Mind Ripper (1995)

“Loose ends come back to haunt you.”  10 June 2020

A group of government scientists working in an abandoned bunker in the middle of the desert fortuitously come across a wounded man on the brink of death.  I say “fortuitously” because not only are they miles from civilization, but they just happen to be working on an experiment to reanimate the dead (or some such nonsense) when a test subject miraculously falls into their laps.  As expected, the man regains consciousness and goes on a killing rampage, knocking-off the scientists one-by-one.  The man-creature, who they’ve ridiculously named THOR, needs some sort of substance that can only be found in the human brain (it kind of reminded me of all those movies from the 50s where the monster needed pineal juice).  Anyway, our heroes are of course trapped in the bunker with no way out.  And that’s pretty much it . . well, except for the phallic-like thing that comes out of THOR’s mouth that he uses to do his mind ripping.  

Mind Ripper proves the point that Wes Craven would attach his name to any old garbage for a paycheck.  I admit that there are a couple of nice, creepy moments, but overall, this one’s not very good.  The film gets off to such a slow start that it just about put me to sleep. The first 20 or so minutes are excruciatingly dull with people you don’t know doing this you don’t understand in a bunker that has all the visual appeal of the inside of a trash can.  The acting is a mixed bag.  I thought Lance Heriksen and Claire Stansfield were fine, but then you have Natasha Wagner’s often laugh-out-loud line delivery.  She’s not helped at all by the script which gives every character clunky, silly dialogue.  As for THOR, I thought Dan Blom was fine as long as he was scuttling about on all fours, but he’s really not much of an actor.  And his creature make-up was mostly laughable.  Finally, the ending is uber-predictable.  Who didn’t see bad son Scott suddenly making a 180 turn to save the day?  And who couldn’t have predicted THOR’s unwillingness to just die so the movie could (mercifully) end?  

3/10