Just so...so bad

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The B movie studio Nu Image has made some good direct to video movies over the years. Unfortunately, "Skeleton Man" is not one of them. In fact, I think that this could be the worst effort to date that's come out of the company. For starters, it looks really cheap. Everything about the movie looks real tacky, especially the title monster, which looks like it was put together from Halloween product offered at a dollar store. The characters are just as unengaging - there is precious little development done with these people. They are simply bait for the monster. The movie is also badly directed. It's slow and endless, and the, ahem, horror sequences have absolutely no shocks or even serviceable splatter. But I think the worst thing about the movie is that there is NO real explanation for why the title figure has appeared and why it's doing what it's doing. Does it have to do with the archaeological dig mentioned in the first scene? Does it have to do with the Native American the team finds in the woods at one point? It's never made clear. This movie is junk in every way you can think of. If it had been unintentionally funny, there might have been a reason to see it, but this is one bad movie that's so bad it's bad.

In an unspecified wilderness of the American West, the spirit of an Indian goes hunting for humans. Years before he wiped out in a fit of madness and its trunk is now back to demand more of life. After two archaeologists and a team of military his sword (!) Have fallen victim to be an undercover team of Special Forces, led by Captain Leary (Michael Rooker) and Staff Sgt Oberron (Casper Van Dien) charged with the murder to put an end to ...It is completely funny film. Don't take it seriously. Never take such a film seriously... I mean come on, even the title is ridiculous. I mean sure if you are one of those people who don't see the point in B-type horror or other films like this then this is not for you. Can't blame you... but even if America has brought us shitty wars, then this is their better side the not so serious. I mean what are the actors thinking? How can they do their roles in such seriousness when the Skeleton Man enters... I sure couldn't could you?

There are two kinds of bad films. There are bad films that are so incredibly ghastly that they are quite entertaining in their very awfulness. And then there are bad films that are merely substandard in a decidedly blah sort of way and hence aren't even remotely amusing and/or enjoyable in their exceptional crumminess. This steaming pile of sheer celluloid excrement about an elite army commando squad running afoul of some deadly mythical Native American bogeyman called Cotton Mouth Joe in the remote wilderness falls into the latter category of bad film. This abysmal junk strikes out something rotten in every possible way: the flat (mis)direction by Johnny Martin, draggy pace, idiotic and nonsensical script by Frederick Bailey (in one especially ridiculous sequence Cotton Mouth Joe butchers a bunch of folks in a power plant), cardboard characters, mostly insipid acting by an understandably unenthused cast, annoying shuddery score by Chris White, the lousy (far from) special effects, tacky gore, badly staged action scenes, a crippling dearth of tension, a few clumsy flashbacks, tin-eared dialogue ("I don't wanna die, man -- I wanna go home!"), a by-the-numbers obvious and predictable plot which shamelessly copies the much superior "Predator," and a titular spectral killer who looks like he's wearing a chintzy Grim Reaper costume that was purchased for five bucks at a K-Mart Halloween firesale all add up to one extremely shoddy dud that reeks worse than dirty old socks. The always dependable Michael Rooker tries hard as tough squad leader Captain Leary, but even he can't rise above the teeming tidal wave of sludge. Poor Casper Van Dien gets saddled with a terribly underdeveloped role as the laconic Staff Sergeant Oberon and veteran character actor Robert Miano is wasted in a nothing bit part as a crazy old blind Indian dude. Only Richard Briglia's slick cinematography shows a modicum of competence. Absolute dreck.

I loved it! I mean, hippies as soldiers: brilliant! Covert indeed.Seriously, this movie had just enough explosions, gore and cheesy plot to satisfy any B horror movie fanatic.My only complaints are that the most badass and hottest chick died first, while the prissy girly girl lived, and we never got to see skeletor's bones scatter everywhere, camera focusing on that one bone that ends up growing into a skeletor tree foreshadowing certain doom for any imbecile who chooses to hike the Appalachians in the future.Also, I couldn't stop from shouting: "use your gravity gun" when the dude was trying to pull out the giant plug toward the end. That, and the lack of crowbars around the wooden crates made me antsy.Great flic! So lucky it was cheap so I can watch it over and over.