26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hasn't Dated Much Since It Was Made In The '90s, January 6, 2000
This review is from: Space Age (DVD)
I'm glad to say that the full six episodes of this fine series are finally available, **though not on the first 1x disc edition of this release**, which is now unavailable. Seek out the re-release. There have been many documentary series done on the subject of space exploration over the years. But few have done it better or covered all bases like 'Space Age'. Producer Greg Andorfer and writer Gary Hines are to be commended for creating a series that will not date very quickly and will inspire people to look to space with fresh eyes. It was a real coup to get one of Science Fiction's leading lights to narrate and present the series. Real space uses fantasy space to take back some of its' turf! Patrick Stewart has one of the most beautiful voices in the English-speaking world. His narration is clear, enthusiastic and endlessly engaging. The writing is concise and refreshingly clear of technobabble and the use of special effects and music is slick and competent. Archive space footage from the 1950s to the 1990s are of excellent quality. And one thing is made abundantly clear: We need series like 'Space Age' to help turn mankind away from the insular, navel-gazing flat-Earth tendencies and to help focus us toward a better future. The exploration and eventual colonisation of space has been budget-strangled and hobbled by political ignorance for too long. As the first episode of this series clearly shows: MARS AWAITS!
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It ain't momma's cookies, May 25, 2005
The low budget horror genere is fill with horrible cookie cutter pictures that are pretty much good only because they are bad....Demon Summer is good for more reasons than that. The story might seem old, the camera work might not seem all that spectacular but the entertainment and laugh factor is very very high. Most people think of a horror movie as all screams. But any true horror fan knows that some of the best horror comes with tons of laughs, the more campy, the more funny, the more gorey, the better. This film provides and then some.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Ambitious attempt, but doesn't quite get there., April 12, 2007
Demon Summer (Luke and Andrew Campbell, 2003)
After the exceptionally pleasant, and gruesome, surprise that was Midnight Skater, I figured I'd give the Campbell brothers' best-known film, Demon Summer, a shot. I was expecting bad no-budget horror, of course, having been exposed to Campbell flicks previously, but even so, the film surpassed my expectations-- and I don't mean that in a positive way. I didn't hate it as much as the IMDB crowd seem to have, but Midnight Skater this isn't.
In fact, it seems almost as if they looked at Midnight Skater and tried to do everything exactly the opposite. Where the previous film was over the top in every respect, Demon Summer almost seems restrained in everything but the gore (and even that is toned way, way down). The intentional humor is absent, let alone the unintentional humor, and no-budget mayhem does not good straight horror films make. (Judging by my recent horror film viewing, this is a lesson that a whole lot of indie horror directors need to learn, so no points off to the Campbells for it.) The story is straightforward and just keeps going, unlike the surprising complexity (and willingness to veer off into any sort of useless tangent at the drop of a hat) of Midnight Skater-- the most impressive thing about that movie, in my estimation.
I was about to write "were this a big Hollywood production, I'd say the filmmakers were trying to churn out another movie to capitalize on their first unexpected hit." Then I realized that Hollywood has nothing to do with it-- that's exactly what this feels like. I still give the Campbells a lot of respect for throwing caution (and sense) to the wind and mortgaging their souls to make cheap horror films, and I hope someday another movie as good as, or better than, Midnight Skater pops out of Speed Freak Productions. This, however, isn't it. **
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