Tod der Mannequins

This film was a fairly decent tropical thriller. It has you on a one way street throughout the entire film. The very end has a unique twist, which surprising was pulled off well. I fairly enjoy tropical madness. The idea of being in paradise, where everything goes running amok, and people start to go insane, really can hit the senses sometimes. The film was developed well, because it pertained to the conflicts between the characters relationships with one another and the situation at hand. For an early 90's Yuppie soap/thriller, I found it entertaining. Plus, looking at all of those "cover girls" was excellent "eye candy", if you start to get bored of the film itself.

So you've got a number of models on an island, and one by one they're picked off Agatha Christie-style. We get somebody lost at sea, pushed off a cliff, poisoned by a solvent, driven off a cliff, blown up, etc. Nothing terribly graphic.

Before any of that starts, one woman inexplicably has a dream of a killer in a weird human face mask.

The owner of the magazine is a sleaze who had an affair, and somebody had photos taken of her before she was of age.

In the end, it's all about business, or something,

There's an 80s style montage of a photo shoot, most of the bathing suits being one-pieces, surprisingly. A couple are fairly translucent. There's camera clicks during the montage where the frame of the camera appears as a white square or rectangle within the picture. The photographer is rather bad at framing!

This movie I've seen is very interesting by the minute. Here you have a boss Rex Kingman(Lee Majors) who flies out his staff and models to a Mexican island to make his work on a magazine, and suddenly everyone around him disappears or worse wind up dead! Suspicions, suspicions, everyone on the island is a suspect, including Rex himself. Man, he's in ruins with his company, and everyone on the island is dying off one by one. It's scary to be on an island where there's hardly any maniac running loose, and others get dollar signs in their eyes making the chance to be in that picture. However, the whole thing turns out to be a trap for the editor, when his own indiscretions surfaces up. So who's the heavy now? This may have been a made for TV movie, even most of them seem to show their own spark in a way. I enjoyed this movie every single bit. Boy, this is like right off of a mystery novel, only more fun. Rating 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Majors played Colt Seavers, and Barr played Howie Munson, on the ABC action comedy The Fall Guy (1981-86). Seven years since the series ended in 1986, Barr and Majors are together again. This time, Barr works behind the scenes as a teleplay writer, while Majors is in the starring role. LOVE IT!

The title says it all - several gorgeous models running around on the beach, à la Baywatch, each getting killed in a seemingly accidental way.

If you're a gore hound, forget it: there's little action and absolutely no blood or bodies. If you're a true horror fan, you'll have figured out the plot after five minutes. The rest of the film is then spent laughing at the amusing and almost camp way which people die.

But despite all of this, it managed to keep me watching for ninety minutes. The plot, while not exactly Hitchcockian, is enough to keep amateurs guessing to the end - and the characters are easily sympathised with - the development of the main four is not all bad. Perhaps if good old Ehren had watched this movie beforehand, we might have all enjoyed a much better "Scream 3".

Nevertheless, the plot's twists and turns are actually its downfall. So many things are left unexplained at the end of the film that you wonder why you bothered at all.

But what can you expect from a TV movie? They're all the same. Tepid films with no real depth or suspense - quite how the Netherlands saw the need to cut three minutes from the film, I'll never know.

If you're a real slasher fan like me (the kind who likes sequels and will watch any trashy slasher) then watch it, but don't expect too much.

If you're an occasional horror fan, then rent "April Fool's Day" instead. There are many similarities, and it's much better done. Plus, there's added blood ;-)

* * * ½