The Colony (1995)

Simply Perfect

I'll tell you why so serious

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Three's Company meets Barney Miller meets WKRP in Cincinnati. Hey it's a 70's sit com re-union! Jack Tripper, Barney Miller and Herb Tarlick meet in the creepy Stepford like Southern California community of "The Colony". This was a great movie. Anything with Jon Ritter is totally worth watching. He is such a warm and heartfelt actor. Since his passing, it is comforting to be able to watch him again and feel closer to the good old days of one of the greatest shows of all time, Three's Company. Hey, it's not a big budget Hollywood Blockbuster, but you already knew that. So get the popcorn ready and sit back and enjoy a thoroughly entertaining movie.

(There are Spoilers) "The Colony" is a place where everything is wonderful with crime non-existent and the education system at the top 2% in the nation. Life is as good as it can get for the big bucks that people spend, after being accepted by the Colony's board of directors, to be living there.It's after electronic security expert Nick Knowlton, John Ritter, and his wife Leslie, Mary Page Keller, were carjacked and almost killed by a pair of masked muggers that they were given the opportunity by the Colony's founder multi-billionaire Philip Denig, Hal Lindin, to live there. Earlier in the film Nick was contracted by Denig to install the Colony's new security system and the fact that he was so good at it Denig wanted him, and his family, to become a member of his exclusive condominium.We already know that things at the Colony aren't exactly kosher with the Bensons, Vince Deadrick Jr & Stacy Courtney, being knocked out and juiced up, by having a bottle of bourbon shoved down Bob Benson's throat, by the Colony's top security man Doug Corwin, Marshall R. Teague. Putting the car that the Bob was driving into drive Corwin has it, with the Benson's unconscious in it, drive down a cliff were they were burned to a crisp. Benson had this DVD disk made that would expose everything that was really going on in the Colony and Denig wanted it bad. It turned out that the super careful Corwin screwed up by having Benson give him a fake disk and on top of all that having him juice Benson up with bourbon instead of the booze that he elusively drank gin!Later Nick realizes that his stay at the Colony is like a stay at a maximum security prison with him forced to follow insane rules and regulations for everything he does. It's then that Nick and his wife Leslie together with his two children Danielle & Andy, Alexandera Pictto & Cody Dorkin, try to make a run for it to freedom. The people living in the Colony are so brainwashed in how important they are that they don't realize that their being turned into a bunch of mindless zombies by Denig and his gang. Denig were told, by himself no less, has been obsessed with security matters since he was a little boy when his parents were victims of urban crime. It now comes out, through the revelation of the missing Benson disk, that Denig is not only a security freak but also in violation of a number of US privacy laws! Denig is gathering up, with his video security system, sensitive and very private information on all the people in the Colony and possibly, in order to keep them in line, blackmailing them with it!In the end It's not Nick who gets the goods on Denig and his head goon security chief Corwin but his daughter Danelle. It was Danelle who found Benson's missing disk hidden in the basement of her parents home and broke it's security code thus being able to decipher it's contents. It turned out that the Benson's lived in the same place that Nick and his family are now staying at in the Colony!A bit too paranoid to be believable "The Colony" has the very careful Denig blow his entire operation by murdering, through his henchman Corwin, those who like the Bensons were about to expose him. Whatever Denig got out of peeping into other peoples bedrooms in blackmailing them to stay at his place was nothing compared to what he'd get in having them murdered! The unbelievably ridicules regulations that Denig installed at his private condominium were only getting the people who lived there sick tired as well as rebellious. These draconian and mindless regulations, that filled what looked like an entire phone book, had the people in the Colony more then willing to both leave the place altogether and expose Denigs sleazy racket to he police.In the end it was Denigs control freak-like methods that turned a peaceful and crime free environment like the Colony into a Nazi concentration camp or Soviet gulag. Denig's actions also forced the people there, like the Knowltons, to take matters into their own hands that lead to his downfall.P.S It also turned out to both Denig's and Corwin's shock and surprise that Nick's brother Mike, Tod Jeffries,was the head detective in the local towns police department! Being put on the case to investigate the Benson's "accidenal" deaths gave Mike the opening that he needed to both expose and end Denig's crazy and deadly antics at his private "Colony".

I stumbled upon this movie on Lifetime channel while I was channel surfing. Why oh why had I never heard of this movie before? It was fantastic!!John Ritter did a wonderful job as Mr. Benson, and Hal Linden did a magnificent job as the head of the colony.The deeper meaning of this movie is that Big Brother is watching you. The scene in which the control booth can use cameras to look in individual bedrooms may not be far from reality.Scary, eh? Reminds me of the Rockwell/Jackson song: I always feel like, somebody's watching me.

This made for TV suspense thriller had lots of potential but just seemed to fall flat. John Ritter stars as a security expert of the high tech scale who moves his family into THE COLONY an ultra exclusive community that appears on the surface to be perfect in every way.Shortly after moving in they soon find all is not what it appears. An elaborate set of rules and regulations abound that at first seem to be ridiculous but in reality are taken seriously by those who run The Colony. The family encounters staff members, who come into their home to do various environmental checks, remove outdoor plants that are deemed inappropriate for The Colony and perform surgery on their pet dog. Security guards shows up at the home of another family when the man of the house decides to paint his dwelling with a color that The Colony does not approve of. Slowly this utopian community begins to show it's dark and sinister side as Ritters family begins to catch on.The film attempts to have a Stepford Wives type plot to it but too many topics are touched on and compressed to allow the film to have a build up for a suspenseful ending which also falls somewhat flat. The characters seemed to be miscast which hurts the picture. Hal Linden as the BMOC (Big Man On Community) who runs the Colony and wants everyone to love, respect and fear him at the same time just doesn't seem believable as a sinister individual. John Ritter who is fine in comedy roles also just doesn't seem to click in this picture.The story is there and if redone with good casting and directing would make for a suspenseful film along the same lines as The Firm. If you've never seen it it's still worth viewing.