Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Oh, c'mon, everybody, where is the love? First of all, when you slide some title off the shelf that never made it to theatrical release with a cover that features Dennis Hopper staring out at you in all his squinty-eyed, slightly soulful I-Am-a-Raving-Lunatic intensity. . .brace yourself for the possibility that you may be making a terrible mistake.Since the plot and writing credits have been hashed out already, I wont go into them, except to say I haven't seen so many people frothing at the mouth over a movie since they announced Michael Keaton was playing BATMAN way back in 1989.Sure very little of it made any sense, but was it fun watching Dennis Hopper rip his own face off? Sure! There was a pretty woman for the men to look at, a hunky guy for the ladies to look at, a decent cast, sadistic prison guards, a crazed warden, bogus science, a corrupt politician, a real electric chair, an autopsy, brain maggots, falling brains. . .my gosh. Fun galore on an evening when you've got nothing better to do. Are these my standards for great movies? No, but I didn't rent this title to see a great movie, or even a good movie. But my idea of a totally irredeemable piece of crap is NAIL GUN MASSACRE. So I'll save my venom. Couple of stars for the rating, at least.

The beginning promises a lot, but right after the first five minutes, the movie becomes SLOOOWWW! The movie also puts on the table an interesting dilemma: are God and the Devil the same "being"? It questions weather God is really good, and if so, why does he allow so much pain and suffer in the world? (that sounds interesting!). Unfortunately, the movie does not go any further and, as somebody already commented: it is a straight jail-house drama between a BEAUTIFUL Dr.(Dina Meyer) and a dangerous and supernatural-empowered criminal who claims to be both God and the Devil in flesh and bones!(the actor Pavan Groover who funnily has appeared in only TWO movies!!). Dennis Hooper gives some life to this film with his so-of-him and characteristic acting (the one he has been giving us every since "Texas Chainsaw Massacre II") but it makes it seem rather funny than scary or thrilling at some points. As for the edition, acting, effects, etc. they are not the best. Moreover, it looks cheesy sometimes... and finally, the ending turns out to be...

Valuable life lesson: You can't always judge a book by its cover. Usually that means beautiful things may be hidden by a ugly exterior. In the case of 'Unspeakable' it is the exact opposite. It actually hurts to write the following review because it pretty much admits I'm a superficial person who was suckered into watching a movie that was stashed in the box and write-up of a much more interesting looking film.'Unspeakable' is a very nearly perfect storm of bad movie-making. Hampered by any number of problems, one of the worst is a ham-handed anti-capital punishment message that tries to put a human face on the issue. The problem is that it has a lot of competition and 'Unspeakable' does not stand up very well to it. In fact, it doesn't stand up well in a light breeze. Granted many movies aren't going to compare favourably to 'The Green Mile,' but in 'The Green Mile' similar themes are dealt with. Prisoners in 'The Green Mile' are treated compassionately and it becomes deeply effective in decrying capital punishment through the actions of a sadistically incompetent guard. In comparison, every guard in 'Unspeakable' is both sadistic and incompetent. The problem is that the film seems to believe that if one mean guard is good, 100 mean guards will be great. This, I assure you, isn't the case. If you were going for satire it might work. The tragedy (for the film makers -- and comedy for us) is that it takes itself extremely seriously and begins to implode at every opening.Pavan Grover wrote the screenplay and there are glimpses of good ideas. There is an unfriendly look at religion, the nature of good and evil, the capacity for cruelty and the psychological and philosophical motivations for it. Finding these blurred and hidden themes though isn't worth the effort. There are clever aphorisms scattered like breadcrumbs for Hansel and Gretel but they don't lead anywhere.I already mentioned 'The Green Mile' and that it is one of at least three superior films that 'Unspeakable' unsuccessfully compares itself to. From 'The Night of the Hunter' comes the tattooed knuckles of love and hate as well as an attempt at the cool charisma and menace of Robert Mitchum. From 'The Silence of the Lambs' there comes a psychiatrist and serial killer playing an information game.There are many failures that contribute to 'Unspeakable' and its near total collapse. The dialogue is comically horrendous. The music sounds like the theme song for clowns at a carnival and it plays with full comic effect. As weak as the Grover driven script is, the Grover driven performance is even worse. He's dreadful and it spreads through the rest of the cast like a virus. The director needs to take some of the blame for his failure to reign in the actors and the script (although when your lead actor is also the writer and the producer ...). It is a vision less and clunky mess. The only bright light is Lance Henrickson. No matter how bad the film, he always approaches it with stoic and reliable professionalism. I'm amazed he didn't get swept up like Dennis Hopper and Jeff Fahey in the sea of bad things. Fahey turns in at best a bemused performance and is clearly remembering the good old days.There was an exchange of dialogue near the end of the film between Henrickson and Meyer.H: "You were really fascinated by him weren't you?" M: "Yeah, grotesquely fascinated. I probably could have studied him for years." H : "Yeah, but at what cost to your psyche?"That's really what 'Unspeakable' is all about. Yeah, you could watch it. But at what cost to your psyche?Lance Henrickson is far too good for a movie like this. Dennis Hopper is too good for a movie like this. Dina Meyer is too good for a movie like this. Jeff Fahey, I repeat, Jeff Fahey is too good for a movie like this. And let's be honest: you and I are too good for this. Life is too short. Go hug your kids and promise to protect them from all the bad things in the world. Start with 'Unspeakable' and you could do a lot worse. Take my word for it and avoid this dog at all costs.

The worst movie I've seen in a very long time, granted I don't deliberately set out to find horrible movies to watch. Banal dialog, callow story telling sense, and (except for Lance Henriksen) tumid acting.. People who make these movies should be throughly castigated. (hey, the movie was terrible. Gotta have fun writing my review..). The first half of the movie is a mess, needlessly jumping around in time 3 days ago, an hour ago. The rest of the movie is filled with drastic over explanation of points the audience throughly comprehends and with 'intelligent dialog' that the majority of viewers actually found intelligent back when they themselves were asking the same questions when they were 9 years old. Pointless, confusing ending (she was the one who was supposed to be able to kill him because she had an abortion?? because..? Abortions are magical, mystical events that empower you to kill the metaphysical metapycho??) The tacky explanation of what happened to everyone after the end of the movie in the This-was-a-true-story manner of simply splashing some text is even more annoying here than in the 'true story' flicks. Production quality was good though ie. the autopsy scene, cinematography in general (cept for the shot-on-video look).