I went to see this film because the director decided to use Esperanto in it, to some small degree. I can’t think of any better reason for anyone to see it.

Well, I saw Anaconda, and I can only say that, after a while, snakes — even big ones — get old.

If you wait for the final plot twist, you’ll lose your place in line at the cineplex rest room.

Expect no great literature here, but don’t expect to catch up on your sleep during the movie, either.

In this film, Rasputin is somehow still alive, and working to call back a bunch of Narsty Old Elder Gods With Big Tentacles from their imprisonment in space.

This is typical Bruce Campbell fare — not very significant, but fairly good comedy fare.

Prediction: few “legs” on this one, despite the collaboration of Shyamalan and the ever-popular Gibson. It’s a “TV movie” — i.e., what effects it has on the viewer will be as pronounced when he’s lying on his bed watching it on the tube as when he’s sitting in stadium seating watching it on the wide screen. Probably best to treat it as such.

It was an enjoyable and fast moving film — again in the tradition of the fictional British holding out indomitably against unspeakable odds.

When I think about it, all the films in this genre that I can remember seeing seem to have taken place in New York. Howcum Denver or Sacramento never suffer from Satanic visitations???

The trouble is, while Zemeckis imports certain Hitchcockian elements, he fails to import Hitchcock’s style.

I think that Washington Irving would have recognized this story.

Just.

There’s good, there’s evil, there’s plot, there’s climax, there’s denouement, there’s punishment and reward, there’s Heaven and Hell, there’s even a cameo appearance by an elderly Bruce Dern. What more could we ask for?

John Carpenter is, indeed, a name to conjure with, though what you may evoke when calling on that name is sometimes problematic.