Joshua Tilleman As an (almost) everyday user of Esperanto and activist of the Israeli and world movements for 45 years, I cannot agree with the revue of Robert from San Francisco who said that "most of the actors do quite well with it". In fact, they (including Shatner whom I like very much) mispronounced their Esperanto text, primarily by wrong stressing -- in Esperanto the two-or-more syllable words are always accented at the last-but-one syllable. That is why, perhaps, it sounded for Robert as "a bit like a cross between Swedish and Latin", while, when properly pronounced, Esperanto sounds between Italian and Spanish. Still, I liked the film!

dbborroughs The first film in Esperanto! Moody black and white film was made by Leslie Stevens who created the Outer Limits and stars William Shatner. It has something about women in the service of the devil luring men to their doom until one falls for Shatner. Its a beautiful film that is flawed because the readings in Esperanto are all over the place with an emotion filled line is followed by a flat one. The entire cast is guilty of the unevenness where the fact that they are not "native speakers" or fully comfortable with it is painfully clear as they are uneven in their vocal acting.Making things worse-and making the film almost unwatchable- were the subtitles- supposedly the print was restored than to money from the SCIFI channel,who should have known better. They are big black strips that often cover half the image so in close up you're looking at a nose and eyes, the lower part of the face being completely covered. At other times you have to wait for breaks in the talking to see what you're suppose to be seeing. Its the worst subtitling I've ever seen and that includes some white on white debacles. I can't rightly rate the film because I got so frustrated I started scanning. It looks great when its not obscured by subtitles, but I can't say about the story.

DannyNoonan68 A very weird, quietly creepy horror film... I think a big chunk of the weirdness and creepiness goes down to the fact that the film is entirely in Esperanto (and also the bit with the goat). Put together by Outer Limits staffers (who were apparently obsessed with artificial languages), the production values are not dissimilar to 50s/60s TV (the odd camera shadow, out of focus evil beings, etc), but the effects are strangely effective and the use of sound is genuinely creepy in a way that made me think of "Eraserhead".This film is worth seeing if for no other reason than to see William Shatner overacting in Esperanto. Most of the film he keeps the overacting in check, but about an hour in he clearly can't help himself.

ottfried A lot of things have been said about this film. Some people say "cult" films are for people with "bad" or "no" taste, I suppose, as opposed to the by-products or off-springs of classical breeding, but strangely a lot of B- or C-movies become just that by having (too?) high aspirations based on knowledge of the classics and then-recent scientific findings and too little contact with the main stream audience, who do not acknowledge references to classics and could not care less about where the future is going.why would anyone shoot a film entirely in Esperanto, then thought of as the coming universal language? Why would anyone have a brilliant stills art-photographer shoot a moving picture? Why would the total context of the movie be a feeling of mythological "always"? Why have the leading man be a (private) person so clearly caught up between classical hero - set everything right by acting - and thinker - the inner seeker of truth? The concept of the "autor"-movie, the not-so-slick-but-honest-depiction-of-a-necessary- story, is what does it for me. And this is one of them. If you look for faults, that's what you'll find. Look for meaning...