TERROR ON ALCATRAZ
Possibly, the silliest tagline I've ever seen
It makes no sense at all. "Where escape from your fears...has no parole". What's that supposed to mean?
If you're gonna insist on renting this one, I'd suggest watching Escape From Alcatraz (yeah, the Clint Eastwood movie) as a warm-up. Not only is it a much better movie, so your evening will suck less, but both movies feature the same lead character: Frank Morris, who may or may not have successfully escaped from Alcatraz back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Yes, it even mentions the Eastwood film.
You might remember Eastwood playing Morris as a mostly honorable, intelligent man with a good head on his shoulders. Here, Morris is played by Aldo Ray, and played as a chick-beating killer. See, if you watch the two movies back-to-back, you can pretend that Morris had something really traumatic happen to him in the interim that turned him into a callous, cruel beast...or something like that.
Anyway, here, Morris goes back to Alcatraz with a tour group because he's looking for a treasure map he left behind (you'd think that this is something he would have taken with him when he busted out). A bunch of people staying the night to party get in his way. People die.
The first act of the movie is basically an extended tour of the prison. You learn more about Alcatraz in this movie than you do in EFA, The Enforcer and The Rock put together, which I guess is kind of cool. The lame jokes from the tour guide are so bad they sound authentic. And when the crowd asks their questions, you just know they're a real tour group.
This might have had substantial so-bad-it's-good value had I watched it in better spirits and health (I feel like I'm getting rigor mortis). But the way I see it now, it sucks pretty hard. It has possibly the most pathetic excuse for a climactic moment I've ever seen, since we don't even get to see what happens. The guy runs, then the guy is gone. What the hell is that?
When Morris dons a ranger's uniform to coax the teens out of hiding, it's so lame it's beyond belief - and yes, one teen does fall for it. Her reaction when she finds out the truth is actually pretty funny, and one of the most gratuitous breast shots I've seen.
May contain the very first recorded pronunciation of the word "party" as "par-TAY". Also features an Indian guy who resents being called a drunken Indian but spends half his screen time with a beer bottle. (and the other half with war paint on, leading one to wonder where he got it. Does he just carry this stuff around?)
Bad.