This is a great example of what could have been a great film and a great idea but turned out to be really bad in the process. I was mainly tempted to get this because of the DVD cover, stupid me, but I did anyway and I was blown away, in a bad sense. This movie is essentially about El Chupacabra wreaking havoc around Los Angeles and it's up to a local animal cop and a writer to save the day, before two corrupt cops and two evil scientists bring them down. The main reason why I did not enjoy this film was because of big continuity errors that were hard to not notice. Along with some bad acting, okay lighting and nothing scary, this movie did not hit me as much as is it probably should have. However, compared to other Chupacabra movies, this one certainly tops the charts, just barely.
First off, the continuity in this movie is way off and I mean off the shoulders and into the ditch. There were so many points were the characters said or did something and then in the next shot, they aren't doing it or the change never occurred. Case in point: the main character has a gun, the Chupacabra attacks, he whips out a flair from nowhere and distracts and the gun in missing. The girl runs while he defends here with the mystery flair and she had no gun, then the main character is running with the girl and has the gun. Where did the flair come from and what happened to the gun. The time of day gets screwed up. One minute it is sun set and you can still see the sun and then the next minute it looks like midnight. There were some plot holes as in, why was the Chupacabra there, what were the scientists doing, what happened to this guy and why did he shoot the animal and it still lived? These things bugged the heck out of me and none of the questions were answered.
Next on the list is the acting. Boy was it wooden and bad. The main character Navarro, played by Eric Algeria, seems a bit too calm at points and too dedicated to finding out what killed a few dogs and when a tragedy hits, his emotion was just not there. Elina Madison, who played Starlina, did a fairly poor job. She was the author of a bestselling book about the Chupacabra and she just didn't seem into her role or her performance. Her acting was kind of laughable and a poor. Even for an author she knows too much about that thing, and knows how to disable a high security defense system in a hidden laboratory. Tony Criss was okay, but he seemed a bit to calm for some of the stuff that was going on. The movie reminds me of a bad reenactment to murder for some crime solving show, where the actors and actresses aren't really that committed to their work.
I rarely don't get this anal when it comes to lighting or editing, but for this movie, I could not help but be harsh on the lighting. It took me out of the movie a number of times because the lighting was so poorly directed. There were times when they were trying to be creative by adding color filters to the scene to make it more "comic bookish," but it backfired. The worse part is at night when it is pith black outside, but the scene is so oversaturated with light, it seems like its day. They keep switching from high intensity light to soft light for random scenes, and the lights seem so bright that the actors were squinting. It shouldn't be that bright that there are dark shadows at night. During the sunset when the lighting was perfect, that's the only time when the light was good, other than that it was terrible.
There were not scares in this film. There was only one time where I did jump but other than that, it wasn't scary. There were points were it probably could have been scary but it was so damn light out, you could see the Chupacabra approach the man, but if it was dark, it would have been better. Even the creature design for the Chupacabra was poor, it looked good but it was a short man or kid in a jump suit. They didn't hide his face; they showed him with no sense of mystery or any enigmatic appearance. There was a fair amount of gore, but it seemed unreal. This movie just wasn't scary, that's all.
Overall, they did Americanize a great South American legend into a blood-thirsty human eater, which the Chupacabra isn't. In fact, it was scared of people and it only killed goats, sheep, dogs and deer because it was said that it hated the smell of humans. But, then were would the story be? I did not enjoy this film for any reason, but I will give them credit for trying to make a good film with good intentions. I would not recommend this film to any horror fan, but if you like indie or B-movies, you should check this out. Also, if you are easily tempted by cult-classics, you'd enjoy this film. I didn't, I won't see it again, but in some deep sedated way, I enjoy these kinds of movie just to see what the other side of Hollywood is making.
