Reviews (1)

not bad, good acting
I found the movie somewhat over the top, as expected of any low-budget sci-fi. But the young actor Danny Hill I thought to be quit amazing in his role. He definately deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the small success of this film. He has a potential future in acting. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

HURT'S SO BAD
What is it with these enormously talented actors like JOHN HURT, who was so good in "The Elephant Man" and "Alien"? Why would he overact so shamelessly in this 1993 almost B-movie sci-fi thriller? His big finale scene is so over the top it makes Vincent Price look like a deflated balloon. Whereas Price knew just how far to go, Hurt takes his demonic villainous role and shoots it to the stars.
Otherwise, this pre-X-Files fantasy suffers from a ponderous script, slack direction, and not enough time with the alien. Bill Patton, who is always willing to be the true maverick anything, spars deftly with Lindsay Frost, and their comic timing helps the duller moments. I particularly liked Paul Ganus in his role as the bespectacled villain. Behind his corporate glasses, lurks a giant of a man, obviously beefcake material. However, when his moment comes, he is beat to a pulp by Paxton and then whines when he realizes an elevator is going to chop off his head. What made Ganus so interesting was the cool aplomb he displayed, and his bulky threat behind the Armani suits. Lou Gossett, Jr. tried hard, but his role became so stereotypical, it muted his performance. The scene on the skyscraper could have been more chilling, but back in the early nineties, CGI hadn't been introduced so it's obvious they're on a scrim with a blue screen behind them.
But heck, this is so much better than a lot of these films, it's worth a rental.

Cheesy Sci-Fi
This is a horrible movie. The plot is something about a killer alien that can't be stopped or something. We've seen this before. The stars of this movie no one has heard of and the dialogue was laughable. Watch the scene of the alien being chased in a hotel and laugh your head off. Don't see this movie unless u have 2.

The X-Files
Starring Bill Paxton as Tucker and Lindsay Frost as flint. It's about a couple of cops chasing an alien and the goverment wants to keep this alien buisness a secret. Looks like an episode straight out of the X-Files, but i belive it was made before the first episode of the X-Files was aired. Surprisingly one goverment men appears in the X-Files also. The guys who want to keep this alien buisness a secret have more clearence level than the president, but they have just a single woman security gaurd gaurding the enterance of their headquaters (?) at night (?+?), When the two cops tell her that she looks exactly like sigourney weaver (?+?+?) she lets them inside (?+?+?+?). Oh! what the heck why look for reality in a film about aliens. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

RIPPER OFF
John Eyres can't be totally blamed for directing this flick. The script must have seemed innovative and challenging at the time. However, I'm sure once he got into it, he must have been as disappointed as I was. The movie opens with a young girl (AJ Cook from Final Destination II) being pursued by a mysterious serial killer who has evidently wiped out all her friends. Five years later, Molly is taking a class in serial killers (do they really offer such stuff?). Her professor, the disturbingly sinister Kane (played with exquisite boredom by Bruce Payne), tells his class to think outside the box. Ho hum...but of course what happens is that this little group of serial killer students are being wiped out one by one. Enter Jurgon Prochnow in perhaps the most ridiculously funny performance ever given by someone who got rave reviews in DAS BOOT, and the plot sickens. Prochnow is so horribly bad, and whoever did his hair, well they certainly aren't touching mine!
This is also an incredibly sadistic movie, the murders being totally over the top; most of the film is shot so darkly you can't tell what's going on, and there's little redeeming qualities, except for a few tense scenes. The ending is so cryptic, you don't know what the heck really went on.
Could have, should have been better, but barely a decent time waster.

Failure every which way
If you are looking for a movie about the real life Jack the Ripper, this ain't it (one or more of the reviews below are obviously thinking that this movie was the From Hell movie starring Johnny Depp, which it definitely isn't).

If you are looking for a movie based upon some facts of the Jack the Ripper case but going off in a new direction, this isn't a good bet either. It's a typical low budget teen slasher with just enough loose mentions of the Ripper case so they could throw a name on it to catch all the people looking for the other movie. It basically steals the plot of Scream 2, replacing the nonsensical links to the first Scream movie with nonsensical links to the Jack the Ripper case.

If you are looking for a scary horror movie, this ain't it either. The characters are all idiots. For supposed top students in serial killer studies (that all look like teen models, right) none of them act in a way at all realistic for someone in their position. It's like basing a slasher movie at a music camp but with characters who can't play any musical instruments, except worse than that, because these people aren't just dumb for supposed serial killer experts, they make boneheaded mistakes that cheerleader characters in other movies are too smart to make. So right off the bat you couldn't care less if the characters die, which makes it hard to feel any horror. But then the movie manages to miss most every opportunity for suspense and instead makes fuzzy references to things that never appear onscreen but might have been interesting if they had.

If you are looking for a good cheesy teen slasher popcorn movie... nope, not here either. The ending is horribly muddled, the pace is bad, the dialogue is ridiculous, and the romantic or sexy parts they usually use to pad the storyline for those films are entirely absent.

And it doesn't even work as a movie so bad you watch to laugh at its unintentional jokes, because it's just not entertaining. It's not a "Hah hah hah. How stupid" kind of thing, more of a "What? They can't be serious, how lame."

There were a couple scenes and one or two actresses that might have been good in another movie, if only the people writing and producing it had picked what kind of film they wanted to create and then put a little effort into it.

STELAR RIPPER
The rating for this totally off by a thousand! This made jump quite a few times. This movie is not as scary as some other movies I have seen in the past. The other reviewers must have been half asleep when they watched this movie. Do not let the rating and the reviewers ratings discourage you. If you are a Jack the Ripper fan you will love this movie. The can be a little bit twisted,so you will have to pay close attention to the movie.

DONT WASTE YOUR TIME
what has happened to hollywood???!!!! why are films like this even alowed to be made, as if thats not enough its storyline is not even orininal it uses almost the exact same story as another thriller film, the only difference is that the other film is actually worth watching.

We've seen it all done before...and better at that!
I live in Holland. Though that doesn't have many advantages, sometimes straight-to-video fodder like RIPPER comes out over here months before it does in the States and that then gives me the oppertunity to cast my verdict a little earlier before any of you American horrorgeeks can.

Now, on to the movie...

The subtitle monicker LETTER FROM HELL may have this appear to be a cash in on the Johnny Depp/ Heather Graham movie, but don't be fooled. It is more in the SCREAM/ I KNOW WHAT YOU DID... vein.

And it isn't a very good movie.

The word 'rip-off' clearly comes to mind. Let me explain a little about the plot and you'll know what I mean. A girl is attacked by a serial killer who butchers her friends and she only narrowly escapes. Cut to 'five years later' and the girl is on campus where her criminology professor is giving a course on...you guessed it: serial killers. Before you can say 'haven't I seen this all before?' the killings have started and the girl and her classmates are the soon-to-be victims of a smart (?) killer who imitates (gasp) Jack the Ripper. So, from then on not only do these kids have to fear for their lives, they also have to find out who the killer is, in a very dull whodunnit subplot by the way.

Alas RIPPER should have been called RIPP-OFF but though there aren't many, I'd also like to name the good points of this movie.
Bruce Payne (as the professor) is a good actor. I like him. He's become a real B-movie regular (HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME anyone?) and it's too bad the heavy from PASSENGER 57 has ended up like this.
Next to him we also have Jurgen Prochnow hamming it up (but in an entertaining way) as a police detective on the trail of the killer, and English pin-up Kelly Brook as the bimbo/ slut student of the group. She really is gorgeous, but is killed off way too soon in the movie. Finally there's a little spark of energy in the finale and the revelation of the killer. I myself figured it out before that, but for you who don't; it shows that the writer of RIPPER isn't a complete knucklehead and hints at what this movie could have been...namely so much more.

In the meantime, if you wanna watch a good horror/ murder mystery I recommend a few Italian giallo's like DEEP RED and DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Man and the perfect killing machine
This bubblegum action thriller directed by John Eyres is clearly inspired by films like Die Hard, where a building is held hostage by terrorists. The twist here is that the head terrorist is a cyborg, a "perfect synthetic warrior" produced by the American's ATR, Advanced Technical Research unit (whose project explains the title). What this kind of genre pic needs is a simple narrative but the screenplay by Stephen Lister juggles too many plot elements - the President's daughter as the main hostage, the staff hostages of the hospital location, the cyborg, the FBI's defence, the ATR, and the lone intruder played by Martin Kove - and Eyres gives them all an equal lack of weight, with things not helped by the one note copy of Danny Elfman's Batman theme as music score from Gary Pinder. We get mercilessly bogged down with the antagonism between FBI Paul Koslo and ATR Joss Ackland, when we just want to get back to the building, and Koslo in particular is all bad haircut and swearing machismo. It helps that Kove has a self-deprecating humour and although they aren't given the material, he and Meg Foster as the President's daughter have a funny rapport. Lister provides two laugh lines - 1 being the cyborg's expression of threatened "raining hostages", and Kove re the cyborg "His stairs don't reach the attic". The cyborg is played by Frank Zagarino as a perfect gay icon - no body hair, peroxided, suntan, and gladiator chest - which kind of deflates the idea of him having a girlfriend or the attempt at romantic tension between he and Foster, though ironically Foster's unique eyes are creepier than his robotic ones. To create tension Eyres cross-cuts madly, uses crowd panic for the initial invasion, sets up that one hostage is killed who later reappears with the others, includes some bad rear projection, and doesn't forget the cliches of slow motion for climactic confrontations. Lister provides a redemptive sci fi payoff for the conclusion. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

IN THE ARMS OF ....
I take OCTOPUS for what I think its producers wanted: a corny, old-fashioned let's run from the giant monster movie. Sure, it's effects are no where near what a larger budget would have entailed. But, still, there are some pretty neat shots, especially of inky's mouth! Jay Harrington as Turner, is so inept and bungling, it had to be intended. How many times does the slippery terrorist slip away? And poor guy won't shoot a gun in cold blood? Remember---he's not a special agent..he's an analyst. David Beecroft as the demoted captain has a world-weary edge that gives his performance both a sharp and comic bend. And with all the crew going psycho after the octopus attack, it certainly lends credence to the government's psychological profiling attempts. The addition of the ocean liner as the climactic finish also bends convention wisely. And, hey, we had to let Turner be heroic at SOMETHING!!!
Corny but I had fun!

Can't believe it, but I actually liked this movie.
As schlock fans may have noticed, there have been a glut of straight-to-video creature features released the past few years. Most of them have been crap, some have been kind of fun, but without a doubt, Octopus is the most enjoyable of them all. Granted, this isn't saying much, but I'm almost to say this; I actually liked this movie quite a bit, and when it comes to the sea monster genre, the only movie of the past few years to have this beat is Deep Rising, so it's not surprising to see there are plot similarities between the two.

Both films feature a giant octopus and an oceanliner that's attacked by said animal. But the majority of Octopus is set on a submarine transporting a a dangerous terrorist named Casper (Ravil Issyanov). Playing his escort is Jay Harrington as young CIA agent Roy Turner. The captain of the sub, Shaw (David Beecroft), is a rather grizzled veteran, judging from his initially aloof and sarcastic demeanor. Given the movie's title, it's no surprise to see that the sub will be attacked by a giant sea creature and massive chaos will ensue.

For what it is, Octopus is a pleasant gem. This is a monster movie with plenty of action, suspense, humor, and even likeable lead characters. Now how often can you say that about a STV release? Oh, certainly, it's not without its flaws. The story's about as silly as you'd expect and the final scenes defy logic, but it's all in good fun. Really, the only things about the movie that truly bothered me were some of the sets, which are given a cheesy-looking green lighting, which is something that's always been a pet peeve of mine.

From an action point-of-view, director John Eyres does a fine job, given obvious budgetary restraints. The opening chase/shootout delivers quite a few large-scale explosions and flipping cars, though Eyres does shake the camera during this scene too much for my tastes. The rest of the action's even more relentless, with more fun gunplay, shaking sets, and an exhilarating finale set onboard a cruise, an elaborate setpiece involving not only a large ship, but also a helicopter and a submersible.

Once the mayhem begins, there's almost no point of let-up. So it's a good thing the cast has a good sense of chemistry that makes them rather endearing, with nice, unforced humor that's good for some belly laughs. Faring the best are Jay Harringotn as the inexperienced CIA agent and David Beecroft as the grizzled captain, a mismatched pair that grows on you. Rounding it out as a trio is Carolyn Lowery as an enthusiastic oceanographer. Oh, she's hot, too, and almost a dead-on for a young Virginia Madsen (and does anyone else find it amusing Lowery was also in Candyman, as Madsen's rival?)

Most of the special effects and sets are really quite good, so long as you remember that is was probably shot on a low budget without any major players. The monster is the kind of effects work that you know is obviously CGI, but gets more of the "that's pretty cool" response than unintentional laughter. Hey, by the time I saw the tentacles wrapping around an oceanliner, threatening to drag into the sea, I was completely won over.

Octopus isn't the kind of movie that will any major awards, but it's a fun, unpretentious way to spend 100 minutes. The winning mix of action, adventure, and horror adds up to excitement that not even some big-budget blockbusters could compete with.
*** 1/2 out of *****

A good movie
In Octpus a nuclear submarine care toxic chemicals is ground at the botttom of the sea. The radiaoctive materials in to the ocean mutate octupus. That grow to godzilla sized porportins.

This move in my opion is a mondern day version of peter Benchly class movie the Beast. Thilled with action, gore and adventure. Rate R for gore bad language and violence. The CIA gut is histirical. If you like thise she action packed octpusus 2.

BRILL
THIS MOVIE IS GREAT GOOD SPECIAL EFFECTS GOOD ACTION GOOD PLOT MUST BUY NOW
P.S SEQUEL IS POOR CASH IN NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS ONE

8 Arms of Awesome Action!
Incredible action! Incredible characters! Incredible effects! Incredible octopus! Incredible plot! Incredible villain! Incredible ending! Incredible movie!

Those are the top 8 incredible reason to love OCTOPUS! Do the Rock-topus, baby! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

not bad, good acting
I found the movie somewhat over the top, as expected of any low-budget sci-fi. But the young actor Danny Hill I thought to be quit amazing in his role. He definately deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the small success of this film. He has a potential future in acting. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

conspriacy of fear
I watched conspiracy of fear today...Although the plot and story line of the movie are good and Mr. Davies acting was great...He is a very believeble bad guy!!! The problem with the movie is the filthy language and the hooker and her John getting it on in the hall way...I wish hollywood would hire some writers who can write dialog instead of filling in with profanity because they can't write...I know there are people who talk like that on a dailey basis, but I also know there are people who don't...I would not recommend letting kids watch this movie, but for adults it is a good thriller...

Delightfully scary
This is a teriffic movie. Geraint Wyn Davies is a bad guy who just doesn't quit... For anyone who loves children it will make you wonder how you will even make it through the elevator scene.
I highly recommend this to anyone who likes non-stop thrills. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

the pits!
I gave up trying to figure out what was happening in this dimly lit, barely watchable exercise in lunacy. David keith portrays a psychopathic killer who returns from the dead. Can you guess what he does? Yeah, you're right. he goes right after those old mean people who were responsible for putting out his lights. I think I've seen this plot device since the days of Lon Chaney silents. At least from a couple of hundred Boris Karloff back-from-the-dead B movies. Nothing makes any sense. the characters are so repulsive and slimy--even the victims--that you care for none of them. this flick is only for those who are desperate.

Thomas Ian Nicholas makes it interesting
This is a bad horror flick. But I'll give it two stars,just because Thomas Ian Nicholas is in the cast. He is a terrific actor,and always gives a good performance ... Read more

Reviews (2)

the pits!
I gave up trying to figure out what was happening in this dimly lit, barely watchable exercise in lunacy. David keith portrays a psychopathic killer who returns from the dead. Can you guess what he does? Yeah, you're right. he goes right after those old mean people who were responsible for putting out his lights. I think I've seen this plot device since the days of Lon Chaney silents. At least from a couple of hundred Boris Karloff back-from-the-dead B movies. Nothing makes any sense. the characters are so repulsive and slimy--even the victims--that you care for none of them. this flick is only for those who are desperate.

Thomas Ian Nicholas makes it interesting
This is a bad horror flick. But I'll give it two stars,just because Thomas Ian Nicholas is in the cast. He is a terrific actor,and always gives a good performance ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Sci-fi action adventure at it's best Aliens meet Terminator
This has got to be the best and the most funniest action adventure sci fi I had ever seen. I'd seen it over 5 times and I still love every moment of it. It's scary, funny, and it has alot of pulse pounding action. The Bad guy robot was very scary It has all the elements like action and suspense that makes it all worth the watch.
It's definitely like Alien meets Terminator.
Very good movie.

Dreadful
I recently saw this film on one of the Cinemax channels a while ago,and I must say,that this film is very,very bad.It's so bad in fact,I don't think it should get any stars.First off,what the hell is up with the acting? It's some of the worst I've EVER seen! It's so bad,it makes Madonna's acting look like it should win an academy award.The acting is absolutely terrible.Second,the photography SUCKS.I don't know what kind of camera the film makers used.The lighting is awful too.And third,the script is seriously padded,along with the storyline and plot,which did not make ANY sense whatsoever.Flat and extremely unimaginative.Now, the film DOES have it's good points,the special FX and gore galore being the best features,but all in all,there really isn't much to recommend here. I never saw Project-Shadowchaser 1-2,but they can't be any worse than this.Avoid,avoid,avoid.Rated R-contains gory sci-fi violence and strong language. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

RIPPER OFF
John Eyres can't be totally blamed for directing this flick. The script must have seemed innovative and challenging at the time. However, I'm sure once he got into it, he must have been as disappointed as I was. The movie opens with a young girl (AJ Cook from Final Destination II) being pursued by a mysterious serial killer who has evidently wiped out all her friends. Five years later, Molly is taking a class in serial killers (do they really offer such stuff?). Her professor, the disturbingly sinister Kane (played with exquisite boredom by Bruce Payne), tells his class to think outside the box. Ho hum...but of course what happens is that this little group of serial killer students are being wiped out one by one. Enter Jurgon Prochnow in perhaps the most ridiculously funny performance ever given by someone who got rave reviews in DAS BOOT, and the plot sickens. Prochnow is so horribly bad, and whoever did his hair, well they certainly aren't touching mine!
This is also an incredibly sadistic movie, the murders being totally over the top; most of the film is shot so darkly you can't tell what's going on, and there's little redeeming qualities, except for a few tense scenes. The ending is so cryptic, you don't know what the heck really went on.
Could have, should have been better, but barely a decent time waster.

Failure every which way
If you are looking for a movie about the real life Jack the Ripper, this ain't it (one or more of the reviews below are obviously thinking that this movie was the From Hell movie starring Johnny Depp, which it definitely isn't).

If you are looking for a movie based upon some facts of the Jack the Ripper case but going off in a new direction, this isn't a good bet either. It's a typical low budget teen slasher with just enough loose mentions of the Ripper case so they could throw a name on it to catch all the people looking for the other movie. It basically steals the plot of Scream 2, replacing the nonsensical links to the first Scream movie with nonsensical links to the Jack the Ripper case.

If you are looking for a scary horror movie, this ain't it either. The characters are all idiots. For supposed top students in serial killer studies (that all look like teen models, right) none of them act in a way at all realistic for someone in their position. It's like basing a slasher movie at a music camp but with characters who can't play any musical instruments, except worse than that, because these people aren't just dumb for supposed serial killer experts, they make boneheaded mistakes that cheerleader characters in other movies are too smart to make. So right off the bat you couldn't care less if the characters die, which makes it hard to feel any horror. But then the movie manages to miss most every opportunity for suspense and instead makes fuzzy references to things that never appear onscreen but might have been interesting if they had.

If you are looking for a good cheesy teen slasher popcorn movie... nope, not here either. The ending is horribly muddled, the pace is bad, the dialogue is ridiculous, and the romantic or sexy parts they usually use to pad the storyline for those films are entirely absent.

And it doesn't even work as a movie so bad you watch to laugh at its unintentional jokes, because it's just not entertaining. It's not a "Hah hah hah. How stupid" kind of thing, more of a "What? They can't be serious, how lame."

There were a couple scenes and one or two actresses that might have been good in another movie, if only the people writing and producing it had picked what kind of film they wanted to create and then put a little effort into it.

STELAR RIPPER
The rating for this totally off by a thousand! This made jump quite a few times. This movie is not as scary as some other movies I have seen in the past. The other reviewers must have been half asleep when they watched this movie. Do not let the rating and the reviewers ratings discourage you. If you are a Jack the Ripper fan you will love this movie. The can be a little bit twisted,so you will have to pay close attention to the movie.

DONT WASTE YOUR TIME
what has happened to hollywood???!!!! why are films like this even alowed to be made, as if thats not enough its storyline is not even orininal it uses almost the exact same story as another thriller film, the only difference is that the other film is actually worth watching.

We've seen it all done before...and better at that!
I live in Holland. Though that doesn't have many advantages, sometimes straight-to-video fodder like RIPPER comes out over here months before it does in the States and that then gives me the oppertunity to cast my verdict a little earlier before any of you American horrorgeeks can.

Now, on to the movie...

The subtitle monicker LETTER FROM HELL may have this appear to be a cash in on the Johnny Depp/ Heather Graham movie, but don't be fooled. It is more in the SCREAM/ I KNOW WHAT YOU DID... vein.

And it isn't a very good movie.

The word 'rip-off' clearly comes to mind. Let me explain a little about the plot and you'll know what I mean. A girl is attacked by a serial killer who butchers her friends and she only narrowly escapes. Cut to 'five years later' and the girl is on campus where her criminology professor is giving a course on...you guessed it: serial killers. Before you can say 'haven't I seen this all before?' the killings have started and the girl and her classmates are the soon-to-be victims of a smart (?) killer who imitates (gasp) Jack the Ripper. So, from then on not only do these kids have to fear for their lives, they also have to find out who the killer is, in a very dull whodunnit subplot by the way.

Alas RIPPER should have been called RIPP-OFF but though there aren't many, I'd also like to name the good points of this movie.
Bruce Payne (as the professor) is a good actor. I like him. He's become a real B-movie regular (HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME anyone?) and it's too bad the heavy from PASSENGER 57 has ended up like this.
Next to him we also have Jurgen Prochnow hamming it up (but in an entertaining way) as a police detective on the trail of the killer, and English pin-up Kelly Brook as the bimbo/ slut student of the group. She really is gorgeous, but is killed off way too soon in the movie. Finally there's a little spark of energy in the finale and the revelation of the killer. I myself figured it out before that, but for you who don't; it shows that the writer of RIPPER isn't a complete knucklehead and hints at what this movie could have been...namely so much more.

In the meantime, if you wanna watch a good horror/ murder mystery I recommend a few Italian giallo's like DEEP RED and DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

the pits!
I gave up trying to figure out what was happening in this dimly lit, barely watchable exercise in lunacy. David keith portrays a psychopathic killer who returns from the dead. Can you guess what he does? Yeah, you're right. he goes right after those old mean people who were responsible for putting out his lights. I think I've seen this plot device since the days of Lon Chaney silents. At least from a couple of hundred Boris Karloff back-from-the-dead B movies. Nothing makes any sense. the characters are so repulsive and slimy--even the victims--that you care for none of them. this flick is only for those who are desperate.

Thomas Ian Nicholas makes it interesting
This is a bad horror flick. But I'll give it two stars,just because Thomas Ian Nicholas is in the cast. He is a terrific actor,and always gives a good performance ... Read more

Reviews (2)

conspriacy of fear
I watched conspiracy of fear today...Although the plot and story line of the movie are good and Mr. Davies acting was great...He is a very believeble bad guy!!! The problem with the movie is the filthy language and the hooker and her John getting it on in the hall way...I wish hollywood would hire some writers who can write dialog instead of filling in with profanity because they can't write...I know there are people who talk like that on a dailey basis, but I also know there are people who don't...I would not recommend letting kids watch this movie, but for adults it is a good thriller...

Delightfully scary
This is a teriffic movie. Geraint Wyn Davies is a bad guy who just doesn't quit... For anyone who loves children it will make you wonder how you will even make it through the elevator scene.
I highly recommend this to anyone who likes non-stop thrills. ... Read more