Boy what a mess this movie was.Tobe Hooper's follow up to the great "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is just plain bad.The more Hooper films I see the more I'm convinced he just lucked out with "TCM" cause everything else I've seen by him pretty much blows chunks.
A crazy motel owner living in the backwoods on the edge of a swamp keeps his pet gator happy,which he claims is a croc for some reason, by a continuous supply of fresh meat.This motel owner runs around waving what I took to be a wheat hook,or whatever you call one of those things that Death is always seen carrying.The crazy hotel owner, called Judd ,just can't compare to the sinister chainsaw waving Leatherface and that may be the problem----everything Hooper ever does will be compared to "TCM".
But with this picture comparison to "TCM" isn't the big problem.The big problem is this picture sucks even if you didn't know anything about Hooper and "TCM".The script is just horrible.I was trying to figure out what a couple who had stopped by the hotel were talking about after they got to their room and I never could catch on to it.It was like they were talking in code---a sentence never connected to the one before or after it.Maybe Hooper was trying to create an eerie disjointed feel but most of the script was just nonsensical ramblings from Judd or some of the other characters.And Hooper didn't seem to know what to do with Judd a lot of the time.....he just sort of ambled around the lobby of the motel and dusted while people upstairs and outside were screaming and yelling.
The soundtrack,if you can call it that,was the radio in the motel lobby that stayed on during the entire movie...it played generic sounding country music that was probably made up for the picture so no royalties would have to be paid.The result was a steady stream of boring droning stereotypical country songs about cowboys and lost loves by people who couldn't really sing if their life depended on it.For me ,as a music lover, this generic lazy-ass approach to something so constantly used in the film was almost the worst thing about this movie.
But the special effects were bad too.The croc was a big plastic looking piece of junk mostly hid by bad lighting and black swamp water.The whole pic was cursed by bad lighting and grainy looking film,those things gave "TCM" some of it's aura,here they were just cheapo looking and annoying.The whole set itself looked worse than the fake island sets used on "Gilligan's Island".But this little junky run down motel setting out in the swamp was a busy place nonetheless just like "Gilligan's Island" was.You'd think this place was in downtown New York by the amount of people passing through.
The only redeeming thing about this pic was a couple of topless chicks we get to see near the end of this mess.I guess by then Hooper had realized that the crappy mess he had so far was a stinker and his last ditch effort to save this disaster was some boobage.
Didn't work,the bad lighting mostly ruined those too (or four), i should say.
A crazy motel owner living in the backwoods on the edge of a swamp keeps his pet gator happy,which he claims is a croc for some reason, by a continuous supply of fresh meat.This motel owner runs around waving what I took to be a wheat hook,or whatever you call one of those things that Death is always seen carrying.The crazy hotel owner, called Judd ,just can't compare to the sinister chainsaw waving Leatherface and that may be the problem----everything Hooper ever does will be compared to "TCM".
But with this picture comparison to "TCM" isn't the big problem.The big problem is this picture sucks even if you didn't know anything about Hooper and "TCM".The script is just horrible.I was trying to figure out what a couple who had stopped by the hotel were talking about after they got to their room and I never could catch on to it.It was like they were talking in code---a sentence never connected to the one before or after it.Maybe Hooper was trying to create an eerie disjointed feel but most of the script was just nonsensical ramblings from Judd or some of the other characters.And Hooper didn't seem to know what to do with Judd a lot of the time.....he just sort of ambled around the lobby of the motel and dusted while people upstairs and outside were screaming and yelling.
The soundtrack,if you can call it that,was the radio in the motel lobby that stayed on during the entire movie...it played generic sounding country music that was probably made up for the picture so no royalties would have to be paid.The result was a steady stream of boring droning stereotypical country songs about cowboys and lost loves by people who couldn't really sing if their life depended on it.For me ,as a music lover, this generic lazy-ass approach to something so constantly used in the film was almost the worst thing about this movie.
But the special effects were bad too.The croc was a big plastic looking piece of junk mostly hid by bad lighting and black swamp water.The whole pic was cursed by bad lighting and grainy looking film,those things gave "TCM" some of it's aura,here they were just cheapo looking and annoying.The whole set itself looked worse than the fake island sets used on "Gilligan's Island".But this little junky run down motel setting out in the swamp was a busy place nonetheless just like "Gilligan's Island" was.You'd think this place was in downtown New York by the amount of people passing through.
The only redeeming thing about this pic was a couple of topless chicks we get to see near the end of this mess.I guess by then Hooper had realized that the crappy mess he had so far was a stinker and his last ditch effort to save this disaster was some boobage.
Didn't work,the bad lighting mostly ruined those too (or four), i should say.