"For all its jerry-built structure, Lipský's film excels itself as an astonishing achievement of visual innovation. The titular Adele is a gigantic triffid, whose human-like maw is concretized by Jan Svankmajer's cutting-edge stop-motion animation. A jaw-dropping face-changing (plus paunch-eliminating) process that stops short of entering the uncanny valley, and manifold variegated filters, quaint iris shots, zany cel animation, appealing animatronics (operating on those sentient vines),etc. The film is a rich seam of brainwaves from both the prop-and-gizmo and special effect sections, a laudable tradition of Czechoslovakian cinema, whose surrealistic élan can be traced back to their "new wave" era of the '60s, and here Lipský's flourish surmounts the stale narrative formula and tops it off with a chase between a hot balloon and an airborne bicycle, and guess what, it is not Carter himself who takes down the villain in the finish line!"

read my full review on my blog: Cinema Omnivore, thanks.

A movie with great effects that make you wonder how it was possible at those days. Specially the fall of Nick Carter from the balloon. Director combines real actors and the great skill of animators in his country. This very campy movie was released in Slovakia (1996) on VHS in PAL-format.

Nick Carter goes to Prague to help the police with a missing persons case and promptly runs afoul of an evil botanist with a man eating plant.

I remember thirty years ago when this movie came out in the US seeing reviews on the local TV station that made me want to see this film. The limited release it got prevented me from doing so, as did the complete disappearance from TV and video. Still the idea of that hungry plant had haunted me for three decades while many other "must see" movies came and went. Thanks to stupid luck I stumbled upon a copy of the film and I have to say that I was not disappointed.

This is a jokey send up of the pulp thrillers from the turn of the twentieth century. It takes one of its greatest heroes, Nick Carter and plays with everything that makes the pulps so much fun. Here Carter is called into action and using a variety of wild inventions he takes on a villain that is very much of the "boo hiss" Snidley Whiplash, mustache twirling variety. Its just a fun movie done in the style of stories that haven't been in vogue in a century. No big belly laughs but lots of chuckles and plenty of smiles.

If you want to see a good little film, thats probably all but forgotten now, you'll need to search it out. Its not going to be the be all and end all but its a neat little gem to add to you list of film treasures.