Bakterion (1982) watch online HD

Panic is dreadful. I the only reason I watched it was to see David Warbeck and Janet Agren (with silly perm) and have a few laughs. Indeed the only thing one can do with a film like this is laugh. Chuckle at the attempt to match stock footage of streets in England with the streets of Spain. Roar with laughter at the cinema scene in which the lights go out and all we see is black for a good minute as the monster attacks the audience. Frown at the huge rat that makes an appearance in the sewer only to never be seen again for the rest of the film? There are so many goof in this film it is unbelievable, the best one has to be a Police Rover driving to the scene of one of the murders and the car which arrives is a Ford Cortina. Oh the pain of watching Panic, I still don't think I've fully recovered from the experience.

I hesitate to criticize foreign films too harshly because what we see is a dubbed version that has undergone who knows what changes in coming to an American audience. But compared to the way that films by Fulci and Argento have such power despite the translation process, PANIC is simply a mess.

This is the kind of movie that a first year film student should have been able to make. This isn't complicated and doesn't require a lot of sophistication from writers or the director.

There's a lab in England doing medical research. Something goes terribly wrong and there's an awful accident. One of the scientists disappears. We find that he's mutated into a horrible monster that avoids the light...not so much because he's photosensitive as that the makeup isn't really all that convincing when seen in full light.

The hero investigates with the help of a beautiful blonde scientist who has a really bad perm. We have the setpieces of the monster attacking various people. First, predictably, a couple smooching in their car. A woman in the shower. The audience at a cinema (the monster comes bursting through the screen, a rather nice touch). A priest and a group of children in a church. A drunk stumbling down the street. A family in their home.

We know these people are going to be attacked by the monster because, with the exception of the family in the last attack- the father is involved with the research project- they have no connection with the story other than being potential monster chow. We at least see the children and the priest in one scene prior to their being chased by the monster. The others are simply dropped into the narative for no purpose other than being chased and possibly caught by the monster.

Since there seems to be no way to stop the monster (which is carrying an awful disease) the military decrees that if the situation isn't contained by a certain time, the town will be destroyed.

OK. I could write this. So could most people reading this review.

What kills PANIC is that it's dull and unexciting. When a director can't wring any suspense from the plight of a group of small children locked in a church while a priest tries to find a way to save them, it's time to go into a new line of work.

There's no sense of urgency. The military rolls into town and cuts off communication with the outside world for days but this happens in a vacuum. The hero returns to the cinema and is attacked by the monster. The local police come in with guns blazing. The monster vanishes around a corner and nobody seems in a hurry to catch him.

People in the town make halfhearted attempts at getting out but they must not have any relatives or friends in other places. There's unconvincing talk of a "military exercise" but this goes on for days and we don't see anyone wondering why they can't contact anyone in this town. Today a town of any size being cut off would attract an army of reporters at the barricades within hours.

Continuity is, at best, peculiar. We meet the priest at rehearsal for the children's choir. He gives them candy and tells them to be careful on the way home. We expect the next scene to show us one or more children in danger, but we don't see them again for days. There's a guinea pig that's escaped from the lab, too. It's found in a sewer. People are like "how remarkable" and "dang, look at that" but it's never mentioned again.

There's a subplot about a series of tunnels supposedly built by the Romans that connect the cinema, the church, the house where the family is attacked and other sites but that's introduced and dropped. The American horror film THE BOOGENS made effective use of monsters that terrorized a town where mining had been the main industry. The subplot is mentioned then dropped, as if the writers just didn't know what to do with it. Pity.

The most fun in this is watching the Spanish and Italian actors pretending to be British (all dubbed, of course) and the director trying to convince us that the stock footage of England is a match for the city streets we see. Too many of the actors just don't look British, especially the soldiers.

The leading man is from New Zealand. The blonde lady scientist is from Sweden. Were there two people on the set who spoke the same language? I hope so.

This was in the CHILLING CLASSICS collection from Mill Creek. The picture quality was adequate, the sound less so. The IMDb didn't tell me the original picture ratio. This is full screen, and often action at the edges of the screen is lost. If this was originally in Panavision ration (1:2.35) it should have been letter-boxed. The closing titles would indicate that this was the intended screen ratio. Of course distributors of DVD's are limited to what they can get their hands on.

It's not in me to call people "bad" actors (something other reviewers in this page have made a point of because of a comment made by the leading man that leaves this avenue wide open. I've done enough acting and directing on stage to know that you've got to consider the material and how strongly directed the actor is. These folks seem to have been largely left to their own devices. At the end of every scene you can imagine the actors saying, "Well, that's over. Let's go get some coffee." Francis Ford Coppola said that if there is no passion, there is no art. The director of PANIC has no visible passion for the project, so I didn't see any art.

This has to rank as one of the poorest Italian genre pictures that I have sat through. It's about a virus that turns a scientist into a rotting homicidal maniac, leading to government plans to bomb the town where he is at large. Really, this is a disappointment, seeing as even Z-Grade Italian products usually succeed in at least being entertaining. Sadly Panic is not one of those films. It's pacing is awful, as it drags on and on with little development or plot structure. And to add insult to injury, there's really no tension or scares either. Another bugbear for me is the fact that this one is set in the UK, despite being an Italian production. Many Italian genre films do this but it's rarely convincing and was clearly done in an attempt to appeal to the Anglo-American market. But, frankly, sun-kissed Italian locations are just more preferable to me, so this factor just makes things even more dreary.

Logic isn't a defining feature of Italian movies in general and this one is no exception. Quite why the government come to the decision to obliterate the town off the face of the planet because of the presence of a lone toxic madman is really never fully explained. Neither are the events at the beginning of the movie where the virus breaks out detailed clearly at all. A swat team is called in and we briefly see a scientist with his hands over his face covered in green goo. And that's it. It's rubbish and incomprehensible. Admittedly it seemed obvious that the version I saw was cut of violence and nudity, which hardly helped, but really that would only account for a small amount of missing material. Ultimately, the film is wrapped up in a seriously underwhelming manner too.

Panic does not come recommended. It's just so shoddily put together and it's unlikely to impress too many people. The only point of interest in it is that the lead character is called Captain Kirk without even a hint of irony.

I'm just going to get this out of the way first. Yes, the main hero in this movie's name is Kirk, and he's a captain in the army. So yes. they refer to him throughout the picture as "Captain Kirk". Now, to me, that's HILARIOUS. i had to rewind the movie just to make sure i wasn't hearing things. And there was even an officer named "O'Brien" later on in the movie. I'm shocked that the monster's name wasn't "Riker". But enough of the good stuff, let's dive into "Panic".

This movie is another on our awesome 50 chilling classics collection at number 26. Now i took a two week break at the halfway mark, and coming back, i'm not so sure WHY i came back. OK, if you looked at the top, i gave this movie a 2. So what's the big problem with this movie you may ask? One word. PACING. This movie's pacing is TERRIBLE. this 90 minute movie has a plot that could either have been resolved in 15 minutes but it also had the plot to stage an entire 90 minute movie if they did it correctly. Sadly, here, they did not. It's really sad when i understand more of the movie from reading the one paragraph DVD sleeve in my Box set, but that seems to be happening more and more with these movies. And this movie is no exception. on the DVD sleeve it says "A British research scientist is working with various forms of bacteria when he is accidentally exposed to a deadly variety due to a lab accident." OK. there are 3 problems with that sentence. 1. This movie is Italian, not British. But all the actors are dubbed British so they put in stock pictures of England. Why? I'm not sure. 2. No, i did not accidentally type "Variety" instead of "Virus" That is what actually was printed on my DVD sleeve. and 3. IT NEVER SHOWS YOU THAT IN THE MOVIE. in the film it starts out with some rats fighting in a lab, a guy grabs his face and that's it. i had NO idea what happened. and honestly, i STILL have no idea what happened.

Like i said though. This movie is S-L-O-W. it takes forever to make any point and while the movie has a relatively high body count, all kills are offscreen and in the dark. and they quickly cut away from any sort of interesting nudity. pff. this considers itself a monster mash film? There's at least 3 times in the movie where they could have stopped this monster dude but then...they didn't for some reason? and that just gives them an excuse to have lengthy scenes of them talking. um. yay? I really had to pull out the DS during this movie. it was more than i could do to pay HALF attention to it let alone ALL my attention. But i gave it a good go. i gave it 45 minutes of my undivided attention and there was so little going on i realized that i could do at least 2 more things at once and still know exactly what was going on. and you know what? i was right.

The ending is extremely abrupt with no time for an epilogue and the final scene just makes NO sense. i'm not going to give the ending away but i will say 5 words. "Fire extinguisher? What the crap?" With pacing that could bore Ben Stein, characters that are less enjoyable then a Disney channel sitcom line-up, and an ending more predictable than the ending to "The Village", Panic gets 2 melty faces, out of 10

Tonino Ricci is certainly one of the worst Italian film-makers, also responsible of the terrible post-atomic romp "Rush". This one is a drwaback to "monster on campus" time : an infected scientist turns into a pizza-faced monster and terrorises (?) some bare-breasted starlets. A dubious hero tries to stop the contamination before the army nukes the whole town. In fact, the "bomber" is actually a (very) obvious model kit in front of some lava lamp impressions ! Ricci's no Argento or even Lenzi, but nobody could have done a masterpiece on such a no-budget. He did. Now, you take the same premise and turns it into a mega-bucks turkey like "Virus", and nobody is the merrier.

Because of an accident in the laboratory of a British chemical company simply named Chemical which joins the government's so-called Prurima Plan, one of the leading researchers, professor Adams, becomes a fresh-eating monster, and attacks a local teenager couple of Betty and her boy friend, Lucas. And then, the government decides to order the RAF to use the mass-destructive weapon... Although I believe I am one of the Italian-horror-film-lovers, I have to say this Italian film is as sadly bad as the notorious MIAMI GOLEM. The story of the film seems to be trying to express the biological and/or chemical crisis of the city of Newton where the ex-professor monster is, but the film itself has no tense atmosphere from beginning to end. And the pizza-faced monster effects which created by Rino Carboni are not only simply cheap but also problematically unrealistic; at least his face seems to be too swollen to eat raw human fresh. And to make matters worse, this film has, as other reviewer already pointed out, not a few badly independent and almost meaningless scenes. For instance, in the first one third part of the film, Captain Kirk and Sergeant O'Brien find a giant pizza-faced mouse in a manhole of the old factory, and the Sergeant says OH, MY GOD! And that's all there is to it. Since then the composite-photograph-like mouse never shows up, and no one mentions it. In addition, this film has NIGHTMARE-CITY-like crazy credits; at the very ending part of the film, with the cheap TV-like music by Marcello Giombini, one can see WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN MIGHT REALLY HAPPEN...PERHAPS IT ALREADY HAS!

Remember back in school when you would get a tedious math assignment like long division or multiplication and instead of actually doing the work you turned to the trusty calculator and just wrote the answer in prompting the teacher to scribble across the top of the paper in red ink "show your work please". Well, Panic/Bakterion is the personification of that scenario in movie form and much like that math assignment I turned in it too will receive a big fat F.

Let's get this out of the way quickly. Yes, David Warbeck plays Captain Kirk with phasers on stunningly boring. The movie opens with two rats locked in mortal combat, an alarm sounding, and then some nameless individual screaming with green makeup on his face. This is supposedly how Professor Adams becomes Pizza the Hut or some monster that really resembles him. Another side effect of the contamination besides the resemblance of Italian cuisine is a thirst for human blood. At least this is what we are told as Kirk and the Professor's assistant Jane always manage to find the bodies after the fact. This entire film never once shows any visual "red meat" as all the kills are done either off screen or cut to another scene entirely. The monster even attacks a crowd of people in a theater watching the most mundane movie on earth (even worst than this one trust me!) before having the screen go black for some inexplicable reason. This gets old real fast.

Once the attacks start to increase in regularity the town starts to "panic" or to be more accurate become slightly agitated because a cabal of secret government agent don't want the virus to spread so they quarantine the entire village. Not once does anyone show any signs of infection from contact with Professor Adams as the government is planing to go ahead with Operation Q which is the eradication of the town populace. You think this would be important yet Kirk, who is in contact with the government agents, never relays this information to them. Stoopid! Instead he hunts down the beast with a fire extinguisher. You'll get what I mean if you watch. How this movie ends is so abrupt it's downright insulting. If you must watch this awful movie at the very least skip to the last two minutes. Otherwise quarantine Panic to the island of bad cinema.

A professor has been exposed to some nasty virus, and the result is a slimy, toxic, rambling cannibal monster who lives in the sewers.David Warbeck is luring around as he usually does in low-budget Italian shockers. Oh, the military has put a quarantine on the small English town where the whole thing is happening, with plans about total destruction in fear of contamination. In one scene David Warbeck ask some character "have you seen any worse actors?". -And I can only give him a honest "No!" A very slow going film with few values.

"A British research scientist is working with various forms of bacteria when he is accidentally exposed to a deadly variety due to a lab accident. The exposure transforms the scientist into a hideous, flesh-eating monster and he begins a rampage in the local community that has the government considering whether or not to destroy the entire town to contain the problem," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

David Warbeck (as Captain Kirk) and Janet Agren (as Jane Blake) are dumbed and dubbed as they try to stop a bacteria (or virus) from taking a bite out of everyone in the city. The monster, "Professor Adams", worked with Ms. Agren; so, beauty has some intuition regarding the beast. At first, people think "Professor Adams" has gone fishing; and, in a sense, he has. Some of the sewer shots, later in the film, look okay - but, it's not enough of a redeeming quality. "Bakterion" (or "Panic") is simply not a competent film.

* Bakterion (1976) Tonino Ricci ~ David Warbeck, Janet Agren, Jose Lifante

This is only the second film from Tonino Ricci I've watched, but I can already safely say he's one of Italy's worst horror/exploitation directors! With the other turkey being "Thor The Conqueror", this sad excuse for a movie called "Panic" is probably all I'll ever watch from him. For the gorehounds among us, this movie features a handful of gross murder sequences and utterly cheesy make-up effects, but it lacks literally everything else like structure, tension or understandable dialogues. Here we have yet another over-ambitious scientist that falls victim to his own stupid research and mutates into a hideous and bloodthirsty monster. It's his own damn fault! Who the hell, in his right state of mind, experiments with bacteria and lethal viruses anyway? The smooth & womanizing security officer Captain Kirk (Captain Kirk???) starts a search for the monster on the loose, while the army forces consider it to be better to exterminate the whole city and its entire population at once. It's a really lame and boring horror effort with an occasional gory killing. However, DO find the courage to remain watching until the very last minutes, as we only get to see the monster's face at that point. It'll be worth it, since the bloke looks like rotting pepperoni-pizza.

Someone hired a few names from the Italian horror field and thought that was enough for a passable thriller.

Boy, were THEY wrong.

Ricci screwed this up in every way imaginable.

The effects looked like the were made by kindergarten kids using finger paints. And the tension was non-existent. The camera work was laughable. Hiding behind furniture does not make a scene suddenly scary.

The idea itself was the only redeeming quality. And I usually like to see David Warbeck or Janet Agren. But the must have needed the money badly to include themselves in this piece of tripe.

Blow this one off.

A laboratory experiment goes terribly wrong leaving a scientist, Professor Adams, radioactively infected with a horrible mutation effecting his whole body. Now a grotesque cannibal lurking the underground sewer tunnels of the town of Newton, the powers-that-be are planning to drop nerve bombs if the monster isn't found and killed in time, so that the viral contagion Adams is currently carrying will be contained. If this drastic decision is to be halted, Captain Kirk(David Warbeck), Adams' lab assistant Jane Blake(Janet Agren), and Newton's Police Sergeant O'Brien(José Lifante)will have to race against time to find the mutated fiend and save thousands of innocent lives. During this chase to find it, the monster is scouring streets targeting citizens, feasting on flesh, retreating to the sewers periodically to escape from harm. Rampaging through a theater, it finds a female as others flee, tearing away at her face right before Kirk is able to catch him. The monster breaks into the locked door of a Catholic church, invading a sacristy as a priest helps his choir boys find escape, murdering him as the padre defends his kids. Kirk's boss, Milton(Franco Ressel)unloads two shot gun blasts into the beast before it rips away at his leg. Even Kirk is able to unload an entire gun of bullets into the thing without downing the monster. This monster has quite a threshold, as Kirk and O'Brien flood the sewers with gas hoping to corner it after sealing off escape routes. That monster is damned elusive, that's for sure, quite motivated to keep on going, no matter the resistance it faces along the way.

The version I watched, on a 50 pack of Mill Creek films, is incredibly murky and seems to be cut. The movie's absent of gore and the monster itself is wisely hidden in darkness, with only mutated(..latex)flesh made visible as light briefly flashes on it while in pursuit of new victims to eat. I didn't think the monster is very convincing when the film finally unveils it at the end. I won't lie, this was a pain to sit through;positively boring, with an absence of thrills. If the plot were even remotely original or effective, I might've enjoyed it more. On paper, this hybrid of suspense elements(monster on the loose eating folks;threat of spread virus;possible nuking of town)should be a winner, but under the direction of Tonino Ricci, it plods along at a languid pace covering familiar ground formerly trampled on by more capable filmmakers. In the version I watched, the scenes of violence disappear from the screen as the monster often engulfs the entire frame. Even as Kirk and O'Brien survey the crime scene carnage left in the monster's wake, Ricci fails to give the viewer the gory goods. Just a sheer disappointment that, if handled by someone else, might've been better. An Italian production with the story set in England(why not Rome?).

I saw this movie many years ago at TV and I confess that I couldn´t stand it till the end.Why? was it very scary? Was it too goric? Unfortunately not, it was just terribly boring.I recalled the commercial of this movie which I saw when I was a kid and they assured that"Your veins will get frozen because of fear" Really? well, that commercial was the best about this movie. For the rest, special effects are cheesy and the plot is completely incompetent.One curious observation: that exagerated sentence that you could hear in the commercial was also heard in the commercial of "Virus" another Spanish-Italian turkey of similar characteristics although more watchable, I say. For "Panic" and in general for all Tonino Ricci´s movies my rating is 0.

Given some sort of bacteriological event, would things happen this way. It seems like they threw the baby out with the bathwater, deciding to exterminate a whole segment of a city in order to get rid of one random creature. He shouldn't be that hard to catch. This is bad enough, but it is filled with bad acting, unbelievable scenes, and a monster that doesn't really show himself until the very end. The young woman lead figures she can reason with this tub of goo. It does have Captain Kirk (no, not that one). Maybe that's it's main feature. The pacing is horrible and it drags one forever. Like so many of these films, it has either deteriorated or it never was filmed very well. Don't bother.

Of the many Euro horror films I have seen over the years, Panic, from director Tonino Ricci, has got to be one of the worst. It's pacing is leaden, the direction uninspired, the acting atrocious, and the pizza faced monster so risible that it is wisely kept hidden in the shadows for almost the entire movie.

Janet Agren (City of the Living Dead, Eaten Alive!) plays lab assistant Jane Blake, whose boss Professor Adams is turned into a bloodthirsty mutant after he is exposed to dangerous chemicals. As the prof goes on a killing spree in the small English town of Newton, cop Captain Kirk (David Warbeck) tries to hunt down the rogue scientist before the whole town is wiped out by a warplane carrying deadly nerve gas.

With no atmosphere, no tension, no decent gore, and no gratuitous nudity (unless you count the vague form of a naked woman through her frosted glass shower door), Panic is a letdown on every level, except for the occasional unintentional laugh, the daftest moments including the discovery of a giant mutant guinea pig hiding under a manhole cover (no reason is given for it being there and it is never heard of or seen again), the creepy priest handing out sweets to his choirboys, a couple making out in a cinema while the worst film in the world (yes, even worse than Panic!) plays to a packed audience, the most unconvincing drunk in movie history, and the damp squib of a finale that sees the monster killed by a few blasts from a fire extinguisher (it's supposed to be a deadly toxin) which leads to the pilots of the advancing aircraft receiving a last minute message to call off their mission. 'It's all over, ahhhh ha ha ha ha!'.

This movie is just one long drawn out pathetic police drama with a guy on the loose as a "mutated monster". I'm glad we didn't see much of the mutated stupid looking monster but it might have been better if we did.

So this guy is experimenting with rats and guinea pigs... dude gets bit by a rat and becomes a murdering mutant. The experiment on the rats caused them to become extremely aggressive so the mutant man is aggressive. And it turns out to be along police drama and the military called in to help capture the mutant man because of the extent of his crimes and the fact the victims are drained of their blood. La-de-da!

I acquired this one in a film packed called Chilling Classics - and the film is not a classic nor is it chilling. It's one of those films you try to watch once and then move on to the next film.

1/10

You can be sure that the panic in "Panic" was positively pathetic.

Yep. Any sort of panic generated in this z-grade, Sci-Fi, "experiment-gone-wrong" picture was strictly bottom-of-the-barrel stuff and that rendered Panic simply worthless as viable entertainment.

Any intended urgency or relevance in regards to the viral infection (which afflicted Prof. Adams and sent him on a murderous, flesh-eating frenzy) was truly laughable beyond words.

I thought that it was totally hilarious when one minute the hideously mutated Prof. Adams was stalking victims in the very heart of the city and the next moment he was up to no good way out in the tranquil suburbs.

I honestly don't think that a horror movie could possibly get much worse than this piece of garbage. Not only that, but this hunk of junk (which was an Italian production) contained the absolute worst dialogue dubbing imaginable.

Unfortunately, the unintentional laughs in Panic were just too few and far between.

Enough said.

Eminent professor (Ricci) is transformed into a mutated monster following a scientific accident at a chemical laboratory where germ warfare agents are being covertly developed. When politicians learn of the breach, they enact "plan Q" to annihilate the town where the hideous man-beast is now stalking mostly buxom women to feed his insatiable appetite for blood. Special investigator (Warbeck) teams up with local Sergeant (Lifante) and the Professor's laboratory assistant (Agren) in a vain attempt to capture the beast, administer an antidote then convince the powers-that-be that the threat of contamination has been averted thus saving the town from imminent destruction. All in a night's work.

Sort of a "Quartermass", "Incredible Melting Man" hybrid of Italo-Spanish origin, there's little suspense or intelligence about this gore fest. Ricci's make-up is certainly hideous (as described by others, similar to a pizza with the lot), and his limb-ripping rampage of mostly nude or near nude young women will both thrill and repulse various sectors of the audience. The scene in which he interrupts the canoodling couple has some tension, but it's ultimately inexplicable and so random as to be absurd. Kiwi David Warbeck plies his trade with admirable conviction, but it's wasted effort, while Swedish bombshell Agren's character looks to have been edited down to a mere supporting role.

Buckets of blood, fiery explosions and complex conspiracies involving an array of characters whose purpose I couldn't determine, this B-grade horror has its moments, but loses momentum and drags its heels for the last thirty minutes to a disappointing conclusion.

When you've got a lead character in the person of an army captain named Kirk, this should give you some idea of how seriously to take this film. I don't recall in the film whether his first name was mentioned.

David Warbeck is Captain Kirk and he's on a mission for the British Army which is in Panic mode in Panic. It seems that a certain scientist got badly exposed to some of his bacterial experiments and turns into a flesh eating fiend. Fortunately for the human race his experiments were in a small English town. Not so fortunate for the residents of said town where the army is seriously considering just euthanizing the place lest the spread grow. As it is they've quarantined the joint.

Janet Agren plays the scientists assistant who would like to help her boss if possible. She's working on the antidote, but will Captain Kirk let her use it. He'd like to save the town, but he's not terribly concerned about the scientist.

Panic is a strange Italian made film that was shot in England concerning an English subject and locale. Getting a couple of British players to do the film in David Warbeck and Janet Agren gave it a British veneer of sorts. Still it really doesn't rise beyond most slasher flicks.

Panic is a lame monster on the loose tale that suffers from a number of flaws, ranging from obvious production goofs to a terribly paced ending. Its basic premise is that a failed scientific experiment turns a scientist into a blood drinking monster while simultaneously unleashing a deadly virus (although how the virus factors in is something of a mystery, as we see no signs of an epidemic.)

The most comic aspects of the film are how its claim to be set in England clashes with the Spanish / Italian production. For instance, the police and military featured in the film wear Italian style uniforms. Furthermore, large sections of the dialogue are clearly dubbed in. These comic elements are the most enjoyable parts of the film.

Unfortunately, the film's drawbacks more than match its comic value. The monster itself is poorly done, with bad make up and obvious gloves standing in for its hands. The pacing toward the climax is lethargic, so that I had to fast forward out of boredom. Furthermore, you'll be able to guess what happens several minutes in advance.

I am working my way through the Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection and PANIC is the second movie on disk 7.

I was watching this before vacation; and, made it to the 55 minute mark. I took a week break; and, finished it today.

What would I find wrong with this movie, besides a slow pace, a ridiculous premise, a lead scientist who "guesses" about everything. The British government's plot to kill its own citizens due to a failed experiment it commissioned?

Oh, I don't know... How about miserable monster effects? No one being able to stop this monster, despite repeated attempts by the police, the military, and others? The aborted bombing mission that ends so quickly you don't even realize they made radio contact?

No epilogue whatsoever; and, hardly any back story, short of two rats fighting in the lab.

It was just bizarre! And, could have been so much better.

Niggling mistake: Big Ben has TWO different types of chimes -- one long BONG; and, something close to the correct version; but, not quite.

Your standard "Frankenstein"esque mad scientist messing around with ill-advised covert bacteriological war experiments premise gets clumsily crossed with a similarly hackneyed crazed killer on the loose story with a dash of that old reliable standby of the deadly plague which could wipe out thousands of folks if it isn't nipped in the bud right away in this energetically cheesy and entertainingly slapdash grab-bag Italian sci-fi/horror thriller. An accident at a top secret government lab turns a professor into a hideously malformed, murderously deranged and seemingly indestructible humanoid beast with scraggly hair, an ugly, bloated, pus-oozing, skin-peeling boil-like face, superhuman strength, a horrid wheezy moan of a voice, and a decidedly antisocial sanguinary disposition. Worse yet, Mr. Unsightly Dementoid Freakshow has a highly lethal and contagious degenerative disease which forces anyone infected with said ailment to bag other people for their precious blood. Naturally, the ghastly mutant goes on a grisly killing spree in Great Britain, attacking a libidinous teenage couple doing just what you think in the back of a car, a lovely young blonde lady in the middle of taking a shower, the audience in a movie theater watching an asinine comedy, a plastered out of his skull drunk, and, best of all, even a priest (yes!). It's up to two-fisted man of action David Warbeck (who carries himself here with the same stolid austerity he brought to such Lucio Fulci flicks as "The Beyond" and "The Black Cat") and fetching femme doctor Janet ("Eaten Alive," "The Gates of Hell") Agren to stop the pitiably grotesque monster before things get disastrously out of hand. Sure, the basic plot is anything but original or inspired, but handy helpings of frequent violence, a grimly serious tone, Gionanni Bergamini's spirited direction, an unerringly fast and steady pace, and the wildly eventful narrative ensure that this baby remains a satisfyingly schlocky affair from start to finish just the same.

Wow, "Panic" is yet another turd from the so-called "Chilling Classics" box set, a London-filmed epidemic tale sporting an Italian cast and crew, with international celebrities David Warbeck ("The Beyond") and Janet Agren ("Eaten Alive") lending some brand-name recognition the lousy ride. There's not really much to be said for this grade-Z stinker--the plot is the typical pulp of a scientist whose experiment backfires, transforming him into a hideous mutant who spends the film shuffling through the London sewer system in between random lackluster attacks on various characters. There are endless dialog scenes involving scientists, policemen, and government figures talking the issue to death instead of actually DOING something. The performances and dubbing are uniformly atrocious, with Agren seemingly inserted at random to pad the film out. And while Warbeck does his usual tough-guy shtick, the real amusement of "Panic" is the pair of tight-binding white jeans he wears during the last act...never has a bulge been so shamelessly exploited since David Bowie donned tights in "Labyrinth"...but aside from that dubious curiosity, there's really nothing here worth seeing.

Also known as Bakterion, Nightmare Killing and even Zombie 4 in Greece, this film was directed by Tonino Ricci, Fulci's assistant director on White Fang and Challenge to White Fang.

It all starts with lab rats going nuts and killing one another, which was not what I was planning on watching while I ate my breakfast while watching this. What was I thinking?

Professor Adams has gone missing -- maybe it was a fishing trip -- but we all know that he's behind all of the random killings. The government literally sends Captain Kirk (David Warbeck from The Beyond) to figure out what's going on. He starts working with Jane (Janet Agren, Eaten Alive!, Hands of Steel) to figure out how to stop the infection and save not just the town, but soon the entire world. Yep, there's plenty of talk about how this mutant virus could end life as we know it, yet all we see is one rotting meatloaf looking doctor.

Will the military nuke the town? Can Captain Kirk stop the worst special effect you've ever seen this side of Curse of Bigfoot? Will Jane feel bad for the professor, whose face looks like the inside of a stuffed pepper?

Tonino Ricci strikes again! If I described Tonino as 'a poor man's Bruno Mattei' you'd know what I mean, right? And that certainly says something about Tonino Ricci (although I will add that Tonino doesn't steal footage from other films as far as I know). I've already watched Tonino's all-over-the-place-but-great 'Night of the Sharks', and his brain damaging action flick 'Days of Hell' (which is worth a look) and clawed my eyes out while waiting for something to happen in 'Encounters in the Deep'. Here, Tonino takes on the horror genre, throws in a mutated scientist and a mutated guinea pig, sets the film in England but films most of it in Spain.

David Warbreck is an MI5 agent and Janet Agren is a buddy of the scientist now growling his way around England, and they're out to stop the guy before the government nuke the town where he's on the loose. Our mutated scientist turns periodically to tear people to pieces, well, at least that's what the cops tell us as we don't see much apart from some bloodied bodies. The (suspiciously Spanish looking) army turn up to lock down the town and the residents aren't happy. Can chain-smoking Warbreck and his nifty coat, and Agren and her nifty afro sort all this nonsense out? What do you think?

Tonino Ricci films are a bit of a hard slog, and although parts of Panic are good (the mutated scientist was pretty groovy), other parts just drag and drag. I thought the film was almost over and then I realised it still had an hour to go. The shots of the obviously in a hangar but supposed to be flying army plane were hilarious, as was the usual sudden ending, but, as we're talking Tonino here, everything is filmed rather flat. It's okay if you're running out of Italian films to watch.

I nearly forgot - the inter-cutting of English town footage with the army driving through a town in Spain was pretty funny too.