After being fired from her last job, struggling British nanny Crystina (Nicola Cowper) travels to Hawaii to take the job of nanny to burnt out rock star Billy Foul's (Jeremy Crutchley) dog. On her way to the dog groomers, Crystina's bag is placed by a careless handler into the jeep of Richard (Paul Carafotes) whose younger siblings Bryan (Ilan Mitchell-Smith and Sara (Jackie Bernstein) have stowed away with him to the closed volcano national park which has been closed due to an uptick in activity. Crystina catches up in a taxi to retrieve her bag, only for the Taxi to drive away and leave her stranded and with no way back she accompanies the three into the cave. When Sara and the dog run off, the three run off after them and become lost in the cave system.
Journey to the Center of the Earth is a 1989 direct-to-video film produced by Cannon and the feature director debut of Rusty Lemorande with uncredited work done by Albert Pyun (and a semi-sequel to Alien from L. A.). The story behind the film is complicated as it began filming in 1986 before Alien from L. A., but due to production problems ended up getting shelved by Cannon and Lemorande's hopes of using the rough cut to lobby for more resources to complete the film didn't work. Cannon later made a deal with Albert Pyun who agreed to finish the film for free provided they give him under $1 million for Alien from L. A. and with those resources Pyun salvaged Journey to the Center of the Earth by retooling it as a follow-up to his own Alien from L. A.. The fact Journey to the Center of the Earth saw release is nothing short of awe inspiring especially given the troubled behind the scenes stories surrounding it, but the end result while entertaining is a sloppy frankenfilm that feels like two halves crudely stapled together.
While Alien from L. A. was goofy and ridiculous, it felt like a singular cohesive vision that was at least aware of itself in that respect. Journey to the Center of the Earth however does not feel like a singular cohesive vision as there's a very clear disconnect between the scenes shot by Lemorande and the scenes shot by Pyun with the first half taking itself somewhat seriously (albeit very disjointed with little rhyme or reason behind character actions) with the second half being a more direct follow-up to Alien from L. A. complete with a lot of the broad humor. While Kathy Ireland's performance certainly felt like a first time actor, I'll say the character of Wanda did have a kind of "adorkable" charm to her with the unintended humor of trying to make Ireland less attractive not really working with the glasses and wardrobe not really disguising her features. With the characters in Journey to the Center of the Earth, most of them don't feel fully fleshed out and instead more like archetypes who feel really thin and in some cases casually dip out of the movie such is the case with Sara and Richard. There's also clear signs of post-production salvage going on as we get an out of nowhere bit of two dream sequences in a row about 30 minutes in and it's pretty clear these are leftover scraps from Lemorande's original version as they feature the cast in similar wardrobes and are divorced from what little story there is.
Journey to the Center of the Earth is a bad movie and there was clearly no saving it to a point where it would be considered beyond passable (unless Cannon had loosened the purse strings). It's a sloppily constructed film where you can clearly see the difference between Lemorande and Pyun's footage and approach to the material and that does make it a fascinating if slightly confusing watch. This is definitely a "so bad, it's good" type film to put on.
Journey to the Center of the Earth is a 1989 direct-to-video film produced by Cannon and the feature director debut of Rusty Lemorande with uncredited work done by Albert Pyun (and a semi-sequel to Alien from L. A.). The story behind the film is complicated as it began filming in 1986 before Alien from L. A., but due to production problems ended up getting shelved by Cannon and Lemorande's hopes of using the rough cut to lobby for more resources to complete the film didn't work. Cannon later made a deal with Albert Pyun who agreed to finish the film for free provided they give him under $1 million for Alien from L. A. and with those resources Pyun salvaged Journey to the Center of the Earth by retooling it as a follow-up to his own Alien from L. A.. The fact Journey to the Center of the Earth saw release is nothing short of awe inspiring especially given the troubled behind the scenes stories surrounding it, but the end result while entertaining is a sloppy frankenfilm that feels like two halves crudely stapled together.
While Alien from L. A. was goofy and ridiculous, it felt like a singular cohesive vision that was at least aware of itself in that respect. Journey to the Center of the Earth however does not feel like a singular cohesive vision as there's a very clear disconnect between the scenes shot by Lemorande and the scenes shot by Pyun with the first half taking itself somewhat seriously (albeit very disjointed with little rhyme or reason behind character actions) with the second half being a more direct follow-up to Alien from L. A. complete with a lot of the broad humor. While Kathy Ireland's performance certainly felt like a first time actor, I'll say the character of Wanda did have a kind of "adorkable" charm to her with the unintended humor of trying to make Ireland less attractive not really working with the glasses and wardrobe not really disguising her features. With the characters in Journey to the Center of the Earth, most of them don't feel fully fleshed out and instead more like archetypes who feel really thin and in some cases casually dip out of the movie such is the case with Sara and Richard. There's also clear signs of post-production salvage going on as we get an out of nowhere bit of two dream sequences in a row about 30 minutes in and it's pretty clear these are leftover scraps from Lemorande's original version as they feature the cast in similar wardrobes and are divorced from what little story there is.
Journey to the Center of the Earth is a bad movie and there was clearly no saving it to a point where it would be considered beyond passable (unless Cannon had loosened the purse strings). It's a sloppily constructed film where you can clearly see the difference between Lemorande and Pyun's footage and approach to the material and that does make it a fascinating if slightly confusing watch. This is definitely a "so bad, it's good" type film to put on.