I wrote about this wonderful film earlier. As a pleasant reminder that DC 9/11: Time of Crisis finally will be shown on Showtime, this Sunday night at 8 p.m., I reprise the following. (President Bush, suspiciously, has just scheduled a speech at the same time. But wouldn't you rather watch Timothy Bottoms "uncannily impersonate" him?)

Two-Hour Campaign Commercial Most Frightening Film Ever

The Big Dance, a cross between Frankenstein and War of the Worlds, is about a powermad dictator who hijacks the U.S. government, hypnotizes the people and installs a dumb non-elected idiot in the White House who will do his bidding. Timothy Bottoms will play the willing puppet of a crazed Machiavellian schemer who capitalizes on the worst tragedy in American history to maintain power, and plunges the world into war for personal gain while forsaking all at home except for the few privileged rich he needs to keep him and his schemes alive.

"I've never seen anything so scary," boasted Tod Schmeckman, of Showtime Films. "This film will literally make your blood congeal." He went on to say the film was "kind of like Pinky and the Brain but much grimmer: Pinky is much more presentable, wears suits with expensive ties, and works out a lot, so he stays in shape and plays well to cameras. The Brain is far more frightening than his cartoon counterpart -- he doesn't have the fantastic voice of Orson Wells, and he's diabolically smarter. Even spookier, he stays completely behind the scenes, a terrifying unseen presence, like the ghosts in The Haunting, but much, much more -- did I say terrifying?"

The film also utilizes Karl Rove-a-vision® , an immersive interactive technique where viewers are placed under electronically controlled Scottish sweaters and chains, so that at critical points in the story, their chains are yanked and the wool is pulled over their eyes.

Screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd, writer of the award-winning drama movie The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, said, "I always wanted to do horror. It wasn't until the Bush Administration that the right material came along to do it with."

Originally published on May 29, 2003.