Mind Ripper (1995) User Reviews

Well, Lance Henriksen is in it... that's a plus

[DiesIlla · 4/10 · 13 September 2003]

A 'Wes Craven presents' movie from 1995, directed by Joe Clayton and starring Lance Henriksen. A group of scientists save a dying man they find by their desert stranded government outpost by injecting him with their experimental virus, of course, one of their colleagues goes overboard and the virus transforms the man into a near unstoppable monster with them trapped inside. Lance Henriksen plays the morally offended researcher who leaves the project before all this, but returns after receiving a call for help to save the man (pre-unstoppable death machine mutation).

Deciding to combine two trips in one he brings his family along with him (they're going on vacation afterwards) and proceeds to give them entry to the top secret government facility, thus putting them right in the middle of the chaos within. In case you can't tell, this one relies on the viewer to work with it a little and put aside some petty (see: major and blatant) details.

Overall though: Watch-able with mild bits of enjoyment. Note: The Outpost is commonly known under the title 'Mind Ripper'

Incomprehensible

[jaigurudavid · 3/10 · 21 May 2019]

This movie seems to be the equivalent of watching all of the outtakes from the original Aliens film. It's fun to see Natalie Wood's daughter and Giovanni Ribisi in a film, but other than that, there's nothing at all entertaining about this.

You have seen it all before.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 3/10 · 26 February 2002]

A scientific experiment designed to create a superhuman being has gone wrong.The creators become trapped in a remote desert outpost,pursued relentlessly and mercilessly by their own creation.James Stockton,the scientist whose research was used despite his protests to create the monster,is called the outpost to help undo the horror that now lurks somewhere within the dark halls.James,together with his son and daughter,soon find themselves trapped inside with the others,trying desperately to survive.And with the outpost sealed from within,there is no way out..."The Outpost"/"Mind Ripper" is highly unoriginal.The sets are pretty claustrophobic and there's a bit of gore.However as a horror it fails miserably on almost all levels.There's zero suspense,the script is weak and filled with big holes and the ending is extremely predictable.So-called master Wes Craven produced this one-I wonder if he is happy with this trash.Joe Gayton directs without any style.The acting is horrible,only Lance Henriksen can act at all.OK,I'm a big horror fan and was bitterly disappointed.Avoid it like the plague-it's just the same old boring crap again!

You really need to be drunk to enjoy this

[WagonWheelTable · 30 August 2004]

I just bought this as part of a Wes Craven DVD box set (along with Scream, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Last House on the Left) and felt ever so slightly conned. The film is not directed by Wes Craven (he has an executive producer credit) and a dream box set would omit this sci-fi B-movie in favour of Nightmare on Elm Street (I would settle for The People Under the Stairs).

With that being said, this is an ideal film for watching with a gang of drunk mates after a night in the pub. It's a creature feature in a remote claustrophobic environment and it ticks along quite nicely on a sub-Alien template, taking advantage of all the usual sci-fi horror clichés. The monster is cheap but effective and it is sympathetically played. The rest of the characters are just monster fodder and are badly underwritten, though a father-son theme breaks through to complement the monster-creator theme. Lance Henrikson, the brunette girl in the shower, and the bloke who plays Phoebe's brother in Friends are worth watching. The rest of the cast stink. There are enough gruesome moments to keep a drunken audience's interest. It's also fun ticking off the clichés as they mount up, and laughing at the obvious dialogue. I defy anyone (after a few drinks) not to laugh at the last scene.

So not a classic sci-fi horror, but an entertaining mess of a movie with redeeming qualities, best viewed with friends and alcohol.

Another tedious 'corridors underground' horror movie

[Red-Barracuda · 2/10 · 1 February 2017]

Lance Henriksen is the name actor in this Wes Craven produced horror film. Set in an underground desert facility, it follows the events that happen after some government scientists inadvertently create a humanoid monster when they inject a virus into a dying man in order to save his life.

I have a bit of an immediate dislike of any sci-fi or horror films that fall under the category I can best describe as 'corridors underground (or in outer space)'. These low budget genre films feature characters running away from a deadly enemy in confined locations with lots of corridors. The reason so many of these types of movies are made is that the sets required can be cheaply knocked together. The issue, however, is that the vast majority of them turn out to be very tedious and highly unoriginal. Mind Ripper is another in this line of not very good movies. This one throws some highly uninteresting family melodrama into the mix and needless to say it doesn't add much value. The best moment for me was probably the part where the monster suddenly killed all the sympathetic characters in a frenzied attack; I was thinking at the time that this was quite interesting and a nicely unexpected turn of events. Turned out it was a dream sequence from the monster's perspective. Sigh.

The Hills have Eyesore

[Coventry · 2/10 · 15 December 2005]

Sigh…the stupid government once again attempted to create an inexhaustible and indestructible soldier, and of course the experiments went terribly wrong, burdening us with a half man-half mutant who pukes an awful lot and squeaks like a little girl whenever he's upset. Lance Henriksen stars as the honest scientist who immediately quit the experiment upon hearing it was a military project, but he returns (bringing the whole family with him) when he finds out his beloved guinea pig has gone on a killing spree. "Mind Ripper" certainly is a watchable horror movie, but it's very unoriginal and features pretty much every lame cliché you can think off (including the estranged father/rebellious teenage son sub plot...yawn). The characters are like wooden puppets, the dumbest things are being said and done and there's a completely pointless dream-sequence...coming from the monster!!! There's a handful of interesting gory scenes to enjoy and some of the isolated desert-locations are effectively eerie. Lance Henriksen is adequate as always, even though this is yet another inferior production he stars, and Giovanni Ribisi surely deserved a better motion picture to make his debut in. For some reason, this anonymous 90's thriller is also known as "The Hills Have Eyes part 3". Is it because it handles about members of the same family being terrorized in the desert? Is it because Wes Craven was once again involved, as a producer this time? Or maybe it's because the monster gets bald near the end like the freaky Michael Berryman in the 1977 original? Who knows...Who cares? Wes Craven probably financed this project because his son co-wrote the script and it's always moving to discover that your offspring is equally untalented as you are. Not recommended!

It won't rip or blow your mind, but it's OK.

[gridoon · 5/10 · 29 April 2003]

It's a trifle, of course, and it IS hard to know what attracted Wes Craven to such a degree that he lent it an "Executive Producer" credit, but it does have some interesting touches. The first is the compassion it shows for the "monster". In fact, although many have made the "Alien" connection (mainly because of the underground tunnels and shafts), it really plays more like a variation on the "Frankenstein" myth; there is a scientist who wants to "play God" and a sad creature that is forced to become murderous (and his killing method owes more than a little to Cronenberg's "Rabid", too). Another interesting idea is the way all the characters are initially presented as either bland or obnoxious (and boy are the two male teenagers obnoxious!), only for most of them to reveal some redeeming side later on. And the gore fans will get some moments they can appreciate in this one, particularly an eyeball-piercing in close-up! Lance Henriksen reportedly said that this is one of those films that "pay your alimony", but at least he handles it like a pro and doesn't show any contempt for his audience. The film's worst part is the ending, which gets so far-fetched it's almost funny. But all-in-all "Mind Ripper" is worth one viewing. (**)

Low Budget Fake 2 hour waste of time Piece of crap

[fep_3000 · 1/10 · 31 January 2004]

SPOILER!!!! Mind Ripper hmmmm.... I had just watched the nightmare on elm street movies and had just found out about Giovanni Ribisi. I thought Giovanni Ribisi hadnt done any horrors so I checked into it. I saw "the outpost" (mind ripper) I checked on my Tivo for it. There was an air date on Sci Fi. So I was set. I got my pop corn ready came in and set on the couch and what the hell is this? A freakin bold guy in blue sweat pants running around yelling! Nothing is scary about this movie at all! If anything its funny! Funny how low the budget is, funny how predictable it is, funny how bad the acting is and funny how much money it DIDNT make. Ok giovanni ribisi is a good actor but this movie is dumb. It is so stupid. They killed him at the end and then they go on this plane and the "monster" is on it. They shoot him in the head with a shotgun and it falls a long way to the ground. And

-GASP- The killer ending, Its Still Alive! WOOHHH! Scary! woooohhhh! Sucky fat sack of crap waste of 2 hours.

Bottom Line: You have somewhere to go and you need to kill some time. Mind ripper isnt the suggestion. I'd rather sit out naked in the snow than watch this movie a second time.

OVERALL GRADE: F- - - - - - - - - - (ENTERNAL)

"Loose ends come back to haunt you."

[bensonmum2 · 3/10 · 10 June 2020]

A group of government scientists working in an abandoned bunker in the middle of the desert fortuitously come across a wounded man on the brink of death. I say "fortuitously" because not only are they miles from civilization, but they just happen to be working on an experiment to reanimate the dead (or some such nonsense) when a test subject miraculously falls into their laps. As expected, the man regains consciousness and goes on a killing rampage, knocking-off the scientists one-by-one. The man-creature, who they've ridiculously named THOR, needs some sort of substance that can only be found in the human brain (it kind of reminded me of all those movies from the 50s where the monster needed pineal juice). Anyway, our heroes are of course trapped in the bunker with no way out. And that's pretty much it . . well, except for the phallic-like thing that comes out of THOR's mouth that he uses to do his mind ripping.

Mind Ripper proves the point that Wes Craven would attach his name to any old garbage for a paycheck. I admit that there are a couple of nice, creepy moments, but overall, this one's not very good. The film gets off to such a slow start that it just about put me to sleep. The first 20 or so minutes are excruciatingly dull with people you don't know doing this you don't understand in a bunker that has all the visual appeal of the inside of a trash can. The acting is a mixed bag. I thought Lance Heriksen and Claire Stansfield were fine, but then you have Natasha Wagner's often laugh-out-loud line delivery. She's not helped at all by the script which gives every character clunky, silly dialogue. As for THOR, I thought Dan Blom was fine as long as he was scuttling about on all fours, but he's really not much of an actor. And his creature make-up was mostly laughable. Finally, the ending is uber-predictable. Who didn't see bad son Scott suddenly making a 180 turn to save the day? And who couldn't have predicted THOR's unwillingness to just die so the movie could (mercifully) end?

3/10

Man even a 4 is a bit of a stretch

[jmbovan-47-160173 · 4/10 · 27 March 2020]

By the numbers medical experimentation transform a human into a mutant killing machine that is "eternal" from its ability to regenerate. Standard characters, bad dialogue, idiotic motivations and choices. What more can you ask for?!

Another Hills Have Eyes? No...

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 4 May 2020]

Although it is marketed in some regions as a sequel to The Hills Have Eyes and The Hills Have Eyes Part II under the titles The Hills Have Eyes III and The Hills Still Have Eyes, there are no actors, characters or even storylines from either of those movies. It does, however, have producer Wes Craven, whose son Jonathan wrote this movie.

It's directed by Joe Gayton, who went on to write the movies Bulletproof and Faster.

Set in a remote desert location - hence the title The Outpost , as well as the tenuous connection to The Hills Have Eyes - where government scientists are trying to bring back suicides as superhumans, this movie is all about the dark side of experimenting on the dead. There is no good side of this, by the way.

Stockton (Lance Henriksen, who deserves better) is a scientist called in to help oversee the project. He's joined by his son Scott (Giovanni Ribisi, who despite this being his first role, deserves better), daughter Wendy (Natasha Gregson Wagner, Urban Legend, who also deserves better) and her boyfriend Mark (Adam Solomon, who never made a movie after this, so maybe he didn't deserve better). After all, an uncontrollable test subject named Thor is loose and must be contained.

This was one of the first movies shot in Bulgaria after the fall of Communism. I'm sorry, Bulgaria.

Unnescessarily maligned, enjoyable film

[slayrrr666 · 8/10 · 3 September 2007]

"Wes Craven's Mind Ripper" is a surprisingly fun entry if it can only get around the clichés.

**SPOILERS**

Out in the desert, Jim Stockton, (Lance Henriksen) and a fellow scientist, Joanne, (Claire Stansfield) working for a company called Gentec, save the life of a seriously injured man, known as Thor, (Dan Blom) using an experimental virus. When he takes a turn for the worse, team leader Alex, (John Diehl) calls for help and reluctantly, Stockton, who quit three months earlier, heads for the bunker in company with his son Scott, (Giovanni Ribisi), daughter Wendy, (Natasha Gregson Wagner) and Wendy's boyfriend, Mark (Adam Solomon) in tow. When the virus turns him into a super-soldier and escapes into the complex, he begins to hunt down the team one-by-one. As the lone survivors of the assault meet up with Jim and his family, he is confronted with the realization of his work and what's happened to the experiment. When nothing seems to work against it, they devise a series of plans to put it down for good.

The Good News: This here is a pretty surprising entry. The best thing about it is that there's a large amount of action present. This makes the film go by rather quickly with a brilliant pace. That's a great move, since there's always something going on with the film. The fact that the killer escapes into the facility within the first twenty minutes, despite being captured, experimented on and then argued over is a superb sign of the quality of the film's pacing. There's some great chases and encounters that lead from this, all of them good enough to either entertain, shock or up the suspense-factor. There's some nice jumps from the sudden appearance out of the darkness, including a masterful one in a darkened elevator shaft that is quite tense. That there's a lot of short encounters spread out is actually nice here, as it keeps moving forward rather than engaging in a couple super-long showdowns punctuated by long periods of inactivity. That's really important, as it even manages to put over the maniac's raging strength and brutality more so. There's even a plot about the invincibility it has, and are captured in two spectacular scenes. His regenerative powers are demonstrated by having his body expel first a knife, then shotgun pellets. They're done live and don't really have much of anything stopping them. The method of killing the victims is quite gruesome, and there's a few pretty cool deaths that result from it. Overall, a really fun and entertaining entry.

The Bad News: There isn't really that much wrong with this one. One of the biggest ones against it is that there's way too much clichéd scenes, themes and ideas which come from other films that are plunked into this film. This here is pretty much filled with these kinds of scenes and are quite easy to spot as well. The usual stuff, including things such as the team leader's a raving psychotic, the rest of the crew are a bunch of panicky idiots, the high-tech equipment's faulty, and at the first sign of crisis, all the power fails, are utilized like clockwork. Still, these are just a small sampling of the kind of clichéd things popping up in the film. Even the surprise given in the second half, that the original scientific research intended to benefit mankind, the development of a virus capable of assisting the regeneration of human tissue, has been hijacked and corrupted by the military, who want a "super-soldier," is simply one of the most over-used plot points ever that shows up in simply every single movie of this type without exception. There's even a rather weird dream sequence that shows up which comes from the creature that is simply confusing. It's certainly out of the ordinary for that to appear, and it comes across as pointless other than to put in some more gore effects. Otherwise, these were the only real flaws with it.

The Final Verdict: Even though it's incredibly clichéd and not that original, it's still a rather fun experience that can provide some nicely needed entertainment. Recommended to fans of this style of film or the just plain curious, while those who aren't that into the negatives aren't advised too strongly with it.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Brief Nudity

Forget Bishop´s comment

[Walle-2 · 7/10 · 9 March 1999]

This is actually very good. Thought it would be like a nerdy and boring horror movie (cause many is). But this has something that makes it very interesting and scary. It also has some gory scenes that make it funny. Grade: 8/10

On One hand It's Good, On The Other It's Bad

[JoelChamp85 · 4/10 · 11 April 2021]

This film is a bit of a tough watch. It has a decent cast, alright cinematography and some worthy practical effects, but the screenplay just doesn't work, and the director probably had a hard time since the writer is the producer. I know this was initially written as The Hills Have Eyes Part III, I think that script would have been better. There's a lot of references from great films, for instance the antagonist feels like a human version of a xenomorph, which in a way works. There's a line I find funny - the brother says to his sister's boyfriend "You couldn't get a piece of ass if you were a toilet seat". Bro, he's bangin' your sister lol.

"You Fed Me Soup! You Read To Me!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 7 April 2020]

MIND RIPPER (aka: THE HILLS HAVE EYES 3) is set in an underground facility, where an experiment has gone horribly awry. A nearly dead man is revived, only to disappear during a convenient blackout. He then goes berserk, killing some unwary extras. This disaster is due to the insane idiocy of the secret project's head honcho (John Diehl).

Enter Jim Stockton (Lance Henriksen), who returns to the facility, bringing his ultra-angst-ridden son (Giovanni Ribisi), his daughter (Natasha Wagner), and her melonheaded boyfriend along for no discernible reason. Upon entering the subterranean complex, horror commences.

Or, something like that.

Not only is a chemically-enhanced madman on the loose, but he's mutating as well! Indeed, he quickly transforms into a monster-man with an icky sausage thing in his mouth!

And! It! Sucks! Out! Minds!

Luckily, he spends most of his time shuffling through ductwork, breathing hard, and looking like a Tarzan / Glenn Danzig hybrid. More deaths do eventually take place, while mutant man loses his hair and ears and screams a lot. Finale after finale soon follow, and family bonding erupts!

Where's my brain hammer?...

Mind Ripper review.

[Ben-Hibburd · 4/10 · 7 October 2017]

MInd Ripper is a ridiculous, clumsy, sloppily directed B movie from Joe Gayton. Written by Jonathan Craven (son of the late great Wes Craven) Mind Ripper is a film about an underground government research team, that attempt to reanimate a corpse, only for their creation to backfire and kill them. The film is a not so subtle re-telling of Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein. The only difference being this monster has a penis that comes out of his mouth, that sucks out peoples brains. ( and yes I'm laughing as I type this.)

This film feels as though it only got funded due to Wes Craven's name being attached to the project. That's not too say the film is completely joyless. Lance Henriksen and Claire Stansfield do a great job of taking the material somewhat serious, and they manage to keep a straight face through-out. The rest of the cast is pretty bland though, and there's not much to add.

This is the sort of film where you either accept the ludicrous premise and go along with it. Or you don't and have to fight the urge to turn the film off at every stupid moment that occurs in the film. For the most part I went along with it, and in the end it's nothing more then a campy schlockfest, that has its characters run around the same poorly lit corridors for ninety minutes.

Must eat brains!

[Vomitron_G · 5/10 · 8 March 2006]

Call me easy to please, but I actually kinda liked THE OUTPOST (aka MIND RIPPER). The movie is just average in every sense of the word. It's not original and it never rises above mediocrity. But hell, I'll watch any movie with Lance Henriksen in it, because he's always decent.

Once again a military science-project has gone wrong (when will they ever learn?). On a desolate underground outpost in the desert a human is injected with an experimental virus (in order to create the perfect soldier). He then slowly mutates into a killing machine with a craving for human brains. Stockton (Lance Henriksen), who once abandoned the project when the military took over, gets called in to fix the problem. He decides to take along his son, his daughter and her boyfriend.

What we get then is your basic ALIEN-plot: a lot of running around in tight hallways, systematically killing off all the scientists and a final battle with the mutant outside the complex. Why did I like it? Ehrr... Lance Henriksen is in it... and the mutant-man's spiky tentacle coming out of his mouth to suck people's brains was kinda cool. The make-up effects were all quite good, actually. And then there was the mutant's dream-sequence (I gotta hand it to the film-makers: they got me there!). And what about Giovanni Ribisi? Well, he looked stoned throughout the whole movie (in fact, he always does, even in TV's FRIENDS). But he and Lance were the best actors of the cast. And Natasha Wagner and Claire Stansfield are always nice to look at. Come to think of it: there weren't actually many actors in this movie. Strange, when you consider that it all took place in a scientific/military facility. No security, no dumb soldiers running around, nothing.

Whatever, to me this was a nice 90 minutes time-waster with some gory brain-sucking action. Nothing special.

Mutants seem to be more hilarious rather than scary

[juho-ollila · 2/10 · 11 May 2004]

I really loved the Millenium series, starred by Lance Henriksen, which is why I bought the film. Obviously at some level it was a mistake. Mutant/monster films are usually very bad and this film is no exception.

The basic idea itself is not totally judged to fail (well nevertheless this film would never have been a success, even with a good director & actors), but the way it turns out this is just a B-class movie. The scenes that are supposed to be scary seem more funny to me and the critter is not credible at all.

However, watching this film with group of friends in restless mood makes this film shine as it is so unintentionally hilarious.

Bad! Bad! Bad!

[ThatsGoodInnit · 3/10 · 16 July 2006]

This is Wes Craven at his worst! this is the very worst horror, if you can call it horror, you will ever watch, esp from one of the masters of horror Wes Craven, Poor Direction, Poor Acting, Poor Set, Poor Atmosphere makes this the biggest pile of rubbish ever! the bad guy is totally unconvincing, you couldn't even feel sorry for the guy! the gore, and horror involved in the film is laughable, it's just plain rubbish! the only good points i can think of is, It stars Natasha Gregson Wagner, Giovanni Ribisi, and Lance Henriksen, but not even that cast, could stop this from spiralling out of control, and into one of the worst horrors ever. If you still ain't watch it yet, don't bother, you'll only hate it.

A futile B-movie

[pumaye · 5/10 · 1 January 2003]

When the only reason to watch a movie is for Claire Stanfield naked buns (and they come very early and very quickly during a shower), you know that you've badly spent the cost of the rent. This movie boasts Wes Craven in the title (it's the executive producer in fact and one other Craven, Jonathan, is credited with part of the script of this mess), but it's mostly an Alien rip-off, placed in the typical underground military secret scientific laboratory, where a group of scientists, once led by Lance Henriksen, created the super-soldier of any bad-writer dreams: an almost unstoppable killing machine, that must feed over human brains to survive. There is only one unexpected moment in all the movie and it is a dream of the monster. A complete waste of talent.

Absolute garbage; the worst thing Craven linked his name to

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 28 August 2016]

Even good old boy Wes Craven has associated himself with some rubbish in the past, and, it seems, present. If you've ever wanted to see a film which rips off ALIEN to the extreme, with the monster hiding in air vents, then don't even bother watching this one - try THE TERROR WITHIN instead, it's more fun. It hurts me to say that Lance Henriksen appeared in this film, and I really like him as an actor as well.

A group of scientists inject a dying soldier with a drug which makes his muscles bulge, his tongue become pointed and his ears and hair fall off. He's called Thor, and he eats human brains. The monster is so laughable as to be totally unscary. He looks like some kind of lunatic wrestler, and even bears a passing resemblance to Yul Brynner. The film is your standard "walk around in the dark and get killed off one by one" affair, detracted by some dingy camera-work, uninspiring sets and possibly the most annoying person ever seen in a film (if you don't count that transvestite in THE FIFTH ELEMENT) in the character of Henriksen's son, who spends the film listening to heavy metal music and acting like a total loser. This is one of those actors who plays the same role in every film, anyone catch him in THE X-FILES? Don't bother.

As if things couldn't get any worse, there are a number of ludicrous multiple endings where Thor comes back from the dead for one last attack...and another attack...and another attack. At this point I was praying for the film to end, my finger was hovering over the fast forward button and I was crying with relief in anticipation of the closing credits. But still it went on and on and on and on! My goodness, don't watch this garbage if you value your sanity.

Mindful.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 3/10 · 13 October 2018]

Spending most of the day stuck on a train, due to a storm hitting after I had visited a friend on his birthday, I was in the mood to catch an easy-going Horror flick. Remember a "presents" title being the last film in a Wes Craven box set,I opened my mind to a viewing.

View on the film:

Before finding projects that were more fitting to him as writer of Action movie Faster (2010) and creator of the Western series Hell on Wheels, director Joe Gayton is joined by cinematographer Fernando Argüelles in taking aim at the Horror genre. Stumbling aimlessly around in underground corridors, the fuzz from being shot on video is brightened by Gayton lashing the monster with a subversive, HR Giger-inspired tongue for killing. Featuring a good character actors cast of John Diehl,Lance Henriksen, and, in his film debut,Giovanni Ribisi, the screenplay by Phil Mittleman & Jonathan "son of Wes" Craven waste everything the cast offer, by shoving the Sci-Fi Horror to the sidelines for plodding family drama, made duller by Gayton's compressed corridor style,which makes this a far from mind ripping film.

A good deal of enjoyably cheesy low-budget direct-to-vid horror fun

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 22 October 2006]

Okay, stop me if you've heard this one before. Your usual bunch of scientists doing morally dubious and ill-advised experiments in a secret subterranean laboratory create a super-strong brain-eating mutant named Thor (handsome, muscular Dan Blom, who's actually quite good) who gets loose and goes on a destructive rampage. Fortunately, the always reliable Lance Henrikson as a bitter, cynical doctor who quit the project a few months ago arrives back on the scene to help save the day. Strangely enough, Henrikson brings along his estranged, rebellious smartaleck metalhead son (a then unknown, pre-stardom Giovanni Ribisi, who's every bit as obnoxious as you think), lusty hottie daughter (the luscious Natasha Wagner, looking mighty fine in skimpy shorts), and the daughter's libidinous tool of a boyfriend (the supremely irritating Adam Solomon). Swell dad, eh? I think you can basically fill in the blanks as to what happens next.

All kidding aside, this nifty little low-budget direct-to-vid horror item manages to be a great deal of enjoyably cheesy fun. It's directed with considerable rip-snorting verve by Joe Gayton, with a spooky, rousing, rattling score by J. Peter Robinson, dark, claustrophobic cinematography by Fernando Arguelles, funky make-up f/x by Image Animation, a cool lethal humanoid creature that's both scary and pitiable, and a nonstop breakneck pace. The solid cast do their best with their stock roles: tall, leggy, statuesque brunette beauty Claire Standsfield tackles her Ripley-like two-fisted tough chick heroine part with tremendous lip-smacking gusto while ubiquitous character actor John Diehl jerks it up nicely as the overbearing team leader. Bonus points are in order for the freaky and startling unexpected monster nightmare sequence. Granted, we're not talking work of art here, but this snazzy B-horror flick does the trick just the same in a pleasingly brisk and efficient enough manner.

I saw this when it first came out.

[Dodge-Zombie · 6/10 · 5 July 2022]

Back in the day when I first saw this movie I remember loving it. I've watched it several more times over the years and still enjoy it probably because of the nostalgia.

Does it have good acting? Not really. Is the script amazing? No I can't say it is.

There's questionable choices by characters and plot holes a plenty but I still enjoy it.

Possibly it could be good for fans of low budget scifi horror. It has good camera work and makeup. Giovanni Ribissi stands out as the best acting and Lance Henrikson is in it so good for "Aliens" and "Pumkinhead" fans.

" Loose ends come back to haunt you. "

[Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki · 3/10 · 9 June 2017]

If Bruno Mattei directed a rip-off of The Hills Have Eyes, this highly derivative " thriller " , vaguely connected to The Hills Have Eyes, would be the result.

Wes Craven presents a film written by his own son, and directed by a random guy, about several Dr. Frankensteins attempting​ to save a nearly dead man found nearby, at an underground facility in the middle of the nowhere. Six hyperbolic months later, ( because five months isn't enough time, but seven months is too long ) he then revives, genetically mutates, and runs amok in an underground facility, because those sets are cheaper to build.

If one is really curious to see what nearly became The Hills Have Eyes part III, just watch the first thirty minutes of this, then skip ahead to the last ten minutes, and you'll still get the full effect, and​ save yourself about forty-five minutes of boredom and repetition​. It's fairly easy for me to see this as a potential Hills Have Eyes part III, with Thor's character being the replacement for Pluto, or maybe even Mars.

The film has several endings, each more aggravating and tiresome