Rent Ticks (1993)

TICKED-OFF - Ticks review by Frank Talker™

Very good low-budget special-effects (by Doug BESWICK) - reminiscent of "The Thing" (1982) - unsuccessfully attempt to mask an under-written screenplay and its ludicrous plot: Mutant, man-eating ticks indirectly-produced by steroids; originating from cartoon-villain yokels trying to increase the growth-rate of their marijuana plants deep in the backwoods of California!

Rosalind ALLEN and Ami DOLENZ are above-average performers wasted in weakly-characterised roles - much like most of the (less able) cast - which no amount of acting brilliance could ever hope to salvage. However, a highlight occurs in the second act when a sly doctor (played by Judy Jean BERNS) defeats a malicious tick by simply stepping on it - the kind of humour the rest of the movie would have richly-benefitted from.

At the end of the day, the visually-impressive emotional climax to the movie does not resonate as dramatically as it should because we just don't care about the characters in their travails. Rather, we're left waiting for it all to end, aided-and-abetted by the fact that the DVD version is shorter than both the Blu-ray or the 4K one and is, therefore, much to be preferred.