Groom Lake

I love Bill Shatner. I have seen most anything he's done, and even went to Ssplat attack II to see him. Still, he shouldn't just take any damn movie. I mean, there is that stupid chef show, now this, this horrible, horrible movie. You may think 'how bad can it be?'. Well, I was dehydrated for two days from spitting on the DVD and cursing Bill Shatner's name.

It is sad to see a potentially nice subject (dying girl tries to find alien life before she dies) wasted like this. The characters are wooden, there is hardly any logic in their actions. But there is a lot more in this film to complain about. The special effects could be charming as they are disarmingly clumsy and unconvincing, but they fail to be. The lighting and editing reminds one of the bold and the beautiful. The acting is terrible. No memorable one-liners whatsoever. In short, there are no redeeming qualities. William Shatner even succeeded in miscasting himself. Only a tiny amount of irony or self-parody would have made the film at least bearable, but unfortunately it all seems to be meant seriously. Avoid.

First of all, i must admit, I am a great Shater-Fan. I read his books ("The Ashes of Eden" was a great one) and listen to his CD "Has Been". But "Groom Lake", or "The Vistior" like it is called on the DVD i bought, is low average. On the DVD-Cover are Pictures of The Enterprise D - and this Movie has nothing to do with Star Trek! And the Photos on the Backside are from a other movie with Bill - "American Psycho 2"! This is kind of weird, and, well, a bit a shame for a great actor like Bill Shatner. He don't need such crappy tricks to sell DVDs!

The film itself is a B-movie, and if you like Sci-Fi-Movie, you maybe like this one. Yes, the story is a bit confusing and not really straight told. Yes, some of the effects show the low budget of "Groom Lake". But it has it's moments, and if you like Sci-Fi, you maybe like it. The only thing i really don't like are the shaky hand-camera-scenes.

The ultimate culmination of accidentally revealing too much about yourself, Groom Lake is William Shatner outdoing Neil Breen at Breen's own game. It's a film that has made me fully re-evaluate my life, unlike most of Breen's filmography, stuff happens, people react and Shatner directs with such glorious low-budget sleaze it just might make people forgive him for Star Trek V. Honestly, seeing William Shatner dressed as an alien spaceman reciting poetry to a glowing blue man is an easy sell and about the least crazy thing that happens in this film.

There's also a moment near the very beginning where a character is revealed to have Lupis and I fully expected Dr House to show up for a split second...

I live in the same town, where a lot of this film was made. Well, at least shot. And although I was not personally an extra a few of my friends were. They said in their opinion it was the most fun they had ever had because they were asked basically to act like morons on camera. When I asked if that was all they said yeah and they couldn't wait to see what a piece of junk this movie turned out to be. We were disappointed. The acting is sub-porno standards and many extras blatantly look right into the camera. We here in town basically refer to the movie as the worst movie ever to be caught on film and hope that in a thousand years it will NOT be what is used to show what our entertainment epitomized. Save your money, and your time. Do not rent, nor watch this film.