The Being (1983) Reviews

• It's garbage, but it's *fun* garbage!

  Hey_Sweden2014-04-26

  "The Being" is must viewing for those fright film fans who delight in the cheap and the cruddy. As Leonard Maltins' paperback guide to movies has always succinctly put it, this is not just a B movie but a Z movie. It's got a few distinguished thespians slumming badly, crude direction by cult favourite Jackie Kong ("Blood Diner", "Night Patrol"), a routine and silly script, and enough hilarity to keep bad movie enthusiasts chortling for 82 minutes. Kongs' then-husband Bill Osco, the producer of this thing, also co-stars under the name Rexx Coltrane, as small town detective Mortimer Lutz, trying to solve the cases of missing people in his small town of Pottsville in Idaho. The culprit is a monster spawned by improperly "disposed" toxic waste, and it leaves gallons of slime wherever it goes. The perpetually cranky mayor (Jose Ferrer) doesn't want anything to hurt local business, while Garson Jones (Martin Landau), a scientist who is a fairly slimy one himself, does some snooping around. One is certain to smile watching the ineptitude play out as "The Being" tells its tale. One of the highlights is when two stoners watching a movie at a drive-in spot the creature and one of them utters an obscenity at it. Prompting the thing, of course, to devour him. The finale is great stuff, as Lutz goes through a hilarious amount of punishment while fighting the Being; this is one protracted battle. The effects are abysmal and audience members are certain to bust a gut when we finally get a good look at our antagonist. It's pretty suggestive looking, for one thing. One could savour the casting mix here: also among the people wasting their time here are Marianne Gordon (wife of Kenny Rogers at the time), Dorothy Malone as a woman desperately searching for her son, Ruth Buzzi as the mayors' annoying wife, comedians Murray Langston & Johnny Dark and author / actor Kinky Friedman as a trio of cannon fodder, Jerry Maren as the Being, and Kent Perkins (Buzzis' husband) as dopey Officer Dudley. The adorable tyke who gets too close to the Being at one point is played by Roxanne Cybelle, the daughter of Kong and Osco. Originally filmed in 1980 under the title "Easter Sunday", when capitalizing on the concept of holidays in horror was in vogue. This is a special kind of bad; my corresponding rating applies not to quality, obviously, but simple entertainment value. Seven out of 10.

• Not THAT terrible.

  coldwaterpdh2008-12-12

  I actually enjoyed "The Being" for the most part. Obviously it's awful but isn't that the point? The basic plot is a small town in Idaho is victimized by a big, blubbering, wet and greasy, reddish-pink blob with one eye. He kills people at random and a determined detective is going to get to the bottom of it. Martin Landau plays a 'scientist' who is heading up a toxic waste dump research project who tries at first to stand in the detective's way, but then conceded that 'yes in fact, there is a problem in Pottsville...' Along the way we meet some awful actors and actresses and we are treated to many cheeseball performances and some lame killings. We get a nice view of the monster in the end and it actually is a little creepy. One thing we can say about this flick is that it is never really boring, no; it moves along pretty quickly with a decent amount of action. All in all, I've seen worse, but I've definitely seen better within the genre. The genre of whence I speak being 80's drive-in trash, I mean what do you want? 5 out of 10, kids.

• ripoff of some earlier toxic waste monster movies

  silversprdave2001-07-01

  This movie is almost like CHUD except not as good. It was somewhat disappointing in its first half, and then I realized that it wasn't going to get any better after that. The movie is on the par with cheap 1950's B-movie horror flicks, and is worth a watch on late night TV when nothing else is on. It's main problem is that it is rather un-inspired in its use of the overplayed theme of radioactive waste turning things into monsters, and is slow. It is quite funny, though and frightening in places. I rated it an embarrassingly high 5 -- Hey, so I'm easy to please.

• An enjoyably crummy 80's killer mutant monster horror hoot

  Woodyanders2007-02-17

  There are certain stinky movies whose very fetid, noxious, nostril hair-curling putridness takes on a so-unbelievably-shoddy-it's-weirdly-sublime glow. This exceptionally awful atrocity is one such appealing abomination. The first surefire sign of superior shabbiness stems from the rambling and unfocused plodding'n'poky plot: a murderous one-eyed, flay-skinned, slime-dripping upright biped humanoid beast created by the illegal dumping of toxic waste (WARNING: Beware of heavy-handed subtext concerning the dire consequences beget by man's thoughtless disposal of hazardous radioactive chemicals) brutally slays the wholly deserving idiot inhabitants of the sleepy stick central hamlet of Pottsville, Idaho. A second testament to the picture's pathetic, yet oddly irresistible sub-par allure is the slumming and suitably embarrassed Hall of Shame Faded Name cast: a dour Martin Landau as a shady, spineless, untrustworthy scientist, a cranky Jose Ferror as the gloomy mayor, a highly annoying Ruth Buzzi as Hizzoner's nagging shrew wife, a haggard Dorothy Malone as the harried mother of a missing little boy (said tyke may just be the monster, but thanks to the murky script this particular plot point dangles unresolved throughout the film), the eternally goofy Murray "The Unknown Comic" Langston and saturnine country-and-western satirist Kinky Friedman as ill-fated local yokels, former porn filmmaker turned lousy thespian Bill Osco as the charmless good ol' boy sheriff, and Kenny Roger's hot babe "can't act for spit" wife Marianne Gordon as the constantly shrieking heroine. Toss in Jackie Kong's fumbling (mis)direction, witless attempts at broad humor (two stoner guys are attacked by the monster while watching a cheesy fright feature at a drive-in theater), fake-looking gore, dimly lit cinematography, across-the-board cruddy production values, a meandering pace, a hilariously hokey and unconvincing titular creature, and one of those always irritating "it ain't over yet!" sequel set-up non-endings. The net result of all these endearingly dreadful ingredients is a wonderfully wretched stiff of a highly entertaining Grade Z turkey.

• I felt stupid just BEING there watching this movie.

  UnratedX1999-04-01

  Hmmm....well, I was surfing around an internet video store, and I came across "The Being." After reading it's description, I thought this movie would be pretty good, and also full of gore, so I bought the factory sealed tape. Boy, was that a stupid move!!! This had to be without a shadow of a doubt one of the most ridiculous and unbelievably dumbest horror movies I think I've ever seen in my entire life! The film is about some stupid monster that lurks within a toxic disposal dump, tearing off the heads of its victims. Now you see, that little description makes you think that there's going to be lots of violence and gore, but there's not. The movie was neither gory nor violent. This movie just plain sucked. The whole scenery was dark, and this film was not only annoying, but the background music was irritating as well. I would assume that this was an ultimately lame attempt for a scary movie, but jeez, does it fall flat! And these comments are based on the UNRATED print, so I can't even begin to imagine what the edited R-rated version is like. The bottom line: if you ever see this flick sitting in the horror shelf of your local video store, rated-R or UNRATED, do me a favor, pick it up and hide it behind a bunch of other videos, because this movie is a disgrace to all horror movies in existence. Beavis and Butthead couldn't say it any better, "this sucks!" UnratedX