Full Moon

Prison of the Dead (2000)

Prison of the Dead (2000)
AKA Castle of the Dead, The Game

Starring Patrick Flood, Jeff Peterson, Sam Page, Kim Ryan, Alicia Arden, Michael Guerin, Debra Mayer

Directed by David DeCoteau

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Prison of the Dead is a horrifically bad movie by traditional standards, but for B-Movie fans who venture into this early 2000s era, it should satisfy quite nicely. The potential for a great horror movie is hidden beneath the surface of the film’s low budget, and while that’s a bit frustrating, DeCoteau delivers with what he has at his disposal. This is the kind of movie that rewards the hardened B-Movie fan who has sat through hundreds of hours of drek, because with that kind of context behind it, Prison of the Dead is the cream that rises to the top.

A group of friends are traveling to view the body of Calvin, their recently deceased mutual friend from college. They haven’t all been together since the good ol’ days, back when they’d all investigate paranormal sites and myths, so their reunion is both exciting and bittersweet. And it’s about to get worse, because Calvin’s body isn’t in a normal mortuary, it’s in a castle built on top of a prison used by hardcore Puritans to imprison witches! You might think that’s no big deal, but one of the group has brought along a Ouija board to contact the lingering spirits. Within seconds of bridging the gap between worlds, a lion statue cries blood into the ground which then seeps through the earth and onto the corpses of the Puritan executioners.

Song of the Vampire (2001)

AKA Vampire Resurrection

Starring Denice Duff, James Horan, Jillian McWhirter, Frank Bruynbroek, Marilyn O’Connor, Geoffrey Lewis, Julie Michaels, John Mese, Scott Spearman

Directed by Denice Duff

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Song of the Vampire is a classic tale of a supernatural being searching for the reincarnation of his lost lover. I’m not sure where this type of story originates from, but I’m most familiar with it from the 1932 film The Mummy and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’m a huge fan of both of these films, so to say that Song of the Vampire had a lot to live up to is an understatement. But since Song of the Vampire is such a low-budget film, holding it up against two of my all-time favorites would be dooming it to a pit of comparison and utter disappointment. On its own, Song of the Vampire is an average vampire tale that could have been better with a tighter focus.

The most interesting aspect of the film is the idea that in addition to the vampire, Jonathan Travers (James Horan), hunting down Caroline (Denice Duff), her abusive ex-husband, Marty (Frank Bruynbroek), is fresh out of jail and on her trail, too. One pursuer is a supernatural entity that feeds on life, hoping to reconnect with his lost love and be with her forever. The other is a truly evil man with nothing but malice in his heart, completely obsessed with Caroline and literally willing to do anything to have her life back under his control. Both men share a clarity of purpose, and they’re both willing to do horrific things on their way to Caroline. Since this is a romantic vampire tale, Jonathan is clearly intended as the heroic male, but I couldn’t really get into rooting for him. Caroline never asked for either man’s undying, obsessive love, so instead I hoped that she would transcend both of their desires and end the film as a powerful character living on her own.

The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes (1999)

The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes (1999)
AKA X-treme Teens

Starring Bryan Neal, Dara Hollingsworth, Timothy Bottoms, Dennis Haskins, Eric Jungmann, Dan Zukovic, Andrew Prine

Directed by Jeff Burr

Expectations: Moderate.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

You can’t argue that The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes isn’t a promising title for a B-movie. There’s something about it that screams B-movie fun in the classic ’50/’60s science fiction vein. X-ray vision is one of the staples of conversation on the schoolyard playground (or at least it was in the ’80s), so the subject will always make me fondly remember those days gone by. But when I look back, I don’t remember thinking too far beyond how “cool” x-ray vision would be, or the first couple of things I’d use it for. So to build a whole movie around it is to force me to think in this manner, and it’s not the kind of subject that holds up to scrutiny. And when the film in question is played fairly straight, without a wild sense of fun, x-ray vision becomes more of a hindrance than a benefit.

Yes, The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes is less fun that I hoped it would be, but it’s also a more competent movie than I expected. Jeff Burr has proved himself to be a talented director of some fantastic B-movies (Puppet Master 4, Mil Mascaras vs. the Aztec Mummy, and one of the best Moonbeam films: Phantom Town), so it’s not that I didn’t expect something worthwhile from him, it’s more that Moonbeam films are usually treading the fine B-movie line between fun and boring. The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes has parts that are fun, and parts that are boring, but it never commits to either so it doesn’t leave much of an impression.

Bleed (2002)

Starring Debbie Rochon, Danny Wolske, Allen Nabors, Orly Tepper, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Laura Nativo, Julie Strain, Brinke Stevens, Lloyd Kaufman

Directed by Devin Hamilton & Dennis Petersen

Expectations: Hopefully it doesn’t make my eyes bleed.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

I’m racking my brain for a way to best describe Bleed, but all I’m getting back is the EBS test tone, and that sure isn’t helping me think. Bleed is a poor excuse for a movie, but at the same time it’s an easy movie to get through. Not in a “so bad it’s good” way, it’s just paced well and it shows enough promise to assume it will get interesting. I didn’t like Bleed, but I definitely didn’t hate it either. I wouldn’t call it boring because I was genuinely engaged, but it’s ultimately vapid and not worth watching because it takes all that potential and blows it to oblivion in the final minutes. I’d almost rather be bored than disrespected like that!

Bleed opens with a couple of bros leaving a house party. One is dressed as a cheap streetwalker, the other a maid. They part ways, and soon after someone in all black wearing an expressionless white mask slices the hooker upwards from his balls to his collarbone. It’s surprisingly gory for a Full Moon film, with entrails spilling out of the wound, but don’t get too excited gorehounds. Besides this moment there isn’t much more, but it’s worth noting that what gore there is looks relatively good given the film’s probable very low budget.

Beach Babes from Beyond (1993)

BeachBabesfromBeyond_1 Starring Sarah Bellomo, Tamara Landry, Nicole Posey, Michael Todd Davis, Ken Steadman, Joe Estevez, Joey Travolta, Linnea Quigley, Burt Ward, Don Swayze, Jackie Stallone

Directed by David DeCoteau

Expectations: If I expect anything other than babes on a beach, I’m asking to be disappointed.

Estevez. Stallone. Swayze. Travolta. Names you know and love. Each one can carry a film on its own, but Beach Babes from Beyond contains them all… plus Burt Ward and Linnea Quigley! Beach Babes from Beyond was the first release from Full Moon’s off-shoot softcore comedy company Torchlight Entertainment, so they really brought out all the stops! The only catch is that the names belong to relatives of the stars you generally associate with them. So if you’ve ever wanted to see Patrick Swayze’s brother and Sylvester Stallone’s mom bickering in a spaceship cockpit, you’ve just found your movie!

Beach Babes from Beyond focuses on their daughter, Xena (Sarah Bellomo), and her friends Luna (Tamara Landry) and Sola (Nicole Posey). With Xena’s parents out of the house on holiday, the girls decide to take Xena’s dad’s prize “T-Bird ship” out for a joy ride, but wouldn’t ya know it, they crash land on Malibu beach! Meanwhile, Dave (Michael Todd Davis) and his friend Jerry (Ken Steadman) have come to the beach to visit Dave’s uncle Bud (Joe Estevez), in hopes of saving his beachfront home from redevelopment. The laws of film and nature demand that these male and female groups must come together for the greater good, and they do so with an insane amount of people wildly dancing on the beach and some sexy hilarity along the way!

Shadowzone (1990)

Starring David Beecroft, Louise Fletcher, James Hong, Frederick Flynn, Shawn Weatherly, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Lu Leonard, Maureen Flaherty, Robbie Rives

Directed by J.S. Cardone

Expectations: I’ve purposely put this one off for years, so that’s a good indicator of how good I think it’ll be.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Shadowzone is upfront about its influences, citing both Alien and The Thing right on its current poster at Full Moon Streaming. This is pretty bold for a low-budget movie that has no chance to match those films’ excellence, and it was one of the reasons why I stayed away from the film. I deeply love both Alien and The Thing — what self-respecting horror fan doesn’t? — so I had no interest in seeing a lesser version. As the pool of available Full Moon films dwindles, confronting Shadowzone was inevitable, and thankfully it wasn’t the painful experience I thought it might be.

At a remote and otherwise abandoned research facility, a man from NASA, Capt. Hickock (David Beecroft), arrives to investigate a death possibly caused by the project leads: Dr. Van Fleet (James Hong) and Dr. Erhardt (Louise Fletcher). The scientists are exploring the link between sleep and death, studying Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) by cutting the brain stem off from the brain… not literally, but through the blockage of electrical signals. Don’t worry if doesn’t make sense; I didn’t really get it, and I was watching the movie! The characters in Shadowzone talk so much scientific mumbo jumbo that it literally put me to sleep a couple of times.

Groom Lake (2002)

AKA The Visitor

Starring Dan Gauthier, Amy Acker, Tom Towles, William Shatner, Dick Van Patten, John Prosky, Dan Martin, Rickey Medlocke, Duane Whitaker, Brenda Bakke, J.T. Colosa, Debra Mayer, Chuck Williams

Directed by William Shatner

Expectations: I’m a big Star Trek fan, so I’m oddly and probably misguidedly excited for this one because of Shatner.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

There’s no way around it: Groom Lake is not a good movie. It fails at nearly every turn, in spite of having many intriguing elements with potential. Even if you do manage to care about the characters and what happens to them, nothing really comes together well enough to form a cohesive experience. I remember having similar feelings the last time I watched the Shatner-directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, so I suppose the two films together form some kind of evidence that if you’re not suited to the task of directing and telling stories visually, it doesn’t really matter how much money you have.

The film opens with a tow truck making its way over desert roads towards a butte. Mystical lights, similar to the Aurora Borealis, shimmer in the sky over his destination, and the driver, Dietz (Tom Towles), is intent on seeing just what the hell is up with all that. When he arrives, he jumps onto the back of his truck and approximates Arnold’s “I’m here! C’mon! Do it!” speech from Predator, telling the presumed alien ship, “I’m here, you son of a bitch!” The son-of-a-bitch alien does not respond; the lights merely dissipate and leave some sparkly residue on the man’s hands.