Parasitic (2012) Poster

(2012)

User Reviews

Review this title
15 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
2/10
Mind-numbingly awful for the most part
movieman_kev6 July 2012
Special effects guru Tim Martin writes, directs, and produces his first film "Parasitic" which revolves around a group of unlikable douches working at a Florida nightclub that gets invaded by a less than benevolent parasitic alien organism after it closes for the night and proceeds to kill them one by one. Rented this 'gem' at Redbox.

On the bright side the special effects are pretty good for a movie this low budget and the film is rather short at little more than an hour long. However, that leads us to the bad part, the 77 minutes (not counting the end credits) is excruciating. The characters are all unredeemable and unwatchable creeps, the dialog is beyond atrocious. It feels less like a real movie and more of an improvised effects reel at times. Which I actually not so secretly hope is the case as the effects really deserve a much better film to be in.

Eye Candy: Bianca Holland gets and stays topless for most of the film

My Grade: D-
26 out of 29 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
truly awful
zzoaozz24 August 2012
Usually I can find something good to say about any movie, but unfortunately not this one.

The writing is awful. The dialog is ridiculous and utterly unbelievable. To top it off there is something weird and tinny about the audio, only the spoken parts though, the obnoxious music comes across loud and clear. It actually sounds like a porno movie where they dub the sound in post production. Every one of the characters is unlikable so there is no one to root for.

The visual quality is bad too. The whole film (except the opening shot and one end shot) is set in a bar with the lights turned out. It is too dark to see much of what is going on. The action is too slowly paced to keep your interest. It seems as if the movie spends hours sitting around the bar in the dark bitching about being stuck in the bar, then hours searching for the missing people. It becomes tedious especially since the characters are so disgusting to be around.

This movie is too bad to be entertaining and not even remotely funny. It's a complete waste of time.
12 out of 15 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
Painful to watch
iamchristina26023 September 2012
It's not often that I feel physical pain while watching a film but "Parastic" managed to accomplish just that. This is by far one of the worst casts I have ever seen on film. I was left shaking my head and randomly yelling at my TV. I'm convinced that my dog can deliver lines better than this group of so called actors. I have to say that the "Paris Hilton" wannabe was by far the worst of the bunch and hopefully we won't be punished by seeing her in future roles. The sound was horrific, the acting was dreadful and the fact that we are supposed to believe a group of people could be stuck in a building the entire night being chased and knocked off one by one because their boss is the only person that carries the 1 key ever made for this place is beyond insane. I found myself rooting for the monster and looking forward to the next death. If I were Timothy R. Martin I would consider removing the huge "WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY TIMOTHY R. MARTIN" portion that is inserted before the credits in an effort to get as far away from this piece of work as possible.
7 out of 8 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
Horrid
freefallin130914 July 2012
I truly want my money back. This guy thinks he can direct because he's been on the FX crew of a bunch of movies. If the rating system had a zero, he'd be getting that. The acting was awful and the sound man was inebriated or deaf. I bet this would have been a decent B-movie if it had acting talent, directing talent, and a sound man with the ability to hear. But alas, it sucked in all departments. Tim Martin, please go back to FX and leave direction to the pros. It seemed like the actors read from a prompter and just their line for the scene before cutting, there was no chemistry between them at all. The FX was the only thing that was half way decent and it left a lot to be desired, but it at least would get a B rating.
7 out of 9 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
Perhaps if they hired some actors it would have been better.
timtimau13 September 2012
Warning: Spoilers
The opening scene, all 20 seconds of it, is primarily about a chunk of rock. Unfortunately, that piece of rock is by far the most talented actor in the movie.

By the 5 minute mark we are placed in the scene of a nightclub, from which we will never escape, the entire movie takes place here. You might be mistaken for thinking it is an empty room, on account of the room being empty. But that presents no problem at all for the man pretending, sorry acting, like he is a DJ, he just carries on chatting to the empty room as if its the best gig he's ever had. If he was joking, it would be funny, but sadly, joking he is not.

From here on in the "acting", and the disbelief, gets worse. I must add I am using the word "acting" in its most liberal sense, i.e. not actually requiring actors. Suffice to say if you manage to make it to the end of this thing, you will probably require a large strong drink.
4 out of 5 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
3/10
Great creature effects, the rest not so great...
paul_haakonsen11 July 2012
Well, I had hoped for just a little bit more from this movie actually.

"Parasitic" is about some comet that hits Earth that apparently had some kind of space parasite on it (doesn't comets always have some kind of space parasite on it in movies?) and it causes a mutated parasite to fester on Val (played by Bianca Holland) while stuck inside a locked off bar. The parasite grows and takes over the host body, preying on the remaining workers trapped inside the bar.

The storyline was pretty straight forward, though it had a tendency to linger on for long times without really getting anywhere, which tended to slow the movie down dramatically, where you just sat around and wanted it to pick up pace and get going. The storyline didn't bring anything new or innovating to the horror genre, so don't' expect anything revolutionary here.

As for the characters in the movie, well, oh my... The characters were so rigid and stereotypical that it was painful to watch. And they were having some real questionable dialogue that was halting at best. Trapped inside a bar and people disappeared around them, then turning up dead or worse, and no one seemed to take it overly serious, nor were any coming up with any real usable plan or plausible ideas at any times.

And who bars up the windows of a bar, locking up all exits securely from the inside and refuses to let employees out? That whole thing was just so unrealistic and I found it very hard to buy into that approach. But how else would they keep the people trapped in a small, confined space with the deadly space parasite? The one thing that "Parasitic" really had working for it, was the special effects. For a low budget movie, then they have really managed to pull off the effects quite nicely. The parasite was well designed and it looked real actually. I was thoroughly impressed with the effects in "Parasitic".

One question came to mind when I was watching the movie. When one is sick with an upset stomach and vomiting, why would one take off the shirt and then proceed to take off the bra? That just made no sense at all, and it was a really lousy cheap trick to get some nudity into the movie. It was pointless and didn't help the movie along one bit. And this happened quite early in the movie, which pretty much put down a low bar for the expectations for the rest of the movie. Had they opted to not go for this lame approach, there would have been just a tad more believability to the movie.

And why would there be no phones in the bar, aside from one apparently locked away in an office? And in this day and age, why did only one, yes one, person in the bar have a cell phone? And for some odd reason there was no proper lighting anywhere in the bar to be found, everything was shrouded in perpetual gloom and shadow.

"Parasitic" is not particularly scary, though filmed in a relatively small location, they did manage to build up a good enough sense of being trapped and a sense of claustrophobia. Just a shame that the movie didn't manage to pull off any real shocks or scary moments.

What makes it worth to sit through this movie, it is the special effects on the creature, but it is hardly enough to justify spending about an hour and twenty minutes on it. If you like horror movies and want to be scared or thoroughly entertained, I wouldn't particularly recommend that "Parasitic" is the first of choices.

Though I will say that for a low budget movie project then the overall feel of the movie (aside from the lousy characters and dialogue), then they managed to pull it off well enough, so thumbs up for that part at least. And a thumbs up for the creature effects.
3 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
Ridiculously bad monster flick.
DigitalRevenantX712 July 2017
Warning: Spoilers
A meteorite crashes into the ocean off the coast of Tampa, Florida. A parasitic organism that was contained in the meteorite infects several fish, of which one is caught & turned into sushi. The sushi is sold to & eaten by Val, the duty manager at the "Castle" nightclub in Tampa. As the night goes on, she becomes infected by the organism, which sprouts a tentacle out of her neck & turns her into a zombie. The zombified Val then prowls the closed nightclub, picking off the workers & turning them into zombies.

Timothy R. Martin is a special effects wizard who worked on such films as the Spider-Man films & (ironically) the prequel of the John Carpenter classic The Thing, which came out shortly before this "effort".

It is obvious that Martin, who wrote the script, directed the film & designed the monster seen here (& appears as the nightclub's DJ), has been heavily influenced by his work on The Thing 2011, But while that film was a reasonable prequel to what is considered as not only John Carpenter's best film but also a sci-fi horror masterpiece & the Citizen Kane of monster movies, Parasitic is nothing but a cheap borefest that utterly fails to entertain in any way (although the creature effects are passable enough, particularly the monster in the end).

It is probably an unwritten rule that most films by visual effects wizards branching out into directing almost always end up as terrible films (the exceptions to this are Stan Winston's Pumpkinhead & Tom Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead – although I also enjoyed the Strause Brothers' Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem somewhat). In this case, the rule holds true. Martin has failed to observe the cardinal rule of monster films – the monster must support the story, not replace it. Outside of the creature effects, which conveniently allow the lead actress to walk around topless with a rubbery creature on her chest & a phallic tentacle sprouting like a giant zit out of her neck, the film is terrible. The story is simple to the point of crudity, the zombie attacks are predictable & biologically illogical, the acting is non-existent & the film's compact running time is filled with a bunch of idiots having boring conversations about boring topics. You can get a feeling of how low this film is aiming for when you have the opening credits play out over the central character putting her clothes on & the conversation early on which is inaudible but relayed by (purposely) badly-written subtitles that are heavily expletive-ridden in order to give a cheap laugh. It is obvious that Martin needs to forget about making his own stories & concentrate on his day job – providing visual effects, nothing more. What a waste of effort.
2 out of 3 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
This movie ruined my gallbladder
thekingofcod430 June 2014
If i had to watch this one more time, my internal organs would collapse. This is by far the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. After this movie i almost crashed on the way home because it ruined my eye cavity. One of the characters just disappears, probably because he had to go on vacation and that was more important than the movie. I feel bad for whoever chooses to watch this worthless garbage of a film. Just save your liver and organs now and do not watch this. My kidneys have to be rebuilt and my gallbladder has to be reattached. Not to mention all of the kidney stones. If you watch this, may God be with you and call in to the hospital now.
2 out of 3 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
4/10
A FIERY SOMETHING
nogodnomasters26 May 2019
Warning: Spoilers
This film inspired me. I think if I hit the lottery, I'm going to go into some gentleman's club, hire a bunch of girls and bouncers and make a movie. I would just wing it. No script.

Tim Martin, special effects man, wrote, directed, and played a bit part in this film. The dialogue was semi-hip low brow and I enjoyed it at times such as when the reporter described the meteor as a "fiery something." This meteor had some alien slime and makes a case not to eat raw fish out of the Atlantic Ocean. Our alien becomes a parasite (title plot spoiler).

The action takes place in a nightclub that has more band members than customers. When they clean up the place, Val (Bianca Holland) the manager, locks the place up tighter than a garment factory in the third world. At this point our parasite is free to travel from bad actor to bad actor. The highlight was when Amber played by Isle Gallagher, got infected. At this point she didn't have any more lines which improved the film's acting by a factor of 2. Blonds named Amber always confuse me.

There was zero character introduction. There were plenty of missed opportunities such as the fantasy sex scene could have been made inane. The guys could of had clever geek dialogue instead or being horn dogs. Truly a wasted effort.

Frequent F-bombs, sex, major silicon nudity (Bianca Holland)
1 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
Truly the pits
Leofwine_draca23 June 2014
PARASITIC is truly one of the very worst films I've watched in a while and this is from somebody who watches and enjoys a lot of B-movies so I'm not at all prejudiced against them. However, even by genre standards this is terrible, not even in a good, let's-laugh-along-at-it kind of way. Instead it's an amateur hour production throughout, one of those films where somebody got hold of a camera and thought that was the only qualification they needed to make a film.

The entire film takes place in a single night in a locked-up nightclub. The proprietor eats some tainted sushi in a ridiculous opening scene and after ripping off her top and bra proceeds to turn into a cheesy monster that looks horrible even by genre standards. The rest of the film sees her staff members gradually bumped off one by one as they themselves are infected. Apparently, the proprietor is the only one with the key and the place is locked up tight, all the windows are barred so nobody can get out, and there are no mobile phones to speak of. Yeah, right.

Words can't describe how terrible the quality of the writing is here. I've noticed that this seems to be case when a film shares a writer and director; these guys should stick with the directing because the writing is invariably awful. Tim Martin hasn't got a clue how to write realistic dialogue or how to use it to tell the story. Instead we get endless scenes of characters discussing how they should go and investigate instead of actually doing it. It's padded to the extreme.

The whole film takes place in the dark in order to hide the paucity of the budget and the acting is universally awful, not least from Bianca Holland's bimbo-turned-killer. There's no gore to speak of, hardly any effects, just endless stupidity and characters you hope will die in the most violent ways imaginable; suffice to say they don't. Avoid this trash like the plague.
2 out of 5 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
7/10
Everything it is supposed to be
imdb-com-841-24567319 December 2013
Did you expect exquisite acting, a touching story, and a brilliant plot? It has none of that. But if you expected monsters, nudity, profanity, and a little bit of gross-out, then you will be satisfied.

The female actresses are hotties, and the one with the largest fake boobs is topless for most of the movie, even while she has a parasite protruding from her neck and is chasing the humans around.

If you liked "Elizabeth, The Golden Age" and "Sense and Sensibility" and "Steel Magnolias", then you might not like this. But if you liked "Feast (2005)" and Tremors and "Midnight Meat Train", then you might like this movie.
12 out of 15 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
4/10
Wish we still had a Drive-In...
dadatuuexx6 July 2012
As a young child,i saw tons of movies.The drive-in was my fave.Parasitic is one of those low budget classic's that used to play last.As an FX fan,i liked the shoddy monsters,and have seen much worse.The actors never really seem to get into this movie,and i can see why.the ending,and a bit before boast the best FX,and it did leave me wondering...what the h*ll was THAT ?....you could do worse.This gets an O.K.,not much here,as this is a story we've seen over and over.The good looking people don't stay that way for long,as a small group of people are attacked inside a nightclub by a visitor from beyond the stars.I will most likely see this one on the SyFy channel soon.
2 out of 7 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
THE worst movie I have ever watched!
ScottM27531 December 2012
Wow! Honestly, I think this was the absolute worst movie I have ever choked through watching... I initially decided to watch it, regardless of the reviews, because of the fact that it was made right here in Tampa Florida...

Now I am: 1) Embarrassed that it was made here where I live, and 2) Incredibly regretful that I wasted 1 hour and 18 minutes of my life that I can NEVER get back! The ONLY good thing I can say about the movie is that the makeup effects were pretty decent, but then again Tim Martin is well known as a effects artist and has even worked on quite a few big budget movies. Tim, lets just hope that THAT is where you stay, because this movie was HORRIBLE! Another thing I didn't like about the movie - despite the wooden acting, was that the f-bomb was thrown around WAY too much, and seemed WAY too "forced".
1 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
3/10
Bianca Hollands Bra was the hardest working cast member
warehousereviews20 August 2020
Practical effects looked ok... from what you could make out. If they had turned on some lights this would of been a pretty watchable movie,
0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
Not worth the time or money...
eyehateeverywon31 January 2013
So, I started watching Parasitic online. The *only* reason I was going to give it a try is because it was filmed at The Castle in Ybor. Nope. I couldn't even get to the 10 minute mark. Horrible. It has been promoted as "cheesy, campy fun"... Wrong. I love cheesy, campy fun. I live for cheesy campy fun in horror movies. This is just bad. It is like the maker of this movie stood on 7th Ave. in Ybor and randomly asked fake-tittied bimbos if they wanted to be in a movie. No acting experience necessary. The best these "actors" can hope for in a career is amateur porn... very amateur. I am surprised (and slightly embarrassed) that The Castle agreed to do this. I agree with the others who have posted that Tim Martin should stick to FX. Directing is obviously not his forte. I want my 10 minutes back.
0 out of 3 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

See also

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews


Recently Viewed