Best movie ever!

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

If you watch this movie with any seriousness at all, you will suffer. If you watch it and try not to laugh, you may be surprisingly entertained. Try not to laugh at most of the death scenes. Try not to laugh at Ginty trying to act. Try not to laugh at abrupt and inappropriate jump cuts and transitional scenes, including the ending, that has sexy sax music played over it. If you watch it that way, as I did, by the Scarab, you will be entertained!

This bizarre Spanish horror yarn gets by through just being so darned unusual. Some inspired scenes of craziness had my jaw dropping on the floor, but at other times the film is so bad that it makes you want to laugh or fast-forward, depending on how funny you find bad movies to be. SCARAB is a film that walks a fine line between genius and silliness, but I think it pays off in the end as a fun viewing experience. You won't find many films like this around, that's for sure.Imported American lead Robert Ginty is the offbeat hero, an unlucky reporter whose persistence almost leads to his death. Now, Ginty is not like your usual action heroes (handsome, athletic, etc) yet he carved a niche for himself as a dependable lead in the '80s. He certainly attempts to invest his various characters with drive, determination, and emotion, and I admire his work, so his presence is a plus for me. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Rip Torn as the chief villain, a crazed cult leader who dresses in ancient robes and masks and does all sorts of weird things. Torn's hammy and unthreatening turn makes him one of the less memorable screen villains.The opening scene itself is a weird one, as a scientist who is experimenting on a scarab causes a god to appear (!) after dripping blood on the beetle. Here, the special effects take the form of negative images and the like, so you know that the effects men were imaginative but challenged when it comes to the budget. What follows is a series of cool suicide scenes in which various political/important figures suddenly snap and violently murder themselves, usually in front of an audience. These scenes unmistakably reminded me of the moment when the American Ambassador blows his own head off with a shotgun in OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT.In a nice touch reminiscent of an Italian gialli, Ginty finds himself pursuing a mysterious nurse through cobbled streets after seeing her at one of the public suicides. He is repeatedly stopped in his attempts. Meanwhile, interspersed with the thriller aspects are some dodgy scenes of writhing, naked women presided over by the deranged Torn, all taking place in weird expressionistic sets which mainly look cheap and nasty. After one woman begs Torn to be her lover, she turns into a sow and an evil laughing old woman apparition appears! You have to see it to believe it.After this point the film begins to make less and less sense. In a desperate attempt to meet up with the nurse, Ginty rides his motorbike on to a train (!) and finally joins forces with her to combat evil. They travel to the girl's house to have tea with her mother, who is then killed by masked assassins. Bizarrely, the girl shows absolutely no remorse - or indeed sadness - at the death of her mum, instead running off with Ginty to find Torn and his cult. Oh yeah, and she also has the power to heal people through touch alone (?).Well, this movie doesn't make ANY sense, but I enjoyed it anyway. There are some great visuals, like when Ginty and his companion encounter a street full of smoking corpses (I don't know what they were doing there but they looked cool all the same). Another cool scene has our heroes attacked by flaming arrows but repelling them through magic to explode the attackers. Ginty puts an egg in his beer and delivers one of his oddest performances yet. In the film's highlight in my opinion, he's nonchalantly walking down the street (wearing dated headphones no less) when he is attacked by an assailant who can blow things up and shoot bullets from his finger! Havoc ensues, and it's all very weird and cool to watch, even if I didn't understand what was going on.The supporting cast is a better-than-most one for a production filmed in Spain. For example we have stalwart Brit performer Donald Pickering popping up as a blackmailed banker, and the bug-eyed Marty Feldman lookalike Jose Lifante (from THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE) as an occult bookstore owner. Cristina Sanchez Pascual is the unusually heroic female lead and puts Ginty's weakling to shame! Although the probability is that you won't understand it, I enjoyed SCARAB for what its worth as an offbeat, very eccentric horror-cum-foreign adventure yarn. Worth checking out.

SCARAB handles some form of plot in which Rip Torn gets possessed by the spirit of an ancient evil Egyptian sorcerer and Robert Ginty, as a reporter with unorthodox ways, sets out to unravel the mystery. Exactly, who in his right mind would not give this movie a go? So let this count as a warning: Do not give in to the temptation to watch this film. You're mental health might never recover from it. I mean, look at me: I'm rating this grotesque, imbecilic, deranged, illogical, senseless, utterly unpredictable and completely incomprehensible drivel 8/10. But I'm doing better already, because I initially wanted to grant it 10/10 scarabs!I seriously doubt that anybody involved in the making of this film – especially the director – had any clue about what they were even trying to accomplish. SCARAB's ways are totally unfathomable, and that – in my humble opinion – defines its uniqueness in the field of film-making at its worst. So, Rip Torn – actually Khepera reincarnated – lives in some castle ruins up some mountain. His indoors day job seems to be going for world domination, using his inexplicable, magical ways, by sending out cursed scarabs to several political figures holding key-positions in the land who ultimately end up all committing suicide, because they simply go berserk. In his spare time Khepera seems to enjoy random surreal madness: Dancing around naked girls, holding sacrifices, toying with snakes, orchestrating mind-boggling special effects and – best of all – preparing to have sex with gorgeous Euro-babes who suddenly turn into some hideous female mermaid-pig monstrosity because some old ghostly hag (appearing on the right side of the screen for no apparent reason) has the power to do so. Then Rip"Khepera"Torn gets angry and spits white, foamy vomit at the old witch's face and... it's back to world domination for him the next day. Or at least that's what you think he's out for. But wait until you learn about his real motives, or more specifically: The one actual reason why he's making a complete mess of this movie. Of course it involves very fun things like incest, sacrificial slaying, naked dancing and whatnot's.Half of the fun comes from the things people say and do, like taking illogical actions or mumbling stupendous dialogues that don't make a lick of sense. So can you imagine how irrational some of the content and imagery of this film will be then? This is where the other half of the fun comes in. We got an old dude popping up on the streets at random moments, pointing his finger at Robert Ginty and then things just explode, catch fire, cars crash or bullets start flying around people's ears. There's a nun who turns out to be a witch – a good warlock actually, and if you don't believe that, I'll tell you something else – who teams up with Robert Ginty and turns out to be Rip Torn's daughter (that's where the incest comes in later on, folks). There's a rotating hotel door suddenly bursting into ghostly flames for no reason whatsoever with nobody around to see it happen. There's Robert Ginty driving his motorcycle straight into a train, only to go hang out at the bar with the mysterious witch/nun and deliver us some of the most horrendous acting of his entire career. And best of all, an entire ghost town gets introduced with dead people lying all over the main street and we have absolutely no idea how all of that suddenly happened... and then it's onto the next scene in which nun/witch goes to her mommy, introduces her to her new-found boyfriend Ginty, and they decide to get all drunk on Schnaps liquor, the three of them very much knowing that a demented Rip Torn is up there in his castle, somehow turning this world into some sort of demonic inferno. I mean, seriously, just merely try to imagine that. And the next day (What? No sex-scene? Oh right, Ginty was too drunk to *beep*), two of Khepera's minions turn up, shooting fiery arrows, mommy dearest bites the dust, we get a moronic display of good vs. evil magic and the whole place goes up in flames. Seeing is believing, I tell you. Go watch SCARAB.The climax – set in the castle ruins atop the mountain – includes Ginty strangling a demoniacally possessed female with evil eyes hanging upside down, a ridiculously staged bloody sword-fight between two guardians, incestuous insinuations between Rip Torn and his nun/witch daughter (both of them wearing hilariously cool make-up), Ginty in a coffin, some sacrificial ceremony with dazzling effects and... Christ, I can't go on with this anymore. This movie is insane. I need some time to recover. Ask me about it again next week, and hopefully it'll be down to 2 out of 10 scarabs for this one.

I would really like to enlighten you about the content and significance of the cheap early 80's Spanish/American horror movie "Scarab", but the truth is that I have no idea what the hell it was about or why it even exists. We've all seen numerous bad movies already, especially horror ones, but "Scarab" truly is the cherry on the cake. This film is imbecilic, dull, overlong, incomprehensible, nonsensical, incoherent, tacky and just plain downright pointless. Rip Torn, Agent Zed from "Men in Black", depicts some sort of deranged scientist who becomes obsessed with an Egyptian deity and reincarnates as him after an out-of-control scientific experiment. The plot description here indicates that Torn's character is a former Nazi, but I've seen no elements whatsoever hinting at that. As Khepara, the Egyptian God, he somehow manages that prominent and influential politicians from all over the world publicly commit suicide, but Khepara's main intentions are never clarified. Meanwhile, there's the dorky and wannabe irresistible reporter Murphy (Robert Ginty from B-trash flicks "The Exterminator", "White Fire" and "Warrior of the Wasteland") investigating the deaths and discovering a connection between the Scarab-murders and a beautiful blond girl who works as a voluntary nurse in a catholic clinic. She turns out to be the daughter of the lunatic scientist and teams with Murphy – after many embarrassing attempts to seduce her – to put an end to the horror. The painful thing about "Scarab" is having to admit that the basic plot and particularly the Egyptian gimmicks actually hold some potential. Director Steven- Charles Jaffe must have wanted to bring an adventurous Indiana Jones rip-off, with loads of archaeological scenery and palaver about ancient Gods, but the abominable script and inferior production values turned it into the umpteenth laughable and atrocious B-flick of the early 80's. The amount of "What the hell?!?" moments in this film is unfathomable. There's an old guy who points at stuff and subsequently they explode, numerous erotic Egyptian in which topless girls turn into hairy monsters and random images of a village where the inhabitants lay dead in the streets. Robert Ginty has probably always been an incredibly awful actor, but it was never as obvious as here since he's trying to play a heroic and eloquent leading character. "Scarab" doesn't contain any gore, sleaze or excitement that is worth mentioning. It's a retarded film that should remain as obscure as it is now, because not even mind- broadening drugs can make this enjoyable.