Truly Dreadful Film

Really Surprised!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Is Jim Wynorski kidding us? This is so bad, that calling it a "B" movie, insults the genre. If there is such a category, this is definitely a "Z" movie, and not in a way that it's so bad, it's good, either. Most of those "guilty pleasures" films are at least comical. This is so inane, you can't even laugh, because you're stunned at the lack of everything that makes a film worth making and watching. First, the casting is atrocious, not a fledgling actor among the whole lot of them. Some casting agent must be banging soft-core porn actress, Glori Ann Gilbert, for her to have been cast, as she may possibly be the worst, most dimwitted actress of all time. Just peruse her filmography on IMDb and you'll get the picture. Perhaps "Curse of the Komodo" was a 3-fer picture deal with "The Breastford Wives" and "The Witches of Breastwick" and that's why it's so awful. Second, the dialog is silly, smarmy, exaggerated, ridiculous, etc. I could go on for days with adjectives describing how deficient it is. The writer must really harbor contempt for the audience, since this is possibly the most moronic dialog, I've ever heard. Third, speaking of deficient, how about the plot? What plot? What little there is isn't even good enough to be cliché sci-fi/horror flick plot. Here's an example of the nonsense. As the genetically engineered, giant Komodo dragon looms over the group of characters, one character says "he can smell us, but he can't see us. We're too close." Then then female lead runs away from the group, and the dragon. Apparently she's not bright enough to run to safety. This bimbo runs just far enough away so that the dragon can see her, and she's backed up to a tree, with nowhere else to go. Then she cowers down against the tree as though she's thinking "if I make myself very small, the monster won't eat me". She jumps out of the frying pan into the fire! Then she worsens the situation by shooting at the dragon with a pea shooter, annoying him. How clever, and we're supposed to believe this woman is the type who can survive a situation like this? One of the characters is bitten by the Komodo and left for dead by the group. He pops up later, after having morphed into cannibalistic, reptile brained zombie ala "Dawn of the Dead", "28 Days Later" and "Resident Evil". He jumps out, makes them pee their pants, and they shoot him all to hell. Finally, the end really ticked me off, because it made it glaringly apparent that the writers didn't do their research, on the species they were exploiting in the film. In the finale, just as the last characters think they have escaped, and are on the beach awaiting their rescue transport, a gang of Komodos come toward them, THE END. Hello? Komodos are solitary creatures, they track prey by scent for days, ALONE! They're an ANCIENT species of reptile, that adapted and escaped the last mass extinction. Their brains aren't sophisticated enough to communicate to each other and launch an attack en masse, much less storm the beach to get their prey!

Memorable in this film:the same scene of the party walking though the savannah pasted into a variety of different scenic backgroundseveryone who repents of their past mistakes and plans to do things better in future gets eatenthe same Komodo seems to vary in size from scene to scenecompletely gratuitous topless sceneIncidentally, Komodos are not the world's most dangerous reptiles (crocodiles and snakes are much more dangerous, and they don't walk on their hind legs like T. rex.

*Spoilers* This movie is peopled with Soft Core Porn Actors whose over-acting is compounded by bizarre facial tics. Between scenes full of cheesy over baked dialog and spastic eyebrows, the characters shoot guns at the lizard from the set of 'Journey To The Center Of The Earth'. The gun play is hideous. They might as well be holding sticks and shouting 'bang bang'. I do have an appreciation for Tim Abell and Ted Monte as actors, and they try, they really do, but nothing else in the movie works. The character Jack (Tim Abell) carries around a flask of never ending liquor, which, y'know, he really *needed* just to make it through this offal.

"Curse of the Komodo" isn't that bad of a creature feature.**SPOILERS**After the loss of a special military operation on Isle Damas, Professors Nathan Phipps, (William Langlois) and Dawn Porter, (Gail Harris) are assigned to clean it up before people find out about it. Trying to get away from a casino robbery, Drake, (Paul Logan) Tiffany, (Melissa Brasselle) and Reece, (Cam Newlin) crash-land on the island during the middle of a tropic storm. Going inland to find some repair equipment, they stumble upon Nathan's daughter Rebecca, (Glori-Anne Gilbert) and the rest of the scientific team encountering a giant attacking Komodo Dragon. After fending off the attack, they are welcome back to their compound and invited to stay. When the compound runs low on equipment, they try to leave to the island before a military operation blows up the island.The Good News: Here we go with another Sci-Fi Channel creature feature, and here is actually a pretty good one. The one thing that really works is the connection with the giant monster films of the early 50s and 60s. Crashing-landing on an island conducting genetic experiments with creatures and then encountering the creatures along the way screams of a 50s B-movie plot, and it gives the film some familiarity. The look back to the past gives the film a charm that most similar films don't really have, and that's a pretty surprising feat to accomplish. However, there is a change that works out for the better over the other films. The giant Komodo in this film is a fully-grown animal, and isn't the baby of a larger creature that comes back later looking for revenge. That is a common factor in many similar films, and the fact that it's missing here with the Komodo being fully grown and attacking is a really original move that needs to be commended and recognized. The action comes across pretty frequently, and it keeps the pace going nicely. One sequence involving a chase in a fleeing truck is especially nice, and is easily a highlight that is quite exciting and a little thrilling in places along the way. Even more, we see the Komodo really and often, so even though they look really bad digitally, it isn't as terrible as it really should've been. And perhaps one of the greatest aspects is Glori-Anne Gilbert's extended topless scene.The Bad News: The creatures here look so horrible that it's almost a travesty to call these computer generated creatures the same name as the Dinos created for "Jurassic Park." The fact that the same technique was used for the monsters in both films makes it all the more apparent that the Dinos will forever be the standard against which all CG creations will forever be judged. The results here are that bad. There are some pretty gaping plot holes on display here, and even though knowing them won't seriously undermine the enjoyment of the film, they are still there and pretty noticeable. The fact that the film is also just a giant cheese-fest doesn't help matters. There's really no shocks, jumps or anything, and the film plays out like a giant cheesy good time.The Final Verdict: It's a giant cheese-fest, that's for sure, and Dinos from ten years ago still look better, but if you like the creature features from the 50s and 60s, then this isn't all that bad. Some kinks need to be either smoothed out or fixed, but there's far worse ones I've seen out there. Take it for what you will.Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence and Nudity