LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Cortechba Overrated

GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Scarecrow-88 A California motorist (Daryl Hannah, in the film for name recognition value) is on her way to Bangor passing through a stretch of Pennsylvania where the road leads through forest on both sides, when she comes across a frightened young woman (Leah Gibson) who seems to have been through an emotional roller coaster (and has blood on her). This shaken woman reveals her name to be Amy Singer and forewarns that something evil is lurking in the woods out to get them. Amy will provide a narrative for how all her friends wound up deceased to Carrie (Hannah) on their way to the next nearest town. The film opened with an ominous figure, dark and not easily recognizable, carrying a bloody machete, pursuing Amy, so immediately established is the Lurking Evil certain to pop up before the fade to black.Backstory: Amy and fellow Boston U students, majoring in Environmental Studies, can get an A if they collect soil samples and study an ancient Indian Burial Ground known as Arrowhead where coal miners (over 200) died in a mining disaster. What they encounter could be something monstrous, chained and hidden inside the barn of a sullen, greasy, rather creepy gas station attendant named Billy (Daniel Probert) who claims that many of the locals consider Arrowhead the "Devil's Playground". Amy doesn't forget this and is the only one of her group who treats him with a modicum of decency (the others toss around insults about him behind his back). The rest of the film follows the basic "city kids fall prey to backwoods psycho beast" plot.Disorienting camera-work, an editing style that doesn't allow for characters to be positioned in frame for more than a manner of seconds, and way too much time where the camera is right in the face of the actors (not to mention, too many shots of the sky and crows squawking) instead of following the action, "The Devil's Ground" doesn't have the technical merits to surpass the generic, "we've seen it all before" story-line. It is hard to react to a menace that is never established in a way that causes us to dread his presence, and the film fails to generate any creep factor whatsoever.Cheap and ugly, with few redeeming qualities at all, this film would remain buried in obscurity if not for Hannah's name in the credits. I hope you like Leah Gibson's face because we get plenty of it in close up throughout the movie. Even worse is the fact that this film has one too many endings (including a couple twists regarding Billy's family members revealed), none of them exactly worthwhile. Amy Singer's fate seems like an interesting twist if the film had ended with Hannah's discovering something peculiar about her passenger during the movie (the film goes back and forth between Singer's story and in the car with Hannah telling it), but the screenplay just doesn't know when to quit. Probert's scowl, worn on Billy's face exclusively, seems as if he were sucking on a sour lemon throughout his time on screen.

Claudio Carvalho While traveling from California to Bangor through a lonely road, Carrie Mitchel (Daryl Hannah) is advised by the gas station attendant Jimmy (Twan Holliday) to rest in a hotel; however, she decides to continue driving through the night. Later she almost hits the teenager Amy Singer (Leah Gibson) that is wandering on the road wounded with blood on her face. She gives a lift to Amy that tells that her friends from the Boston University Mike (Luke Camilleri), Greg (Jeb Beach), Tammy (Maria Gruending) and Lisa (Lee Tomaschefski) and she had traveled in a RV to Arrowhead to research the area as part of a discipline in their course. When they stopped in a gas station, the attendant Billy (Daniel Probert) advised them to avoid the place in Bradford City called "Devil's Playground" by the locals. While digging in an area where a mine collapsed on 19 December 1967 killing 239 coal miners, they find preserved bones that they believe belonged to the Indians. However, when they find teeth with golf fillings and a watch on the wrist of an arm, they realize that the deaths have recently occurred and they are in a dangerous location. "The Cycle" is another forgettable rip-off of an overworked genre that was successfully explored in "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", "The Hills Have Eyes", "Wrong Turn" and other sub-products of the slash. The plot point is silly and flawed, and abuses of the clichés. Daryl Hannah's character has minor participation along the story and surprisingly there are viewers that wrote good reviews of this flick. My vote is four.Title (Brazil): "Terra Maldita" ("Damned Land")

Aka_Who By no means groundbreaking, however The Cycle still manages to be a somewhat tense and rather entertaining film. The story is interesting and changes up enough to remain fresh all the way through. The acting was on the mark (even the over-actors you can't help but like) and the action did well to keep you on edge. The death scenes would have benefited from a little more attention as they are a bit on the tame side and over too quickly. Overall I don't see the film as being something that will stick with you long after viewing however it does provide for an entertaining viewing. I would recommend giving it a chance.

equazcion Daryl Hannah plays a relatively small role as Carrie, a motorist who picks up a mysterious girl (Leah Gibson) stranded on a backwoods road. The bulk of the story is told through flashbacks as the girl recounts her story to Carrie. It seems the girl and some fellow students were out on an environmental survey when they found themselves being hunted by an unknown assailant. The Cycle does an admirable job of hiding its own low budget. The directing is good, but moreover, the slick editing and detailed camera work give this film a well-produced look. The acting here is also decent enough. Unfortunately those assets don't quite succeed in saving The Cycle from B-movie status. What it can boast in looks, it dearly lacks in substance, due mainly to a poor script.The movie also feels long overall. When it eventually attempts to lazily incorporate sci-fi and supernatural elements, the audience is already past the point when they were primed to care.Ultimately, while well-made in many respects, it's not particularly entertaining or thought-provoking, so I can't recommend it. Although to be fair, it feels like the work of a good film maker who just needs a better script to work with.