House of Ghosts (2012)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: Saint Euphoria Pictures

Runtime: 77 mins

Format: DVD

Plot: Rich socialites have a tradition of throwing exclusive dinner parties. This time, while stuck inside during a massive 'snowstorm of the century', they've booked a spiritual medium who promises to open a portal to the great beyond. Can the group survive the night or will ignoring the medium's warning be the last thing they ever do?

Review: House of Ghosts is the 7th movie in the line-up of movies by Christopher R. Mihm, the maestro of new old, good bad movies from what's been dubbed by fans as the Mihmiverse. This micro-budget series also includes such greats as The Monster of Phantom Lake, It Came From Another World!, Cave Women on Mars, Terror From Beneath The Earth, Destination: Outer Space, and Attack of the Moon Zombies, all taking place in the same universe but mostly stand-alone from one another other then recurring side characters and the occasional throw-back to a previous movie. All are done in black and white and as a nifty love-filled throwback to the classic 1950s Drive-In B-Movies of old, so if that kind of stuff is your thing than you really can't go wrong with a Christopher R. Mihm film.

I couldn't sleep last night so I decided to throw on the next Mihmiverse movie, during which I realized it switched over across the midnight mark while in the middle of watching, making House of Ghosts the first movie I officially watched for Halloween 2013 and those circumstances could not have been more fitting. So this review is my Halloween treat to all my readers! Also, this movie totally failed as a cure for not being able to sleep... and as for exactly why, just continue reading!

To start, this entry in the Mihmiverse was done in the style of a classic William Castle horror movie (the original House on Haunted Hill, the original 13 Ghosts, The Tingler, ect), and it also came complete with Alfred Hitchcock-style intro opening with Christopher R. Mihm himself introducing the film in front of a total white background, and in a hilariously campy, yet oddly enthralling, way gave a great foreboding warning to the viewer that what they are about to witness is unnatural. He even offers a bit of a cheesy gimmick item as is par for the case of a William Castle movie. And as if that stuff didn't already set the tone right out of the gate, this intro also had some great creepy subliminal messaging going on during it, which actually continued at various strategically-timed moments throughout the movie for optimum uneasiness.

For this movie, our main cast of quirky characters are all fancy, proper, rich, snobby socialites that have gathered together for a dinner party when they decide to have a bit of fun with contacting spirits on 'the other side' when they get trapped in for the night due to a massive snowstorm outside. Right off the bat, Christopher R. Mihm has set the tone perfectly for this movie as I love horror movies that take place during snowstorms. Snow in general seems to always add an extra level of atmosphere and tension to a horror movie and I'm not really sure why. Even in not-so-good ones it manages to raise the atmosphere up a couple notches, especially if the snow is currently falling in said scene (I'm still waiting for a Friday the 13th movie set at Crystal Lake during the winter – I think that would be pretty damn awesome to see). Atmosphere aside, it was also a great and simple excuse to keep everyone stuck in the house all night, unable to leave during the terrifying events that end up taking place (and the one person who does try it anyway ends up freezing to death out there). I also really loved that once the experiment to open the portal to the Beyond 'failed' (or so they thought, anyway) and everyone starts going their own ways in the house, that's when the mysterious unexplainable events start happening and it kind of turned into a nice Scooby-Doo style mystery of people going missing (or eventually outright dying), and the characters having to band together and figure out if one of the missing people was really behind the events, trying to scare everyone for some sure-to-be-explained evil reason, or is it really supernatural forces that had been let loose? I'm not going to say which one it was, but it certainly had be guessing, second-guessing, and even third-guessing myself right up to the very end.

The entire package here really was genuinely creepy and unnerving at times, and that totally separates this from all the previous Mihmiverse movies that came before, which were mostly all played up for laughs (not to worry though, as there are still a few hilarious moments sprinkled throughout). I'm not really sure if it was due to the fact that I was watching this after the midnight hour when everything seems extra-creepy anyway, or if it was because of the subliminal messaging that kept popping up, or if it was actually just that good at being creepy, or a combination of all those things, but whatever the case was it worked. Despite being able to, at all times, see the purposeful cheapness of the effects (The living skeleton is clearly plastic, the excellently-crafted demon skull is clearly a rubber latex mask, the killer spider horde is clearly rubber spiders on strings) yet the scenes which deal with each of those things (and other creepy goodies I have not yet mentioned) still manage to get your heart racing and leave you about this close to clutching the armrest of your couch. I know all the Mihmiverse movies are made with families kept in mind, and that a lot of people are sharing these movies with their kids, but I honestly would recommend watching this one yourself first to see if your younger kids can handle it. I only give that recommendation because I'm a long-time horror vet and even I was fairly spooked and on-edge for parts of this movie, and found myself damn near in a panic attack come the zombie-infested climax. The fact that this is a B-Movie, on a micro-budget, that's purposefully-campy and cheesy aside...Christopher R. Mihm (and all involved for that matter) did one hell of a great job with the spooky atmosphere with this one, making this the perfect movie for me to be watching as the clocks moved us into the witching hour and having it officially be Halloween.

Oh, and in true William Castle style, there's a nice twist ending as well, which I kind of suspected there would be and spent parts of the movie trying to figure out exactly what it would be, but I'm glad to report that it's totally not something you'll easily be able to see coming and it certainly took me by surprise.

This entry is no different than the previous Mihmiverse movies in that it is filled with tons of familiar actors of the Mihmiverse, however they're all playing brand new characters this go-around. Sadly the one sour point I have with this movie is that none of these new characters were really likeable much, or memorable. That's not a knock against the actors as they all played the rolls perfectly, and I understand the entire point of these characters are that they're rich snobs and by extension unrelatable and unlikable, but I really could have done with something in their character traits to latch onto and find likeable (Mike Cook's character started to get there by the end). As it stands, I was actually looking forward to seeing every single one of these characters get taken out, and unfortunately none of them will really stick out in my memory quite like the majority of previous characters in this universe have.

What I did like with these characters though, were despite being new characters they still had some nice connections to previous characters of the series: The very original movie, The Monster of Phantom Lake, got a really great throw-back in that one of the characters here is actually the mother of the crazy hermit from that movie that ended up becoming the title monster, and you just know that with such a connection in a movie dealing with ghosts and the afterlife that the Algae Monster itself would thus be making a nice little cameo appearance. Michael Kaiser (the man under pretty much every monster suit in this series) also popped in for a cameo as either a relative of his cop character from Terror From Beneath The Earth, or as that exact character. Admittedly, I don't remember his character's name from that movie so I'm a bit fuzzy there as to which one it is, but either way I enjoyed the connection to that movie. Finally, there was a briefcase held by a character that I can't really go into any detail of without going into a bit of spoiler territory, but if you pay close attention there's a great connection with that briefcase to the previous movie, Attack of the Moon Zombies (even with just that little bit, I fear I gave away a bit too much). So despite all the characters being new to the series, and I doubt we'll ever see most (if any) again, there are still some strong connections tying this entry in with the other movies of the series.

As is expected with by this point with all movies in the Mihmiverse, this self-produced DVD is stacked right up with tons of excellent bonus content. There's a Blooper Reel that is admittedly a bit shorter than most of the other ones but is still laugh-out-loud hilarious (seriously, by this point I almost look forward to the side-splittingly funny outtakes almost more then I do the movie itself because they're always a great treat to watch directly after the movie), a pretty funny Alternate Ending that fans of Attack of the Moon Zombies like me are sure to love but I'm personally glad they didn't go that route as it would have ruined the flow of the atmospheric mood that the movie had set so perfectly, a trailer for the movie in addition to trailers for some previous movies in the Mihmiverse, a Photo Gallery of tons of Behind-the-Scenes photos, an introduction to the film by Horror Host Dr. Ivan Cryptosis, a Featurette on the actual real house that they filmed this movie in which was owned by recurring Mihmiverse actress Sid Korpi and her husband, and the usual informative full length Audio Commentaries, one by just Christopher R. Mihm by himself and a second one where he's joined by costume designer and SFX artist Mitch Gonzales and Behind the Scenes extraordinaire Cherie “Rhuby” Gallinati who anyone that listens to the Mihmiverse Bonfire Podcast will instantly recognize the voice of.

I honestly can't think of a more fitting movie to have broken in Halloween 2013 with, nor of a more perfect tribute to William Castle. Even as a long-time horror vet, House of Ghosts had me near full-on having a panic attack by the end and I wouldn't ask it to be any other way! The more serious spooktacular nature of this entry makes it quite unique from all previous Mihmiverse movies, and I think it just might fit in perfectly as the newest entry of my Annual Halloween movie Line-Up each year.

Seeing as how most of the advertising for these movies come from simple word of mouth from the fans, than if you do check his stuff out and enjoy it please help get the word out there on these movies and hopefully we can snag in a few other fans that may not even realize these exist. You can order these on DVD (and even BluRay for this movie and the following one!) over at his official site which is filled with all sorts of other goodies as well (including a monthly newsletter in addition to a very laid back, yet fun and informative, podcast). Hell, there's even an excellent deal on right now – Buy Three Movies, Get One Free, which seeing as how there's currently eight of these titles, if you do that twice then that is the perfect way to catch up with all of them and in the end save some dough – that's how I did it.

Suffice to say, this movie did absolutely nothing to cure my sleep troubles last night, and it pretty much had me on edge to the point where I ended up just staying awake until the sun came up - Happy Halloween everyone!

9/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Skinwalker Ranch (2013)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: DeepStudios

Runtime: 80 mins

Format: Itunes

Plot: A scientific research team investigates and documents the supernatural phenomena surrounding the disappearance of a cattle rancher's 10 year-old son. Inspired by true events that shocked the paranormal community around the world.

Review: I always say in my reviews how much I love the Found Footage genre, in theory (I enjoy the concept immensely, but of course there are always some major stinkers like with every sub-genre). What I haven’t talked about though, but those who know me in real life already know quite well, is that I'm also obsessed with alien abduction and UFO movies (and the whole real-life phenomenon in general, really). There have been some great ones in my time – Fire in the Sky, Incident in Lake County, Dark Skies, and SyFy's 20 hour mini-series Taken are but a few examples of my favorites, however there have also been some major crap out there – The 4th Kind, The Forgotten, and Communion to name a few (I know that last one is a controversial opinion, but while I loved the book, I found the movie boring as shit).

Skinwalker Ranch is a real-life location I'm quite familiar with via my own researching and readings, but it's also been showcased on plenty of popular paranormal TV shows as well, so anybody who is even remotely interested in this topic probably already knows all about it, but for those who don't it's a cattle ranch and accompanying large property in Utah that seems to be the epicenter of just about every kind of supernatural activity you can think of: Ghosts and spirits, werewolves, Sasquatch, aliens and UFOs, chupacabras – you name it, this place has history with it, and a lot of it is not just word of mouth but there has been quite a lot of documented evidence for some of these things as well. I actually had no idea a movie was being made based around this location and it's weird events until last week, and I still had no idea it was due out this soon until I started seeing it listed on Itunes and other VOD services this morning, so since I love the topic and since Halloween is tomorrow, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity for a Halloween-themed night of watching what seemed to be a creepy found footage movie in Skinwalker Ranch and then posting up a review of it as a Halloween treat to all my readers!

Within the first several minutes I was surprised to see so many recognizable faces in this movie. Most of them are names you probably wouldn't know to hear them, but their faces you would automatically recognize, mostly as recurring guest spots from various TV shows. The one that stood out to me the most though was the inclusion of Erin Cahill, who I know best from the classic Time Force season of Power Rangers (one of the better seasons), as the Pink Ranger and leader of that season's team. Sadly, this kind of casting actually works against the movie. Being a Found Footage movie, it's entire gimmick rests on giving you the illusion that it's actual footage from a real event, played up even more by the unneeded opening text scrawl that explains how, where, and why this 'lost' footage was found. That entire illusion is totally undone by filling your cast with familiar faces that you can pinpoint from any number of popular TV shows and bit parts in famous movies. It also hurts that, Erin Cahill aside, the acting is surprisingly atrocious and comes across exactly as that – ACTING. Right off the bat, these two aspects completely take you out of the moment of pretty much any given scene and ruin the illusion that the movie sets out to attempt by being a Found Footage flick.

Unfortunately, even if those two aspects had been done right, the movie still wouldn't have been very good. Another 'Golden Rule' of Found Footage movies that Skinwalker Ranch not only breaks but utterly destroys, is that there's absolutely no subtlety, escalation or build-up to any of what happens here. By 15 minutes in they just dump you into the thick of the attempted-creepiness with no build-up or warning whatsoever, and thus it looses so much of its impact. And that seems to just be a hint of how this movie would continue to conduct itself during its entire runtime. There's a reason you wait all movie to see the shark in Jaws or the raptors in Jurassic Park. There's a reason that Paranormal Activity waits so long to actually start showing you some paranormal activity and then when it finally does, it's only little bits here and there, until it slowly builds up to an all-out assault on the senses for a total nerve-wracking final fifteen minutes. This movie has none of that build-up, it just drops you into the thick of it early-on and then kind of stays on that level for the next hour and a bit, without escalating the scares at all; This movie did not get the chance to be nearly as effective as it wanted to be or should have been by deciding to skip that slow build.

Another perfect example of this is during one scene you see a fully-formed ghostly figure of a boy walk by one of the cameras, with no heart-pounding build-up or subtlety about it whatsoever. In a Paranormal Activity movie you'd probably get a door slowly creaking open on its own in the background behind the character that they don't notice, and a slight shadow flicker that you may or may not have seen. Here, it's just: BAM, in your face full-bodied apparition Ghost Boy walking by the camera with no subtlety to be found. Now repeat that kind of approach for pretty much every 'scare' in the movie.

There are a few small aspects I enjoyed though, that I wish had been used in a better movie instead of wasted in this one. The research team that is the focus of the movie, I enjoyed the fact that it was made up of people from totally different professions and backgrounds, i.e. not just some ghost-hunting paranormal research group, but experts in their own various fields of study that come together to help figure out what's going on. In addition to that I also loved the inclusion of parts of this taking place during a thunder storm. It's only a small thing, but it goes a long way to adding an extra layer of atmosphere, and it's something that, oddly enough, is rarely incorporated by Found Footage movies, which considering how easy of a mood-setter thunderstorms are, you'd think they would be the go-to atmosphere device for cheap Found Footage flicks. There's also a short portion of the movie that centers around a werewolf-like beast creature, and I love me some werewolf action so suffice to say I enjoyed that part a bit (but even then, that portion was undone by the terrible cheap-looking cave system that was very obviously a quickly-made movie set and didn't look like real cave walls in any manner), and I am glad that it came back and played a part in the climax action.

Other then those things...um...well I suppose the movie, on a whole, looked nice in terms of visual style and came across very polished (I'm sure it'll really pop nicely on BluRay) and it also did a good job of keeping the motion sickness effect in check, so if that kind of thing normally bothers you than you should be fine for that with this one for the most part.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

I've seen a lot of my peers over the last day or so praising Skinwalker Ranch up and down the wazoo, and personally I just don't understand it at all. In my eyes it's nowhere near deserving of the praise I'm seeing everywhere for it, especially when these very same people have bashed Paranormal Activity and countless other Found Footage movies that I personally think are done way better than this.

If you want a Found Footage movie that actually works hard at trying to take you out of the proper mood that it needs you in, this is the one you should check out. Otherwise, I highly recommend you give Skinwalker Ranch a skip. If you want a creepy and atmospheric Found Footage movie that will actually have your nerves doing loop-de-loops, just shoot me a message and I can recommend a good few titles that are all way better than this giant heap of a disappointment.

2/10  rooms in the Psych Ward

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Big Ass Spider (2013)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: Epic Pictures Group

Runtime: 80 mins

Format: Itunes

Plot: A giant mutant spider escapes from a military lab and goes on a rampage through the city of Los Angeles. When a massive military strike fails, it is up to one clever exterminator to kill the creature before its eggs hatch and the city is overran with hundreds of mutant spiders.

Review: I'm a very vocal person when it comes to my annoyance with the overabundance of Shark movies in the B-Movie genre as of late. Surely the majority of them could have still essentially been the exact same movie with a different killer animal, so why not switch it up a bit and get some variety out there? That's why I've been doing my bit to help promote other corners of the killer animal B-Movie market that seem to have a shot at giving the sharks a run for their money. Dinosaur flicks have been putting up a good fight these last couple years with movies like Area 407, The Dinosaur Project, Jurassic Attack, Age of Dinosaurs, and the upcoming flicks Poseidon Rex, Jurassic Block, and the very long-awaited Raptor Ranch.

On the flip side, the other animal also doing it's part to dethrone the shark is the spider, with recent movies like Camel Spiders, Arachnoquake, Spiders 3D, Christopher R Mihm's 2013 movie The Giant Spider, and now this Tremors-esque monster comedy Big Ass Spider (previously known as Mega Spider), so when I had the opportunity recently to catch and review Big Ass Spider, of course I jumped at it (and not away from it, like I would a real big ass spider, hahaha).

Big Ass Spider has Matt Parkman from Heroes (I'm keeping the Heroes love alive!), or rather his real-world name of Greg Grunberg as everyone else not still-obsessed with keeping the Heroes love alive calls him, front and center as the main character that we follow around. He's an exterminator that specializes in spiders and after getting hurt doing a Pro Bono job on his day off, goes to the hospital where shortly after, a slightly larger-than-normal spider kills a patient and he offers to track it down and kill it in exchange for his ridiculously high medical bill to be wiped. Throughout the movie he battles not just this abnormally large arachnid, but also something just as difficult – woman troubles. The guy is as unlucky in love as they come, however it's not for lack of trying...almost too much...but always with the expected hilarious results.

Helping him to track down this spider, he teams up with a side-splittingly idiotic hospital security guard, Jose, who totally steals the movie every time he opens his mouth. The guy acts tough when he's not, repeats everything Greg Grunberg says, and makes sure to rudely include his 2 cents into every single conversation that happens around him, he never fails to elicit the intended laugh and the movie is easily raised up a few notches just for having this character in there, and played so perfectly by his relatively-unknown actor, Lombardo Boyar. Him and Greg Grunberg have such great chemistry together, it's easy to accept them as strangers-turned-friends during the events of this movie. Also joining them here is Ray Wise, who has been in just about everything ever made, as the stereotypical cliche thick-headed stubborn military general partially responsible for not only the spider's existence, but all the failed attempts to recapture or kill it after it's initial escape from the hospital due to ignoring any and all advice from the heroes, and playing one of his lead soldiers and one-of-many potential love interests for Greg Grunberg is the always-beautiful Clare Kramer, who most people will probably recognize as Glory from Buffy the Vampire Slayer but fellow B-Movie lovers like myself will also remember as the main character in the direct-to-video sequel, The Skulls 3.

This movie wastes none of its short 80-minute runtime, starting the plot off almost right away and making good headway even before the 20 minute mark. By half an hour in, the acid-spitting mutant spider has been chased around the inner ducts and dusty basements of the hospital, down through the sewers, and out into the middle of the city where it continues to grow immensely and snack down on the all-you-can-eat buffet that is a wide-open park during a hot summer afternoon. The rest of the movie is spent going back and forth between the military and Greg Grunberg trying to track the always-growing-larger spider down, leading them all to a massive showdown atop a skyscraper in the middle of the city. Along the way in there is even a nice little short scene for fans of Found Footage movies as a squad of soldiers with helmet-mounted video cameras go tracking the spider down in a forest. This movie has no shortage of awesome spider-carnage scenes, and while for the most part it tries to stay a bit family-friendly, there are a couple scenes with some decent gore in them, between skin melting from the spider's sprayed acid and some rather fun impalings, Warrior Arachnid-style.

The special effects are never shied away from, as the movie rarely goes more then five minutes without showing the mutant beastie, and while the average B-grade creature feature of modern day has, well, less-than-stellar effects that has people groaning or laughing at it as opposed to with it, this movie had surprisingly great CGI, especially as the spider continued to get bigger and bigger, a place where the CGI in the SyFy Channel Original Movies that I'm usually used to seem to degrade, but here they seem, if anything, to improve the bigger the spider got. The only times the CGI wavered a bit and were not quite up to par with the rest of the movie were a couple scenes of the military soldiers firing on the spider, and especially toward the end when a nest of baby mutant spiders were running around inside the skyscraper. Save for those two instances, the CGI was top-level stuff and far better than I was expecting out of this.

We also thankfully don't get a whole lot of overdone stereotypical exposition as to the military's creation of this thing. We simply get a really short answer of 'We created this thing as an experiment, this is why and how we created it, and due to an error on our behalf it's now loose' and that's literally it. Seeing as how these kinds of movies always have the same overly-drawn out exposition on the military's creation of whatever mutant animal monster said movie is focused on, I can really appreciate that this movie simply drops a few quick sentences on it and then moves on, leaving in the dust any complicated stereotypical subplot detour that would normally accompany such a movie and instead just uses that time for more fun and hilarity with the main leads of Greg Grunberg, the exterminator unlucky in love, and Jose, the hilariously idiotic-but-lovable hospital security guard.

As mentioned at the top of this review, when it comes to the movie's comedic side, the tone of Big Ass Spider is very nearly identical to that of other purposely-campy creature feature comedies such as Slither, 8 Legged Freaks, and the Tremors series. This thing is simply a laugh-riot from start to finish, with I don't think a single scene passing by that didn't have me in stitches at some point. Hell, you know right from the start that you're in for a hilariously campy fun hour and a half when the movie starts off with Greg Grunberg watching in slo-motion as a building-sized mega spider destroys the city around him to the beat of Storm Large's Where Is My Mind.

Big Ass Spider is one of those rare B-Movies that is several levels better then your average SyFy or Asylum-made production and is not just entertaining, but genuinely made so well that it probably could have had a legit wide theatrical release and been at least mildly successful. I can easily see this being the Arachnophobia and 8 Legged Freaks for this decade, and those who loved those movies should also love this one as well and those who hated those movies...well, find yourself a sense of humor for the lowest price that you can and then come back so you can strap on your exterminator gear and enjoy this laugh-riot killer spider comedy.

As for exactly how you can check this movie out? Well so far the home video release isn't slated until January 7th, 2014 but after recently playing at the Toronto International Film Festival you can now currently watch it via Video on Demand services or find it for digital download on sites like Amazon and Itunes, and you can make a safe bet that the day it does finally come out on DVD (and hopefully BluRay as well), I'll be at my local HMV first thing to nab myself a copy.

10/10  rooms in the Psych Ward

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Attack of the Moon Zombies (2011)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: Saint Euphoria Pictures

Runtime: 100 mins

Format: DVD

Plot: A mysterious plant found on the surface of the moon wreaks havoc on the Jackson Lunar Base when its spores change the base's crew into leafy, undead creatures!

Review: Attack of the Moon Zombies was the Christopher R. Mihm movie that initially grabbed my interest and, by doing some light research into it, alerted me to the entire Mihmiverse Collection. I stumbled upon a thumbnail picture from this movie while looking through Google Pictures for some other B-Movie to use in my review of that one, and as soon as I saw the weirdly cheesy-looking plant-headed Moon Zombie picture I knew I had to find out what movie that was from and thus started my adventure into the Mihmiverse realm. However, once I ordered all the movies, even though this is the one that I was most interested in checking out, I decided to watch them all in release order so that's why it's taken me so long to get to my most anticipated one, first sitting through, and enjoying on various levels, The Monster of Phantom Lake, It Came From Another World!, Cave Women on Mars, Terror From Beneath The Earth, and Destination: Outer Space.

And I'm glad I did, because while (for the most part) the movies are stand-alone and you can watch them in any order that you choose, you get so much more out of them by watching them in release order. I say release order because in terms of chronology they jump around back and forth quite a bit, such as the case with this one, taking place in the future (as it may have been envisioned back in the 1950s – the gimmick of all these movies is that, while made now-ish, they're made with the intent of having them act as if they were made in the black and white 1950s era of B-Movie filmmaking), this one taking place roughly around the timeframe of Cave Women on Mars and Destination: Outer Space, give or take a couple years.

This one is the longest Mihmiverse movie yet, clocking in at an hour and 40 minutes. Now as you may guess from some of my previous reviews, I kind of feel that almost-two hours is way too long for something like this, especially when it takes 40 minutes before we even begin the actual plot of the movie of people getting infected and the Moon Zombies start going around. A bit tighter of a pace in that first half and this movie would be 100% perfect. As it stands it's only 'Just About 100% perfect', which is still really damn good!

For the most part, Attack of the Moon Zombies deals with almost all-new characters. A lot of familiar faces for fans of these movies, but they're playing brand new characters from what they played before. Playing the lead female character is Shannon McDonough, who fellow Mihmivites will recognize as the fiance-and-then-wife of Doctor Jackson from It Came From Another World! and a cameo appearance in Terror From Beneath The Earth. I was a bit harsh on her role in those movies, as I found the character she played a bit drab and boring, but after seeing her here I now know that was solely the way the character was written and it was not indicative of Ms. McDonough's acting abilities because she owns this movie in every scene that she's in. Within five minutes of being introduced to her new scientist character here, I was totally in love with her. Returning alongside her is also Daniel Sjerven from Cave Women on Mars and Terror From Beneath the Earth, this time playing a rude, childish, alcoholic pilot that still manages to retain a certain level of humor and charm about him, despite being the kind of character you probably wouldn't like spending a whole lot of time around in real life. Also with them is Michael Kaiser who has been in all of these movies in small bit parts as well as the man behind the costume of I think almost every monster, creature, and humanoid alien to date, and Sid Korpi who played a minor role in Destination: Outer Space but here plays the person-in-charge on this Moon Base, Administrator Ripley. And yes, that is a very clear (and loved!) nod to the Alien franchise. The one person who does return and actually plays a previous character is Mike Cook reprising his role as Dr. Vincent Edwards from Terror From Beneath the Earth, a role I also previously found a bit dull and uninspired but actually really enjoyed this go-around. Also, he hasn't visually aged a day in the 20+ years between that movie's timeline and this one! Oh, the wonders of Movie Magic, I tells ya!

Actually, old character and new ones, old actors and new ones, out of all the Mihmiverse movies this one I think is the one that had me loving all the characters in record time and it wasn't long into the movie before I started genuinely caring about what might happen to them. Sure, the movie has an overly-long 40 minute lead-up to the actual horrific events that make up the plot of the movie, but it uses that time really well to give us some good characterization on everyone and some nice story beats that pay off later in the movie. For instance, lead character Dr. Hacket (as played by Shannon McDonough) is in a relationship with another of the scientists on board and he keeps trying to propose to her but each and every time he does they keep getting interrupted at the last second before she can give her answer, a continuous and hilariously repetitive story beat that keeps playing out even well into the Moon Zombie infestation. Add to that the continuous complaints by some of the staff that there isn't enough women on-board, Ripley missing the birth of her grandchild due to being on that base, and the sub-plot of Dr. Vincent Edwards' looming retirement and they really give you enough meat to sink your teeth into for each and every one of these characters, no matter how large or small their role is.

The only issue I have in the character department, and it's only a minor nitpick and in no way goes against my final score of the movie, but Daniel Sjerven's perfectly sleazy pilot character drops out of the movie pretty early on to return to Earth, and during the thick of the infestation events of the movie the main cast are trying to survive long enough for him to return so they can leave the base and get the heck outta dodge, so having them constantly make reference to waiting on him, in addition to knowing what a familiar face Daniel Sjerven is to this series, I was fully expecting him to show up at the last minute and save the day, Han Solo style, but sadly we never do see him again, which was slightly disappointing especially since he never got that character redemption moment I was really hoping for. Even though this is a minor nitpick, it also works as a compliment as well because if these characters weren’t so likable and well-written, I wouldn't have cared about wanting him to return at the end for a redemption moment to begin with.

Making us care for these characters this much actually ends up being a bit heartbreaking, seeing as how once the Moon Plant shoots its spoors out and finally turns the first person into a plant-headed Moon Zombie (which then in turn begins turning everyone else), it's only a matter of time before most of the characters you've come to love bite it, and as much as I enjoyed spending time with everyone leading up to this portion of the movie, it's really here till the end that it truly shines. Seeing as how the terror begins during the middle of the night when most of the crew is sleeping, there are some authentically creepy moments that play out here, such as a scene where one guy wakes up in his darkened room with no knowledge of what has started, and begins hearing some unknown thing banging savagely on his door, trying to get in to him. The claustrophobic feel of the base as the characters run around the maze-like hallways and run into various random Moon Zombies, either stand alone or in large groups, only adds to the creepy factor. Of course none of that would have been successful had it not been for the best creature designs we've seen yet in the Mihmiverse series, nor for the best set designs we've seen yet; Never once did I question that this was actually a real Lunar Base and these plant-headed Moon Zombies were a real threat – Within a few minutes of pressing Play I was sucked right in and I was right there alongside all these characters. Micro-Budget as this may be, it did just as good a job loosing me in its imagination as any bigger budget Hollywood movie could, and its this movie that best shows just how far Christopher R. Mihm has come, in addition to everyone who works with him, since the days of The Monster of Phantom Lake, and it shows best just how they've all evolved as filmmakers.

As with all the other movies in the Mihmiverse, this self-produced DVD is stacked right up with tons of excellent bonus content. There's only one Blooper Reel instead of the usual two (but it has a really good length to it and is, just like all the others, simply laugh-out-loud hilarious), a trailer for the movie, a Photo Gallery of tons of Behind-the-Scenes photos, an introduction to the film by Horror Host Dr. Ivan Cryptosis, a half hour long featurette on the whole Mihmiverse itself, and the usual informative full length Audio Commentaries, one by just Christopher R. Mihm and a second more Technical Commentary by many of the Behind the Scenes folks.

Attack of the Moon Zombies is easily my favorite film by Christopher R. Mihm to date. Sure, it's a bit longer then I'd like and takes it's sweet time getting anywhere, but it also uses that time to perfectly make us get to know and care about our cast of characters, which is actually a really smart move here since it made it all the more heartbreaking when many of them get ripped away from us during the events of the second half of the movie when the infection has broken out and the Lunar Base is overran with 30+ deadly Moon Zombies shuffling around the dark, empty maze-like corridors. The movie can also double as a fun 'Find The References' game, as it's chock full of references to classic sci-fi/horror flicks like Alien, The Thing From Another World, It! The Terror From Beyond Space, and any number of zombie movies to just point out a few. Plus there's also tons of inside jokes and references to previous Mihmiverse movies (Such as Doctor Jackson-then-Director Jackson is now the President – Nice!), so be sure to keep your eyes and ears open to catch them all.

Seeing as how most of the advertising for these movies come from simple word of mouth from the fans, then if you do check his stuff out and enjoy it please help get the word out there on these movies and hopefully we can snag in a few other fans that may not even realize these exist. You can order these on DVD (and even BluRay for the latest couple!) over at his official site which is filled with all sorts of other goodies as well (including a monthly newsletter in addition to a very laid back, yet fun and informative, podcast). Hell, there's even an excellent deal on right now – Buy Three Movies, Get One Free, which seeing as how there's currently eight of these titles, if you do that twice then that is the perfect way to catch up with all of them and in the end save some dough – that's how I did it!

10/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Gingerdead Man vs Evil Bong (2013)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Full Moon Entertainment

RUNTIME: 83 mins

FORMAT: Screener

PLOT: The Gingerdead Man seeks revenge against Sarah Leigh for causing him to live his life in the body of a gingerbread man. Her only hope is to team up with Larnell who has problems of his own in the form of an evil magical talking bong named Eebee.

REVIEW: I already have reviews posted for Gingerdead Man, Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust, and Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver so you can go check those reviews out for my thoughts on each of those and that trilogy as a whole. As for the Evil Bong trilogy, I always meant to have reviews posted of those before I got around to doing a review of this Gingerdead Man vs Evil Bong crossover 'epic', but I was sent the screener far sooner then I was expecting, so the Evil Bongs got pushed to the back burner for now. Still, I'll let you all know, briefly, what my basic thoughts were on them right here, so you understand where I'm coming from when I review this Part 4 in each respective series.

I love both Evil Bong and Evil Bong 2: King Bong. They are the perfect movies for modern Full Moon – they only need a small group of so-so actors, minimal sets to build/rent out, doesn't require much (if any) special effects, and it's all wrapped up in a really nice short runtime. I'm the furthest thing from a stoner, and I'm not particularly a fan of most stoner comedies outside of the Harold and Kumar trilogy and the first Friday flick, so it's a bit of an enigma to me as to why the Evil Bong movies turned out to be one of my favorite modern Full Moon movies yet. With that said, I really didn't care for Evil Bong 3: The Wrath of Bong much at all. It's not that it did anything differently than the first two movies, but that was kind of my issue with it - It was just the same song and dance we've seen for three movies now, with the added addition of a muddled confusing ending that still has me wondering exactly how they defeated the Alien Bong because it wasn't really clear. But whatever, for the most part, a couple entries aside, I'm actually a decent fan of both the Gingerdead Man series as well as the Evil Bong series, so it goes without saying that I was especially excited for this Vs mash-up.

The best way for me to do this review is to divide it up into sections. First I'll start with the Gingerdead Man portion of the movie. Finally, after two unconnected sequels, it was great to have Robin Sydney back as Sarah. For those who remember, she played the original heroine in the first movie and I've been very vocal about having her back for the sequels, which never happened, so I'm thrilled to announce she returns to this movie, playing her original character of Sarah, having finally after all these years began to cope with and move on from the events that happened in the first movie, and she has opened her own little bakery now, of which she is obviously the boss of. For fans of this character, this section of the movie was the perfect 'Where is she now' catch-up, and she is a stronger person (and by association, a stronger character) than she was in the first movie, no longer being timid or taking crap from anyone. This comes to a head in what is my absolute favorite scene of the movie, where her character from Gingerdead Man meets her polar opposite character from the Evil Bong series (see, she was also in those movies but playing a totally different character) and the two of them (both still played by Robin Sydney) get into quite the fight.

The Gingerdead Man himself once again looks slightly different then any previous incarnation but seems to be the closest to how he was portrayed in the first movie (in terms of looks, voice, and attitude) as he tracks down Robin Sydney's character to finish what he began all those years ago. While he still has a few funny one-liners, he's much more subdued this go-around then he was in either Gingerdead Man 2 or 3, and he's very much out for revenge and isn't taking any side tours. He's also back to being basic yet brutal in his killings – no distractingly inventive deaths like in the second movie or dull boring ones like in the third where he mostly just used a gun. Just like in the first movie, he just grabs the nearest knife or axe and goes to town on his victims, spraying the blood as much as he can in each case. Sadly, there's only three of those deaths and two of them happen in quick succession in the same scene so there's not really much of that. Low number of deaths aside, this portion of the movie was actually exactly what I was looking for in a Gingerdead Man sequel and I really wish the movie focused more on this stuff, or that it was its own stand-alone Gingerdead Man sequel because over all, it actually makes up such a tiny bit of the movie. You see, despite the title, this was actually much more of an Evil Bong sequel that happens to have a couple characters from Gingerdead Man in it then an even mix of the two franchises.

Unfortunately, even though the Evil Bong portion of the movie is what makes up the majority of it, it's also the weakest portion. One of the only characters that returns from the Evil Bong series is John Patrick Jordan as lead stoner Larnell who, admittedly, is just not nearly as cool or fun without the rest of his gang there with him. The Evil Bong movies are very much an ensemble piece and without the rest of said ensemble, you're just left with this giant gaping hole that feels like something is missing. In this entry Larnell has opened his own weed and weed memorabilia shop and the worst offender with this part of the movie is that they could have had at least one of his pals around but instead they replace them with a new character that's not nearly as funny as the people making this movie thought he was. Personally I just found him eye-rollingly annoying. It also doesn't help that not only is this the weakest part of the movie, but it also makes up the bulk of it as well, spending a good 25-30 minutes on just these two characters trying to get the shop ready for business and opening the doors for the first few quirky customers. We spent all of 5-10 minutes on catching up with the Gingerdead Man stuff and then over half the movie on just this?It felt terribly uneven.

The Evil Bong herself barely even makes an appearance during this stuff. It's not until the other returning Evil Bong character, the always-causing-trouble Delivery Man/Priest/Traveling Salesman Rabbit shows up and, of course, accidentally frees the Evil Bong from where Larnell had her hidden away and it's not until this part that the movie even begins to start picking up it's pace and by that point it's only 15-20 minutes from the end.

Now for the crossover portion of the movie. Larnell learns of the new bakery opening up nearby and goes to check it out, hoping to talk the owner (which is Robin Sydney's character) into a joint-business venture seeing as how his business gives people the munchies and hers cures the munchies. They hit it off pretty well and I have to admit that those two characters actually have really good chemistry together. He brings her back to his shop to show her what it's all about (at which point the stalking Gingerdead Man kills the other two bakery workers and then follows them to the weed store), and it's here that he reveals himself to them by killing Larnell's annoying new sidekick and they end up having to smoke from the Evil Bong in order to enter the mystical Bong World of the previous movies to escape the Gingerdead Man and he, of course, follows them in. During this part there's a nice cameo by King Bong and the Poontang tribe of the second Evil Bong movie, and even a really funny Superman spoof as Gingerdead Man gets caught in these whirling rings and the three Prisoner Pastries from the intro of Gingerdead Man 3 show up to judge him.

Unfortunately, this is also the portion where the movie continues to fall even further. All that strength and growth we saw in Robin Sydney's character earlier is totally gone as she's regulated to essentially just following Larnell around and doing what he says, rarely (if at all) coming into her Own and taking the lead. Also, you know that epic showdown between the Gingerdead Man and the Evil Bong that the title and advertising of this movie promises? Yeah, don't hold your breath because it never happens. Hell, they don't even interact at all except for one short scene where the Gngerdead Man finds out his would-be victims smoked from the Evil Bong and escaped from him into the Bong World so he then has to go smoke from her to follow them in. That is literally it for their interactions together. No fight, no showdown, not even any heated argument. Oh and don't expect a climax or any sort of proper ending either because there's nothing like that here. The big 'climax' consists of the two main characters escaping from the Bong World and the Gingerdead Man deciding to stay in there, and that's it. They walk off into the sunset together, leaving the Evil Bong behind and back out in the open of his store and not even trying to get rid of it or hide it or anything. They escape from her and then just walk away laughing while the Gingerdead Man decides to stay inside of her and smoke weed. That's it for the 'big climax'.

I really wanted to like this movie as I'm a fan of both series', and of the characters from them. And while I loved seeing Robin Sydney back again and I loved most everything from the Gingerdead Man portion of the movie, I hated that she was regulated to just following Larnell around all movie, and it also didn't help that the stuff I liked made up such a small amount of time in the movie. The Evil Bong portion was way overlong and drawn out, missing most of the characters that made those movies fun to watch to begin with, and then the actual Vs part was just a joke that didn't even come close to living up to the promise that the title of the movie and it's advertising gave, leaving things off on a very quick and sudden end without any sort of proper built-up climax. And speaking of broken promises, on Full Moon's Facebook page they said that Gary Busey would be returning to voice the Gingerdead Man in this movie, but he doesn't. Granted the guy who does is the closest to sound like him out of all the other Gingerdead Man voice actors, but point is it indeed is not Gary Busy like we were led to believe.

I actually would have preferred it if the Gingerdead Man stuff was in a movie by itself and then extended to feature length, as that would have actually made a really good Gingerdead Man 4 worthy of the first movie, but sadly it's totally underused and forgotten about in this so-called crossover movie that's really just an Evil Bong 4 in disguise that happens to have a couple Gingerdead Man characters in it, that also manages to leave out most of the fun Evil Bong characters as well. Add to that a muddled and weak ending, no actual confrontation between the two title characters, and way too much time spent on just the weed store's opening, and what you're left with is, unfortunately, a very far cry from the epic crossover that I was hoping it would be.

3/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

 

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