Night of the Tommyknockers

Tons of micro-budget westerns flood the DTV space yearly, most best left unseen, but sometimes worthwhile fare emerges. The itch for more horror-westerns led me to Night of the Tommyknockers. Not good but not a disaster; it's under 90 minutes and doesn't shy away from monster gore once the bandits-vs-lawmen first half leaves its outlaws in a gold-rush ghost town besieged by gnarled Descent rejects.

If you can accept the meager production values this kind of film must scrounge up today, then this is an overly-talky obviously-cheap yet still enjoyable creature feature. Just mind the acting; although even that in regard, the actual character dynamics were fun in spite of the bad-to-average performances but I got to grade on a curve considering how rare horror-westerns are, let alone ones as relatively focused and action-filled as this.

So I like catching bloopers in movies! This movie of course is set in the 1800's. There's a scene where they're in the dark and use a Dietz oil lantern WITH the Dietz decal on it!!! Ok oil lanterns didn't exist until 1935 and vinyl decals didn't exist until 1943! Their lines were poorly spoken and I mean poorly! I didn't care about the tommy knockers costumes also stupid looking! I only watched because I thought it might be related to Steven King's Tommy knockers like a prequel, boy was I wrong! I wonder if this is plagiarism? It is a b rated movie after all. It only cost about $4 to watch....

Oh my, I can't believe I wasted my time on this. The intro was just PAINFUL ... I have seen better acting at the community playhouse downtown.

Then the meat of the movie started. I am not sure what was worse, the absolutely waste of a script, the poor timing of the directing, the even poorer camera work, or the even worse scene staging.

Sad too. It seemed a few of the actors actually had some talent and were hoping to make a go of it. And unlike many low budget films, this one actually sported more than just 4 people for the entirety of the movie. There were actually moments of good acting, but a VERY few bright spots can't make up for the rest of the problems.

Hope no one was hoping this film was gong to be their 'big break'.

Watched this film since the same team made another film with an actress I adore. She wasn't in this one, unfortunately. SHE would have elevated it, no doubt.

Man, was this worse than expected.

Script was all over the place. Lighting who? DAY/NIGHT? Light poured through windows when it was night outside.

Costumes were straight out of a high school performance of Oklahoma, along with the acting performances. Aside from the plethora of non-actors all whom paid for their few lines, the leads were all over the place. No one seemed to be in the same movie- tone ranged from over the top stage musical-like theatrics to barely-there performing. Tough to find any real substance in the muck.

I don't understand why people gave it high scores. It had no real good content and terrible acting. I got bored and it was too predictable. The story was lame. Just a low budget, no suspense, not scary, kinda dumb movie. Not worth watching.

The tommyknockers acted like upright monkeys on a caffeine high! Lol Just dumb.

The acting of main character just walking all non chalant while bullets fly and talking so slow as a matter of fact kinda way. Nothing spectacular.

Other characters were acting to hard in scenes. Nothing special or likable.

I have seen other westerns that hands down have a remarkable story. This one will easily be forgotten or maybe not. Remarkably horrible movie.