worms ravage the countryside, it is up to a treasure-hunter, a police officer and two volunteer health workers to put an end to the subterranean terror.

Right, well the storyline is just about as cliché as they come in this particular genre. But as every bit cliché this movie is, then it is equally predictable. But yet there is something about the semi-bad monster movies that is alluring. The storyline is lacking anything challenging to the audience, it is just simply put your mind on autopilot and sit back.

The dialogue is forced and not really delivered with enough conviction to fully buy into it. And you never really for a second thought that anyone was in any real danger from neither worms nor earthquakes.

And it was really, really hard to buy into the attempt of making it seem like this was actually taking place in Mongolia. Especially when everyone was speaking English, and even the local police vehicle had 'police' brandished on its side.

One of the carrying factors of the "Mongolian Death Worm" was the worms, as they were actually nicely made. Sure, this wasn't top of the line CGI animation, but it worked out well enough to suit its purpose.

"Mongolian Death Worm" is the type of monster movie that is hard to take seriously, but still it is fun to watch because it is just that cheesy and campy.