Death Curse of Tartu

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dave s Death Curse of Tartu is horrible. Like, almost unspeakably horrible. The plot, what little plot there is, is about a group of archaeologists dealing with an ancient and ornery witch doctor who has the ability to turn into the animal of his choice in order to kill those who trespass on his sacred territory. Among the problems with the movie are the fact that the music score is often unreflective of what's happening on the screen, the acting is wooden, the dialogue is muffled, most of the shots are horribly framed, the sound mixing is brutal, and the sporadic fades to black to transition between scenes (or sometimes even in the middle of a scene) are annoying. The only memorable thing about this mess is the dance scene at the marshmallow roast, which has to be seen to be believed. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member This, from 1967 when I was six years old. Slogging thru the mud marsh and morass of the historic 'glades with classic tales and creatures and hilarious costuming and scene cuts after screen cuts with hard spliced transitions (not always connected in flow) and completely camp special effects... I LOVED it. The gator chasing the gal thru the swamp across the river and up the tree, bhahahahahahah. Then the other damsel in distress ran right off the knife thru her arm leaving it stuck in the tree... HA! Next, bring on the Hammer Film Productions versions of camp and terror. I want more Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member A team of archeologists including some grad students explore the Everglades. Soon they decide to strip to their skivvies and party. They piss off and wake a long-dead Injun witch-doctor who can transform into animals. First a shark attacks (yes, in the fresh water), then aligators destroy their boat, then they are pursued by an Anaconda as they try to walk back to civilization (and apparently he has transformed into a tiger in the past). They search out a way to kill the revived Injun and end up getting trapped in his tomb. Poor acting, some cool animal footage, a bit of gore and a lot of booty-shakin' shots make this worth a watch for trash-movie hounds like me. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/02/23 Full Review Audience Member Low budget horror film released on Something Weird Video has it's moments but overall is too cheap to be enjoyed. A group of college students go into the Everglades to study an ancient Indian burial ground, like that sounds like a good idea and then get slowly picked off by the spirit of a witchdoctor that works through animals. Some decent kill scenes are lost in a minimal plot and unprofessional acting. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Audience Member bad movies, fun to watch and the DVD is awesome - full of supplements Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/18/23 Full Review Audience Member An undead, shapeshifting Indian shaman takes gory revenge on a group of researchers that has disturbed his underground tomb (located deep in the Everglades swamp). If you're looking for a movie that gets virtually nothing right, "Death Curse of the Tartu" is the film for you. It's got bad actors delivering badly written lines, it's got bland cinematography, pathetic gore effects, some of the worst foley work you'll see this side of silent movies, and so much inappropriate sound track music that you'll grow numb to it. (The director of the film apparently thought that dramatic music during scenes where nothing happens--such as shots of characters trekking through the bushes or someone making coffee at the campfire--would make the film more exciting). To perfect the awfulness of the film, every character is too dumb to ive, including the survivors of Tartu's wrath and even Tartu himself. There are few films that rely more on "Stupid Character Syndrome" to drag itself to its non-thrilling conclusion this one. And then there's the fact that Tartu is buried in a bone-dry, sandstone cave that looks like it belongs in the American Southwest rather than a Florida swamp. It makes absolutely no sense and it destroys what little credibility the film had. (Even if such dry caves are possibly in a goopy swamp, it doesn't feel realistic... a thing that's important to achieve in films like this.) The movie is also deadly dull for the first 35 or so minutes--as it's 12-15 minutes of real material padded with useless film of characters meandering about the swamp--but it picks up a bit when the main group of characters gets to the Everglades. Unfortunately, the padding problem only becomes slightly less severe, causing interesting and even borderline suspenseful parts of the movie to be seperated with some of the most boring bits of film you'll ever sit through. The 2 rating I'm giving "Death Curse of Tartu" is perhaps too generous, but there were glimmers of life in the last 45 minutes of so. If the director and producer had been disciplined enough to make a film 68 minutes instead of 84 minutes, maybe the 2 would be fully deserved. Perhaps this might even be a 3. "Death Curse of Tartu" is available for the first time on DVD via a "Something Weird Video" Floria-themed double feature extravaganza. The second half of the double-bill isn't all that good either, but it looks like a masterpiece next to this one. [url="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/journal_view.php?journalid=245672&entryid=585670&view=public"]Click here to read more about that disk.[/url] Death Curse of the Tartu Starring: Fred Pinero, Babbette Sherrill, Myara Christine and Gary Holtz Director: William Grefe Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Death Curse of Tartu

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