Vicious (2003)

Wonderful Movie

Good movie but grossly overrated

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Our government's idea of "field testing" a giant, scaly, fanged, genetically-created lizard creature is simply to let the damn thing run free in the New Jersey wilderness, where it can merrily munch on campers, fishermen and the citizens of the nearest small town. It is carefully contained behind a chain a three year old could get around with a hilarious "Do Not Enter" sign posted in front of it and is "supervised" by Kane (Tom Savini); a wild-eyed war vet who makes sure the creature has plenty of 'food' on hand. Kane lures people into the monster's clutches by giving them false information, ties people to trees, shoots them, snaps necks with his bare hands and runs people off the road to make sure his pal gets a square meal.In Washington D.C., corrupt Colonel Jim Hardwick (Marco St. John) and Mr. Wallace (Bill Moseley, who's awful!) discover 'Project Carnivore' is getting out of hand and they go all out to stomp out the threat by sending out a grand total of (ha!) TWO black-ops marines to snuff out both Savini and the beast. And surprise! Four young people also show up to hunt and fish and get stuck in the middle of all this. They consist of wise-ass Steve (Robert Pralgo), pudgy heavy-drinker Hal (Ted Huckabee), bug-eyed good guy Doug (Brian Bremer) and his very annoying girlfriend Barbara (Melanie Parker), who crashes the "guy's weekend" with her own set of stupid "rules" for the trip (No Beer!?). Additional monster fodder comes in the form of other campers (including Brinke Stevens, who's completely wasted in a tiny cameo), a couple in a car wreck (the woman goes crazy) and a redneck fisherman.Usually the reviews for this one are terrible, but overall I didn't think it was THAT bad. Most of the acting was OK, photography is pretty blurry (and I don't recall a movie off hand where everything was almost drowned out by the color green), story is too familiar but tolerable I guess... But when the monster finally shows up and you discover it is computer animated... Whoa, boy. It's the worst looking thing ever. I mean, those SciFi Channel original movies have way better sfx. They'd have been better off with a model mock up, which can be cheaply done and no matter how bad it looked it would have been more convincing than the terrible CGI seen here.

for 99 cents. The only reason why I purchased this movie is because it had Tom Savini on the package and it was 99 cents, how could you go wrong; Oh, it did. I took it home and put in my VHS player and about 90 mins later I was hating my self. The plot sounded like something that would include some gore. Vicious fell far from short. I'm not sure as to how you could even put out a movie like this. Sadly enough I'm sure I could have done a better job shooting this movie with one of those video camera where you have to pop in the VHS tape to record. I think the thing that made the movie even worse was the extremely crappy CGI monster. That thing was lamer than FDR's legs. All that I have left to say about this movie is don't purchase it, even if it is in the 99 cent VHS bin at Blockbuster.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*A monster is loose in the woods. It's yet another military experiment gone horribly wrong. This particular monster has Tom Savini as its handler. Four dolts head out into the woods for a compromised "Guy's weekend" and run afoul of this very cheap looking monster. More cheap shenanigans follow.There are many things wrong with "Vicious". For starters, Brinke Stevens is completely wasted in a ten second cameo. It should have been at least thirty seconds. The two commandos who hunt down Savini look like wimps that even I could beat up. Savini is in this movie as an ex-military man whose one character trait is smoking cigars. That's all he does. Another scene, another cigar. He has turned me off smoking cigars for life. Thanks Mr. Savini for the anti-smoking ad.On the plus side, "Vicious" does have a monster attacking idiots. The video box cover did not lie. It is an extremely cheap monster but a monster none the less. I was mildly entertained by it all. I don't know if it's worth renting but if you do take the plunge, it probably won't hurt you too much.

Cheap, and silly looking. The marines walk like drag queens! This is an illogical mess even for a horror film. So bad yet not bad in a funny way. Obvious that the classic genre cast (Tom Savini, Brinke Stevens) will do anything for a paycheck. The scenes with Bill Moseley look like they are from a different film or used to pad this bore out to even more painful minutes. I paid for an unreleased video copy, and now I know why it is unreleased! Don't get suckered like did. Avoid at all cost.