Escalofríos

Surprisingly enough, then "Heebie Jeebies" actually turned out to be rather entertaining - campy and cheesy, yes, but entertaining still.

The story is about some kind of mutated creature fused of several dead gold miners that becomes freed from its entrapment in the mine by accident when someone mine through a wall to it. The creature sets out to kill people in search for gold, and the town of Golderton is in dire peril. It is up to the local police to put an end to the monstrosity.

Sure, this was textbook material, but it was fun to watch and enjoyable. The storyline was predictable, as it usually is with these type of monster movies.

Aside from being poorly animated and comprised of questionable CGI, then the creature was nice in concept and interesting enough to look at on the screen. Although one does wonder if two strikes with a mining pick axe could free it from behind the wall, why didn't the creature just slam down the wall itself to begin with?

And if you are purchasing gold, why would you set up store at an old, abandoned mine outside of town? That just didn't make any sense for Billy Butler (played by Michael Badalucco) to have his business out there.

For an officer of the law, then sheriff Tatum (played by Carl Savering) wasn't particularly bright. I mean, when they picked up the video camera from the carnage scene at the gold mine (tinkering with a crime scene here in the worst way possible) and they looked through the footage, even though the image was blurred, you could still see a man-like creature with multiple heads. Then just how in the name of all that is unholy, could the sheriff say to the hunters that it was either a bear or massive feral boar? That was just the most stupid comment in the entire movie.

I will say that the creature design was really one of the most interesting and promising aspects of the movie. And I thoroughly enjoyed this particular monster on the screen. Great design and appearance, just a shame that the CGI effects were a bit shoddy at times. With a bigger CGI budget, then "Heebie Jeebies" could really have excelled and been that much more interesting.

The people on the cast list were doing good jobs with their given roles and characters, and it seemed that people had fun making this movie. And this level of acting really helped the movie along quite nicely.

Despite its predictability, questionable CGI and obvious plot and story holes, then "Heebie Jeebies" is actually worth sitting down to watch, especially if you enjoy low budget monster movies.

Horrible acting, and horrendous cgi. And to the other reviewer whining about racism, get over yourself.

Released to TV in 2013 and directed by Thomas L. Callaway, "Heebie Jeebies" chronicles events in a Louisiana town when an abomination is unleashed from cursed gold mine that was recently reopened by a greedy descendant (Michael Badalucco in a decidedly over-the-top performance). Carl Savering & Robert Belushi play the Sheriff and his deputy while Dave Davis & Evie Thompson appear as their teenaged kin. Cathy Shim, Lucille Soong and Olivia Ku are on hand as an Asian family with insights about the creature.

This is a half-serious/half-campy Grade B horror flick with several amusing moments. It generally works for what it is and has a few highlights, like the imaginative, but cartoonish CGI monster, which looks like five corpses mashed together with a huge malevolent maw for a torso. Evie plays a winsome cutie, albeit overtly tart-y; and Belushi is likable as her cop brother, the main protagonist, not to mention Shim as his sweet girlfriend.

Despite the obvious low-budget, the movie has gusto and I cared about the 2-3 main characters. Unfortunately, there are glaring flaws that force me to lower my rating. For instance, the deputy discovers video-proof of the monstrosity, but then refers to it as some type of animal to others, including his sister.

The film runs 85 minutes and was shot in St. Francisville & Baton Rouge, Louisiana. WRITER: Trent Haaga. Marion Ross & Jennifer Rubin have small roles.

GRADE: C+

Such film makers should be banned from making series or movies. What made some one to made something so stupid, it's not even a comedy. What kind of mind set people have who make such trash. No doubt they are brainless but di they think any viewers will like it, what make them waste their time can't say about money since I don't think they spend any budget on it It's disgraceful don't have word to express it, such makers should be black listed. . Even zero rating is not applicable to it.

When you think of SyFy, you think terrible acting and writing, amateurish-looking special effects, bad visuals and stories that don't grab you. Heebie Jeebies does have most of those things, but for SyFy it is a long way from being bottom-of-the-barrel. The acting is much better than anticipated, Robert Belushi is a good lead and Cathy Shim is astonishingly beautiful which does hold your attention(most of the ladies fare the same). The scenery and most of the photography is pretty and atmospheric, the gore is pretty good and the music is a rise above the often generic and sluggish-sounding music SyFy is prone to, not great but okay. However, some of the editing is to fast-moving and choppy, not all the time but in too many places. The monster is also the primary reason why Heebie Jeebies is as weird as it is, the design is unique but also very bizarre and somewhat amateurish too. The monster itself is uninteresting with little menace or personality. The dialogue is not that much different from most SyFy movies, the snappy parts come off as forced and cheesy and the more dramatic ones falling into hammy melodrama quality. It does also do a poor job developing the characters with none of them coming off as interesting. The story can get on the silly side- which is often too ridiculous and weird to be properly fun- but there is not much that is really exciting, fun or suspenseful about it(even for a movie that is clearly not meant to be taken seriously). The sense of terror is absent as are the thrills, the horror elements are rather schlocky as well, and the second half takes far too much time on the less important characters, none of them attention-grabbing and some even pointless. The death/attack scenes are handled in a very by-the-numbers way and are somewhat repetitive, the variation in how the monster kills ranges from very little to none. Overall, weird and not particularly good but there has been much worse from SyFy. Worth a look for curiosity and novelty value but not much beyond that, hardly a must watch or must rent. 3/10 Bethany Cox