The Damned Thing (2006)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Purely Joyful Movie!

Load of rubbish!!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

So many movies Such small amounts of pleasure... Or perhaps the pleasure is just too spread out eh? Anywayzz; I really enjoy movies and shows like this one. They don't pretend to be anything more than what they are like a whole lot of flicks these days.(I don't trust trailers anymore, and no, not the kind with wheels). If you want reality i get it i really do, but i don't want reality when i sit down to watch a movie.(just me i guess) I just want to be entertained for a couple of hours, and to sort of remove myself for a bit eh. This flick let me do just that I AM HAPPY TO SAY! I enjoyed the actors and i liked the story which even made me giggle a few times as well!(shhh!) Here here, and jolly good shoooe, and all that! Enjoy your time at the movies!!(I did:-))

Much like many other commentators, I am a Bierce fan and was very much excited to see one of his stories put to film. Alas, like so many others who have abused the great early horror writers, Tobe Hooper and friends were unable to even approach the greatness of Bierce and his short story. In fact, the script had so little connection with Bierce's mini-masterpiece that I would have to say the creators of this film are guilty of name-dropping to sell the show. Perhaps what started out as an honest attempt to adapt the story somehow went wrong in the screenplay writing (which is mediocre at best, but has next to no connection with the original story) and they had no choice but see it through. That however is giving them the benefit of the doubt and then some.So about half way through the film, I realized my hope of seeing a Bierce story on screen was not to be and I had to un-suspend and then re-suspend my disbelief in order to wince through the rest of the movie. And I mean literally, I was wincing due to the pervasive flashy strobe light effects and the jittery jump shots that left me wondering if they were in the middle of a caffeine bender or if they edited it that way on purpose. Seriously, I felt at times as though I was watching a documentary about raves. The film did have some good moments, though few and far between. It's a decent little production if you factor in that they only had 10 days to film it, and if you aren't expected a film based on an Ambrose Bierce short story of the same name.

A young boy named Kevin Reddle sees his father go berserk and kill his mother and is then mauled and disemboweled himself. Years later, Kevin is the town sheriff and when similar incidents start happening around town, he must piece together the mystery before the evil consumes the town.Like season one's "Dance of the Dead" this is a story directed by Tobe Hooper and written by Richard Christian Matheson, adapted from a classic horror story (though this time from Ambrose Bierce rather than from Matheson's father). And also like season one, it is the least critically acclaimed episode in the season.I haven't read the Bierce story, but the elements here should be familiar: a town consumed by evil, an evil that returns every 24 years (not unlike Stephen King's 30 years from "It") and a son who must deal with his father's legacy. Some variations from other stories you may have seen, but the general idea remains unchanged. Even Sean Patrick Flannery (Kevin Reddle) reminds me of Nathan Fillion from "Slither" in his sheriff uniform.Where this episode shines is in the gore. While perhaps not as gory as "Jenifer", we have a man who smashes his own face with a hammer, a car accident victim with no legs and a man get visibly disemboweled before our eyes (not unlike what happened to Judas Iscariot probably).The acting is also decent. Flannery is respectable, the local reporter is well-casted, and Marisa Coughlan makes for a good female lead. (Viewers will recognize Coughlan as the female lead from either "Super Troopers" or "Freddy Got Fingered" -- this film is not as funny as either of them.) Really standing out is Ted Raimi as Father Tulli, in one of his bigger roles (and a much better one than in "Skinner" with Ricki Lake).Where the film fails, though, is the lack of a plot. In the first ten or fifteen minutes I thought I was watching a great film, but it fell deeper and deeper down the ranks as it went. By no means will I give away the ending, but I think it will leave you about as unsatisfied as you can possibly be. It is the only ending of a "Masters of Horror" episode I have really despised.I cannot say you need to watch this film. I would be hard pressed to say it is better or worse than "The Fair-Haired Child" or "Pick Me Up" (my two least favorites), but I can say this: Tobe Hooper is proving to the world over and over again that whatever magic he had, he lost a long time ago.

In season 1 of Masters of Horror, I really enjoyed John Landis episode (Deer Woman). It had great characters, mixed in with some comedy and a nice tongue in cheek plot. I warns;t to impressed with Tobe Hoopers first episode... but this one I really enjoyed...Sure when you boil it down the protagonist is a giant oil monster, but there's something really cool, about seeing normal be afraid for their loved ones, then lose their mind in a second, and try to kill them. It's somewhat reminiscent of George A. Romero's "The Crazies"........There were also two special treats in this movie, coming off a commercial break for beauty products (when I was watching this on TV) it went right into a scene where some guy takes a hammer to his own face.... Pretty Gory and entertaining.... Also seeing Ted Raimi as a Priest was entertaining as well