Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Awesome Movie

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Though it has its faults, this movie has several core messages that make it work as a horror film. First, environmentalism: Showing how the disposal of nuclear material can negatively affect the world Second, the philosophical question of the innocence of children: The monster in this movie is just a mutated child who has little to no control over their actions, which brings into question the ethical validity of killing them/.

One year after the release of Wes Craven's "Swamp Thing" and a year before "The Toxic Avenger", "The Being" hit the screens in the US. This is a film that shares elements with both of them, but also reminds me somehow of "Lake Placid", albeit without much of the latter's intelligence or humour. In Jackie Kong's directorial debut, which was in fact shot three years before its cinema release, a small and peaceful town in the middle of nowhere (okay, Idaho) is overrun by destructive monsters spawned from irresponsibility (remember, this is years before "Gremlins", too), and it's up to the local lawman to save the day. Woefully unprepared, he sets out.This film is unusual in that it attracted semi-major names (Martin Landau, Jose Ferrer, Ruth Buzzi and Dorothy Malone)to a project that clearly had no budget – no special effects, lousy sound and a script that has little to offer the actors or the audience. It's not a good film at all, but I feel somewhat protective of it – despite the lousy sets, the repetitive action and one of the most wooden leading men (Bill Osco)of all B movies. It's a taste of what average and sub-average horror flicks are still like (such as "Pinata: Survival Island" or "The Relic"), and yet there's this element of parody that is never more than an inch below the surface. Take, for instance, how everyone rolls around in passionate hugs with the attacking monsters, animating them with their own victim-flailing. It's both pathetic and hilarious. But that humour is not sustained, or developed.So why do I like it? Perhaps because it might be that, more than anything, this was the picture that best prepared Martin Landau for his exceptional role in "Ed Wood". After all, this was a movie Ed would have loved.

The only reason I checked out this film and bought it on VHS is because I saw a poster for it in The Monster Squad. I thought that it was going to be really good, but no was I highly wrong. One of the worst 80's horrors I have ever seen. You don't see the monster enough, and when you do all your pretty much see is it's mouth or arms. The acting was very weak, the people didn't even seem like they were trying. Some of the gore was alright in this, but this was just a big let-down of a monster horror film. I found myself getting very bored when the same monster attack kept happening over and over again, and the victim always had the same reaction. There's some strange dream sequence at one point, that was so pointless and stupid and really didn't need to be in the film. A very bad disappointing 80's horror, that I really thought was going to be good. If you're ever thinking about watching this film don't bother!

One eyed blob monster, a product of the usual toxic waste dumping(..as mayor José Ferrer put it so adequately, Pottsville was chosen by Industrial governmental scientist Martin Landau as "the most sophisticated dump site in the country."), with slobbery sharp teeth and terribly sensitive to light, attack the locals by wrapping it's lizard tongue around their throats, whisking them out of the camera frame. Sheriff Bill Osco, who dresses like a truck driver, even when at the town station, is to the rescue, ready to kill the monster if he doesn't bore him to death first with his non-performance and monotone voice. The blob monster could very well be the son of a haggard Dorothy Malone. Meanwhile Mayor Ferrer's wife Ruth Buzzi is having Easter egg hunts with the children, holding rallies against the new massage parlor coming to town supposedly advocating an arrival of filth to the community, and holding an opera within her home for a gathering of town folk. Marianne Gordon, who seems to escape the embarrassment in a low-key performance as a waitress and possible love-interest to Osco(..why she'd even be interested in someone as lively as a block of wood is anyone's guess), will be the woman in peril who would eventually walk Malone home and never be seen in the film again.Now, to take a moment to talk about Landau. I think we can use "The Being" as an educational tool on how a prominent actor, at the very bottom of his career starring in this cinematic equivalent of a toilet bowl with fresh smelly turds, can rise from the ashes like a Phoenix thanks to two directors, Woody Allen(..in probably the finest performance of his career, "Crimes and Misdemeanors")& Tim Burton("Ed Wood"). I actually think Ferrer, last seen in this film driving off, quite wasted and frightened after seeing the blob monster, plays his role a bit tongue-in-cheek as a constantly annoyed Mayor who just wants to grow his potatoes and make his little town a wealthy place to earn a spot in Washington. Buzzi, is and always will be, Buzzi..she is the busybody always organizing something, and is aggravating as ever. I imagine that those still populating drive-ins as this flick came out(..I'm guessing, temporarily)probably cheered when Buzzi was on her way out of the picture. I think Dorothy Malone is a sex icon thanks to her work with Douglas Sirk, specifically her delicious nymphomaniac in "Written in the Wind", but is handed a terribly thankless(..practically meaningless, if the script hadn't made her son the one effected by the toxic waste) role in this steaming pile.On Jackie Kong's directorial decisions come a narrative voice at the opening after a radio DJ tells us about rain showers and thunderstorms moving into the area, prophetically announces doom to the little town of Pottsville, Idaho. She also gives us a run-down at what the surviving characters did with their lives after the incident at Pottsville is over. The climactic showdown between the hilarious monster and Osco should earn some good laughs. This hunk of excrement will probably work the best for fans of rancid schlock. I did find the drive-in sequence near the beginning pretty fun..the movie playing equals "The Being" in quality which I find irony in. There's an attack scene where the monster, in gelatinous form, oozes from the air conditioning vents and radio to somehow kill a couple making out. It also puts an arm through a deputy holding his heart. Most victims, though, are pulled away by the thing. Best kill is probably the poor kid who tries to escape the monster getting his head removed.