One unexpected side effect of writing fright flicks for scads of years, and actually working in the horror biz, is that sometimes I’m called on to review something only to discover that folks are involved that I’ve worked with in one capacity or another.
I always try and throw a disclaimer of some sort on those types of things, but honestly it’s becoming a lil’ too frequent, so soon I’ll begin to severely limit these types of reviews just to keep things square.
To that end let me state, my reviews are always honest and upfront; but my scale of quality truly is unique. Let’s do a numbered list type of thing where I walk you through this shit…
- Yes, everything I review is sent to me for free in exchange for my honest thoughts.
- Yes, my thoughts are given with 100% honesty… but know this; I LOVE ultra-low budget horror (and exploitation), and if I feel something was made with it’s heart in the right place, I will overlook most technical (and other flaws)… and seriously, the more batshit your production is, the chances are the more love I’ll have for it, even if no money was spent in it’s creation.
- If your film features a monster I’m going to enjoy it no matter how skillfully said creature is executed.
- No, I will not hold back if someone I know has delivered a shit sandwich. I’d rather be honest than blow smoke up your ass. Don’t like that? too bad; this is my column and I’ll run this shit how I see fit.
- If you choose to invalidate my review based on any info reveled, that’s your biz, and I respect that.
Any way, I worked on a project that Dustin Ferguson also worked on… never met him, never talked to him so that’s that. So about this Moon of the Blood Beast picture…
The long and short of this fright flick is as follows: the Devil’s biz causes the residents of a small town to suffer the monstrous machinations of a devious demon when the moon shines crimson.
Now you’d think that would limit the beast’s effectiveness in the murder department, but it does a hero’s job of putting the kibosh on various and sundry citizens let me tell ya.
Enter: Sheriff Frank (D.T. Carney) who aims to put an end to this creature feature hootenanny right quick, though the eponymous fiend has ideas to the contrary!
So what do we have here? Well, at it’s core Moon of the Blood Beast is a fun lil’ monster yarn. We get some fun satanic shenanigans, some solid performances, and a monster that is both ultra-cheap, and ultra-entertaining (when you see it that is).
We also get a brief runtime, a plethora of P.O.V. creature shots, and stock footage from MST3K fav Track of the Moon Beast… so you take the good, you take the bad, ya dig?
At the end of the day, your mileage will vary with this one depending on a few factors, namely your tolerance for zero-budget shockers and the amount of fun you are willing to have with a flick like this… I guess what I’m saying is, if you don’t have a giant stick up your ass you’ll enjoy yourself with this well enough!
Moving on we have Tales from the Campfire 3:
The Campfire Gang have gathered and they have terror tales to tell, such as: Wee One, the tale of an African fetish doll causing all manner of mischief (shades of Dan Curtis’ Trilogy of Terror), Cole Canyon Creeps which concerns hitchhiking gone wrong, The Prisoner and The Bitter Half a duo of stalk n’ slay affairs, and The Gateway which features a tale of Satanic cemetery-based ghoulish goings-on.
All of what I said about mileage and such above also applies here; this is a fun anthology with some solid stories (and some recognizable locations for you eagle-eyed horror hounds out there) filmed on an outrageously low-budget so temper your eerie expectations.
I will say one other thing about Tales for the Campfire 3, it certainly moves at a brisk pace, and with a runtime of under forty five minutes, it fuckin’ better not drag!
