Trapped in their small southwestern town, a troubled sheriff and a prospector find a deadly creature released from a local archaeological dig and must save the locals from the ravenous creature.
There was a lot to like with this one as it was a great creature feature. One of the better elements at work is the impressive amount of attention paid to the creature and it's mythology within the story, as not only is the actual mythology enjoyable but there's more throughout the film that carry this along. The discovery of the embedded claw from the accident as well as the resulting study of it as well as the running storyline about the cattle mutilations from the creature's acid venom that really set-up the imposing mystery about the strange creature running around that plays nicely with the creature being kept in the shadows for several attacks that give it a great action sense altogether. That mixes nicely with the cave-drawings and all the deciphering done at the site when it goes into the story of the creature and the local tribes is all quite fun. There's also quite a large amount of action-packed encounters here that are quite fun and make the best aspect of the film by augmenting the fun story with fantastic encounters, as the early encounter around town show off the fine scenes in the garage and the extended chase in the town are really enjoyable. Even more enjoyable is other big scenes here in the first half at the house where it break the house apart in a massive sequence, a series of incredibly fun chases through the desert and a rousing finale which gets some exciting chasing and shootouts with the creature in the race to get away. Even more impressive is the encounters in the desert camp as there's a lot of chases through the area, tense encounters in the local caves and really brings out a much more frantic pace that gets a lot out of it for a highly effective sequence. As well, with the unique creature design, these here are the film's positives and manage to hold off the minute flaws here. The biggest issue is the CGI creature, which features all the traditional hallmarks with spotty execution, completely unnatural actions and continuous size-changing in the scene that is usually found here and really robs this one of the goodwill from elsewhere. The other real flaw is the film's last half where it's almost all filmed with glow-sticks that places a rather challenging light on these scenes during the best parts of the movie and make it nearly impossible to make out. These are what hold this one down.
Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.
There was a lot to like with this one as it was a great creature feature. One of the better elements at work is the impressive amount of attention paid to the creature and it's mythology within the story, as not only is the actual mythology enjoyable but there's more throughout the film that carry this along. The discovery of the embedded claw from the accident as well as the resulting study of it as well as the running storyline about the cattle mutilations from the creature's acid venom that really set-up the imposing mystery about the strange creature running around that plays nicely with the creature being kept in the shadows for several attacks that give it a great action sense altogether. That mixes nicely with the cave-drawings and all the deciphering done at the site when it goes into the story of the creature and the local tribes is all quite fun. There's also quite a large amount of action-packed encounters here that are quite fun and make the best aspect of the film by augmenting the fun story with fantastic encounters, as the early encounter around town show off the fine scenes in the garage and the extended chase in the town are really enjoyable. Even more enjoyable is other big scenes here in the first half at the house where it break the house apart in a massive sequence, a series of incredibly fun chases through the desert and a rousing finale which gets some exciting chasing and shootouts with the creature in the race to get away. Even more impressive is the encounters in the desert camp as there's a lot of chases through the area, tense encounters in the local caves and really brings out a much more frantic pace that gets a lot out of it for a highly effective sequence. As well, with the unique creature design, these here are the film's positives and manage to hold off the minute flaws here. The biggest issue is the CGI creature, which features all the traditional hallmarks with spotty execution, completely unnatural actions and continuous size-changing in the scene that is usually found here and really robs this one of the goodwill from elsewhere. The other real flaw is the film's last half where it's almost all filmed with glow-sticks that places a rather challenging light on these scenes during the best parts of the movie and make it nearly impossible to make out. These are what hold this one down.
Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.