Death Row

"Death Row" is about a gang of jewel thieves who hide out in an abandoned prison. Little do they know, the prison is haunted and it's ghost occupants are angry. As luck would have it, a group of college kids arrives, at practically the same time, to shoot a documentary about the prison. What takes place next is lots of screams, surprises, blood, gore, death, and all mixed in with some laughs and half naked women. Jake Busey stars as the leader of the bad guys. What the rest of his crew is unaware of is that Jake can see the ghosts and that his grand dad was a former prison inmate. Jake made me laugh a few times with his takes. Sometimes I wish he was meaner than funny. Stacy Keach and Danny Trejo round up the star names. These two were not in the film enough IMO, but what they did was very good. Seeing Stacy hatch away his two legs with an ax was great. The rest of the cast was mostly unknown actors, but they all did a very good job. I can remember times where I cringed watchin... Read more

It's my own fault for not doing the proper research. I should have known better than to trust a handful of amazon.com reviews that I skimmed over. If I had ever seen those 4 words, I would have never plopped down my $5 for this really mediocre film. In all fairness, had I caught this while channel surfing I might have hung around out of morbid curiosity. But I didn't. I actually bought this turd. So, in an effort to convince myself that it has a twinge of merit and I didn't waste my money, I'm going to attempt to write an unbiased and fair review of "Death Row" (and my name is Napoleon Bonaparte). -13 GHOSTS JUNIOR. This feels a lot like "13 Ghosts" without the fair acting and cool house or the ok visual FX. Well, that pretty much describes anything of value from "13 Ghosts" doesn't it? As ridiculous as the story of "13 Ghosts" is, the one thing it had going for it was originality. I don't mean to imply that it's a great story, but the idea is at least unique. "Death Row"... Read more

A group of documentary film-makers venture into an abandoned prison, only to find themselves besieged by a group of desperate criminals. If that weren't bad enough, the place is haunted to boot! Yep, the ghosts of murdered inmates-past roam the halls, waiting for unsuspecting college kids and jewel thieves to mutilate. DEATH ROW is a goofy, rather dull spooker, with the typical victims and the ghouls who love them. Actually, there are some well-done gore fx, which are worth an extra star. However, I just didn't find this one to be all that chilling, original, or fun. The usually reliable Jake Busey (The Frighteners, Starship Troopers) was pretty lame as the main badguy, the ghostly inmates look ridiculous for the most part, and the other characters are pure wood-products. The basic story is an ancient one that's been done a zillion times before in (better) films like HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, DEAD BIRDS, SCARECROWS, BELOW, etc., and didn't need another re-tread...

Haunted Prison (Kevin van Hook, 2006) I should know better by now than to watch Kevin van Hook movies, but van Hook is the Uwe Boll of Sci-Fi Original Movies: I just can't not watch. That said, Haunted Prison (aka Death Row), van Hook's most recent (as of this writing) release, is by far the best of his movies; could it be that he's learning from his painful earlier mistakes? (Step one: do not, under any circumstances, cast Casper van Dien in the lead role of your movie.) This one gives us two groups descending upon an abandoned prison: first are a crew of criminals, headed by the insane Marco (Jake Busey), on the lam after a jewelry store heist gone bad. Second are a group of college kids making a documentary about the prison. The opening scene, which is the best work van Hook has ever done, is told in flashback as the college kids interview Elias (Stacy Keach), a guard who was at the prison when the riot that closed it down happened. There's an amusing dichotomy between the sto... Read more

This is about a group of jewel thieves who hide out at a prison, while at the same time a group of young film makers show up to film a documentary there. Little do they know the place is haunted, and the ghosts are rather bloodthirsty. Overall, I thought this was a really fun movie. The characters are excellent, with lots of personality and they're all quite likable. The action moves along at a fast pace and kept me interested. Lots of hot babes as well! For a low budget horror movie, this one is very entertaining and a lot of fun.