Sea of Dust (2008)

Synopsis:Some weed in a costume (Troy Holland) is whining to some older bloke about some thing and Prester John (Tom Savini) gets mentioned. Prester John lives on the other side. I'm not sure what other side they mean but I might have drifted off at that point.The weed then goes to a big house full of costumed loonies where he tries to propose to some bird he loves and then gets thrown out by daddy loony. After leaving the house he finds an unconscious woman on the road and takes her to a doctor to be tied up, a service rarely offered in modern socialized medicine. Then he takes her home where her dad tries to kill him for tying up his daughter but he kills the dad and then some truly pathetic special effects take him to beach where he gets hooked and taken to a castle full of loonies presided over by Prester John who recruits the weed into his army as his general – amazingly rapid promotion especially since from then on all he bangs on about is stopping Prester John.This film is very badly written and the story is incoherent and making anyone watch should be considered a form of abuse. The acting is so awful that there are scenes littered with corpses and they can't even act dead convincingly.Tom Savini really is very hammy in this with a big purple cloak that he swishes around a lot. There is also Ingrid Pitt who seems very lost and confused and that wasn't much to do with her acting. I really cannot think of a single redeeming feature of this film and I cannot recommend it at allRating 0/10

After a weekend of Hammer Frankenstein films, I decided to take a chance on this flick, whose description claimed it was a tribute to Hammer Studios. "Sea of Dust" got the look and feel right, but fans of those old movies should know that it's nothing like its predecessors.The biggest problem with the film is this preconception that it's supposed to be structured like a Hammer film. It starts out like that, with a medical student called to a small town to help investigate strange goings on.The next thing you know, it becomes a totally different kind of film. It's funny in spots. It's a complete bloodbath in others. It seems to be winking at its audience, but is so intent on being unusual that it sometimes loses focus.This is not a film for the easily offended or people who don't like weird cinema. It takes some pointed jabs at politics and organized religion, which I found pretty entertaining on the eve of another worthless election, but might rub others the wrong way.

I loved Sea of Dust! A wild, unpredictable,film with the Legendary Tom Savini and Ingrid Pitt,how can you go wrong? Though my favorite villain was Pete Barker as Chalmers the mad butler.He reminded me of Phantasm's Tall Man. Sea of Dust might have had some political messages,but they went completely over my head.I was too busy enjoying it as a trippy nightmare set in the 1800's. Speaking of which,the locations were awesome.Their real historic locations look much better that the CGI backgrounds that saturated the recent "Wolfman" movie(which made me feel like I was watching someone play a video game for two hours). Prester John reminded me of Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep.A crazed entity from beyond, out to devour our reality,taking the form of a Medieval heroic figure. Judging from the Necronomicon-like grimoire that held Prestor's secrets, He may have actually been one of Lovecraft's Yog-Sothery.

I also attended the RI International Horror Film Festival and I can easily see why this film won best of show.SEA OF DUST is a wild romp of Horror, Comedy and beautiful scenery. A back in time tale of strange goings on. An increasingly wide spread illness with an overwhelmingly irritating side effect of people's heads exploding, brings a young Professor's apprentice; Stefan, to investigate. Along his travels, he decides to briefly detour and once again ask for his long time love's hand in marriage, only to once again be sent packing by her extremely stubborn father… Along the way "out of town" he comes across an ill girl in the road and delivers her to Dr. Maitland, (brilliantly played by up and coming Vincent Price like actor: Edward X Young.) Who fills Stefan in on the Evils a foot. Only the Dr. is insulted that he had called for the Professor and only received a boy in training…None the less, Stefan turns out to be much more than a common bystander. Horror Icon; Tom Savini portrays the ultimate religious torment monger; Prester John. Scream Queen; Ingrid Pitt comes out of retirement to give a stellar performance as Anna. Many beautiful and talented supporting actors seamlessly held the story together and helped to effectively move it along to the climax.Dark Religion and over the top, but fun and sometimes very original, gore scenes play heavily in this Hammer tribute flick. This stylish movie goes back and forth between flashbacks, surreal worlds, dreams and the character's reality.Horror and Gore aside; This is also a very Funny movie! Slapstick, tongue and cheek humor and dark comedy raise their heads among the dark story line. Like others have stated; this really is like three great movies in one. Very Entertaining and Original.