How sad is this?

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

A low budget horror flick from the Sci-Fi Channel. The special effects are much better than the story or acting. Dismembered bodies in pools of blood and ghosts that can only be seen when they want to be. An old rundown prison that once housed the most dangerous and ruthless criminals imagined grabs the interest of a film crew wanting to film a documentary. A group of jewelry thieves stumble upon the prison and decide to take refuge. So now there are two groups of people inside the prison and meet hellish ghosts of those who were tortured and died there.Kevin VanHook directs his own story and does well with what he has to work with. Cinematography provides the right atmosphere to set up some very graphic scenes. Starring are: Jake Busey, Kyle Schmidt, Claire Coffee, Denny Arroyo, Stacey Keach, Danny Trejo, and Abra Chouinard.

I noticed one person who commented here gave this flick a rating of 10-out-of-10, while others said 1/10. As a public service, I'll assume that EVERY movie starts out as a "10," and then in most cases loses points as it goes along. Here is where DEATH ROW lost out on more than half of its potential, plunging to a 4-of-10 (my rating and the IMDb user average):The original Science Fiction TV Channel title--HAUNTED PRISON--is not only better but more apt than the DVD retitled "DEATH ROW." Minus 2.The climactic prison fireworks special effects were even lamer than those in the ending of INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. If your CGI & special effects budgets are used up by the last scene of your movie, REWRITE--do not fill the departing viewer's memory with a final taste of crap! Minus 2.Two electrocutions-in-the-electric-chair scenes are redundant. Ditto the strangulation-style killings of both Jasmine and Lisa. Minus 1.A father-son angle is passable. The grandpa-father-son closing of DEATH ROW is a plain mishmash as presented here, with the grandpa's ghost younger than his two descendants, and apparently played by the same actor as the grandson in the scene. Minus 1.

If I could, I'd rate this movie as 5.5 but since there's no halfway, I'll give it a benefit of the doubt and rate it 6.Death Row is NOT a brilliant movie. In fact, it's a "horror" B-movie with a super low budget in Canada. It doesn't revolutionize anything and some - okay, most - of the deaths are really unrealistic but that's the whole fun of it! Honestly, it's not possible at all to push a body THROUGH a wire fence in any situation. But gore's always fun to watch in a movie.The acting from most of the younger actors was horrendous. Seriously, it was really painful to watch Claire Coffee as Missy... Her performance was more wooden than the Amazon Forest but the entire script was pretty much laughable. Which was probably the point for most viewers.If you liked the Final Destination franchise, it's pretty likely that you'll like this movie. Laughable plot, really bad special effects (that last scene with the implosion... UGH) and painful acting but the makeup was brilliant and some of the deaths were really really good.

I thought this one had some pretty good scares. I particularly liked the part with the girl and the ceiling fan. Gruesome stuff. The first guy getting squished through the jail bars was unique, too.This movie doesn't just kill people by the numbers.There's a lot of different kind of deaths. Jake Busey came off crazy as a bedbug and I thought this was the best I've seen him since Frighteners. I don't see why he doesn't do more stuff! I loved him in Contact and Starship Troopers, too.All in all, I thought this movie looked like it could have been in theaters. The low budget hampered the film sometimes, but not enough to bother me. I've seen worse out there. There's a shot of Jamie Mann (ceiling fan girl) crawling down the hall as a ghost that's creepy as hell.Overall, better than the usual SCI FI stuff you see. I was hoping to see more deleted scenes on the DVD, but the other extras are cool.I went back and checked out the director's other stuff and while I can't say I love them all, there's a great feeling that he's trying to tell fun stories. There's a real Saturday night, old- school drive-in feel to some of them.I think these film-makers are trying to get some of the same over-the-top feel that Tarantino and Rodriguez are going for with Grindhouse, just not going for the 70's exploitation stuff. If you want to have a good time and some pretty cool scares, check out Death Row.