Bad Karma

This was great except for the plot, characters, believability, and acting. It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it is on the list. I'm really not sure why I didn't shut it off. Probably because the actresses were hot.

Agnes Thatcher (Patsy Kensit) is a schizophrenic patient of Dr. Trey Campbell (the horrible actor Patrick Muldoon). She believes they were lovers in a past life in London and he was Jack, the Ripper. When Dr. Campbell and his family go to some American island on vacations, Agnes escapes from the asylum and chases them. Agnes kills almost every character along this predictable and full of clichés B-movie. Unfortunately she did not kill the screenwriter, the director and the producers and this trash was released to the market, where fools like me spent time watching this crap. The plot is really ridiculous and the cast (with the exception of Patsy Kensit, who I really like) is appropriate for such a trash. All of them are ham actors and actress. One point that called my attention is their pronunciation, specially the detective and Patrick Muldoon. And I am Brazilian! I suppose that, for being an actor/actress, the person should know how to act, and this would include speech. However, in this film what we see (and hear) is exactly the opposite. Watching this crap is really a waste of time. My vote is three.

Interested to see the demise of Patsy Kensit, I decided to pick this movie up from the video store. After dusting the video box (for some reason people are afraid to watch this,) I popped the movie in and was found myself disturbed for the next ninety minutes. This is so bad, I have a new respect for summer movies.

The story is about a mental patient who goes after her doctor while he's on vacation with his family. As she makes her way, she let's it be known that she likes to be seductive just before murdering the people around her. The reason she's going after her Doctor is because in their past lives he was Jack the Ripper and she was his mate. The movie's climax is at the beginning. A gas attendant peeps at a school girl (a school girl whose chest would make Michael Jackson's nose look natural) who is changing in his restroom. He then decides to kidnap her and tell her that she killed him in a past life. They almost have sex.

Have I said that I want my ninety minutes back?

There is several reasons as to why this is so bad and silly but when you have a veteran director like John Hough there is just no excuse. Hough has directed such films as "Twins of Evil", "Dirty Mary,Crazy Larry" and "Legend of Hell House". All good efforts, so what happened here? My guess is that the script was so bad no director could have saved it and the studio took hold of it and maybe added scenes. The beginning scene makes me believe this. A beautiful blond girl is undressing in a garage restroom, kidnapped, then tortured to believe the whole Jack the Ripper story. The girl looks nothing like Patsy Kensit but its suppose to be her before plastic surgery! Obviously the scene was put in just to get a nude woman in the film. This film is suppose to be in the Providence, Rhode Island area but obviously its not. Some of the actors have a difficult time hiding their accents and where do you find an old castle in this country? Of course its England. The music sounds just like something from a "Friday the 13th" movie and it should. Harry Manfredini did a lot of those films and he did this one also. Not much happened to Patsy Kensit after appearing with Mel Gibson in the second "Lethal Weapon" film. She really shows nothing here except her name. Its sad to watch. The film is so routine that you have to wonder why anyone would bother? Its badly acted and the story is horribly told. It seemed to me that no one had any real reason to try and do something exceptional with the material. A tired effort by all.

This movie is completely uninteresting. The story is transparent right from the start, the gore effects are poor, the flashbacks are unconvincing (those shiny clean 1888 London streets look exactly like the studio sets they are). Patsy Kensit fails to impress as a psycho killer; the other actors are forgettable. There is simply nothing good to be said about "Bad Karma". It represents the kind of by-the-numbers filmmaking that makes you feel depressed about the current state of low-budget horror films in general. (*)