Just saw this...

Seems lots were disappointed by this film, but I don't see why... I certainly expected a cheap, straight-to-video "killed-off-one-by-one" horror flick, and got what I expected. Sure, some things could have been a LOT better, but it was still a fun - if forgettable - throwback to the cheap of the late 80's and early 90's style for me.

In fact, it reminded me of my teenage years renting often-crappy, low-budget VHS 'Alien' ripoff sci-fi/horror movies (Within The Rock, Shatterzone, Xtro, Dark Side of the Moon, Split Second, Deep Star Six, etc.)... only this time it was more of a Predator ripoff.

It was clear the creators loved and wanted to emulate that and Alien and the like (interestingly, it was way LESS gory than I expected, and less than those old films... not that I *NEED* gore for horror, but I was quite surprised). Was it as good as what it was trying to emulate? Certainly not, but it was more or less what I expected.

I seriously laughed out loud when the creature completely tore Jewel's PANTS off (talk about exploitation) after her Arnie/Predator "grease-up" sequence (reminding me of Ripley's famous underwear scene at the end of Alien!), and although I felt they took too long building to the action/creatures, then killed everyone too quickly (except the first, who IMO should have stayed gone from the screen until Liz was dumped in the cave, to maintain suspense), I really liked how the last near-third of the film was almost totally without ANY dialog; again, I was reminded of Alien in the "Liz has to go back for the raft" finale. I was expecting a "final attack" though as she got to the beach/raft!

Oh, and it was great fun to see Jewel (pants-less or otherwise!) in a different piece from Firefly, which is pretty much all I know her from (but felt she was one of the best things about that show)... she made a good "final girl" in this, and was neither unrealistically tough nor annoyingly girly/screamy... and I got a kick out of her matching the creatures while the douchebags around her got killed. :D

Far from a great film, it still made a nice change of pace from the torture porn that pretends to be "horror" today, and as I said, took me back to a time when cheap stuff like this was dime-a-dozen and not taken so seriously beyond riding the coat-tails of the big-budget hits they emulated.