Tail Sting

Let's get something straight before properly beginning: If you rent a film about giant scorpions from your local video store, you had better not expect roundly excellent, Altmanesque ensemble acting; Malickian cinematography; or Wellsian direction. You probably shouldn't even expect special effects that are any good. (The most you can reasonably do is cross your fingers that the puppetry is better than that of a four-year-old with his hand up a stuffed Cookie Monster's bum, or that the CGI looks little like a first-generation Nintendo 64 title.)

On the other hand, if you possess any powers whatever of a little thing called deduction, you're likely not to be disappointed by TAIL STING. In fact, I have no reservations at all in proclaiming TS as some sort of masterpiece of its kind. The budget probably couldn't have covered the waiter's tip at a upscale restaurant, and yet somehow these film-makers made a movie about mutant scorpions on a airplane. MUTANT SCORPIONS ON A AIRPLANE. No simple feat!

What puts the movie over the top is the absence of the cynical indifference that is to be found in most recent pictures of this type. It's almost as if some people actually put some _care_ into this tiny little picture, where they could have relied soley on the MUTANT SCORPIONS ON AN AIRPLANE hook--which, incidentally, makes a great box cover and plot synopsis--and called it a day.

So, if you're a connoisseur of straight-to-video nonsense and/or have some beer left in the fridge and a night free of responsibilities, drop a 3.97 on TAIL STING and have some fun, and console yourself that you at least did not rent neither HOUSE OF THE DEAD nor KANGAROO JACK.