Written and directed by C. Courtney Joyner, who directed Trancers III and wrote From a Whisper to a Scream, Doctor Mordrid, Class of 1999, Prison and Total Excess: How Carolco Changed Hollywood, this film tells the story of Leffert’s Corners, a place that has been plagued by unearthly beings for decades. It’s basically abandoned except for a few hearty souls like a priest and now John Martense, who is in town to put his family’s estate in order. And we all know what happens to people who come to claim inheritances in horror movies.
Joyner was a first-time director, so there was a worry that hiring an actor like David Hemmings would lead to him not being treated well, as Hemmings was also a director. Instead, Jon Finch, who was also in Frenzy and Murder on the Nile, was hired. He did exactly what the production teamed feared and repeatedly clashed with the director and refused to even listen to him say cut.
The rest of the cast is pretty strong with the dependable Jeffrey Combs as a town doctor, Vincent Schiavelli as a mortician and Ashley Laurence as a woman seeking revenge. Plus, it’s also cool to see Paul Mantee in a movie.
For a while, it seemed like H.P. Lovecraft was to Charles Band as Edgar Allan Poe was to Roger Corman. This is another of the many Full Moon films that use a Lovecraft story as an inspiration.
This also was edited down to thirty minutes and used as part of Full Moon’s remix movie Tomb of Terror, where it had the title “Infinite Evil.”
If the title doesn’t give it away: Hank Braxtan, who gave us the uber silly but really fun mockbuster that is Snake Outta Compton (2018), is mixing Universal Studios’ Michael Crichton-bred dinosaurs* with Richard Connell’s later apoc-influencial The Most Dangerous Game (1932)**. However, since we’re talking ’bout movies and not books: Craig Zobel’s critically derided The Hunt (2020) is the other half of the mockequation. But since this is a more a cost-effective version: High Octane Pictures’ rip on that Blumhouse Pictures’ shingle flopper that is American Hunt (2019) is the model at task, here. But since this is B&S About Movies: we’ll always err to the side of Brian Trenchard Smith’s Turkey Shoot for our “human death sport” jonesin’.
To say we had our doubts with Snake Outta Compton is an understatement . . . and it surprised us. So, knowing Hank Braxtan’s past abilities in creating a fun and entertaining film that wears its awareness and influences on its sleeve, we requested a screener for Jurassic Hunt . . . and Braxton impressed us, once again. In fact, I’ve since gone back and watched Braxton’s Unnatural (2015), which deals with a genetically tweaked polar bear, à la William Girdler’s Grizzly, on the loose, and Dragon Soldiers (2020), which deals with a dragon on a rampage.
You know what: I’m digging on Hank Braxtan in a higher-budgeted Brett Piper*˟ kinda-way. The CGI may not be up to the major studio shingle-level that is Universal. You’re justified in your reasons to rag on the acting. However, I’m having a whole lot of fun sucking on Braxtan’s brain candy. Ain’t that the whole point?
A group of hunters, including our four leads of Parker (feature film debut for Courtney Loggins), Valentine (Tarkan Dospil, aka “Beez Neez,” from Snake Outta Compton), Torres (TV familiar and solid Ruben Pla from Dragon Soldiers), and Blackhawk (Antuone Torbert, also Dragon Soliders) are flown in, hooded, to a remote, hidden game preserve to hunt the ultimate game: a genetically-cultured dinosaur in a game known as “Jurassic Hunt” — overseen by enigmatic billionaire Lindon (a very good Joston Theney; a writer and director in his own right with Axeman (2013), and equally good in front of the camera in the aforementioned Snake Outta Compton).
The rules are simple: You’re tagged with a tracking device. Pick a weapon, be it rifles, grenades, or a good ‘ol fashioned bow and arrow, protect your preserve guides, and bag the dinosaur. Of course, watch out for the raptors (who swallow the guides and strand the gamers, natch). Oh, and one of our dinos is DNA-tweaked to spit acid. Oh, and Lindon has sent in a band of mercenaries to up the ante to hunt the hunters, because, well . . . turns out Parker is a corporate spy sent to expose the animal cruelty and take down Lindon’s empire.
Screenwriter Jeffrey Giles maybe new to the game on the ol’ 44 keys (2013’s Knight of the Dead, 2016’s David and Goliath, and 2018’s Alien Expedition, thus far), but he’s extensively skilled as a producer (via Hank Braxtan’s resume) and distributor (The Expendables and Drive Angry to name two). So he’s given us a bloody script (part practical, part CGI) that keeps the action moving at a decent pace with engaging subplots (concerning on everybody’s mind Afghanistan) moved by nicely fleshed-out and motivated characters.
Yeah, I’m dismissing the naysayers on this one.
I’m over my whining about CGI blood and have come to accept that digital effect as the new “indie normal” in the streamingverse. Corded, hardline telephones aren’t coming back and neither are squibs and blood packs, so deal. Asylum-styled films are the new normal, the new “Roger Corman” if you will, so deal.
Jurassic Hunt is well shot, the editing is solid, and the streaming-acting is better than most swirling ’round the Tubi rim of box-office hopes. So pop the popcorn, pour that Dr. Pepper, disconnect the brain, and enjoy . . . as you retrograde to your dad and grandad’s days of kaiju scalers like Sidney Pink’s Reptilicus(1962) and the James Franciscus-starring The Valley of Gwangi (1969).
You can stream Jurassic Hunt on Amazon Prime courtesy of Lionsgate, starting today, August 24. You can learn more about Lionsgate releases via their official website.
We’ve since reviewed Joston Theney’s latest writing-directing effort, Wanton Want.
Disclaimer: We were provided a screener copy of this film from the production’s PR firm — upon our request after discovering it on social media. That has no bearing on our review.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes forB&S About Movies.
Leave it to Full Moon to make a Dr. Strange movie years before Marvel got a chance. Well, you know, unless you count the Peter Hooten-starring TV movie version. Charles Band has the option to make a Dr. Strange movie, but the option expired before production started. Yet to ensure that this movie has true Marvel DNA, the production art — back when the title was Doctor Mortalis — was by Jack Kirby, the man who pretty much invented everything the House of Ideas started with. Supposedly, another pitch, Mindmaster, became Mandroid. Kirby was never paid and ended up suing.
Anton Mordrid (Jeffrey Combs) has been sent to Earth by the Monitor to keep tabs on an evil wizard named Kabal (Brian Thompson, the Night Slasher from Cobra), a man who plans on stealing a trove of alchemical weapons and opening the gates of Hell. Mordrid has been waiting 150 years for this battle and the time is finally here.
This is a pretty big movie for Full Moon, featuring a scene where prehistoric skeletons battle in a museum and lots of magic combat. Keep your eyes open, because one of Kabal’s monsters at the end is a werewolf from The Howling.
Jack Deth has the worst luck. Just when he gets one last chance to save his marriage to Lena (Helen Hunt), he gets pulled into time just in time to save Angel City from a Trancer war, but loses thirteen years of his life and loses the love of his life.
I mean, Jack has more than one love of his life. Just go with it, you know?
Now, the U.S. government is creating their own Trancers, which means that Jack is going to have to get in and shut it down along with help from a soldier that has escaped the program named R.J. (Melanie Smith, Jerry’s girlfriend Rachel), a camp escapee and an android named Shark (R. A. Mihailoff, who was Leatherface in the third film and is part of a paranormal group with Kane Hodde and Rick McCullum named the Hollywood Ghost Hunters).
June 29, 1966: A platoon of American soldiers is outnumbered ten to one in the jungles of Vietnam. This will be the darkest moment of their lives, if they survive.
Now: Those that walked away explain how life would never be the same again.
My Father’s Brothers is a journey to understand what filmmaker Shawn Kelley’s father and seven survivors went through then and keep going through now.
Whether they volunteered or were drafted, each of them has had to deal with the cards life dealt in their own way. Some of them have even returned to Vietnam in the hopes of somehow coming to terms with their past.
Shawn’s father was one of the ones that volunteered. As he made it to the rank of captain, he routinely led his company of 140 men on patrols through the jungles of Vietnam. On that fateful June 29th, he recieved orders to spread out too far and stumbled upon a better supplied and manned outpost of Vietcong forces.
While this battle usn’t well known, it is an integral part of these men’s lives. As they went their separate ways after the war, they discovered that they would come together to find ways to make the past make more sense, if that is ever possible.
Kelly explained how the origin of the movie was very simple. In fact, it started on a long car ride. “My 83-year-old dad rarely talked about his time in Vietnam. Since I had a few hours with him alone in the car, I decided to ask a lot of questions. And I found out there was a lot about my dad’s past I didn’t know.”
The film also highlights Medal of Honor recipient, Sgt. Charles B. Morris, a paratrooper that went above and beyond the call of duty to protect his platoon on that day.
I really enjoyed this film because it presents a moment in history that would be lost if not for that car ride and the drive for Kelley to make this film, one that highlights not only his father, but the men who found themselves in the midst of a situation that would define every moment of the rest of their lives.
My Father’s Brothers is available on demand and on DVD from Passion River.
I bought this movie for $1 at a 7-11 and in no way do I feel cheated or upset about my purchase.
Over the last six years since Trancers — we can kind of, sort of ignore the Trancers: City of Lost Angels short that was supposed to be in Pulse Pounders — Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) has gotten used to being in the 20th century with his wife Lena (Helen Hunt) and friend Hap Ashby (Biff Manard), who has invested his money and now shares a mansion with our happy couple.
However, Whistler has a brother who is played by Richard Lynch, which immediately makes this movie better than the first one, and he has an environmental company named GreenWorld that is really a Trancer farm. Barbara Crampton is also in this, so all of my checkboxes are nearly filled for the term “all-star cast.”
Making things even more difficult is that Jack’s dead wife Alice Stillwell (Megan Ward, who is in Amityville: It’s About Timeand Arcade) has somehow made it to our time, but Jack knows that when she goes back, she’s destined to die.
There’s also a sneaky ad for Crash and Burn in this. I appreciate that.
This is also full of family members of the cast, with two of the derelicts being Helen Hunt and Charles Band’s fathers, Lynch’s cameraman being played by his son Christopher, Tim Thomerson’s brother and father as two other homeless men and the two elderly ladies at the Landscape Company are Charles Band’s mom and former mother-in-law.
Veronica Iscariot (Angela Featherstone, Linda from The Wedding Singer) is a rebellious young demoness who wants to leave Hell for Earth, where she can live amongst the humans. Her father Hellikan (Nicholas Worth, who is of course Kirk Smith from Don’t Answer the Phone) gets sick of her behavior and decides to kill her because that’s what fatherly behavior is like in the inferno. Her mother Theresa (Charlotte Stewart, Mary X from Eraserhead and Betty Briggs in Twin Peaks) saves her and sends her to the world above with Hellraiser, her faithful hellhound.
Much like a Terminator — and to appease foreign sales — Veronica appears in our reality completely naked and is then hit by a car. She’s saved by Dr. Max Barris and they pretty much fall in love and immediately move in together, which should not work, but when you’re a demon and your dad keeps trying to kill you, your daddy issues are subscriptions and we can see why the doctor is ready to deliver multiple prescriptions for putting the ranch dressing in the Hidden Valley.
So what do you do if you’re a demon on Earth? You start killing muggers, I guess. Then you move on to dealing with bad politicians, corrupt cops and racism, if you’re the hero of this film. How weird is it that this is a feminist demon movie that doesn’t suck?
Thanks, Linda Hassani. Now I have to hunt down your work on the Playboy TV anthology series Inside Out, which claims to “do to softcore sex films what HBO’s Tales from the Crypt did for horror.”
She was also listed as a director on Full Moon’s Bunker of Blood: Chapter 5: Psycho Sideshow: Demon Freaks but that seems like a re-edit, just like Tomb of Terror, which cuts this story down to about half an hour.
David Schmoeller, who also directed Tourist Trap, Puppet Master, The Seduction, Crawlspace — and the documentary that came out of it Please Kill Mr. Kinski — and Catacombs AKA Curse IV was the man who made this movie. He has a crazy background, as he studied theater with Alejandro Jodorowsky and was mentored in film by legendary director Luis Buñuel.
This is the story of a young man named Corey Thorton (Michael Bendetti, who you may remember from the last season of 21 Jump Street or perhaps from Screwball Hotel) who has come back to Louisiana — originally, they were going to shoot this in Romania — to learn that his father’s mansion is filled with a secretive cult and bird people that can raise the dead, plus there’s lots of black magic, a brothel and a flying stone hand that has no body. It’s weird in a good way, in the kind of what did I just watch while we drank too many beers and ate too much pizza feeling that all good rental horror should be.
Oh wow! Anjanette Comer from The Baby) is there too! So is Holly Butler, who was on the TV show :20 Minute Workout and was once Universal Studios Hollywood’s premier Marilyn Monroe impersonator, so it makes sense that she plays Marilyn in this movie.
Plus it has a great poster. If your video store didn’t have this up on the wall, you may have had a bad childhood.
Netherworld also appears as “Resurrection of the Damned” in the Full Moon remix compilation Possessed.
Mrs. Albright (Elizabeth Ince, Grandmother Regina from Demon Windand Mrs. Denton in Vice Academy 5) seems like such a sweet lady when she arrives to stay at a boarding house. However, it turns out that she’s a demon who uses desire against the other people staying there, stealing their skin to continue to build her skin suit and trapping their bodies inside a book as if they were paper dolls.
That’s because she’s made a bet with the devil that she can destroy the entire world. As the film ends, it seems like she’s going to make good on that claim.
Written and directed by Neal Marshall Stevens (who has forty-five writing credits at the time this was viewed, including Thir13en Ghosts, Head of the Family and Puppet Master: Axis Termination; he also was a creative consultant on the TV show Monsters), this was the original script for Witchouse, but that changed after the producers decided that they wanted to make a movie closer to Night of the Demons. Also, in true Full Moon style, this was shot on the same set as Ragdoll.
It has plenty of unsettling images — and sound design — in it, the least of which is when Mrs. Albright asks a man to unstitch the skin on her back to reveal her demonic form.
Stitches also is on the Full Moon compilation film Possessed under the title “Witches’ Dolls.”
Man, I can make it through some rough films but I really feel like this is the bottom of the barrel and then several levels below that. Like, this is somehow a sub-Troma movie that I’m mad at myself for watching, upset that I’m writing about it and even more disturbed that there are so many sequels.
The Evil Bong is a sentient malevolent hookah that takes its smokers to The Bong World, which has strippers and Full Moon characters like Ooga Booga, The Gingerdead Man, Ivan Burroughs from Decadent Evil, Jack Attack from Demonic Toys and Jack Deth, as well as Bill Mosely and Tommy Chong.
One of the bouncers within Bong World is Sylvester “The Predator” Terkay, a former pro wrestler and MMA competitor who finished second in the 1992 NCAA Division I Heavyweight tournament, losing to future Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle by points.
I know that sometime, somewhere, I will force myself to watch Evil Bong 2: King Bong, Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong, Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong, Evil Bong 420, Evil Bong High-5!, Evil Bong 666, Evil Bong 777 and Weedjies!: Halloweed Night.
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