Tail Sting

How this movie was made past 2000 blows my mind. The effects and dialogue are some of the worst I have ever seen. The prime example of this is when the character Courtney sits next to the German character Gunther (later to be revealed to be an American named Joel) and this is how they strike up their conversation. Courtney- Your weird Gunther- Uhh sex At this point I was on the floor laughing my ass off. There are also many other points which are either ridiculous, stupid or full of bloopers. There are even times where members of the crew are visible. Not to mention the ridiculous weapon that is rigged up to kill the queen of the scorpion (scorpions have queens?). It supposedly a super strong electrifier that needs armor to protect the user. But all it is is a simple defibrillater. The effect that it makes when used on the queen looks good for the original Godzilla. That goes for many of the effects in this movie.

A truly bad movie, similar to what happens when someone takes a porno film and takes out the sex scenes. This film has all the positive attributes of a bad high school drama club production, minus the "family appeal".

Laura Putney does a passable acting job with little support from her overacting and mostly unlikeable supporting cast. Gulshan Grover and Guy Bracca as brothers Yaffi and Sudan do a reasonable acting job as well. Everyone else involved in the cast and crew should look into selling real estate.

Some of the "lowlights": Monster parts on-screen with visible human operators and supporting structures; the underlying plywood scenery construction visible when the cockpit panels get shot (clue to effects people: airliner cockpits have very little plywood built into them), the FAA "experts" are all unbelievable and insulting, Tara Price's character can't decide on an accent (Australian? New Jersy? Midwestern? what the Hell, new scene, new accent!), Rick Kelly, as "baddy" Scott takes the ham-handed overacting skill to new extremes.

A truly awful movie with laughable special effects, plot holes big enough to fly a 747 through (excuse me, but just how does a 7' long scorpion crawl the length of a charter plane, from rear to cockpit, without anyone noticing?), a script written by a 6th grader and acting that wouldn't win an audition for dinner theater.

Best thing in the film is the line "Talk to the elbow, because the hand wants to slap you." This was obviously targeted to the director of this tripe. One or two comic moments, but not worth paying money to rent. This one crashes on take-off.

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.

As someone who prides himself on being a connoseur of the So-Bad-It's-Good school of movies, regardless of the genre, I cannot stress enough how gawd-AWFUL this movie really is. We are talking so dreadful, that there isn't a single redeeming nugget of entertainment value to be gleaned from it, and considering some of the dreck I have been privy to, that's a remarkable statement to make with any confidence. But if any movie could make the likes of such anti-classics like PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE or HORROR OF PARTY BEACH seem like Shakespeare, well, this is it.

I couldn't get this out of my DVD player fast enough after about ten minutes. Save yourself the agony. Go find a copy of ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES and rent that, before you even think about this one.

And PLEASE...don't let the artwork on the cover fool you. That's exactly what moviemakers of this ilk rely on. For once, judge a book by its cover, and skip TAIL STING.