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| Josh Phillips as Vic Savage |
Art Nelson (Josh Phillips) struggles to finance and put together a terrible monster epic called The Creeping Terror, in this docudrama about the making of the film and the life of its director, who was actually named Vic Savage. The film "savages" the late director's reputation with real-life scenes of his widow talking about how he was a wife-beater, psychopath, and a pedophile and god knows what else, but this embittered woman seems to be the only source of these horrible stories -- there is no real research into the veracity of these reports at all, but then the film has to live up to its title. There are also on-camera interviews with other people involved with the movie, some of whom are played by actors during the fictionalized segments. Josh Phillips gives a good performance as "Nelson," as do Jodi Lynn Thomas as his wife, Lois; Bill LaVasseur as actor/producer William Thourlby; and Mark Lee as FX man Jon Lacky, but the style of the film is off-putting and disorganized, and it needs a much better script. It seems the most unforgivable thing in Hollywood is to make a cheap and lousy movie.
Verdict: A burlesque in more ways than one. **.
