Creepy Creatures

National Geographic shines, with apparent ghoulish pleasure, a light on creepy crawlin' creatures. Deliciously dangerous devils such as hyenas, black widow spiders (and other eight legged assassins) along with Komodo dragons are all seen stinging, drooling, chewing and eating their victims in glorious gory detail. Employing voice-over narration by cheesy vixen Kathleen Turner, and sporting excellent stock footage of all manner of nasty vermin this 'in your face' booga-booga tour, backed by spooky music and sing-a-longs, is obviously geared toward the younger set. Light on facts and heavy on gross-out, really young viewers probably won't be able to sleep for a month. Unfortunately, in this case, the camerawork is excellent. The audience witnesses a cobra dragging a shaking, paralyzed rat to the dinner table and then in slow-mo eating the poor thing. Or how about those perfectly in-focus close-up shots of vampire bats feeding on cows? Here, the camera doesn't flinch at nature's nastiest critters, it relishes them. Every once in awhile a video comes along where you wish the cinematography were a little fuzzy, a little soft-focus, if you will -- this is one of those times. I know it's supposed to be fun, and that I'm being a stick-in-the-mud, wet blanket and a wuss, but due to the graphic tooth-n-nail footage in this gratuitous food-chain smorgasbord, this is recommended with prudence for audiences over 8-years-old. (N. Plympton)