First thing I have to say - this was not a movie made for peanuts; this was made for the kind of budget that budget movies spend on peanuts.So we can cut it a little slack on the production and casting. The plot, however, has far too many coincidences to take seriously. And Mike Pipper's bit of Basil Exposition always reminds me of 'Blazing Saddles' and the "authentic frontier gibberish" line.Thank God for Mystery Science Theater 3000, then! They take a potboiler destined for total oblivion and somehow give it greatness and a strangely lovable afterlife.Zap Rowsdower is the kind of hero that those of us without six-pack stomachs, killer cheekbones and effortlessly tousled-looking hair can aspire to be.

Fleeing from the cult that murdered his father, a teen (Christian Malcolm) is aided in his quest to find the lost city of the fabled Ziox by a secretive drifter.Typically a film ends up on the Bottom 100 because people see a movie on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and then instantly give it a 1 or 2. Some of the films they show honestly are not that bad, but are just bad edits or bad quality prints. This film is the exception, and definitely belongs on the list.The acting is bad, the story is weak, the directing is just so-so, the cinematography has a weird ankle obsession. Wardrobe is nothing special, and whoever designed the "map" used in the film did an awful job. The only thing redeeming about this picture was the guy playing Mike Pipper.Just awful, through and through.

The Final Sacrifice is a very low budget movie about a geeky kid who goes on a quest to find a lost city, while trying to figure out what happened to his dad. He gets chased by a villain who looks a lot like a stereotypical gestapo agent, and a bunch of incompetent, mask wearing, machete wielding henchmen. He gets help from a homeless man named Rowsdower (great name) and Yosemite Sam type character. It's pretty badly done, I guess due to a low budget, the plot is way too simplistic, the characters are pretty goofy,and the acting is on school play level. However, it is not (surprisingly enough) spectacularly bad, just normally bad. And with the simple plot, you would think it would be pretty straight forward, and lots of opportunities for bad action scenes, but the end is actually kind of confusing, and the movie as a whole is pretty boring.

While rummaging through his father's old stuff, a boy named Troy discovers a map that leads to an ancient civilization. Troy thinks the map may also lead to answers to his father's death. But there are other, darker forces at work. A cult bent on world domination wants to get hold of the map. With the help of a former cult member named Rowsdower, Troy hopes to get to the bottom of the mystery before he ends up like his father.While I usually pride myself in being able to separate the two, in the case of The Final Sacrifice, it's really difficult to imagine watching the movie without the Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary. The movie seems to have been tailor made for that type of ridicule and mockery. From Mike Pipper's Yosemite Sam-like voice to the over-weight Canadian guys in black hoods and tank top running through the woods to the nonsensical plot to the cardboard Ziox civilization – it's like shooting fish in a barrel – the riffs just can't miss. I've probably seen The Final Sacrifice a half-dozen or more times and I'm always astounded at the ineptitude of it all. Some things are so bizarre, however, that it leaves me scratching my head in wonderment: • Zap Rowsdower? Really? You've got to be joking. The name, the actor, the character motivation – none of it makes the least bit of sense.• Troy McGreggor? Again, you've got to be joking? I sincerely doubt you could find a punier or bonier looking guy to play the role. And that incessant whining of the name "Rowsdower". It makes me want to slap the guy every time he opens his mouth.• Plot coincidences. Can you write a plot with more unrealistic and unfathomable plot coincidences? Take the bad guys timing in coming after Troy. The map has been sitting undiscovered in Troy's attic for seven years. That's right – SEVEN years. But the moment Troy discovers the map, the bad guys immediately show up on his doorstep. Yeah, right. Or take Troy's chance meeting of Rowsdower. Of all the trashy, redneck pick-up trucks in Canada, what are the chances Troy would pick one to climb in that just happens to be owned by a former member of the cult that's chasing him? Not very likely.• Is Canada really that desolate of a place? Troy's aunt's house appears to be in a neighborhood of some sort. Is there no one around to notice that something's amiss when hooded goons take a chainsaw to her front door? Does no one notice a band of thugs chasing Troy on his bike? And why doesn't someone notice the shootout Rowsdower and the cult members have on the highway? Is this kind of activity normal in Canada? This is too easy and I've barely scratched the surface. I haven't mentioned the lousy technical aspects of the film, the amateurish acting, the poor special effects, or the ridiculous music score. The Final Sacrifice has it all and none of it is good. Because of some unintentional entertainment value I derive from the film, I can't rate it any lower than a 2/10. But as far as MST3K episodes goes, it makes for one of the best. I'll give that version a 5/5 on my MST3K rating scale. Enjoy.