(1990)
Dir - V.V. Dachin Hsu/Michael W. Leighton
Overall: MEH
An independent American film, shot in Hong Kong, and serving as the directorial debut forV.V. Dachin Hsu and Michael W. Leighton, (both of whom would only get behind the lens one or two more times in their careers for anything feature-length), Pale Blood is a bit of an oddity in the direct-to-video horror market. George Chakiris, (who would retire from film acting for eleven years after this), spends most of the movie being rather emotionless except for when he succumbs to bizarre, slow motion, waking nightmares or something. There is also a weirdo/creep/photographer guy, (played with scenery-chewing efficiency by Wings Hauser), that is not the most logical behaving character in the world. It is all rather vague as the movie takes a trippy, psychological approach to vampire mythos that is interesting if not altogether iron-clad in its conception. The mostly schlock-less tone carries some of its unfulfilled ambition along though and the heavy, blue-lit cinematography is appropriately moody. California punk band Agent Orange and their unsettling looking, wide-eyed lead singer also appear playing the same song about several hundred times, though their repertoire here is more in line with New Wavy Goth rock, fittingly so.
(1992)
Dir - Rafal Zielinski
Overall: MEH
Boasting a ridiculous premise that is not remotely taken seriously, Spellcaster is another goofball horror film that Charles Band's production company can take the blame for. Filmed in 1988 yet not released until four years later, frequent Stuart Gordon collaborators Dennis Paolli and Charles Bogel penned the screenplay involving a treasure hunt staged as a not-MTV publicity move, all inside of a castle owned and operated by an eccentric probably-Satan who picks everyone off in increasingly random supernatural ways. Again, nothing to take remotely serious. As is apparently required for slasher-tinged movies, practically all of the characters are one-dimensional, obnoxious fuck-wads so that we can cheer whenever they get violently attacked by zombies, monster chairs, or puppets coming out of a suite of animated armor. Canadian director Rafal Zielinski helps to keep everything on the campy trek and all of the haunted house amusement park cliches piled on top of each other have everyone screaming, fainting, teasing, falling in love, (or if they are the fat one), turning into a werepig-demon thing. Also, Adam Ant shows up for a couple of seconds at the very end, trading in his trademark pirate jacket for a standard tuxedo, crystal ball, and set of devil horns.
(1996)
Dir - Eric Red
Overall: MEH
The second directorial effort to fall into the horror genre for screenwriter Eric Red, Bad Moon is not the most riveting of werewolf movies out there, balancing some weak plotting and "boy and his dog" motifs rather blandly. An adaptation of Wayne Smith's novel Thor which was from the perspective of a family's German Shepherd dos not strictly adhere to such a concept, bu it does spend a significant amount of its running time with characters either staring down the dog or telling it to stop barking and come inside the house. The self-referential trope is used of people watching a horror movie on TV that features the same monster in the movie that they are in, which provides the chance for Michael Paré's bitten character to explain that a full moon does not matter in this particular universe as far as when such lycanthropian tendencies fully take hold. Hilariously though, the film in question that they are watching, (Universal's Werewolf of London), predates the full moon concept altogether, but considering that they went with the title Bad Moon here in the first place, whatever. The animatronic werewolf effects look pretty good though, even if the digital transformation scene very much does not.
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