Search - Intermedio on DVD

I really was looking forward to this movie but....

Elaine | The Deep, Dark, Gothic South, USA | 04/01/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"...to cut to the chase, it was AWFUL! I had read about it and the plot seemed promising: 4 young people travel through some haunted tunnels under the California-Mexico border to score some drugs even though two of the characters' fathers had disappeared in the caves when the kids were very young (and left waiting in a truck, in the desert, while their fathers took off into the tunnels. WHERE are the Child Protection people when you need them?). These two principle characters are Malik (Edward Furlong - "T2") and Gen (Cerina Vincent - "Cabin Fever") and along for the ride with them are Malik's girlfriend, Barbie (Amber Benson - "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and Gen's boyfriend Wes (Callard Harris). There is a lot of confusion (or there was for me) as to who is involved with who as Malik and Gen seemed more of a couple while Barbie and Wes were just "there". Anyway, there is a LOT of ridiculous running back and forth in the tunnels, the bare lightbulbs keep flickering or going out temporarily (of course!), Steve Railsback ("Helter Skelter", "Ed Gein") is there to menace the kids with an oversize pick-ax, the kids make their drug connection which goes gruesomely wrong and there is the little problem with the changing head count of just exactly how many people are running away from these ghosts or "Intermedios" (Spanish for "in between") who seem to be controlled by Steve Railsback's character, the Old Man. This is SO obviously a low-budget movie that it's laughable. Some of the sets moved when they should have been "solid rock", I expected more, acting-wise, from Furlong, Vincent and Benson, the ghosts just look like somebody's weird idea of an x-ray, the dialogue was just dreadful and don't even get me started on the Old Man's "amulet". I hate trashing low-budget horror movies as there are so many GOOD ones out there and nearly all of them are made by people who really CARE about them, this one was the directorial debut for actor Andrew Lauer ("Caroline in the City") and I really had high hopes for "Intermedio" but don't bother. There are no scares, the gory scenes aren't gross and there is just no logic to any of it. BIG disappointment!!"

Poor Amber!

Steve67 | Dallas, Texas United States | 01/05/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I not sure what to say about this movie but dont bother. The only reason I did see it was for Amber Benson. She must have done it to fund one of her own movies. Anyways the movie it about these two couple who go to the caves of Mexico to score some pot to sale. Well the caves are haunted by really stupid ghosts. They begin to kill them off one by one they must some how escape this cursed cave. There not much here for as a story line and the gore is just to cheesy. I will give it this at least they hired actors who can act but it really was not a origanal story or one worth watching. Thats why I say poor Amber because she is great actress in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even if your a fan of hers it does not help this film not to mention they kill her off really early in the movie. Maybe she wanted it that way."

Could have been good, but... isn't.

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 05/22/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Intermedio (Andrew Lauer, 2005)

Poor Edward Furlong. He started his career with a wonderful turn in Terminator 2, then immediately descended into obscurity, taking crap roles to pay the bills. Seven years later, he rose to prominence again with a fantastic turn in American History X. Here is a kid who'd been given a second chance. And what happened? I'm not entirely sure, but he's back to taking crap roles to pay the bills. And my oh my, Intermedio is the king of crap roles. This makes Detroit Rock City look like Oscar material.

Furlong plays Malik, a pot-smoking roustabout who attempts to make a living as a farmer in the southwest. He has a special bond with his childhood friend Gen (Cabin Fever's Cerina Vincent)--the two of them were in a truck when their fathers went into a set of tunnels connecting America to Mexico and never came out. One day Gen's boyfriend Wes (Fashion Victim's Callard Harris) comes over with a plan: they can all head down to the border of Mexico, pick up $120,000 worth of pot for half the price, and all get rich. All they have to do is get meet the suppliers in some tunnels that run between America and Mexico... Malik and Gen jump at the chance to see if they can find out what happened to their fathers, though Malik's girlfriend Barbie (Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Amber Benson) is a bit more reserved. Of course, once they get down to the tunnels, it turns out to be a lot tougher than anyone figured. And who's that kid Wes keeps seeing?

This could have been quite a flick; the setting is great, there are some decent actors (Steve Railsback also makes an appearance towards the end), and you gotta love ghosts-in-tunnels movies. It lacks a great deal, though, and much of that can be placed squarely at the feet of actor-turned-director Andy Lauer; really, do you need to know any more than that Lauer was the second unit director on Legion of the Dead? (The Courtney Clonch flick, if you end up needing to look it up at IMDB. You can find my review of that one elsewhere on Amazon.) But there's one scene here that really outlines what's wrong with it. It would be a spoiler to completely describe the scene, but you'll know it when you see it. The special effects in the film up to that point had been ranging between competent and crap, but this particular scene, in which one character gets split in half, has CGI so terrible that it's laughable. And the aftermath is even worse. That a director, or anyone else involved with the movie, would be willing to settle for leaving such a terrible scene in a movie says a great deal about it. If the movie's connections don't respect the viewers, why should the viewers respect the final product? *

"

Fun lowbudget flick

D. Gaeta | Staten Island, NY United States | 06/16/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Intermedio is a fun movie even if its not the most well written. The film does contain a good claustrophobic feel for a film set in undergroud tunnels. The special FX are made for tv movie yet in this flick they work. The actors portray a good range of panic and fear while the dialogue is weak to put it kindly. I will say that the actors do a good job for what they had to work with. I do feel that Cerina Vincent was underused."