Meanwhile in the cheap seats is a tramp, who looks rather like Chaplin's future iconic character, who causes even more trouble. When a fire eater is on stage he thinks the building is on fire and starts to hose down the stage... and the audience!
The film is of it's time, violent slapstick without any real story or meaning. Chaplin at this stage was randomly punching people for laughs, which in itself is sometimes funny though something better was yet to come.
It is the dark far future (well 2025 anyway) and three people are sent into the past to perform a secret mission. Unfortunately when they arrive back in the mid-1990s they have no memory of who they are or what they are supposed to be up to. Thus Paul (Daniel Baldwin) only has a vague idea of who he is, and doesn't know he has special powers. Holden (Malcolm McDowell) does have some idea about it, thanks to Winstrom (LeVar Burton) and his powers of clairvoyance.
Paul finds his two comrades, Jessica (Stacy Haiduk) - who can see into the near future and thus uses her skills to rip off casinos, and Carter (TK Carter) who can set fire to things and works as a cook (handy). Holden and Winstrom's goons are out to capture them, or kill them. Paul discovers that they were sent back into the past to change the future and facilitate the next development in humanity. Or something.
What does this film mean? Who really knows? There probably was a reasonable science fiction story somewhere but it seemed to get discarded fairly early. LeVar Burton tries his best to be a bad guy, but some people are just too nice for it to be convincing!
Walter's (Woody Strode) prize calf dies mysteriously, the local cowboy vet Dr "Rack" (Shatner) investigates. With the cause of death a mystery he calls in expert Diane (Tiffany Bolling), though as she is a girl Rack seems to have trouble taking her seriously, or is more interested in getting into her pants than anything else. Basically this is Captain Kirk in a Stetson.
Diane discovers that the calf was killed by incredibly potent spider venom, soon tarantulas are everywhere and people are dying fast. Rack, Diane and a few others end up holed up at a lodge surrounded by millions of tarlantulas...
This is a standard spider attack film, including plenty of shots of people opening hatches above their heads (for some reason) and spiders falling on them. Shatner is Shatner, which will probably make or break the film for you. I think its great, even though i hate spiders!
Something monstrous is killing animals in the Californian woods, local scientist Wayne (Ed Kemmer) has discovered a living example of an extinct lizard which was kept alive in a rock for millennia so something odd is going on. Dr Cleveland (Morris Ankrum) and his daughter Janet (Sally Fraser) have meanwhile arrived to look for evidence of a Conquistador giant. With the help of Wayne they find Conquistador remains but the giant himself is not quite as dead as might be expected...
A standard and perfectly reasonable monster film, though the monster is not from outer space but Renaissance Spain (someone should have told the poster maker that). However, the film has a rather gaping plot hole. We see Vargas the giant (Buddy Baer) seemingly coming back to life but if that is so then what was killing and mutilating the farm animals mentioned earlier in the film? Vargus has the typical motivations of a Spanish officer bought back to life after centuries in suspended animation: kill everyone or find something to have sex with!
A man is gunned down in the street, later that night a rising young pianist called Vernon (James Noah) is being taken home after a concert when his smugness is interrupted by a terrible car crash leaving him with mangled hands. Dr Harding (Paul Lukhather) decides he can save the young pianist's hands and career by transplanting the hands from the man killed earlier. Afterwards, the operation appearing to be successful, both Vernon and his creepily close sister Dina (Joan Harvey) both react bizarrely when told about the transplant...
They act like Dr Harding cut Vernon's hands off and stuck them on his head! Later on is when the trouble really starts though, and the killings and revenge begins. Has Vernon been given the hands of a killer?
This could have been a decent film, it has a Noir look and a decent (if unoriginal) story. However, the acting is awful and the film spends too long getting going with too much conversation and not enough action (baby).