Review: Moonchild (2-disc: Blu-ray + CD Soundtrack Edition)

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2022
Images from the Internet

Moonchild
Directed by Todd Sheets
Visual Vengeance; Wild Eye Releasing; Jackalope Media; Extreme Entertainment; MVD Entertainment
102 minutes, 1994 / 2022
www.wildeyereleasing.com
www.MVDEntertainment.com/
Director Todd Sheets was known early in his career as a fantastical yet grainy cult-god filmmaker. After a health scare, he came back stronger than ever, with the likes of Clownado (2019), Bonehill Road (2017), Dreaming Purple Neon (2016), and House of Forbidden Secrets (2013).   

This film, however, is from his early cult days, and is well-beloved by his followers. Honestly, I have never seen it till now, like much of his early work, so I am looking forward to checking it out. This was originally shot on sVHS, so it is grainy, but this release was taken from the master tape by Sheets himself. This is the first time it has been released on Blu-ray.

Auggi Alverez

In much like the Mad Max franchise, we are introduced to a dystopian future of the Chicago area (though filmed in Kansas City) where a group called Sodality (meaning “Brotherhood” or “Community”; also, a devotional association of Roman Catholic laity) run the dictatorial government of the United Nations of America; I guess more like Gilead but almost post-apocalyptic as we see a run-down city that drives cars from the 1970s and ‘80s (it was released in 1994, so it makes sense in that way). Sodality is run by Kronos (Tom Berg), a blubbery too-white guy (think of 1971’s The Omega Man) who has 666 drawn onto his body.

Government scientists have an inner-city compound where they experiment on creating super soldiers, such as one who is a cyborg whose outer clothes makes him look a bit like a cockroach (sans extra limbs, but adds a body chainsaw). He is one of three of these hybrids that are in search of our protagonist, Jacob Stryker (Auggi Alvarez).

Dave Miller

Stryker is also a hybrid, but has retained his consciousness. He escapes from the Republicans…I mean the Sodality. He is in search of his son, Ethan (Stefan Hilts), who is being held captive somewhere. And while he is on the run after an action scene right at the start, he manages to hook up with the underground, run by Talon (Dave Miller), who mostly dress like the Arrakisians in Dune, with scarfs and hooded robes. Speaking of which, you know Stryker is the hero because of his knee-length, open military jacket (belonging to Alverez’s dad), reminiscent of The Matrix franchise.

After his experimentation results, Stryker can also turn into a semi-werewolf-like creature, hence the title, though it’s a misnomer, even though he does not need the moon to actually “change.” He’s more like The Hulk in that he turns when he is angry or in a fight. Oh, and did I mention there is a bomb in his stomach scheduled to go off in 72 hours? How Snake Pliskin!

Kathleen McSweeney, Rebecka Rose

He sets off with new love interest (his wife was killed) that took less than a day, Athena (Kathleen McSweeney) and some others: Talon, boppy Weasel (Kyrie King), Rocky (Julie King), and Teela (Rebecka Rose). From this point it is more or less a travelogue where they meet different groups, each one dresses alike within the group. Quite like The Warriors (1979).

It is worth noting that despite the low budget, the sets are amazing, the lighting and shadows work well, and the editing is spot on.

Carol Barta

Now, as for extras, oh my god, there are so many. This may take days to get through. It starts with two commentaries. The first is with Todd Sheets and star Auggi Alverez. These two are friends, and their commentary is easy and breezy, yet still informative. I really enjoyed this one. The other commentary is Sheets and Rob Hauschild of Visual Vengeance, who released the Blu-ray. That’s right, if you watch the film and the commentaries, it’s like watching the film three times. The second one is a bit more of a technical view, details on filming process, and Sheets’ career, but it is interesting for those who like this side of the method. There is very little overlap with the other commentary, which is worth a note. While this Blu-ray is the Director’s Cut, it also Includes the alternate VHS version of Moonchild as originally released, I respectfully bowed out of watching it a fourth time.

The first featurette is the documentary, “Wolf Moon Rising: The Making of Moonchild” (32 min). This is archival footage including an entire newscast about the production, backstage scenes and the creation of the music. There is no narration, just some interviews with the cast at crew at the time of filming. And speaking of “back then,” this is followed by “Original BTS Casts and Crew Interviews” (9 min) that is pure candy. The “Deleted Ending” is an extra fight scene, but honestly, the film’s ending as it stands now is much better.

The first of the last two biggies is the short film “Sanguinary Desires” (1988, I believe; 13 min), where a group of people are offered $10K to spend the night in this series of rooms, but of course, as the title indicates, there is lots of blood and guts involved as they meet up with various forms of the undead. Will any survive? The second, of course, is the additional disc that is the soundtrack of the film, which is quite good, including the expected synth pieces and the orchestrated songs as well. Worth a listen.

Then there are others like the original VHS trailer and one for one of my fave Sheets releases, Bonehill Road (another werewolf film), a music video by death metal band Descension of “Burn the Church,” and other Visual Vengeance trailers (including the new one for this film), which always plays whenever you put in the disc, and English subtitles upon request.

On the non-digital side, there is a reversible sleeve featuring the original VHS art, a four-page liner notes booklet by Matt Desiderio of “Horror Boobs,” stick your own VHS sticker sheet, and a folded mini-poster

One point in the full film that confuses me is that the terribly intentionally overacting bounty hunters, especially Lothos (Harry Rose) and Medusa (Carol Barta) from the Sodality – It reminds me of the villains from the old “The Power Rangers” series – seem desperate and will use any method to catch Stryker, but if he had a bomb inside of him, why bother, as he will be dead in a couple of days? Also, the fight choreography is kind of funky, and there is a lot of it. But my big bugaboo about the film is not enough transformations. But then again on the good side, it is important to remember how low-budget this was, and some mental leeway has to give way for the zeitgeist of the film as a whole.

All-in-all, though, this was a fun ride, from beginning to end. But I can totally understand why it is a cult classic, and rightfully so, in my opinion.

IMDB listing HERE

Review: Kiss Kiss

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019

Images from the Internet

Kiss Kiss

Directed by Dallas King

Red Rabbit Pictures / Cleopatra Entertainment / MVD Entertainment

99 minutes, 2019

www.cleopatra-entertainment.com

www.mvdb2b.com

Oh, Jeez.

I have oft touted that when a film takes a group of different tropes or clichés and mixes them all together, something new and interesting can be sired. But other times, if it doesn’t go deep enough, it becomes plebeian and ho-hum. That being said, it also depends on what the tropes are and of what interests they include whether it is on the side of interesting or blasé.

Take this film for example. You have a military conspiracy to create a better soldier through chemistry. This is hardly anything new, going back as far off the top of my head to Captain America. Another here is women-on-women violence and love/sex, from lesbianism to Mixed Martial Arts. In bikinis of course. In the real world, there’s the women’s football league where they play the game in underwear; this is a similar idea and I am willing to bet influenced this story. Now, MMA is after my time. I used to love boxing and wrestling (I’m old enough to say I was a huge Bruno Sammartino [d. 2018] and Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini fan), and I’ve seen a few MMA matches on the telly, but I’ve kinda grown out of it.

Natasha Hopkins

In the first act of the film (i.e., the beginning 20 minutes) we meet four friends who are exotic dancers… excuse me, “ladies” (as one character insists), since we see sensual movements, but no nudity. They get an invite to a wine tasting, which turns into wine drinking (have the writers never been to a wine tasting, where you sniff and sip but don’t swallow?), which turns into a cocaine frenzy, and to no one’s surprise, a drug-fueled kidnapping by the military.

Y’see, the US military is trying to make stronger and controllable soldiers, so of course they use barely dressed women dancers as their sample group. Say what? Under the control of this drug, they fight other women and, to no surprise, each other, to the death.

Here is a reason why I found this annoying: there is no antagonist for nearly any of the actual fights. The women are just punching up each other. If there were an enemy, such as Russians, Chinese, Koreans, Syrians, whatever, it would be easy to take sides and the fighting might be fun and give you someone to boo or cheer for; here, it’s just our four friends and a few random women with no backstory – not that there’s much of that for anyone other than two of our heroines who are lovers; not inclusive to either each other or gender, as this fantasy was written by men (same issue I had with 1997’s Chasing Amy).

The writing is quite basic with no great lines or witty plot lines; even the double-crosses can be seen coming due to lazy scripting. The filmmaking tries to be arty but looks more like a Cinemax softcore porn shoot (told ya I was old) thanks to the lighting and the editing, and the acting basically consists of anger – even before the drugs are administered – and growling. Also, all the fighting and the sex scenes are filmed the same way, with colorful lights and slo-mo. Many shots of the action and the onlookers looks like it could have been lifted directly out of the hardcore sex film Café Flesh (1982).

Tamra Dae

All the women have silly names, like Kiss (star of the film, Natasha Hopkins), Treasure, Kurious, Fortune, Dream and Promise aka Tia (Aunt?). Yeah, the bad guy/head of the army program is mostly just called Gibson (Robert Wagner playing a stereotype), but at least he is given real dialogue, relatively speaking, other than, “No! Please!” and “Grrrrrrrr” (note that a lion’s growl is added over the sound of the participant’s scream).

With a mild spoiler alert here, to give you an example of the attitude of the film which is obviously geared towards teen boys and incels, we are presented a male character who has no trouble or punishment for abusing these women by making them fight to the death, but it is only until he is responsible for the death of another male does he get some comeuppance. Ugh.

Lots of extras come with this DVD. The first up is “The Origin Story: An Homage to ‘Alice in Wonderland’” (13:05): At the beginning, director King explains how he equates the characters and events comparing it to “Alice,” and it somewhat makes sense in a very loose way, but then he says, “The theme of this film is about women’s independence.” What?!?! By having them literally shackled and forced to fight to the death? Where is this, Alabama? Anyway, most of the rest of this featurette is about how the film came about and the envisioning of each character, and is somewhat interesting, even if its ideology is kind of twisted around.

Robert Wagner

Next, “The Kiss Style: Lights, Make-up and More,” is just about that, though mostly about make-up, which is understandable considering each woman wears her own style of war paint

(appropriation? I won’t go there now). At least this is short (5:48). More interesting considering the nature of the film as it makes sense, “It’s Fight Night: Choreography in Action,” is a bit longer than the others (18:36). This is quite satisfying in that way in that the director and choreographer describe how each fighter is different. Again, no problem with the fights per se, it’s the motivation behind it that irked me. Then there is “Confessions of a Director: Director’s Chair Perspective” (8:11). This is kind of a Making Of, except the whole focus – even the interviews with the crew – is about the director. Whatever, it comes across as a mass ego piece.

The seven brief Deleted Scenes were right to be excised. They are mostly under a minute and don’t really add anything to the story. The Dossier and Stills choicer gives the contact info for the cast and crew, and 3:05 of stills of the cast and film, over music. We are also given the trailer and a bunch of other cool Cleopatra coming attractions.

Of course, the centerpiece is the commentaries. The first one is with the Director King and actor/Producer Wagner. They discuss each scene in some detail as they turn up and yet manage not to get too deep about what they meant by the particular shot, and other anecdotes (“That horse barn was really there, we didn’t build it”). There is a second commentary by King and the Director of Photography, but I’m just burned out by this and my interest is on my next review. That tells you something about this film.

I came away from the film feeling annoyed more than being filled with ennui (it’s certainly not boring) but maybe I’m too old for its market subject. And I happen to like both a good story and to think – even with a cheesy film – while the action is going on.