'Murdercycle' is a ride for kiddies

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 movie you can skip.

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

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.

Interesting premise marred by weak execution and characters

Wow. I can't believe it's been three years since I last posted a review here. Hopefully, it won't be that long until the next one!

The Day Time Ended (1979)
Starring: Jim Davis, Dorothy Malone, Marcy Lafferty, Natasha Ryan, Chris Mitchum, and Scott Kolden
Director: John Cardos
Producers: Charles Band, Steve Neill, and Wayne Schmidt
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A strange astronomical phenomena engulfs Earth in a magnetic solar storm, and throws the Williams family (the cast listed above) and their newly constructed, isolated home into a strange dimension where all time exists simultaneously.

"The Day Time Ended" has an interesting premise as its starting point, but the idea remains halfbaked and underexplained/exploited. The film meanders from scene to scene, with very little story motivation and even less logic. The characters barely interact with one another, and even when they do, you sometimes get the feeling that they are in different movies, talking past each other and delivering responses that barely make sense.

It's actually a shame, because Jim Davis and Marcy Lafferty in particular give decent performances. If their characters were more interesting and the story a little more substantial and coherent, they might have been able to save this movie. As it is, however, all we have is a drab and dull filler that is barely worth sitting through. It's not even bad enough to be entertaining in a "bad movie" sense.

The highlight of the film are the goofy claymation aliens (or dinosaurs or mutants or whatever the heck they are) that bedevil the family at roughly the halfway point of the movie. But, like everything else in the film, including some sort of evil flying robot--that can teleport through structural walls but has to use a laser in an attempt to get through a bedroom door--nothing much comes of them.

"The Day Time Ended" can be found in several different multi-movie packs; I came across it in the 50-movie Sci-Fi Invasion set. It's inoffensive filler in such a case, but it's not a film to go out of your way for and you can safely safe it for last in whatever set it's part of.

'HorrorVision' is not worth looking at

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 flaw.

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

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.

Paul Hipp stars in "Bad Channels"

"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.

'Dollman'... 13 inches with an attitude

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.

'Kraa!' is a patchwork picture with future star

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.

'Groom Lake' should probably remain secret

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.

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

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.)
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The Shadowzone is home to horror

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 flick

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.

"Arcade" 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!"

"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".

The Trancers Trilogy

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

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. That's 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.

Bottom of the Band Barrel?

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.

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

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?!

'Robot Wars' squanders its potential

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.

The Mandroid Duology

In the mid-1990s, while virtually all of Band's productions were being filmed at studios and locations in Romania, a pair of comic-booky features issued forth. One quite good, the other pretty bad. They revolved around a remote-controlled robot known as the Mandroid.


Mandroid (1993)
Starring: Brian Symonds, Jane Caldwell, Brian Cousins, Patrik Ersgaard, Michael Della Femina, Curt Lowens and Ion Haiduc
Director: Jack Ersgaard
Producers: Charles Band, Oana Paunescu and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

As the Soviet Union collapses, Dr. Zimmer (Symonds) decides to sell his remote-controlled, industructable robot--the Mandroid--and the wonder-materials that power it to the United States of American. But, as an American CIA agent (Ersgaard) and a dashing young scientist (Cousins) arrive to close the deal, Zimmer's collegue Dr. Drago (Lowens) decides to seize the robot in order to forge a deal of his own.


"Mandroid" is basically a live action comic book. It's full of one-dimensional characters, nonsensical science, and violence of a sort you only find in cartoon and comic books. (A car slams into a wall high speed and the occupant is barely dazed, a character is shot in the chest at point blank range is he barely bleeds, and the villain is horribly burned by experimental chemicals and all that appears to happen is that he developes a horrible rash and weird facial features. Oh... and an experimental treatment doesn't heal a character but instead turns him invisible.)

It may be nonsense, but it's fun nonsense. It moves along at a fast pace, with the 71 minute running time zipping by like no time at all. You'll have to park your brain at the door, but if you like old style mad scientist movies, you'll like this one. It's the sort of thing Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, George Zucco, Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill would have been featured in.

(An interesting bit of triva: The poster for "Mandroid", from which the image at the top of this post was adapted, features a concept that doesn't appear until the sequel.)



Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight (1994)
Starring: Brian Cousins, Jennifer Nash, Michael Della Femina, Curt Lowens, Aharon Impale and David Kaufman
Director: Jack Ersgaard
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Two scientists (Cousins and Nash) are working on finding a cure for a friend who was turned invisible during a lab accident (Della Femina) while continuing to develope the futuristic war-robot Mandroid. But their old enemy Dr. Drago (Lowens) is still lurking in the shadows, and a corrupt police commisioner (Impale) has decided he wants the Mandroid for his own purposes.

"Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight" is a Full Moon action extravaganza where the tiny budget is definately visible on the screen. There are several car crashes, car chases with running gun-fights, and two really feiry explosions.

Unfortunately, the explosions are the only fireworks in this film. The film suffers first and foremost from a lack of focus. While the villainous Dr. Drago's perverted lunatic minions are creepy, they don't fit with the tone of the rest of the movie... nor are any of the subplots tied to Drago effectively resolved. A more appropriate villain is the corrupt police chief who decides he wants the Mandroid robot for his own purposes, but not enough time is spent developing him, because Drago and his minions. (The highlight of Drago's involvement in the film is that it leads to him a sword-fight with Zanna while she is dressed in a skimply bellydancer's outfit. And, yes, it makes about as much sense as you think it does.)


Worse, the Mandroid is a complete waste of time and space in the film. Not only is nothing interesting done with it, but it seems smaller than it did in the previous film. I don't know if the guy in the suit is smaller or if they redesigned it, but it's just not as impressive as it was before.

Not nearly enough is done with the concept of Benjamin Knight's invisibility, nor is even that particularly central to most of the story.

In fact, nothing is particularly central to the story. The film is loose collection of ideas that never really coalese into anything that matters. The end result is a forgettable, empty movie that the only thing you'll remember about is the swordfight... just because it's so out of place. (Well, that and Jennifer Nash looks great in that red bellydancer outfit.)