Strangeland (1998)★★★★☆

Ahh, thankfully a much better (if much older) movie with Amy Smart in it! It’s too bad all of her scenes are the ones with the worst “netspeak” and movie computer magic.

And yeah, this movie is pretty dated. It was released around the same time as I got my first AOL account, and my parents spent a lot of time warning me about chatrooms and sharing personal information and talking to strangers and and and…

And then I saw this movie, which has a lot of terrifying moments, primarily thanks to (yes, Twisted Sister’s) Dee Snider as Captain Howdy. I felt like he really threw himself into this performance and becoming Carleton Hendricks. And there’s nothing supernatural about him, so the whole story is a thing that COULD happen.

Okay, I don’t know if seeing this movie really changed my behavior much. Very few movies have (though Island of Terror made me check every bathtub for silicon-based lifeforms for years! Don’t ask me to explain why… I don’t think I can). Which I imagine to be true of most moviegoers?

Anyway, you know I’m a sucker for nostalgia, and I remember watching this movie with my mom right around when it came out (yep, we were sitting right next to each other through ALL of those scenes…), so maybe I’m inflating the rating a bit.

But it’s short, it’s interesting, and everyone turns in a pretty fine performance, including Robert Englund’s appearance! And Linda Cardellini, in what was almost certainly the first, or one of the first, things I’d ever seen her in, was fantastic.

Just maybe don’t watch this with your parents (or your young teenager?).