Review: Subspecies (1991)

5 out of 5 stars

Radu is the baddest vampire since Orlok. He's got wonderfully snaggly teeth, a filthy mother-of-pearl pallor, long creepy fingers, and three little devil beasties (the subspecies of Subspecies) to help him out. Even better, he spits out his dialogue in throaty demonic whispers. And, just as Orlok did, he staggers about like a gin drunk.

Best Quote: Radu: "Such a touching tableau. Your pain, little brother, makes me sick."

The film follows the father-slayer Radu Vladislava as he sets about creating a consort from three lovely students visiting Transylavania to complete dissertations on Romanian folklore. The setting is superb, and the cinematography far surpasses regular Full Moon fare. There are many sets involved and a fairly large cast. The film is well-acted and even features Angus Scrimm in the brief role of Radu's pops.

While all three women, and their protector, Radu's brother Steffan, put in good performances, there is no way they can compare to Anders Hove's scene-munching performance as the chief blood-drooler. He's almost too over the top, but he succeeds masterfully in walking the fine line and delivering a first rate performance.

The only problem I have with the film, is a five-minute series of poorly-edited scenes when the girls begin getting picked off by Radu. Other than that, the pacing is superb, and really builds to an exciting climax.

The gore effects are great, and the vampires look thouroughly disgusting.

While Puppet Master and Re-animator got me interested in Band and Co. many moons ago, the Subspecies series really delivers the goods, and has kept me a fan.

Review: Horrorvision (2001)

1 out of 5 stars

Big budget films that go through several scripts, several script rewrites, several directors, and several casts generally fail at the box office. Small budget films, as a rule, avoid this fate: they are usually directed and acted by the persons that dreamt them up. Horrorvision seems to be the microbudget exception to this rule.

You can find references to the film littered throughout late-90s Videozones from other Full Moon films. Originally titled Fear.Com, the film was to be directed by Charles Band himself. After a year or so, it was rewritten as Horrorvision.Com and handed to J.R. Bookwalter to direct after he finished shooting Witchhouse 2: Blood Coven. Why Band would hand money over to someone who put out that drivel is beyond me.

The story only gets longer: Bookwalter was also supposed to direct the second entry into Band's "classic horror revisited" project, entitled Mummy Resurrection or some nonsense. Bookwalter decided to rewrite Horrorvision.Com, and he and on e of his Tempe Entertainment cronies came up with dreadful script that finally found its way to DVD. No longer wanting to direct the film, Bookwalter turned over the reins to young Tempe post-production prodigy and former Full Moon webmaster, Danny Draven. Really, if you want more info on this story, you can check out the "making of" featurette on the DVD; but, you'll have to sit through both Bookwalter and Draven spouting off about their previous self-financed short films.

So, on with the movie: Horrorvision is a technology-is-bad-and-computers-can-kill-you derivative. After a website eats up his girlfriend and girl friend, our hero, Dez Draven, sets about ruminating and driving around. He encounters the film's Matrix derivative, Bradbury, sitting on his car, and they go on some adventures to find the girls and kill the techno-baddie. They are attacked by two robot-coputer things, and some poorly done gore is attempted by the EFX crew, and the movie then ends, unresolved. It ends abruptly, actually, like they ran out of money.

As for the adventures of Dez and Bradbury, let's just say that 30 of the film's 70 minutes are taken up by driving around in a convertible. Each driving trip consisting of one Trent Reznor ripoff song and some accompanying footage of passing mountains, factories, trash, one horribly inept beating, and finally, the desert.

The drive to the desert is particularly long and we're never told why they've gone out there. The car runs out of gas, so they set off on a tedious hike in which the movie is explained to us through a series of bad Star Wars jokes and fake tech-speak. After a confrontation with a techno-monster who just sort of stands in one place flailing his wire arms around, the movie ends.

Did I mention the goth angle? Ah, thought not. You see, Dez and his girlfriend, Dazzy, are goths! The first third of the film is all about their little goth conversations and their visit to a goth store. If we do some rough calculations, we find that 20 minutes of goth and 30 minutes of driving around is about 75 percent of the movie.

Unfortunately, while Bookwalter has not reared his creative drivel in the new incarnation of Full Moon, Draven has edited all three of the new films, and is responsible for the hatchet jobs on Tomb of Terror and Horrific!.

Other Reviews: Flipside, ColdFusionVideo.

Review: Decadent Evil (2005)

2 of 5 stars

Another 2-star flick, this one part of the newer incarnation of Full Moon, called Full Moon Features, a subsidiary of Wizard Entertainment. Another 70-minute movie, if you count the long credits and the stock footage from Vampire Journals.

The plot for Decadent Evil is easy enough to follow, since the whole plot is divulged in a boring series of plot dumps and throwaway scenes that make up most of the movie.

Best Quote: Dex: "Alright guys, take your hands out of your pants and put them together for Cashmere. And, remember tipping is not a country in China...."

I can't believe I thought this, but: the opening strip club scene is way too long, or way too boring, or mostly some of both. Luckily there are just enough highlights to get you through to the superb ending.

Phil Fondacaro has a few good lines, but is a pretty inept "badass vampire killer" carrying a big duffel bag with nothing more than some garlic powder, and two dull, wooden stakes. The other highlight would be the terrible written opening kills with the Joe Pesci soundalike and his reluctant-to-go-to-a-stripclub-and-get-in-a-threesome girl.

And then we get to the ending. An ending I could never get enough of. A laugh-out-loud ending that ranks as one of the best cinematic denouments of all time!

Other reviews: ColdFusion, the Horror Channel.

Review: Witchouse 2: Blood Coven (2000)

2 out of 5 stars

Another Witchouse (this one, Blood Coven), another Romanian shoot. The film, like the first, is set in Covington county, MA, but was shot in and around Full Moon's Castel Studios in Bucharest. The "haunted house" exteriors is a local crematorium.

Best Quote: Soderquist: "If Clark could only use the power in his nasal passages for good instead of evil..."

Ok, so your question must be: How did that fullmoonreviewguy give the sequel a higher mark than the original? The answer is a bit complicated, because they both stink. But, really people, there's just not much difference between 1 and 2 stars....

The only thing (or, I should say, person) keeping Blood Coven's head above water is the casting of Andrew Prine (of Grizzly fame!) in a dual role. While he's not given much to work with in an uninspired script, there's something about that is eminently watchable.

You'll notice a bunch of "home movie" footage, I guess, cashing in on the Blair Witch craze the year prior (although director Bookwalter says it's an homage to his old movies directed in Cleveland...please...). The townspeople interviews shot in video were the only compelling thing in the flick, to be honest.

The build-up is ok. But the last fifteen minutes are some of the poorest creature v. human battles I've seen. Maybe worse than the Power Rangers. The special effects are so poor, and the action so dull, you'll be amazed that Band had this Bookwalter guy direct more crapfests for Full Moon.

Save your money.

Other Reviews: Joe Bob, Video Graveyard.

Review: Killjoy (2000)

1 out of 5 stars

Another evil clown movie. Why is Killjoy so special? Ah, here's the catch: we've got ourselves an "urban" evil clown movie. I guess "urban" means everybody's black, and the bad guys are wannabe-rapper, blunt-smokin' gang members. Geez, strike another drum for stereotypes...

I especially enjoyed our high school heroes enjoying cocktails at nightclubs and living with their girlfriends/boyfriends.

Best Quote: Jamal: "If we're gonna stop this clown mf'er, we gotta split up!" D'oh!

To be honest, there is nothing to recommend this movie. About the only positive thing I can figure is Killjoy's gnarled-up yellow teeth.

My main problems with the film is the lack of pace, ho-hum killings, non-existent sets, unfunny clown "mayhem", wooden acting, and Richard Kosinski's wannabe urban score. What irks me most is that producer Carl Washington alludes to the service films like his are performing for the black community, since the director and all of the cast members are black except for the token Latino.

My advice Mr. Washington: "Make a good movie. Or, really, an even 'passable' one...."

Other reviews: HorrorDVD's.

Review: Retro Puppet Master (1999)

5 out of 5 stars

Six-shooter, Tunnel Sergeant, Dr. Death, Pinhead, Cyclops, and Blade help the young Andre Toulon take out Sutek's Egyption henchman in the best sequel this series has seen.

Retro Puppet Master is atmospheric with many sets, quality acting and some fun puppet FX. What it lacks in gore, it makes up for with an interesting well-paced plot.

Best Quote: Dr. Death: "Don't you know, my friends? Smell the sulfur, see the smoke..."

This is easily the best Dave DeCoteau film I've seen. The actors do a more-than-credible job: Jack Donner as "Azfel" turns in an inspired performance, and the young Toulon does well with the puppets. Oh, and the ring-needle is cool.

John Massari's score is a nice symphonic take on the original Puppet Master tunes by Richard Band, keeping the movie playful and eerie. It's rare for a Full Moon score to actually add something to a film, and this one does.

Unfortunately, Dave Allen didn't seem to be affordable enough for Band and Co. in the late-90's and beyond, so all of the puppet action is done rod and string. There's no stop motion such as the famous and funny scene in the original where Pinhead's looking for his pinhead.

And, of course, as with all of the Full Moon fare of this time period, RPM was shot in and around Castel Studios in Bucharest, so most of the bit parts were cast to Romanians: hearing their "Parisian" accents was a bit annoying.

All in all, this is probably one of the top-10 Full Moon films. It's certainly the most inventive of the Puppet Master sequels.

Other Reviews: The Video Graveyard, All Horror Movies, and Obscure Horror.

Review: Witchouse (1999)

Tagline: "Evil Beyond Evil..."

2 out of 5 stars

I have a hard time with Dave DeCoteau movies, in general. Like most Albert Pyun suckfests, they drag, are confusing, and the gore is mishandled. Unfortunately, Witchouse is no different.

Set in Dunwich, MA, the film was shot at Full Moon's Castel Studios in Romania. Exteriors were shot in and around Bucharest.

Best Quote: Jack: "We're not in high school anymore, Bob. Why don't you put down the bong and realizet that!?"

There's not much to recommend here except for the sets and the Killjoy-ish teeth on the witches. The home wiring lesson from our applied-sciences major hero, Jack, is neat and actually becomes important later on....

I've got a laundry list of problems with the film, but I'll stick with 3 here:

1. The fake thunder and lightning is incessant. VERY, VERY ANNOYING. Only halfway through the movie and I was yelling at the screen...

2. The pace severely drags at several different points. So much of the movie is plot dumps and throwaway scenes that when anything resembling "film magic" happens you feel relieved. The "seance" is actually a 5-minute monologue. Ugh.

3. The deaths are really poorly executed (hehe, no pun intended...man I kill me!). Usually a Full Moon highlight, the deaths in this film are incredibly ill-shot and dull. The opening "knifings" are 8th grade level home movie quality.

The only reason this movie gets a "2" from me is because I think they tried.

Review: Tomb of Terror (2004)

1 out of 5 stars

Rented out 5 Full Moons last night and this is the first I watched. Tomb of Terror is an anthology of three "short" films which are actually 3 full length Full Moon films re-edited and "re-energized". Although the idea is neat, regular Full Moon viewers will be severely disappointed by the end product: 3 very chopped, almost incoherent shorts.

The transfer to DVD is terrible. It looks as though they used a regular old VHS/DVDr machine and made the transfer from a used rental video. You may get a headache watching all of the frame shakes.

I'll take the 3 stories as they come:

1. "Ascent from Hell", edited from the Full Moon feature, Dark Angel: The Ascent directed by Linda Hassani. Unfortunately, Full Moon Direct doesn't offer the full length movie on DVD yet. It is easily a 5 out of 5 stars and the re-edited and "re-energized" version here doesn't do the original the justice it deserves. (I always thought Dark Angel would be an excellent Full Moon serial.)

Best quote: Veronica's Mom: "You've got to apologize to your father, and promise him you'll give up these crazy ideas of yours. Otherwise, he may feel he has to destroy you." Note: her father is torturer in hell who punches guys in the nuts and cuts off their tongues....

Veronica is a hot hellspawn who decides to pay us mortals a visit. She falls in love with a doctor and begins a crusade against evil in her own ghastly way. What follows is a satanic Bewitched where heaven has decided the mayor of our unknown city must go.

The movie is atmospheric, funny, gory and a great effort from Full Moon. This frigged-up version stinks; but, it's the best of the three by far.

2. "Infinite Evil", edited from the Full Moon feature, Lurking Fear directed by C. Courtney Joyner. Jeffrey Combs fans beware: take the time to find a used version of the original. You'll spend the first 10 minutes of this re-edit just trying to figure out the plot.

Best quote: Dr. Specs (played by the great Vincent Schiavelli): "Wow, Syd, you're worth more dead than you ever were alive."

This will be a short review: A cemetery full of cannibals who come out to feed during thunderstorms is under siege from a kick-ass hottie and her crew, who in turn, are under siege from a group of criminals looking for a corpse stuffed with loot. I've never seen the original movie, so none of this plot made sense until near the end of the short. Basically, you've got a heist movie with too many turns of fate and really, some tame cannibals.

3. "Eternal Damnation", edited from the Full Moon Feature, Talisman directed by David DeCoteau (not Victoria Sloan, as noted on the credits of the feature). Not a good movie. Not a good re-edited movie, either.

Best quote: The Black Angel: "Ah, tears of young men: are they not the most poignant of all?"

The famous Full Moon castle in Romania plays a creepy boy's school in Eastern Europe for rich, troublemakers. Our hero is neither rich, nor troublemaker - he's an orphan! The baddie is a pasty, chrome-domed, red-eyed antichrist who rips flaming hearts from schoolboy chests. Luckily for humanity, our hero is both mischievous and curious enough to figure it out and save the day in a really piss-poor ending.

Horrorvision Review (note: I'd try to find someone with a better opinion of this dreck, but was unable...)

Review: The Gingerdead Man (2005)

4 out of 5 stars

I rented The Gingerdead Man last night. I think the Hollywood Video clerk smirked when I put my head down to find my membership card in my wallet, but I can't be sure.

I was actually a bit excited about the movie. It's been a long time since I've seen new Full Moon blood. So, first out of the gate is a serial killin' cookie played by the drunk and scaryfunny Gary Busey. Obviously, it's campy, and a little bit fun, and a little bit gory.

But, I'm a bit pissed that Band and co. would charge $19.99 for a 60-minute movie. Even the rental fee (it's considered a "new release") seemed a bit much. Maybe a dollar to rent and five to buy would be fair.

Best Quote: Amos: "Let's get the lights on. I wanna see this fucker when I blast him to crumbs."

Best Quote 2: Brick: "A mosh pit of tag-team damage and body slammage. And, in this corner: the Butcher Baker!"

The plot is no more convoluted than any other "serial-killer-comes-back-to-life-as-a-blank" flick. And there isn't much wasted momentum which is key to a flick like this, and obviously the result of Charles Band's ever efficient direction.

Gary Busey is paydirt! Hopefully, Gingerdead will be the beginning of a Full Moon renaissance for Mr. Crazy. One can only dream. His voice as the cookie, spewing out "Take that punk BITCH!!" invective is highlight-reel material. As is his opening scene, in full crazyBusey serial killin' glory.

The supporting cast is as good as needs be and a bit better. They seem to have a good old Texas Dazed and Confused sensibility. Especially noteworthy is "Amos", the funny, pure-hearted town delinquent who wears a "Pull My Finger" t-shirt.

I have only two problems (a bit nitpicky, I know):

1. the oven-baked mom didn't look all that oven-baked. Where's the gore?

2. The 30 or so shots that the cookie gets off with a six-shooter is kinda ridiculous.

Anyhow, overall a happy, if brief, return to the director's chair for Mr. Band has produced this bizarre little piece of film magic. I heartily endorse, and screw that sniveling gimp at Hollywood Video.

(found a good interview with Charles Band, which mentions all of his new projects and some back story on his career and the Full Moon label)

Other reviews: Draven99, Coldfusion Video Reviews, B-Ware the Blog, Dr. Gore, Horror's Not Dead

Review: Vampire Journals (1997)

5 out of 5 stars

I rented the Sci-Fi Channel version, William Shatner's Full Moon Fright Night Vol. 1: Vampire Journals. The DVD includes the original Full Moon Video featurette, a slew of trailers, and a Roadshow preview as well as the William Shatner stuff where the commercials would've been placed. Finally, and weirdly, the DVD includes Shatner interviewing Stan Lee.

The movie is an offshoot of director Ted Nicolaou's excellent Subspecies series. It features vampires from Master Radu's bloodline and the fairly complex plotlines of the film explore the relationships between master vampires (in this case, Ash) and others of their line. Nicolaou makes mention a few times of integrating Vampire Journals with the classic Subspecies themes to create a crossover at some point in the future; but it's possible all hope of such a film was lost during the Full Moon wane of the 2000's.

The pacing of Vampire Journals is excellent, though much slower and less gorier than Nicolaou's Subspecies work. A decayed, gothic feel is sustained throughout, with highbrow dialogue and subtle plot shifts. Most of the sideplots are resolved well before the ending, but all of them help depict the decay of master Ash's powers.

The main plot of the film centers around the "hero" vampire, Zachary, who has sworn to wipe out Radu's bloodline. He's traveled to Bucharest to hunt out the "music-lover", Ash. They square off over a pianist, and the rest is good watching.

The plot is interesting until the ending standoff, which is so terribly out of place, boring, and quick that it almost ruins the film. It doesn't; and more importantly, it leaves plenty of room for some sort of sequel. And, if there's room for a sequel or a crossover, Full Moon is a company that will give it a shot. Hopefully, Nicolaou is still interested. Considering that Vampire Journals was the first choice entry for the Shatner-hosted Sci-Fi Channel show, its a good bet the film carries a significant place in the heart of Full Moon.

One final comment: Vampire Journals and other top shelf Full Moon fare is the reason I've waded through every dreadful Albert Pyun suckfest in the catolog. You never know when you'll come across a gem.