merklekranz Pretty middle of the road "Lovecraftian" adaptation that continuously bogs down. Incest and evil deformed creatures that live in tunnels beneath an isolated island, should have worked better. The main problem is the characters are either hardly developed, or terminally boring. The movie almost seems like a series of random events, including a pretty intense, and totally gratuitous sex scene. Rutger Hauer delivers the only acceptable performance as he gradually pieces things together. The film has good atmosphere, nice locations, and grotesque creatures, but fails to impress, because it is so slow building toward the rather disappointing conclusion. - MERK

udar55 This is an average horror flick that really should be better than it is. The initial screenplay adapts Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear" and was by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett. The film sports a beautiful location (Grand Manan Island, Canada) that maintains that same creepy boating town vibe as their earlier DEAD & BURIED, but gets bogged thanks to flat direction from Peter Svatek. Dupuis, who also has the O'Bannon penned SCREAMERS on his resume (his mom must be proud), looks a tad out of place, more like a TWILIGHT reject with his pale skin, flowing hair and bad fashion sense. Hauer is decent in the film and actually survives. Oddly enough, half of the cast also popped up in THE SWEET HEREAFTER the same year. The film does earn points for having harm come to several children through out. Svatek must have some kind of fetish because he moved on to TV movies like BABY FOR SALE (2004) and STOLEN BABIES, STOLEN LIVES (2008).

sanguinius2004 I had to leave a comment on this one because so many people seem to hate it and its a personal favorite of mine. It's based on the Lurking Fear and personally i thought it was one of the best HP Lovecraft based films that I've seen and stays pretty close to the original story. Of course having said that I'm a big fan of both Unnameable films which seem to have been similarly slaughtered and Reanimator (only the first one!) so perhaps I'm more predisposed to these movies than the average guy. I thought Roy Dupuis and Rutger Hauer did a really good job. Maybe the US release title of 'Bleeders', which is pretty awful gives a negative impression to begin with, in the UK this was released a Hemoglobin, not nearly as painful. If you love Lovecraft then you'll probably enjoy this.

Boba_Fett1138 Before you even start watching this movie you just know that this is not going to be a very good or tense genre movie, so expectations shouldn't be to high before watching this movie. If they aren't, you'll probably be surprised by the fact that this movie is not totally unwatchable.The story, the monsters, the effects, it's visual look, the locations...all really aren't that bad but yet the movie does not work out. It's not a real bad movie to watch but it's just that basically nothing really interesting or tense occurs in the movie. The movie is like one big build up to nothing and in the end it falls flat as an horror movie. The movie has the look but not the feeling of a good horror movie. A wasted opportunity, since this movie had definitely more potential in it.The concept of the movie doesn't sound like anything solid but it's well written and the story is well brought to the screen by Peter Svatek, who does it with style, unlike some of his other less talented business colleagues operating in the same genre. The story and monsters of the movie are all quite enjoyable. And all this due to Dutch incest! Crazy! Somehow I have the feeling that this little story element was Rutger Hauer's input.The movie is really not that bad, at least not halve as bad as the current rating here would suggest. The rating here suggest that this movie is an horrible fake looking Z-movie, like they used to make in the '50's. I mean I've seen worser genre movies than this, also with a significantly higher budget. This movie still has some entertainment value and is not completely unwatchable and even recommendable to the fans of B-horror movies and Rutger Hauer.It is the uncrowned king of the B-movies, Rutger Hauer, that puts down the most interesting character and his acting is like 5 times better than any of the other actors in the movie. The story of his life. But once you really start thinking about it, is his role really necessary? He seems to be only in the movie because well, he is Rutger Hauer! The role seems to be specifically written purely for him. But who is complaining about it really.Obviously just watchable for genre fans only.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/