It's ironic, really: Vicious features Tom Savini, one of the finest special effects guys in horror. However, instead of having Savini do the creature effects, which would have been the best use of his time and the film's meager budget, they opted to have him act, and left the special effects to some hack CGI programmers. Sadly, this takes an already mediocre movie and drops it down a few more notches to complete cinematic tripe.

Vicious opens with two campers on the run from something toothy and nasty. The beast chomps the man, and the woman (played by The Slumber Party Massacre's Brinke Stevens) is cold-cocked by the mysterious Kane (Tom Savini) and strung up for the creature's dessert. Enter two military men (one of whom is played by an unrecognizably clean cut Bill Mosely) understandably concerned with the creature, codenamed Project Carnivore, and its loose-cannon controller. Apparently Kane has gone above and beyond the call of duty with "training" the creature by feeding it local campers. The military sends in two Marines (two of the scrawniest leathernecks this reviewer's ever laid eyes on) to bring Kane and the creature in. At the same time, four friends on a fishing trip stumble square in the middle of the conflict, with fatal results. Who will live? Who will die? Who gives a rat's ass? I sure as hell didn't, and I doubt anybody else will.

Everything about this movie is painfully amateurish. Direction was stunningly boring, with standard eye-level shots and bucket loads of lame filtered POV shots (why don't monsters ever see clearly?). Acting was thoroughly awful except for Tom Savini, who played Kane with psychotic relish. Of course, when a special effects wiz is your best actor, you need to re-evaluate the other "talent" on the cast. It was nice to see genre vets Bill Mosely and Brinke Stevens, but their parts are very minimal. Hell, Brinke had maybe a MINUTE of screen time, and all she did was scream!

Worst of all is the creature itself. Take a good long look at the rather slick beast on the cover and commit it to memory, because you'll never see it in the movie! Instead, we're given a semi-reptilian beast that somewhat resembles the creature from Brotherhood of the Wolf rendered on a Playstation One. Yes, the CGI is that bad, with our creature skating jerkily across the frame, chomping down on its victims while somehow keeping his teeth perfectly blood coated right to the gumline. It's ridiculous and insulting to expect the viewer to suspend their disbelief on such a chintzy job. Not only that, but any potential for tension is washed away by one dimensional, unlikable characters: any threat the monster presents is nullified by the fact that you just don't care about the supposed "heroes" of this mess. The three men are stereotypical borderline alcoholics, who hate the fact that a girl has ruined the masculine purity of their fishing trip. I don't blame them, seeing as how the woman is portrayed in an incredibly sexist manner, barely able to function on an independent level while being a royal pain in the ass. She acts as a sort of den mother, talking down to the guys and refusing to let them drink(?), yet not understanding why they are so angry with her. The dialogue and interaction between the characters is childish and unrealistic, and I have never really HATED characters in movies (after all, they're fictitious) but Vicious brought me pretty damn close.

Presentation is nothing fancy, either. Colors just seemed "off," with skin tones looking ruddy and blacks being very washed out. Artifacting popped up now and again, and the whole thing just wasn't too pleasing. Audio was a Dolby Surround mix, and fared decently, with fairly clear sound effects and a soundtrack loaded with mediocre modern hard rock bands. Taking a look at the back of the sleeve (this is a press disc) tells us that we'll get a behind-the-scenes featurette (maybe we'll see the Commodore 64 they rendered the graphics on), trailers, and audio commentary. If you ask me, the audio commentary better be ninety minutes of apologizing for this train wreck.

I like z-grade flicks as much as the next guy. There are some real gems out there in this straight-to-video market if you look hard enough. Sadly, if you see Vicious on the shelf come the end of '03, you should just keep walking and don't look back.