Stevecorp
Don't listen to the negative reviews
Asad Almond
A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
hellholehorror
Pretty gross and pretty average MST3K style b-movie horror. There is a big monster and it kills people. The monster is particularly horrible looking. It is still using ropey special effects like normal. Worth watching for Seth Green but Alfonso Ribeiro is just plain annoying. Story is silly. Effects are acceptable. Not scary or a classic but still worthy of viewing time for cheesy fun.
Pratik Vora
Now remember guys this movie was made 21 years ago and I'm reviewing this in 2015. I believe the golden age for b-grade low budget creature movies have gone. Now all we are left with are a few gems like this one - 'Ticks'. Take it from the title which is a lot better than 'Spiders' or 'Big ass spider'. Low budget creature films nowadays have ruined the subject matter with muddled script, horrible acting and those cheap cgi effects. Filmmakers nowadays are not even making an effort to come up with at least a decent watch, which is why I urge viewers to stop investing time watching those movies. DO NOT go by the poster, go by the ratings/reviews, not all are fools. Take their advice and give old gems a try. Ticks being entertaining with a simple script and decent act has had me quiet impressed. Forget the cgi effects, doing it the old way has proved to be better than most.Filmmakers today should sit at home and study this movie before they step out to make movies not even worth rating.Thank You!
The_Void
Insects make good horror movie material due to the fact that a lot of people are scared of them. There have been movies about giant spiders (Kingdom of the Spiders), scorpions (The Black Scorpion) and ants (Them!), and while ticks aren't exactly the most exciting insects around; their bloodsucking nature does make them a good subject for a film such as this. As you might expect considering the fact that this film was a direct to video release, most things about it aren't exactly brilliant. However, it's obvious that the most important thing about a film like this is the gore and Ticks certainly isn't lacking in that department! The story is obviously just a means to an end and sees a class of delinquents going out into the forest for some sort of moral building exercise. However, their little trip is interrupted by a bunch of bloodthirsty ticks that have grown to massive sizes because of chemicals put on weed plants to accelerate their growth. Unfortunately for the kids, the ticks' appetites have grown with them; and now they are on the menu...The film has a good basis for gore, as it's directed by Hellraiser 2 director Tony Randel (who also directed the less than impressive Children of the Night) and the executive producer is one Brian Yuzna, who every gore fan should recognise. The plot doesn't contain a lot of surprises, although it deserves some plaudits for staying interesting for most of the way through. The story progresses in the usual way for this sort of film - i.e. there are a few clues that something bad is going to happen, then bad things do happen and eventually everything gets out of control. The film doesn't pay a lot of respect to it's insect star as there aren't many references to real life ticks, but then again I didn't go into this movie expecting a natural history lesson. The cast is only notable for the fact that it stars a young Seth Green, although he really isn't that much of a highlight. Alfonso Ribeiro, who is more famous for playing Carlos in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, also makes an appearance (which is completely unlike his TV persona) though he is underused. The film ends well, though too many people survived for my liking, but all the same this is good fun and recommended.
leathaface
This was a decent effort from Tony Randel who doesn't have much more to his credit than Hellraiser II and Amityville '92. It's another uninspired "giant animals created by toxic waste" plot but it turns out to be surprisingly watchable. A group of city kids in one of those "fresh air" programs take a vacation to the countryside. In the woods nearby a marijuana grower (Howard) is testing an illegal steroid on his plants, but the chemical apparently gets to a nest of ticks in the barn where he works. The ticks get out into the woods and terrorize the group of kids and two social workers. A lot of people that saw this movie said it had a terrible plot, crappy acting and fake special effects. Well it is a horror movie. What do you expect? I looked at it less as a boring low-budget effort and more as a retrospective homage to older drive-in monster movies, much like 1988's "Slugs" and "The Nest" (which is very similar in pacing, sequencing, and special effects to Ticks). The effects in my opinion are great, done by stop-motion animator Doug Beswick of Terminator fame. The ticks are hideous, slimy, misshapen things; they pop out of these slimy egg sacs filled with dark brown goop. There's buckets and buckets of slime and nasty stuff here; there may not be a particularly high body count but it's more than made up for with plenty of other nasty effects. (A tick burrows under one guys face and blood sprays from his empty eye socket) Also the ending is a bit far-fetched and amazingly over the top. You'll see what I mean.
