A Town Has Turned to Dust

Hardly original, taking elements from certain movies including Mad Max. The story in A Town Has Turned To Dust is about two classes of people trying to make a living on an earth which is almost uninhabitable and some reporter goes to earth to do a story about these people mining scrap metal. This movie is chucked full of morality and has the people looking within themselves and seeing what they've become. Some fairly big named actors could ruin their career by starring in an average made for TV movie like this but Ron Perlman seems to get away with it. Perlman is the only good thing about this movie so unless you are a total Perlman fan and need to see all his films i recommend you leave this alone and save 90 minutes of your life. Shame because with more money and a better story this film could have been good. 5/10

Two hundred years in the future, in a radioactive scrap metal mining town on the almost completely abandoned, draught ridden, dying planet Earth, a young man of a "second class race" is lynched for the supposed beating and attempted rape of the wife of the town boss before he can be taken off planet to the new home of humanity for trial. The act exhumes an old guilt that begins the final disintegration of a town already half buried in the ugly dust of racism and prejudice.

This was a nice surprise as Sci-Fi Channel movies are hit and miss. Steven Lang does an excellent job as the useless, haunted town drunk and Sheriff Harvey Denton. The "Cain and Abel-ish" brother like relationship between his character and Ron Perlman's town boss and mob ring leader Jerry Paul is well done by both actors. You can see it there dying, being killed by time, guilt, booze and power. The abusive love-hate relationship between Jerry Paul and his wife Maya (Barbara Jane Reams) is very realistic, scary in its unhealthy depths of possession and desire to care and be cared for.

Definitely worth a buy.

Short of Lang's performance, I could not sit through this film. Lighting, direction, and overall production were horrible, and the story was not developed in a timely fashion. The only saving grace was the lead, who it appeared had little to work with. My call - 1/2 star

There are very few of Rod Serling's stories that don't hold much interest for me. The *Original* "A Town Has Turned To Dust" wasn't one of them.

But we've seen this countless times in Hollywood: A story written by a brilliant writer gets hacked to pieces and then is handed to a director who wants to "take the story in a new direction" or "show the audience the *real* intent of its writer(s)".

Heres what I want Hollywood to do with the greats of the past: Leave them ALONE. Stop standing on the shoulders of giants because most of Tinseltown is creatively bankrupt.

Enough is enough.

Until then I remain your,

Avid Fan

A Town Has Turned To Dust is a good movie with great acting. It is a story set in the future with age old problems. The actors all did a wonderful job, especially Ron Perlman and Frankie Avina. Frankie Avina as Tooth was a man oppressed by the ones who ruled over him. He didn't believe his brother would get justice but was accepting of what was happening. But after the awful event happens he stands up and fights back. I thought he was excellent. Ron Perlman's character you hated but felt sorry for him too. I would like to see more movies like this and I would love to see more movies with Frankie Avina and Ron Perlman.