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A ripoff of Deliverance, also issued as
The Creeper, this film deals
with five doctors on a vacation in the wild, who happen to be discovered by a
crazed hermit, deformed by military quacks during wartime.
Listening in and discovering the crew of drunk campers to be medics, he
decides though totally unrelated to his personal problems, he should terrorize
then kill them one by one. Well, Deliverance
it is not, and while there are
some tense moments, especially near the end when one of the docs is being set
up to be burned alive, the whole affair is fairly predictable.
One of the few highpoints and actual funny moments in the movie comes not when
the medics are fighting their unseen nemesis or being knocked off, but when
they are drunk, dancing around a campfire and shouting "Doctor, put me
back together again, put me back together again, put me back together
again."
More than a good doctor is needed though, to save this plot and make it a horror
classic.
Holbrook is in his element in other projects and may even be great as a
supporting actor, but in the lead role - and that of hero, as in this movie - he
just does not translate well. Though he squares off with the maniac and his
brother/partner in crime with righteous fury, he just doesn't look like a
formidable foe.
review © by Dale Pierce
... and a second opinion by Mike Haberfelner ...
A quintet of doctors (Hal Holbrock, Lawrence Dane, Robin Gammell, Ken
James, Gary Reineke) go on a camping and fishing trip to somewhere in
backwoods USA, with virtually no contact to the outside world ... and the
first thing that happens is that their boots are gone. So one of them, DJ
(Gary Reineke), the only one equipped for the trip (he brought spare
shoes) goes off to look for help - or at least bring back some boots. The
other four though quickly realize they are being terrorized by someone or
something and decide to go after DJ - but this can bequite a dangerous
excursion if you a) don't have boots, b) are not used to the terrain and
c) are being terrorized. Soon enough, one (Ken James) is killed off by
wasps, one (Robin Gammell) gets his leg caught in an animal trap and has
to be carried on a stretcher the rest of the way, and the remaining two,
Harry (Hal Holbrook) and Mitzi (Lawrence Dane) fight pretty much all of
the time, until their friend on the stretcher dies on them.
Eventually, Harry and Mitzi reach their destination, a dam in the
middle of nowhere where they think they are able to get help ... but the
dam is deserted. But at least they find DJ - mounted on a sort of
scaffolding to resemble some kind of totem, horribly mutilated and almost
dead, so much so that HArry strangles him to put him out of his misery. This is too much for Mitzi,
who just heads off to wherever, while Harry decides to spend the night in
one of the houses near the dam ... and there he finds the missing boots
and suddenly realizes he has walked into a trap. Soon enough, too he is
attacked by an old man (Jack Creley), whom he stabs in self-defense - only
to then find out the old man is not his enemy, and attacked Harry only
because he is blind and thought Harry to be his son Matthew (Michael
Zenon), the actual baddie of the picture. Matthew was deformed by some
medics during wartime, and now he wants to exact his revenge on these
doctors, even if they are unrelated to his problems.
Soon enough, too, Matthew comes home, and he has brought Mitzi, whom he
burns in front of the house to scare the bullshit out of Harry - who can't
intervene because he has to treat a near fatal wound of his. Then though,
when Matthew goes one on one with Harry, Harry picks up a shotgun he has
found in the house and shoots him dead for good.
As a backwoods shocker very much in the vein of Deliverance
(mayhaps a little too much in the vein of Deliverance,
actually), Rituals is not a total loss, there are some quite
effective scenes in it. That said however, Rituals isn't really a
winner either, while some shocks are well-set, much of the time is taken
up by the main characters quarelling with each other, often about things
that are not in the least essential to the plot ... and this is not at all
helped by the fact that the characters are only poorly fleshed out and
invoke only little sympathy for them - basically because they are fighting
all the time.
All that said, the film might be entertaining enough if you've got
nothing better to do and decide to have a few beers with it, but don't
expect anything resembling a classic.
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Flix.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Rituals at adultvideouniverse.com
