The Charles Band Collection

'Meridian' is pure gothic romance

2012-01-17T16:04:00.000-08:00

Meridian (1990)
Starring: Sherilynn Fenn, Malcolm Jamieson, Hilary Mason, Charlie Spradling, and Phil Fondecaro
Director: Charles Band
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A young woman (Fenn) returns to Italy to claim the castle and title that is her family heritage... but at the same time she claims the family curse.

I'm not sure why it's titled "Meridian," but this is perhaps the most pure cinematic gothic romance in a modern setting that I've ever seen.

None of the acting is particularly remarkable, but no one is awful. The film is a bit slow-moving, but every scene is well-staged and dripping with mood. In fact, there are few movies that so dedicatedly click the boxes of "dark gothic romance content" as this one. Because it's so faithful to all the various genre conventions, it's a bit predictable... but this is as much a weakness as it is a strength. "Meridian" is like that favorite sweater or that favorite kind of ice cream. There are no surprises left in it, but the familiarity is part of the enjoyment.

If you're a fan of gothic romance (including the "gothic fantasy" that was the hallmark of the Ravenloft game line I used to work on), I think you'll enjoy this film.

The original Harry Potter vs the Magical World

2011-12-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

Troll (1986)
Starring: Noah Hathaway, Michael Moriarty, Phil Fondacaro, June Lockhart, Anne Lockhart, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Sonny Bono
Director: John Carl Buechler
Producers: Albert Band and Charles Band
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Teenaged Harry Potter Jr. (Hathaway) and his eccentric family move to a new city, but even before the boy has a chance to make new friends, an evil, shapeshifting Troll-king (Fondacaro) begins to transform the apartment building, unit by unit, into a replica of the world as it existed when fairies reigned supreme. Harry is called upon by an ancient sorceress and fairy princess (June Lockhart/Anne Lockhart) who has been waiting for this crisis to arrive to save not only his family but the entire modern world.

"Troll" is often described as a horror/comedy, but I think it's best described as one of the best fantasy films ever made. While there certainly are a few scary scenes, it's far more fantasy and fairy tale oriented than it is a horror film.

While the film is great fun and is decently enough acted and written, it does sport some pretty bad puppets and even worse special effects, even by the standards of the early 1980s. However, the humor and fast pace more than make up for these shortcomings. (As does the sequence where the fairy creature puppets sing a nonsense song that's both funny and creepy.)

Funny, suspenseful, magical, I think this is a fantasy film the whole family can enjoy.

By the way, Harry Potter and Harry Potter Jr. (portrayed by Moriarty and Hathaway respectively) in this film are the original Harry Potters. One wonders if Rowlings didn't "accidentally" take the name from this film, given that it's a story of secret magic in modern times.

Day of the Turkey Review: Necropolis

2011-11-24T22:15:00.000-08:00

Necropolis (1987)
Starring: LeeAnne Baker, Jacquie Fitz, Andrew Bausili, and Michael Conte
Director: Bruce Hickey
Producers: Tim Kincaid, Cynthia De Paula, and Charles Band
Rating: One of Ten Stars

A witch (Baker) executed with her coven before she could complete a ritual to gain immortality, is reincarnated in modern times and returns to her old haunts--New York City, which stands where once New Amsterdam was--and sets about resurrecting the members of her old coven by sucking the souls out of pimps, hookers, and random trashy people. She also intends to complete the ritual to make herself and her coven immortal by finally sacrificing the soul she had targeted centuries earlier, which has also been reincarnated in modern times as a journalist (Fitz).

"Necropolis" is a schlocky, amateurish horror film originally released through Charles Band's Empire Pictures... and it has been dredged up from the dim past for release as one of the initial offerings in Full Moon's "Grindhouse" DVD series.

For that, it is perfect. This is the sort of garbage movie that represents the level of quality that most of those drive-in and B-movies embodied. It's got an illogical, badly paced script, atrocious acting, and pathetic special effects. But as a movie that's worth your time and money? I would say not.

That's not to say there isn't a sort of rough charm about it. It was also interesting enough to keep me watching in an effort to make sense of what the reincarnated witch was up to, why she was going about it the way she was, and why she remembered that she was reincarnated but no one else knew. And I also wanted to find out how she knew that the soul she was after was in New York City. I never did get any of those answers, but I was treated to the silliest witch dance this side of the improv jazz ballet featured in "The Witch's Mountain".

Here's a highlight:

If you've got friends that like mocking films as they unfold, this might be worth checking out. Otherwise, I think this might be a film to skip. (That said, the DVD does feature some interesting bonus material, such as an interview with Charles Band discussing the hows and whys of his "Full Moon Grindhouse" series, and a handful of short films.)

At least the preview is great!

2011-11-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Killer Eye: Halloween Haunt (2011)
Starring: Erica Rhodes, Chelsea Leigh Edmundson, Olivia Alexander, Ariana Madix, and Lauren Furs
Producer: Charles Band
Director: Charles Band
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Jenna (Rhodes) recruits some friends (Alexander, Edmundson, Furs, and Madix) to set up the Halloween haunted house she runs with her mother. They soon trade work for getting half-naked and drinking while watching a cheesy horror movie they find in a box, "The Killer Eye". However, a magic crystal ball has a strange reaction to the movie and the half-naked girls... it brings a model of the Killer Eye from the movie to life, and the proceeds to make the movie a reality as well.

I give "Killer Eye: Halloween" haunt some credit for being a clever non-sequel to the original film. By making it just a movie within the world of the sequel, it both embraces and dismisses the suckitude it represents. For details, click here to read my review of "The Killer Eye". --it may well be the worst movie to appear under the Full Moon banner. Not even Jacqueline Lovell and Blake Bailey could do anything to save it.

I disliked the first film so much that I fully intended to ignore this sequel--I don't seek out films that I know I'm going to hate--but the fine folks at Full Moon sent me a little care package that included it and three other films. And on the disc of one of those other films ("Necropolis," which is debuting on DVD as part of Full Moon's Grindhouse series... and which I'll review next) was the preview for "Killer Eye: Halloween Haunt".

And what a great preview it was. It got me very excited to watch this film. In fact, it got my hopes up to the point where I thought THIS might be the film that would mark the return of the Charles Band who gave me "The Creeps" and "Blood Dolls". Or at least "Doll Graveyard".

But, as I settled in to watch the film, I quickly realized that I was not in for an old-time Full Moon experience, but something closer to the generally lackluster offerings that Band has delivered since the turn of the millennium.

The two biggest problems this time out is that what passes for the razor-thin story in the film is so flimsy that it barely manages to hold the scenes together, resulting in a sense that the film consists of vignettes rather than a coherent whole. Secondly, the characters are even flimsier than the plot, only qualifying as such in the most general sense as they barely rise above the level of stereotypes... and when you have a cast of actresses who seem to have been hired more for their bodies than their acting talents, giving them and the audience a little more meat on the movie's bones is a necessity.

The comedy in this horror comedy is virtually non-existent and the horror is in short supply as well--with the exception of the final 15-20 minutes. As the film is building to its conclusion, we finally get some of the Charles Band Magic that we loved so much. If the rest of the film had been this focused and driven, this could have been a classic that lived up to the promise of the preview.

In fairness, as disappointed as I was in this film, it was a great improvement over "The Killer Eye"; it is as the sequel to "Gingerdead Man" was to the film it followed. I also appreciate the fact that more effort seems to have been put into the sets than in other recent offerings, such as "Gingerdead Man 3" and "Evil Bong 3D". Finally, the use of computer-generated special effects is more artfully applied here than in films with budgets ten times what Band and his crew work with... the computer generated gore splatter in one instance was very well done. However, those improvements just wasn't quite enough to make it a worthwhile picture.

That said... if you're a fan of Charles Band and Full Moon, the final bits of the film might be worth watching for. And even before it gets good, you can always enjoy the pretty young girls in very little clothing.

And you can silently weep at what could have been, especially in the light of this killer preview:

'Gingerdead Man 3' travels back in time and quality

2011-09-26T01:11:00.000-07:00

Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver (2011)
Starring: John Carl Buechler, Paris Wagner, Travis Walck, Kimberly Pfeffer, Kent Fuher, Muffy Bolden, Steve-Michael McLure, Laura Kachergus, Brendan Lamb, Tiffany Danielle, and Steffinnie Phrommany
Directors: William Butler and Sylvia St. Croix
Producers: Charles Band, William Butler, and John Acalo
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

The most evil cookie to ever plague the world, the Gingerdead Man (voiced by Buechler) escapes confined in a research lab and time travels back to 1976 where he proceeds to murder the skaters and employees at a roller rink.

I had high hopes for this one, which is perhaps why I was so disappointed with it. I thought after the very entertaining "Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust" that Band & Co. were hitting a Gingerdead Man stride. Well, if they were, they stumbled with this one, delivering a film that is far below the quality found in "Gingerdead Man 2" and even a little worse than the original "Gingerdead Man" film.

Like the second film in the series, "Saturday Night Cleaver" offers up an endless stream of references to other movies. While the second film in the series was an excersize in Full Moon/Charles Band self-mockery, this installment pokes fun at a range of films and popular genres from the 1970s with "Carrie", "Porky's", and "Silence of the Lambs" being the most obvious ones, but there are literally over a dozen more references to other movies, pop culture figures, and general 1970s America. Trying to catch all the references makes the film more fun to watch than it might otherwise be. And a good number of them are actually quite funny... with the "Silence of the Lambs" riff that opens the film being the best of them and my favorite sequence in the entire film.

By the way, the references here actually all make sense in context of the story and grow organically either out of a gag or character interactions. Even when not at his best, Charles Band and the creatives he works with produce better spoof-heavy comedies than the cinematic weapons of mass-destruction Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Yet, somehow, they continue to have access to funding at ten times the level than Band. There is no justice in the movie business....

As has been the case in most Band productions for the past decade, the special effects range from weak to awful, with a massacre-by-nail gun and a death-by-acid sequences being perhaps the most embarrassing parts of the film. They goes on for too long and both put the bad CGI too prominently on display. In the acid scene, the gags also fall flat and are then crushed by the bad CGI. (A small clip from the scene I talk about above is featured in the preview; if that was all they'd included CGI-wise and otherwise have scraped together the time and money for practical gore effects, it would have been a far stronger sequence.)

A similar ongoing issue with Band struggling to meet the standards his films set in the 1980s and 1990s is the animation of the Gingerdead Man. While the killer cookie is better executed and animated than he was in "Gingerdead Man 2", the illusion of him actually being a living creature is broken by the fact that the puppetry is so low budget that he has to only be seen peeking around corners so the puppeteer can be out of view of the camera. It also doesn't help that the CGI clip of him running across the floor is the same bit of animation of him from the waste down used over and over in slightly different environments. In fact, every time I saw those legs again, I couldn't help but wonder if I was looking at a cropped and re-skinned version of that digital baby that kept showing up in "Ally McBeal" back in the day.

As for the acting, it ranges from community theater-like delivery to pretty good. Paris Wagner and Kent Fuher (as two generations of "roller skater prodigies") are particularly good in their parts, but John Carl Buechler almost manages to rise to the level of Gary Busey in the original film.

Sadly, though, the bad once again overwhelms the good in a modern Full Moon production. "Gingerdead Man 3" is better than many bigger budgeted spoofs and satires out there, but it's not a great effort, and it pales in comparison to many of Band's classic productions.

A ghost story that feels both padded and rushed

2011-09-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

Vengeance of Dead (aka "Sleepwalker") (2001)
Starring: Michael Galvin, Mark Vollmers, and Susan Karsnick
Director: Don Adams and Harry James Picardi
Producers: Don Adams, Harry James Picardi, Charles Band, and
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

When college student Eric (Galvin) comes to spend the summer with his grandfather (Vollmers), he becomes the unwitting tool of vengeance for a pair of restless spirits.

"Vengeance of the Dead" was not the best choice for my return to regular (I hope) postings here at the Charles Band Collection, as it's not a typical Band film and it dates from the years when his output was at its weakest. But, it was on the top of the stack, so I went with it.

This was the first of Band's collaborations with Wisconsin-based filmmakers Adams & Picardi, and like the other of their joint efforts I've watched so far ("Jigsaw", which I review here) has some great ideas at its foundation, but they aren't brought to their full potential because of a half-baked script that both feels padded and rushed.

The sense that the film is padded is illusion. There is actually very little fat on this body, but the territory is so familiar and the characters so thinly developed that you keep wanting the film to move onto the next predictable turn of events. It also doesn't help that most of the dialogue feels stilted and is being delivered by actors who might be okay in whatever community theaters they came out of, but who don't have a feel for screen acting.

However, the fact that the story provides far too few answers regarding the why of the haunting and the tragic events that brought it about, why the ghosts waited so long to seek revenge, and/or what awoke them. On one hand, Eric discovering an old spoon kicks the haunting in to high gear and locks the film's characters onto a path of doom and destruction, but he was targeted by the ghosts even before that. Unless I missed something, there's not even a hint as to why. (Well, there is a faint hint, but even that leaves the question as to why the ghosts waited.)

It's a shame that a little more time and effort wasn't spent on the script, because Adams & James manage to create several good scares and some genuinely creepy moments as the film unfolds. The little girl cheerfully riding a swing in mid-air and other ghostly manifestations, and the sequence of a perverted old man spying on his granddaughter taking a shower are all great moments that show this film could have been a lot better than the final product. While a bigger budget certainly would have helped--with the better actors and special effects that come with that--more polished dialogue and a more fleshed out story would have made an even bigger difference. You don't need a lot of money to do a good ghost movie, but you do need a solid script.

Despite glimmers of potential, "Vengeance of the Dead" is just another film that drives home the point that the first half of the 2000s were perhaps the lowest point in Charles Band's career as a producer.

(Here's a little trivia for you: The Sneaky Pete's Bar featured in this film is the main location for "Jigsaw". There's a small part of me that is interested in seeking out other Adams & Picardi films to see if there are other such cute internal cross-references. It's something to do when my stacks of unwatched DVDs gets much, much smaller.)

Radu still doesn't get the girl in final 'Subspecies'

2011-02-14T00:02:00.000-08:00

Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm (1998)
Starring: Denice Duff, Anders Hove, Floriela Grappini, Jonathon Morris, Mihai Dinvale, Ion Haiduc, and Ioana Abur
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Producers: Charles Band, Kirk Edward Hansen, and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Free of her master Radu (Hove), fledgeling vampire Michelle (Duff) enters the care of a doctor who claims he has discovered a method to reverse her undead condition. But Radu is not ready to let her go yet, and he launches an effort to retrieve her, with the reluctant help of Bucharest's most powerful vampire, Ash (Morris).

In the annals of unnecessary sequels, few are more unnecessary than "Subspecies 4". The 1993 third movie in the series provided a satisfying conclusion to the core story of the series--Michelle resisting Radu's attempts to turn her to evil--and the heroes driving off into the sunrise as Radu was burned to ashy oblivion was a nice period at the end.

But, Charles Band being Charles Band, a successful film WILL have a sequel no matter what, so four years later, Nicolaou was back in the director's chair at the helm of this film, which is an unnecessary sequel not just to the first three "Subspecies" films, but to the tangentially related "Vampire Journals", which was also written and directed by Nicolau. (Or maybe it's a prequel to "Vampire Journals"? With Full Moon's trademark disregard for continuity, I never can be 100 percent sure what they're intending....)

All that said, despite being a wholly unnecessary add-on to the other vampire films, it stands with the original "Subspecies" films and "Vampire Journals" as one of the most visually striking films to ever come from the Band direct-to-home-video assembly lines. Nicolaou really knew how to get the most out of the grand Romanian locations, especially at night. He also continues his flair for stretching his minimal budget to the point where he creates an end-product that looks better than films that cost ten times as much to make.

And while the film is not as good as "Subspecies 3"--the best film from Nicolau I've seen so far--it is an improvement on the overly slow "Vampire Journals".

As for the story, it's a tangle plots and counter-plots that rival the storylines envisioned by the creators of the 1990s roleplaying game "Vampire: The Masquerade" which these movies have always seemed like the perfect adaptation of. Radu plotting to conquer
Michelle, Ash plotting to destroy Radu, Dr. Niculescu's hidden agenda and dark secret... all of these intrigues swirl around Michelle who continues to resist the call of evil and dream of reclaiming her humanity. If you like the Anne Rice-style vampire genre and/or the 1990s White Wolf-style roleplaying games, you'll enjoy this movie.

You'll also enjoy the film if you liked Anders Hove performances in the previous "Subspecies" films. Hove's Radu is every bit as disgusting as he's always been, although he is also even more pathetic in this film that ever before, with his desire for Michelle now fully transformed from its initial need to possess into unrequited love. The rest of the cast do a good job as well, with Jonathon Morris actually being better as Ash in this film than he was in "Vampire Journals" and Ion Haiduc providing gallows-humor comic relief as a police detective turned bumbling vampire (making him the only returning character from the previous two films aside from Michelle and Radu).

'Killjoy 3': Best Band production in a decade

2010-12-31T13:45:00.000-08:00

Killjoy 3 (2010)
Starring: Trent Haaga, Spiral Jackson, Jessica Whitaker, Darrow Igus, Victoria De Mare, Al Burke, Olivia Dawn York, and Michael Rupnow
Director: John Lechago
Producers: Charles Band, Henry Luk, and Tai Chan Ngo
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Four college students (Jackson, Rupnow, Whitaker, and York) become the latest victims of the demonic clown Killjoy (Haaga) when they inadvertently place themselves in his clutches. Killjoy, together with his newly created clown posse that includes Punchy (Burke) and Batty Boop (De Mare), is seeking revenge on their professor (Igus), who is in turn seeking to control Killjoy for his own mysterious reasons.

Finally, a film that is a solid reversal of the ten-year downward-trend that's been evident in the vast majority of Charles Band production. Not only is this a really fun movie, but it's what the original "Killjoy" film SHOULD have been!

As 2010 has wore on, I have been growing increasingly depressed in regards to the future outlook of my favorite source of movie madness--the Charles Band Film Factory. After two less-than-impressive sequels to films from his glory days--Demonic Toys 2 and Puppet Master: Axis of Evil--and a dearth of decent finds as I turned to Band's more obscure efforts in collaboration with producer JR Bookwalter, I was getting ready to call this blog "good enough" and turn it into an archive.

But then the good people at Full Moon Features sent me a little care package, which included "Killjoy 3", their final release of 2010... and my hope for more Full Moon viewing in the future has been restored!

"Killjoy 3" is not only the movie that the original "Killjoy" should have been--a weird and colorful romp of evil clown-driven supernatural murder and mayhem--but it also captures the darkly humorous mood of classic Full Moon films like "Demonic Toys", and "The Creeps". It's a fast-moving, sharply focused story that doesn't waste a second of screen time and which keeps accelerating and growing more intense and insane until it reaches its gory climax. And writer/director John Lechago even manages to throw in some bits of characterization for both the demons and the victims without slowing the film, making this one of the best scripts for a Full Moon feature in a while. Heck, it even features a denouement that is dramatically appropriate and not just a half-assed sequel set-up.

A large portion of the credit for this film's success rests with Trent Haaga and Victoria De Mare, half of the demonic clown act that kills its way through the the college kids who get caught between Killjoy and the professor that is the object of his wrath. Although Haaga didn't originate the role of Killjoy, he makes a vastly superior killer clown to Angel Vargas from the first film. Vargas was one of the best things about "Killjoy", but he his performance was unfunny and more annoying than scary... he only looked as good as he did, because everything else was completely awful. Haaga on the other is both hilarious and scary, often both at the same time. He has some nice lines and he delivers them with great gusto. The same is true of De Mare, who plays a succubus in clown make-up; writer/director Lechago praises her as "fearless" in the behind-the-scenes material included on the DVD, and she would have to be as her costume consists of hooker boots, a feather boa, and full-body make-up. But in addition to being courageous, she is also able to deliver a performance as crazy and scary as the one given by Haaga. De Mare's best moments as Boop comes during a sequence scene where she is trying to seduce straight-arrow football quarterback Michael Rupnow and him him betray his fidelity to his good-girl girlfriend Jessica Whitacker, while Whitacker is trying to trick Killjoy by pretending to seduce him. De Mare, like Haaga, is both scary and funny during these scenes.

Other nice performances come from Spiral Jackson (as shy football player Zilla) and Al Burke as Punchy the Clown, especially during the scene where Zilla tries to convince Punchy that it's time for him to throw of the yoke of servitude to Killjoy and fight for the emancipation of demonic clowns everywhere.

Finally, Darrow Igus turns in another excellent performance for Full Moon as the enigmatic Professor. The plot twist and tie-back to the first "Killjoy" film wouldn't have been nearly as effective is a lesser actor had been cast in that part

However, as fun and enjoyable as this film is, it's not perfect.

Although demonic realm of Killjoy is far better realized in this film, it still feels cramped due to the film's small sets and budget. Also budget is the one truly weak spot in the film--the demonic clown known as Freakshow (and played by producer Tai Chan Ngo). The character is supposed to be a conjoined twin, but the person supposedly growing out of his side is a virtually unaltered, off-the-shelf baby doll. The film would have been much stronger if this character had been cut, since it add anything significant to the story and there wasn't money to do it right.

On the flip-side of this, I felt like the film would have benefited from a little more set-up of the main characters. While Lechago took more time to do this than in any other Full Moon film in recent memory, there were still some elements that could have done with a little more development. For example, one of the girls (played by Olivia Dawn York) is presented as the "slutty one" by inference in some of Killjoy's comments, yet there is no actual evidence of this in the film. Everything surrounding this character would have been so much stronger if it had been her caught with a guy in the closet during the film's opening scenes, even more-so if she was being "eaten" by the guy. Everything surrounding her would make more sense and be more dramatically appropriate.

Despite these flaws, however, this is a film I feel great about recommending to all fans of classic Full Moon efforts. This final film of 2010 gives me hope for Charles Band and his co-horts for 2011 and beyond.

Click here to check out the "Saturday Scream Queen" profile for Victoria De Mare at the Terror Titans blog.

'Kraa!' is a patchwork picture with future star

2010-12-18T03:23:00.000-08:00

Kraa! The Sea Monster (1998)
Starring: R.L. McMurry, Teal Marchande, J.W. Perra, Coltin Scott, Alison Lohman, and Candida Tolentino
Directors: Michael Deak, Aaron Osbourne and Dave Parker
Producers: Charles Band and Kirk Edward Hansen
Rating: Two of Three Stars

Kraa, an inter-stellar planet-wrecker-for-hire, is set loose upon Earth, and the local agents of the Planet Patrol (Lohman, Scott, and Tolentino) are sidelined in a coordinated strike by the evil Lord Doom. A renegade biker/scientist (McMurray) and the owner of a small diner (Marchande) emerge as the world's only hope for salvation when they team up with a Planet Patrol scout who managed to make it to Earth (Perra).

"Kraa! The Sea Monster" is one of a handful of films made by Band during the late 1990s when he was trying to make a mark (and a buck) in kids' entertainment. This is the first of those efforts I've seen, but if it's any indication of the quality of the rest of them, it's easy to see why that initiative failed.

This movie has the disjointed, patchwork feel of a Godfrey Ho movie. There are three distinct parts of the movie--the teenaged cops of Planet Patrol who start out seeming like they are the film's heroes but who quickly get stranded on their space station and are reduced to a role mostly as observers, and their nemesis, Lord Doom; the Earthlings who become involved with the alien effort to save Earth from Kraa; and the rampage of Kraa, in the form of a guy in a costume stomping around on a bunch of miniatures. While all three parts of the film reference each other, there is virtually no overlap between them, with the teens of Planet Patrol never interacting with the Earthlings helping their colleague, the Earthlings never interacting directly with Kraa or his rampage, and Kraa being referenced by everyone but no character is ever tricked into any shots featuring him, or visa-versa. It causes the film to feel very disjointed, and because the parts are all so disconnected from each other, there are no threads for the viewer to grab onto and be pulled into the story.

And that's a shame, because there are actually some good concepts here.

First, there are the Planet Patrol kids. They had the potential to be a Tomorrow People or Power Ranger sort of outfit, but they are kept from any real involvement in the main plot except at the very end when they apprehend Lord Doom... and even then they are mostly figures of ridicule as they end up chasing Doom's midget sidekick around some pillars. I can't help but wonder why Band & Company would include kid heroes and then not let them be the actual heroes of the film. They are completely wasted here. (Well, except for those out there who would want to use this film for a Bad Movie Night and a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" sort of riff-fest. There is a amusing/disturbing scene where the leader of the Planet Patrol detachment (Coltin Scott) seems to be undressing and then nailing rookie Planet Patrol Officer Alison Lohman (in her first film role, by the way) with his eyes. I'm sure the intent was for the character to be appraising her in a detached, superior officer kind of way, but that's not at all how the scene looks when one views it... it's a jail-bait-rape moment worthy of the Roman Polanski Memorial Award. More time should also have been spent on the why and how such young kids are in such dangerous and important jobs.

Second, there's the character of Bobby, a long-haired, bearded biker who is a brilliant, well-educated Renaissance man who dropped out of the scientific community for reasons that are never explained (or even touched upon, except by implication). He makes references to both having attended medical school and having worked on NASA's Voyager program, and he is able to convince scientists at a nuclear facility that he is one of them. Most of all, he is able to grasp the concepts of an alien weapon that needs to be assembled to fight Kraa. This is an interesting character that deserved a better vehicle, not to mention more screen time. Which he could have had, if it hadn't been for those Planet Patrol kids taking up space in the movie. (And the reverse is true as far as the Planet Patrol goes; if Bobby hadn't been in the movie, more time could have been spent developing them and their backstory. Two good ideas crushed the life out of each other through the incompetent execution of this movie.)

Finally, there is the title creature, Kraa. Commentary from Lord Doom and the Planet Patrol kids set describe him as a galactic mercenary whose specialty is laying waste to planets. It's a great set-up, and it's one that I would love to see in a movie--a Godzilla/Gamera-like monster for hire who has left a trail of devastation in his wake and now some under-gunned heroes have to find a way to stop him. The idea of KraaKraa costume. Would it really have been that much more expensive to give the creature eyes that blinked? Or at least closed when he was supposed to be unconscious after the Planet Patrol kids remotely crashed a spaceship into him? A few more dollars spent on Kraa would have helped make him more closely resemble the fearsome, inter-planetary marauder he was supposed to be. It might even have helped give him a personality, something which was completely lacking.

The film would also have benefited greatly from simple competence in directing, especially where Kraa and his rampages through miniature sets are concerned. The miniature work is well-done, and the filming of Kraa is also well-executed, but a complete lack of "reaction shots" from people supposedly fleeing and/or about to be stomped on means that there is never any sense of realism surrounding Kraa. Even the best effects shot in the film--featuring a panicked tanker truck driver crashing into a building and causing it to explode before Kraa's scaly feet--falls flat, because we are left to assume that the truck was crashed by a driver panicked by the sight of a giant monster by the side of the road. Would he really have cost that much more to even just put a cap and a fake mustache on Alison Lohman and have her sit in a truck cab and twist the wheel to and fro and scream, and then cut that scene into the miniature crash and explosion? It would have made a huge difference in the final product.

Of course, the disjointed and disconnected nature of the film is brought about by the fact that three different directors worked on the three pieces of the film I've described. Michael Deak did the monster/miniature scenes, Aaron Osbourne the material with Bobby the Genius Biker dodging government agents while trying to help an alien space cop create the means to destroy Kraa, and Dave Parker did the Planet Patrol and Lord Doom scenes. I would like to think that if any one of those directors had been involved in the entire movie, they would have realized that some pick-up shots were desperately needed here and there--and that said pick-up shots were actually very important to the overall quality of the film. But, since it seems none of them had such an overview of the project, I can only blame the producers for creating this miserable squandering of good ideas.

Band back on the big screen April 20, 2011!

2010-12-08T12:15:00.000-08:00

Charles Band and Full Moon features has announced the writer/producer/director's first theatrical release in decades, with the release of "Evil Bong 3-D: The Wrath of Bong."

In a press release published Tuesday, December 7 (giving perhaps another reason for why it's a day that will live in infamy), Band says: "'Evil Bong 3-D: The Wrath of Bong' will feature the record amount of naked alien beauties, boobies, and reefer hits to ever be presented in 3-D”.

No stranger to the 3-D format--having produced 3-D features "Metal Storm" and "Parasite" in the 1980s and "The Creeps" in the 1990s--Band also stated, "Audiences go to 3-D movies for one reason; to have things thrown at them, to be thrilled, to duck and to reach out to touch things, and we’re not going to let them down.”

In “Evil Bong 3-D: The Wrath of Bong” an evil alien bong crashes on Earth and sets out to conquer our planet. The stoner heroes from the first "Evil Bong" pictures are transported to the alien bong home world and held captive by nude alien beauties. Their only hope to escape and save Earth is to ally with EBee, the original Evil Bong.

Most cast members are returning from the first two "Evil Bong" films, including Sonny Carl Davis as Delivery Guy, Mitch Eakins as Bachman, John Patrick Jordan as Larnell, Brian Lloyd as Brett, Robin Sydney as Luann, and Jacob Witkin as Cyril. The part of Alistair has yet to be cast, so it could be that three different actors will play the character in as many movies. (And if this is the case, and they don't make a joke about it, I'll be disappointed.)

"Evil Bong 3-D: The Wrath of the Bong" will be released in theaters on, appropriately enough, National Pot Day, April 20, 2011. According to Full Moon Features, audience members attending screenings will not only receive the classic 3-D glasses, but it also takes advantage of "Smell-O-Rama," which Band describes as Full Moon Feature's take on the "long lost technology of scratch-and-sniff." At certain points in the film, the audience will scratch the card and produce smells to go along with the visuals on the screen.

Band hopes to audience participation along the lines of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" as the movie unfolds.

Current plans call for "The Wrath of Bong" to open in 10-15 cities, with more screens to be added later. The film will also have advanced screenings in select cities, with an April 9th date for a preview screening already set for Chicago. Charles Band intends to be present at select screenings, leading the film with a live performance that he described as a mini-version of his "Full Moon Road Show."

Click here to read my reviews of the first two Evil Bong movies, and check back for more information as it becomes available.

'Groom Lake' should probably remain secret

2010-12-05T12:22:00.000-08:00

Groom Lake (aka "The Visitor) (2002)
Starring: Amy Acker, Dan Gauthier, William Shatner, and Tom Towels
Director: William Shatner
Producers: Charles Band, JR Bookwalter, William Shatner, and Chuck Williams
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A dying woman (Acker) and her boy friend (Gauthier) travel to Groom Lake, Nevada where she hopes to see a UFO. They become embroiled in an effort by an Air Force officer (Shatner) to return an alien visitor to his home world before the government shuts down his top secret base.

"Groom Lake" has all the makings of classically "bad" sci-fi movies. It's got the US military up to secret things in the desert, it's got creepy townies hunting for aliens, it's got an attractive young couple in the middle of it all to serve as a combination of heroes and victims. It's even got an honest-to-God space alien with an interesting back story.

Unfortunately, all these elements aren't put to their best possible use.

Ironically, part of what does this film in is what I so often fault Full Moon productions for lacking: Character development. Shatner, who conceived the story as well as directed and co-produced the film, takes time to give us background on all the major characters, as well as providing scenes that defines key relationships between them. Unfortunately, he does it in such a haphazard and disjointed fashion that it lends an air of confusion to the entire film.

The worst of this is manifested in the development Kate and Andy, the young couple at the heart of the story. When they first appear in the film, we learn they are on a road trip to work through some issues in their relationship. After cutting away to deal with other business, we come back to Kate and Andy to discover that the "issue" is the fact that Kate's dying and wants to experience proof of life on other planets. We also learn that Andy is a bit of a jerk. After dealing with stuff at the secret military base, we return to Kate and Andy to find that Andy isn't just a jerk but also an idiot as he rolls their jeep in the desert, just to show off. But we also discover that he loves Kate deeply and visa-versa.

And so it goes, back and forth, with the film unveiling character backgrounds and relationships in bits and pieces. This works well with Shatner's enigmatic General Gossner and connection with the alien he is trying to help, but it is frustrating and annoying when it comes to Kate and Andy, because there is no need to be mysterious or vague as far as they're concerned. In fact, the opposite would have been more effective, as they are both pretty straight-forward characters. They are so straight-forward that a twist I was anticipating never materialized... there's nothing about them other than what is right on the surface.

A big problem comes from the film's budget. It was made for roughly $750,000, but that clearly wasn't enough to create a convincing military base; the special effects shots of strange lights in the sky and an alien ship and spirit coming and going; cars crashing in the desert; and the explosive finale of a town being shot up with laser beams. Clumsy attempts are made to hide the budget issues in the editing room and with creative camera angles on the set, but that doesn't change the fact that the hi-tech secret military installation is being run from a command center featuring a bank of iMacs, nor the low-grade digital effects. More often than not, I am willing to overlook the various fake-looking laser beams and fireballs in Full Moon pictures because they've been a staple for so long that I have come to consider them a feature not a flaw, but most Full Moon pictures have an atmosphere that is slightly askew, something of a goofiness not matter how "serious" the film might be. There is very little of that goofiness here, as almost every second of this movie comes across as deeply earnest and serious in its intent, so it needed convincing effects to match which it doesn't have. (I don't fault the film for its earnestness--the message running through the lives of the main characters that love lasts forever is a nice one--but it isn't being served by the overall package.)

Finally, as if the haphazard manner in which some of the story elements are introduced wasn't bad enough, Shatner throws in a scene which drags the rest of the film down. After being stranded in the desert, Kate is sexually assaulted by some local weirdos, possibly even raped. It's a repulsive moment that's out of step with the rest of the movie, and the mechanism is serves in the plot could have been handled in a far better way: Kate didn't have to get assaulted and/or raped by weird desert-dwelling UFO fanatics by to be taken captive by the military.

For all that is wrong with this film, it does have some good points.

The small town filled with UFO fanatics is interesting in that it's even weirder than one might expect. I'm usually a little put out by the "everyone in a small town is a dangerous nut and/or hates outsiders" template that Hollywood is so fond of, but it's amusing here, because while the town is full of dangerous nuts, they don't hate outsiders... only outsiders who don't believe in UFOs the way they believe in UFOs. I also thought that Shatner's character and his relationship with the alien was well done and lent the film an aspect that it needed.

On the acting front, everyone does a decent job and gives performances that are a notch above the Full Moon standard, especially for the 2000s decade. Of particular note Shatner, who is very Captain Kirkish but effective in what is probably the last serious part he'll play; and Tom Towels, who is great fun as a psychopathic tow truck driver who is obsessed with proving the Truth is Out There. You just know that it's going to end badly when Andy decides to team up with him in order to rescue Kate after she's imprisoned at the secret base.

"Groom Lake" is a flawed film, but it still has enough going for it to make it worth watching if you're a big William Shatner fan--he's not in the film a whole lot but he is in the good bits--or if you're a lover of the "weirdness in the desert"- or "aliens are among us, but the government keeps them hidden"-type movies.

Fondacaro is the best thing in 'Sideshow'

2010-11-11T00:45:00.000-08:00

Sideshow (2000)
Starring: Phil Fondacaro, Jamie Martz, Michael Amos, Jessica Keenan, Scott Clark, Jeana Blackman, and Brinke Stevens
Director: Fred Olen Ray
Producers: Charles Band and Gary Schmoeller
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When a group of teenagers insult the evil master of a travel sideshow (Fondacaro), he turns the force of his magical carnival upon them.

It's hard to go wrong with a creepy carnival/cursed freak show movie. All it requires are a cast of unpleasant "heroes" to serve as victims, neat costumes for sufficient gross circus freaks, and a charismatic and scary ring master to draw the elements together and deliver thrills and chills to a willing audience.

And Full Moon and Fred Olen Ray almost pull it off, producing a better movie than I would have expected based on the obscurity of "Sideshow" and the bringing together of the rapidly declining production capacities of Charles Band and a director whose output, up to that point, amounted to little more than a steaming pile of crap. In fact, this film marked a turning point for Ray, as his output seems to be slightly better in the 2000s than it was in the 1990s. OF course, it was also the final angle in a turning point for Band, as he was launched into a downward trajectory as fas as quality goes that continues to this day.

But with "Sideshow", director Olen and producer Band deliver most of what Full Moon fans have come to expect, as well as dread.

The cast of heroes/victims of the evil sideshow are an assortment of teenaged stereotypes, although only two of them are exactly what you'd expect. There's the over-sexed bully, who in less than ten minutes into the film is established as a misogynistic asshole who likes to pick on anyone and everything that isn't exactly like him, and there's the somewhat frumpy girl with the self-esteem problem that the popular and beautiful girl keeps around to make herself look more beautiful. The remaining three teens are just as one-dimensional, but they are slightly different spins on the characters we expect to find in this sort of film, so they bring a small degree of freshness to the proceedings. The two likely heroes--a pair of brothers who seem to be a little smarter than the other characters--turn out to be too flawed to fill those roles; one is too cowardly and the other turns out to be a spiritual weakling that's as easy prey for the carnival master as his friends. And the gorgeous popular girl, whom we expect to be slutty, is instead so in love with herself that she won't allow any dirty boys to lay a hand on her and taint her perfection. These are nice twists, and I think these characters could have been even more interesting, even if the script remained as relatively thin as it is, if they had been brought more fully to life by actors with talent beyond merely looking good and who perhaps were closer in age to the characters they're supposed to be playing. As with so many other Full Moon productions, we have actors in their mid to late twenties trying to pass for high school students and failing.

One thing that is done absolutely correctly here is that the film gets underway immediately and never breaks the forward momentum until the final frame. While I might have liked a little more development of some of the characters, I can also appreciate the fact that the film stayed focused and that no attempt was made to make it anything but a fast-moving B-picture about carnival freaks and obnoxious kids who get "what's they deserve."

On the unquestionable plus-side is the fact that the film's story gets underway immediately and there is no pause in forward momentum until the final frame.

We also have Phil Fondacaro turning in yet another great performance. He's not quite as good as he was in "The Creeps", but he pretty much owns this picture as he's the actor who brings any real personality to his role. If only the rest of the cast was as good as he is, this film might have been as entertaining as "Blood Dolls" or "Hideous!" (It might not be entirely fair to compare this film to those others, as they featured seasoned actors while everyone in a major role except Fondacaro has this movie as the first entry on their IMDB resumes. But the point still stands as a sound one... the off-kilter characters in this film required actors of more talent to do them proper justice.)

It also would have been nice if there had been just a little more money in the budget for bigger and more elaborate sets. However, Ray did make sure that every dollar he had at his disposal showed up on the screen. The creature effects and the sideshow freaks are all extremely well done for a film at this level. Some are outright gross, and I add this film to the list of those I regret watching while having dinner.

Fans of movies featuring freaks, or of the "classic Full Moon flavor" will find "Sideshow" a pleasant way to pass 70 minutes. Yes, it's lacking in some areas, but it's still lots of fun.

'Retro Puppet Master' fouled by sequel dreams

2010-10-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

Retro Puppet Master (1999)

Starring: Greg Sestero, Brigitta Dau, Stephen Blackehart, Jack Donner and Guy Rolfe
Director: David DeCoteau (as Joesph Tennent)
Producers: Charles Band, Kirk Edward Hansen, and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

It's 1892 and Andre Toulon (Sestero), the young owner and operator of an avant-garde puppet theater in Paris becomes smitten with Ilsa (Dau), the daughter of the Swiss ambassador, when she attends one of his shows. But before romance can bloom, Toulon and Ilsa become the targets of an ancient cult of demon worshippers attempted to retreive the secret of animating dead matter with the spririt of the living that was stolen from them by an Egyptian mystic (Donner). Even as the minions of the cultists destroy everything Toulon holds dear, they place him on the path to his destiny as the beloved and feared Puppet Master.

"Retro Puppet Master" is the seventh entry in Full Moon's most successful franchise, the Puppet Master series. It's actually a decent movie that offers a level of fright that I haven't seen in the series since the original "Puppet Master" film, as well as featuring a decent script and a talented cast of actors (including Guy Rolfe, in his final role). The gore is low, but the tension and excitement is high, as we witness the creation of Andre Toulon's first set of magical puppets and they go on a rampage in defense of their master and his lady love.

Although the heart of the movie is strong, it still has some fatal flaws.

First, we have the usual Full Moon sloppiness as far as continuity goes. The seventh Puppet Master is a prequel that gives fills in more of Andre Toulon's backstory, but its pieces don't quite fit with what we learned in "Puppet Master", "Puppet Master II" or "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge". (Of course, ignoring "Puppet Master II" counts in this film's favor, as it doesn't fit with any other film in the series, presenting Toulon and Ilsa both as evil psychos.) I've been been a bit bemused by Charles Band's apparent purposeful disregard for continuity in the movies he produces... it's one thing for Universal or Hammer to not give a rat's ass for continuity in the 1940s and 1950s when movies weren't readily available at the corner drugstore or from Amazon.com, but why Band and Company--whose films have been direct-to-video/DVD for most of his career--can't get with the times where it's easy to watch an entire film series back-to-back is beyond me.

Second, "Retro Puppet Master" offers an incomplete story. It ends without explaining a mystery that was set up in the film's framing sequence--how was Toulon's first set of puppets destroyed?--and it ends on the cusp of what sounds like a far more exciting adventure than the one we have just watched, one that will see Toulon and Ilsa in a showdown with the demon cultists. When I see a movie, I expect it to come to a satisfying close, even if the filmmakers are already planning a sequel. This film comes to a close, but it's far from satisfying. (And, to make matters worse, it's over a decade later now and we still haven't gotten a continuation of the tale in this film.)

If you're a fan of the "Puppet Master" series--particularly as it manifested in "Puppet Master III" and "Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys"--I think you'll enjoy this film, despite its flaws. I also think you'll find it a nice addition to a selection of films to screen during a Halloween party.

'Killjoy' is an aptly named movie; it's not any fun

2010-09-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

With another sequel promised (threatened?) before the end of the year, there seems to be no better time than now to review the original Charles Band-produced Killer Clown movie.

Killjoy (2000)
Starring: Vera Yell, Lee Marks, Angel Vargas, William L. Johnson, Dee Dee Austin, and Jamal Grimes
Director: Craig Ross
Producers: Mel Johnson Jr and Charles Band
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Hapless nerd Michael (Grimes) falls in love with Jada (Yell), a local gang-banger's girl friend, and summons a demon to help him get her. However, when the gang leader (Johnson) accidentially kills him, the demon takes the form of Killjoy (Vargas), an ice cream truck-driving clown, and sets about killing everyone that Michael felt crossed him, including the girl he loved.

"Killjoy" was Charles Band's first entry into the "killer clown" genre, as well as another entry in the string of "horror blaxploitation" films that Band created in the late 1990s/early 2000s. And it is a weak example of both, with Killjoy's antics being nowhere near clownish/circus-y enough, and it being far below 1999's "Ragdoll", and even a slight step down from "The Horrible Doctor Bones," which was released the same year as this film. On the bright side, though, we only have to sit through one pointless second-rate pop tune, unlike the excesses in the two previously mentioned films. Band must have either given up the dreams of a music side-business at this point, or someone related to the production got a clue that inserting lame music videos into the films wasn't helping anything.

The biggest problem with "Killjoy" is it was made with only a fraction of the budget needed to do this film right, a mere $150,000. The concept of a demonic clown recreating a mystical sideshow/fun house in an urban environment has the potential to be very creepy and visually very cool, but that potential is wasted here, as it only manifests itself with a few badly done signs and a couple of garishly lit, cramped sets that look more like generic alleys than part of a demonic fun house with an inner-city theme. The lack of budget also meant a minimizing of make-up and special effects needed to make the trio of gory kills committed by Killjoy as powerful as they could be. The filmmakers clumsily try to make up for the lack of effects budget with creative camera angels, but there was no Mario Bava or Alfred Hitchcock within miles of this production. I think there was even an occasion where the editing made the cover attempts look even clumsier, such as when Killjoy runs into one of the characters with his ice cream truck.

Second, the script is badly written and relies almost entire on the characters being dumber than snot while uttering some of the worst lines of dialogue I've come across in a Full Moon picture. I've no doubt that most inner-city gang-bangers are idiots--if they weren't, they'd be able to hold down jobs and make honest livings--but you've got to be a special kind of idiot to not noticed a revolver is loaded... and downright retarded to get into the truck of a freak dressed like a clown just because he promises you free drugs. There are also a few continuity issues, but I'm not sure whether those arise from a sloppy script, sloppy editing, or missing scenes--such as the sense of disconnect between Jada getting a panicked phone call from her friend following one of Killjoy's murders and Jada arriving at her friend's apartment. And then there's the magical, mystical appearing/disappearing homeless man. What is he supposed to be, other than a vehicle for exposition that they writer was either too lazy or too artless to think of a scene that could have provided it while perhaps even giving some depth to the film's characters and the supposed neighborhood they live in.

And finally, there are the actors. I don't think I've ever expected great performances from the stars of Charles Band films--even if sometimes they do deliver just that--but I do prefer to get something a cut above what we have here.

Admittedly, the featured actors don't have much to work with in this film, but most of them show so little life and talent that they manage to drag the material down even further than it already is. Dee Dee Austin (the heroine's best friend) and Lee Marks (the heroine's new boy friend) are particularly bad. Austin has limited screen time, which is a blessing, but Marks' bump-on-sidewalk performance is like a dead spot in every scene he's in.

The only two actors who are even close to decent in this film are Vera Yell and Angel Vargas. Yell is passable in most scenes--which is a good thing, since she is the most prominently featured actor in the film--but she does very well during the film's climactic fights in Killjoy's "fun house." And Vargas is just a lot of fun as the psycho killer clown... although I think he might come off as good as he does because he is surrounded by so much drabness.

I am giving "Killjoy" what is perhaps a generous Three Star-rating, because the only time I felt the urge to reach for the remote control was during the shoe-horned song/music video/ad near the end. Although far from good, the film did remain mildly entertaining for its 80-minute or so running time.

This film proved to be a tipping point for me. I realized that I was not so much looking forward to viewing it, as dreading it. More and more, I'm coming to feel like there is very little that Charles Band has touched post-1999 that's worth going out of your way for (or even watching at all).

Does anyone out there have a recommendation of a Full Moon or Charles Band-produced film from the past ten years that is good and that I haven't reviewed yet? I've had a long streak of bad movies here. Can someone point me to a good one? Please?

'Killjoy 3' coming on December 14, 2010

2010-09-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

Well... the preview makes it look like it should be good. But I've seen a number of these from Full Moon of late that got my hopes up.

Trent Haaga is once again back as the titular demonic clown, for better or worse; I thought Angel Vargas was the only really good thing about the original "Killjoy" film. The recasting is not that big a deal, though, as this film appears to have nothing whatsoever to do with the original other than it happens to feature a killer clown... multiple killer clowns, in fact.

A positive sign that this may actually be a pretty decent film is the presence of some okay actors, such as Darrow Igus and the aforementioned Trent Haaga. (But despite what the header on the inbedded trailer says, this is NOT a movie "by Charles Band." He's producing, but the writer/director is fellow by the name of John Lechago.)

A negative sign is the cover art from the DVD box. That's some pretty awful looking make-up on those actors.

As fate would have it, I had the original "Killjoy" slated to be my next review. Look for it here shortly.

'Horrific' is an apt description of this film

2010-09-13T14:02:00.000-07:00

Horrific (2005)
Starring: Patric Flood and Debra Mayer ("Crypt of the Undead" segment); Jonathan Norman and Jacqueline Lovell, and Costas Koromilas ("Terror of Vision" segment); and Marissa Tait, Tyler Anderson, Alicia Lagano, and Jason Faunt ("Masters of Death" segment)
Director: David DeCotaeu
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: One of Ten Stars

If you're Charles Band, and you want to make a quick buck off the more obscure, less-successful direct-to-video horror films, picking three, recutting each down to half an hour, and using them to make a "new" anthology film isn't such a bad idea. It gets you that quick buck, and you might even stir up interest in other films you own.

But not if that sensible and good idea is put into practice as it was with "Horrific."

To begin with, the movies recycled to make this picture were mostly not very good to begin with. They were "Prison of the Dead" (which I've not yet seen), "The Killer Eye," and "Totem". Secondly, while it might have been possible to actually improve on both "The Killer Eye" and "Totem with judicious editing that is not what happened here.

Horrific opens with "Crypt of the Undead" (the reshaped "Prison of the Dead") where a group of unpleasant idle rich kids are possessed by the spirits of witches executed during the 1600s and then slaughtered by resurrected executioners. Maybe it's because I haven't seen the full movie, but it looked interesting enough that I've put it on my list, because I would like to see some of the missing plot elements are that are incoherently referred to as the film unfolds. While a bit of expository dialogue gives us the back story of all the various characters in the opening scenes, there is more to their relationships, as evidenced by nonsensical exchanges between characters later on. These exchanges are rendered nonsensical because of the scenes that set them up are missing. Given the incompetent way the other two films used to make this movie were chopped up, I think "Prison of Dead" probably isn't as bad as it seems based on "Crypt of the Undead".

Which brings me to "Terror Vision", the second segment, which is a butchered version of "The Killer Eye". Given that this tale of giant horny eyeball from the 8th Dimension is one of the worst movies to ever issue forth from Full Moon, I figured they couldn't do anything but improve on it. I was wrong. The way they cut the film, they managed to make it every bit as boring as the original while making it incoherent to boot, with key expository scenes being hacked out. I thought that "The Killer Eye" could be improved if it was shorter, but I was apparently wrong. There is probably no way to get anything decent from this pile of garbage.

Closing out this anthology is "Masters of Death", a film about six beautiful young people who are drawn to a remote cabin by supernatural forces and then are tormented by monsters and forced to kill each other. In its original form, it's a far better movie than "The Killer Eye", but here it seems just as incoherent and just as lame. In fact, it's more incoherent, because we don't know how our six killers/victims find out they are the subjects of some bizarre supernatural force, nor why one of their dead bodies is strangely chained to a table rather than just covered with a blanket as would be the decent thing. Instead of reducing the presence of the lame puppet creatures that serve absolutely no point in the story, the editor instead hacked out important expository scenes.

"Horrific" is a failure on every level, with the possible exception of the fact that all three films used to create were originally directed by David DeCoteau (under the names Victoria Sloan, Richard Chasen, and Martin Tate), so all segments have a similar look to them. It's a cheap, garish look (nothing says "cheap" like actors delivering lines about how their names have been mysterious carven into stone while looking at a pair of wooden boards where the screws that joined them together are obvious), but it's a look nonetheless. And for that I'm giving this sad cash grab One Star... and a very small one at that.

Although the film is not included on anyone's IMDB resume, a preview was made for it. And the preview is far more competently put together than the film itself. Watch it, and know that you won't ever have to watch "Horrific".

'HorrorVision' is not worth looking at

2010-08-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

HorrorVision (2001)
Starring: Jake Leonard, James Black, Maggie Rose Fleck, Brinke Stevens, and Chuck Williams
Director: Danny Draven
Producers: J.R. Bookwalter and Charles Band
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

After his girl friend (Fleck) and business partner (Stevens) mysteriously vanish after viewing the HorrorVision website, Dez (Leonard) finds himself locked drawn into a battle against a mysterious entity that has been born from the collective negativity on the vast expanse of internet and other digital media.

"HorrorVision" is yet another Full Moon movie with a great idea at its core, but which is killed by a combination of lousy execution and bad acting. While it's more inventive than some of the other Full Moon/Tempe Entertainment, it's still far below the best of what Charles Band brought us in the 1990s, and not even up to the level of J.R. Bookwalter in the 1990s. (Which reminds me... one of these days, I really need to get around to watching "Kingdom of Vampires.")

This movie might more properly be featured at Movies You Should Die Before You See, but the idea of all the negativity, vitriol, and hatred being put forward on the internet coalescing into a self-aware being bent on humanity's destruction is worth a ratings point all by itself. The Obi-Wan Kenobi-like character (amusingly named Bradbury, twice as amusing ten years later now that Ray Bradbury has expressed a dislike for the internet and the web) who teaches Dez about the emerging threat and how to fight also helps life my opinion of the film, especially since he is being portrayed by the best actor in the film, James Black. Not that I can be too hard on any of the actors featured... I think they all probably did the best with the awful lines they were called upon to deliver, and star Jake Leonard probably also did his best with his hollow, badly conceived and even worse developed character of Dez. (We never get to understand Dez... we're told he wants to be a scriptwriter whose talent has been sapped away by his involvement with creating made-to-order pornography, but we're really made to believe that he has any talent except for being a moron.)

However, what really ruins this movie is the excessive padding--you'll rarely see more pointless driving scenes set to third-rate metal music than you will in this movie; the fact that it features techno-horror monsters that required special effects beyond the film's meager budget to fully bring to life--although I give director Danny Dravin and his crew a tip o' the hat for almost pulling it off... the bizarre creature that materializes in the desert was very well done, considering; and the fact that this is yet another imcomplete Full Moon film that is completely lacking a third act.

Yes. Dez is stranded in the desert, the world is descending into cyber-induced destruction, and our hero is still pretty clueless as to how to effectively fight back. And that's where the movie ends. After a run-time that's barely over 70 minutes--including long credit sequences and lots of padding--the film ends with no major plot threads resolved and only one subplot done with. It's annoying and unforgiveable that the hope of a sequel loomed so large in the minds of Band and Bookwalter that they'd foist such a half-finished effort on the public. (Of course, with Charles Band, it's not a mistake but an unfortunate pattern that continues to this day. Look for the "Where's the Ending?" tag on this blog to see just how many films he's produced that have this particular obnoxious flaw.

The good news is that you can see just about everything that's cool about "Horrorvision" in the preview below. After watching it, there is no need to seek out the movie, unless you're a guy with a blog devoted to reviewing Charles Band productions.

Dolls that play deadly games

2010-08-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dolls (1987)
Starring: Carrie Lorraine, Stephen Lee, Ian Patrick Williams, Guy Rolfe, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Hilary Mason, Bunty Baily and Cassie Stuart
Director: Stuart Gordon
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
Producers: Brian Yunza and Charles Band

Stranded travelers spend the night in an old mansion inhabited by an elderly couple (Mason and Rolfe) and their magical dolls... dolls that don't take kindly to abusive adults or house-guests that behave badly.

"Dolls" is a comedy/horror flick that has the feel of a fairy tale. In fact, there are seveal sceens and shots that echo fairy tales fairly directly, such as the shot of an elderly woman stirring a pot of stew that makes her look like she's a witch stirring a cauldron, and this atmosphere makes the movie that much more interesting viewing.

The fairy tale feel is perhaps not all that surprising, as it's from the writer who did the script had just finished "Troll" (review here) for B-movie mogul Charles Band, who was also the producer of this picture. This film is a little gorier than "Troll", but if you liked that film, you're bound to like this picture as well.

The film has other classic qualities about it. The setting feels like the manor houses that were the settings for numerous mysteries from the 1930s and 1940s of the subgenre that get's referred to as "dark old house movies". The pacing of the story and the "just rewards" given to the characters in the course of the story have a "Tales From the Crypt" or "House of Mystery" feel to them that makes the film even more fun to watch.

At the same time, the film also ends up being groundbreaking. If not for this film, "Puppet Master" might never have come into being, as much of what goes on here feels like a rough draft for that movie and franchise. (There's even a bit from here that is echoed in the "Puppet Master" films but not surpassed and that's the surprising appearance of filmdom's most unusual firing squad.)

The film is artfully shot and edited, features an excellent score and has a cast of actors that are all perfect in their parts. Comic actor Stephen Lee has a nice turn as a man whose childlike wonder and innocence protects him from the rampaging killer dolls; veteran British character actors Guy Rolfe and Hilary Mason are great as the elderly masters of the dark old house; and the rest of the cast present characters so obnoxious that you can't wait to see them get bumped off. Even child actor Carrie Lorraine is far better than most children her age. It's a shame she quit acting after this film.

If you're a fan of "Troll" or of the output of Empire Pictures and Full Moon pictures from the 1980s and 1990s, this is a movie for you. It's definately a movie you can't go wrong with if you included in the selection for a Bad Movie Night. It might even be a film for the entire family if you have teenagers in the house, although I think youger kids might be freaked out by the killer toys and the intense creepiness of certain part of the film.

'Puppet Master: Axis of Evil' offers littlebut pale reflections of past glory

2010-08-07T02:02:00.000-07:00

Puppet Master: Axis of Evil (2010)
Starring: Levi Fiehler, Taylor M. Graham, Jenna Gallaher, Tom Sandoval, Ada Chao, and Aaron Riber
Director: David DeCoteau
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

As America goes to war overseas against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, a young man (Fiehler) finds himself facing off against an unholy union of Nazi and Japanese saboteurs (Chao, Sandoval and Riber) in California, with Toulon's legendary magical puppets as his allies.

If there ever was a movie I sat down wanting to like, it's "Puppet Master: Axis of Evil."

Although I was disappointed to learn that Charles Band didn't direct it himself--despite the film's full title being "Charles Band's Puppet Master: Axis of Evil"--David DeCoteau did previously direct one of the very best entries in this series, so I still had some level of hope for this film.

Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge" was also set during the 1940s, and while it stood perfectly well on its own, it was a film I wouldn't have minded seeing a real sequel to. Although I have panned almost every DeCoteau, I still hoped that he would surprise... just as I had hoped that Band was telling the truth when he implied the puppets in this movie would be truly and fully animated for the first time in many years.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed in all counts. And the disappointment was almost nearly as bad as the one I experienced over Band's other recent trip to the well of past glories, Demonic Toys 2.

The most glaring problem is a continuity issue that undermines literally everything that follows the title card that establishes the events of the film take place in 1939. Yet, one character is about to be deployed to fight overseas, and another character gives repeated speeches about his desire to join the U.S. military to fight "Japs" and "Krauts." That's all good and well if the film had been set in 1942 or 1943 or even 1944... but in 1939, America was not at war with either Nazi Germany nor Imperial Japan. No regular American would be carrying on the way the characters in this film carry on the way they are here--the ignorance and historical illiteracy displayed by whoever approved the final cut of this film is beyond tragic. And the tragedy is made even more-so by the fact that if continuity had been maintained with DeCoteau's previous, and superior, contributions to the "Puppet Master" series--like if this film had been set in 1944--the one thing that makes this movie nearly unwatchable for anyone who has ever read anything about the United States' role in WWII would have been avoided.

Another problem, one almost as bad, is that the puppetry featured here as at the same level of everything else that has been present in Full Moon pictures for the past few years. The animation that made Toulon's puppets so cool in the first three "Puppet Master" films is nowhere to be found here, except in instances when stock footage from the original "Puppet Master" film is incorporated in a clumsy attempt to make it appear that more skill and effort was put into the puppetry than just some prop-man off camera shaking a doll.

Finally, and perhaps worst of all, this is not a complete movie. It's like someone forgot that a movie needs a third act to follow the first and second. The film basically ends on a cliffhanger, with only a single major plot-point resolved and one of the villains in possession of several of Toulon's puppets. Sadly, in every prior case when a Full Moon picture has shown this particular defect--such as "HorrorVision", "Huntress" and "Retro Puppet Master"--a continuation or completion of the story has never been materialized.

I hope that "Puppet Master: Axis of Evil" breaks the pattern, and that Band has the funding and cast for the next Puppet Movie locked down. Hell, I hope they're shooting it as I write this. If not, I have to wonder if the many folks I've encountered over the years who portray Band as a huckster who gets by more on luck and charm than skill and creative talent. I may also have to finally surrender my belief that Band still has an interest in making the best movies possible rather than just trying to milk his properties for a final few bucks before retirement. What other explanation might there be for him not learning the lessons of the previous "half movies" he's produced?

For all that is bad with this movie, it actually one of the best films DeCoteau has made for Full Moon. It pales when compared to "Puppet Master III", but DeCoteau gets better performances from the cast here than in anything since that aforementioned film. With the exception of Ada Chao, who gives a performance almost as embarrassing as the Kabuki theater/geisha outfit she spends the entirety of the film in.

I wish I could have given a more glowing review of this film, but it's barely worth watching for even the most hardcore fans of Toulon's puppets. Or, I suppose, if you're like me and still hold out hope that Band will bring us something approaching the movies he used to make, it might be worth supporting just in the hopes that success will motivate the "part two" this film needs.

'Totem' has good ideas, lousy execution

2010-07-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

Totem (1999)
Starring: Marissa Tait, Tyler Anderson, Alicia Lagano, Jason Faunt, Eric W. Edwards and Sacha Spencer
Director: David DeCoteau (as Martin Tate)
Producers: Charles Band and Kirk Edward Hansen
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A dark, arcane force draws six teenagers to a remote cabin where they discover that some of them are fated to be sacrificed in order to unleash murderous demons upon the world, while others are fated to perform the sacrifices. But who are the victims and who are killers? And what does the mysterious, vaguely totem-pole like sculpture in the nearby cemetery have to do with anything?

"Totem" is a film with a supremely creepy premise at its heart, and it sets up the story nicely, but then it quickly goes off the rails.

The problems start with the cast. They seem to have been hired first and foremost for their good looks with any actual acting talent being entirely secondary. Even allowing for the wooden, shallow acting that is so very common in the minor Full Moon efforts like this one, what we have here is still pretty weak. The only members of the cast I didn't want to send back to community theater or to full-time modeling were Marissa Tait and Alicia Lagano. They also happen to be the only two who have had substantial acting careers since this movie--although I suppose Jason Faunt's 44-episode run as a Power Ranger counts. The other three cast members have very limited or no other film or TV credits to their names. (Hmmm... three to do the killing, three to die... maybe there IS more to this movie than one might think!)

As if a lack of talent wasn't bad enough, whether or not the actors in question were appropriate for the role they were cast also appears to have been entirely secondary. It's the only explanation for Tyler Anderson being cast as a Native American who looks more Eastern European or Italian than Native American--and whose accent is more Euro-trashy/Eastern European than anything that ever came off a Reservation anywhere in North America--yet somehow the other characters in the film can TELL he's Native American by just looking at him. (There MUST have been someone in that book of modeling agency headshots this cast was derived form who looked more convincingly Native American. I've no idea why they would've gone with Tyler, unless he was related to someone who invested money in the production.)

The acting in this film is so bland, and the performers and their characters so interchangeable that I doubt you will remember who did what to whom five even as the end credits start to roll.

The bad acting might not be entirely the fault of the actors, however. They didn't have much of a script to work with, and they are portraying characters whose development extends to "and then he does this because the plot says so... and does that because the plot says so. This Benjamin Carr-penned effort was so lazily written that not only does every character sound alike because no care was taken to give them personality through their dialogue, and the back story for the demonic critters motivating the action has to explained in a lame-ass dream sequence that may or may not have been included because the producers said, "we've got this footage of rampaging Vikings... work it into the picture somehow."

Finally, the ending here has got to be among the worst on any Full Moon production, save that of "Huntress: Spirit of the Night". Perhaps in the hands of someone competent, or at the end of a script that had actually been taken through more than one draft, the sick sort of romantic vibe I think they were going for might have worked. Here, it just feels like a bit of randomness tacked onto the end of a half-developed story. It's feels almost as forced and pointless as the presence of the totem critters.

Speaking of the critters... once again we have a Charles Band production where the neigh-obligatory puppet creatures feel as if they've been forced into a story where they don't belong. The immortal, imprisoned demons lurking at the heart of the story have the ability to manipulate the film's characters by altering their thoughts and perceptions, and they can animate their corpses after they're dead, so there is no reason for them to be flapping around and generally looking like cheap-jack prop puppets. Yes... this is the beginning of the point where Band continued to produce movies with Tiny Terrors in them, but didn't even have the budget to make them look as convincing at the original Ghoulies.

(That said, the totem puppets are better than many of their fellow on-the-cheap Tiny Terrors from Band's productions of the past decade. They're even better animated than the Blood Dolls from the film of the same title and the same year as this one, even if "Blood Dolls" was a far better movie overall.)

There is two moments in the film that saves it from a Two Rating (and the honor of being featured on my Movies to Die Before Seeing blog). The first is the point where Alicia Lagano's character is revealed as the psycho we pretty much knew her to be--it's not surprising, but it is one of the better-handled moments in the film--and the sudden and very startling death of Robert and its aftermath. While I suspect Robert's surprise death primarily arose from sloppy writing more than anything else. But, whatever the way it came about, it worked.

The 'Evil Bong' Double Feature:The more wasted you are, the funnier the films

2010-05-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

Evil Bong (2003)
Starring: David Weidoff, Brian Lloyd, John Patrick Jordan, Kristyn Green, Robin Snyder, Mitch Eakins, Michelle Mais, and Tommy Chong
Producers: Charles Band
Director: Charles Band
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

When his pot-smoking roommates and the lovely Janet (Green) fall victim to the mysterious powers of the Voodoo-cursed Evil Bong, it's up to the nerdy, straight-laced Allistair (Weidoff) to save them all.

"Evil Bong" is part stoner comedy, part horror movie spoof. It's also a far more effective anti-drug movie than most films that are made to exclusively be anti-drug screeds. None of the potheads in the film are very likeable and Tommy Chong (in a role as the vengeful owner of the Evil Bong) provides a hilarious charicature of what someone becomes after too many years of smoking too much pot.

When "Evil Bong" is on its game, it's quite funny in a stupid sort of way. Unfortunately, it's not on its game most of the time.

Most of the time, this movie screams "Wow... this could have been excellent if a there had been a few more tens of thousands of dollars in the budget" because more money was needed to make the sets better and to buy the time and craftsmanship needed on CGI and props.

This is the first Charles Band film I've seen where his vision overreached his budget, and, as is always the case when this happens, the movie suffers greatly for it.

The Evil Bong (nicknamed EeeBee) isn't animated to the point where it should be--the eyes move and the lips twitch occassionally, but more facial animation was needed to bring it fully to life... the puppetry eithe needed to be far more elaborate than what we have, or lips needed to have been CGI'ed onto the bong model for it to be effective instead of just cheap-looking. EeeBee makes the Gingerdead Man puppet (from Band's 2004 effort of that same title) look impressive.

The Bongworld, the nightmare dimension into which EeeBee draws the souls of those who take hits from her, also suffers from the film's apparent lack of budget. It's a drab and unimpressive place that needed a lot more set decorations and patrons to fully bring it to life. Like EeeBee herself, it's little more than a sketch of what it should have been. It should have rivaled the cantina from "Star Wars" for the craziness of its patrons, particuarly since EeeBee seems to have been collecting souls for a long time, but instead it feels like a skidrow strip club at 10am in the morning.

Partially related to the film's budget restrictions--if I understand comments made in the making-of documentary correctly--this film's concepting, writing, pre-production and principle shooting all took place within a two-month period--is a bit of obvious padding to the script. There's a fairly long and completely irrelevant scene where one of the pothead's grandfather comes for a visit. It's a funny scene, but it has nothing to do with the action line of the film (and it even strikes a discordant note with Bongworld, as the grandfather appears there too, along with characters from other Band-produced movies), and it's a scene that woud have been replaced by something else if a proper number of revisions had taken place on the script.

It's a shame that Band didn't have the money or time to give this film its proper due, because there are a number of good things about it. Although the characters aren't particularly likeable, the actors protraying them all do a great job. Robin Snyder is particularly funny in a scene where a hit on EeeBee gets her all "hot and bothered". Tommy Chong also puts on a good show as... well, Tommy Chong.

"Evil Bong" is only for the hardest of the hardcore members of the Full Moon fanclub or for those who can't get enough of stoner comedies. (Actually, it might also be a good candidate for a Bad Movie Night Double-bill with "Reefer Madness".)

Evil Bong II: King Bong (2009)
Starring: Brett Chukerman, John Patrick Jordan, Sonny Carl Davis, Mitch Eakins, Brian Lloyd, Amy Paffrath, Jacob Witkin, and Robin Sydney
Producers: Charles Band, Dana K. Harrloe, Thomas Smead, and Garin Sparks
Director: Charles Band
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Three friends (Eakins, Jordan and Lloyd) were cursed by smoking from a demonically-animated bong and are now suffering from exaggerated symptoms from smoking pot--one is perpetually horny, the other is wracked by monstrously intense munchies, and the third from severe narcolepsy and memory loss. Together with their straight-laced friend Allistair (Chukerman) They travel to South America to uncover the bong's origins and hopefully find a way to lift the curse. Instead, they become embroiled in a fight for control over the most powerful marijuana crop ever discovered... an idealistic doctor wants to use it to cure cancer (Paffrath), an evil capitalist wants to distribute the pot to stoners everywhere (Witkin) and the sexy members of the Poon Tang Tribe, the Amazon slaves of the mighty King Bong.

The set-up for the film is convoluted, but the film itself is a simple collection of simple-minded pot jokes and stoner stereotypes. If you liked "Evil Bong," I suspect you'll like this sequel, as it delivers more of the same... even if it's crasser than the first movie, both with the level of profanity and the level of nudity in the film. (The Poon Tang Tribe girls are all topless during their scenes, and they confirmed for me once and for all that I prefer looking at natural breasts than ones that are "enhanced." At least if they're not covered up.)

Like the original "Evil Bong," this is more of a comedy than a horror film. In fact, Band doesn't even try to evoke any horror here, going instead for all-out blue humor of the crassest and most low-brow kind. Unfortunately, the jokes are more crass than funny... although I suspect the more intoxicated you are while watching the film, the funnier it becomes.

When I wrote my original review of "Evil Bong," it included a note about how this sequel would be worth watching if it showed the same level of quality improvement that existed between "Gingerdead Man" and "Gingerdead Man 2."

Well, it that improvement didn't manifest itself. While there are a number of points where "Evil Bong II" is superior to its predecessor--Eebee the Evil Bong is better animated than she was in the first film (yes, she was blown to bits, but she gets repaired), and Band doesn't let his vision overreach his meager budget. The Bongworld present in this film is pretty well done, considering my apartment is probably bigger than the sound stage this film was made on. The make-up and special effects are also superior to what we were subjected to in the first film.

On the downside, this film isn't as funny. While the Poon Tang Tribe shows up to provide a little nudity to distract from the overall lameness of the script, they can't hide the fact that there are precious few laughs in this comedy. In fact, the inside gags--such as when one character remarks to another who is being played by a different actor than in the original film that, "I hardly recognized you" or that Sonny Carl Davis' character is named "Rabbit" like the one he played in "Trancers II"--are funnier than any of the set-piece jokes. Well, with the exception of the bizarre "Who's On First"-type routine that Davis and Jordan perform at one point, and Eakins prat-falls as he falls alseep without warning; those bits are midly amusing.

All in all, "Evil Bong II: King Bong" sees Charles Band end the 2000s decade as he started it... with a movie that is a far, far cry from earlier efforts like "Blood Dolls", "Hideous!" and even "The Creeps". Like the first one in this series, it's a film that only hardcore Full Moon fans should bother with. (Of course, for all I know, it plays like "Bringing Up Baby" or "Blazing Saddles" if you're stoned. If someone wants to conduct that experiment, let me know how it turns out.)

One more thing... there's the theme song from the "Evil Bong" movies set to a fan-made video. It's a catchy little tune.

A trip to Sherwoood Forest you should skip

2010-05-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

Virgins of Sherwood Forest (2000)
Starring: Gabriella Hall, Shannen Leigh, David Roth and Amber Newman
Producer: Charles Band
Director: Cybil Richards
Rating: One of Ten Stars

A B-movie director (Hall) bumps her head and wakes up in Sherwood Forest, where she must work with other buxom wenches to thwart the evil scheme's of the Sheriff of Nottingham's sister (Leigh) while using their sex and other womanly wiles to restoring some righteous fire and energy to Robin Hood (Roth) and his Merry Men. (Not to mention engaging in the occassional lesbian fling.)

I'm not sure how or when I got this movie. I don't even know if I watched it before this evening, but if I did, I didn't retain anything about it in memory. And that's because there's nothing worth noticing here.

"Virgins of Sherwood Forest" wants to be a sex comedy, or maybe it wants to be a soft-core porn flick... but it fails to be either. It's one of dozens of sci-fi/fantasy flavored softcore films that an uncredited Charles Band produced for his Surrender Cinema venture, and it's one of a handful lurking within the piles of unwatched DVDs stacked around my office. By most accounts, Band's venture into blue movies was mostly unsuccessful both creatively and financially, but I sincerely hope that this is one of the worst that he made. It's almost as bad as "The Killer Eye," which is the worst movie from Band I've seen yet.

The movie is dull and decidedly unsexy, the acting is almost as bad as the boob jobs on prominent display, and the sets and camera work are even worse. (In fact, Amber Newman is so bad in this film that it's hard to believe that she's the same actress who was so amusing in "Satanic Yuppies.")

There are a few chuckles here, but they are so few and seperated by such vast expanses for crap that they're not worth waiting for.

A trio of movies recut and recycled

2010-05-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

Urban Evil: A Trilogy of Fear (2005)
Starring: Darrow Igus, Larry Bates Sarah Scott Davis and Rhonda Claerbaut ("Demonic Tunes); Russell Richardson, Jennia Watson, Freda Payne and Bill Davis ("The Killing One" segment); and Shani Pride, Ted Lyde, Kyle Walker and Austin Priester ("Hidden Evil" segment)
Directors: Ted Nicolaou ("Demonic Tunes", "The Killing Kind") and James Black ("Hidden Evil")
Producers: JR Bookwalter and Charles Band
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Some anthology films are written and planned as such, like "Asylum" and "Tales from the Grave 2: Happy Holidays". Others are created by packaging sperately-produced short films with host sections or other framing sequences, such as the "Goregoyles" films from producer Alexandre Michaud. Still others come about when producers re-edit films that were unfinished due to loss of funding or that they couldn't find distribution for and that are packaged together in an efffort to get some return on investment and/or get them to the public. The third kind consists of already-released films that are abbreivated through editing, retitled, and packaged together under a single main title.

An example of the third kind of anthology film is "Urban Evil: A Trilogy of Fear" from the Charles Band-helmed Different Worlds. It consists of three African-American themed horror flicks that Band had previously released under his well-known Full Moon label. "The Horrible Dr. Bones" (2000) is retitled "Demonic Tunes", "Ragdoll" (1999) becomes "The Killing Kind", and "The Vault" (2000) becomes 'Hidden Evil".

Out of the three movies that were condensed to make up "Urban Evil", only "The Horrible Dr. Bones" makes the transition with any sort of effectivenes. The other two feel like what they are--the butchered remains of longer movies, and It'll be obvious to even the most inattentive viewer that there's something missing in both of them. "The Killing One" comes off the worst of the two, with murder and mayhem happening off-screen and the viewers merely getting some tantalizing hints about what might been included.

In "Demonic Tunes", the Urban Protectors, an up-and-coming rap band is chosen for stardom by super-DJ and "community organizer" Doctor Bones (Igus) to be the lead act on his new record label. Unfortunately for the band, and the world, Doctor Bones is a near-immortal voodoo sorcerer with grand plans for merging zombie-creation rituals with music and mass-media.

There are very few signs that this is a longer version of an abridged film which might hint that "The Horrible Doctor Bones" is not worth seeking out. I imagine that the full-length version is heavilly padded with bargain basement rap and pop performances--given that it's about a band and it takes place partially at a talent show and a concert--and that there is probably a subplot that was easily exciszed, because one might think that this film was always intended to be this length. (There's also the fact that Darrow Igus portrays the only interesting character in the entire movie. Although "Demonic Tunes" isn't all that good, Doctor Bones has enough flare as played by Igus that we can add him to the list of Cool Horror Movie Bad Guys.)

Next up, we're treated to "The Killing Kind", where a young club owner (Richardson) uses voodoo magic to call forth an evil spirit to avenge an assault on his grandmother. You know things are going to end up badly when he offers the demon "anything he wants" to perform the task.

Unlike "Demonic Tunes", this film did not fare well during its transformation. Although it's got good acting and the plus of a very attractive leading lady in Jennia Watson and the Charles Band-trademark killer doll, watching the film is not a satisfying experience because time and again you have the sense that you left the room for a minute and came back to find that you'd missed something really cool. (We get to see two muders done by the doll, but references seem to imply there are at least two that we don't get to see. We also get to see Jennia Watson's bare back, but the sense is that we may have gotten to see a lot more if this had been a complete movie. That may not be the case, but the impression is there and that's all that's needed to lend an even more incomplete feeling that is projected by "The Killing Kind."

The best thing I can say about "The Killing Kind" is that it gives you enough to decide if "Ragdoll" might be worth seeing. (Speaking of which,

Rounding out the trilogy promised by the sub-title, we have "Hidden Evil", a tale of a well-meaning inner-city teacher (Ted Lyde) takes a small group of high schoolers to an old school that is about to be torn down in the hopes of finding and saving historical artifacts perhaps dating as far back as when the school served as a transfer terminal for slaves being brought in from Africa. They end up releasing an angry spirit that's been trapped there for over 150 yeas.

Like "The Killing Kind", this film feels mained and butchered, as we lose all the scenes that build tension, we are obviously skipping huge chunks of the story--how did two of the characters get from the second floor to being lost in the basement?--and the characters make discoveries that they refer to but we never quite get to understand what those are. However, unlike with "The Killing Kind", what is here seems like a highlight reel and not a very good one at that. We probably ARE getting everything that's worth seeing in this film in the 25 or so minutes that's included, and it doesn't look like the rest is worth going out of your way for.

With one film that boiled down decently and two others that didn't, "Urban Evil: A Trilogy of Fear" is one anthology film you can safely ignore, even if you love the format like I do. This is one recycling effort that does nothing to improve life on planet Earth.

That which has once been seen, cannot be unseen

2010-05-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

Characters in an H.P. Lovecraft story never saw anything as horrible, as mind-shattering as this...

That's a promotional image for "Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver" that was forwarded to me by someone at Full Moon. On my birthday, no less! In this, the second sequel to "Gingerdead Man," the cookie animated by the spirit of dead serial killer travels to the 1970s and busts some moves (and heads) on the dance floor.

Charles Band and the staff of Full Moon are still looking to lock in production dates for the film.

'The Alchemist' is so-so early effort of Band

2010-05-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

The Alchemist (1986)
Starring: Lucinda Dooling, John Sanderford, Robert Ginty, Robert Glaudini and Viola Kates Stimpson
Producers: Charles Band, Lawrence Applebaum, Billy Fine and Jay Schultz
Director: James Amante (aka Charles Band)
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When a farmer (Ginty) sets out to rescue his wife from an evil sorcerer (Glaudini), she ends up dead and he ends up cursed with immortality and occassional transformation into a monster. Nearly a century later, the reincarnation of his long-dead love (Dooling) and a hitchhiker at the wrong place at the wrong time (Sanderford) are drawn into a final showdown between farmer, sorcerer and a gaggle of demons.

An early effort from Charles Band this is a film that's hit and miss in the quality department... with more misses than hits, I'm sorry to say. Nonetheless, the film is a great example of how Band used to be able to create a suitably eerie atmosphere and make the most of his low budgets, an ability that seems to have left him in recent years, both as a director and a producter. There are still enough glimmers of the old Band that I hope a new Full Moon will rise, but it's been about a decade since he's even been as good as what we have in this film.

The film's biggest drawback is its slow-moving plot that's made even slower by obvious padding and by one of the clearest displays of Stupid Character Syndrom ever put on screen. (Lucinda Dooling keeps wigging out at the wheel of the car and almost crashing several times, yet hitchhiker John Sanderford keeps getting back in the car with her. Why? Well, because if he didn't, the film would be over. Once would have been enough to establish the gradual reawakening of the reincarnated soul, but Band and the writers drives the point home over and over to stretch the film to meet a minimum running length.)

Still, when the film gets going and the monsters start popping up and dimensional portals are opened thanks to cheap special effects, that old time Charles Band Magic is in full effect and we have a film that ends on a note far higher than everthing that led up to it indicated.

Everything except the acting that is. For the most part, the film's cast does an excellent job with what they have to work with. Ginty in particular does an excellent job as the emotionally tortured immortal, while Stimpson manages to effectively convey the fatigue of a woman who has spent her entire life tending to a sick family member. Dooling and Sandford are rather bland, but I can't blame the actors as their parts are written that way.

In final analysis, though, this film is really only for the Full Moon/Charles Band completists like myself. The rest of you are better off looking at the movies filed under the "High Rating" tag on this blog.

'Shrieker' is nothing to shout about

2010-04-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

Shrieker (aka "Shriek") (1998)
Starring: Tanya Dempsey, Jamie Gannon, Parry Allen, Roger Crowe, Alison Cuffe and Jenya Lano
Director: Victoria Sloan (aka David DeCotaeu)
Producers: Kirk Edward Hansen and Charles Band
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

College students squatting in a hospital that's been abandoned for over 50 years come under attack when one among them summons an extra-dimensional horror known as the Shrieker. Five must die so it's summoner can control it. Will mathmatics Freshman Clark (Dempsey) learn the secrets of the Shrieker in time to save herself and her "roommates"?

"Shrieker" is a straight-forward monster film with a "Ten Little Indians"-style who-dunnit element thrown in. It's so straight-forward that it almost feels like an outline of a movie instead of a full-fledged one. It's short on character development, short on logic, and short on suspense, because there's not enough time to include that sort of materal in its very brief running time of just over an hour.

The fact that it's so short is probably the best thing I can say about "Shrieker". The director had enough sense not to pad his film with a bunch of pointless "mood shots" or never-ending establishing shots. Although I probably wouldn't have been too annoyed if there had been a little gratioutous nudity to pad the film, particularly since Alison Cuffe and Jenya Layno at one point both wear outfits that could have been even skimpier.

In that vein, I should mention that "Shrieker" features a cast that seems to have been cast more for their good looks than their acting abilities, but with the breakneck pace at which the film unfolds, there's barely time to notice anything about the cast other than their good looks. (Everyone gives an adequate performance for a low-budget, direct-to-DVD film... no one embarrasses themselves but no one does a remarkable job, either.)

However, I would have liked to have seen SOME development of the creature in the movie, at least as far as a better explanation of the how, who and why of it being summoned. It's a cool looking beastie--one of the better efforts during the late 1990s as Full Moon beginning its decline--but it needed more of a backstory.

"Shrieker" isn't the worst film in the Full Moon catalogue, but it's far from the best. But it is a film you can safely ignore, even if you're the biggest Full Moon fan on planet Earth.

Weird Science brings sexual perversion 'From Beyond'

2010-04-17T02:28:00.000-07:00

From Beyond (1986)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, Ted Sorel and Carolyn Purdy-Gordon
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producers: Brian Yunza and Charles Band
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A pair of physicists (Combs and Sorel) create a machine that causes our dimension to merge with another. They end up unleashing horrors--and sexual perversion--unlike any our world has ever seen before.

"From Beyond" is one of those gory, goopy movies that you do NOT want to watch while eating. If you like fast-paced monster movies with a high quotient of mad doctors--there is only one out of the five major characters who isn't a doctor who is unhinged in some fashion--and you don't mind sexually-themed horror, then you'll enjoy the heck out of this movie.

With excellent special effects--particularly during the final battle against the monstrous creature from beyond--and great performances by all the actors, this movie is a fun ride. Although only the first few minutes of the film is actually based on H.P. Lovecraft's story of the same title, Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton both capture the obsession and the madness that was a hallmark of many of his characters and stories. Further, the creatures and the entire style of the movie evokes the atmosphere of Lovecraft's writings. Even better, the film provides some great laughs to offset the terror, with Ken Foree (best-known for his role in the original "Dawn of the Dead") serving double-duty as comic relief and Macho Action Hero and succeeding equally well at both.

"From Beyond" is an excellent movie to show at a Halloween party where adults or older teens make up those in attendence. If you want to get a copy to show, make sure you get the unrrated DVD director's cut, because it features some really cool scenes that were cut to earn it an R rating during its original release--such the scene where Dr. Bloch (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) has her brain sucked out through her eye-socket and some of the bits of a tentacle-beast from Dimension Lovecraft getting to know Dr. Katherine McMichaels really well.

The Full Moon Vampire Saga Continues....

2010-04-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

Subspecies III: Bloodlust (1993)
Starring: Anders Hove, Denice Duff, Melanie Shatner, Kevin Spirtas, Ion Haiduc and Pamela Gordon
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Producers: Charles Band, Oana Paunescu and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

After failing to rescue her sister from the clutches of the evil vampire prince Radu (Hove), Becky (Shatner) enlists the help of a young American diplomat (Spirtas) and a frustrated Romanian police detective (Haiduc) to stage a raid on Castle Vladislav. Meanwhile, Radu is educating the fledgling vampire Michelle (Duff) in how to use her new supernatural powers while attempting to corrupt her soul in order to make her is vampire bride in body as well as spirit.

"Subspecies III: Bloodlust" picks up at the ending of the previous film, seamlessly continuing the storyline of Michelle, Radu, and the fearless (but hapless) vampire hunters led by Michelle's sister Becky. Characters who had minor roles in the previous film take the spotlight in this one and they launch a concerted and believable (once one buys into the idea that vampires and witches exist) effort to bring down the vampires.

Once again, the cast all give admirable performances, with Anders Hove making Radu even more disgusting in this installment than he had been in the previous ones. At the same time, however, he manages to evoke some degree of sympathy in the viewer as well. (He's a hideous, murdering monster who has more than just a few screws loose, but the love he has developed for Michelle--however twisted--and the pain it is causing him that she doesn't love him back gives the character a dimension that both makes him increasingly creepy but also gives the viewer something to relate to.)

In some areas, this film continues the trajectory started with the first "Subspecies" sequel, increasing the quality of the film instead of decreasing it as is the usual pattern when it comes to sequels. In other areas, the film holds its own quite nicely, and the end result is a film that will provide a satisfying viewing experience for lovers fo vampire movies of all stripes.

The script for this installment of the series is the best so far. I've already touched upon the great performances given by Anders Hove and Denice Duff, performances that wouldn't have been possible if they hadn't been provided with a great script as their starting point. The scripts quality is also manifested in the comic relief character of Lt. Marin (portrayed by Ion Haiduc), who has scenes that manage to inspire laughter on the heels of, or even during, some of the film's most intense and scary moments. The only complaint I have with the script is that I would have liked to have been given a bit more of a solid ending, but what we have isn't decent enough so that's a minor complaint.

The film isn't as impressive in the photography and lighting area as its predecessor was, with many of the shadow and transformation effects being acheived with animation or composite shots instead of simple lighting and camera tricks. The overall look of the film also isn't quite as dramatic as "Subspecies II", but it's still far beyond the average low-budget horror film and it is still good enough to place this film among the best movies to ever emerge from the Full Moon film factory. It is without a doubt evidence that the Golden Age for Charles Band and his Full Moon label was in the early 1990s. (Band may yet rediscover how to mount productions as impressive as this one, but nothing he has produced in recent years even comes close.)

"Subspecies III: Bloodlust" is one of the very best vampire films ever made. It should be on the "must-see" list of any serious fan or student of genre.

A sex change brings Life After Deth

2010-04-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

Trancers 6 (2002)
Starring: Zette Sullivan, Jennifer Capo, Robert Donovan, Jere Jon and Timothy Prindle
Director: Jay Woelfel
Producers: Johnnie J. Young, Maurice Smith and Charles Band
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Time-traveling Trancer Hunter Jack Deth discovers he truly is his own ancestor when he finds himself inhabiting the body of the daughter he sired during a previous trip to the 20th century (Sullivan). He must save her from a new breed of Trancers in order to save himself and the future from oblivion.

I love time-travel stories and the twist arising from the tangle of history created by Jack Deth fathering a child in the past is a fun one and it makes me favorably disposed to this film from the outset. The fact that Full Moon returned to the series' roots as a sci-fi tale and dumped all the fantasy nonsense from Parts 4 and 5 make me like it even more. And given that the film finally resolves to my satisfaction the troubling question about why Jack and his future didn't cease to exist when he definitively wiped out even the origin point of Trancers in Parts 2 and 3--makes me like it even better.

The performance by Zette Sullivan--which basically consists of a skinny girl doing an impersonation of Tim Thomerson's original film-noir macho portrayls of Deth--is cute icing on a well-made cake.

Unfortunately, the cake is a little on the stale side. For all the appealing points of the film, there is a atmosphere of "been here before" throughout it. Previous films featured conspiracies, powerhungry politicos and "trancer farms" like the ones we find in this film (even if screenwriter Joyner used these elements to more effectively than ever before establish why the dark future that spawned Deth's half-destroyed world still comes into being). The method of creating Trancers is different, but the general trappings are the same, so the sense of retread in inescapable.

The inability to hide the low budget that this film was made on is also ever-present. Like just about every movie that Band has been involved with since the turn of the century, the film suffers from production values that are but a pale reflection of what his films once featured. And this drop-off is even more evident on the DVD edition that I acquired of the film, as it contains the original 1985 "Trancers"; "Trancers 6" looks flat and amateurish when viewed in close context with that other film.

Still, if you enjoyed the first three films in this series, I think you'll find enough here to like this one as well. Zette Sullivan is funny and cute, and it's a shame that she hasn't had any film roles since 2002.

Double Feature: Puppet Master and Puppet Master 2

2010-04-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Puppet Master (1989)
Starring: Paul Le Mat, Robin Frates, Irene Miracle, Barbara Crampton, Kathryn O'Reilly, Matt Roe and William Hickey
Director: David Schmoeller
Producers: Charles Band and Hope Perello
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

After their friend commits suicide following his discover of a supernatural secret possessed by WW2-era puppeteer and toymaker Andre Toulon (Hickey). four psychics travel to the mansion he killed himself in to investigate. They soon regret launching their investigation, as Toulon's greatest creations--a group of singularly twisted dolls--come to life in order to stalk and kill them in gory ways.

There are some films that one should allow to live in memory. For me, "Puppet Master" is one of those. I first saw this movie in 1990 or so, and I remembered the general story, and the cool stop-motion killer puppets. However, I had absolutely no memory of how awful the acting is, nor how bad much of the dialogue is.

This is probably still one of the best movies to ever emerge from Full Moon Entertainment, and while that may sound like I'm damning with faint praise, I'm not intending to do so. The stop-motion photography and the design of the very creepy killer toys in the film are top-notch, as is the use of sound throughout the film (especially where the toys are concerned). Leech Woman is every bit as disturbing as a I remembered!

Aside from the puppets, the only other thing that works here is the villain (whose nature I won't comment on for fear of ruining the film for those who may not have seen it). He is a truly monstrous character and the final act of the film, where he is revealed along with the full monstrousness of his actions--making the killer puppets look like the toys they are by comparison--is some of the very best movie making that Charles Band has ever presided over.

Although crippled by the bad acting, the creativity of the story and the deadly toys go a long way to making up for that shortcoming. The stop-motion animation is extremely well done, and it's worth seeing this creepy movie for that alone.

Puppet Master II (1991)
Starring: Elizabeth Maclellan, Charlie Spradling, Jeff Celentano, Collin Bernsen, Steve Welles, and Gregory Webb
Director: Dave Allen
Producers: Charles Band, David DeCoteau and John Schouweiler
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Paranormal researchers (Celentano, Maclellan, Spradling, and Webb) charged with figuring out what drove the sole surviving psychic from the first "Puppet Master" movie insane discover that not only do Andre Toulon's living puppets haunt the old hotel on Bodega Bay, but Toulon himself (Welles) has returned from the dead!

"Puppet Master II" is a creepy and atmospheric direct sequel to the first "Puppet Master" film, but it is also one of the weakest entries in the entire series. It's fairly poorly acted, it's got an illogical script--yes, even taking into account that it's a movie about killer puppets--and Toulon and his puppets are out of character when taking into account the original film and other sequels into account.

Every other "Puppet Master" movie I've seen but this one shows that Andre Toulon was a fairly decent guy who perhaps loved his creations more than he did himself. That is not the Andre Toulon we have here. What we have here is a twisted maniac who makes the villain from the first movie look like a saint. The puppets are also out of character, in-so-far-as they are doing evil for the sake of doing evil, something which they've not done in any of the other "Puppet Master" films I've seen. Worse, the behavior of the puppets doesn't even make sense in the context of this film alone. (Without spoiling too much, I can reveal that the puppets are helping Toulon and doing what they do in order to secure a recharge of magic to keep themselves going. They ultimately turn on their creator when they discover that they're not going to get what they want... but they should have turned on him long before. If there isn't much "magic juice" available, what's Toulon doing making a new puppet?)

And the puppets aren't the only ones behaving in illogical fashion because if they did things that made sense, the film would come to a screeching halt. Early in the film, the researchers get one of the puppets on video tape just before it murders one of their numbers. Another member of the team had already mysteriously vanished. These are researchers hired by the federal government to check out the place, but do they call upon the resources that implies? Do they even contact the local cops? Even after some freakish guy they think might be dangerous appears and claims to own the hotel? Nope, because this script is so badly thought out that EVERYONE (even magic puppets) has to exhibit Stupid Character Syndrome or the story simply won't work.

The film is further weakened by the fact that the Bodega Bay Inn as featured here doesn't look at all like the interiors of the Bodega Bay Inn from "Puppet Master". The filmmakers took enough care to give the impression that the characters here were seen mostly in a different part of the hotel, but why were the rooms and the hallways leading to them so much smaller and cheaper looking? This is especially evident in the room that is destroyed by the new flame-throwing puppet Torch.

Speaking of Torch, the film is at its best during the scenes involving this new addition to the Toulon menagerie--a puppet dressed like a Prussian officer that shoots gouts of fire that incinerates anything in his path. And I think that's the main problem with this film. Full Moon head-honcho Charles Band has never made any bones about the fact that he is looking for merchandising synergies with the movies he produces. He wants to sell dolls and resin models and other knickknacks based on the films, so a new puppet means a new piece of merchandise to sell. I don't begrudge him that, but I wish more care had been taken with the rest of the movie and the characters within it.

"Puppet Master II" has some neat moments, and it's got more spookiness in it than other films in the series, save the original, but it is an odd-man out among them. I think all but the biggest fans can safely skip it.

'Talisman' is a film to leave in last century

2010-03-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

Talisman (1998)
Starring: Billy Parrish, Walter Jones, Ilinca Goia, Jason Adelman, Oana Stefanescu, Constantin Barbulescu and Claudiu Trandafir
Director: David DeCoteau (as "Victoria Sloan")
Producers: Kirk Edward Hansen, Vlad Paunescu and Charles Band
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A new student (Parrish) arrives at an isolated boarding school for the troubled sons of the rich... just in time for the student body to be turned into dead bodies.

This film is a sort of mirror image of the usual "boarding school of evil"/"trapped girls in peril" horror film, with a small group of cutesy late-teen boys being murdered and running around in their underwear instead of the usual nubile teen girls. It was also Full Moon's attempt to cash in on the growing "end of the world" craze that was gripping pop culture during the final years of the 1990s.

Unfortunately, even at a brief 74-minute running time, the film draaaaaags. The film is populated with mostly unlikeable characters that portrayed by actors who are handsome and flat in an Abercrombie & Fitch print-ad sort of way. The promise of some character development and maybe even a little humanity is quickly dispelled by the sleazy shadow of incest when the story's heavily-telegraphed "secrets" emerge as the plot comes together.

Even worse, the gore effects--which come into play when the film's Uncle Fester-looking demon pulls people's hearts out of their chests--are so cheaply done that even the attempt at camera trickery can't make them look good and the blood that sprays upward like a malfunctioning lawn sprinkler whenever the demon rips a heart out only makes it look even more ridiculous

There are really only ten minutes of the film that are truly scary, where the demonic rituals come to a head and the film's pretty-boy hero comes face-to-face with his long-lost sister. But even this is ultimately ruined by a lame attempt at a "shock twist-ending". (Which is itself an odd touch, since many Full Moon pictures are more in the "classic vein", in the sense that they end the moment they're over, with no denouement of any kind.)

All in all, there's no reason to watch this movie, unless you're doing a research paper on homo-erotic themes in the films of David DeCoteau.

A rare sequel that's better than the first film

2010-03-27T03:51:00.000-07:00

Subspecies II: Bloodstone (1993)
Starring: Denice Duff, Anders Hove, Melanie Shatner, Kevin Spirtas, Michael Denish, Ion Haiduc and Pamela Gordon
Producers: Charles Band, Oana Paunescu and Vlad Paunescu
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Young Michelle (Duff) has recently been turned into a vampire and is on the run from the evil vampire prince Radu (Hove) and his twisted, immortal mother (Gordon). Her sister (Shatner) arrives in Romania hoping to help her, but what can a mere mortal do against an ancient vampire who is not only chasing Michelle because he want to possess her, but also because she has stolen the magical Bloodstone?

"Subspecies II: Bloodstone" is a direct continuation of the original "Subspecies"--it picks up just one single night after the final scene of the first movie--and it's one of those very rare sequels that manages to turn out better than the movie it follows. This is an especially remarkable feat because a near-total cast change has taken place and the film takes some very unexpected directions as far as story goes.

The only actor to return in the sequel is Anders Hove, who repeats his performance as the extremely vile, supremely creepy Radu. Although Radu doesn't actually kill anyone in this film--or even sink his vampiric fangs into a single neck!--he's an even more menacing presense than he was in the first film. He develops a maniacal need to possess Michelle, the mortal woman who was made a vampire by Radu's brother Stefan and he seems to start deluding himself into thinking that she will care for him, partly because he murdered Stefan to gain her as a possession. This insanity makes him even spookier than he was in the first movie.

Radu also seems more creepy because of superior camerawork and lighting present in this film. From beginning to end, there is a consistent mood of dread and darkness in every frame of the film, most of it created with simple lighting techniques and camera angles. (The same is true of a number of low-cost effects that seem to make the vampires beings of living shadows--something that is created through well-considered placement of spotlights and cameras and the result is far more effective than more costly special effects could ever have been. (The one time where there is an animated shadow, it looks cheesy, but every time Radu's arrival or departure is demonstrated with shifting, giant shadows it's very dramatic and cool.)

Aside from the competent camera work and lighting, the film also sports a great soundtrack that is fresh yet still reminiscent of the one present in the first film. The featured actors also do an excellent job in their various parts, with Denise Duff being particularly noteworthy for stepping into the role of Michelle quite nicely (even if one has to wonder why they chose to go with her as Michelle when Melanie Shatner, the actress who plays Michelle's sister, bears closer physical resemblance to the actress who played Michelle in the first movie) and Michael Denish for serving as the film's comic relief as a scatter-brained Van Helsing-type scholar.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the film when one considers it was produced by Charles Band's Full Moon Entertainment is the fact that the film follows continuity from the first film very closely. Even with a near-total cast change and the film shifting in tone from Hammer-style gothic horror to a more modern sensibility, the storyline and all the characters remain consistent. Other Full Moon series, like "Puppet Master" and "Trancers" seem to almost go out of their way to screw up story continuity between the various movies, but writer/director Ted Nicolaou chose to actually pay attention to what he'd done before and remain consistent with it even though he took the story in a very different direction than the ending of "Subspecies" seemed to be leading toward.

'Dollman'... 13 inches with an attitude

2010-03-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

Dollman (1991)
Starring: Tim Thomerson, Kamala Lopez, Jackie Earle Haley and Humberto Ortiz
Director: Albert Pyun
Producers: Cathy Gesualdo and Charles Band
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Brick Bardo (Thomerson), the toughest cop on the distant world of Auturus, crashlands his spaceship on Earth while pursuing a dangerous criminal through a spacial anomoly. He proceeds to defend a single mother (Lopez) against a violent gang in the South Bronx, proving that size isn't everything because Brick stands only thirteen inches tall, and he is now in a world of giants.

"Dollman" is a fun, fast-paced sci-fi action comedy where Tim Thomerson gets to show off his roots as a comedian even while playing one of the toughest action heroes to ever grace the silver screen. (Has any Bruce Willis characters taken on an army of giants carrying automatic firearms? How about Vin Diesel? Arnold Schwartzenegger? James Cagney? Douglas Fairbanks? No, they have not!) Thomerson has some very funny interplay with his new giant friends, even while doing a very funny take-off on Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry character in the way Brick Bardo talks and carries himself. (The opening scene on Bardo's homeworld where he deals with a hostage situation in a fashion that would make Harry proud is one of this film's high points.)

It might be the New York setting or the way the street gang behaves, but "Dollman" feels more like a Troma Film than a typical Charles Band production--it's closer in feel and tone to "Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD" than any Band film I've seen so far. This isn't a bad thing, though... it can lead to all sorts of "what-if" fantasies regarding possible creative bi-costal team-ups by two of the greatest B-movie moguls of the late 20th century, Charles Band and Lloyd Kaufman. (How about "Toxic Avenger vs. the Demonic Toys", "Surf Nazis Must Kill the Puppet Master" or "Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD: The Case of the Killer Bong" anyone?)

The film is blessed with a talented cast, all of whom are perfectly cast in their parts and who have good lines to deliver. The special effects are passable and the action and humor is top-notch.

Unfortunately, this is another Full Moon feature that is simply too short for it to be as good as it might have been. This would have been a much stronger film if more time spent on developing the characters in the movie, primarily some of the connections between the people Bardo encounters Earth-side. (For example, there seems to be history between the gangleader and the single mom, but we never get to learn what that is. Knowing that could have lent more impact to the film's conclusion.)

It's also unfortunate that instead of adding such character development scenes, the filmmakers chose to pad the already brief running time with several stretches of random city scenes. Director Albert Pyun establishes the rundown Bronx neighborhood every effectively when Brick Bardo first crashes there, but then he establishes it again and again, for no real good reason. The end result is a film that clocks in about 70 minutes, but it really probably just shy of an hour long.

However, the padding isn't to the degree where it's destructive; it's just a shame that it's there in place of more important story matter that should have been present in the film. Despite its flaws, "Dollman" is one of the best films to issue forth from Charles Band's idea factory and it's another reason why the late 1980s and early 1990s is the Full Moon Golden Age.

'Bleed' is junk with two good scenes

2010-03-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

Bleed (2002)
Starring: Debbie Rochon, Danny Wolsky, Allen Nabors and Laura Nativo
Directors: Devin Hamilton and Dennis Peterson
Producers: Charles Band and JR Bookwalter
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A masked killer is slaughtering everyone who comes in contact with Maddy (Rochon), an emotionally disturbed young wowman who was tricked by her new boyfriend (Wolsky) into thinking she can gain membership in something called "The Murder Club".

"Bleed" is perhaps a one-of-a-kind movie in the Charles Band Collection, as it is one of the very few films he's produced that doesn't include some sort of fantastical element, be it restless spirits, living puppets, or invaders from outer space. In fact, it is such an unusual film for Band that he chose not to release it under the Full Moon label, but instead created Shadow Entertainment to keep the other brand "pure."

Unfortunately, this film is yet another failed collaboration with JK Bookwalter and the usual suspects associated with his productions.

"Bleed" is a third-rate slasher film that at one point in its existence had a script had asperations of being a character-driven piece. But, either that script was written with great incompetence, re-written with great incompetence, or never properly finished, because for a film to be character-driven, there needs to be believable relationships between the characters. No such relationships exist in this film, with the romance/relationship between the two main characters being the least believable of all.

Maddy arrives in a new city and a new job, completely unknown to anyone she meets here. Yet, after two dates and a couple of nights of sex (safe sex, with condoms involved the film civic-mindedly points out) these total strangers are spouting lines as if they've known each other for years ("this isn't like you!") and other characters consider covering for Maddy when she murders someone in an apparent attempt to get into "The Murder Club." None of this rings true due to the fact that she is a stranger to everyone, including the guy she is banging.

Another problem is the absolutely awful attempts at misdirection included in the film. On multiple occassions during the film, Maddy has vivid nightmares about the murders, including the pre-credit sequence killings which she has no knowledge of. She she psychic? Is she the killer? Does she have some sort of psychic link to the killer? Two of those questions are answered as the film unfolds, but the third results in a huge, gaping plot hole that sucks most of this film's entertainment value into it more efficiently than a black hole. It is such a tremendous flaw that I am flabbergasted no one said, "You know, we really should just drop those murder flashbacks. They're dull and they are more cheats than misdirection. And how do they make sense when compared to the end of the movie?"

Or maybe no one had the opportunity to object? Maybe they were added later in the process, during final editing, because someone wanted to spruce up the film in a very misguided way? Maybe two directors and two producers were too many for the soup in this case?

Whatever the reason, the numerous dream sequences make no sense in light of the film's ending, with one exception: The dream that gives us a little background on Maddy. It's also a fun scene all around, as it features cameos by Brinke Stevens (playing against type) and Lloyd Kaufman (in one of the many tiny roles he's played in low budget films as larks or favors to other filmmakers). It's also provides one of the film's strongest moments, aside from the ending.

Speaking of the ending, it's the one thing that works 100 percent in this film. I've always said that endings can make or break a movie, because it's the main thing viewers take away from it. Here, we're given a spectacularly creepy ending--and an unexpected one at that--but it comes after a movie so fatally flawed that it barely managed to save it from ending up in my "Movies to Die Before Seeing" category.

All in all, this is film you don't need to bother with. It's an interesting detour for Charles Band and Debbie Rochon gives one of the better performances I've seen from her, but there are simply too many other things wrong with this film to make it worth sitting through. Even if it finally delivers something cool in its closing moments.

'Subspecies' is good start to great series

2010-03-11T05:30:00.000-08:00

Subspecies (1991)
Starring: Laura Mae Tate, Irina Movila, Michelle McBride, Anders Hove, Ivan J. Rado and Michael Watson
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Producer: Ion Ionescu and Charles Band
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Three pretty grad students (McBride, Movila and Tate) working on disertations are in Transylvania to study the local legends and folk customs, only to find themselves in the middle of a vampiric family feud that's been brewing for centuries and that is now reaching it's brutal, bloody finale.

"Subspecies" is one of the better vampire movies to come out of the 1990s, despite the obvious budget constraints it was made under. It's an interesting merging of the hideous monstrosity vampires from the real legends and early movies and the sexy vampire that grew increasingly popular during the second half of the 20th century, reaching the pinnacle of pop culture success by the mid-1990s.

The story feels a tad slow-moving, partly because the film telegraphs where it's going by leading with the vampires and their blood-feud and then cutting to our three soon-to-be damsels in distress--two very cute blonds and an androgynous brunette--for extended sequences as they wander around old castles and a beautiful countryside, broken only by scenes of the very creepy and disgusting vampire Radu (played by Anders Hove, in a fashion that makes Max Schreck's Count Orlock in "Nosferatu" look like a GQ cover model) rising from his coffin. Radu is so vile that you know he's going to be chewing his way through the cast, so you're going to be feeling a bit impatient with the film as it works its way toward the expected carnage.

However, the film is never dull, nor will you likely be tempted to turn it off. The cast are all good actors and they all play their parts well. The camerawork is excellent and the true Romanian settings lends an atmosphere of realism to the film that few modern-day vampire films can muster.

But when it gets going, it delivers vampire material running the gamut. We've got a disgusting, drooling taloned vampire that's a late 20th century take on the "Nosferatu"-style vampire, we've got sexy vampire babes in nightgowns who might have just flitted over from one of Hammer's Dracula movies, and we've got the male model modern vampire hunk love interest of one of the girls (played by Michael Watson, who was a soap-opera star when the "Subspecies" movie were made).

With all of the good things I'm saying about the film, why am I only giving it a Six Rating, you ask? Well, it's because of the inconsistencies and strange logic surrounding the pint-sized monters that are a mainstay of Charles Band-produced films whether they belong or not. Here, the tiny creatures are nasty demons that are created from severed tips of Radu's fingers, but they fail to seem real because of the truly crappy effects used to bring them to life. For example, in all but one scene, no one bothered to trick in shadows under the creatures, so they appear to be floating over the floor instead of walking on it. They look exactly like what they are: Puppets that have been placed in the scenes via special effects, and they ruin almost every scene they're in because of it. (The bad effects and near-pointlessness of the creatures isn't the worst Band will deliver in this department--that comes much later in 2009's "Skull Heads".)

Despite its flaws, "Subspecies" is a vampire movie that has a little something for everyone, including bare breasts. Those of you who enjoy vampire movies with more of a gothic flavor to them than we've seen in recent years will be especially appreciative of the tone and nature of the film. It's a good start for a series features some of Full Moon's most accomplished releases. It's a shame it's not been as popular as some of their other creations, such as the Puppet Master films.

'Skull Heads' fails to come together

2010-03-09T08:04:00.000-08:00

Skull Heads (2009)
Starring: Robin Sydney, Samantha Light, Kim Argetsinger and Rane Jameson
Director: Charles Band
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Lonely and emotionally backwards teenager Naomi Arkoff (Sydney) lives in an isolated castle with her strange and abusive parents, along with a number of dark secrets. She longs to visit the outside world, and the closest she is able to come to this is when a film crew arrives to use their castle for a backdrop.

"Skull Heads" is a return to the past for Charles Band and Full Moon in many ways. First, it is filmed in the same castle that served as the setting for true classics like "Castle Freak" and "The Pit and the Pendulum". Second, it revisits elements that worked extremely well in yet another true Full Moon Classic, Band's own "Head of the Family." Finally, it introduces yet another set of tiny terror (and potential merchandising tie-ins), the Skull Heads. Heck, it even has gratuitous nudity in the form of Robin Sydney undressing and "getting busy" with herself in front of a mirror. Yes... this film is jam-packed will all sorts of things that were present in some of the greatest Full Moon features from the 1990s.

It's too bad this film can't hold a candle to the great pictures it brings to mind.

The problem with the film starts with the casting of Robin Sydney as Naomi Arkoff. She is playing a character who is five or ten years younger than she actually is, and the result is that Naomi comes off as being retarded. (Now, given the twists and shock-revelations at the end of the film, it could be that she was SUPPOSED to come off that way. But, given that none of the outsiders who enter the castle comment on her juvenile behavior, I don't think so... I think that Band just went with an adult actress to portray a younger character.

Secondly, Band ruins a rather intense and twisted story by shoe-horning the Skull Heads of the title into the film. They are the film's obligatory "tiny terrors," included either because Band hopes to create toy spin-offs or because he thinks the audience expects it. Sadly, if Band had left them out of this film, it would have been better for it. The Skull Heads add absolutely nothing--the jokes surrounding them are not funny, the puppetry used to animate them is so obviously no-budget that it makes the homunculus from the "Decadent Evil" movies look like something from the original "Puppet Master" film, and even the nature of the curse on the Arkoff family and the castle would have been more interesting without the little critters to add unneeded fluff and distraction.

"Skull Heads" is actually one of the better films from Band in recent years. The character of Naomi is more fully realized than any others--and she would have seemed even more convincing if Band had cast a younger actress and skipped the masturbation scene--and she is likable enough that the audience both relates to her and cares about her fate. The story, thin as ever and fairly standard Full Moon fare (except for the final twists) also flows a little better than a number of other Band efforts recently. If the Skull Heads had been left out, this film would have been on par with "Doll Graveyard," an almost-good effort and a more fitting return to the good old days that the old Italian castle represents for long-time Full Moon fans.

In the final analysis, "Skull Heads" is worth checking out if you're a fan of Charles Band and Full Moon-type movies... but it's not one you necessarily need to make a priority.

'Re-Animator': Fun with severed body parts

2010-03-06T01:42:00.000-08:00

Re-Animator (1985)
Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale and Robert Sampson
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producer: Brian Yunza
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Dan's new roommate and fellow third-year med student, Herbert West (Combs) draws him into his bizarre (and successful) experiments with re-animating dead bodies.

"Re-Animator" is one of the craziest movies ever made, and it ranks up there with "Dead Alive" as one of the funniest creepy movies ever made. While it is nowhere near as gory as "Dead Alive" and the slapstick isn't quite as sharp, it features a cleverer script and a superior cast.

Jeffrey Combs is particularly excellent as Herbert West. We get the sense that he's a bit weird early in the film and highly strung; Combs performance puts the viewer in mind of Peter Cushing's Victor Frankenstein in the first couple of Hammer Frankenstein films... coldblooded, arrogant and probably sociopathic but not necessarily completely bonkers. When West calmly a bone saw through the chest of a zombie and then immediately sets about reanimating its recently deceased victim, it's clear not just from his actions but from Combs performance that he more than a little off. And when he later animates the severed head of an obnoxious rival (likewise brilliantly played by David Gale), it's clear that he is completely unhinged.

Speaking of the severed head, it gives rise to some of the most unnerving moments in the film, as well some of the funniest. I don't want to go into too much details, because I'd ruin the shock value. Suffice to say, it's something that needs to be seen.

Credit also needs to be go to Bruce Abbott and Barbara Crampton. While Combs and Gale are giving performances that seem like they just teleported in from a Hammer Films set in 1960, they play their characters mostly low-key. This, combined with the fact that their characters are nice and normal people, give the audience someone to identify with as the film unfolds and provide an island of calm in the middle of the evermore turbulent sea of madness that is this movie.

"Re-Animator" elevates Herbert West among the great movie mad doctors, even if, according to the very informative interview included on the Anchor Bay edition of the film, he was actually a minor character in the script and through most of the filming. It wasn't until "Re-Animator" was crafted into a releasable movie that the emphasis shifted to Herbert. (Comments in the interviews on the DVD even make me wonder if the filmmakers knew they were making a comedy until late in the process....)

Whether intentional or accidental art, this is one of those movies that gets everything right, from the mood-setting prologue, through its score (which spoofs Bernard Hermann's famous music for "Psycho") to its chilling end. It's also feels as fresh as when it first released in 1985. This is one of those very rare horror movies that actually deserves the label "classic."

If you are inclined to add this film to your personal library, make sure you get the limited edition "unrated" version from Anchor Bay. The cut presented there may be shorter than the R-rated version, but the humor and shocks are more outrageous than its tamer and slightly bloated counterpart. The disc full of extras is also something that you'll find extremely interesting if you have any interest at all in the filmmaking process. (The same is true of the commentary tracks.)

'Murdercycle' is a ride for kiddies

2010-03-04T13:20:00.000-08:00

Murdercycle (1999)
Starring: Charles Wesley, Cassandra Ellis, Michael Vachetti and Robert Staccardo
Director: Tom Callaway
Producers: Charles Band, Kirk Edward Hansen, Donald Kushner and Peter Locke
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A psychic spy (Ellis) and a Marine squad battle an alien invader shaped like a motorcycle and rider in an isolated CIA secret base. Meanwhile, a CIA agent (Vachetti) is trying to conceal the real reason for the alien attack.

"Murdercycle" is the sort of movie that a 12-year-old boy would get a kick out of--lots of gun play, a little bit of blood, a little bit of strong language, and an alien motorcycle that can turn invisible and that blows the crap out of everything it comes across with laser beams and missiles.

But, for anyone who is a little older, the film is too aimless and too empty of content to be worth your while. And for anyone who is a LOT older, and who happens to have been a fan of Marvel Comics during the 1960s and 1970s, the film is downright annoying because of the way the characters are named.

Every character in the film is named after a top comic book creator, with the two lead characters being named Kirby and Lee after the creators of the Fantastic Four. The oh-so-clever writers make sure that we don't miss this fact by making repeated references to the Fantstic Four comic book series. And then they proceed to use the names at every possible opportunity just to make sure we all get the gag. It's a gag that becomes very, very labored well before this 90-minute picture is over.

Unless you have some young kid you want to watch a sci-fi/action film with, or you're running a Full Moon-oriented blog like me, this is a picture you can skip.

'Demonic Toys 2' shows playtime may be over

2010-03-02T16:26:00.000-08:00

Demonic Toys 2 (2010)
Starring: Michael Citriniti, Alli Kinzel, Lane Compton, Leslie Jordan, Selene Luna and Elizabeth Bell
Director: William Butler
Producers: William Butler and Charles Band
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A wealthy collector of oddities (Citriniti) and his entourage travel to a deserted Italian castle to acquire a legendary mechanical dolls known as Devoletto. Once there, however, demonic spirits that have been lurking in the castle for centuries possess other grotesque toys he has collected and a bloodbath begins.

The tagline for this movie reads, "Playtime is over." I fear I must agree.

With not only the promise of the legendary Demonic Toys returning to action, but also the presence of Dr. Lorca from Charles Band's spectacular film "Hideous!" (review here) and the film being shot in the same castle as "Castle Freak" and "The Pit and the Pendulum" this should and could have been a nostalgic return to the Old Days of Full Moon's Golden Age of the 1990s. It's a direct appeal to fans of all those classic Full Moon pictures. Unfortunately, the film falls short of its promise.

The cast gives a performance of typical Full Moon caliber, with Michael Citriniti as Dr. Lorca and Elizabeth Bell as his unfaithful, gold-digging wife being especially fun to watch. The rest of the cast is also pretty good, but they are let down by a script that feels as if it needed another draft or two, and by shoddily done special effects.

First, the puppetry is weak, as has been the tendency in most recent Full Moon efforts--it's not as bad as that featured in "Skull Heads" or "Decadent Evil," but it's also not as good as what we saw in "Doll Graveyard" and it can't hold a candle to the original "Demonic Toys."

Second, the gore effects are also weak and vastly inferior to the original "Demonic Toys." As mentioned above, this film should have been a return to the 1990s since it is built around evoking films from those days. The gore effects should have been Old School--red corn syrup, fake guts... the works. Instead, we're treated to not-very-convincing computer-generated effects (with a supposedly severed head and blood spray from the neck being especially pathetic). Maybe the new generation of Bad Movie Lovers are satisfied with such cartoony gore, but us Grognards need a little more to be happy, especially when it comes to a movie that plays on nostalgia. (On a positive note, the CGI-created muzzle-flashes on the gun that Lorca fires in a couple of different scenes is very well done. Not all the computer effects are poorly done.)

And, finally, there are the demonic toys. Like everything else that invites comparison to previous Full Moon efforts, they come up short. The reason for them being animated is vague and the reason for them starting to kill is nonsensical in the greater context of what's going on in the story. Jack Attack, due to the crew's limited ability to engage in actual puppeteering is ineffectual dramatically because they are completely unconvincing. Worse, the "Baby Ooopsie" in this version is voiced in such a way that most of its lines are incomprehensible. Sure, it's great that it speaks like a baby... but an actor with strong enough ability to enunciate words should have been hired so he could speak like a baby AND still deliver lines that could be understood.

I sat down wating to like this movie. I wish I could give it a better review than I am. I think I might have been able to, if just a little more money and time had been spent on making this movie. Charles Band has always made cheap movies, but they didn't use to look and feel cheap... and with the computer generated gore effects and the substandard puppetry, this film both looks and feels cheap.

In the final analysis, the only truly good things I can about the film is that Alli Kinzel makes an appealing female lead and I hope to see her in more Full Moon pictures in the future, and that I feel Dr. Lorca may not be dead and that he might be back for another misadventure in the future. (The rating I'm giving the film is about as low a 4 as I can give.)

'Puppet Master III' is one of series' best

2010-02-26T14:56:00.000-08:00

Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991)
Starring: Guy Rolfe, Richard Lynch, Ian Abercrombie, Kristopher Logan, Aron Eisenberg, Sarah Douglas and Walter Gotell
Director: David DeCoteau
Producers: Charles Band and David DeCoteau
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a vicious Gestapo commander (Lynch) murders his beloved wife Elsa (Douglas), Andre Toulon (Rolfe), a puppeteer with the ability to bring his puppets to full and independent life, turns his creations from instruments of mirth and entertaiment into tools of hatred and revenge.

"Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge" takes viewers back to a time fifty years before the events of the other films to fill in some of the backstory of the magic puppets that are the main monsters of the film, and to explain why they and their creator is so hate-filled and driven by an urge to destroy.

(It's not quite in step with "Puppet Master II", but then it doesn't seem to fit well with anything else in the series. As a matter of fact, none of the various Puppet Master movies are perfect fits for each other as far as continuity goes.)

The film has a cast that's each perfect in the role that they play, with the classical-featured Guy Rolfe as Andre Toulon and ferret-faced Richard Lynch as the dispicable Major Krause being giving especially noteworthy performances, and a script that actually feels like it could been lifted from a horror movie set during the time the film takes place. (In fact, the pacing of this movie and the style of the dialogue is one of the things that makes this movie so good... it has a classic 1940s-era horror film feel to it, while still delivering all the Full Moon stop animation and creepy puppets that we expect. Leech Woman is as gross here as she ever was. That we witness her tragic origin makes her even grosser in some ways' I wonder if Toulon ever had a lucid moment in which he asked himself, "Why in God's name did I do that to what was supposed to be an immortalization of my wife's beauty?!")

"Puppet Master III" forms a bridge between the horror world inhabited by the likes of Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, and Lionel Atwill, and the modern B-movie horror era of Full Mooon regulars Jeffrey Combs, Tim Thomerson and Robin Sydney. It's a film I think any lover of cheesy horror flicks can find something to like in. (Plus, we get to watch Nazi Ubermenchen be killed by tiny puppets while shreiking like schoolgirls. How can you not love a movie like that?)

'Puppet Master: Axis of Evil' coming 6/15

2010-02-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

I don't usually post news, but I thought I'd pass this tidbit along.

On June 15, 2010, it appears that Charles Band and Full Moon will finally be releasing the film that SHOULD have been been the sequel to "Puppet Master III," the movie that pitted Andre Toulon and his puppets against Nazis during WW2. The film was ultimately dumped for "Retro Puppet Master" (a prequel to the prequel) because distributor Koch Entertainment didn't want to limit the market for the film due to the laws in Germany against displaying Nazi paraphenelia in fiction and art.

I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but this preview looks great. (I was looking forward to "Demonic Toys 2", another return to classic Full Moon material, but was somewhat dissapointed in the outcome.)

The press release announcing the date for "Puppet Master: Axis of Evil" further noted that "totally mindbending limited edition goodies" would be available for pre-order from Full Moon starting the middle of March. So, keep an eye on the Full Moon Direct website for updates and more information.

Also in March, I'll be posting at least one Full Moon review a week, including ones of the above-mentioned "Puppet Master III" and "Demonic Toys 2".

'Jigsaw' is a puzzle with missing pieces

2010-02-24T01:05:00.000-08:00

Jigsaw (2002)
Starring: Barret Walz, Arthur Simone, Mia Zifkin, Aimee Bravo, Maren Lindow, James Palmer, Mark Vollmers and David Wesley Cooper
Directors: Don Adams and Harry James Picardi
Producers: Don Adams, Harry James Picardi, Charles Band, and J.R. Bookwalter
Rating: One of Ten Stars

A scupture created from a manniquin by five community college students (Bravo, Lindow, Palmer, Simone and Zifkin) and later crucified and burned as a final project devised by their sleazy professor (Walz) is brought to life by the collective darkness of their souls. It then proceeds to kill and dismember anyone it comes in contact with, using its arm-mounted shotgun and roundsaw.

"Jigsaw" is a bit of awfulness that resulted from the collaboration of Charles Band's Full Moon and J.R. Bookwalter's Tempe Entertainment. This film is almost as bad as "The Killer Eye" (which I review here, in a post titled "Bottom of the Band Barrel?"), but is elevated slightly by some realistic characters and well-crafted dialogue (even if it's impact is lessened by the bad delivery on the part of the actors and the even worse editing of the scenes) and a creepy, somewhat unusual monster.

Unfortunately, nothing else here is worthwhile. From beginning to end, the film feels like only a mininal amount of effort went into making it, or that at least very little planning surrounded the production. This sense starts with the opening scene where the five students are assigned their final project by the professor. From comments made, the viewer is to believe that there is a larger class, but it's obvious that no effort was made to get extras to fill the rest of the seats in the room. This sense continues as the story unfolds with no explanation as to why or how the manniquin animates and one of the worst non-ending endings I've come across in my trips through the dredges of cinematic entertainment. All in all, it feels like a poorly planned production based on a half-finished first draft of a script.

And this is a shame, because the monster (named "Jigsaw" by the sleazy professor, because it was made from plastic limbs and a head modified and decorated by his students) is creepy enough to have deserved a better vehicle than what it got. A couple of the kill scenes are nicely done--and more chilling than one might expect because of the creature involved--and the ending had real potential if it had actually been finished instead of just sort of stopping right when it was getting good. But what chills are here are thanks to the creature, not any particular skills on the part of the actors--most of whom don't seem to have much in the way of film careers before or after this production.

"Jigsaw" is a film that everyone can safely skip. (The current DVD release of it comes with a bonus feature that dates from the final year of Band's use of Romanian production facilities, "Totem". It may be a decent film--although the previews don't give me high hopes--and I'll review it in this space eventually.)

For the preview of "Jigsaw", check out the following video. Courtesy of Full Moon and YouTube.

Playtime has begun for 'Demonic Toys'

2010-02-17T16:58:00.000-08:00

Demonic Toys (aka "Dangerous Toys") (1991)
Starring: Tracy Scoggins, Bentley Mitchum, Daniel Cerny, Michael Russo, Peter Schrum, Ellen Dunning, William Thorne, Robert Stoeckle, and Jeff Weston
Director: Peter Manoogian
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Police Detective Judith Gray (Scroggins) pursues gunmen who have just murdered her partner and father of her unborn child (Weston) into a warehouse full of toys. When a demon (Cerny, voiced by Stoeckle) that has lain dormant for decades under the building's foundation senses her, it decides her baby will be its physical form and it animates toys in warehouse to capture her and kill everyone else inside. Will Judith, together with a teen runaway (Dunning), a hapless fast-food delivery boy (Mitchum), a lazy security guard (Schrum), and a mad-dog killer (Russo) be able to fend off the demon and his cute-but-deadly minions, or will she become the unwilling mother of Hell on Earth?

"Demonic Toys" is another highly entertaining movie from Full Moon's Golden Age of the early 1990s. It offers a perfect blend of horror and comedy, and it's a far creepier movie than the demon-possessed toys that are its main selling point led me to believe.

In fact, while much of the film is definitely played tongue-in-cheek, the concept of a demon seizing a woman so it can possess her unborn child is one that creeps me out just thinking about it. The concept is made even creepier in execution here, as the demon generally presents himself as a little boy (played on screen by child actor Daniel Cerny, but voiced with great effectiveness by Robert Stoeckle). Seeing a child talk about spiritual rape and murder is very, very disturbing.

The whole "demon replacing the sould of an unborn child" plot of the film actually adds some (perhaps inadvertently) depth and controversy to the film. Judith is barely one month pregnant, yet the film makes it clear that her fetus is most definitely aready a baby, complete with a soul that is looking forward to being born and experiencing life on Earth. Fanatical pro-abortioners should stay away from this flick, but those right-wing pro-lifers in the audience should check it out (at least those of you who don't mind foul language used with great comedic effect).

The acting in the film is good all around, with the aforementioned Robert Stoeckle providing a great demon voice, and Bentley Mitchum coming across as a young version of Bruce Campbell's Ash from "Evil Dead 2" as he battles the killer toys. Leading lady Tracy Scroggins has a tendency to chew up the scenery, but in a movie featuring demon-possessed killer toys a touch of overacting isn't that big a deal.

Other noteworthy players in the film are the toys of the title. They are more funny than scary, but that's intentional on the part of the filmmakers. In fact, the knife-weilding, foul-mouthed Baby Oopsie-Daisy (and its uncredited voice actor) has some of the film's funniest moments and best lines. The puppetry and stop-motion animation used to bring the toys to life are very well-done, particularly in the case of Baby Oopsie-Daisy, the killer teddy bear, and the toy soldier who joins the fray late in the film. However, as funny as the toys are, they inflict some very gruesome deaths on some of the characters, and thus give rise to some displays of gore effects that are as impressive as the craftsmanship involved in animating the toys.

This is a fun romp of a movie. If you're looking for some comedy-tinged horror that might even inspire a thought or two as the mayhem unfolds, "Demonic Toys" might just be the film for you.

The man with a doctorate in... the unknown!

2010-02-09T10:09:00.001-08:00

Doctor Mordrid, Master of the Unknown (1993)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Yvette Nipar and Brian Thompson
Directors: Charles Band and Albert Band
Producers: Charles Band and Albert Band
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Anton Mordrid (Combs) is an unaging sorcerer who is lives secretly in the modern world, guarding Earth from demonic invasions. When the evil alchemist Kabal (Thompson) escapes from what was supposed to be his eternal prison, Mordid must turn to mortal woman Samantha Hunt (Nipar) for help if humanity is to survive.

"Doctor Mordrid" is a neat little modern fantasy film that, like a number of other Full Moon releases is surprisngly good for a direct-to-video release that dates from the early 1990s. It's got an interesting hero who acquires a cool woman sidekick in the course of the film, a villain who gives other fantasy film bad guys a run for their money, and hints at a much large, extremely interesting cosmololgy than we only get a small glimpse at in this film.

Actually, getting a small glimpse of something bigger is the way I feel about the whole movie. It feels like it should have been at least 30-45 minutes longer, and with with the scant development that's given to a number of concepts and charactes, it could easily have supported the additional running time. If all the skeletons of nifty ideas and characters that appear in movie had been more fully fleshed out, this could have been a great movie. As it is, it's okay, with decent acting and good special effects. It's worth checking out, particularly if you like movies and books like "Harry Potter" or "The Dresden Files".

Happy Birthday, Mr. Poe!

2010-01-19T18:58:00.000-08:00

Jan. 19 is the birthday of one of America's greatest writers, Edgar Allan Poe. In celebration, here's a review of a great movie based on one of his most famous stories.

Pit and the Pendulum (aka "The Inquisitor") (1991)
Starring: Rona De Ricci, Lance Henriksen, Jonathan Fuller, Mark Margolis, Frances Bay, Jeffrey Combs, Stephen Lee, and William J. Norris
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When the beauty of a pure-hearted baker's wife (De Ricci) stirs passion in the dark heart and twisted body of the fanatical leader of the Spanish Inquisition Torquemada (Henriksen), he decrees that she must be a witch and orders her imprisoned and tortured. When her husband attempts to rescue her from Torquemada's dungeon, he too is imprisoned... and chosen to be the first victim of the Inquisition's latest torture instrument--the Pit & the Pendulum.

"The Pit and the Pendulum" is the best movie from a Charles Band company that I've seen. Filmed on location in a real southern European fortress, featuring great sets, excellent period costumes, and a suspenseful script with spectacular dialogue delivered by actors who are all giving some of greatest performances of their careers, it should be counted among the great horror movies of all time. It definitely does not deserve the obscurity it has slipped into.

There isn't a bad performance in the entire film, but . Lance Henriksen is partciularly remarkable as Torquemada, playing him more as a person who is insane rather than evil--the evil ones are those around him, as they're not motivated by insanity and religious fervor but for the most part merely sadistic and powerhungry, Rona De Ricci is also great in the role of Maria, especially in a scene toward the end of the movie that I can't mention, because it would spoil some major plot developments. She does such a great job in this film that I feel it's a tremendous shame she only appeared in it and one other film.

"Pit and the Pendulum" is, like so many other movies based of Poe's writings, is far from an exact adaptation of the story it is based on. Further, the filmmakers threw in references to other Poe works, such as such as "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Fall of the House of Usher". However, it's one of the adaptations that best captures the mood of Poe's writings, and it sports numerous plot developments that you won't see coming.

This is a scary and exciting movie that I recommend highly.

Click here to read the original story, as well as other tales by Poe, at my Classic Fiction Archive.

Which house? Witchouse!

2010-01-12T22:28:00.000-08:00

Witchouse (1999)
Starring: Matt Raferty, Monica Serene Garnic, and Ashley McKinney
Director: Jack Reed
Producers: Charles Band, Kirk Edward Hansen and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: One of Ten Stars

I probably should have know better than to bother with a film that can't spell it's own title in a sensible fashion. How is "Witchouse" to be pronouned anyway? What does it mean?

Is it "Witch Ouse"? "Wit Chouse"? Or could no one at Full Moon Productions or Castel Films properly spell "Witch House"? (Maybe Castel Films, the company co-producing the picture, is actually Castle Films?)

"Witchouse" is the tale of the final night on Earth an unlikable group of college-age teens (who run the cliche gamut from stoner dude and rocker chick, to oversexed jock and cheerleader, to the shy dork who rises to the challenge and unexpectedly to eventually save the day. They have been invited to a party at the home of their strange high school friend Elizabeth. Turns out, she is the decendent of a witch who was burned at the stake by the ancestors of her guests, and that she has decided it's time for revenge and a little demon summoning.

Everything that follows is as predictable as a paint-by-numbers picture of dogs playing poker, made worse by bad acting and an even worse script. (What's truly shocking is that this awful movie spawned at least three sequels!)

"Witchouse" wishes it was "Demons " or "April Fool's Day," but the script, the actors, and the special effects are so bad that it is closer in nature to "The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave" or "Plan Nine From Outer Space."

There is really nothing here to recommend this film for anything but use as a doorstop.

Everyone gets failing grade at 'Cemetery High'

2009-12-30T10:55:00.000-08:00

Cemetery High (aka "Scumbusters")
Starring: Debi Theibeault, Karen Nielsen, Ruth Collins, Lisa Schmidt, Simone, Frank Stewart, Tony Cruck and David Coughlin
Rating: One of Ten Stars
Producers: Gorman Bechard, Kristine Covello and Charles Band

A group of young rape victims go on a murderous rampage, killing scummy men whereever they can find them.

"Cemetery High" is a badly mounted attempt at spoofing revenge flicks like "Death Wish" and any crime drama you care to mention. However, it's badly written, even worse acted, and the best of the gags will tease only the mildest of chuckles out of even the drunkest viewers.

Toss this film on the pile of movies that never should have made the transition to DVD and start the incinerator. But don't waste your time watching it.

Nothing says Christmas like demons, hellborne toys and killer puppets

2009-12-16T16:02:00.000-08:00

Puppet Master Vs. Demonic Toys (2004)
Starring: Corey Feldman, Danielle Keaton, Vanessa Angel, Silva Suvadova, Nikolai Sotirov and Anton Falk
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Producers: Charles Band, Jeff Franklin, Bob Perkis and Jörg Westerkamp
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Eccentric inventor and toymaker Robert Toulon (Feldman) and his teenaged daugther Alexandra (Keaton) recreate the secret formula that can bring inanimate objects to life, and they use it to revive some of the puppet's created by Robet's grand-uncle Andre Toulon--Blade, Pinhead, Jester, and Six-shooter. It's a good thing they do, because the sinister president Erica Sharpe (Angel) of Sharpe Toys has been selling demon-possessed toys which will come to life Christmas morning and kill millions of Americans, sacrificing their souls to the demonlord Bael (Falk) and elevating Erica to ruler of Earth. Only the Toulons and the magic puppets can stop them... if they survive long enough.

"Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys" is one of the best movies to come out of the Sci-Fi Channel's original programming department. Yes, it's goofy and illogical and the special effects won't be winning any awards, but it's a fun and funny movie.

Although the creator of both the Demonic Toys and the Puppet Master concepts, Richard Band, had no direct part in the creation of this film, the presence of an old-time Full Moon script-writer (C. Courtney Joyner) and a director who worked on a number of Full Moon features (Ted Nicolaou) the spirit of the original movies is alive and well in this one. In fact, it's better than much of what Band has been producing and directing lately.

Corey Feldman in particular is great fun as the gruff grand-nephew and last male decendent of the Toulon line, and teenaged actress Danielle Keaton gives a nice performance as a cute and well-mannered kid who patiently puts up with the dad's weird nature. The father/daughter relationships in this movie is one of the things that makes it such an interesting film, particuarly when the Toulons are considered in the light of the relationship that Erica Sharpe must have had with her father. There's nothing deep here--like most films from the brain-trust that is/was the Full Moon gang, the emphasis is on gags, gimmicks and gore rather than characterization--but it's enough to make us interested in the characters, enough to make us care.

If you're looking for an unusual movie to mark the Christmas season, "Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys" could be the one to reach for. There might be a few too many fart jokes and exploding eyeballs for grandma's sensibilities, but I think most kids will get a kick out of it. (This might make a good capstone for a "Puppet Master"/"Demonic Toys" film festival, too. Start off with "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge", go to "Demonic Toys", and then wrap it up with this film.)

'The Dead Hate the Living' is hit and miss

2009-12-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

The Dead Hate the Living (2000)
Starring: Eric Clawson, Jamie Donahue, Brett Beardslee, Benjamin P. Morris, Wendy Speake, and Matt Stephens
Director: Dave Parker
Producers: Charles Band and Kirk Edward Hansen
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A bunch of amateurs shooting a horror movie in an abandoned hospital stumble upon an experiment by a mad scientist (Stephens) who was trying to merge this dimension with one inhabited by zombies. Needless to say, they mess around, and soon they are living their zombie movie, as freakish undead stalk and add them to their ranks, one by one.

"The Dead Hate the Living" is another one of those tongue-in-cheek, third-wall horror movies that's full of in-jokes and references to other horror films. It's a movie with geeks as the main characters, and it's targeted (I imagine) primarily at movie geeks. Although, frankly, I found the director (Eric Clawson) and his sidekick/special effects-and-makeup-guy (Brett Beardslee) to be almost immediately unsympathetic because of the way they rolled their eyes when their lead actor (Benjamin P. Morris) didn't know who Dick Miller and some other B-movie actor was. I suspect the writer/director of the film was trying to make identify with and like these two, who are the film's heroes after all, because of their Geekier-Than-Thou attitudes... but, frankly, I've always been annoyed by people like that. Being obsessed with trivia does not make someone talented or capable.

That annoyance aside, I enjoyed many aspects of this film. The story, while hardly original, was fun... and it was funny where it was supposed to be funny, and creepy where it was supposed to be creepy. (Although, in some ways. the film-within-the-film seems like it would be far more horrific than what we actually get.)

The film's fatal flaw, however, is that it was probably made by inexperienced people from the actors through to the director. While the acting is better than what is found in many low-budget films of this caliber, the performers constantly dutifully wait for the other people in a scene to finish their lines before they start their own; even in situations where they're being chased by monsters, the characters very politely wait for the other person to finish what they're saying before they start talking. While the dialogue has a realistic sound to it, the way it's delivered doesn't seem realistic, and it gives each and every scene a sluggish pace.

(There are also a couple of elements that I didn't quite care for, such as why the actors look like their zombie make-up when they become living dead, and where all those zombies in the "Hammer Films Graveyard" set come from. Both of those are nonsensical elements that detracted rather than added to the film. And I'm not even going to comment on the illogic and just plain idiocy that leads to the zombies being unleashed upon the unsuspecting film crew. Suffice to say, it makes the characters from "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" look like Nobel Prize winners. )

In the hands of a more experienced director, or perhaps with some more rehersal time for the actors, I think this film could have been a pretty decent little zombie movie. As it is, it's a little too weak to go out of your way for.

No, not THOSE 'Vampire Journals'

2009-12-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

The Vampire Journals (1997)
Starring: David Gunn, Jonathon Morris, Kristen Cerre, Ilinca Goia and Starr Andreeff
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Producers: Charles Band, Oana Paunescu and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A vampire who is dedicated to wiping out his (Gunn) own kind tries to save a young musician (Cerre) from the vampire king who wants to make her his slave (Morris)

"Vampire Journals" is another stylish film from Ted Nicolaou, who once again proves that he can capture that goth vampire style like no one else. It's not quite up to the standards he set in the three "Subspecies" films (which a passing reference is made to when the evil vampire lord Ash states that he inherited his underground maze of tunnels from Radu of Transylvania), but manages to put the mood and atmosphere that most "World of Darkness" Storytellers were shooting for Back in the Day. If you're still into that stuff and still running White Wolf's roleplaying game, you need to check this movie out. (If you're over 17. It's rated R for a number of reasons... most of them involving naked boobies.)

Unfortunately, aside from the neat crumbling scenery of Bucharest and the dream-like cinematography, there's not much else to cheer about with the film. The acting is okay but nothing spectacular and the story moves with glacial slowness for the film's first 45 minutes. The second half is a little better, but by then many viewers will have nodded off from boredom. (Although fans of gothy-type material will undoubtedly be fascinated by the self-pitying and over-justifying hero vampire Zachary, the evil jerkwad villainous vampire Ash, and the beautiful young pianist trapped between them.)

'Ragdoll' brings magic of the killing kind to the screen

2009-12-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

Ragdoll (1999)
Starring: Russell Richardson, Jennia Watson, Freda Payne, Bill Davis and Tarnell Poindexter
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Producers: Charles Band and Kirk Edward Hanson
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Young up-and-coming musician Kwame (Richardson) turns to his grandmother's book of voodoo spells to get revenge after New Orleans crimelord Big Pere (Davis) has her beaten to the point she's in a coma. Kwame inadvertently unleashes uncontrollable killing magic--in the form of a ragdoll--that not only goes after Big Pere's gang but also those whom Kwame loves.

"Ragdoll" is a fun little flick that features all the "typical" Full Moon elements, including a killer puppet. If you enjoy that special atmosphere that hovers around most of the best features that have the name Charles Band in the production credits, you're bound to enjoy this movie. In fact, it may represent the last gasp of Band's Golden Age as far as the film's he's helmed. Although the VERY low budget is evident throughout the film, the magic is present to a degree that we won't see again until "Doll Graveyard" (and, even there, it's stronger in this film). Of course, it may also be that the film ends up as strong as it is because it is helmed by one of the most talented editors and directors who has worked with Band, Ted Nicolaou.

The film succeeds primarily due to strong performances from Russell Richardson (the handsome lead, playing Kawme), Jennia Watson (the very attractive love interest, Teesha) and Freda Payne (the target of the gangster attack that triggers the events of the film and whose skill with sorcery will be Kwamie's and Teesha's only chance of survival). Their acting talents go a long way to making us buy into the danger and threatening nature of the killer puppet in this movie, which isn't anywhere as impressive as the Demonic Toys or Andre Toulon's puppets, and which sounds like a cat that's either angry or in heat. The film's climax also wouldn't be anywhere near as suspenseful if not for the skills of these three actors.

There were only two things that got in the way of this film rating perhaps a point higher that I am currently assigning it.

First, the film could have done with a little more of a denouement than it has, or perhaps a brief reappearance of the Shadow Man, the devil-figure with whom Kwame makes the deal that unleashes the "killing magic"; his take on the turn of events would have been interesting. I like the fact the movie ends when it's over--with no "surprise shock ending" or the likes tacked on--but a little more of a wrap up would still have been preferable.

Second, for a film with a running time that barely breaks 80 minutes, a lot of tme is taken up by acts performing songs. There are three rap songs and two pop/soul tunes of mediocre quality included in the film, and, knowing Charles Band's love of using movies as promotional vehicles for other ventures (and other ventures as promotional vehicles for his movies), they are undoubtedly there in what was a failed attempt at branching out into a Full Moon pop music venture. (I suspect "The Horrible Dr. Bones" and "Blood Dolls" were part of that same scheme.)

An over-abundance of average pop music aside, "Ragdoll" is a fun flick that should prove entertaining, especially if you add it to the line-up of a Bad Movie Night.

'Seedpeople' is sci-fi horror to watch with kids

2009-12-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

Seedpeople (aka "Dark Forest") (1992)
Starring: Sam Hennings, Bernard Kates, Andrea Roth, Holly Fields and Brad Yates
Director: Peter Manoogian
Producers: Charles Band and Anne Kelly
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A geologist (Hennings) returns to the tiny town where he grew up, hoping to locate the legendary meteor it is named after. But the ill feelings he stirs up on the part of an ex-girlfriend (Roth) and the deputy sheriff who is her current beau (Yates) pale in comparison the fact that extra-terrastial lifeforms are taking over the hamlet's citizens and preparing for a full-scale invasion of Earth.

"Seedpeople" is not a movie you want to see if you've seen any version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", any version of the "The Thing" or even "Horror Express". You probably also want to pass on the film if you have read any Stephen King except perhaps "On Writing". You will find yourself thinking of other movies and books that did what this film tries to do so very much better.

You will also realize that those stories usually have points beyond "alien plant-monsters take over a tiny town", something that this film does not.

A somewhat bigger problem is the casting of 16-year-old Holly Fields as Kim, a girl who is 12-13 years old. Fields is obviously older than the part she's playing, which leads you with the impression that Kim, who is supposed to be an intelligent, tomboyish kid is retarded. There aren't many older teens who can pass successfully as pre-teens like they were hoping to do here.

However, if you are looking for a scary movie you can safely watch with the 11-14 year olds, this is the film to check out. Yes, there's some violence and a little blood as alien monsters chew on victim's faces, but it IS a scary movie after all! Kids will probably not be familiar with the superior sources this film was inspired by, and it's not as intense as those so it's something that they will be able to see without too many nightmares. (Unless they are extra-ordinarily sensitive. And if there THAT sensitive, then you need to revisit your parenting class and let the kid out of the closet more often.)

Gingerdead Man Double-feature

2009-12-01T13:48:00.000-08:00

The Gingerdead Man (2005)
Starring: Gary Busey, Robin Sydney and Ryan Locke
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Charles Band and Dana Harrloe
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

Sarah (Sydney) and her friends must fight off an enchanted gingerbread man that is being animated by the spirit of a mad killer (Busy) who murdered Sarah's father and brother.

It's a given that one shouldn't expect high art (or haute cuisine) from a film titled "Gingerdead Man", but I expected better from the studio that brought us other films featuring pint-sized horrors, namely the excptionally creepy creations in "Puppet Master."

What we got here was a very dumb, badly acted, and simply badly conceived movie with a monster that was both unfunny and unscary, and a horror film that was pretty much completely devoid of scares. (The one chilling moment came toward the very end, following shortly after the one truly funny--if completely predictable--moment.)

That said, Gary Busey does make give a great voice performance as the killer cookie. I'm not sure if it's a testament to Busey's talent or his eccentricity, because Charles Band tells a story at his public appearances about how Busey basically frittered away the studio time and then pounded out the lines in perfect take after perfect take at the very end of the day. For all the other weaknesses of the film, Busey rocks.

This Charles Band-directed effort was a dissapointment... but at least that gave plenty of room for improvement when the sequel came around a few years later.

Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust (2008)
Starring: K-von Moezzi, Kelsey Sanders, Joseph Porter, Jacob Witkin and John Vulich
Director: Sylvia St. Croix
Producers: Charles Band and William Butler
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

The cookie possessed by the soul of a homicidal madman is back! This time, he's rampaging through the sets of Cheatum Studios, a low-budget movie mill on its last legs, looking to kill enough vicitms to perform a Satanic ritual so he can transfer his soul back into a human body.

When the Gingerdead Man made his first appearance in this, a sequel to a movie I count among the worst I've ever seen, I thought, "Hang on. How did he come back? Wasn't he destroyed in the original film?"

Then I thought, "This is a movie about a foulmouthed gingerbread cookie that murders people. Why am I trying to make sense of it?!"

And, once I went with the flow, this movie turned out to be quite a lot of fun. You'll be especially amused iif you're a fan of classic Full Moon films like "Puppet Master" or "Demonic Toys". A few of the jokes may be a bit "Inside Baseball" in nature--unless you're truly an Uber Geek or someone who takes and interest in the ups-and-downs of independent filmmakers like Roger Corman and Charles Band and the production companies they head--but most of the gags will be easily grasped as the self-mockery and overall ribbing of the low-budget fillm industry.

Unfortunately, while the movie may be fun, it's not all that good. It is far better than the original "Gingerdead Man" movie, but it still leaves alot to be desired.

Basically, the film feels half-baked (yeah, pun intended). The jokes are mostly ho-hum and the story feels disjointed and completely unmotivated until the Big Reveal surrounding Tommy, the terminally ill kid who has come to Cheatum Studios to see where his favorite movies were made before he dies. In fact, I was about ready to stop the film when it suddenly got good. The last half hour or so goes a long way to making up for a weak start. A plot development surrounding Tommy will be even more amusing to you if you've ever watched a B-movie, including this one, and thought to yourself, "That actor is entirely too old to be playing a teenager."

If just a little more time and effort had gone into developing the script, this film would have been much better. I know I said up-top that making sense of this movie is not something one should try to do, but I still would have liked a hint as to why the Tiny Tots animated to save the day at the end of the film. I have an idea, but I would have liked to at least see some hint as to the "who" and the "why" because the obvious answer makes no sense. (And, no, I don't think it's a spoiler to mention the "Demonic Toys" spoofs in the film come to life; when these puppets show up at the beginning of the film, you now they had to go on an uncontrolled rampage at some point.)

As for the acting and the sets and the puppets featured, is all passable, with Joseph Porter as the dying boy with a big secret being the only standout member of the cast. The cinematography could be better, as there are scenes where actors should be visible in a shot aren't, and others where actors are cut off by the edge of the screen, almost as if this was a bad pan-and-scan transfer. (It occurs to me that perhaps some of that was done intentionally, but it was more annoying than entertaining.) The soundtrack music was very well done, and it's the one area where the film is high quality.

In the end, I think it's a movie that big fans of Charles Band and Full Moon Features-type pictures will get a laugh out of. It's not as funny as I thought it would be based on the preview, but I still enjoyed it.

Amazon.com Widgets

The aliens just wanna rock all night (and steal our wimmen!)

2009-11-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

Bad Channels (1992)
Starring: Paul Hipp, Martha Quinn, Michael Huddleston, Aaron Lustig, Roumel Reaux and Victor Rogers
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Producers: Charles Band and Keith Payson
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A disk jockey known for crazy on-air stunts (Hipp) becomes the unwitting partner of an alien who has come to Earth to abduct beautiful women via otherworldly technology, radiowaves, and rock music.

"Bad Channels" is a very silly sci-fi comedy that makes fun of all the conventions of a 1950s sci-fi films but does so with a 1980s attitude. The film is driven almost entirely by a fun script, as pretty much every actor featured in the film reported for work but doesn't appear to have done much more than that. No one's particularly bad, but everyone is what you'd expect in a B-movie like this.

The film's biggest weakness is the fact that it includes three full length rock videos in it. They're all pretty decent--and the rock band performing with cheerleaders in a gym predicts a more famous effort--but they in the context of the film they go on for too long. The audience isn't looking for classic MTV-type material, but for alien abduction action.

If you've enjoyed other comedies from Full Moon (like "Hideous!"), I think you'll like this movie. You'll also like it if you enjoyed offerings from the Sci-Fi Channel like "The Man With the Loud Brain". This kind of movie making apparently hasn't evolved since the 1980s.

"Bad Channels" is one of the five films included in "Full Moon Classics Vol. 1". Click below to learn more about the set, or to purchase it at a discount from Amazon.com.

'Netherworld' has some good parts, but they add up to nothing

2009-11-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

Netherworld (1992)
Starring: Michael Bendetti, Holly Floria, Denise Gentile, Alex Datcher and Robert Sampson
Director: David Schmoeller
Producers: Charles Band and Thomas Bradford
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A young man (Bendetti) travels to an isolated spot of Lousiana to reconnect with the father he never knew. (Well... and to claim the massive edge-of-the-bayou property and mansion he inhertited from him.) He finds himself surrounded by stranger-than-average Southerners... and voodoo-practicing hookers. And flying stone hands. And, like the saying goes: It's all fun and games until someone gets tied to the evil sacrifical altar.

Sometimes, a low-budget horror film can survive on mood and mysterious imagery and characters alone. Take "Phantasm", for example. I love that movie, but the story makes absolutely no sense and I defy you to tell me how the movie's various elements tie together, especially since the explanation "it was all a dream" goes out the window with the shock ending.

Most of the times, however, such films are miserable failures... and "Netherworld" fits into that category. I get the sense that there is an idea somewhere buried under all the crap here, but that writer/director David Schmoeller was either too lazy to develop it properly or too full of his own artisticality that he forgot to make a coherent film. Or maybe the producer meddled too much... or meddled too little. This film doesn't warrant the research it would take to find the answer.

The film has plenty of strange characters and creepy imagery--much of which actually feels like it was copied badly from the aforementioned "Phantasm--but the various parts of the film barely connect and when they do, they make no sense. And Schmoeller simply isn't good enough enough to make a movie that can survive on atmosphere alone, even when he's cribbing from a film that got it right. He should have explained how the voodoo hookers fit in with the lawyer and the house keeper; who is ressurecting people and why; and he should have simply left out the stupid flying stone hand and weird midget.

"Netherworld" is a total misfire of a movie. It's astonishing that the same team that made "Tourist Trap" and "Puppet Master" could screw up so badly on this one.

'Dead and Rotting' was a film in need of a bigger budget

2009-11-29T05:03:00.000-08:00

Dead and Rotting (2002)
Starring: Stephen O'Mahony, Trent Haaga, Tom Hoover, Debbie Rochon, Jeff Dylan Graham and Barbara Katz-Norrod
Director: David P. Barton
Producers: Charles Band, JR Bookwalter and Trent Haaga
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Three practical jokers (O'Mahony, Haaga and Hoover) inadvertently cause the death of a witch's familiar while feuding with her. Using dark magic, the witch (Katz-Norrod and Rochon) sets about to gain revenge.

"Dead and Rotting" is one of those movies that deserves a remake with a bigger budget. It has an interesting story with some unexpected twists and good pacing. Most of the actors also do decent jobs in their roles.

Unfortunately, cheapness wafts from every frame of "Dead and Rotting". While a noble attempt was made in post-production to make the film appear as if it WASN'T shot in digital video, there is still a flat quality to the films and a softness to the shadows that still give the sense that it was shot with a couple of camcorders. The special effects and make-up are also barely half a step above Halloween spook-house stuff... not so bad that anyone needs to feel embarrassed but barely passable for a commercial production. This is also one Full Moon movie where they should have skipped the almost-obligatory tiny terror creature; the "homonculus" featured during the film's climax can't even really be called a puppet, and I also doubt that someone shaking it like a ragdoll from just off camera counts as puppeteering. ("Ghoulies" this isn't... it isn't even "Blood Dolls".)

Things aren't all bad, though. The scene where the vengeful witch transforms from an old crone (Barbara Katz-Norrod who does a fine job at playing a lonely, brokenhearted old woman) to a young hottie (Debbie Rochon, who does a fine job playing sexy temptress) is very well staged considering the only effects used are edits and puffs from a smoke machine. Similarly, the revenge of the witch and the slow method by which she takes it is very creepy and the related make-up effects are decently done.

If you want a horror movie with a slightly different twist and don't mind watching a film that was plainly made with very little money, you will probably find "Dead and Rotting" worth the 71 minutes it will consume of your time. This is particularly true if you enjoy that special brand of weirdness that's present in the best movies from Full Moon. This is by no means a good, movie--it's at the absolute low end of a 5 rating--but there's enough raw energy here and Full Moon-style magic to make it worth watching.

Killer robots and global warming equal threats in 'Crash and Burn'

2009-11-27T05:07:00.000-08:00

Crash and Burn (1990)
Starring: Paul Ganus, Megan Ward, Bill Moseley, Eva LaRue Callahan, Jack McGee and Ralph Waite
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Charles Band, Debra Dion and David DeCoteau
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

The staff of and visitors to an isolated television station in the wastelands of a global-warming ravaged, heatstorm-swept American Southwest must survive the assault of a Synthoid, a human-like robot, programmed to kill all who oppose the tyrannical autocracy of world government Unicom.

"Crash and Burn" is a fast-paced, light-weight sci-fi yarn that combines a whole host of pulp-fiction/comic-booky/cyberpunky futuristic tropes--killer robots passing for humans, giant robots, a decaying society with a questionable moral fiber that is ruled by an oligarchical global government, and plucky rebels embodied by a cranky old man and a tough young girl--to great effect and moves swiftly through its action-packed story.

The characters in the film are all as shallow and cliched as can be expected--movies of this kind are usually more about the action and plot than the characters--but the actors all do decent jobs in their parts, with Megan Ward as the cute teenaged tech genius, Paul Ganus as the dashing hero, and Bill Moseley as the handyman sidekick with a secret doing particularly well in their respective parts.

The special effects are about par for a low-budget sci-fi film of this vintage--it's got decent matte shots, make-up, and stop-motion model effects sequences--and the violence is also standard action movie fare. Everything here is pleasantly average, which puts it well above the usual fare for a direct-to-video film from the early 1990s. (I continue to be surprised by how good these old Full Moon films are.)

Another thing that surprised me about this film is that it hasn't been reissued with fanfare and a marketing push or that Charles Band & Company hasn't thrown together a sequel for it.

The film's backdrop--a world ravaged by global warming and struggling under the thumb of an eeeeevil megacorp that wraps itself in right-wing and religious rhetoric to control the masses--seems like just the sort of thing that the modern environmental movement would lap up. It seems to me that a DVD containing this film, a newly made sequel and a marketing campaign with slogans along the lines of "They didn't listen to the warnings, nor pay heed to the inconvenient truth... now the world is paying the price!" would sell plenty of DVDs.

Then again, maybe that's why I'm not in product development or marketing.

"Crash and Burn" is currently available on DVD as part of the "Charles Band Collection, Vol. 1" boxed set, which includes three other of Band's best movies from the early 1990s.

'Decadent Evil' is neither decadent nor evil enough to be interesting

2009-11-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

Decadent Evil (2005)
Starring: Debra Mayer, Phil Fondacaro, Daniel Lennox, Jill Michelle and Raelyn Hennessee
Director: Charles Band
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A master vampire (Mayer) on the verge of becoming a demi-god finds her life complicated by a defiant fledgelings (Hennessee and Michelle), a love-struck mortal (Lennox) and a midget vampire hunter (Fondacaro).

That summary makes "Decadent Evil" sound like it might be a lot of fun if you're into Charles Band-style movies. Don't be misled... this is a film you can safely skip.

It seems to me that the quality of Charles Band's films reached a lowpoint in the first part of this decade. While recent films have been better, "Decadent Evil" is a craptacular film that isn't even a pale shadow of Band's earlier directorial efforts... it's shocking to think that this film is even from the same guy who brought us "The Creeps" and "Blood Dolls", let alone "Head of the Family" or "Hideous!".

That's not to say there aren't some halfway decent ideas here, it's just that they're badly implemented.

Everything about the script says half-baked. From a lame attempt to tie the film to previous Full Moon vampire films with an overlong prologue, through a a wavering sense as to the vampire queen being ancient or not, and to a fuzzy sense of how much time passes between various scenes in the film, it's clear that either the script needed more work or the production had issues. This sense is strengthened by the fact that this film feels heavily padded--with the aforementioned prologue and a drawn-out strip club scene/seduction scene that ends up having very little to do with anything that follows adding 10-15 minutes of pointless running time--despite barely being over an hour long.

And then there is the neigh-obligatory Charles Band puppet creature/toy tie-in, here embodied by Marvin the Horny Homunculus. I think Marvin was supposed to be the source of comic relief in the film, but the jokes are unfunny and the puppet is so badly made that it's almost sad that it was even included. Marvin is a superfluous element in the film and since there clearly wasn't enough in the budget to make him properly animated it would have been better to simply leave him out. As it stands, Marvin serves primarily to make the experienced Charles Band viewer remark, "Well... I guess the puppets in 'Blood Dolls' weren't so bad after all." (The one positive thing about Marvin is the eyes... the sculptor did a great job on the eyes, and they help bring a little life to the creature but nowhere near enough.)

The film is saved from a 2-rating, however, by a cast of talented actors who do their best with the material they're given. Debra Mayer is a little miscast as the haughty, bitchy vampire queen (she does bitchy quite well, as we saw in the Band's far superior effort "Blood Dolls", but haughty not so much) and Phil Fondacaro wasn't particularly believable as a vampire hunter, but they weren't bad. The rest of the cast of small-time, young newcomers accounted nicely for themselves, although they really didn't have much to do; this film is virtually free of anything resembling character development.

The Shadowzone is home to horror

2009-11-23T19:49:00.000-08:00

Shadowzone (1989)
Starring: David Beecroft, Louise Fletcher, Miguel Nunez, Frederick Flynn, Shawn Weatherly and James Hong
Director: J.S. Cardone
Producers: Charles Band and Carol Kottenbrook
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Cutting-edge sleep research opens a rift to another dimension... and a creature from that dimension crosses over to our. And he's not happy, nor particularly sociable. Soon, the bodies are piling up.

The art of the low-budget, B sci-fi movie hasn't changed much in the 20 years since "Shadowzone" was released. Thanks to advances in computer graphics, the way effects are done has changed, but the basic stories and how their told remain the same: Scientists explore Things Man Was Not Meant to Know and Monsters Start Rampaging. In fact, this is almost exactly the sort of film that embodies the phrase "A Sci-Fi Channel Original Picture" (or, now with more stupidity, "A SyFy Channel Original Picture"), only with better acting and better pacing than we've come to expect.

"Shadowzone" was the second feature produced under Charles Band's famous Full Moon label. Despite it's obscurity, it's one of the better ones. For wanna-be filmmakers, it's worth a look because it's a good example of how to make an effective sci-fi/horror flick on a small budget, and for the rest of us it's a nice bit of fluff that'll keep us entertained for 80 minutes.

There are aspects of the film that make little sense--the most blatant being that there is no way the in-use areas of a government facility would be allowed to be in the state of decay that the one featured in this movie is in, no matter how top secret it is--but the strong acting on the part of the cast and the well-written script will take all but the most critical viewers past that point and into the tale.

'Arcade' is a fun, if visually dated, kids-oriented sci-fi

2009-11-21T16:35:00.000-08:00

Arcade (1993)
Starring: Megan Ward, Peter Billingsley, Norbert Weisser, John de Lancie, Seth Green, A.J. Langer, Sharon Farrell, Brian Dattilo, and Humberto Ortiz
Director: Albert Pyun
Producers: Charles Band and Cathy Gesualdo
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Alex (Ward), a teenager who is still reeling from the suicide of her mother, discovers that the hot new computer game, Arcade, is sucking her friends into its virtual reality world, bodies and souls. As if she didn't already have enough problems in her life, she, along with her computer game wizard friend Nick (Billingsley) are the only ones able to save their friends and stop Arcade before it abducts kids all around the world. Worst of all, the only way Megan can save them is to enter the game herself, battling the evil entity on its terms.

"Arcade" is a fun low-budget fusion of sci-fi and horror that's suitable for Mom and Dad to sit down and watch with the early teenaged fans of the genre, especially the girls. It's nudity-, sex-, and gore-free, with only one or two curse words uttered during the running time. (The film was rated R when it was first released, although I'm not sure why. It's also a rating that must have hurt the flick--although that R would certainly have been magical for the age group this seems to be directed at, even if their parents shouldn't have been thrilled to see if on a film they were watching.)

The film is decently enough acted and the script is okay. The effects have an outdated feel to them in this day-and-age where even my first generation XBox is able to put better computer graphics on my TV screen, but I think anyone who has an affection for the sci-fi and horror genre won't mind.

The film has some significant flaws, however. The worst of these is a botched ending where the filmmakers attempt to get one last scare in, but end up presenting something that even the most generous viewer will consider as lame and stupid. They would have been far better off if they had taken an approach similar to the scene where Alex wakes up to find everything has only been a dream (which quickly turns out to be part of her virtual reality nightmare).

I also would have liked to see more about the company that developed the virtual reality game and the how and why of the very dark and twisted secret hiding at the center of every one manufactured. It's touched upon briefly, but more time really needed to be devoted to it. This is one of those rare films that I wish had been longer than it is.

Actually, this commonly the case with Full Moon pictures... many of them feel halfbaked because no enough time is spent developing themes and characters within their usually brief running-times. Although, there are signs that this film was at one time longer; there is a point where Alex enters a new level of the game, a little scuffed but generally okay. Then, between scenes, she suddenly develops bloody gashes on her body and bloody nose. SOMETHING happened and whatever it was ultimately ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor with Band & Company probably saying, "Eh. They'll never notice!"

Watch the preview, courtesy of Full Moon and YouTube...

"Arcade" is available on DVD in the "Full Moon Classics Vol. 1" set, which contains "Arcade" and four other films from Full Moon's Golden Age from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s. It's a nice set--the only featured stinker is "Netherworld"--and the price is right if you order it from Amazon.com, where it costs $65 as opposed to the $129 price elsewere, particularly if you order it at a discount from Amazon.com.

I think someone lost the second half of the movie....

2009-11-19T18:02:00.000-08:00

Huntress: Spirit of the Night (1994)
Starring: Jenna Bodnar, Constantin Cotimanis, Charles Cooper, Blair Valk and Alek Devane
Director: Mark S. Manos
Producers: Charles Band, Oana Paunescu and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

In "Huntress: Spirit of the Night," Tara (the very attractive and well-cast Jenna Bodnar) is falling victim to a gypsy curse. We get to see the beginning of her transformation/possession. We also get to see the first phase of a very treacherous friend screwing her over for her inheritance. But, just as things look like they're getting REALLY interesting storywise, the film ends.

"Huntress: Spirit of the Night" ends without a single of its plot threads properly resolved. It ends, literally, in mid-story, at a point where there should be at least another hour or so of material. I guess while they were busy conceiving of sexy sequences that go on for so long they become boring, someone forgot that a movie needs a beginning, a middle and an end.

The end result is that this is movie that you should not waste your time on. It's a shame that interesting ideas and an attractive cast got wasted on such a badly done film. It's no wonder Charles Band and Full Moon initial released it at arm's length--it's an awful effort even by the worst of their standards. It didn't have to be though... some trimming of the soft-core porn material and an actual ending might have elevated it to mediocre status.

(Snark aside, I think I know what happened here. Around this time this film was made, Full Moon was increasingly breaking what should have been one movie into two and filming them back-to-back. They did it with "Mandroid" and they did it with the "Subspecies" 2 and 3. Perhaps there was supposed to be a Part Two, but it never happened due to Band's falling out with Paramount and the subsequent loss in funding.)

The Trancers Trilogy

2009-11-18T22:54:00.001-08:00

One of the better-known creations to issue forth from the Full Moon movie mill is the Trancer series. With six installments so far, it's a series that started out as a time-travel themed sci-fi/pulp action effort that veered into fantasy territory after the first three, and then tried to recapture its sci-fi roots with the sixth, and so far final, installment in the series.

I'm a sucker for time travel stories, so the first three Trancer films rank among my very favorite of the Full Moon movies (even if the original "Trancers" film technically pre-dates Band's creation of the Full Moon label). It's also a fact that the first three are pretty decent films all around. They form a nice trilogy, and the films that follow really don't compare to them, story-wise or quality-wise.

Trancers (aka "Future Cop") (1985)
Starring: Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt and Michael Stefani
Director: Charles Band
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Just as the toughest cop in Angel City of 2247, Jack Deth (Thomerson) wipes out the last diciple of Whistler (Stefani), a powerful psychic and cult-leader who turned his followers into homicidal zombies, he learns that Whistler has fled some 250 years into the past... to 1985 where he is hunting and killing the ancestors of those who thwarted his plans of domination. Whistler plans to change history and only Jack Deth can stop him by following him back into the past, and do what he does best: Hunt trancers.

"Trancers" is a fun sci-fi flick that should be counted among Band's finest efforts. classics. It doesn't have any of the weird puppets and miniatures that would soon become hallmarks of Band's films, but it has a well-crafted script with lots of creative ideas and a plot that zips along at a lightning-fast pace yet still leaves time for character development that adds depth to the proceedings, and his other trademark--a mix of slightly off-kilter humor that's tinged with horror.

The success of the film is also, naturally, due in no small part to excellent performances by Tim Thomerson and Helen Hunt, who both take their first turn as stars in this picture. Thomerson is great as the hardboiled future cop who finds himself out of his element and forced to rely on help from Hunt's character, a liberated woman who had just wrapped up a one-night stand with the ancestor whose body Jack Deth's consciousness ends up inhabiting. Hunt is equally excellent asthe strong-willed Lena who won't be told what to do by anyone. While Thomerson is every bit the leading man as a fullblown movie star, his roots as a stand-up comedian and character actor stands him in good stead as he forms what is first an uneasy partnership with Hunt's character. Hunt's comedic timing that would help make "Mad About You" such a successful series is also on full display here, even as she comfortably fits into the role of an action-adventure sci-fi movie sidekick.

With everything else it has going for it, we can add the fact that it's a time travel movie to the mix. I love time-travel stories, and I think this one is particularly fun as it has an unusual method of time travel--minds/consciences can be sent back in time to inhabit the physical forms of direct ancestors. Some of the other theories of time travel are a bit shakey, but it all makes sense on the comic-book universe level that the film's world exists on.

"Trancers" is an entertaining little film that sees its stars and its director doing some of their most interesting work. It's worth checking out if you're in the mood for some light, spirited sci-fi action.

Trancers II: The Return of Jack Deth (aka "Future Cop II") (1991)
Starring: Tim Thomerson, Megan Ward, Helen Hunt, Biff Manard, Sonny Carl Davis, Richard Lynch, Martine Beswick, and Jeffrey Combs
Director: Charles Band
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Stranded in the 20th century, time-traveler Jack Deth (Thomerson) has made a new life for himself and married a lovely, strongwiled woman named Lena (Hunt)... which will some day make Jack his own great- great- great-grandfather. His new peaceful life is thrown into chaos when another time traveler returns to the past, hunting a villain from the future who is using an environmental action group as a front for creating deadly, zombie-like supersoldiers known as Trancers. This time traveler happens to be Jack's wife from the future (Ward), who had been dead for several years when he was sent into the past.

The main thrust of "Trancers II" is a fairly run-of-the-mill low-budget action film with a few sci-fi trappings that sees Jack Deth fighting and ultimately defeating a hoard of zombie-fied bad guys led by Dr. Wardo, another time traveler from Jack's original time period. It's not a bad story, but it's a somewhat predictable retread of the story from the first movie.

The film, however, is very interesting if you like time travel adventures, because of the tangled histories of two characters--they are present at the same point 300 years in their past, but one is seven years ahead of the other in their personal timelines and he knows the other characters future. He knows that she is actually already dead and that when she goes home, she will be murdered by trancer cultists. This wrinkle adds much to the film and makes the akward situation Jack is in of having to deal with two different wives--one of whom he can't tell that he remarried because he's actually a widower--a very interesting one. Jack's marital problems are played mostly for laughs in the film, but the details that brought it about are both fascinating and tragic.

The film is further helped by decent acting all around,even if the dialogue they actors are delivering could have used some more work. Poor Megan Ward in particular delivers from pretty awful lines. The final battle also lacks a bit of punch, and Jack seems a little too eager to gun people down. If killing the wrong person changes the future, shouldn't he be more careful about who he kills? It's one thing for him to kill Trancers--they're already dead--but what about the security guards he shoots? Dr. Wardo's assistants? The body Dr. Wardo's spirit was inhabiting? He kills all these peoples, and, based on the rules of time travel the film set up, he probably did all sorts of damage to the time line.

Despite some sloppy scripting, the film is still interesting and worthwhile. Its social satire has even held up well over time and perhaps even gained more of an edge. The main villain is very Al Gore lie, and his whole organization is very reminicent of the face the modern ecological movement presents to the world. (It may be a little cult-like. If you've ever been annoyed by the hyperbolic idiocy that issues forth from the mouth of "leading environmentalists" or hypocrites like Al Gore, then Green World and its agents might amuse you.

Trancers III: Deth Lives (aka "Future Cop III") (1992)
Starring: Tim Thomerson, Melanie Smith, Andrew Robinson, Tony Pierce, Megan Ward, Helen Hunt, Stephen Macht and Dawn Ann Billings
Director: C. Courtney Joyner
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When an unstoppable army of Trancers threatens to destroy civilization in the 23rd century, stranded time traveler Jack Deth (Thomerson) is ripped from the life he is attempting to build in 1992 and sent to 2005 to change history and stop the Trancers from even coming into existence in the first place. This mission is going to be trickier than Trancer hunt Jack has ever undertaken, as he discovers the origin of the Trancers can be traced to a top secret installation opeated by the United States Marine Corps.

"Trancers III" is darker in tone and it feels like it was shot on an even lower budget than the first two installments of the film; we don't see the Trancers dissolve after they've been killed, for example. It's also the first installment that wasn't directed by Charles Band, but instead saw its screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner also taking on the directorial duties.

These changes could possibly have added up to an inferior film, but they didn't. "Trancers III" has a more cohereent storyline than "Trancers II" and it was the first first entry in the series that wasn't directed by Charles Band himself, and the darker tone makes it feel like the stakes are higher than they've ever been before. The only humor present in this film are Jack Deth's hardboiled detective-style wisecracks and narration but they're as sharp here as they've ever been.

While the film continues to play with the notion of tangled and confused timelines that was introduced in "Trancers II", it ultimately fails to take full advantage of these concepts, doesn't provide as strong an ending as it might have had, and even undermines the time travel rules that had established the series in the first place due to what I am certain is Charles Band's desire to keep the door open for more sequels.

The mission Jack Deth undertakes in this film is to stop the Trancers before they even become a threat in the future. I doubt I'm spoiling anything by telling you that he succeeds, but, according to what we've seen in other installments, that success should have resulted in Jack never being sent back into the past to begin with as there never would have been a Whistler for him to hunt or even a reason for Jack to be a Trancer Hunter.

The perfect ending for this film would have been if it had taken the series full circle by having Philip Deth, the man whose body Jack Deth's conciousness is actually inhabiting wake up to play out the scene where Lela and Jack first met, but this time without Jack's mind in his body. Failing that, future Trancer sequels SHOULD have dealt with why Jack's future even exists, as he should have unraveled it in 2005. They don't, however, but instead go off in a more fantasy-oriented direction, jettisoning most sci-fi elements as Jack Deth ends up in a parallel dimension where magic trumps his technological toys.

"Trancers III" should have been the end-point for the series, and I recommend that you make it so. The sequels that follow are far inferior to this one (despite two being written by Peter David, author of the very funny novel "Howling Mad" and a whole host of excellent comic book series) and I think you should be left with Jack's greatest adventure as the last outing you witness, even with the imperfect ending.

(The biggest problem with the David sequels is that they are more fantasy than sci-fi, probably written the way they were, because Full Moon's production facilities were at that time located primarily in Romania and the surroundings there don't lend themselves to the urban environments that Deth had up-to-that-point existed in.)

'The Occultist' is a big waste of time

2009-11-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

The Occultist (1987)
Starring: Rick Gianasi, Joe Derrig, Richard Mooney, Mizan Nunez, Jennifer Kanter and Matt Mitler
Director: Tim Kincaid
Producers: Cynthia De Paula and Charles Band
Rating: One of Ten Stars

With one last chance to save the failing security company he inherited from his father, Barney (Derrig) takes a contract to protect the corrupt leader of a small Carribean island from terrorists, voodoo cultists and just about everyone else interested in overthrowing his government. It seems an impossible task, but Barney has help from the company's most valued agent, Waldo Warren (Gianasi), a man of many secrets and talents.

Behind that cool cover does not lurk a tale invovlving magic and hardboiled detectives, which is a shame because if there had been that sort of vibe to the film, I might have been able to forgive the wooden and amateurish acting on the part of the entire cast, the lame camera work, the incompetent lighting, the bad sound recording, the awful pacing, and the lack of a coherent story. As it is, this is a film with absolutely nothing to offer.

Okay, that's not entire true. There is the scene where Waldo (whose big secret is not that he's an occultist--that's a different character in the film--but that he's actually a cyborg/robot with guns hidden all throughout his body) shoots several of the film's villains in a public men's room with his fully automatic machinegun penis. It was so completely out of left field that I had to rewind the scene to watch it again, just to make sure that I'd seen what I thought I saw.

This isn't the worst picture that Band has been invovled in--that honor still belongs to "The Killer Eye"--but it is pretty close. Save your time and money, because this one isn't worth either.

Stay away from 'Hell Asylum'

2009-11-14T02:41:00.001-08:00

Hell Asylum (2002)
Starring: Tanya Dempsy, Debra Mayer, Sunny Lombardo, Stacey Scowley, Timothy Muskatell, Olimpia Fernandez and Joe Estevez
Director: Danny Draven
Producers: Charles Band, JR Bookwalter and Tammi Sutton
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Remember "Halloween: Resurrection", the movie where a reality show producer had contestants spent the night in the "infamous Meyers house"? Well, imagine a film that's dumber and more cheaply than that one, and which features and awful script and some of the worst gore effects ever included in a commercial production. If you can imagine that, you have an idea of the awfulness that is "Hell Asylum".

In "Hell Asylum", disgraced television producer Max (Muskatell) is given one last chance by a production company exec (Estevez) to deliver a hit show. He conceives "Chill Challenge", a reality show where five sexy girls are locked in a haunted house for a night where they must complete challenges set by Max in order to win a share of one million dollars. Needless to say, Max's carnival spookhouse tricks are the least of the worries the girls are going to have.

Released the same year as "Halloween: Resurrection", this film is either a case of not-so-great-minds thinking alike, or it's a case of someone trying to copy when they thought was a great idea. Whatever the origin of the idea behind the film, it's a lame one that's made even lamer by a bad use of the "helmet-cam" stchick that was also included in "Resurrection", where the actors are supposedly filming the footage as they move around. Here's it's used to show stairs. Nothing but stairs. And I even think it's the same set of stairs we're shown over and over.

Why not use the "helmet-cam" to show close-ups of the flesh-eating ghosts devour the contenstants? Why not use the device to evoke suspense and horror instead of boredom? Probably because it would require some degree of inventiveness in stretching a budget so low that they couldn't even afford raw sausages to double for intestines being ripped from victims. Instead, what we get looks a mophead dipped in spaghetti sauce (or maybe five cans of spaghetti and meatballs poured onto the chest of the actor. Whatever it is, the gore in this film is so unconvincing that I am amazed that professionals were willing to put their names to this movie. (And this goes for all the effects and costuming, with the exception of a fall down some stairs. It's the only place in the entire movie where any degree of inventiveness is shown, the only point where the film doesn't feel like it was made by a lazy crew who would really rather be working on some up-and-coming band's rock video.

Using the "helmet-cam" set-up for something more creative might have happened if the script for the film had been better. While the writerr did remember to put in some ghost attacks, he forgot to give us a reasonable explanation for why the ghosts attack. Why do the ghosts eat the people they attack? Were they starved to death by their evil, Bluebeard-style husband? Were they demons that were summoned and then trapped in the house? Are they the by-product of the rumored mad science experiments that also took place in the house? The complete lack of any apparent thought given to the "why" of the supernatural attacks in the film make it seem all the more bad.

The awfulness of the film is not the fault of the actors, by the way. The films leads all do a fine job, perhaps even better than the material warrants; it's almost a shame that Tanya Dempsy, Debra Mayer, Stacey Scowley and Sunny Lombardo are wasted in a movie like this, because all appear to be talented actresses.

Speaking of Lombardo, she happens to be the focus of the only sections in the film the truly work, the only time this supposedly horror movie manages to evoke a sense of dread in the viewer. At a point in the film, Lombardo's character is horribly injured and the fesh-ripped ghosts come upon her as she lays there in great pain. She begs one of them to kill her... and it doesn't. It just lets her lay there and die a slow and very painful death. It's a seriously unsettling scene, and it gives a little insight into what this movie could have been if its creators had bothered putting forward some real effort.

As it is, "Hell Asylum" is not worth your time.

Watch the preview, courtesy of Full Moon and YouTube...

'Head of the Family' is a sexual thriller like you've ever seen before or ever will again

2009-11-14T02:11:00.000-08:00

Head of the Family (1996)
Starring: Blake Bailey, Jacqueline Lovell, J.W. Perra, Gordon Jennison, and Bob Schott
Director: Robert Talbot (aka Charles Band)
Producers: Charles Band and Kirk Edward Hansen
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Smalltown coffee shop and grocery store operator Lance (Bailey) uncovers a dark secret harbored by the strange Stackpool family and uses this knowledge to blackmail them into "disposing of" the dangerous husband (Jennison) of the woman he loves and loves to boink whenever possible (Lovell). Unfortunately for Lance and his sexy sidekick, Myron (Perra), the figurative and literal head of the Stackpool family as his body is 90% head and he controls his siblings with mental telepathy, doesn't appreciate being threatened....

"Head of the Family" is a funky little film that spoofs the "erotic thriller" and "psycho Southerners in the woods" genres as only Charles Band and Full Moon Entertainment could have done. It may not have puppets or stop-motion animation, but the make-up and split-screen photography that turns actor J.W. Perra into a character that's nothing but a big head still embodies that Full Moon weirdness that makes the company's output from the 1990s so much fun to watch. And the perverse and twisted nature of the characters matches the level found in other of Band's best, like "Hideous!" and "Blood Dolls".

This film has the further benefit of being an effective spoof of both genres it's poking fun at, with satire and comedy running through every scene and every actor showing a talent both for drama and comedy. The film is especially hilarious when the genres collide at the movie's climax, creating a perfect end to a perfect script.

And, of course, it helps that Band took full advantage of the fact that his leading lady mostly appeared in softcore porn movies when this film was made. There is no skimping on the "erotic" as far as the "erotic thriller" part of the film goes--there is more sexy nudity in this film than any other Full Moon movie I've seen, with Jacqueline Lovell spending quite a bit of time on screen half-clothed, fully naked, and being one half of the Beast With Two Backs. That said, she, like the rest of the cast puts on a great show... she is fun to watch both for her gorgeous body and for her talent as a comedic actress.

From comments Charles Band made during a personal appearance here in Seattle, I got the sense that "Head of the Family" is one of his personal favorites. It should be.

Watch the preview, courtesy of Full Moon and YouTube.

'Blood Dolls' is full of perverse hilarity

2009-11-14T01:19:00.000-08:00

Blood Dolls (1999)
Starring: Debra Mayer, Jack Maturin, William Paul Burns, William Draper and Phil Fondacaro
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Chales Band, Donald Kushner, Peter Locke and James R. Moder
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When an alliance of shady business people threaten to bankrupt reclusive billionaire Virgil Travis (Maturin), Travis sets about gaining bloody revenge upon them, using his trusty clown-makeup-wearing assassin and ordained minister Mr. Mascaro (Burns) and a trio of living killer dolls, the Blood Dolls of the title.

"Blood Dolls" is perhaps one of the most unusual movies that has issued forth from the mind of Charles Band. it is also possibly one of the purest manifestations of his creativity as he handled the producing, scripting, and directing of the film. The end result is perhaps the best movie to bear his name in the past ten years, and justifiable one of his personal favorites among all the movies he's been involved in.

There are some movies that a reviewer can ruin if he says too much about what happens in it; "Blood Dolls is one of those movies. Part of what makes it such an interesting experience is the strange and bizarre characters that populate it and revealing the secrets they hide or the fates they suffer as the film unfolds will rob it of much of its impact... as the main joy of watching this movie is its bizarreness. (In fact, even watching the preview reveals some things about the movie that viewers should come to cold.)

I will say this: If you liked the overall tone of "Head of the Family," you're going to get a kick out of "Blood Dolls." The same is true if you're a fan of the writings of the late Steve Gerber.

This film features an unusual mix of genres being spoofed (in this case, erotic thrillers, John Grisham-type dramas, and Band's own tiny terror films) and social satire that gives it a completely unique feel. It also has a (for a Full Moon/Charles Band movie) unusual, Gerber-esque theme running through it--that everyone wears masks and no-one is who they seem.

From the semi-protagonist Virgil Travis--there really aren't any traditional "good guys" in this film (who wears a mask to hide a most unusual deformity) to his most trusted henchman, Mr. Mascaro--(who feels that his real face is the clown make-up he wears unless he's "in disguise") to Travis's main adversaries, Mr. and Mrs. Yulin (who wear the most elaborate masks of all) to Travis' Blood Dolls, none of the main characters in this film are quite who or what they seem. (And, just to take the masks and deceptive appearances a step further, Mr. Mascaro plants evidence to convince the world that a man who is described as the "most heterosexual of all of us" was killed during a homosexual rendezvous, forcing a deception/mask upon someone else.) This running theme adds a very interesting dimension to the film.

Please don't assume that this is an "intellectual" horror film or comedy just because it's got an interesting subtext. It is not. The primary reason to watch the movie is to watch a billionaire freak so rich and crazy that he's got a goth-rock band trapped in a room that provides his life with a oh-demand soundtrack; to watch his midget major domo demand they perform properly ("Play #6! Louder! Louder!") and apply electrical shocks to them when they don't; and to watch Mr. Mascaro and the Blood Dolls execute Travis plan of revenge... unless they get outsmarted by the equally mysterious and strange Mr. & Mrs. Yulin. The bit with the masks is just the frosting on this very strange cake, like the social satire and deeper messages were added value to the monster stories Steve Gerber wrote for "Man-Thing" and "Tales of the Zombie".

Also, don't assume that the presense of Charles Band's trademark tiny terrors makes this an inferior copy of "Puppet Master" or "Dolls". You might be prone to think that way if you've seen "Doll Graveyard", but you'd be wrong. The dolls of the title play a relatively minor role in the film, their presence being little more than an excuse for Band to create and market tie-in merchandise (which he did, in the form of a Pimp Doll. I'm even prone to think the film might have been better if Band had stayed clear of his usual impulse and simply made Mr. Mascaro the lone assassin in the film and given him a range of unusual weapons. This film is more about characters than the vast majority of Band's movies, and the dolls detract more than they add.

(The girlband and their songs is another manifestation of Band's dreams of tie-in products; he had intended to create a record label and he was going to release a CD, but they fell through However, they fit seamlessly and hilariously into the film. The Blood Dolls, while amusing, do not.)

No one will ever mistake "Blood Dolls" for "Citizen Kane", but it one of Charles Band's best solo efforts to date. It's a film that you can feel comfortable about adding to the line-up of any Bad Movie Night, and it is bound to surprise and amaze those in attendance. (Oh... and anyone fanatical about political correctness is bound to turn purple with rage at the sight of the Blood Dolls, so that's another reason to get a copy of the film.)

Watch the preview for "Blood Dolls",
courtesy of Full Moon and YouTube...

Bottom of the Band Barrel?

2009-11-13T11:35:00.000-08:00

The Killer Eye (1998)
Starring: Jonathan Norman, Jacqueline Lovell, Costas Koromilas, Blake Bailey, Dave Oren Ward and Nanette Bianchi
Director: Richard Chasen (aka David DeCoteau)
Producer: Robert Talbot (aka Charles Band)
Rating: Zero of Ten Stars

Dr. Grady (Norman) has discovered a way to look into the 8th Dimension using eye drops and a special inter-dimensional microscope. Unfortunately, a creature from that nightmarish realm has used his mehtod to cross into our world, possess the eyeball of a male prostitute and grow it to giant size, bursting free of his skull... and it is now roaming the building where Dr. Grady has his lab, seeking women to hypnotize and fondle with its tentacles.

"The Killer Eye" sounded like it might be a fun spoof a Lovecraft-style tale where scientists unleash horrors from distant dimensions. It is not. It is a film that fails on every level, and the only kind things I can say about is that the camera is never out of focus, the soundtrack is audible, and none of the actors are awful... but none are particularly good, either. (Blake Bailey, who plays an attic-dwelling weirdo, is the best of the bunch and the only player here who manages to deliver laugh lines in a way that actually manages to make viewers smile. Even Jacqueline Lovell, who plays Dr. Grady's slutty wife and the Killer Eye's favorite fondle target, gave a barely passable performance. This was surprising to me, because she was so great in "Head of the Family" and "Hideous!"... but I suppose this is just further proof that many actors are only as good as the material they have to work with.)

"The Killer Eye" fails as a comedy, because it's not funny. It fails as a horror movie, because nothing in it is scary. It even fails as a softcore-porn flick with live tentacle-monster action, because the sex and nudity scenes are shot in a timid, almost prudish fashion and are overly long and boring. It even fails completely as a movie, because, even with its scant running time of just over an hour, it's obvious that there's about 25-30 minutes of actual material here that's been stretched longer than the groping tentacle of a monster from the 8th Dimension.

If the comments above haven't warned you off "The Killer Eye", consider this: The director, David DeCoteau, is hiding behind the psuedonym of Richard Chasen; and producer Charles Band is hiding behind the pseudonym of Robert Talbot. So, if people like DeCoteau and Band, whose names have appeared on some real stinkers, didn't even want the Full Moon label associated with it, it should be clear that this film (hopefully!) marks the fetid bottom to which the quality-level of a Charles Band production can sink.
Watch the preview, courtesy of Full Moon and YouTube.

'End of the World' shouldn't be seen until after the end of the world

2009-11-12T16:46:00.000-08:00

End of the World (1977)
Starring: Kirk Scott, Sue Lyon, Christopher Lee, Liz Ross, and Dean Jagger
Director: John Hayes
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: One of Ten Stars

Take my advice: If you fully expect the world to end on 12/21/2012, then you want to wait to see this movie until 12/22/2012. You wouldn't want to waste your precious few remaining moments on this Earth with a film as awful as this.

In "End of the World", a young scientist (Scott) receives transmissions from space that warn of impending doom. He and his very gorgeous wife (Lyon) start to investigate... um... something. They eventually run into some aliens who want to return to their utopian homeworld, but who want to destroy the Earth before they do. And what does this have to do with the priest who causes coffeemakers to explode (Lee) and the nun he lives with at an isolated hacienda? Sit through all the padding and you'll find out.

The film unfolds as if someone took what was a script for a 30-minute "Outer Limits" episode and stretched it to 88 minutes with with establishing shots that go on forever, and scene after scene after scene of the main characters wandering about, driving around, or sitting around not doing much of anything. The end result is so mindnumblingly boring that if there even is a point to the film, you'll be in too deep a stupor to care.

There are three worthwhile moments in this film: The first scene of the movie, the sequence where the aliens are revealed, and the movie's eerie climax where our scientist heroes watch the world come to an end on dozens of TV monitors. However, these moments are nowhere near exciting enough to warrant sitting through the boring, badly acted crap that separates them.

Unless you've dedicated yourself to seeing every movie Christopher Lee has appeared in, or you want to see what Lolita looked like 15 years later and without a lollipop, you'll do yourself a favor by skipping "End of the World". Even if you decide you MUST see this misbegotten excuse for a movie, make sure you get it in the 50-movie collection "Nightmare Worlds" . At least that way, you'll get your money's worth via the other films the set.

Oh the other hand, maybe this is THE film to watch as the world ends. If you time it just right, when the exact moment the world ends rolls around--12:21 (AM? PM?) or 20:12 (if the genius Mayans operated on Zulu time)--you will be bored into a coma when the end comes so you won't suffer. Although... there are 24 time zones. Which ones did the genius Mayans use? And did they take Daylight Savings Time into account? How is a body to prepare when these questions remain unanswered?!

Ghosts of Mobster-run Vegas come backin 'Dead Man's Hand'

2009-11-12T00:58:00.000-08:00

Dead Man's Hand: Casino of the Damned (aka "The Haunted Casino") (2007)
Starring: Robin Sydney, Scott Whyte, Kristyn Green, Wes Armstrong, Lily Rains, Kavan Reece, Sid Haig, Michael Berryman, Jessica Morris, and Rico Simonini
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Charles Band and Joe Dain
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

After his mobster uncle dies in prison for five murders committed forty years ago, Matthew Dragna (Whyte) inherits his long-closed Las Vegas casino, the Mysteria. Together with four friends (Armstrong, Green, Rains, Reece, and Sydney) he starts restoring the place, hoping to reopen it while preserving its archaic look as a way to revive the spirit of Vegas' early years when the Rat Pack and mobsters ran the show. But, they soon discover that the spirit of mob-ruled Vegas is already very moch alive within the walls of the Mysteria, in the form of long-dead gangster Roy Donahue (Haig)... and he has score to settle with the Dragna family.

"Dead Man's Hand: Casino of the Damned" is a straight-forward, barebones traditional haunted house story. It unfolds quickly, with not a moment of screentime wasted. Unforunately, it's so barebones that several of the characters barely get any development and the ultimate resolution of the plot feels a little rushed and too easy.

Because of its very traditional and straight-forward nature, the film also is fairly scare-free for most of its running time. It's not rated, but I suspect it would be a PG-13 film, and even when compared to other horror films at that level it's tame. Even the teens will be unimpressed, as the first hour unfolds as a steady, but tension-free pace. There's just enough going on to keep your interest, but not much more than that. (The lack of ability for a character to "get it up" and the interaction with his bitchy girlfriend is the most interesting activity during the first part of the movie.)

As for the rest the cast and the film's effects, they're okay. As mentioned above, the actors are all well-cast. I wish the puppetry on the ghosts aside from the slot girl had been a bit more effective, and Sid Haig wasn't as impressive here as he was in "House of 1000 Corpses", but the puppets and his performance were passable.

"Dead Man's Hand: Casino of the Damned" is worth seeing primarily for Simonini and that really cool slot ghost; they earn it a full point on their own, lifting it from a low 4 rating to a medium to high 5. It's not necessarily a movie I recommend you go our of your way for, but it's got moments that make it worth checking out.

Watch the preview of "Dead Man's Hand: Casino of the Damned",
courtesy of Full Moon Entertainment and YouTube.

'The Creeps' features classic horror monsters as you've never seen them

2009-11-11T20:44:00.000-08:00

The Creeps (1997)
Starring: Rhonda Griffin, Bill Moynihan, Justin Laur, Kristen Norton, Phil Fondacaro, Jon Simanton, Joe Smith, Thomas Wellington and Andrea Squibbs
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Charles Band and Kirk Edward Hansen
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A mad scientist (Moynihan) builds a machine that transports Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and Frankenstein's Monster from the books and movies they usually exist it, into the real world. But interference from a librarian (Griffin) and a wanna-be private detective (Laur) who were recovering an original hand-writen draft of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novel that the scientist stole to use in his experiment, cause the process to go awry. The four monsters are brought to life as 3-foot-tall midget versions that are not quite as imposing as their fictional counterparts. Dracula (Fondacaro) doesn't appreciate his diminished height, and he sets about getting the scientist what he needs to redo the experiment, getting it right this time.

"The Creeps" is a fun film, with creative well-written dialogue and full of creative and crazy ideas that are well-implimented. As such, it ranks as one of my favorite Full Moon movies. However, there is an air of cheapness to this film, an air that will grow more pervasive in Band's films through the first half of the 2000s, only starting to dissipate with the release of "Doll Graveyard" and "Gingerdead Man 2".

That said, this is not a Band production where the cheapness hurts. Instead of puppets and special effects to bring to life Band's obsession with stories about tiny terrors, we're instead, surprisingly, treated to "little people" taking on the roles of Universal Pictures' Big Four Monsters--Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man.

The script is fun and fast-moving and the story is populated by quirky characters that may be little more than two-dimensional cartoons, but they are great fun and being portrayed by talented actors who seem to be having a load of fun.

In the entire movie, there's only one actor who plays his part straight and that is Phil Fondacaro as Dracula. In fact, Fondacaro plays a more convincing and creepy Dracula than many actors in serious horror movies, giving a performance that is comparable to the Draculas of Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Jack Palance. It's a performance that shows that Fondacaro is a far more talented actor than he'll probably ever get a chance to fully show, because of his small stature. (I think he could be a great Hop-Frog, though, if that story is ever properly adapted to the screen.)

The only complaint I have about the film is that it's rather illiterate in its approach to classic horror. First off, as excellent as Fondacaro's Dracula performance is, the character design doesn't resemble Dracula as he has appeared in any movies nor as he is described in Bram Stoker's novel; the only Dracula design that springs to mind is the one that appeared in a small handful of comics from Marvel in the mid-1970s and late 1980s. The film also implies that the Frankenstein Monster that the mad scientists causes to manifest is somehow tied to Mary Shelley's novel. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Shelly's monster was intelligent and articulate while the monster here is a midget version of the Universal Studios Frankenstein Monster. (And Thomas Wellington does a great impersonation of the creature as it was played by Boris Karloff.)

"The Creeps" is Charles Band close to his craziest and it's a film that will be a perfect addition to any Bad Movie Night line-up (or to any movie night spotlighting weird comedies).

Watch the preview for "The Creeps",
courtesy of Full Moon Entertainment and YouTube...

'Robot Wars' squanders its potential

2009-11-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

Robot Wars (aka "Robot Jox 2") (1993)
Starring: Don Michael Paul, Barbara Crampton, James Staley, Lisa Rinna, Danny Kamekona and Peter Haskall
Director: Albert Band
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

In 2041, decades after the Great Robot War and Toxic Gas Scare, the American Southwest has ceceeded from the Union and is at a state of war with the "Centros", a state of uneasy peace with the remnants of the United States, and a trading partner of China. When the last known surviving giant robot--now being used as an armored, heavily armed passenger transport, is hijacked--it's up to rebellious robot pilot Captain Drake (Paul) and the beautiful archeologist Dr. Leda (Crampton) to save the day by finding the burial site of the rumored second suriving combat robot, Mega-1.

"Robot Wars" is one of three movies produced by B-movie mogul Charles Band that featured giant robots piloted by humans ("Robot Jox" and "Crash and Burn" being the other two). I've wondered if they were inspired by Japanese cartoons or the then popular miniature and roleplaying lines from FASA called "BattleTech" and "MechWarrior".

"Robot Wars" answered my question for me. The costume designs and even the look of Mega-1 reminded me very strongly of "MechWarrior". Heck, the film even felt a little like a BattleTech/MechWarrior game with the robots and other technology being more interesting than the human characters.

This brief movie (it's barely over an hour long) is another example of a Full Moon picture that's too short. There is all sorts of back story that was needed for the film to be as good as it had potential for being. (What was the past history of Captain Drake and General Wa-Lee (played with sinister glee by Danny Kamekona)? It was obviously extensive, but we get to learn nothing about it. How did America disintergrate? Why do the Centros seem to be speaking something other than Spanish? These are just a few of the questions that popped into my mind as I watched the movie and I realized it was going to end without any explanations. (And some of the questions could have been answered if the script had been better. There's a scene that could have been easily been used to give us the Wa-Lee/Drake backstory, but it's instead wasted on some very unfunny jokes about how women can be horndogs, too.)

Although this is a film that's clearly made for young kids (or adults who are content if all a movie offers are neat stop-motion special effects featuring giant battle-bots duking it out and shooting laser beams at each other), I still think it could have benefitted from just a little more time being spent on developing the world in which it takes place. That could have at the very least made the film more memorable and lifted it from mediocre to okay.