Oh. My. God.Who knew they made exploitation flicks like this anymore?I'm an old enough East Coaster to hold fond memories of New York's Times Square before Rudolph "Benito" Giuliani sold it to Disney and TGI Friday.Aside from the skin flicks, movies like "Dance with the Devil" were as indicative of NYC moviehouses as its giant, family-friendly multiplexes are now.This is exactly, EXACTLY the kind of movie they'd be showing in Times Square right now if David "Wait, what? I'm the damn MAYOR???" Dinkins stayed in office.Without rehashing the plot, let's just say "Dance with the Devil" is everything right that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez get wrong when they digitally replicate film scratches and cellophane splices into their unworthy "Grindhouse" homages."Dance with the Devil" is what Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez imagine when they touch each other in the shower.The plot, not that it matters, is about two Hispanic maniacs who kidnap a white teenage couple to sacrifice in some Santeria ritual that doesn't really exist and that would probably offend just about every Hispanic person on earth, faith irregardless.Let's go over the pros:-- The only chick to get naked is the one who's supposed to be a teenager (but is obviously not). Thumbs up!-- Pre-"Sopranos" James Gandolfini (RIP) as a DEA agent is high throughout this whole movie, and repeatedly gets run over by cars for no good reason. Thumbs up!-- Rosie Perez obviously has one of those devoted, gay personal assistants whose job it is to massage her breasts until her nipples poke out of her tank top in every scene. Thumbs up!The cons:-- Humanity knows Rosie Perez is better than this, and humanity is profoundly disappointed in her. Thumbs down.-- Rosie Perez never takes her clothes off. Thumbs down-- What is this movie about? Thumbs down.So this was on a collection of four movies no one's ever heard of for a buck at the dollar store, and this one is definitely worth the two bits. And nothing more.

A wild Spanish roller coaster ride of a film has Rosie Perez and witch doctor Javier Bardem as two lovers on the run, kidnapping a couple of very irritating teenagers with an idea of using them in some bizarre sacrificial ceremony (these kids were so hateful, I couldn't wait). All of this feels kind of familiar, and it bounces all over the place. However, seeing Rosie Perez undertaking the part of a skanky slut is probably the best use I've seen her put to so far, and I must admit that Bardem is very powerful and charismatic in what is otherwise a pretty messed up film.*1/2 out of ****

This one proved very disappointing, considering how much I enjoyed the other 2 films I've watched from this director! Basically, it's a lovers-on-the-lam crime film in the style of WILD AT HEART (1990), TRUE ROMANCE (1993) and NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994) - but the leads are such repellent characters that one doesn't care what happens to them; besides, Rosie Perez is miscast - to say nothing of boring - in the title role and Javier Bardem (who is something of a witch doctor and is given to frequent trance-like convulsions!) is fitted with a silly hairstyle and Cantinflas moustache!! Unwisely, the film was shot in English (though there's also quite a bit of untranslated Spanish involved) and, consequently, a lot of Perez and Bardem's dialogue is unintelligible due to their heavy accents! It's extremely violent, revealing a baffling penchant for people getting hit or run over by vehicles(!) - but, perhaps, worst of all are the vicious and repeated hits to the face with a broken bottle!! The best performances are those given by Don Stroud as a ruthless yet sentimental crime boss and James Gandolfini as the agent doggedly in pursuit of the wild couple.The film does have some arresting visuals (including blasphemous inserts showing an anguished Christ during the Crucifixion!) but, ultimately, these aren't enough to dispel the bad taste it leaves in the mouth!!

Well done technically, well made, well acted, but an awful, awful, awful story. The scummiest, skankiest, nastiest, cruelest, vilest characters with not a sliver of redeeming likable quality are the heroes of this film. The violence and rape is graphic and I got the impression was being rubbed in the audience's face. These are people you wait for someone like Clint Eastwood, or El Mariachi to come and blow up, but no such person appears here, because these people are supposed to be the heroes - the ones we are supposed to cheer on. I felt more compassion for Hitler than these people. I liked Dr. Hannibal more than these people. Someone must have sat down and tried to think of all the worst characteristics you could create in human beings, with the worst possible circumstances in which they could be expressed. Ewwww.