p e n g u i n d e v i l

The Devil’s Tomb, hmm. Of course, the name alone brings to mind Prince of Darkness especially with the video tape playing through the credits. Some of that is certainly cribbed from the great PoD. But it doesn’t stop there… It didn’t take more than a few minutes for me to start thinking, “What the hell?”. Even before the opening credits are done we’ve been through such a smorgasbord of film rip-off’s that it’s a bit startling… Sensations of Aliens, The Tomb, and most notably, my all time favorite horror movie Prince of Darkness.

Once the credits are done we drop right into a badly rewritten re-shoot of the scene in Aliens where Ripley gives her briefing to the marines. Even using some of the same dialogue. So yes, they make it very clear that this is going to be bad. Plus, it’s directed by Bond son Jason Connery which creates another lack of confidence… Though it’s a whole different brand of bad than the bad films of Andy Sidaris that the other Bond’s son R.J. Moore frequently features in, as this doesn’t even feature any bathing/softcore nude scenes with busty ladies or even any attacks using remote control helicopters or cars!





After the video taped message in very Price of Darkness style made by a scientist who, in proper The Mummy fashion, goes missing in an archaeological site, and his daughter comes in with a batch of proper Aliens style ignorant wise-cracking soldiers, they descend into this place where they find, in proper Prince of Darkness style, a devil encased in something. And, of course in still more Prince of Darkness style, their pals start getting taken over by the bad guys so everyone, in proper Aliens style, does lots of excited and ineffective shooting… And cursing.

Looking at a digital map that brings Raccoon City to mind, the movie then descends into a standard clichéd American action film. But at this point you stop following the story anyway and instead start looking to see what scenes were taken from which movie.





What makes this mess even funnier is the casting.. Cuba Gooding JR? Ron Perelman? and yes, no, yes fuckin’ Henry Rollins doing a terrible, yet eager, job playing a priest. What the hell again? Who put this thing together?





And christ, is one of these marines actually named Hicks? Maybe the whole thing is intended as a homage to Aliens after all…

I imagine that some of the military flashback war scenes must be taken form some other movie but as I don’t tend to see those movies, I don’t know for sure, but maybe all of the helicopter scenes are cribbed from Blackhawk Down?

I know that all of this is probably unfair judgment, but as the movie isn’t original, scary or even suspenseful you’ve got to find something to think about while watching it.

Easily the best scene takes place 46 minutes in when the guy left alone (of course) upstairs with some messed up dying guy they found, wanders off in pursuit of a nude chick that happens to wander through the room. Of course, he ends with with something much different then his dream lady, and that was pretty funny.





Of course, it does have some things going for it: Rollin’s terrible performance, lot’s of fairly good gore, and you don’t have to pay much attention to it. A good to movie to have people over for some beers to, if you know what I mean.

The be-sored oozing baddies are fine and honestly, the second half is certainly more entertaining than the first half. Though towards the end it does bog down with the jibber-jabber. For some reason Ray Winstone is in this too. But honestly, all that I had been intending to do was see if Legion was available as an instant movie from Netflix.