THE GINGERDEAD MAN – Charles Band got a lot of mileage out of little things with scary voices. In this case, the voice in question belongs to Gary Busey, here doing a Dourif as the spirit of a murderer who decides to possess and inhabit the body of, not a doll, but some baked goods. An intrinsic fairy-tale quality makes a lot of room for flat dramatics and lame goofiness – this has all the major characteristics of its species, mid-nineties comedy horror dross. Still, it takes me back. I liked the constant wonky camera angles. And Gary Busey’s voice tells a rat to f@ck off – there’s got to be something in that I suppose.
THE ALCHEMIST – Charles Band’s obscure effort from 1983. Robert McGinty is some guy who never ages because of a magician’s curse; Lucinda Dooling is some gal in a car who has trippy visuals about reincarnation. It’s slow but cumulatively odd, with windswept highways and woodland cabins lending atmospheric weight to one of those storylines that you feel was scrawled by someone with a hangover on the first day of shooting. It even seems to tip over into Phantasm territory near the end, when goblins emerge from an interdimensional portal. An acquired taste, but what taste worth having isn’t? I’d love to see an upgrade I could pop in my blu ray player, but maybe there’s a reason you can’t get it in a good format.
THE LURKING FEAR – You don’t really look for the essence of Lovecraft in a mid-nineties Full Moon production. This offering shoehorns the Martense saga into roughly eighty minutes of dithering in a church with an exploding graveyard at the end. Along the way, we witness several badly choreographed shoot-outs whilst Jeffrey Combs stands around looking like he needs a shave and a haircut but would make do with a stiff brandy. There was something I liked about the visual styling, which sort-of melds cheapo Noirish tropes with a bit of candlelit gothic. The rubber ghouls and the smidge of gore they contribute are OK.
 |