Strangeland

As a simple but interesting story, Strangeland is in the middle of good and bad. It borrows too much from other flicks, like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Some lines ("What a rush?") are kind of terrible. And the Twisted Sister references that no one picks up on are laughable: the "we're not gonna take it" sign that the angry mob is holding and Dee's character "Capt. Howdy". Yes, it's in the Exorcist, but it is also a Sister song. On a good note, Dee Snider is a creepy looking character. The first time you really get a good look at him he's intense. And there are a few gross sadist scenes, one involving piercing an unwilling man in the most dreaded of all places. That part made me wince. And that's fairly hard to do. Also, I loved the fact that Robert Englund plays a character that is the exact opposite of his role in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Instead of playing the killer, he is the leader of the mob going to find the killer. Krueger fans will know what I'm talking about. It's a brilliant and appropriate piece of casting that genre fans should appreciate. Overall, the good outweighs the bad, and I would recommend watching it (at least once). You have to give Dee some credit, there are a lot worse movies out there.