Forensic Science Movie Reviews

Okay, the story is about dancers and a manager who survives a plane crash and make it onto "Spider Island." Instead of seeing them being chased by spiders, one bites the manager and he turns into a half-spider, half-man. I don't care if the special effects in a 60s flick is bad, but the horrible acting and the stupidness of this movie is enough to make you cringe. You don't see the fake looking spiders or the manager wearing his fake werewolf mask for a long time. Most of the time you see the dancers talking in what sounds like the same voice. At one point, you see a fight between two of the dancers that lasts for twenty or thirty minutes(Seemed like it for me)! The acting and plot(maybe there was a plot. Who knows?) got dumber and dumber until I turned the TV off. What I don't get is why this trash got so many positive reviews. There are better B-movies out there people!This is not one of them!

I have never understood why this film ranks so high on everybody's "camp" list. I have seen every incarnation of this thing under every title in a desperate effort to "get it" to no avail. There are bad/bad movies and bad/fun movies but this one falls somewhere near the garbage can. A plane of showgirls crash lands on an island and soon the girls are nude bathing and running around in various stages of undress. Their manager goes off in the night and gets bitten by a big goofy looking rubber spider. He turns into a monster and starts chasing the girls around. This Euro-trash flick is SO poorly made it's hard to enjoy it. Bad b&w photography, terrible dubbing....The possibilities are there, to be sure, but what could have been a trashy, fun (s)exploitation vehicle just flops out like stale jello. If you want fun Euro-Trash check out "PLAYGIRLS & THE VAMPIRE"...

I first saw this movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and they
gave it their usual hilarious treatment, but even when viewed on its
own it's still pretty hilarious. Alexander D'Arcy (Blood of
Dracula's Castle) stars as the hapless hero, Gary, the manager of a
girls' dance troupe. Barbara Valentin, in her screen debut, stars as
Babs, the pouty-faced sexpot on the make for him. Both D'Arcy
and Valentin had long careers in European films and TV, but the
rest of the cast in Spider Island seem to have disappeared along
with this movie.

And no wonder. The acting is bad, the dubbed-in dialog is dumb,
the plot is ludicrous, the editing is poor, the special effects are
awful, the direction is amateurish, and it's not even in color. So
it's definitely one of those so-bad-it's-funny movies. For instance,
when the planes takes off for the tour it's a twin-engine plane, but
when shown in flight, it's a four-engine plane. And when Gary
finds a sledgehammer on the island he says, "A hammer...with a
long handle!" And surmises that someone has been mining
uranium on the island! Wouldn't anybody? (And how does one
mine for uranium with a hammer, anyway?) And check out the
face on that spider! Incredible! And when Gary is bitten by the
crab-like spider he transforms immediately into a monster that
looks more like a werewolf than a spider. (Why didn't the
professor turn into a monster when the spider got him?) After
Linda is killed by monster Gary he's seen running into the woods
and in the next scene one of the girls mentions that they've now
been on the island for 28 days. 28 days on a small island with a
murderous monster running around loose, and nothing at all has
happened in that time? And so on...

Star D'Arcy (a veteran of Hollywood earlier in his career) said in
an interview that he actually rewrote the script and directed the
movie. If true, then we have him to blame for this mess. He said
director Fritz Böttger was incompetent and that the actresses were
"second class." He may be right about the direction. The movie
plays as if there were two, or even more, people directing it, each
working against the other. But the actresses were not second class,
at least not in their natural endowments. The bevy of big-breasted
babes are the best thing about this movie.

This DVD edition features a short subject starring Joi Lansing
(The Atomic Submarine) in a musical video called "Web of Love"
which is more interesting for her abundant cleavage than for her
singing voice. Mary Blair (who is she?) does a burlesque-style
striptease in a second short subject called "Spider Girl," interesting
only for its seeming antiquity. And there's a more modern
striptease number, also with a spider web theme. The montage of
lurid schlock movie posters with voice-over radio spot ads is very
amusing, as well. And there are some prevues of other Something
Weird movies available. The snap case has two pages of
interesting liner notes and chapter index. The image quality and
sound are good, so all in all, this is a pretty good DVD value, if
you're a fan, like me, of really bad sci-fi/horror movies.

This has great specil FX, but that's it.

Avoid this like you would a tarantula

The B-horror movie seems to be in vogue. For a long time we were inundated with huge, expensive blockbusters, of which I need provide no examples as there are so many. However, a number of recent releases proves that the B-movie, the staple of the drive-in theater, is not dead.

In a variation on the "Spiderman" theme, nerdy Quentin Kemmer (David Summersall) dreams of being a superhero. Working at a biotech facility, Quentin has an opportunity to inject himself with a serum that gives Quentin the powers of a spider. Quentin almost immediately saves Stephanie Lewis (Amelia Heinle) from a rapist/murderer. As the movie progresses, it turns out that beautiful Stephanie likes Quentin, and may even be interested in him.

Unfortunately for Quentin, his new spider powers come with the terrible side effect of turning him into a real spider, with the hunger of a real spider. Soon Quentin has all sorts of interesting physical changes that make him unsuitable for lovely Stephanie. In the best tradition of the B-movie, Stephanie doesn't give up on Quentin even when he's threatening to make her his next meal.

Dan Ackroyd also has a lead role in this movie as the appropriately named Detective Jack Grillo. Dan never quite puts his finger on the situation until near the end of the movie, when he realizes that just maybe a really big spider is killing everyone. Unfortunately, he also loses his lovely, but unfaithful and apparently alcoholic, wife Trixie (Theresa Russell). In one of those wonderful coincidences so common to the B-movie, Trixie's lover Officer Williams (Christopher Cousins) also meets his fate at the fangs of the spider. Interestingly, the normally humorous Dan Ackroyd plays a serious character, but is just over the top enough to be a caricature of an old-style gumshoe.

The special effects of Sam Winston are good and valuable in this movie, yet the success of the movie hinges not on the special effects, but on the plot. The characters provide a nearly believable innocence found in the monster movies of yore. We want Quentin to be good and to recover. We fall in love with the innocent, naïve Stephanie, and want Quentin and her to be together. We feel sorry for hard-working Detective Grillo, whose wife does not understand his commitment to his job. An old-fashioned monster movie pulls us in and allows us to relive the days of "I Was a Teenage Werewolf."

This movie is worthy of a horror fan's collection, and certainly worth at least one watch. This movie is most particularly worthy of a Saturday night in the fall, with someone by your side to pull in close when the spider strikes.

Back in the 50s, monster movies most often revolved around the mutation of a human being into a morphed killer, who kept on killing right until the closing credits. In EARTH VS THE SPIDER, director Scott Ziehl captures the essence of the innocent days when a man monster places himself squarely against society in a way that elicits some sympathy from the audience. Modernized versions of the transformation movie usually attempt to interject some politically correct philosophical underpininning, much as Jeff Goldblum tried in his update of THE FLY.

David Summersall plays Quentin, a nerdish security guard who protects his boss's arachnid DNA experiments by day and dreams of being Spiderman by night. Quentin is your typical post-adolescent who is shy about asking out his pretty neighbor, played by Amelia Heinle. During a break-in by thugs who kill his best friend, Quentin tries to do on purpose what Peter Parker did by accident in SPIDERMAN. Quentin deliberately injects spider DNA into his body with predicatble results. But in the world of EARTH VS THE SPIDER, spider powers accompany a spider's body. Quentin slowly changes into a spider that must feed on fresh human blood. It is at this point, that director Ziehl succeeds admirably in fusing the world of the comic hero with the world of the 50s mutant hero. Many of the scenes blend seamlessly from stark horror to bemused comedy. Dan Akroyd, for one of the few times in his career, plays a straight role as Lieutenant Grillo, who seeks this new webbed killer. Theresa Russell, however, is miscast as his slatternly wife, who sleepwalks through her role as a boozy flirt. The charm of EARTH VS THE SPIDER lies not in the special effects of Jeff Winston, who does his usual superlative job of making the impossibly gross seem inevitably straightforward, but in the comforting feeling that unpretentious fright flicks like this one can take the viewer back to a more innocent time when angry villagers with torches storm the mad scientist's castle to remove an evil presence. This is a gem of a movie that deserves to be on the shelf of any serious fan of the gothic genre.

I think the Ice Warriors are probably one of the best monster's created for Doctor Who and Patrick Troughton was an excellent Doctor. Unfortunately, this was probably not one of his best stories. This was one of those Doctor Who adventures originally released in the 1980's that was edited to be a full length movie. This technique has never set very well with me. It also makes the episode seem ten times longer than it really is. The storyline is too slow moving that you feel like you're being lulled to sleep. My advice is get the "The Mind Robbers", "Tomb of the Cybermen" and "The War Games" instead. They are far better examples of Patrick Troughton's talents.

An extremely enjoyable and campy Troughton adventure that heralds the return of the Ice Warriors. Some fans might not get much enjoyment out of this one, due to horrible editing, OTT acting and atrocious dialogue and scientific credibility thrown out the window. My review might be little biased, due to the fact this was the first Troughton serial I ever saw. The design of the production is pretty good, and the Ice Warriors with the first appearance of an Ice Lord and Grand Marshall are very effective. But it does feel like the whole production is very rushed, characters repeating themselves throughout the story(such as Zoe informing Ms Kelly that T-Mat is working again, when Ms Kelly had already repaired it in the previous episode). Fewshum steals the show as he informs his moon buddies, "I want to LIVE! " What makes up for the tediousness and contradictions is the humor. Trougton is absolutely wonderful, "You can't kill me..... I'm a genius!" Yes, there are better Trougton stories than this, but I often wonder if fans forget why they started watching the program. It certainly can't be the special effects.....

"You Can't kill me, I'm a genius!" Classic dialogue from one of the best of the remaining Pat Troughton stories. Basically, a remakeof season 5's "The Ice Warriors", but Troughton, Hines, and Padbury turn in some terrific performances. The Ice Warriors, with their hissy voices, are terribly menacing. Troughton's Doctor was more of an eccentric scientist as opposed to Tom Baker's mad scientist. Pat's performance puts Tom Baker's to shame. I do like Tom Baker, but given a choice between one of Tom's & one of Pat's, I pick the Pat Troughton one every time.

If you like softcore this is not bad. Unfortunately, there is too little of Jacqueline Lovell, who is the only real standout in the whole video. If you are bored by most softcore, this one will not do anything for you.

Awful everything, but the girls are hot (especially the blonde that always gets tied up... and gets all hot bothered when she's with some guy who's also in the movie and she takes it out in him in a rather satisfying way) and the scenes are energetic and tops for the softcore genre.
If you're watching this for other than a cheap thrill, you might as well look somewhere else. This movie has only one thing to offer, big-breasted bimbo's itching to have their shirts and other clothing items torn off.

Lolida 2000 ranks up there with Virtual Encounters 1, Virtual Encounters 2, and Femalien as one of the "must have" softcore videos that they released in the last half of the 1990's.

This is what softcore is supposed to be. The women are beautiful, the [physical] scenes are plentiful, and the action stops just short of actual hardcore. My favorites scenes were the prison cell lesbians and the totally gratuitous encounter between the 1950's lovers in the diner.

This is an easy recommendation.

Now if only someone would do DVD releases of Surrender's two other A-list titles ("Exotic House of Wax" and "Hotel Exotica") all would be right in the world.

Dear Viewer from Manhattan. "The Leech Woman" with Colleen Gray (also Grant Williams and Gloria Talbot) was the film you saw. In it she plays a woman with a wish to grow younger and finds the answer in the necks of young men! She uses a ring with a sharp point to puncture (I think) the spinal cord and drink the fluid. In "The Wasp Woman" Susan Cabot finds the answer to youth by injecting wasp enzymes into her blood stream thus making her beautiful by day and not so beautiful by night! Yikes! Some film stores say "The Wasp Woman" was released in 1960 but actually was released in 1959.

I was too young to see "The Leech Woman" in 1959/'60 at the theater but I saw it on tv in the late 60s or early 70s, I think it was, and I loved it! I saw "The Wasp Woman," in the late '60s, on TV as well.

Ok, slipstream back almost a half century ago. A coupla boys (me an Donnie) each plunk down our quarters at the Aggieville Campus Theater and enter into the forbidden world of cinema. First stop: the concession stand where I choose the usual Mike & Ike jellys (it was a game to see what flavor you put in your mouth by the shape but really they mostly tasted the same). Donnie (died in 1969 from leukimia) always chose malted milk balls because he knew I hated them. Next stop: the drinking fountains, one for adults and one for kids. I wonder how many chipped teeth was the result of us kids trying to jump up and to hang on just to look grown up to our peers, not to mention getting a good face washing. Third stop: right next to the drinking fountains was an Art Deco statue of a naked lady. Full sized as I recall, black granite carved. I knew I wanted it but not sure why, perhaps it was her smile when she looked at me. Last stop: Wasp Woman, the movie. I was young and the memory fades into the unsure since. But if this "Wasp Woman" movie is about a woman killing people with a special ring and then drinking their blood to achieve youth let me tell you it scared the beejeesus out of me. This movie and "Invaders From Mars" was the reason I was a bedwetter.

THE WASP WOMAN, ORIGINALLY RELEASED IN 1959, IS A CLASSIC CAMP HORROR FILM.
IT'S PLOT AND ACTING WERE VERY GOOD.
THE SPECIAL EFFECTS WERE JUST LIKE MANY OTHER FILMS OF IT'S TIME, FOR EXAMPLE, THE FLY, WITH VINCENT PRICE.
VERY TAME BY TODAY'S STANDARDS, BUT FOR SOME GOOD CLASSIC HORROR ENTERTAINMENT, CHECK THIS ONE OUT!!
IT'S VERY GOOD!!

This is yet another great SciFi classic that I first saw as a kid way back in the mid 20th century. I've seen it since on TV and VHS and I was very excited when I heard it was to be realeased on DVD. That excitement was soon dampened when I viewed this DVD. The original image used for transfer is absolutely horrible. There is fading, graining, and many splices that make the film jump and in some spots causes choppy dialog - and those are the minor faults. Almost immediatly after the film begins there appears a very distracting brown smuge directly in the middle of the screen. A very anoying blemish that changes shape and contorts for nearly a third of the movie.
Unfortunately, this is the only DVD copy of this film available so I whole-heartedly recommend it as a buy for collectors. Most of the movie looks pretty good, but the defaults really make it a dissapointment. Too bad they couldn't find a better print to copy from. Guess I'll have to keep my VHS edition as a back-up.

"Flight to Mars" is not really a bad 1950s science fiction film, it just happens to be a rather boring film with what is probably the most abrupt ending in the genre's history. It is not that the script is so awful (there are philosophical discussions on whether each corpuscle is an entire universe) or that the acting is bad (it is actual decent for this sort of movie). But the film just does not seem to click. Maybe it is because a half-century later we have seen every bit of this plot in a dozen other films. "Flight to Mars" clearly divides into two parts. The first focuses on the flight to Mars and is fairly scientific in its approach to the proceedings (somewhat reminiscent of Herge's classic two-part comic book of Tintin going to the Moon, but not even half as god).. The second, once the crew arrives on Mars, turns into a sort of Flash Gordon-type space opera (with specific effects on about the same level).

The first rocket of exploration launched by the United States decides to bypass the moon and head straight for Mars (the reasoning for this curious choice is clearly cinematic; we know there is nothing on the moon in 1951 but who knows what we might find on Mars). The crew for this monumental expedition consists of Dr. Jim Barker (Arthur Franz), who created the rocket, his assistant Carol Stafford (Virginia Huston), a pair of older scientists, Dr. Lane (John Litel) and Professor Jackson (Richard Gaines), and a war reporter, Steve Abbott (Cameron Mitchell). At first I was wondering why these were letting too older guys go on this dangerous mission and I thought it might be because they were old and wise, but it turns out to be because this way only Jim and Steve join Carol in the film's love triangle.

Once they arrive on Mars they discover a complex underground civilization. There are delights to be seen and offers of help from the ruling council, but it turns out to be a sham. The Martians want to use the rocket to get off their dying planet and colonize earth. But that is okay. The Martians might want to take over the earth but Jim gets them back: he teaches the natives how to play bridge ("They will never forgive you," warns one of the professors). Meanwhile, Steve is interested in Carol, but Carol has been pining for Jim for three years. Jim has been too busy being a scientist to notice Carol, but he falls for local gal Alita once they get on Mars. When Carol finally adds up the score she dissolves into tears while Steve spends an hour playing solitaire waiting for her to wise up. Amazingly enough when the rocket was sabotaged and they were all going to die in space or on Mars Carol never shed a tear.

"Flight to Mars" is directed by Lesley Selander, who primarily made Westerns and directed eight other films in 1951. The film is made in color, which matters little except for the red costumes of the Martian's ruling council, which are kind of neat looking. Made during the Cold War there is an inclination to see an appropriate sub-text to "Flight to Mars," especially with those red outfits, but that seems to be a bit of a reach in this case. Again, this film ultimately reminds me more of a Flash Gordon serial than anything else. Besides, it proves once again that not even an advanced civilization on a distant planet can stand up to a small group of Americans with a plan and a strong right hook.

This is a fun piece of cheese from the time when not a lot was known about space or space travel. Well acted, just plain enjoyable for those of us who love our 50's sci-fi. Now the down side. The source material for the transfer is pretty poor. Image usually does a great job on their DVD's and perhaps the print used was the best available, after all this movie is over 50 years old. No matter, a movie about a trip to Mars which is inhabited by beautiful women and coniving men cant be all bad. And watch out for those meteors.

Oh, this is so bad. The second half of the movie should have just been left on the cutting room floor. The first half is interesting and looks like it will build up to a pretty good story. A mad scientist experiments on humans and insects. Since the female is superior in the insect world, his women are super strong babes. The men in his experiments are evil little dwarfs. So by injecting human female growth enzymes into spiders, we have giant tarantulas.

No doubt you've heard of the seductive and ultra sexy dance performed in the bar by Tandra Quinn . It is not over-exaggerated. For it's time it's probably the hottest bit of celluloid from that era. Clearly it is the high point of the movie.

Well, that's about it. A plane and its party are hi-jacked and are forced to land on the mesa top of the evil scientist's lab. From here on out it's a waste of time. The director was not trying to build suspense, he was trying to eat up film and time so this would be a movie and not a half hour Twilight Zone episode. The back and forth begins across the set begins!

The 'nurse' decides to explore in the dark by himself and is killed by a spider and screams.

After much ballyhoo and useless dialog, everyone decides to investigate. They walk across the set to the dead nurse. Then they head back.

The girl lost her hair band, bracelet, or whatever the heck it was, and the 'Man Friday' is sent to look for it. Of course he is working for the mad scientist and gets killed by him when he descends into the lab.

Now there is more walking around the set (Meanwhile we have a romance building up between the girl and the pilot). The girl's fiancée get's killed by a spider's stomach, and finally they make it down to the lab. OK let's see, the super strong female (who is immune to bullets by the way) is held easily by an ordinary girl. They escape and wrap up the film conveniently with an explosion (what else)? The film ends with a super girl on the side of the cliff, watching and waiting.

The worst part of the movie by far is the music (yes, it's worse than the not-so-special effects). It's this piano/guitar thing that just plays over and over and over and over.

Watch with caution, but don't expect much. When you say you'd rather watch Cat Women on the Moon instead of this, that's really saying something.

I'm too amazed. I watched this for the first time last night, or at least most of it before I fell asleep, and I'm thinking, jeez is this where David Lynch came from? (though I'm laughing as I think this), and then I read the review before me, and this other person had the same idea. It's dialectics, with a vengeance. The super self-conscious hip on the one extreme and the scrapings from the cutting room floor on the other turn out to be the same thing...the wierd dance of the lost hot babe in the cantina is the clear proto of Dennis Hopper doing Roy Orbison...etc etc. Too much...

Mesa Of Lost Women is one of my favorite hunks of cheese! Jackie Coogan (yep, uncle Fester) is a mad scientist, working with petuitary gland transplants. He's successfully transplanted tarantula glands into human women (it doesn't work on men, only turns them into evil dwarves), turning them into mute amazons with extremely tacky wigs. Another scientist visits Dr. Fester and sees the horrible experiments. He refuses to help, so the head spider-woman "Taran-Tella" (Tandra Quinn) injects him with a serum that seems to make him bonkers. The good doctor ends up in the nuthouse, only to escape out a window. Anyway, he seeks revenge on Taran-Tella and shoots her (after she is allowed to dance in a saloon, causing hearts to race). The vengeful, nutty doctor then forces a pilot (Allan Nixon) to take him back to the mesa. Lots of spider-women and dwarves roam around aimlessly. A giant, stuffed tarantula flops onto a hapless victim or two, and fun is had by all. The ending is no surprise, but I'll not spoil it here. The soundtrack is hideous!! A flamenco guitar twangs along, accompanied by piano work best described as being played by a hammer-handed baboon on acid! Highly recommended...

Oh, this is so bad. The second half of the movie should have just been left on the cutting room floor. The first half is interesting and looks like it will build up to a pretty good story. A mad scientist experiments on humans and insects. Since the female is superior in the insect world, his women are super strong babes. The men in his experiments are evil little dwarfs. So by injecting human female growth enzymes into spiders, we have giant tarantulas.

No doubt you've heard of the seductive and ultra sexy dance performed in the bar by Tandra Quinn . It is not over-exaggerated. For it's time it's probably the hottest bit of celluloid from that era. Clearly it is the high point of the movie.

Well, that's about it. A plane and its party are hi-jacked and are forced to land on the mesa top of the evil scientist's lab. From here on out it's a waste of time. The director was not trying to build suspense, he was trying to eat up film and time so this would be a movie and not a half hour Twilight Zone episode. The back and forth begins across the set begins!

The 'nurse' decides to explore in the dark by himself and is killed by a spider and screams.

After much ballyhoo and useless dialog, everyone decides to investigate. They walk across the set to the dead nurse. Then they head back.

The girl lost her hair band, bracelet, or whatever the heck it was, and the 'Man Friday' is sent to look for it. Of course he is working for the mad scientist and gets killed by him when he descends into the lab.

Now there is more walking around the set (Meanwhile we have a romance building up between the girl and the pilot). The girl's fiancée get's killed by a spider's stomach, and finally they make it down to the lab. OK let's see, the super strong female (who is immune to bullets by the way) is held easily by an ordinary girl. They escape and wrap up the film conveniently with an explosion (what else)? The film ends with a super girl on the side of the cliff, watching and waiting.

The worst part of the movie by far is the music (yes, it's worse than the not-so-special effects). It's this piano/guitar thing that just plays over and over and over and over.

Watch with caution, but don't expect much. When you say you'd rather watch Cat Women on the Moon instead of this, that's really saying something.

I'm too amazed. I watched this for the first time last night, or at least most of it before I fell asleep, and I'm thinking, jeez is this where David Lynch came from? (though I'm laughing as I think this), and then I read the review before me, and this other person had the same idea. It's dialectics, with a vengeance. The super self-conscious hip on the one extreme and the scrapings from the cutting room floor on the other turn out to be the same thing...the wierd dance of the lost hot babe in the cantina is the clear proto of Dennis Hopper doing Roy Orbison...etc etc. Too much...

Mesa Of Lost Women is one of my favorite hunks of cheese! Jackie Coogan (yep, uncle Fester) is a mad scientist, working with petuitary gland transplants. He's successfully transplanted tarantula glands into human women (it doesn't work on men, only turns them into evil dwarves), turning them into mute amazons with extremely tacky wigs. Another scientist visits Dr. Fester and sees the horrible experiments. He refuses to help, so the head spider-woman "Taran-Tella" (Tandra Quinn) injects him with a serum that seems to make him bonkers. The good doctor ends up in the nuthouse, only to escape out a window. Anyway, he seeks revenge on Taran-Tella and shoots her (after she is allowed to dance in a saloon, causing hearts to race). The vengeful, nutty doctor then forces a pilot (Allan Nixon) to take him back to the mesa. Lots of spider-women and dwarves roam around aimlessly. A giant, stuffed tarantula flops onto a hapless victim or two, and fun is had by all. The ending is no surprise, but I'll not spoil it here. The soundtrack is hideous!! A flamenco guitar twangs along, accompanied by piano work best described as being played by a hammer-handed baboon on acid! Highly recommended...

Apparently, the man who made this movie had not read the book, nor did he have any friends who read the book. The movie is only interesting as an old example of how movie makers use a popular title to attract viewers. The movie is not even well constructed. It has a number of inconsistences and rough points in its flow that could easily have been corrected.

This is a classic, first of its kind film. The special effects include some of the FIRST underwater motion film ever made. There is no dialoged sound track, a pianist accompanies the black&white (sometimes brown& white) images while occasional subtitles elude to the drama as it unfolds. The image bobs and weaves like a video camera was held in front of a screen showing the celluloid film to make this into DVD. A tripod would have helped.
If you must have any and all submarine movies, or are collecting samples of cutting edge effects before the era of synchronized sound, then this DVD is for you. If you're looking for the "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" where the squid wraps around the sub in full color & sound, then I think the Disney version is the one you want. I'll keep both versions!

The 1916 version of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA is a perfect example of what can happen when a film relies primarily on special effects. In its day, it was widely celebrated as one of the first feature-length films to make use of underwater photography, and audiences thrilled to its scenes of coral reefs and sharks. But nowadays we're very used to seeing underwater photography, and of a quality that far surpasses that seen here. And the film has little else to offer.

The story, of course, is based on the Jules Verne classic--but "based" is the operative word. About the only thing this film version has in common with the Verne novel is the title, a few character names, and a few basic concepts, so if you're expecting a faithful silent adaptation of the novel you're outta luck. In this version, a scientist (Dan Hanlon) and his party go in search of sea monsters and run afoul of the Nautilus, but they soon discover that Capt. Nemo (Allen Holubar) really isn't such a bad guy after all. There's a subplot about a "child of nature" (Jane Gail) who lives on a "Mysterious Island" and who has some mixed experiences with shipwrecked sailors stranded there--and before the whole thing ends we are flashed back to colonial India for an explanation of just who Capt. Nemo really is and how he got that way. In the process there is underwater photography aplenty, including a faintly hilarious attack on a sailor by a 1916 special-effects-octopus.

The acting is extremely broad here, even for 1916, and Nemo's costume makes him look rather like a skinny Santa Claus gone bad. The Nautilus is uninspired and the cinematography is only so-so. Consequently, what audiences thrilled over in 1916 seems pretty clunky today. The film has not been well-reserved, nor has any attempt been made to restore it, and there isn't a single scene that isn't riddled with artifacts. This is really a film for die-hard silent film buffs rather than casual viewers, and even silent film buffs will probably find themselves hitting the fast forward more than a couple of times. Recommended as a historic artifact, but nothing more.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

My mom bought me the tape because she knew that I loved all things Highlander...well until I saw the tape that is. The basic idea is interesting, but I find five main problems with this story. 1. THEY KILLED OFF CONNER McCLEOD!!! How could they do that?! 2. If Quentin is the last of the McCleod's, where did Duncan from the series go? Did they kill him too without mentioning it? 3. What are the odds of there being two immortals named Ramirez that are about the same age. Well, in all fairness I guess Conner and Duncan come to mind. But Conner and Duncan don't act or sound alike, but this Ramirez is almost an exact carbon copy of the original. 4. This problem is not found in the tape but in later episodes: what exactly was "The Great Catastrophe"? In an episode about nuclear power, it is implied that it was a nuclear war. But a later episode says that it was a meteorite impact. Which one guys? 5. I do like how the immortals, or Jetadors, can give up their immortality and just give Quentin their knowledge. But how did they learn that? Did Conner teach them? If so, where did he learn it? Being a fan of both the movies and the series, I've learned to deal with certain inconsistencies between the two. But this series stretches it just a little bit too much for me. Hard-core fans should stay clear and not consider it part of the "official Highlander universe", but it makes for a good gift for younger viewers.

When you consider that over the course of the 4 Highlander films and 2 live-action series, the Highlander continuity has been thrown into complete disarry, can it hurt to add another storyline? Not when its as well crafted as this! Although abandoning all connections to previous Highlander incarnations, this beautifully designed show, with its wonderfully developed characters, is as appealing to adults as to kids, (I used to watch it with my Nan!). Of course, the film's notion of beheading is removed from this family show, (its a cartoon, after all!), and replaced with the clever idea of passing on each Immortals' power through the taking of a special oath. Perfect for kids (and adults who are too laid-back to nit-pick).The 3-D effect used in certain episodes is amazing, as is the emotive music. The characters have depth and look great, and so long as you enjoy the show for what it is and don't try to compare it to (or connect it with) the films or other shows, this makes for great viewing. Highly recommended!

I find this to be a very high quality video. The world created in this animated version of the Highlander is unique, with many character rivalries between both sides. Not just black and white (good vs. bad guys) this series offers many things to think about. Also I find the extensive use of steam/water power, in everything from tanks (uniqie concepts there too) to cities to be absolutely facinating. I very highly recomend it, not just for children, but for adults as well.