The rather inglorious opening sequence for Matt Pacini's full-length feature Lost Tribes, showing still shots of Native American artifacts, turns out to be not only fitting but prophetic. It doesn't get any better. At least in the opening sequence there was still hope that this might turn out to be an interesting film.

Shot on Super 8, Lost Tribes suffers from a murky story line; confusing scenes and ill-defined characters which don't even pique your curiosity; poor, inconsistent sound quality; jerky camera (film?) motion and bad edits; poor lighting and incorrectly exposed film...

The story line revolves around an ancient Native American Indian legend regarding five stones that are supposed to grant the possessor power when used in a special ritual sacrifice ceremony. If that sounds like some kind of B-movie cliche', well, it only gets worse. There are also some crazy, murderous Mormons, archeological experts, private investigators, a secret homemade weapon (what was this thing supposed to be anyway? a homebrew flame thrower? puh-lease!), in short, almost every worn out plot device you've come to sadly expect in films that give B-movies a bad name.

I'm trying to think of something positive to say about this film, but about all I can come up with is: "it could have been worse. I've seen worse."

Lost Tribes (1998, Ambergris Productions) (out of 4)
directed, written and produced by Matt Pacini

return to wholmmovies main page