TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Asad Almond A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

BA_Harrison The utterly diabolical Parasite AKA Hell's Mouth (a British movie, I'm rather ashamed to say) opens with an oil corporation clean-up crew on board an unconvincing CGI helicopter flying through an unconvincing CGI storm to an unconvincing CGI oil-rig in the middle of an unconvincing CGI North Sea where they are to test an experimental detergent. Unluckily for them, the spray affects the genetic make-up of strange, non-specific, worm-like creatures inhabiting the unconvincing CGI rig, transforming them into big, toothy and very unconvincing CGI monsters that prey on the humans—including a small band of eco-activists who try to take over the rig.An incredibly unimaginative creature-feature obviously inspired by Aliens but made on a fraction of that film's budget and with none of the talent, this uninspired mess is almost unwatchable, with zero tension, virtually no scares, but loads of interminable 'action' scenes that involve the characters crawling around air ducts pursued by the worms. After the unconvincing CGI monsters are burnt to a crisp as the unconvincing CGI oil-rig is destroyed by an unconvincing CGI explosion, the survivors escape in an unconvincing CGI capsule where they bob around as an unconvincing CGI sun rises over the unconvincing CGI sea.Director Andrew Prendergast desperately tries to alleviate boredom by chucking in a gratuitous shower scene in which the crew's sexy female mechanic (played by Margaret Thompson, who reminds me a bit of Juliette Lewis) saves water by sharing with two of her male colleagues, and by having sexy female scientist Dr. Christine Hansen (Saskia Gould) wear a tight white vest which gets ripped to reveal her midriff during the finale, but even this flash of female flesh cannot prevent Parasite from being a stupefyingly dull watch.

Paul Andrews Parasite is set in the North Sea where the decommissioned Johnny Alpha Oil Rig is about to be sunk, the company behind the rig Carmine Oil wants to test out a new cleaning enzyme which is supposed to dissolve oil & make it clean & safe to sink into the Ocean. A four man clean-up crew is sent in by helicopter, Jacob (G.W. Stevens), Nils (Gary Condes), Gary (Luka Spencer) & Kim (Margaret Thompson) get to work straight away & start spraying the rig with the highly experimental enzyme. Then the enzyme's creator Dr. Christine Hansen (Saskia Gould) turns up to oversee the cleaning & generally take notes. Unfortunately the enzyme has the unwanted side-effect of genetically mutating living organisms & as such a small parasitic worm like creature has grown to huge proportions & using the dark corridors & air vents lies in wait picking the crew off one-by-one...This British production was co-written, co-produced & directed by Andrew Prendergast & is a reasonable if very generic by-the-numbers 'Creature Feature'. I would probably say that Parasite is maybe just about above the usual Sci-Fi Channel made stuff standard but that's hardly any sort of recommendation. The script by Prendergast, Alan Coulson & Paul Mackman really is very generic & unoriginal as it uses all the 'Creature Feature' clichés & plot stand by's. There's the isolated location. There's the small group of humans who are trapped there. There's the usual mix of scientists & everyday people. There's the friction between several of them for varying reasons. There is some sort of animal or creature that is created due to genetic experiments gone wrong. There are lots of scenes of various character's wandering around dark corridors & air vents. That's about it, that's about all there is to Parasite. There's no attempt at trying to highlight a relevant issue, despite being set on an oil rig about to be sunk & the environmental implications that has nothing is made of it & even the revolutionary cleaning enzyme doesn't come to much. The character's are alright if a little dull, the dialogue is alright too but at over 90 odd minutes in length Parasite really drags at times with far too many scenes of people walking around near pitch black corridors or air vents & it gets very annoying.Director Prendergast does alright actually, Parasite is better made than most of the Sci-Fi Channel 'Creature Feature' stuff with good sets & some nice moody lighting although there are times when it is too dark. The CGI computer effects are a mixed bag, the actually giant monster which looks like a cross between a giant snake, a worm & a slug looks pretty good actually & is wisely kept in the shadows for the majority of the film but the other CGI is poor especially the helicopter shots at the start which look terrible. There's not much gore here which is a shame, someone has their head bitten off, there's a dead body with it's stomach ripped open & a few scenes of mutilated bodies with blood & guts splattered everywhere & bloody bones lying around. Parasite has the unwanted distinction of having the worst most unrealistic countdown in cinematic history. The last two surviving character's find out that the oil rig has escape pods but they need to activate the rigs power to launch them & once they get the power working the pods have a countdown before they are launched. At one point we see a computer screen which says there are 12 seconds left yet the woman is half way across the rig & over five minutes of actual screen time elapses including fighting & killing the monster, opening stuck doors, avoiding explosions & helping her injured friend before she gets to the pod which says there's still 3 seconds left!Technically the film is quite good, it has decent enough production values & is reasonably well made with tight claustrophobic sets & some nicely lit photography even if it is a little dark at times. Apparently shot in Oxfordshire here in England. The acting is alright from no-one I have ever seen before.Parasite is an utterly routine, predictable & generic 'Creature Feature' of the sort the Sci-Fi Channel churns out by the bucket load. Probably slightly better than usual but that's no great recommendation. Not to be confused with the much more well known Demi Moore horror flick Parasite (1982).

Lari-Fari Every now and then a buddy of mine and myself sit down with your usual set of junk food and watch a new piece of art from our favourite genre: mutant animal movies. Ahhh, mutant animals (read: bad cgi) hunting down a team of experts (some airheads) through a deserted, dark building (cheap studio sets)! You don't have much expectations with a premise like this. Normally, you'll get some splatter effects, gratuitous nudity and it really doesn't matter if you leave the TV for a minute to make room for more Pepsi. Mutant animal movies are stupid and fun to watch.Parasite is not.The film is about a deserted (of course) oil rig, that is supposed to be cleaned before sinking via a newly developed, uh... fog or something. Things go wrong, because the experts are a bunch of idiots. They simply IGNORE an official letter from their boss they find, where the exact mixing proportions for the cleaning substance are noted, next to a big, fat, biohazard – sign. They find the letter, they read it, and then put it away. Now, this IS stupid, and it has just begun. That biohazard stuff infects a worm or snake or whatever (couldn't tell due to bad cgi), which of course gets quiet big and start killing people, not only the team but also a bunch of environment protecting terrorists, who have no function in the story other than being snake/worm food.So far, so good (and I really don't care that it's cheap and stupid), but this movie is just lame. After the first five minutes of shaky DV camcorder footage, nothing, absolutely nothing happens for at least half an hour (and not much more afterward). It's all dialog that won't add to the story or the atmosphere or the characters or whatever. For a low budget film like Parasite, this is fatal, because without an evolving story that drags your attention (or at least some funny lines/gratuitous nudity/blood), the film gives you time to recognize its countless other flaws.Either the director had some ingenious plan that didn't work out in the editing room, or he just didn't care. They use close ups nearly all the time, leaving you confused of where everybody is and what the heck they're doing there. Almost as to compensate this, there are some exterior shots (cgi) edited into the movie every now and then, without system, obviously just to remember us of the fact that this takes place on an oil rig (frankly, you couldn't tell from the sets, which look much like my grandma's cellar).As I mentioned before, I really don't care if a monster movie's premise is stupid or if there are no production values – but I'm getting really annoyed if it isn't even mildly entertaining. For something entertaining you have to have a solid screenplay and/or a talented director, and Parasite loses at both tables. The film is full of scenes you might have seen in similar movies (so at least it fulfills some genre standards), but here those scenes are indiscriminately thrown into a mixer. The outcome is chaotic. Nothing you'll ever see has a dramatic function, no actions our "heroes" take make any sense at all, because there is no story. The whole film is nothing but a plot hole bigger than my butt.Put all those flaws together and you get 96 minutes of confusing nonsense that is practically unwatchable. We were neither drunk nor stoned nor tired and, as far as I can tell, we are not stupid, but from some point at about the middle of the film we simply did not understand what was going on anymore.Worst Creature Feature in years. (2/10, just for the fact that it had a mutant worm. Or snake.)

userray2305 I highly recommend this film.I wrote down the synopsis as I think it may be helpful:The costs of decommissioning an oilrig after its lifespan has ended are huge. Yoho Oil believes that it has found a solution that allows defunct rigs to be decommissioned safely by developing an enzyme that feeds off prevalent harmful commodities. A cleaning crew is assigned the task of spraying the Johnny Alpha rig with the enzyme. They have 24 hours to clean it and lay explosives that will release it from the seabed.The rig's interior is sprayed with the enzyme, but, in its depths the bacteria are reacting with the remains of the oilrig's dead cat and a breeding ground is forming fast.With the rig soon doused with bacteria, crew leader Hansen radios to the helicopter to pick them up. The reply comes back that a storm is approaching and there will be an overnight delay. Accustomed as they are to such setbacks, the crew makes the most of their situation and hold a party~ But something is moving in the lower bowels of the rig. Kim and Jacob go to the roof of the rig and are getting more intimately acquainted when they notice a stream of slime dripping from above them and hear screams from below. Carefully they make their way to the noise and are shocked by what they see! In the depths of the rig, there are giant parasites and they are growing rapidly, moving onto puddles of bacteria continually growing in size. Gio catches up with Kim and Jacob and they try to catch a vicious parasite but it spits acid in Gio's face. Kim goes for help as she recognizes this as the beginning of a mutation over which they have no control.The power suddenly runs down and the rig is cast into darkness. By torchlight the remaining group start to construct makeshift weapons out of the backpack tanks. Each carrying 'flame thrower' packs, they go to the generator room but discover that the cables that support the power have melted through in many different places and are covered in slime. Jacob slowly extends his hand towards the comer and touches something slimy and horrible.As he pulls back his hand his flesh bubbles painfully and he is hit in the face by a thick spray of acid. The parasites are certainly in control!There is just one way to be sure that all of the bugs are killed; the rig must be blown up. But where can the remaining team hide?If you like scary, suspenseful movies, you'll love PARASITE.