Strangeland (1998)

Director: John Pieplow

Starring: Dee Snider, Kevin Gage, Elizabeth Pena, Brett Harrelson, Robert Englund

More info: IMDb

Tagline: So much flesh, so little time.

Plot: A schizophrenic sadist by the name of Captain Howdy lures teens through the internet into his painful traps. A detective starts pursuing him after he captures his daughter. Eventually they catch up with him and send him to a mental hospital. But upon his release, the townspeople don't accept the new, peaceful former Captain Howdy, and attack him. Howdy goes nuts again and in revenge starts everything all over, only worse. Can the detective stop him?...

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? No.

It's always a strange thing when watching a somewhat big budget movie that's done so amateurishly. The acting is poor, especially from Gage. Yikes. He tries soooo hard, too. Snider's not that good, either, but he's at least got the excuse that he was a musician and not a trained actor. Plus he wrote the damn thing which gives him a bit of leeway. I'm sure that was the deal that it's his project and he gets to star in it. I can't blame him. I would've probably done the same thing.




STRANGELAND is a B-movie no matter how you slice it. If you take it on that level you could enjoy it. It had that vibe of "Remember those cool basement scenes from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS? Yeah, well I want to make a movie that feels like that.". That's where it seemed its inspiration came from. It's also got that SAW vibe but many years before SAW. Everything's derivative I guess.