Face of Terror

Starring:Rick Schroder, Paulina GÃ¡lvez, Eric Balfour, Abel Folk, Ana MarÃa Montero (II), Marta Nieto, Joan Minguell, Dean Haglund, Sergi Mateu, Rachael E. Stevens, Kadeem Hardison, Josep Minguell, Kirk B.R. Woller, Ernesto Collado, Marta Gil, Leinani Acevedo, Marta Vilanova, Ricardo Smith, Oscar EdÃº, Pedro Casablanc
Director: Bryan Goeres
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

An effective crime drama and thriller
Plenty of action makes this an entertaining thriller
Not too good, but not COMPLETELY horrible

Face of Terror
Starring: Rick Schroder , Paulina Gálvez , Eric Balfour , Abel Folk , and Ana María Montero (II)
Director: Bryan Goeres
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0007G89GO
Release Date: 2005-03-22

Customer Reviews:

An effective crime drama and thriller.......2006-04-12

There are a few things about this little film that are very interesting, but none more than the site of most of its scenes -- Barcelona, Spain. The scenery of this southern European city is easily the most easy to watch and interesting part of this drama.

The movie revolves around the star (Rick Schroeder, late of "NYPD Blue") running around Barcelona trying to locate his sister, who left home to pursue modeling in Spain and has since become involved in a strange and hardly believable plot that involves models, a briefcase and a terrorist.

It's pretty ridiculous how Schroeder got there. He plays a cop in Los Angeles that dials up his sister on his cell phone -- right in the middle of a bust -- and, when she fails to answer, he decides to leave his partner, his employer and his case to go to Spain to locate her.

When he arrives he finds sis has been missing for weeks. This is another ridiculous plot device, since she's really just been vacationing on some rich guy's boat!

Anyway, she and a bunch of other models have been and are becoming unwitting (!) tools of an international terrorist who blows up buildings in Spain for reasons never explained in the flick. There's a pretty good chase and some good action at the end when our hero and sis meet up with the bad guys.

This movie is based on a lot of ideas that aren't realistic, and it's full of lovely people that probably never took an acting class, but it maintains tension throughout and keeps your interest for 90 minutes. It has some great scenery and action sequences that help you stay involved.

Schroeder's had a good career, beginning as a child actor and rotating in adulthood through "NYPD Blue" to play a similar role in this movie. This probably won't be the gold star on his career when it's done but it won't be the worst thing he ever did, either.

Plenty of action makes this an entertaining thriller.......2005-06-24

It was the cast, rather than the film itself, that brought me to Face of Terror. I hadn't seen Kadeem Hardison since A Different World went off the air, and I had never seen Rick Schroder take on a serious role before (no NYPD Blue for me, please). The clincher, though, was the inclusion of Dean Haglund - aka Langley of The Lone Gunmen. When all is said and done, I have to say I enjoyed the film. If they had given me anything that could possibly explain the link between the two convergent storylines, I would have given it four stars. This thing has no shortage of action: shootings, car chases, explosions, fist fights, and all sorts of general mayhem. Then, on top of that, they throw in a bunch of fashion models - and that's never a bad thing. (I could have done with a whole lot more of that photographer's half-naked model.)

Remember how Team America basically destroyed Paris in the opening scenes of Team America: World Police? Well, Nick Harper (Schroder) sort of does the same thing to Barcelona - albeit in a more piecemeal fashion - when he comes searching for his missing sister. Harper's a cop, and he's going to do whatever he has to do to find Faith (Rachael E. Stevens) - no matter how much destruction and death he brings upon the heads of the local citizenry or how many warnings he gets from the unhelpful Spanish police inspector. His basic operating procedure is to find anyone who knew his sister, ask him about her, and then start wailing on him with his fists. As Nick was beating up a significant percentage of the local population, all I could do was sit there wishing the movie had been set in France rather than Spain. He does get help from a lady who turns out to be more than just an employee of the company his sister had worked for - he doesn't beat her up, but he does get physical with her.

While all this is going on, Barcelona is suffering a series of terrorist bombings, all of them the work of the dude who played Xander's best friend (until he was turned into a vampire) on the two-part series premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What does terrorism have to do with a young fashion model gone missing? A heck of a lot, as it turns out. It certainly makes for a lot more action, as Nick not only has to find his sister, he has to save her (and a lot of innocent civilians) from the clutches of a notorious terrorist.

Face of Terror was filmed in Barcelona. As far as I know, no citizens of that city were harmed in the making of this movie, but the filmmakers certainly blew through the town like a rabid wildcat. Countless cars were crashed (after extensive chases that sent extras running for their fictional lives), a number of quaint little settings were basically destroyed, and an extensive foot chase saw dozens of "innocent bystanders" pushed to the ground or just flat-out run over. (Why oh why couldn't they be French instead of Spanish?) The action is a bit clumsy at times, but it makes up in quantity for what it lacks in quality.

Face of Terror is basically your decently average action film. There's nothing all that special about it, it's pretty predictable, Hardison pretty much phoned in his performance (literally), and the plot is not without a few holes, but I have to say it's pretty entertaining to watch. Doggone it, you just can't help but pull for Ricky Schroder, even though he's all grown up now.

Not too good, but not COMPLETELY horrible.......2005-05-05

In this passable action flick, a Los Angeles detective goes to Barcelona to find his sister, a model there whom he has not heard from in some time. His search for her brings him face to face with terrorists and arms merchants.

The main draw here will be the cast. Rick Schroder stars as the detective, Nick Harper. His performance is unremarkable, and the character isn't well-developed. Eric Balfour, as terrorist Saleem Haddad, tries a little harder and manages at least a little menace. Kadeem Hardison (of television's "A Different World") plays Harper's partner back in L.A., but he doesn't do much besides talk on the phone. And Dean Haglund, known to X-Files fans as Langly of the Lone Gunmen, shows up as a "sleazy photographer."

The real gem, at least for me (and most other males, I would think) is Marta Nieto, who plays Lola, another model mixed up in the craziness. It's a minor role but Nieto is simply gorgeous. It doesn't hurt that she (as Lola) is occasionally allowed to show actual emotional depth, rather than being just a one-dimensional sexpot.

There's little else worth commenting on. The story is serviceable but the dialogue is pretty bad. The movie was filmed in Barcelona, and the director wisely shot most of the scenes in the daylight, so there's some great scenery. Some of the action scenes are fair.

The main problem with the movie is that it's not good enough to really enjoy but not bad enough to laugh at. Unless you're a huge fan of Schroder or Hardison, or you want to check out Marta Nieto (who's certainly worth checking out), you'll probably want to ignore this.

Average customer rating:

Extremely disappointing (WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!)

Ki-Rei? Terror of Beauty
Starring: Miki Asakura , Fumina Hara , Asuka Kurosawa , Kouta Kusano , and Mami Nakamura
Director: Katsuya Matsumura
Manufacturer: Tokyo Shock
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000ASATIU
Release Date: 2005-11-15

Customer Reviews:

Extremely disappointing (WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!).......2007-06-11

I found KIREI at Best Buy and the premise seemed intriguing. As a fan of J-Horror, I thought it might be interesting. Sadly, the film never lives up to its interesting premise or the themes it's seeking to explore. There are numerous plotholes in the film, the most obvious of which is where does Yoshie get all this money from? One of the principles of horror films is that we have to relate to the monster and in KIREI, and although at first we can relate to Yoshie's search for beauty, there's no foundation provided to give us a reason to sympathize with her psychosis. After Yoko sends Yoshie away, we never see much of her again until the end of the film and at that point, there is a role reversal between Yoko and Yoshie -- Yoshie has become gorgeous and vain, everything Yoko was.

There was a very climatic end scene involving Yoko, where, upon realizing that she made Yoshie the way she was due to her own greed and vanity and she apparently kills herself. This climatic scene is ruined because Yoko survives her apparent suicide and redeems herself. It's a happy ending that totally ruins the feel of the end of the film.

What's really tragic about this film is how well it could have been and it dances on the edge, but never crosses the line to going beyond mediocrity. Director Katsuya Matsumura creates a very creepy atmosphere and Okamoto and Kurozawa are both perfectly cast and pull off their roles with expertise. There are some great moments, including a truly horrifying scene where one of Yoko's nurses horribly burns her face because Yoshie replaced Yoko's facewash with a bottle of acid. Moments like this and the climatic ending are so great and poignant, but sadly, few and far between. It infuriates me, because I'm sitting there screaming at the TV, "why can't all the scenes be this good?!"

The underlying themes of the terror of beauty (which are, not surprising, very overt) and the idea that both Yoko and Yoshie are two sides of the same coin are very intriguing, but sadly never explored in the depth they should be. What this film ultimately suffers from is a lack of in-depth writing. With a script that was more solid, I'm convinced Matsumura could have a classic J-Horror on his hands, right up there with THE RING, JU-ON and AUDITION.

If you're a fan of J-Horror, KIREI could be an interesting movie, but I wouldn't recommend buying it. I say rent it if you feel it might be up your alley. If horror movies aren't your thing, I wouldn't recommend it at all. It's the type of film that pretty much only horror fans can appreciate.

Average customer rating:

Face of Terror
Starring: Fernando Rey
Director: William J. Hole Jr. Isidoro M. Ferry
Manufacturer: RetroFLICKS
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000A7FTFE

Product Description

Dr. Taylor (Rey) has invented a synthetic tissue which will revolutionize plastic surgery, but his research is halted when the local sanitarium turns down his request to secure volunteers from their roster. His luck soon changes, when a woman shows up on his doorstep - her face horribly scarred from an accident - practically begging to be his first human subject. The doctor performs his work, with amazing results! Unfortunately, the woman is a disturbed and dangerous escapee from the very hospital that turned him down. Now beautiful, and on the run, she is determined to make a new life for herself... and she will not hesitate to dispose of anyone who gets in her way!

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