Charles Band

Trancers: City of Lost Angels (1988)

Trancers: City of Lost Angels (1988)
AKA Trancers 1.5, Pulsepounders

Starring Tim Thomerson, Art LaFleur, Velvet Rhodes, Alyson Croft, Telma Hopkins, Grace Zabriskie, Helen Hunt

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Very high.

Like last year’s release of The Evil Clergyman, Trancers: City of Lost Angels (previously known as Trancers 1.5) was originally planned to be one piece of the anthology film Pulsepounders. Its three segments were to provide sequels to Empire International’s biggest films, theoretically also making Pulsepounders a hit. But the film was never finished and was left to waste away in the back of a warehouse… until now! Or until last year, anyway.

In this mini-Trancers film, Jack Deth must face yet another future villain out to get revenge on him. Edlin Shock was put behind bars by Jack eight years ago, but in order to get the plot moving, Jack’s boss McNulty is transferring this dangerous assassin to a new facility. She escapes by somehow blasting a hole in the ceiling and then forces the police scientists to send her down the line to where Jack Deth is in 1980s Los Angeles. Oh no!

Unlucky Charms (2013)

Starring Tiffany Thornton, Nathan Phillips, Jeryl Prescott, Nikki Leigh, Seth Peterson, Charlie O’Connell, Masuimi Max, Alex Rose Wiesel, Anna Sophia Berglund, Peter Donald Badalamenti II

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

In terms of Charles Band’s output in the last few years, Unlucky Charms is at or near the top of the heap. While most people would definitely argue with me if I called this a good movie, I found Unlucky Charms to be very entertaining. There are also thin layers of social commentary and pathos, which don’t work as well as they might in a “real movie,” but they add a charm otherwise missing in many of Band’s films from the last few years.

The film’s surreal opening hints at there being more under the surface than there actually is, as Unlucky Charms is another in a long line of “someone’s playing with dark magic for selfish reasons and they don’t care who it affects” horror movies. But the intro shows us the leprechaun Farr Darrig (Nathan Phillips), AKA The Red Man, sitting on a park bench watching children at play on a swing set. A small child sits with him, and Farr Darrig is unable to understand why she smiles knowing the current state of the world. Whoa! Is this really a Full Moon movie?

Petrified (2006)

Starring Roark Critchlow, Jessica Lancaster, Osman Soykut, Kimberly Pfeffer, Tim Murphy, Kathryn Adams, Dana Lastrilla, Stephanie Gentry, Robert Buckley, Darrow Igus, Christopher Bergschneider

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

With a runtime of only 70 minutes to tell its story — 59 if we take off the credit sequences — Petrified gets right down to business. The opening scene is a shady deal going down in what looks like a darkened corner of someone’s backyard. One party has a briefcase of cash, the other party has a MUMMY! Whoa! And I didn’t say shady for no reason, because as soon as the money has changed hands, guns come out and a man is down. He falls onto the mummy’s coffin, bleeding all over it. But unlike the deals for stolen mummies that I’ve brokered in my backyard, this one is in a movie so the blood brings the mummy to life… immediately! He bursts forth from his wooden box and stares deep into the eyes of those unfortunate to be near him. Like Medusa, the mummy’s gaze has a petrifying effect. With a high amount of hope and promise, the credits begin, but unfortunately that opening is easily the high point of the film.

The tagline for Petrified is “Hideous, Hungry, & On the Loose…” but I thought of some others that could fit just as well. “Petrified from Boredom!” is the low-hanging fruit, but I think “Petrified from Shock That There’s a Hospital for Nymphomaniacs Out in the Middle of the Woods” has more pizzazz. Maybe not front-of-the-DVD-box pizzazz, but pizzazz nonetheless. Anyway, Petrified‘s greatest flaw is that it’s just uninteresting as hell. I have to give them credit for throwing a lot of strange, disparate ideas together, but you’d think they’d amount to more than what we’re given. Which is a bunch of boring characters that have long, boring conversations and a few fun scenes where the mummy’s eyes glow red and he petrifies people. There are diminishing returns on that last one, though. It’s unfortunate because the FX for it look great!

Dangerous Worry Dolls (2008)

Dangerous Worry Dolls (2008)
AKA Dangerous Chucky Dolls, Deadly Chucky Dolls – Puppen des Todes (Germany)

Starring Jessica Morris, Meredith McClain, Cheri Themer, Deb Snyder, Anthony Dilio, Susan Ortiz, Ker’in Hayden, Paul Boukadakis, Renata Green-Gaber, Rebekah Crane

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Very low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Full Moon regularly trades in all kinds of depraved genre cinema, but for some reason I never expected a “women in prison” film from them, let alone one in 2008! And it’s a well-made film that doesn’t lean too hard into exploitative nudity? I’m shocked! Dangerous Worry Dolls is that and more, as I found it to be an effective and adequate horror movie as well. All I knew going into this one was the skull-headed doll coming out of a box on the cover of the DVD, so I had no reason to expect anything other than yet another variation on Puppet Master. But it’s surprisingly not like Puppet Master at all, instead pulling something of a bait and switch and delivering a possession horror flick rather than the 1,983,348th Full Moon film about killer dolls (although, it is kind of about killer dolls).

As the film opens, a group of inmates led by Kim (Meredith McClain) torture our lead, Eva (Jessica Morris). They want her to run drugs for them, but Eva is resisting. Kim always gets her way, though, and Eva’s life in the slammer is anything but rehabilitative. This all changes one day when her daughter comes to visit and gives her a small box containing Guatemalan Worry Dolls. You’re supposed to tell the dolls your worries and place them under your pillow before bed, and then the dolls take your worries away. In the film, Charles Band takes this idea and runs with it, creating one of his most cohesive and fun films of the 2000s.

Ooga Booga (2013)

Starring Ciarra Carter, Gregory Niebel, Wade Forrest Wilson, Chance A. Rearden, Maddox, Patrick Holder, Tom Massmann, Karen Black, Stacy Keach, Corey MacIntosh, Amber Strauser

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Super low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

I went into Ooga Booga with much trepidation. I didn’t have enough faith in modern-era Full Moon films to think that a movie about a killer racial stereotype would be anything but a racist B-Movie, even after enjoying Doll Graveyard where Ooga Booga made his first appearance. Then a few days prior to release, Full Moon unveiled the “Bad Ass Dolls,” a new line of horribly insensitive and stereotypical figures as seen in the shameless pseudo-commercial within the film a few minutes into Ooga Booga. So despite the fun trailer, this series of events led me to a state of apathy when starting the film.

This fear was honestly for naught, though, as Ooga Booga is a lot more enjoyable than you would expect. The story is simple: Devin receives a large-scale Ooga Booga doll from his buddy Hambo (the drunken, kid’s show host first seen in Full Moon’s Zombies vs. Strippers). Through a strange series of events (and one fritzed-out ~~Slurpy~~ Slurshy machine), Devin and the Ooga Booga doll are one. Now he’s out to get revenge on the racists who done him wrong! Booyah!

Doll Graveyard (2005)

Starring Jared Kusnitz, Gabrielle Lynn, Kristyn Green, Anna Alicia Brock, Brian Lloyd, Scott Seymour, Ken Lyle, Hannah Marks

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Moderate. The puppets look interesting, but this is from the same year as the horrid Gingerdead Man.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Doll Graveyard has perhaps one of my favorite and most fucked up setups in all of the Full Moon catalog. It’s also pretty implausible in the way that it turns into a horror movie, but that doesn’t really matter because it’s fun. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: fun overrides nearly everything in a low-budget movie. There are cases where the negative aspects are too overwhelming, but in Doll Graveyard the fun wins out easily. You can actively feel the point in the movie where the battle between good sense and fun collides, but thankfully Charles Band knew to keep this one short and sweet, so we’re in and out in about 71 minutes (12 of which are opening and closing credits).

So what’s that setup I started telling you about? Well, Doll Graveyard opens with a little girl playing with some exaggerated stereotype dolls in the entryway to her house. She’s got the full set: Ooga Booga, the African tribesman complete with a bone through his nose; a german soldier I took to calling “The Kaiser”; a shriveled-face, haunted looking samurai; and a porcelain baby doll. The girl breaks a vase and her father comes down the stairs, immediately verbally abusing her for playing in an area she’s been forbidden to play in. He takes her into the backyard and makes her bury her dolls. But here’s the kicker: the girl slips and falls into the hole she’s dug, hitting her head on the way down, and the father coldly looks at crumpled body and fills in the hole!

Puppet Master X: Axis Rising (2012)

Starring Kip Canyon, Jean Louise O’Sullivan, Brad Potts, Scott King, Stephanie Sanditz, Oto Brezina

Puppet Cast: Blade, Jester, Pinhead, Tunneler, Leech Women, Six Shooter, Blitzkrieg, Bombshell, Weremacht, Kamikaze

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Moderately high. I enjoy the Puppet Master movies.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

If there’s one thing I love about the Puppet Master films, it’s Tunneler tunneling into people. The budgets on the modern Full Moon films ain’t what they used to be, so I’ve learned to set my expectations accordingly and I was not prepared to see Tunneler going full bore into a Nazi’s forehead within the opening five minutes of the film. I called for this in the review of the last Puppet Master film, and damn if Full Moon didn’t deliver!

In this tenth Puppet Master film (or eleventh if we’re counting the horrible, non-Full Moon Sci-Fi channel entry, Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys), we pick up just the next day after the close of the last film, Puppet Master: Axis of Evil. It’s been over a year since I saw that one, so I don’t remember the finer details of where it ends. I recall everyone fighting on a stage and the good guys triumphing. Anyway, in this film Tunneler is quickly lost into Nazi hands and they set their resident puppet master to the task of reverse engineering him so that he can build a machine to resurrect people from the dead. How one leads to the other I don’t know, but whatever, it’s Part 10, what do you want? Anyway, the good guys Danny & Beth (here played by new, better actors) band together with an Army sergeant played by Brad Potts to take out the Nazi threat. That’s overly reductive, but it gives you the gist.