The Late Night Double Feature Picture Show

Here’s another long-ass post. And we’re in a bad news/good news scenario.

Bad news: Voodoo Moon. Voodoo Moon is a simple tale, universal in its nature. A young man spends twenty years studying the religions of the world in his quest to vanquish the charismatic evil beast that corrupted his small town and killed his parents. Along the way he encounters and saves a bunch of people who join him and his psychic sister in a final apocalyptic battle with the physical manifestation of evil on earth. Like I said, a simple story.

This movie has so much going for it on paper. It’s got ancient evil with a British accent. It’s got the dude who played Weyoun as an undead detective. It’s got that chick that’s been in every syndicated scie-fi show in the last 15 years. It’s got Jon Amos and Charisma Carpenter. But it’s also got Eric Mabius dressed up like Mindfreak’s body double and a special effects department with more dollars than sense. I wanted to like this movie, but I just couldn’t. Put plainly, it is bad.

It gets several things wrong. First of all, the pacing is off. This movie is equal parts rushed and monotomous. I had to rewatch several sequences because I got bored and quit paying attention. Distracting from the already unwatchable editing were the needless computer-generated visual effects. They looked good, and if I were playing a videogame, I might think, “whoa, that was cool." Instead, I thought, “wow, someone else learned how to masturbate with AfterEffects.” It also didn’t help that the script had some ridiculously bad dialog and a storyline that felt like a sequel to Children of The Corn. Now the actors in this sad story have, between them, decades of experience delivering bizarre and unnatural dialog, but even their considerable talents were useless against this script.

Now, what did they get right? Well, they got zombies, so that’s good. They got decapitations, Charisma Carpenter, and a nice twist with the undead detective. Unfortunately, that’s about it. I would only recommend this for Mystery-Science-Theater-It’s-So-Bad-It’s-Hilarious scenarios. Any attempts to enjoy this film simply on its own merits are ill-advised and will result in frustration.

Good news: Left In Darkness. I liked this movie. I liked David Anders for being so damned creepy and charming. I liked Monica Keena for being so damned hot and clever. I also liked this movie because it wasn’t afraid to kill off it’s lead in the first act. Shortly into the story, Keena’s character dies of a GHB overdose while a skeevy frat guy rapes her in a bathroom. Classy. The rest of the film centers on her trying to stay out of hell and keep her soul from being eaten. Again, it’s a simple tale, universal in nature. I don’t want to get too deep into the plot, as it really is the heart of the film. Unlike other entries into the “Sci-Fi Saturday” genre, this film does not rely on alien dinosaurs fighting Bigfoot in Vancouver.

Left in Darkness owes more to Night of the Living Dead than Carnosaur 3. Horror and suspense are created through characterization, through what’s unsaid and unseen, through the unknown. And instead of relying on flashy special effects, this film uses nothimg more high tech than colored lights and spooky makeup. But it works. The producers create an amazing bit of atmospheric terror, analogous to the original Resident Evil games. I was impressed, I was engaged, and not once was I bored. I enjoyed it. It wasn’t The Bicycle Thief, and it was not some otherwise transcendent experience, but I recommend it. And, if you buy the special edition, it glows in the dark.