IslandGuru Who payed the critics

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Woodyanders A group of astronauts led by Joseph Shay (a nicely villainous portrayal by the always reliable Jonathan Banks) return from a failed space mission infected by lethal evil alien parasites that plan on destroying the human race. It's up to rugged Captain Nick Saxon (a solid and credible performance by Jack Scalia) to stop them before it's too late. Capably directed with considerable rip-roaring gusto by Richard Pepin, with a constant swift pace, a compact script by Richard Preston, Jr., several exciting well-staged action set pieces (the wild and explosive outbursts of vehicular carnage are especially stirring and impressive), fluid, agile cinematography by Ken Blakey, a few effectively gross moments of grisly splatter, engaging and well-developed main characters, a shuddery, rattling, rousing score by Louis Febre, and gnarly reptilian extraterrestrial monsters, this handy dandy multi-genre combo romp rates as a perfectly enjoyable and unpretentious serving of low-budget straight-to-video entertainment. The sturdy acting from a bang-up cast qualifies as another substantial asset: Scalia brings some depth and humanity to his tough guy part, Lance LeGault is his usual pleasingly nasty self as hard-nosed military bigwig Cutter, plus there's cool supporting turns by Felton Perry and Sal Landi as two of the infected astronauts, Robin Curtis as compassionate physician Marian, fetching blonde Donna W. Scott as Saxon's spunky ex-wife Deborah, Billy Maddox as Cutter's mean right-hand man North, Carlos Carrasco as the shrewd, likable Fox, Cindy Ambuehl as the feisty Burgess, and the ubiquitous George "Buck" Flower in one of his standard grubby old bum roles. A neat little flick.

wsmith-26 This is an Alien copycat that doesn't have scary monsters and the plot is mixed up. The astronauts inhabited by aliens for some reason are only inhabited part of the time. Why? I don't know and it doesn't matter. You know they are inhabited because they all of a sudden speak in a stupid computerized "scary" voice that isn't scary. The astronauts go places, but it doesn't matter. Then, they rip off the Terminator by having another alien that can kill them. By this time you are extremely bored and don't care. There are, however, lots of explosions. And there is the obligatory "man running away from large explosion just ahead of the leaping flames" scene. Yawn.

zeppo-2 Actually, things explode a lot! Much of the film's budget must have gone on explosives, cars explode, buildings explode, everything explodes at some point....The special effects are pretty well staged for a low-budget,straight to DVD/video but the plot gets a bit lost in all the smoke. And I couldn't help feeling there was a really good story trying hard to get out along the way. I would have preferred the film to concentrate on the characters a bit more rather than just sketching them as one dimensional stereotypes. The film was at it's most interesting when it went into 'conspiracy theory' territory.Sadly, most action films are judged on their special effects these days and if you want a film with lots of action, albeit it all a bit pointless at times, this will suit you fine.If there is ever Dark Breed 2, be nice to have more story and less explosions.

aloep *Mild spoilers*Back in the mid 90's, PM Entertainment put out a large number of highly entertaining straight to video action flicks. Producer Joseph Merhi usually also directed most of the standard action vehicles, while Richard Pepin would do the ones with a Sci-Fi theme (Cybertracker, The Sender, The Silencers etc.). Having really enjoyed The Silencers and both Cybertracker movies, I decided to give Dark Breed a go. It also had Jack Scalia in the lead, who did a fine job in his other movie with Richard Pepin, The Silencers.Dark Breed has all the usual elements of an entertaining actioner with a Sci Fi theme. Car chases, gun battles, explosions, the PM trademark of tons of glass breaking and this time, some very decent looking special effects for the time, especially for DTV material. So if you like that sort of stuff, what is there not to like? Looking at the credits, I noticed some of the people responsible for the FX went onto do FX in several big budgeted productions. It appears that Pepin has probably blown a large amount of the budget around that and not bothered to build a competent movie around it.The single biggest flaw about Dark Breed is basically the fact that it just isn't that interesting to watch. As previously mentioned, everything is there but what made the other PM movies so much fun all seems watered down or poorly handled. It all starts off well enough, with 2 young lovers in a car and a ship coming and landing in the lake beside them. The effects here are neat, and then we're treated to a reasonable chase scene where the "Alien parasites" hijack a truck carrying a mobile home with a good number of smashes and a big explosion at the end. However, it all goes downhill from there. The pace is sluggish, what is only 93 minutes long feels like much more. The cast seems to be completely lacking in any kind of enthusiasm, and just provides "Can I have my paycheque now?" performances. The gunfights are all very, very dull and the fact that they're all set among warehouses and wastegrounds doesn't help. About 45 minutes into the movie, we're treated to a car chase involving Jack Scalia being pulled along on a satellite dish by a van while being pursued by the villains. The camera angles are well done, the stunts are excellent and we're treated to some nice explosions involving a van and several cars. However, what mostly ruins this scene is the fact that the weather changes between each cut, at first the sun is shining, then the road appears wet at one point, then towards the end the sun is shining again. It's only a minor glitch, but one which could have been easily avoided and only cheapens the look of the movie.So you probably get the picture of what "Dark Breed" is like. It's not a bad movie, but when there's so many other movies which do similar, and do it better, I can't think of any reason to recommend Dark Breed. If you're going to see a PM movie, this isn't the one to start with. Try Executive Target, Rage or Last Man Standing. If you want one of their Sci-Fi themed movies, try The Silencers or CyberTracker. If Dark Breed is on TV, give it a go, just don't go out of your way to find it.