Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining B-movie, 24 Oct 2008
U.S Marshals Jack La Roca(Lou Diamond Phillips)and Steph(Lori Petty) have the task of escorting unwilling prisoner Fredrick 'Rabbit' Brown to court to testify against a mafia boss. They also have another four marshals along to help. Whilst being pursued by a hitman, they decide to take a shortcut off road 66, a condemned road shut to the public called Route 666. Brown is very reluctant to take this particular route but La Roca decides to go down that road, even though he keeps experiencing disturbing visions.
They come across a small graveyard, where Jack's father is buried.It seems that La Roca senior was one of a group of four convicts who all died on the same day in 1967. Soon they are in danger not only from a group of zombie convicts, but from the local police and the road itself, a road that drinks blood!
Much of the fun in this film comes from the rapport between the two main Marshals Jack and Steph and their wisecracking prisoner Rabbit. Theres some cracking dialogue as they all verbally spar with eachother. Theres also a nice little performance from veteran actor L Q Jones as an Edgar Allen Poe reading Sherriff.
This has the look and the feel of a 70's TV movie, and thats a good thing in my book. The zombies arent of the flesh eating variety, and are similair to the zombies from Hammer's 'Plague Of The Zombies'. Its a good old fashioned horror, and has no pretensions beyond entertaining its audience, a task that it succeeds admirably with.
So an entertaining,fun B-movie horror. 3 out of 5
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaing Zombies!, 25 Jan 2005
By A Customer
US Marshall[Lou Diamond Phillips] and FBI agents taking a Federal witness/prisoner to court, decide to take a road across country which hasnt been used for many years. They encounter Zombies who are State prisoners of 40 years previous who had been killed and buried underneath the road. Not in the least scary but interesting entertainment.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
SURPRISINGLY GOOD!!, 30 Aug 2007
Lou Diamond Phillips plays Jack La Roca, a U.S. Marshall and former Navy SEAL assigned to pick up "Rabbit" (Steven Williams), who is in the federal witness protection program but has been on the run. La Roca is to take Rabbit from Arizona to California to testify in court, but along the way they run into a variety of obstacles, mostly horrific, the most serious of which are the result of La Roca's decision to take a shortcut on Route 666.
Lou Diamond Phillips is a B and C-movie king. Route 666 nicely fits in with his oeuvre. The film is much better than it should be, perhaps, given the relatively small budget and a number of questionable decisions on technical aspects (life reflecting art, as the film hinges on a questionable decision). But although goofy at times, Route 666 is a fun-to-watch action/horror film. It actually ended up as a 7 out of 10 for me.
A number of things quickly drew me in, even though they do not directly have an impact on the quality of Route 666. The first two were the presence of Williams and character actor Dick Miller. I'm a big fan of Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (1993). Williams plays Creighton Duke, one of the main characters, in that film. Miller is a genre veteran with over 100 titles to his name, and well loved by many genre fans, including me. The third immediate attraction for me is that Route 666 is set in a Joshua Tree-filled desert. I love deserts, and I especially love Joshua Trees. Director William Wesley actually acquired permission to shoot in Joshua Tree National Park, one of my favorites. This was the first film in about 10 years allowed to do so.
Wesley quickly builds an effective, sarcastic and usually witty rapport between La Roca, his partner Steph (Lori Petty) and Rabbit, although Petty can be a bit over-the-top at times. But Williams is particularly funny. There are other standout performances here, as well, especially L.Q. Jones as the Sheriff.
At the beginning, Route 666 seems like it will be an actioner. Although these aren't the most exciting shoot-out scenes ever filmed, they have a nice feel to them, partially due to the setting and lighting, and there is a pleasantly unusual tangent when Phillips has a bizarre "flashback" as he looks at a victim's blood spreading on the dirt.
There is an eerie atmosphere to the whole film, and especially when the horror material starts, it is very refreshing that Wesley chose to keep the proceedings in broad daylight. It also helps that there are two sets of villains, with the second, and possibly the most effective, not being very obvious until late in the film. The more traditional horror villains are very satisfying, with an interesting, unusual yet immediately recognizable look, and they are worked into the backstory of the characters extremely well. Their methods of dispatching victims are creative, although I wish Wesley would have gone into a gorier mode with the deaths. But one death, at least, near the end of the film, is particularly brutal in its abruptness. Even though this isn't Wesley's masterpiece, he shows that he has one in him.
Sure the film has flaws--Phillips plays much of the film with what looks like a large wad of raspberry gum stuck to his forehead, the shaky cam and other effects didn't work very well for me during the horror attack scenes, the score sounded fairly generic and repetitive (it reminded me of playing a video game), and there are some plot points that don't make a lot of sense if you think about them too much. But most horror fans probably will not expect a masterpiece when watching Route 666. With appropriately lowered expectations, you'll likely be pleasantly surprised at just how good this film is.
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