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Most slasher flicks stopped being original in the early 80's. Truth be told, things have not gotten much better. Like literally hundreds of its predecessors, "Adam & Evil" takes an age-old theme and does absolutely nothing new with it. As a horror fan, I'm kind of insulted that I'm expected to digest this tripe with a smile. No sir, this will not stand! Once upon a time, slasher movies offered full-frontal and Savini effects. Now, they've become watered down, to a simple and fairly innocuous formula.

Take the standard plot: a bunch of kids go into the woods, where they are subsequently stalked by a crazed killer seeking his own brand of vengeance for past transgressions. Add dialogue like "Come out or we'll slice you like a Thanksgiving turkey!" Then take away the boob count and the body count. And as a little extra, make the characters especially boring an stupid. Now you've got this flick, a rancid turd of a movie if ever there was one.

I don't like being so hard on any movie, but "Adam & Evil" is both a waste of time and money. Nothing original, nothing redeeming about it whatsoever. And if the title has anything to do with the movie, I never figured out what.

As far as I knew, "Carnosaur 2" carried the torch as the most blatant rip-off of "Aliens" to date. Then I saw "Shocking Dark" (aka "Terminator II" and "Aliennators"). While ol' Carny was happy to just steal the basic plot of "Aliens," "Shocking Dark" went even farther, lifting dialogue, shots, and whole scenes from Cameron's super sequel. It was sweet!

What can I say, I'm a big fan of movies that take someone else's good idea and run with it. I love the Italian zombie flicks that came after Romero's success with the subgenre, so I was happy to see another movie "borrowing" ideas from a classic. If you can accept the fact that "Shocking Dark" is a rip-off, if not downright plagiarism, you might have some fun with it.

Take "Aliens," throw in a little "Terminator," add creatures that are somewhere between "Humanoids From The Deep" and "Forbidden World," and you've got this effective monsterfest, featuring attributes such as awesome locations, cool costumes, and creepy cinematography. Plus your favorite scenes of Ripley and Newt! Oh, sorry. I mean "Sarah" and "Samantha."

Sure, it lacks originality, but you gotta respect a movie that brazenly combines the plots of two mainstream American films, and does it with style. It might not be up to snuff for the average movie-going public, but it does the job for me.