As a standalone goes, this isn't bad and is miles ahead of its terribly lame unrelated second sequel 'Curse III: Blood Sacrifice (1991)'. Still even here, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed with the final outcome. What begins promising and ends so (mainly centring on Screaming Mad George's tremendously vivid and killer first-rate special effects) has too much time on its hands when it should be more exciting than it actually is with an odd, colourful assemble of sub-plots hanging off its already creative premise. The problem is it seems to want to only the scrape the surface with minimal details, than delving in deep with any sort of lasting imprint and ends on a whimper. So the comparisons to Cronenberg's cerebral remake of 'The Fly' seemed to be unjustified, with only the transformation effects ringing true. Leaving it as a simple, taut and silly b-grade cautionary on-the-road feature. Although expect something dreary, downbeat and utterly horrifying. Likable leads Jill Schoelen (who's always a complete delight) and J. Eddie Peck (the poor guy goes through the slivering changes) make the trip an easy ride. There's fun support in the shape Jamie Farr, Bo Svenson, Sydney Lassick and Savina Gersak. The atmosphere might be lacking (even though the well presented photography frames the blistering sand bowl locations to good effect), but it has a real nasty streak abound (the plastered shocks and unnerving deaths) and the macabre effects are grotesque and leave sickening punch in the guts. It looks like they were trying to blow you away, and it mostly does good at that. I guess we know what the main selling point is here.
Review of Curse II: The Bite
