Moonbeam

Teen Sorcery (1999)

Starring A.J. Cook, Craig Olejnik, Lexa Doig, Aimée Castle, Nadia Litz, Anne Anglin, Ioana Cristescu

Directed by Victoria Muspratt

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Teen Sorcery is one of those movies that is predictable and cliched, but it’s enjoyable anyway. There’s no mystery to the plot — the audience is aware of what’s going on very early on — but somehow the film remains fun and engaging. I’ve got to credit this to a few things: the cast who all give fun performances as likeable characters (even the villains), the hilarious 1999 low-budget CG, and the “anything goes” B-Movie mentality giving us scenes like a Frisbee game in medieval times. I always enjoy the “America by way of Romania” setting the Moonbeam films usually carry, too. I could probably use all of those points to take the film to task, but where’s the fun in that? This is entertainment!

Dawn (A.J. Cook) is a high school kid moving from California to Pilgrimtown, Massachusetts. On the way to the new house, she falls asleep in the car. Seen through an extreme fish-eye lens, Dawn dreams of being trapped in a house. She eventually enters a large room where a girl sits tied to a chair with a burlap sack over her head. She removes the sack to find… HERSELF! Spooky! She runs away, but a witch attacks her and then turns into a spider. Does any of this foreshadow the film’s plot? No, not really (except the witch), but it sure is a fun way to open a movie!

Planet Patrol (1999)

Starring R.L. McMurry, Teal Marchande, Robert Garcia, Robert J. Ferrelli, Jeff Rector, Anthony Furlong, Alison Lohman, Candida Tolentino, J.W. Perra, Jon Simanton, Michael David, John Paul Fedele, Colin Campbell, Matt Corboy, John Williams

Directed by Russ Mazzolla

Expectations: I’m just hoping it’s at least better than Kraa! was.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Are you the kind of person whose attention span just can’t hang onto plot points for more than 20 minutes? Then Planet Patrol is the Full Moon movie for you! Edited from a few previous Full Moon films (Kraa! the Sea Monster, Doctor Mordrid, Subspecies & Robot Wars if you’re interested), Planet Patrol plays out like a weird pseudo-anthology film that attempts to tell one overarching story, but instead just feels like they spliced a bunch of shit from other movies together with a few mildly effective connecting scenes interspersed. Wonder why?

Planet Patrol begins in the same way that Kraa! the Sea Monster does — like exactly the same way — but the scene has been edited so that the evil plot hatched by the villains could literally be anything! So instead of leading into the events of Kraa!, we’re introduced to the Museum Planet AKA the museum from Doctor Mordrid. There the Planet Patrol get mixed up in a murder investigation involving a canister of dark goo, the Subspecies stealing the ~~Bloodstone~~ Pickory Stone, and the villain using said stone to conjure footage from Doctor Mordrid of the stop-motion dinosaur eating the guards. What’s a psychic Planet Patrol member to do in the face of such egregious crimes? Use her mind to bring the rest of the Doctor Mordrid footage to the screen, allowing the other dinosaur skeleton to come to life and battle the first, of course!

Aliens in the Wild, Wild West (1999)

Aliens in the Wild, Wild West (1999)
AKA Timeslingers

Starring Taylor Locke, Carly Pope, Barna Moricz, Markus Parilo, Gerry Quigley, Gloria Slade, George Ilie, Ovidiu Bucurenciu, Marcel Cobzariu, Marius Florea Vizante, Marioara Sterian, Mircea Constantinescu, Ion Haiduc

Directed by George Erschbamer

Expectations: Looking forward to it.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

As a kid did you ever wish for a movie that combined your love of westerns with your love of E.T.? If so, Aliens in the Wild, Wild West is the movie you’ve been hunting for! You may have happened upon it 20 years too late, but you’re only as old as you feel! So dust off those childhood fantasies and throw those suicidal thoughts away for the next 90 minutes, cuz we’re going back to the ~~wild west~~ wild, wild west!

Tom Johnson (Taylor Locke) is a kid obsessed with video. He carries a camera everywhere he goes, even strapping one to the front of his moped as he drives home from school. His sister Sara (Carly Pope) is the classic rebellious teenage girl, dating a dangerous rocker dude that her father firmly disapproves of. After a rather heated argument when Sara is brought home by a couple of cops (all videotaped with MTV VJ-style commentary by Tom), the head of the family decides that there’s only one thing to do in a situation like this. Unwavering discipline? Family counseling? A stiff drink on the rocks? Nope! Family vacation! Who wants to bet they’ll have a hair-raising adventure that ultimately brings them all closer together?

Teen Knight (1999)

Teen Knight (1999)
AKA Medieval Park

Starring Kris Lemche, Caterina Scorsone, Benjamin Plener, Paul Soles, Kimberly Pullis, Marc Robinson, Claudiu Trandafir, Dan Fintescu, Eugen Cristea, Sandu Mihai Gruia, Mihai Verbintschi

Directed by Phil Comeau

Expectations: Moderately high.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Are you looking for lackluster, boring sword fighting? How about a story mash-up of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Jurassic Park? Wizards throwing hadoukens? Ah ha! I knew that’d get your attention. Just don’t expect many hadoukens, because if I get you all fired up for a fantasy-based Street Fighter I’ll never hear the end of the disappointment I’ve brought into the world as thousands storm their local Redboxs in search of a nonexistent hadouken-filled film. But a few hadoukens is better than no hadoukens, right?

The film opens in the year 1383, as the evil Lord Raykin is rakin’ his yard. OK, he’s not rakin’ anything (other than Lord Raykin :)), but he is being thrown into a horse-drawn prison cart along with his evil wizard buddy. As you might expect an evil lord to do, he asks his wizard to get them out of yet another fine mess that he’s gotten them into. The wizard laments that their captors have stripped him of his amulets, he’s powerless, yadda yadda yadda. But then he whips out a magical jewel says a few words and shoots green lasers out of his eyes! So I guess he just needed to vent his frustration before showing the evil lord that he still had the juice. For reasons of world domination or general conquest or whatever, Lord Raykin desires the castle of Prince William. Now here’s where it gets really crazy. The evil wizard casts a spell to change the castle’s crest to Raykin’s, thus allowing them to call the castle back in time whenever he wants so that he can make one more attempt at becoming the king of the castle. Someone get this Raykin guy a medieval Lego set and call it a day.

Shapeshifter (1999)

Shapeshifter (1999)
AKA Shifter

Starring Paul Nolan, Bill MacDonald, Catherine Blythe, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Theodor Danetti, Serban Celea, George Ilie, Andrei Finti, Marioara Sterian

Directed by Philippe Browning

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

What do spies, gypsies, asteroids and shapeshifting have in common? Before watching Shapeshifter I would have said, “Nothing,” but now I know the truth. These disparate elements are actually all tied together in the grand scheme of life. While you go about your business brushing your teeth or walking your dog, there are people out there doing the big work, playing hypnotic new age music on glass bowls. And if that made no sense to you, don’t worry. It is not our place as common mortals to understand the work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure our lives are safe.

Shapeshifter starts out much more reserved, though, leaving the fantasy elements on the back burner and out of sight for the first 30 minutes. The story opens with a seemingly unrelated scene involving a gypsy kid picking up a fallen asteroid, but our tale truly begins when we meet Alex. His parents have recently quit the spy business and are moving back to the United States to enjoy the rest of their lives — or so they thought! The night they arrive, evildoers come by way of van and kidnap Alex’s parents! Good thing Alex was in the attic playing with his parents’ spy gear.

Phantom Town (1999)

Phantom Town (1999)
AKA Spooky Town

Starring John Patrick White, Taylor Locke, Lauren Summers, Jim Metzler, Belinda Montgomery, Gabriel Spahiu, Jimmy Herman, Jeff Burr, Iuliana Ciugulea, Dan Badarau

Directed by Jeff Burr

Expectations: Moderate.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Phantom Town may be a simple retelling of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers story, but it’s overwhelmingly well-made, and will please all the B-Movie fans in your household. One night, a bunch of home alone kids throw a massive party for their friends. When their mother calls to check on them, they freak out! Hey guys, scram! Mom’s coming home! But this freak-out is nothing compared to the fear that sets in when Mom and Dad’s phone call cuts short as they drive into the mysterious town of Long Hand. They never make it home, so the kids go out the next night to look for signs of what might have happened. Instead, they find the Last Chance Trading Post, where an old Native American man tells them that Long Hand has been gone for a hundred years, and the only way there is to dream your way in. Whoa, man, that’s so heavy!

As is tradition in the Moonbeam films, young children who watch the film will get what is perhaps their first tastes of many things. Things like: the dread of waking up and realizing that your parents are probably dead, the concept of taking matters into your own hands by jumping in a car and sneaking out on your current guardians, the idea that you have a soul and that it can be taken, the thin line that defines one’s mortality, the existential question of meaning… y’know, all the common playground topics. I don’t object to any of these as I’m not a parent, but I can imagine parents these days getting twisted about this stuff being in a supposed family film. If anything, I think it would help kids deal with their fears of soul-stealing alien cowboys, but what do I know?

The Secret Kingdom (1998)

The Secret Kingdom (1998)
AKA The Tiny Kingdom

Starring Billy O’Sullivan, Tricia Dickson, Andrew Ducote, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Jamieson Price, Andreea Macelaru, Florin Chiriac, Constantin Barbulescu, Bogdan Voda, Eugen Cristea

Directed by David Schmoeller

Expectations: Moderate.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Like many Moonbeam films, The Secret Kingdom starts out with a fun premise and then drives it into the ground. Well, in this case they drive it under the sink, and I really shouldn’t be that harsh. Most of The Secret Kingdom is unadulterated WTF fun. The film opens in New Orleans, and surprise, surprise — it’s actually New Orleans! Later, the film transitions to the Romanian locales you expect from this era of Full Moon, but the series of events that opens the film would be fantastic no matter where they were shot.

The Secret Kingdom starts with a boy in his early teens, staring at his toy horseman. He compares it to the statue of the horseman in the square in front of the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. He goes back to staring at the toy intently, and then walks around New Orleans. Some might call this the most exciting introductory scene to a movie ever, but I thought it went on for a ridiculous amount of time… long enough for me to think, “WHAT IS GOING ON?” Thankfully, it gets a lot more interesting, real fast. And by “interesting,” I mean that it dives deep into WTF territory.