Shapeshifter

After watching an hour of this movie, I want my hour of life back.

First of all, the previous reviewer really hits home with his/her analysis of the plot, acting and effects. I was immediately shocked how bad and lame the acting is. The story opens up to a psychotic inmate with a stupid pentagram-like tattoo on his chest having a "seizure". He briefly cannibalizes his own arm, where the lame effects show him cross-fading over thirty-seconds into a hairy guy in a Styrofoam "demon" suit.

The most funny plot part is that once the inmates and guards team up to survive the prison, one prisoner seems to be a demon expert. He proclaims crazy theories about why demons eat flesh, essentially to make them stronger, duh, and the rest of the inmates and guards agree.

Another early Asylum cheapo creature feature, it's pretty much like there other effort The Beast of Bray Road just take the werewolf and replace it with a demon and insert a prison setting. It's full of people who don't react when they die and entrails that are exposed before the monster ever kills them. The creature costume does look decent and there is some insane gore on display. In other words, it's not good or well made, but it's enjoyable trash at only 81 minutes.

You can always tell the comments which come from those with a vested interest in a movie like this. Amidst myriad comments decrying how AWFUL it was, you get a few who praise it - much worse, they actually cast votes as high as 10/10! No matter how much guilty pleasure one derives from dreck like this, by no stretch of the imagination could this film be ranked as high as the greatest films of all time!

Yet I'm not here to rail on those who pretend this is a good film. I have nothing against them. I merely bring them up to point out how pathetic this film truly is. That it will garner no sincere admiration of this (or nearly any) level.

Movies just don't get any more stupid. This movie ranks among the very worst, with no real redeeming qualities or enjoyability whatsoever. It is true garbage.

Sad to know this is what the Sci-Fi Channel has stooped to. Now they have become synonymous with movies which scrape the bottom of the barrel and are written for severely mentally disabled adults or below average children.

And I thought it couldn't get worse than SKELETON MAN. I was wrong. The Sci-Fi Channel's latest effort, SHAPE SHIFTER, is a rehash of JEEPERS CREEPERS, with a flesh-eating, morphing demon invading a jail and knocking off the inmates one by one. The entire cast of this dreadful movie can be counted on the fingers of two hands, and none of them -- and I mean none -- can act their way out of a cardboard jail cell. The creature, a man in a costume, would be OK if its rubbery head horns didn't keep wiggling every time the creature munches down on someone. The gore is frequent, but poorly executed. The filmmakers obviously were trying for that supremely nasty moment in JEEPERS CREEPERS when the Creeper is found gnawing on the limb of an inmate. In this, they fail miserably. You want over-the-top gore and a better monster, stick with CHUPACABRA.

Shapeshifter is the story (if I can use that word) of a monstrous shapeshifting beast wreaking havoc inside a prison ... and that's about as deep as this thing gets. The acting is terrifically bad, the script was written by someone who has no idea how people act and react and the monster suit is just laughably bad ... as if they took something off the discount rack at the Halloween store. Add to all that a director who masks the lack of any special effects with that frenetic flash-editing style that probably causes some people to have epileptic seizures and you have one terrible, terrible movie. Across the board, there is simply no talent associated with this movie. Strictly amateur. If you're into watching train wrecks, rent this one. If not, find something else. My wife asked me why I wanted to rent it and I said you never know when you'll find something pretty good ... which is almost never. If you want to see a low-budget, amateur movie with some talent then see The Revenge of Bloody Bill.