Overview: "Crystal Force" scores a perfect trifecta; while watching this "horror" film, I simultaneously lost control of my bladder, gag reflex, and precarious grip on sanity. As far as I could tell, this movie is supposed to be about a group of idiot women who summon some guy in a Swamp Creature outfit from a chunk of quartz. A fat guy that constantly walks his dogs and peeps in through their windows late at night, is either the Devil or a horny blind man bent on their destruction.

Directed By: Laura Keats, 1990

The Case For: If you like outdoor scenes, there's plenty of footage with people walking around trees, walking to their cars, and hanging around playgrounds.

The Case Against: "Sex" scenes essentially perform the same service as drinking Ipecac Slurpees, special effects are below "grade school" caliber, memories of the chuckling fat man give me the willies.


One of the more "interesting" shots in the film. I wonder what the director was thinking...

Yay, another "theme" movie! If you've read any of the other movie reviews (referring to them as "movies" is like calling Bob Saget a "comedic genius") on this site, you'll know what I'm talking about. "Crystal Force" is yet another crap film that the director / writer decided to base around one single prop, in this case a hunk of quartz (ooh, scary!). Do you ever get the feeling that everybody in these movies are related and simply write the scripts during dinner or during recess?

The movie starts out promising enough, as we get to watch the cameraman lurch drunkenly across a cemetery while the narrator starts droning on and on about some vague evil force that threatens all of mankind. It went something like this:

"There are tales of a terrible force, a power so evil that man cannot even tell tales of it. It strikes often, mainly during grief or perhaps nighttime, and never at all. Men have defeated this evil many times, but never in the history of mankind. It is a power so evil, so diabolical, so fruit-tastical, that many organized religions crumble before its hulking mass. This evil is the scourge of humanity, and often tax exempt... blah blah blah..."

The cameraman eventually passes out and the real movie starts. This is kind of unfortunate because the actual movie is just as bad, if not worse, than the introduction and credits. The real movie begins with some woman grieving at a funeral over the loss of her husband, which apparently is an informal funeral because the girl behind her is wearing a miniskirt. Maybe that's the fashion down in Incest Lake, Alabama, or wherever the hell this was filmed. The weeping mother and her daughter eventually leave the funeral and begin their 400 mile trek home, under the threat of "a storm". I use quotes around "a storm", because when the "storm" rolls in, all that happens is that the screen gets dark for two seconds, a rain sound effect is played (but there's no rain), and then it becomes bright and sunny once again. The two ladies pass a fat man walking his dogs, unaware that this scene of him guiding his pets through the park will be replayed over and over again hundreds of time throughout the film.

The whiny mother continues to weep for the next few hours, so her daughter and friend decide that buying an evil chunk of quartz from a fat man in an antique store would cheer her up. They choose "Beazle's One of a Kind Shop", which has such rare and obscure items as:

  • A lamp,
  • Pillows (yes, multiple pillows. They're "one of a kind" multiple, identical pillows),
  • An evil chunk of quartz

Oh no! Monster in the toilet! This would've never happened if she used "Toilet Duck"!

They decide to purchase the quartz, and the fat, jolly, bowl of man behind the counter gives them some sinister warning about it. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was awfully sinister. The ladies bring home the Satanic mineral, but instead of cheering up the mother, it gives the visiting priest a heart attack. Maybe that's what the fat guy warned them about, perhaps the crystal emits microwave beams and the ol' Father had a pacemaker. "CAUTION: Make sure you do not have a pacemaker when standing next to unholy objects of hatred and evil" should be labeled all over that damn thing. Perhaps with RonCo's "Labelmaker 2000".

So the daughter has another incredible brainstorming session and comes up with the ingenious idea of - remember, this is to help her mother forget about her dead husband - holding a seance with her friends the next day! Yes, that will surely cure her mother's grief! If buying her a possessed chunk of rock won't work, communicating with damned sure as hell should! They all go to sleep and some guy in a rubbery monster suit becomes rear projected in the kitchen behind the magic crystal. He escapes and starts walking around the house, just checking shit out. The movie cuts back and forth to the fat, chuckling man from the antique store, who is standing outside a window. Eventually the monster decides there's nothing there worth enough cash to sell to the pawn shop, so he goes back into his rotating, floral pattern pentagram. The fat guy continues to laugh outside the window.

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