1990s

Josh Kirby… Time Warrior: Chapter 1, Planet of the Dino-Knights (1995)

Starring Corbin Allred, Jennifer Burns, Derek Webster, Barrie Ingham, John DeMita, Spencer Rochfort, Sandra Guibord, Jonathan Charles Kaplan, Time Winters, Charisma Carpenter

Directed by Ernest D. Farino

Expectations: Pretty high. This looks cheese-ball enough to be awesome.

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

Finally getting back to the Moonbeam films (Full Moon movies aimed at kids), and this one is a doozy. It’s the first part of a six-film series and it literally opens with a five-minute “catching you up on the plot” montage that details all the pertinent plot points, the devious villain and the hero and his small band of friends fighting through time to save the universe. Leave it to me to actually get the characters mixed up during the opening montage, but what do they expect me to do if I’ve never met these guys before? Regardless, it’s a slam-bang opening, so it’s somewhat jarring when we drop into the movie proper and the first scene is played subdued and nearly dialogue-free. Both are a bit misleading, as the film is neither slam-bang action nor quiet subtlety, although if you expected subtlety from a film titled Josh Kirby… Time Warrior: Chapter 1, Planet of the Dino-Knights then you really should reconsider your general sense of gauging expectations.

Totem (1999)

Starring Jason Faunt, Marissa Tait, Eric W. Edwards, Sacha Spencer, Tyler Anderson, Alicia Lagano

Directed by David DeCoteau (as Martin Tate)

Expectations: Moderate. I don’t know quite what to expect.

In my review for Blood Dolls, I offered up the hypothesis that 1999 might be the turning point year for the quality of Full Moon’s output. I decided to test that theory with Totem, the 6th 1999 Full Moon film I’ve seen. Much to my surprise, I really enjoyed this one as, at least in the beginning, it seemed as if they were actually concerned with making an intriguing film. I know, strange concept, but trust me it works.

The film opens with a four-and-a-half-minute opening credit sequence. Whenever Full Moon extends the credits out like this, it usually spells disaster for the following film, as the need to fill time can only mean that the film is in need of help. When that film is only sixty-seven minutes total (and that’s including 10.5 minutes of credits!), Totem is definitely in need of some TLC, but no matter where it goes wrong it gets a couple of major things right in its first half (that’s minute 4.5 – minute 32.5). Totem actually delivers on the overarching Full Moon promise on a film that contains horror and thrills alongside hilarity. The film is something of a combo of The Evil Dead and Puppet Master, and while it doesn’t come anywhere close to equaling either of those films, this minor Full Moon work is perfect entertainment for fans of the company.

Jingle All the Way (1996)

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sinbad, Phil Hartman, Rita Wilson, Robert Conrad, Martin Mull, Jake Lloyd, James Belushi, E.J. De La Pena, Laraine Newman, Justin Chapman, Harvey Korman, Richard Moll, Daniel Riordan

Directed by Brian Levant

Expectations: Low. This can’t be good. I’m just hoping for some good Arnold lines.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years it took to wear me down enough to accept the idea of watching this one. When Jingle All the Way was released in 1996 I was fifteen, and there was no way in hell I was going to watch my most favorite action star sliding around a department store in a battle with Sinbad for a stupid Power Rangers rip-off doll. No way, no how. These days I feel somewhat different about the whole thing. I don’t watch Arnold films hardly at all anymore and he’s been out of the Hollywood scene for several years so there hasn’t been anything new to entice me. Over these years I’ve slowly grown more and more desperate, willing to watch anything he was in, if only to hear him say stupid lines in that wonderful accent I love so well. During one of my more exuberant Arnold moments, I found myself watching as many Arnold quote compilation videos on YouTube as I could get my mouse on. One of these featured Arnold’s famous line from Jingle All the Way, “Put the cookie down! Now!” remixed into a techno song. This, coupled with a newfound enjoyment of Power Rangers, led me to say yes to Turbo Man and give Jingle All the Way a go.

Once Upon a Time in China III (1993)

Once Upon a Time in China III [黃飛鴻三之獅王爭霸] (1993)

Starring Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, Max Mok, Xiong Xin-Xin, Lau Shun, John Wakefield, Chiu Chin, Ge Cuen-Zhuang, Meng Chin, Wong Tak-Yan, Zhang Chun-Zhong

Directed by Tsui Hark

Expectations: Low. I don’t remember liking this one much.

At long last I finally got around to watching this one! Hope no one was holding their breath for the last fifteen months! All kidding aside, I had a hankering for some Jet Li after reading a few blogs about his work over at Dangerous Meredith’s blog and a review of OAUTIC IV at Varied Celluloid. The film definitely exceeded my expectations in many ways, while also reminding me why I had not embraced this one in my youth. I’ve probably only seen this one a couple of times, the last time being around ten years ago. The only thing I remembered about it was that there was a lot of lion dancing, and boy is there a lot of lion dancing!

Once Upon a Time in China III (OUATIC3) opens with the Chinese Empress declaring that there will be a lion dance competition to prove the power of Chinese martial arts to the ever encroaching foreigners. We then connect with Wong Fei-Hung (Jet Li), 13th Aunt (Rosamund Kwan) and Wong’s disciple Foon (Max Mok) arriving in Peking to visit Wong’s father, Won Kei-Ying. The lion dance competition is sending every martial club into a frenzy trying their best to outdo the others. One group in particular, the oil factory team, is run by an evil man who will stop at nothing to get to the top, including bullying and physically taking people out of the competition. This leads to the main struggle of the film between Wong and Chiu, the leader of the oil factory team.

Blood Dolls (1999)

Starring Jack Maturin, Debra Mayer, William Paul Burns, Warren Draper, Nicholas Worth, Jodie Fisher, Phil Fondacaro, Naomi McClure

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Moderate, it sounds fun and it has Phil Fondacaro.

Where do I start with this fucking movie? Blood Dolls goes the trashy route and does its best to shock and awe the viewer into liking it. It’s truly a movie that will only appeal to the most demented group of people in the audience, which realistically is probably a large subset of the people who even give a shit about Full Moon movies. I unfortunately am not so keen on this particular brand of demented film, the “demented for the sake of being demented” variety. So far I’ve seen four Full Moon films from 1999, and with the exception of Mysterious Museum, they’ve all been of a similar poor quality which makes me wonder if this was the turning point year for their quality films. I do have to give Blood Dolls a lot of credit for trying, as the story is a bit more thought out than your general Charles Band affair, it has nice widescreen cinematography and it does feature actors you may know, such as Phil Fondacaro or that bald guy from Darkman (Nicholas Worth).

The story is fairly simple but a synopsis won’t do justice to the absurd nature of the goings-on. Basically there’s an eccentric millionaire Travis that has lost his fortune to a trio of conniving bastards who banded together and fucked him over. Being the eccentric, evil genius type though, he refuses to lie down and take it, instead creating a machine to transform people into subservient killer dolls. Why? Because this is a Charles Band movie and Band really has a hard-on for small things killing people. Also at his command is a butler/henchman dude that perpetually wears clown makeup (played by William Paul Burns, genuinely the best actor in the film), an eyepatch-sportin’ midget played by Phil Fondacaro and a girl rock band in a cage in the back of his office.

Back to the Future Part III (1990)

Starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen, Thomas F. Wilson, Lea Thompson, Elisabeth Shue, James Tolkan, Jeffrey Weissman, Flea

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Expectations: High, I love this one too.

For some reason Back to the Future Part III gets a bad rap. I just don’t get it. I’ve always loved this one and wondered why so many consider it a poor series entry. Not only does the story deftly fit within the framework built in the previous two films, it builds upon it even more. There were quite a few themes and loose ends left at the end of Part II, and Part III brings them all together in the closing moments and perfectly caps off the series. What’s not to like?

Doc Brown is stuck in the Old West and Marty happens upon some info that he can’t sit on. Despite Doc’s explicit warning not to come get him in the past, Marty does what he feels is right and makes the jump. Of course it’s not as simple as finding Doc, throwing him in the car and speeding off into the future and this time around our main heavy is Biff’s ancestor Buford Tannen, once again expertly played by Thomas F. Wilson. Seriously, he fits perfectly into any wacky role Zemeckis and Bob Gale can cook up for him.

The Killer Eye (1999)

Starring Jacqueline Lovell, Jonathan Norman, Nanette Bianchi, Costas Koromilas, Blake Adams, Ryan Van Steenis, Dave Oren Ward, Roland Martinez

Directed by David DeCoteau (as Richard Chasen)

Expectations: Low, I’ve heard this one is one of the poorest Full Moon films.

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

The Killer Eye is the epitome of a trashy movie. It plays like a textbook example of film filler, with maybe a half hour of actual story and the rest of the film ballooned out into an 80-minute feature with consecutive, extended tentacle-fondling scenes. The only explanation is that every time there was an issue with the story or the film’s production, producer Charles Band must have answered with “Throw in another tentacle scene.” It kind of works for this movie though, because despite all of its shortcomings it remains entertaining overall. I suppose your mileage will vary depending on how much you like gigantic killer eyes peering out of vents and zapping people in the eyes though.

The film opens with a deliberate Re-Animator vibe, complete with an opening title sequence with medical diagrams and whimsical music like the far superior Stuart Gordon film of 1985. In The Killer Eye, a scientist hoping to prove the existence of the 8th dimension, tries out some chemicals in the eye of a street punk that should theoretically allow him to look through the doc’s microscope and into the 8th dimension. I didn’t see it coming, but get this– shit goes wrong and instead of only being able to see the 8th dimension, something is able to break thru into our world! Seriously, never woulda guessed that would happen! Anyway, the street punk’s eye grows to gigantic size (complete with long, dangling eye-stalk tentacles) and scuttles away into the air vents, which instantly makes me think of the eye rolling through the vents on the wheeled contraption that Klaus Kinski used to navigate the vents in Crawlspace. So far so good…