Environmental wackos release a giant, genetically-enhanced Tasmanian Devil in this would-be comedy horror film. I think the filmmakers were trying to make the next "Army of Darkness" or "Shaun of the Dead," but the humor wasn't strong enough to compensate for the implausible and coincidence-ridden story. I might be giving the plot more consideration than the filmmakers themselves, but isn't it a little far-fetched that the monster would be stolen from the laboratory and released at a cemetery where the son of mad scientist who created it was filming a low budget horror film? And that the son considered the monster his pet until it killed his mother. At least the scientist father is played by Reggie Bannister. His presence gave the film a touch of class. The film also suffers from the fact that the vast majority of victims had no bearing on the plot whatsoever. They were just passerbys. I did enjoy the bit were the new agers take drugs to call forth a spirit animal, only to see the monster as an animation. The Hillbillies, however, were so over the top that they made the cast of "Two Thousand Maniacs" seem restrained by comparison. The main problem, however, is the monster itself. I know this film was essentially a comedy, but the monster was ridiculous -- especially in long shots where it was obviously a man in a suit walking on all fours. The monster was about as scary as the shrews in "The Killer Shrews." Along those same lines, some of the gore effects were good, but it obvious the monster isn't really digging into the people when it is clawing them. I'd take the Tasmanian Devil in the Warner Brothers cartoons over this thing any day.
Review of Cemetery Gates
