THE PRESENCE (1992) A film review by Justin Felix. Copyright 1999 Justin Felix. Any comments about this review? Contact me at justinfelix@yahoo.com All of my film reviews are archived at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Justin+Felix
Rating: *** (out of five)
Written by William Bleich. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. Starring Gary Graham, Kathy Ireland, and June Lockhart. Rated PG-13 (contains violence) 97 mins.
Synopsis: A whole bunch of people flee an unspecified country and an unspecified skirmish in a plane. They crashland near an unspecified island, where they discover that an unspecified group of scientists working for unspecified employers have experimented with biological weapons.
Comments: Even though THE PRESENCE is packaged as a real movie with a real movie rating (PG-13), it becomes patently obvious early on that this is a made-for-TV movie, and if you stick around until the end of the credits, you'll discover that NBC was responsible for this fluff. It's not bad fluff really, as far as cheesy science fiction and TV movies go. Corny dialogue and poor acting are plentiful, so you'll have lots to laugh at. If not, the creature at the end of the film will make you chuckle: a slow-moving guy in a rubber suit slightly reminiscent of the Gill Man in the 1950s classic CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. As I said, this is NBC's version of a science fiction thriller, and what a version it is! THE PRESENCE opens with bikini-clad supermodels who read Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST during a photo shoot in what is apparently a war zone. Most of the film takes place on a giant island with huge research facilities which haven't been touched since the mid-1970s and some sort of native tribe who, despite their primitive ways, can produce supermodels with surprisingly well-conditioned hair. And through it all, an aged June Lockhart (from the old LOST IN SPACE TV series) stands around and offers to make coffee. This is a very, very bad movie, but a fairly fun and funny B-movie. Wipe the dust off this box at your local video store and check it out.
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