COLLECTOR'S CRYPT - MOONCHILD (VISUAL VENGEANCE BLU RAY)
With the recent passing of Albert Pyun this weekend, I’m reminded of how much of an impact genre filmmakers have on fans while never really receiving the kind of critical acclaim that their Hollywood peers do. Many cult and genre filmmakers live a life of small celebrity and relative obscurity for those who are not familiar with them or their work. Take a look at SEVERIN, who have released several omnibus-style box sets dedicated to aggregating entire filmographies for independent creators like Andy Milligan and more recently Ray Dennis Steckler. These filmmakers release volumes of material, most of which folks either haven’t seen or don’t remember, that ranges in terms of quality from downright awful to accidentally charming. I have a bit of a soft spot for these filmmakers, even though their films are not always worthy of high praise, because they create regardless. There is something admirable about the ability to execute consistently and continuously in service of making films you want to make, even if they do not achieve the levels of fame and fortune that the entertainment industry dangles in front of them. This brings us to Todd Sheets, the writer/director/producer behind VISUAL VENGEANCE’s newest SOV release, MOONCHILD. Is this sci-fi/werewolf genre mashup independently charming or should it be put down with a silver bullet?
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
In a dystopian future, political prisoner Jacob Stryker is transformed into a werewolf super soldier by government scientists. He escapes captivity, searches for his son, who may be the messiah, and joins an army of karate-kicking rebellion fighters poised to overthrow the United Nations of America. Along the way, Jacob is hunted by a group of cyborgs and mutant bounty hunters as he tries to forget the bomb implanted in his stomach that's set to explode in 72 hours.
HOW IS IT?
If you read the synopsis above and got whiplash, I’m here to tell you that it is pretty spot-on as far as summaries go. Once again, VISUAL VENGEANCE unleashes upon the world a film so obscure that I reckon less than 5% of the horror community is even aware of its existence, present company included. MOONCHILD is ambitious, audacious, and entertaining, at least in comparison to its peers in the SOV sub-genre. It is an admirable low-budget bootstrapper that impresses with its attempts at scale in spite of being somewhat overblown and unfocused. Like so many other SOV genre films, MOONCHILD throws the kitchen sink at the viewer which helps to keep things moving, and yet it does a disservice to the promises made by the titular namesake.
Starting with the good, MOONCHILD swings for the fences from the jump with some amateur car stunts that are fun even though they seem to be done on a budget. In fact, if the film stock wasn’t on a video you might even mistake this for some smaller-budget Canon film given how all over the place the vibe is. The costumes, effects, editing, and use of locations all give MOONCHILD a grander look and feel than you might think. At one point, I found myself wondering if creator TODD SHEETS wasn’t the SOV version of James Cameron with how big and epic his ideas are for the film. There is so much going on that it can be mind-boggling trying to keep up with all the new twists and turns thrown in haphazardly. This “spaghetti on the wall” style of storytelling is effective for the most part, as it distracts you from some things that could take you out such as the use of giant tree branches as some form of weapon prop.
While the whiplash of too many ideas may distract from the seams of the low-budget film, MOONCHILD does falter on account of its lack of focus. Most directly it’s about the titular MOONCHILD. If memory serves, we only see the werewolf twice in the movie and it’s for very brief periods of time across the 87-minute film. When your movie promises a “werewolf super solider” you best believe people want to see that thing for more than 5 minutes. While MOONCHILD isn’t bluntly ripping off other dystopian sci-fi films, it is certainly wearing its influence proudly. It’s the “Mad Max/Road Warrior” aesthetic that meets Pyun’s Cyborg storyline which shines through most clearly, and mileage will of course vary for those who don’t really dig the SOV style. For those that do, this is worth the watch purely for how boldly it tries to box outside its weight class.
HOW DOES IT LOOK?
As is the case with VISUAL VENGEANCE films, the source material is usually in bad shape and in a worse format. Thankfully, they were able to secure the original Standard Definition masters from the source tapes for this release. It is presented in Fullscreen with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and it does look nicer than most other releases, but don’t go in expecting something that will give your new 4K OLED TV a workout. Screenshots from the film are used throughout the review and below:
HOW DOES IT SOUND?
Much like the video, the audio here is a serviceable stereo audio track. The sound is again better than most other VISUAL VENGEANCE releases, even though it is limited by the original medium. The soundtrack here is quite fun and a CD copy is included with the film as an additional disc.
ANYTHING SPECIAL?
As is customary with the VISUAL VENGEANCE Collector’s Editions, this thing is pretty stacked insofar as special features go. For the sake of time, I watched a couple of them for this review with the first being the 31-minute Wolf Moon Rising: The Making of Moonchild Documentary. This is a no-frills and no-editing homemade clip show that has no narration and is a series of behind-the-scenes clips, candid interviews (some without the name and/or title of the speaker), and a really interesting news clip to open things up. The footage goes all the way into the music production as well as the post-production process, but again, it’s all sans commentary so you are kind of piecing together what is happening on your own. It’s not going to unearth any information even for the most die-hard fan, but it is a nice way to see a snapshot of the mood and time during which this was made rather than the retroactive look back we usually get with these kinds of things.
Another additional feature I took a look at was the 13-minute short-film included, Sanguinary Desires. This is like a short version of The House on Haunted Hill, but with vampires, zombies, and a whole lot of blood-covered ramen noodle insides. There isn’t much of a plot here, save from the small bits I mentioned in the previous sentence. Most of this is just like a gore gag test to try out some visual gags. It is worth admiring some of the make up effects as well as the production design in this short. It’s far better than one might think, even if the short overall doesn’t really have a lot of coherence. You can check out a full list of the special features included in this release below!
BONUS MATERIALS
Region Free Blu-ray
New, director supervised SD master from original tapes
Limited Edition Slipcase by The Dude -- FIRST PRESSING ONLY
Includes bonus Audio CD of the movie soundtrack
New audio commentary with Director Todd Sheets and star Auggi Alvarez
New audio commentary with Director Todd Sheets and Visual Vengeance
Includes the alternate VHS cut of Moonchild as originally released
Wolf Moon Rising: The Making of Moonchild documentary
Archival behind the scenes cast interviews
Original VHS trailer
Deleted Ending
Music Video by Descension
Short film: Sanguinary Desires
Visual Vengeance Trailers
Four Page Liner notes by Matt Desiderio of Horror Boobs
Folded mini-poster
'Stick your own' VHS sticker sheet
Reversible Sleeve featuring original VHS art
LAST RITES
MOONCHILD is yet another stellar release from the twisted folks at VISUAL VENGEANCE. For the well-traveled SOV genre veterans out there this is surely one to check out, and even if you’re not sure about your affinity towards videocam genre films, MOONCHILD is worth a look just to see how much fun they can be.
THE GORY DETAILS
Thank you to the fine fiends at MVD ENTERTAINMENT for providing the crypt with a review copy of MOONCHILD, which you can purchase now via MVD DIRECT!
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