TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Palaest recommended

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

hellholehorror Pretty gross and pretty average MST3K style b-movie horror. There is a big monster and it kills people. The monster is particularly horrible looking. It is still using ropey special effects like normal. Worth watching for Seth Green but Alfonso Ribeiro is just plain annoying. Story is silly. Effects are acceptable. Not scary or a classic but still worthy of viewing time for cheesy fun.

Chase_Witherspoon The woods are teeming with a mutant strain of ferocious ticks, bred on the cannabis residue from a massive hydroponics operation. Motley crew of kids and their counsellors become the menu when the ticks begin to hatch and hunt the local townsfolk. Geeky agoraphobic (Seth Green, pre "Austin Powers" fame) proves his inner mettle as the group battle to escape from the clutches of the over-sized parasites, and two local crooks intent on protecting their 'agricultural' interests.Competently handled and taut little time-filler with above average visual effects starts off a little slowly, but soon accelerates into over-drive with action and gore galore. Local weed weasel (Clint Howard) utters the immortal line (which is also this film's alternative title) as the rampaging critters course throughout this body, exiting via his face as he contends with a bear trap on his leg, and multiple self inflicted shot gun wounds. His painful-looking, prolonged writhing lasts well over half the length of the film, so his eventual demise must have been welcome relief.There's some sentimentality and character development interspersed, but it by no means inhibits the full-throttle approach by director Randel, demonstrating the value in containing arbitrary plot diversions and focusing on the core action. Picturesque scenery and pulsating music underscore the horror, while the stop-motion visual effects look impressive (if sometimes a little too paced). As you'd expect, each of the characters define themselves with various acts of heroics, in the process, restoring the confidence and self-image issues with which they arrived to take part in the retreat. Overall, it's an entertaining (if somewhat gruesome at times) way in which to spend an hour and twenty minutes, and save for a pedestrian first thirty minutes or so, should have you on the edge of your seat thereafter.

BakuryuuTyranno Yet another creature feature about people going out into the wilderness and getting slaughtered by creatures. Well actually in "Ticks" the characters are considerably less expendable compared to other horror movies.Unsurprisingly there's also a couple of human antagonists. It's unsurprising for today, actually, but considering we're talking about something produced before Anaconda this actually slightly innovative I presume.As expected there's a few ticks running about, ticks that are large compared with average ticks but aren't say, giant monster size. They also sometimes burrow into their victims, causing average encounters to be pretty gory.Pretty generic, but Carlton's actor of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" playing a street thug was pretty entertaining. "Ticks" isn't bad although it's nothing I'd recommend.

The_Void Insects make good horror movie material due to the fact that a lot of people are scared of them. There have been movies about giant spiders (Kingdom of the Spiders), scorpions (The Black Scorpion) and ants (Them!), and while ticks aren't exactly the most exciting insects around; their bloodsucking nature does make them a good subject for a film such as this. As you might expect considering the fact that this film was a direct to video release, most things about it aren't exactly brilliant. However, it's obvious that the most important thing about a film like this is the gore and Ticks certainly isn't lacking in that department! The story is obviously just a means to an end and sees a class of delinquents going out into the forest for some sort of moral building exercise. However, their little trip is interrupted by a bunch of bloodthirsty ticks that have grown to massive sizes because of chemicals put on weed plants to accelerate their growth. Unfortunately for the kids, the ticks' appetites have grown with them; and now they are on the menu...The film has a good basis for gore, as it's directed by Hellraiser 2 director Tony Randel (who also directed the less than impressive Children of the Night) and the executive producer is one Brian Yuzna, who every gore fan should recognise. The plot doesn't contain a lot of surprises, although it deserves some plaudits for staying interesting for most of the way through. The story progresses in the usual way for this sort of film - i.e. there are a few clues that something bad is going to happen, then bad things do happen and eventually everything gets out of control. The film doesn't pay a lot of respect to it's insect star as there aren't many references to real life ticks, but then again I didn't go into this movie expecting a natural history lesson. The cast is only notable for the fact that it stars a young Seth Green, although he really isn't that much of a highlight. Alfonso Ribeiro, who is more famous for playing Carlos in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, also makes an appearance (which is completely unlike his TV persona) though he is underused. The film ends well, though too many people survived for my liking, but all the same this is good fun and recommended.