Review

The last of the kids to be infected with the cockroach plague is now all grown up and living with his mother and sister in an apartment in a pretty bleak looking part of town. Marvin is slightly retarded and spends his days taking photographs of his neighbours out his bedroom window. Marvin is allergic to about everything, doesn't get out much, and lives his live via the shots he takes of those living in the same apartment complex. Sort of like a gamer really.

Naturally this movie being Mimic 3, the giant killer Judas breed insects soon start making an appearance and cutting down on the number of neighbours Marvin gets to photograph. Along with his sister, Rosy, and the chick across the street, Carmen, Marvin is about to get an entry-level lesson in entomology. Throw in some shady characters, a Detective with the hots for mom, and some disposable bit players, and we're good to go as Marvin and his Scooby gang face off against the giant killer insects. A surprisingly good movie winged its way to my player, and a good time ensued. Ready to get out the Raid?

WTF did l just sit through? I have the third part of a giant killer insect trilogy, and am expecting lots of bodies, massive amounts of schlock, and a "hey it's straight to DVD" attitude from all involved in the movie. In short, a pretty diabolically bad outing. What I actually got was a pretty decent movie, with a lot of artistic touches, and a fresh look at the subject matter. Hell I'm calling this one as good, if not better, then del Toro's original. Now that's going to be blasphemy in some quarters so guess I better get down to defending my point of view.

Director/Writer Petty has dispensed with the characters and passed happenings with the third movie. Basically he simply recreates the gnarly creatures, and drops them on a whole new set of characters, with a bit of background thrown in for those not on the the same page of the play book. In doing so he goes with a sort of rear window, there's that Hitchcock influence again, approach which adds a lot of interest to what could be a tired old franchise in the wrong hands. Del Toro went similar with the first one for the opening act; here Petty keeps it up right till the insect attack on Marvin's apartment, and the cool resolution.

Petty isn't pulling any punches here, he's made the movie he wanted to make regards of franchise directions

Right from the word go Petty shows he's not simply making another sequel, but is prepared to take some risks with the movie. We get the story unfolding via Marvin's photography, loved the jumping between still frames, and possibly more importantly via Marvin's viewpoint. That Marvin doesn't understand what's going down at first, but the audience does, is one of the charms of Sentinel. You keep waiting for the penny to drop for Marvin, while he remains unsure of exactly what he is seeing via his camera and the photographs.

Add in Petty's use of POV shots, fade ins and outs, and every visual trick he can possibly use and you simply have to earmark the Director as someone to keep an eye on. This was Petty's first major, and the kid is already up there with the Brad Andersons of this world. Give him a decent budget and the dude is going to produce some magic in the coming years. Hopefully he'll stick with horror, but I have the feeling he may get pulled into thrillers down the track.

The movie has zero lag and rockets along to the final confrontation without putting a step wrong, though l must admit a few characters sort of got forgotten about along the way. And what was the deal with the pigeons again? The script is pretty minimalist in this off kilter creature feature, and none of the characters are being developed.

Creature effects were pretty damn good end of day. We get dudes in latex suites, props which on a capable of occasions are noticeably so, and some CGI to round out the whole fandango. I was pretty happy end of day, and nice to see a Director not resorting to the computer renders for every friggin creature effect they want included in their flick.

You have probably only ever heard of one name out of the entire cast, but what the heck genre fav Lance Henriksen is always welcome round my neck of the woods. Here he does the business as Garbageman, underplaying and stealing scenes as usual. Love the dude's work, so am probably slightly biased.

Karl Geary (Marvin) worked for me and l was believing his quite stunning portrayal of a twenty something with slight mental problems and total social alienation. Hey he would be perfect as one of the duders in a slasher. Alexis Dziena (Rosy) irritated me for a while, but eventually got into her street smart acting older than the character is presented as performance. And Rebecca Mader (Carmen) did okay as Marvin's sort of love interest. She didn't have too large a part in the movie, and I would certainly like to see her dial into a meatier role in another movie.

Alexis Dziena was sort of embarrassing on the T&A stakes. We get plenty of her ample cleavage on display during Sentinel but the chick looks like she's still in junior high. Cover them up Alexis, not needed, and go do your homework.

Henning Lohner handed down a dark and compelling, mainly violin driven, soundtrack that matched Petty's visuals to a tee. I was applauding over here and dug the whole sound department on this movie.

Sentinel surprised the hell out of me and turned out to be a pretty good movie, though genre fans may find the art parts of it slightly off putting. Go catch a PG13 instead would be my advice. I was hoping for a schlock filled hour and a half to watch over beer and nachos, and ended up with a movie that rocked the house down. Some one give Director Petty some cash to make a new movie with pronto! Currently we are being inundated with sequels, and surprisingly first timer Petty kicks a major, and major arse with this outing. Full respect to Dimension Films for taking the risk with this one.

Since Sentinel didn't get a cinema release there's not much in the way of figures to work out how it went. I picked up a copy for $6 down blockbuster and was glad I did. Overall the horror genre reviewers have been kind to the movie, with a few exceptions, while the mainstream have done their normal "we're better than you peons" pieces, hey come and tell me why Vanilla Sky is a good movie again!

If you enjoy off beat horror/thrillers then you are really going to enjoy this example of going somewhere different with a concept. A breath of fresh air in a stale environment was needed for the Mimic franchise and hopefully we'll get a fourth movie; if they wont to toss it Petty's way then I for one wont be complaining. Almost uniquely in this century a sequel which matches the original movie's intensity and risk taking. Climb on board, and don't forget the bug spray.