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Reviews16
MrLister's rating
If you are younger than the main characters, or new to horror, you might find this scary, but for anyone else I very much doubt it. The premise and execution are unoriginal, the kills are unimaginative, it's full of cheap jump scares and the characters are all idiots. The killer is visually boring, and lacks any motivation (and left loads of DNA and fingerprints all over the place like an absolute chump). On the plus side, most of the acting is fine, the sound design is pretty good, but the set design is actually great. Worth watching if you want inspiration for setting up your house for Halloween, otherwise leave it well alone.
I figured it would be unfair to review this show after only one episode despite very strong urges to pan it straight away, so I held out and watched the lot. Unfortunately the first episode is an excellent indicator of what is to come.
The program is not totally rubbish as many claim and there are redeeming features to be found. Some of the characters are quite amusing, such as the doctor, Sally and Dotty the cyborg. Rachel Grant is Hot, the Reptid makeup is quite good and doesn't look cheap, the special effects are excellent (as they should be by 2009), and there were a couple of places that genuinely made me laugh but they were surrounded by so much nonsense that I cannot for the life of me remember what they were.
Almost everything else about the show is bad. Most of the jokes are painful, and there are too many characters to properly develop. Many scenes go absolutely nowhere and are abruptly ended and forgotten about. Bearing in mind the episodes are only 23 minutes, that is particularly disappointing.
Forget comparing this show to Red Dwarf. Forget comparing this show to Hyperdrive. Starhyke doesn't compare to anything that has actually been shown on telly, which is probably why it has never been shown on telly. It may however be possible to edit the series into a passable hour-long special or pilot.
All that said, I applaud the creators for at least giving it a go and they have done well to complete a whole series on what is clearly a tiny budget, especially going up against the BBC's finest. It does show some promise, but it needs some decent writers or the actors need to have a little think about their characters because I get the impression they are not necessarily being portrayed as the writers intended. Maybe that is the director's fault.
I would probably watch a second season... well, the first episode at least.
The program is not totally rubbish as many claim and there are redeeming features to be found. Some of the characters are quite amusing, such as the doctor, Sally and Dotty the cyborg. Rachel Grant is Hot, the Reptid makeup is quite good and doesn't look cheap, the special effects are excellent (as they should be by 2009), and there were a couple of places that genuinely made me laugh but they were surrounded by so much nonsense that I cannot for the life of me remember what they were.
Almost everything else about the show is bad. Most of the jokes are painful, and there are too many characters to properly develop. Many scenes go absolutely nowhere and are abruptly ended and forgotten about. Bearing in mind the episodes are only 23 minutes, that is particularly disappointing.
Forget comparing this show to Red Dwarf. Forget comparing this show to Hyperdrive. Starhyke doesn't compare to anything that has actually been shown on telly, which is probably why it has never been shown on telly. It may however be possible to edit the series into a passable hour-long special or pilot.
All that said, I applaud the creators for at least giving it a go and they have done well to complete a whole series on what is clearly a tiny budget, especially going up against the BBC's finest. It does show some promise, but it needs some decent writers or the actors need to have a little think about their characters because I get the impression they are not necessarily being portrayed as the writers intended. Maybe that is the director's fault.
I would probably watch a second season... well, the first episode at least.
OK, so the film is pretty poor but I found myself getting quite into it. The original Starship Troopers was fantastic but at the end I wanted more. What happened once they had the brain bug? Well you won't find out in this film as it is in no way a sequel in the traditional sense of the word, more a gaiden, a side-story. Tells you a little more about the bugs and their motivation, and I agree with them.
You get to see a new bug, which is actually a very good (but unoriginal) idea that I felt fitted well with the Starship Troopers universe, but you never forget you are watching a B-movie. Or maybe a C-movie (as in it should have been included as a bonus on the DVD of Starship Troopers 3 when it comes out, rather than). Take away the bad bits (which is basically ALL the technical stuff like script and directing) and what you have left is a decent enough story that will (had better) carry over into the next one. And at the end of the day, that is all this film is and all it should be taken as.
Still, I found it quite coherent and the story was not so far removed from the original that it couldn't have been devised at the same time (which it blatantly wasn't though or it'd have been released five years earlier. It all rests in the third one now. If the events of 2 carry over, I give it a five for advancing the story in an interesting way. If it doesn't, then it gets a three, and two of those points are for the beautiful Sandrine Holt and Colleen Porch who were a pleasure to watch. The other one goes to the characters of Beck, Rake and Dax who, whilst being ripped from the Alien films, are different enough from the other characters that they can share a whole point between them.
You get to see a new bug, which is actually a very good (but unoriginal) idea that I felt fitted well with the Starship Troopers universe, but you never forget you are watching a B-movie. Or maybe a C-movie (as in it should have been included as a bonus on the DVD of Starship Troopers 3 when it comes out, rather than). Take away the bad bits (which is basically ALL the technical stuff like script and directing) and what you have left is a decent enough story that will (had better) carry over into the next one. And at the end of the day, that is all this film is and all it should be taken as.
Still, I found it quite coherent and the story was not so far removed from the original that it couldn't have been devised at the same time (which it blatantly wasn't though or it'd have been released five years earlier. It all rests in the third one now. If the events of 2 carry over, I give it a five for advancing the story in an interesting way. If it doesn't, then it gets a three, and two of those points are for the beautiful Sandrine Holt and Colleen Porch who were a pleasure to watch. The other one goes to the characters of Beck, Rake and Dax who, whilst being ripped from the Alien films, are different enough from the other characters that they can share a whole point between them.