A Town Has Turned to Dust

Short of Lang's performance, I could not sit through this film. Lighting, direction, and overall production were horrible, and the story was not developed in a timely fashion. The only saving grace was the lead, who it appeared had little to work with. My call - 1/2 star

This movie was not well paced. There was no suspense and none of the plot twists were unique. I stopped the movie in the middle to take a nap so I could finish watching later with the hopes that something interesting would happen. Unfortunately nothing interesting happened. The mean town boss and the sheriff share a secret. An Indian gets lynched because of an affair with the bosses wife. Time would be better spent watching Mad Max or High Noon.

I write this as a warning to those who may be pondering whether or not to rent this "movie": don't.

I love Twilight Zone, and am a huge fan of Rod Serling. So I was rather excited when I saw on the video case of this movie at the video store that it had been written by Serling.

I turned it off after only 20 minutes. I find it extremely hard to believe that Serling could have written anything *close* to this movie. If he did, the Sci-Fi channel mutilated and amputated beyond recognition.

The scenes are disjointed, the effects are cheezy, and the acting pitiful. Pick up your fav Twilight Zone episode tape instead.

A Town Has Turned to Dust is hand above the average schlock that comes out under the handle "A Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie". Honestly, with their key demographic, why do they foist things like "Bombshell" and "Cyberjack" on us?

This movie, however, is different. Apparently based on a Rod Serling script , A Town Has Turned To Dust combines strong story telling, subtle effects, and well wrangled acting to form an enjoyable and thoughtful story.

Ron Perlman's character is surprisingly multi-faceted and can be identified with though his actions might be considered reprehensible.

All in all, this was a very strong piece of film making. I hope we see more of its style on the Sci-Fi Channel.

There are very few of Rod Serling's stories that don't hold much interest for me. The *Original* "A Town Has Turned To Dust" wasn't one of them.

But we've seen this countless times in Hollywood: A story written by a brilliant writer gets hacked to pieces and then is handed to a director who wants to "take the story in a new direction" or "show the audience the *real* intent of its writer(s)".

Heres what I want Hollywood to do with the greats of the past: Leave them ALONE. Stop standing on the shoulders of giants because most of Tinseltown is creatively bankrupt.

Enough is enough.

Until then I remain your,

Avid Fan