Evengyny
Thanks for the memories!
ChicDragon
It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Ogosmith
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Marva-nova
Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
jfgibson73
Death Curse of Tartu is in the vein of some of the cheesier monster movies of the 50's. Set in the Florida Everglades, it involves a vengeful Indian attacking researchers for desecrating his burial ground. The Native American turns into an animal such as a snake, an alligator, or a shark (in the 'glades?) and then kills the kids one by one. Most of it is silly and low budget, but it was mostly fun. I liked the setting, even though you don't really get to see much--it looks like they picked out one clearing and shot most of the scenes in the same spot. Still, I have a soft spot for scary movies set in swamps. The scene where the Indian comes back to life and fights one of the researchers was one that sticks out. There is also a goofy scene where some of the college kids take a break to do some dancing on the sacred ground, complete with a swinging 60's soundtrack. 5 out of 10.
MartinHafer
The film is set in the Everglades and is about some silly Seminole chief rising from his grave to kill the infidels. However, while we see his mummy in the coffin several times throughout the film, he apparently can transform into a wide variety of creatures--such as an Anaconda, a poisonous snake, a shark and his original pre-death warrior form! And, in these guises, he slowly tries to kill off a group of teens and their adult chaperones.This film is so awful that lovers of bad films might just want to seek it. Now it isn't as ineptly funny as PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, but it is pretty bad due to it's extremely amateurish production values. Aside from the cost of the camera and film, I can't imagine very much money was spent to make the film. The writing is very basic and the dialog not especially good. At times, it didn't look like they exactly knew what to do next, so they had the four teens in the film break into dance and lie around necking for extended periods! However bad the film is, though, it isn't nearly as silly and shoddy as the director's other "masterpiece", STING OF DEATH--a truly hilarious and, believe it or not, worse film!
Paul Andrews
Death Curse of Tartu is set in the Florida Everglades where Ed (Fred Pinero) & his wife Julie Tison (Babette Sherrill) are anthropology teachers who are educating some teens out in the field. They are supposed to meet up with Ed's mate Sam Gunter (Frank Weed (!) who is also listed in the credits as 'Animal Trainer') who isn't where he 's supposed to be, like a typical woman Julie begins to worry for no reason but it seems that she might be right to worry as they discover an ancient tablet of rock with some ancient writing on it which talks about an incident some 400 years ago when some local witch doctor named Tartu (Doug Hobart) died & put a curse on the land (well, he probably put the curse on the ground before he died), the curse states that anyone who violates his burial ground will meet a horrible death at the hands of an animal, or something like that. Ed, being the level headed guy that he is, thinks it's nonsense but when two of his students Tommy (Gary Holtz) & Joann (Maurice Stewart) are attacked & killed by a shark he might have to rethink...Written & directed by William Grefe Death Curse of Tartu is quite simply one really bad film, it's as simple & straight forward as that. The script is a joke, it's awful it really is. For a start it is incredibly boring to sit through, there are so many drawn out scenes & sequences here it's conceivable the term 'padding' was coined for this film while most of it is just dull people walking through the Everglades getting from 'A' to 'B' & not doing much when they eventually get there either. The 60's inspired dialogue is embarrassingly bad, did people really talk like this even in the mid 60's? I have my doubts with lines like 'Cindy your a real drag' inspiring bouts of laughter from me. Damn, I hate this film. The character's are poor, the whole film is utterly predictable & without any sub-plots extremely one dimensional & dull. Nothing is explained that well, the whole nature theme is muddled & has little impact & it lacks any decent exploitation elements. Death Curse of Tartu is an absolute waste of time with no redeeming features, do yourself a favour & don't bother.Director Grefe sure knows how to put his audience to sleep, this thing is so boring it makes a party political broadcast look exciting. There are constant boring shots of the Everglade area & some of it's wildlife. The murders are all committed by animals as in the curse but don't expect much violence or gore. There is one funny bit at the start though when a huge Python literally jumps out of a tree & wraps itself around someone, I didn't know snakes had the ability to jump sideways out of trees, did you? I also have to mention the almost constant sound of drums in the background, after about an hour of it it was really getting on my nerves.The budget for this might not have been as low as one thinks, I mean it was hot in colour wasn't it. Then again considering what ended up on screen I'd imagine that's where most of the money went. It's a pretty shabby film set almost entirely in the Everglades & it has an awful soundtrack as well. The acting was poor & there's nothing else to say.Death Curse of Tartu is one seriously crap film, it's just that it's so slow & tedious to watch. The stupid, dull, boring & one track storyline doesn't help much either when I think about it. Not good folks, not good at all. Probably best to avoid this one.
pmsusana
This is a semi-professional low-budget horror film that works surprisingly well. There's some really nice color photography (shot in the Florida Everglades), and although most of the action occurs outdoors in bright sunshine the director still manages to create a powerful atmosphere of lurking menace. This is partly accomplished by the simple (but effective) device of having Native American chanting audible on the soundtrack during almost the entire film; this really begins to work on the nerves after a while. (The film's characters claim the chanting is coming out of the ground.) And the mummified title character is a sight to behold.