Short Takes

The fractured franchise packs off to Romania for a languid upchucking of Rear Window with value-sized cockroaches!!! Ticking Karl Geary's bubble boy leers out a window at his neighbors a la Jimmy Stewart only this time TV's Perry Mason isn't hacking up his naggy wife across the way. Rather it seems those man-munching BUGS are up to their usual naughtiness. Beyond that, the proceedings bare only a passing resemblance to the original flick or its first gloriously gooey sequel. Not even CineSchlocker idol Lance Henriksen can bark us out of this dreary drek which, thankfully, ends mercifully quick with some fairly ferocious cockroach combat -- in the KITCHEN, naturally! Fledgling writer/director J.T. Petty's snarky and refreshingly candid commentary does a lot to explain the pitfalls of the enthusiastically mounted fiasco. There's also a reel featuring spastic FX maestro Gary Tunnicliffe that unexpectedly veers into a heartbreaking glimpse of Bucharest's proliferating population of stray dogs. No breasts. 11 corpses. Firesuit stunt. CGI shenanigans. Bloodied pigeon. Kiddo combo meal. Peeping. Excessive wheezing. Gratuitous typographic Hitchcock ode. (2003, 76 mins, 1.85:1 anam, DD 5.1, Commentary, Featurette, Auditions.)