Dvd review: The Being

I bought this DVD last year at Weekend of Hell. When I saw the cover I thought It would be some kind of 50’s sci-fi movie. But I quickly saw it wasn’t. It’s actually a sci-fi/horror movie from 1983. But of course I still had to buy it. I absolutly love the cover art on this DVD, but is the film any good?

The Being is about a small town in Idaho called Pottsville. The town is struck by a heavy storm. But strangely enough some people start to disappear during this storm. In some cases only this green goo is left behind. But you as a viewer get to see that these people don’t just disappear, they actually are getting killed off by some kind of strange creature. You don't get to see the creature until the last part of the movie. But along the way you get to see more and more of it. Also near the town is a nuclear waste dump.  Obviously  the mayor and a chemical safety engineer he hired, say that the nuclear waste dump is no threat to the town at all…

The first half hour of the movie felt a bit like an 80’s slasher, mostely because it involved the typical teens you'd expect in an 80's slasher movie. But they are killed of pretty quick. After that it’s more like a tribute to the 50’s sci-fi movie. But it has some gore in it, most of the kills are on screen. You can tell the movie had a very low budget. I still think it was a very entertaining piece of 80’s trash. The acting isn’t that great, although it is fun to see that Martin Landau is in this film. Martin Landau would later get an Oscar for his part as Bela Lugosi in the Tim Burton film Ed Wood. The characters in The Being are not really interesting. There isn't much character development or even a very interesting story. Mostly it's just the creature killing people, and the police and a detective are trying to figure out what's going on. I have to say, the effects where actually pretty decent and it seems most of the budget went into this. Which of course is the case with a lot of these kind of films from that era.