Tag Archives: Charles Band

Good for Mankind is also EVIL for Greed! “Mandroid” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Mandroid” Blu-ray Now Available!

Scientists Dr. Karl Zimmer and his colleague Ivan Drago work in Russia to invent and perfect a humanoid android that uses the converted energy, labeled as SuperCon, from a unique fungus, that has endless potential and possibilities, to power it while controlling the android through a cerebral VR dashboard.  While Zimmer has plans to help humanity with the SuperCon project, Drago has other greedy plans to sell to the highest bidder, in this case the U.S. Government for military grade weaponization.  When Drago steals the mechanized android, he doesn’t have the SuperCon formula to fully complete the sale.  A CIA operative, Zimmer and his daughter, and a U.S scientist sent to validate the SuperCon and android for US. Government use work together to stop Drago who has gone mad with greed and disfigured by the highly radioactive converted energy as nothing will stop him from obtaining the full mandroid package he helped to create. 

A Full Moon produced science fiction that really tones down the campiness to the point where the film doesn’t feel like a typical Charles Band production.  “Mandroid” is the 1993 mecha action-thriller from Swedish director Jack Ersgård (“The Visitors,) and penned by the Charles Band payrolled screenwriters Jack Cannon (“Robot Wars,” “Seedpeople”) and C. Courtney Joyner (“Trancers III,” “Puppet Master III:  Toulon’s Revenge”) under a pair of pennames, Jackson Barr and Earl Keaton.  “Madroid” would be the first of a two-film arc that uses secondary story elements of the “Mandroid” narrative to setup a parallel sequel or companion pieces entitled “Invisible:  The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight” that’s also directed by Ersgard and written by Joyner, creating a perfect double bill for Full Moon.  Charles Band has sole executive producer credit alongside the Romanian producers, a husband and wife team of Vlad and Oana Paunescu, at their studio and production umbrella of Castel Film, located in Romania and a frequent collaborator with the presenting Full Moon company credited with “Subspecies II and III” and “Trancers 4 and 5” to name a few titles.

“Mandroid” acting favors more of the no-nonsense and serious tone for as science-fiction VR-controlled super android thriller set in Russia.  Brian Cousins is credited as the lead playing Wade, an American scientist hired by the U.S. Government to validate the SuperCon project under Dr. Zimmer and Drago but I find Cousins’ character lacks the charisma and the screen time to be unrivaled, sharing, or better thought as being oppugn, the feature prominence with the villain Drago who overshadows him considerably with the wonderfully USSR-trite performance by the late “Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory” and “The Entity” actor Curt Lowens.  Lowens brings to Drago the quintessential bad guy charm with the quintessential bad guy scarred looks as he exploits opportunities for personal gain and even using fear to evoke a homeless, Soviet-enthusiast mute (Ion Haiduc, “Bloodstone:  Subspecies II”) to be his henchman.  Their flaws inherently make them villains against a team of scientist, consisting of Wade and Dr. Zimmer (Robert Symonds, “The Exorcist”), his daughter Zanna (Jane Caldwell), and assistant Benjamin (Michael Della Femina, “Invisible:  The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight”) working together to achieve greatness for mankind, the benevolent and noble act.  The last principal piece of the puzzle is CIA agent Joe who’s not very tech savvy and may have more dubious reasons for his representation of the U.S. Government.  Cladded in a leather/faux leather jacket and tan slacks, as well as sporting a rugged 5 o’clock shadow, director Jack Ersgård’s brother, Patrik Ersgård (“The Visitor”), does not look like your conventional CIA agent to add a layer of unresolved mystery around him and to make him dangerous to either side of the good vs evil spectrum, but one thing is for certain about Ersgård character is his cunningness and courage.   Costel Constantin, Mircea Albusecu, and Adrian Pintea provide the Romania support cast to flesh out “Mandroid’s” merciless cold attire.

Less carnivalesque, less campy, and light on the pint-sized killers than most Full Moon productions, “Mandroid” has the seriousness of an early Stuard Gordon x Full Moon collaboration, aesthetically backed with darker tones, infused practical bloody imagery with some compositional VFX, and delivered signed and sealed by distinct and solid performances.  The SuperCon plot device is early days  man-in-a-suit backed by radioactive mushrooms that sound trippy when described out loud but Jack Ersgård subverts the idea’s potential faults and creates an atmosphere of intensity that sees large explosions, plenty of period costuming (Cold War era reminiscent) and is even able to secure SWAT armored vehicles and plenty of interesting, dilapidated locations that, from at least the U.S. perspective, feel like Mother Russia.  Whether a progressive highlight or an expectational fault, depending on the kind of person you ask, “Mandroid” does not contain nudity that can be savored from most of Full Moon’s catalogue; sorry readers but super blonde Jane Caldwell is not only the sole woman in the story but she’s very much clothed all the way through without a smidgen of sexy promiscuity.  The whole quasi-biological, man-and-machine affair represents the actual entertaining and creative storytelling side of Band’s company that has veteran actors mixing it up with up-and-comers to square dance around a radiative weapon of mass destruction tale. 

Full Moon Features remasters “Mandroid” from the original 35mm negative, scanned 2K with a high-definition, 1080p resolution, onto an AVC encoded BD25.  The end result is nothing far from an excellence reproduction that cleans up and clears out the inherent nuisances with standard definition DVD and VHS tape.  There’s a bit of a polished look upgrade that enhances great richness to shadows yet still picks up finer detail points that would have been missed through a lower resolution.  The overall detail is soft because of the nature of the lighting aesthetic that casts a soft glow of ethereal in a cold war era scenario while still maintaining an austere and raw sense of soviet times except with a red flare, “Mandroid” graded with blue.  “Mandroid” Blu-ray is presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  There are two English audio options available:  Dolby 2.0 Stereo and a Dolby Digital 5.1.  The lossy format is typical compression used by Full Moon and while it offers an adequate soundtrack, it does not boost up reproducing fidelity deserving for “Mandroid” explosive and highly active narrative with plenty of sound effects.  Dialogue is favored nicely and balanced with the action along with the atypical for Full Moon non-carnivalesque score by David Arkenstone (“Murdercycle”).  No compression or original audio track issues with little-to-no interference on the inlaid dialogue.  Special features include the original videozone advert, the original feature trailer, and other Full Moon original releases.  The standard Amaray Blu-ray case contains the original artwork and spined at number 88.  Full Moon’s “Mandroid” is rated R, has a runtime of 80 minutes, and is region free.

Last Rite: “Mandroid” is proof that Full Moon wasn’t always skirting by as they are today with cast, talent, and budget. For fans of Full Moon of yore, “Mandroid” is a serious title to be taken seriously, especially with a new Blu-ray release!

“Mandroid” Blu-ray Now Available!

Sex-Crazed EVIL Goes to an All-Girl School! “Delinquent School Girls” reviewed! (VCI Entertainment / Dual Format Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Delinquent School Girls” on Blu-ray and DVD from VCI Entertainment!

Three insane asylum inmates incarcerated for their perversive and deviant acts escape their small confines of a cell and the electroshock abuse.  On the run, the people they encounter to pillage what they need find themselves either enamored with them in drink and spirit as well as the initially force exploitative intercourse that becomes more pleasurable and desired.  When they invade the outskirts of an all-girls private school, they stumble upon an elder biology professor taking advantage of a roofied young admirer, two busty kitchen cooks giving them only minor trouble before having their way them, and two poolside lasses eager to be pleased.  When they encounter what remains of the student body left behind on holiday leave in the gymnasium, the group of voluptuous young women are subjected to the whims of the maniacs before they fight back with their learned karate lessons as they spill out of their karate uwagi jackets. 

There’s no decade genre that can more outrageous and controversial than the scantily-cladded, seventies exploitation and Greg Corarito’s 1975 “Delinquent School Girls” fits the bill with sexed-up prison escapees finding themselves fleeing into the sheltering arms of half-naked and promiscuously feisty schoolgirls.  Also known around the world as “Carnal Madness,” and more selectively, alternatively titled as “The Love Maniacs,” “The Sizzlers,” and “Bad Girls,” the film is a mix between sexploitation and crude comedy, penned by the American B-movie and pornographic director of “The Sadistic Hypnotist” and “Hard on the Trail” Corarito and alongside fellow adult oriented filmmaker John Lamb (“The Starlets”) and Maurice Smith (“The Joys of Jezebell,” “Love, Swedish Style”).  Riding the Russ Meyer gravy train of slapstick sleaze and high energy antics, Smith and Lamb also serve as producers of the film that was shot under by Alpha Productions in Santa Barbara, California. 

Not to be taken overly seriously, despite its licentious context of male prisoners holding hostage and raping women, “Delinquent School Girls” isn’t centrically focused on the schoolgirls although the title suggests as such.  The attention is mostly set on the three fugitives absconding from law enforcement and these are not just any prisoners; these are demented sex maniacs.  While the label is perversely provoking, only one of them is truly aberrant in his hunt for the opposite sex.  Being more of the muscle and the muscular brute of the group is Bob Minor (“Coffy,” “Foxy Brown”).  A regular actor in early blaxploitation, Minor indulges his character Dick Peters’ sexual deviancies by nearly bedding every woman he encounters and compares himself to being God’s sexual gift to women.  Of course, the women love it because they’re either sexually repressed by low libido men or just naïve and horny.  Peters is not however the leader of the pack, a position taken with great ostentation and theatrical direction by the demanding Carl C. Clooney who talks a good act of deviancy but never really follows through with any carnality.   Clooney is played by Michael Pataki who we just reviewed as a Marlon Brando impersonator in the “The Last Tango in Paris’ sex-spoof, “The Last Foxtrot in Burbank,” directed by debuting Charles Band.  Pataki does a fair share of impersonations but none really home in on a certain celeb, but he uses his farcical approach to be the pack leader that calls the shots and reins in a randy Peters with absurd choice considering their fugitive state.  The last of the trio is Stephen Stucker, who you might recognize from the “Airplane” spoof movies as the flamboyant air traffic controller with his trademark androgynous voice and mannerisms, playing the “gay man” of the group and has zilch sexual aggression or desires toward the women.  Considering the female cast there’s isn’t one that stands out as a full-fledged protagonist in what is more of a collective effort amongst the troupe, beginning with some slightly more principal leads in porn star Colleen Brennan, a busy and fiery redhead who takes no crap from a male dominated society.  Before full transitioning to the adult industry with such titles as “Daisy Chain,” “Maid in Manhattan,” and “Tower of Power,” Brennan was at the cusp of sexploitation with genre films like Russ Meyer’s “Supervixens” and Stu Segalls “The Dirty Dolls.”   Promiscuous women flow left-and-right through the entirety of “Delinquent Schoolgirls” with other notable performances from Zoe Grant, Debbie Raymond, Brenda Miller, Jane Steele, Betty Johnson, Valerie Anderson, Kay Lange, Doree Vega, and nude model with large bombshell breasts, Roberta Pedon.  Ralph Campbell (“Hollywood 90028”) and John Carpenter regular peripheral actor George ‘Buck’ Flower also co-star

“Delinquent School Girls” is pervy but not grossly over-the-top in its sexploitation subgenre.  To counter the depravity and objectification, there’s theatrical melodramatics and plenty of comedy to offset a lopsided licentiousness.  Dick Peters provides the perversion, Carl C. Clooney provides the excessive, madman performance, and Bruce Wilson, played by Stucker, is a riot of feminine mannerisms and one-liners without being an oversized caricature of a gay man on screen.  The trio is almost like a ruffian version of the Three Stooges without the eye-poking, forehead slapping, hair pulling slapstick.  Clooney and gang are also a traversal entity, meaning they travel from their escaped holding cells to the school for troubled girls in a when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object scenario as the escapees run-through and overcome all obstacles in their path – an old man and his sexually frustrated wife, a roofie slipping biology teacher and his unconscious pupil, two feisty kitchen maids – until they meet the school age women in the middle of nightly karate class nonetheless.  That’s where the buck stop and the rebellion against the convict’s joyride comes to halt and in the middle is all the sullied interactions that kind of wind up being turned onto a corrected head – the sexually frustrated wife gets her fill while the husband gets amiably drunk with the two holding him hostage, the roofied girl is saved from a snake stimulated biology teacher and rapist, and the two kitchen maids happily share meal around a card table after being ravaged with no complaints.  While contextually the subject matter can be dark and sharp, “Delinquent School Girls” has a good-natured attitude about the whole ordeal that makes this emotional calorie intake all the lighter. 

Jumping jack jugs that spill right out, upskirts of high school schoolgirl outfits, and plenty of long-legged, bare-chest exposure, “Delinquent School Girls” bares the mark of sexploitation with pride and caters to a comedy that neutralizes the often shame audiences that comes with bleak and hard to swallow the exploitation of a slew of sexpot ladies in the film.  The first film on the Psychotronica label from VCI Entertainment, “Delinquent School Girls” arrives on a 2-dsic, dual-formatted, DVD and Blu-ray set.  The AVC encoded BD25 has a 1080p, high-definition resolution and the DVD is MPEG2 encoded DVD5 with an upscaled 720p standard definition.  The Blu-ray edges out the DVD counterpart with better clarity around the often congested in variables and in the restored 4K scanned transfer of the original 35mm negative that never provides a consistent detail quality or color.  Some cells appear yellowish, others are often speckled by blow up, a few has lighter contrasts that bleed and meld objects, but there are more scenes of well-delineated and detailed-oriented scenes that granular specifics on skin and textures.  Night sequences are hit-or-miss with a chiaroscuro lighting of key areas, such as Roberta Pedon’s extremely large and oval shaped breasts.  VCI transfer does it’s best to refine the cheaply and does a good job reconditioning previous home video versions, retaining healthy grain, some speckling, and little-to-no damage or compression follies.  The uncompressed English track, a LPCM 2.0 mono, is centered inlaid and focused but discerns any ensuing chaos well enough to provide distinct entities without being a cacophony.  Dialogue comes over clear and distinct; we get some real nice clarity and vocal difference from the three very contrasting convicts with their personalities.  There’s not in the depth or range department as medium shots are often overlaid with voiceover dialogue and range is limited to the Foley wallops of kicks and punches.  English subtitles are optional available on each disc.  Special features are included on each disc as well and they include an archived commentary by actor Bob minor with Los Angeles-based documentarian Elijah Drenner hosting, Pscyhotronica:  Dive into Cult Cinema featurette, and original trailers for the film.  The release comes in a traditional Blu-ray Amaray with reversible sleeve artwork containing pieces of original artwork.  Both discs are region free for the rated R release that has a softcore runtime of 89 minutes.

Last Rites: A comedy first with perversities as a secondary, “Delinquent School Girls” is a gambol of a good time in its eccentric and wanton unprincipled behaviors, saturated with feminine succulence and dastardly deviance.

“Delinquent School Girls” on Blu-ray and DVD from VCI Entertainment!

A Homosexual Hooks Up with a Porn Star and Treats Her EVILLY Sleazy. “The Last Foxtrot in Burbank” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Last Foxtrot in Burbank” Finally Recognized by Charles Band and Full Moon Features!

In the fictious setting of Burbank, France, a distraught and wandering Paul grieves over the loss of his gay, drag queen lover.  Wallowing in despair as well as barely entertaining his lover’s mother, Paul is on a half-hearted hunt for a new apartment and runs into Jeannine when the two meet looking at the same rental.  A mostly sexualized relationship ensues at the apartment with Paul treating the beautiful French woman and aspiring adult star like a piece of meat in a homosexual way, stemmed by his inadequacies in bed.  Jeanne, becoming fed up with Paul’s obsessive and polarizing behavior during their romantic tryst, lashes out in various ways, one as a gun-toting adult starlet that makes shooting scenes with her all that more dangerous to one’s health.  Paul’s health too becomes a target as Jeanne’s ultimate distaste for his floundering and obsessive ways, especially in condemning her pornographic lifestyle.

“The Last Foxtrot in Burback” is a film Charles Band (“Puppet Master”) desperately tried to erase and forget along with then newcomer editor, “Halloween’s” John Carpenter, as both filmmakers disassociated and disavowed its existed because of a couple reasons:  1) the romantic satirical spoof was not a horror/sci-fiction film both of them wanted to make at the time and 2) audiences were not appreciating it’s parodical and fleshy colored luster.  The film it removes inspirational humorous bones from is Marlon Brando’s “The Last Tango in Paris,” helmed by Bernardo Bertolucci who is dug a path of steamy sexual dramas, including “Stealing Beauty” and “The Dreamers.”  “The Last Foxtrot in Burbank” aimed to capitalize on its 1972 pushing-the-boundaries of sexualization success with writers Bill Haggard and Sam Vaughn behind the screenplay pages.  Band produced the film with filming held in Los Angeles and Marc Perilli serving as executive producer under the Federal Film Incorporation.

In his best Marlon Brando impersonation, Michael Pataki (“Halloween 4:  The Return of Michael Myers,” “The Baby”) opens his pastiche performance with hyperbole and flamboyance to emulate his version Paul to Brando’s version of Paul while still dishing the Brando-isms and deliveries.  Pataki also opens his trench coat to open-faced frontal nudity.  Yet, the one who is mostly nude is Sherry Denton in the role of Frenchwoman Jeanne.  Her role does harness the same essence of “The Last Tango in Pari’s” Maria Schneider, making Denton’s Jenne harder to define as she absorbs Paul’s verbal and emotional abuse, as she contemplates their arranged sexual rendezvous against her emotional withstand all, and how she manages a life in the adult industry as a sex object that runs parallel with being too a sex object outside the profession.  Pataki and Denton’s scenes together resemble that of a mother humoring a spoiled child.  Denton’s rather levelheaded compared to a full-blown exaggeration of Marton Brando in Michael Pataki with acute yelling spats and irrational sex requests that bleed into pleading and disappointment on a childish person of imprudence.  The gut punch of obsession, desire, and more refined melodrama is lost within Band’s spoof in a combination of bad writing and missed opportunities to sell the performances.  While this version of “The Last Foxtrot in Burbank” is not the pornographic scene splice in version, the actors still must be comfortable with each other in the story’s requirement of genitalia proximity and exposure as some scenes can be often graphic in its simulation of sex as well as be humiliating.  The cast rounds out with Merlouch Drabin, Sally Marr (“Young Lust”), Simmy Bow, and I. William Quinn (“Alligator”).

Supposedly, “The Last Foxtrot in Burbank” is a shot-for-shot spoof but Charles Band’s picture has jagged edges around a nonconformist narrative whereas “The Last Tango in Paris” abides by more linear storytelling.  The gags are not particular funny unless you’ve seen the Brando film and have a puerile sense of humor, but even then, the gags are terribly heavy fisted in a strive to really make light of sexual casualness and obsession in a conduit of Brando’s mumble and gravelly discord with the occasional outburst of hyperbolic flair.  For those who haven’t seen the Brando film, “The Last Foxtrot in Burbank” will be totally lost without a reference, especially the France set story shows it’s budget with the English-laden business and directional signs that play into the running gag of the fictious city that combines Burbank, California and Paris, France.   One could see why Charles Band and John Carpenter wanted to disassociate and distance themselves from this film but for both filmmakers, it’s a significant first film that kind of redirected their career paths when they knew comedy, such as this one, wasn’t their forte.  Charles Band even went as far as destroying all copies of the film and changing his name to a pseudonym, Carlo Bokino, to erase all involvement but he unsuccessful and a print was discovered unphased by his attempts to eradicate all known evidence.  Today, Band accepts his first film and even catalogue’s it with a No. 0 on the spine that makes it official Charlie canon. 

The first official and unofficial film of Charles Band’s career comes to Blu-ray home video from Band’s Full Moon Features in an unlikely genre release from the horror and science fiction regular.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 comes uncut and uncensored, transferred from an original negative donated from the UCLA archives under an anonymous donor.  Not much is stated here about what kind of a transfer we’re treated but the 2K scan appears adequate with a freshened image with moderate color saturation and details.  There are times the image appearance has a slightly faded realism, similar to that of William Friedkin’s “The French Connection” where details can be soft at times and ungraded.  Most scenes are better than not with palpable textures around more closeups and medium shots.  Skin tones are little more on the orange side, likely due to the chemical dye in the exposure that has an orange base which results in a natural, fringed tint.  The Blu-ray is presented in a widescreen aspect ratio 1.78:1.  Audio comes with an English LPCM 5.1 and a Stereo 2.0.  Both audio formats provide a crisp track of a dialogue, ambience, and what soundtrack is present, but the surround sound does little to enhance the film with its lack of off-camera or multi-directional scenes with mostly centered performances by the actors and not a ton of action.  The stereo 2.0 suffices.  No hissing or crackling present and the interference is kept to a suitable minimum to digest all its wacky dialogue.  The physical presence of Full Moon’s Blu-ray runs the same course as the others with a standard Amaray Blu-ray case and single-sided sleeve art with no other tangible attributes.  The nearly full-bodied orange colored sleeve mirrors “The Last Tango in Paris’” art to an extent and Full Moon uses stills with nudity on the back cover as an added perk.  The 56 minute Blu-ray, shorter because the cut of the hardcore inserts, is rated R and unlocked for multi-region playback. 

Last Rites: “The Last Foxtrot in Burbank” is a hard sell with its flat lampooning of “The Last Tango in Paris.” A handful of sleaze to be had but there’s nothing more cringy than watching histrionics for an extremely niche market.

“The Last Foxtrot in Burbank” Finally Recognized by Charles Band and Full Moon Features!

Invincible-Seeking EVIL Loves to Hide Behind Strip Clubs! “Decadent Evil 2” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Sequel “Decadent EVIL II” Bites Hard! Check It Out!

After barely surviving Morella, Dex and Sugar, along with carrying around the homunculous Marvin, traverse across the country to find a vampire master.  Their plan is to take a drop of his blood needed for a resurrection ritual to bring vampire hunter and Marvin’s son Ivan Burroughs back to life after sacrificing himself to stop the deadly, megalomaniac Morella.  Ivan’s golden tracking cross brings them to midwestern gentleman’s club full of possible seedy suspects as the master vampire – the vampiric-attributed club owner Janos, the stern and scary club manager Burke, or even the club’s beautiful top dancer Lena are all suspects.  To uncover the master vampire, Dex and Sugar work their way to being hired at the club in order to snoop around.  Meanwhile, dancers and customers are winding up dead nearby.  As the investigation continues, Dex, Sugar, Marvin, and even the undead Ivan must work together to find the master vampire and stop him from continuing what Morella started. 

“Decadent Evil II” is a direct sequel to the 2005 original that returns Full Moon founder Charles Band (“Puppet Master”) to the director’s chair and writer Domonic Muir to pen the follow-up.  Same vampire tricks, more topless strippers, and a ragtag team of vampire trackers has this 2007 subsequent feature feel like a heel biter by keeping the story going without a lot of time lapsed.  Band retains his personal interest in pint size creatures and nude women in the sequel while keeping costs down as much as possible with limited locations and special effects fields filled in mostly with strippers doing their routines in between.  Band also returns as producer alongside Bill Barton (“Blood Forest”) and Joe Magna (“Dangerous Worry Dolls”) with James Synder, Jon Morrey, and Dana K. Harrloe serving executive producer under Band’s Wizard Entertainment, now Full Moon Productions.

Jill Michelle and Daniel Lennox return to their respective roles of being a vampire-human love story couple, Sugar and Dex.  No longer hiding secrets from one another and on-the-road together, going from one dingy hotel to the next, the carry around the corpses of Ivan Burroughs in hopes to one day resurrect him by securing master vampire blood.  Ivan Burroughs, unfortunately, is played by a new actor, one who in my opinion is an upgrade from the already great Phil Fondacaro (“Land of the Dead”).  Ricardo Gil replaces Fondacaro as the vampire hunter with a vindictive vendetta.  Gil does have similar features to Fondacaro but has more personality in his delivery, making Ivan Burroughs more sarcastic and rougher around the edges than the first subdued portrayal with less snarkiness, and that gives the sequel more notability against the first film.  The vampire lot doubles in villainy with a master vampire purposing sporting his beastly side of a red vampire bat head, complete with pointy airs, conical snout, and elongated fangs, and which, in all honesty, makes him look more like the Prince of Darkness of traditional appearance.  The master vampire hides amongst the human pool of the gentleman’s club to mist the air with mystery of who it is with a suspect list including a club owner Janos (Jon-Paul Gates, “Alice in Terrorland”), club’s top stripper Lena (Jessica Morris, “The Haunted Casino”), and club manager Burke (James C. Burns, “A Haunting at Silver Falls”).  Mike Muscat, Lillie Nyx, and Rory Williamson make up the rest of the cast.

“Decadent Evil II” is comparable to the original film with both being watermarked by Charles Band need for small creatures, campy horror, and substantial number of topless women, the latter being more prominently risky in the sequel with extra suggestive stripper poses that focus on the crotch area to lay gingerly into that filmmaking golden role of bigger and better for a sequel.  “Decadent Evil II” does teeter that idea with also a doubled antagonist pool and a higher body count but not necessarily containing, and also being a sorely lack of, gore that more-or-less stays the same from the original film with a rivulet trickles of blood running down necks and chins.   Band and Muir do take the vampire out of the Gothic setting, one that Morella had resided herself into living at a mansion of marble and stone, and they trade it for an automotive junkyard, an ill-fitting home for a well-dressed vampire whose lived centuries in human culture.  One locale that has remained constant throughout both Band’s films are strip clubs and channeling the success of such gentleman’s club with bloodsuckers as “From Dusk till Dawn, both films prominently display them with great grandeur for the B-roll stripper moves.  With being a sequel, I held quite a bit of disappointment for the story that follows the same thematics as the first, the main being a singular master vampire garnering souls to become invincible and there’s nothing to accentuate that idea even further as it’s surrounded by, again, much of the same – Dex, Sugar, and Ivan, the inexplicable homonculous and his strange attributes, and a strip clubs.  Even the final scene remains familiarity with instead of Marvin making love to another homunculous, he makes doggy love to a full-size person in a cringy and uncomfortable last scene moment.

Charles Band’s “Decadent Evil II” receives it’s Hi-Def Blu-ray as a part of a long and arduous of converting Full Moon’s films to Blu-ray.  The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD25 offers Full Moon’s catalogued 239 title a new pixel perspective of a saturated color palette inside its darker shaded tone.  The details are mediocre as much of the finer points are lost in low light, gel lighting, and haze but the compressions aim to be stable without any artefacts to note on lowest capacity Blu-ray.  Plenty of inky and less visible delineating contrast is a credit to the gaffing and director of photography Terrance Ryker for a soap opera-noir aesthetic.  For the first time ever, the film is presented in HD in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  The audio options are an English LPCM 5.1 surround and a stereo 2.0 that caters to District 78’s alternative, indie rock during the club sequences but elucidates and livens up the dialogue to where nothing obstructed with ambiguity.  Hardly any depth to the sound design as characters never wade beyond medium shots and range is limited to mostly the dialogue track along with imitation actions one would see in a low budget production or cartoon.  English subtitles are not available on the Blu-ray.  Extra features include a behind-the-scenes, a 42-minute featurette Battle of the Bands with a little stroll down memory lane for Charles Band as well as musical ventures for the film, stripper auditions for the Visions Night Club, the original trailer, and Full Moon trailers.  The physical presence is much of the same from Full Moon with a standard Blu-ray Amaray with relatively new artwork focusing on the homunculous rather than the vampires.  The sleeve is one sided with no inserts inside.  The region free Blu-ray has a runtime of 81 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: Like stuck on repeat, “Decadent Evil II” doesn’t offer a different type of narrative but ups the amount of nudity and vampires without much formidability in this lackluster sequel.

The Sequel “Decadent EVIL II” Bites Hard! Check It Out!

EVIL’s Vampiric Power Over the Homunculus is Short Lived! “Decadent Evil” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Remastered “Decadent Evil” is now on Blu-ray!

An evil vampiric bloodline has stretched from Europe to U.S., specially in the Los Angeles area, where Morella, a centuries year old master vampire, collects the blood of innocent victims and she requires just one more soul to fulfill a prophecy to be the most powerful and invincible vampire ever.  Morella is so cruel she even transformed her once lover into a homunculus, a scaly and green shrunken humanoid, to keep as a caged pet.  When two of Morella’s thralls are uncovered working at a strip club by a dwarf vampire hunter with a grudge, she finds obtaining the last soul to be challenging, especially when one of her subservient vampires, Sugar, is against the whole bloodsucking attribute and falls in love with the strip club DJ.  With Sugar, the DJ, the homunculus, and the vampire hunter standing in her way of total immortality of godlike proportions, Morella has little allies in her corner but has the majority of evil power behind her ancestral lineage. 

An early 2000’s Anne Rice facsimile, “Decadent Evil” is Charles Band and Full Moon’s other Gothically romantic infused vampire feature behind “Subspecies” and “The Vampire Journals,” which are technically all part of the same “Subspecies” universe in one way or another.   The “Puppet Master” and “Trancers” cult filmmaker helms the 2005 low-budget feature and cowrites it alongside a staple Full Moon screenwriter Domonic Weir (“Evil Bong”) in what would be one of Weir’s first feature length films for the longtime genre producing company after gifting the horror community with a “Critters” screenplay in 1986.  After a few minor re-writings of Hong Kong actioners for an English dub, Weir returns to horror with Full Moon and indulges Band on his diminutive obsession with tiny terrors.  And what may you ask is the small creature in a sexy-slathered vampire flick?  A homunculus is written into the story, of course!  Band produces “Decadent Evil” not under Full Moon but Wizard Entertainment in collaboration with Shoot Productions and Astonishing Features with Jeremy Gordon and Jethro Rothe-Kushel as association producers on the Los Angeles based shoot. 

The prologue backstory of “Decadent Evil” can be misleading as to who the main characters will be with a restructured, recut introduction made from bits and pieces of scenes of “The Vampire Jounrals,” another Full Moon production, that uses a power Euro male vampire bloodline as the basis for Morella’s L.A. homebase of operations, which include the ying yang, naughty and nice, vampiric sisters, Sugar and Spyce.  “Blood Dolls” and “Prison of the Dead’s” Debra Mayer, a late 1990’s scream queen for about a decade and half until her eventual departure from acting, plays the head vampire in charge Morella with a firm grip on her subservient thrall, the angsty and gothic-inclined Spyce (Raelyn Hennessee, “Cutter’s Club”) and the sweet-and-innocence exuding Sugar (Jill Michelle, “Erotic Secrets”).  The sisters go through the motions of obedience but to an extent with Sugar basically disavowing her vampire blood in hopes for a romance relationship with her strip club’s DJ Dex (Daniel Lennox, “The Black Magic”) and Spyce pushes the limits of her own control, like a teenager testing their parents, by drinking the blood of those meant for Morella’s grand power count.  With a 67-minute runtime, “Decadent Evil” doesn’t have the minutes to really explore the characters that force the actors to be plain, act plain, and never be anything more than plain.  Even Phil Fondacaro, the headlining star and most recognizable face of the troupe, must purge backstory in a flash upon his acute introduction mid-way through.  The “Willow” and “Ghoulies II” actor is a vengeful vampire hunter after his father falls victim to Morella.  April Gilbert (“The Butcher”), Roger Toussaint (“Illicit Dreams”), John F. Schaeffer, and, of course, it wouldn’t be a Charles Band picture without a half-naked adult film star in Harmony Rose who goes topless for the cause. 

Locally shot near the company home base of Los Angeles, full of either Full Moon actors or greenhorn actors, little-to-no budget for practical or computer generated effects, a runtime of under an hour, and the tacking on of “The Vampire Journals” at the beginning to extend the length to just that under the hour mark is a true show of low-budget colors from Charles Band and Full Moon.  The premise of Morella becoming an omnipotent vampire through a scrapbook collection of pure blood is a solid enough premise that is unfortunately not explored enough to become invested, turning this Full Moon venture into what it has become over the last couple of decade, a feast of female-casted eye candy and fatigued nostalgia without implementing anything new to the vampire or horror genre.  There’s also the matter of the homunculus that becomes a centerpiece and eventually tops as the main motif that hangs around in a bird cage and perversely has eyes for blood while simultaneously carrying around a major libido with scenes of molesting and raping involving the pint size creature.  The whole idea is a bit off, added to sate Charles Band’s fascination of with small creatures, and only adds mild interest in its development through the story which ends in a perversion of slapstick that, again, doesn’t fit, this time in the narrative tone. 

Full Moon continues to upgrade their catalogue, and the “Decadent Evil” films are the latest to be AVC encoded onto a BD25 with a remastered, high-def, 1080p, resolution for the first time ever in HD with a transfer scan form the original 35mm negative.   The early 2000 film sustains a fair amount of its 35mm charm despite most companies flocking to the less expensive digital format and this helps retain a richer saturation and an organically bold image that accentuates the hardlines and elaborately dressed gothic interiors and the smoke-filled darkness of the strip club.  The rest of the settings are standard fair, but the focus is within Morella’s L.A. mansion that has a mistress vampire’s touch.  The digitized conversion and the upgrade in pixels have cleaned up the image some but hasn’t exactly wowed with impressive measure as the details often fluctuate outside stylized lighting and smoke.  There’s often superb, granule detail on the homunculus’s shiny wet gland-filled dermis and deep contoured bone structure in the obvious puppet’s face and head.  The English audio comes with a couple of uncompressed formats with an PCM 5.1 and a 2.0 Stereo.  The 5.1 is more than enough for dialogue, soundtrack, and the ambient environment, though the latter is more for immediate focal points rather than the natural course of surroundings.  For instance, the homunculus’s heavy breathing and slippery skin provide characteristics to the already unique character but since much of the narrative is held indoors in a still mansion, there’s not much to the audio atmospherics, and even the strip club is doused with a rock track that swallows any other diegetic and nondiegetic noise.  Dialogue prominently in front but can struggle with depth in the 5.1 mix that often doesn’t pick it up; there’s better discernibility within the dual channel that maintains a front forward audio rather than trying to diffuse the already distance stilted audio.  “Decadent Evil’s” soundtrack is less carnivalesque than other Full Moon productions because Richard Band is not at the orchestrator helm, providing “Deathbed” composer James T. Sale’s soap opera Gothicism and playful low-tones more opportunities to flourish with this campy vampy film.  Extra features include a behind-the-scenes with snip interviews with the cast, a blooper reel, the original trailer, and other preview trailers from Full Moon Features.  The physical release mirrors much from the same line of DVD to Blu-ray upgrades with standard Amaray case.  The one-sided sleeve art illustration is new, which is a fine collage of characters, yet is uncredited.  There’s no inserts or other tangible extras on this region free, 74-minute, unrated vampire indulger. 

Last Rites: Fans of Full Moon’s “Subspecies” and ‘The Vampire Journals” will find “Decadent Evil” to stagger in its more modern affiliation with a meek story having little-to-no bite, favoring more the shorter stints of an arbitrary homunculus inclusion and Phil Fondacaro’s flyby hunter.

The Remastered “Decadent Evil” is now on Blu-ray!