90's American Horror Part Forty-Two

MERIDIAN: KISS OF THE BEAST

(1990)
Dir - Charles Band
Overall: MEH

After the planned anthology film Pulse Pounders failed to get released, Charles Band's next directorial venture was the quasi-Beauty and the Beast reworking Meridian: Kiss of the Beast, (The Ravaging, Phantoms). Dropping mere days after Twin Peaks first aired, it features Sherilyn Fenn in the lead as the lady of a castle in Italy that holds a bizarre supernatural secret involving mysterious circus performers and twin brothers who do the whole "one of them is good, one of them not so good" deal. Considering that both siblings seduce and rape Fenn and her best friend, neither of these dashing charmers are exclusively in the "good" camp. Of course because melodrama though, Fenn falls in immortal love with one of them which puts her in a conundrum to end his ancient suffering of turning into a big hairy monster on the regular. The makeup work is solid and brings to mind Gary Oldman's bestial form in Bram Stoker's Dracula two years later, plus Band takes a noticeably less jacked-up, cornball approach to his own material, instead maintaining a romantic mood throughout. Unfortunately though, the story hinges on weak footing and meanders too much to stay of interest, so it only remains memorable for those who want to see some cool monster makeup and Fenn in her birthday suite.

WARLOCK: THE ARMAGEDDON

(1993)

Dir - Anthony Hickox

Overall: WOOF

 

For the unrelated sequel to 1989's Warlock, Warlock: The Armageddon finds director Anthony Hickox taking over for Steve Miner, with Julian Sands returning as a different title character to chew the scenery accordingly.  Whereas the initial movie established and followed its own time traveling/good vs evil rules, the script here by Kevin Rock seems to make it up as it goes along, particularly where Sands' bad guy is concerned whose supernatural powers are laughably arbitrary and only serve whatever purpose the plot needs in order to move things forward.  Such laughably lazy, "wait, what?" narrative hacks may appease schlock enthusiasts while causing endless eyeball rolls for others, but the overall stupidity is egregious.  Stylistically it is just big, loud, and non-stop camp, except the kind of camp done on a noticeably insufficient budget that bites off more than it can chew.  Hickox overuses ADR and keeps the camera busy with split diopter shots left and right, but the special effects are embarrassing at best and the story regularly detours into syrupy drama involving local yokels, town bullies, teenage love, and training sequences that get in the way of Sands just doing whatever wacky, evil thing the screenplay tells him to.  It will either make you give up halfway through as to rethink your viewing choices or have you howling with laughter at what a braindead mess it is.

 

THE GLASSHEAD

(1998)

Dir - Matthew S. Smith

Overall: WOOF

Cinematographer Matthew S. Smith decided to make his own barely full-length movie as director with the frustrating crud rock The Glasshead.  Shot in black and white on either Super 8 film or what is made to look like Super 8 film, one or two scenes are surprisingly atmospheric compared to the predominant amount of them that accurately showcase the primitive, student movie aesthetic which makes the best out of the no money that Smith had to work with.  The overall presentation though is sink-in-your-seat embarrassing.  Performance wise, it is catastrophically poor and large portions are narrated as awkwardly as the rest of the dialog is performed, all giving it the feel of an accidental parody of equally wooden and melodramatic posturing.  Story-wise, it is just as laughably stupid, concerning some dipshit college kids who run into a guy we never see, (presumably the title monster?), who ADRs the entire middle of the movie in flashback.  Everyone on screen is annoying, dumb, or just an asshole, the sound design is uneven at best, the pacing is sluggish, various hand-held shots are done in pitch blackness, the editing is disjointed, the finale seems to have been taken from a completely different movie, and once again, the acting is next level atrocious, to the point where you just feel awful for how many people are making a complete fool of themselves here.