Full Moon Video | Buy at Full Moon Direct | Review by Sinferno
SUBSPECIES (1991)
While there are literally hundreds of vampire movies, most of them can be broken up into two separate varieties. In some of them a vampire is almost a tragic figure who while must indulge in nightly bloodlust to survive, and does so almost regrettably. Much like Edward from TWILIGHT, vampires in these sorts of films are usually portrayed as attractive, cultured men whose have the utmost in manners and social graces of any count unless you catch them snacking or try and bother them during the day. The other half of vampire movies are simply horror films about ugly, physically-powerful, terrible-looking fanged beast-men that communicate only in growling, veiled threats when they are stalking a victim, and triumphantly gloat once they have struck down an enemy. The reason I am bringing this up is this film is the first attempt I have ever seen to portray both sides of the vampire mythos in a single film, and while it wasn't exquisitely crafted, it was true to its source material.
When the film begins the wise and just King Vladislav Valescu (the lord of all vampires) realizes he is close to death so he summons for his "honorable" son Stephan to take over the family castle and his most prized possession, the Bloodstone. But unluckily for everyone, his evil, illegitimate vampire son Radu shows up to contest the will (talk about a bloodsucking relative). Radu murders his father at once by deliberately breaking his foot long, Nosferatu fingers off which then morph into foot long, stop motion demons (Subspecies) which obey his every command. So ends a centuries old truce between the vampires and human residents of Pledmar, Transylvania...
Soon a trio of young college students: Mara, Michelle and Lillian show up to study local folklore, and they meet a mysterious young man who also resides at the village where they are staying, and it soon becomes apparent that he is none other than Stefan, the rightful air to the Vladislav castle. Yet while Michelle and Stefan begin a basic, albiet ill-advised, courtship, Radu has other plans for the lot of them which while admittedly are nowhere as romantic as the aspirations of Stephan are, though perhaps more logically steeped in vampire myth and mythos.
While this is among the most authentically atmospheric Full Moon monster movies I have seen (it was actually filmed in Romania, taking place on sets and in settings that just seemed natural vampire habitats), the stop motion matte work of the tiny subspecies demons that Radu summons is absolutely terrible in its evil unrealism. If you like stories of vampires, or if you simply want to see the two types of vampire archetype in the same movie for perhaps the first time in any film, this might bring you a toothy grin or two indeed. Just beware, the pacing of this thing is traditional, as in the monster movies of the black and white movie era, so the action moves so slow at times, even the scant spilled blood of the onscreen victims seems to coagulate a bit by the time this thing finds its own unselfish, "sacrificial" love story which is always at the center of all good vampire tales.
BLOODSTONE: SUBSPECIES 2 (1993)
This sequel almost ends the series before it even begins. With the aid of his crude, stop-motion retinue of tiny Subspecies, Radu is reassembled on the cold stone floor on which he is slain. The first thing he does is kill his gentle brother Stephan who is sleeping nearby in such a grisly special effect laden fashion that I assume his gentle half-brother may be gone for good. Radu then turns his attention to Stephan's consort Michelle, the love interest from the first movie, and just as he is about to finish her off as well, forever dooming this film to be the final movie of the series, the sunlight conveniently comes up out of nowhere, forcing him to retreat to the shadows long enough for Michelle to escape, stealing the Bloodstone just for spite. Disorientated and half-dead, perhaps in the most literal sense as she is now half-vampire, Michelle escapes to Bucharest where she contacts her sister to come and save her from Radu, and perhaps more importantly from her own now-maddening hunger for blood. Becky soon arrives, only to find her sister missing from the hotel, yet with the aid of an ancient authority on Transylvania lore and a Government representative she is out to find out which is stronger, the lure of evil bloodlust or the love of blood relatives?
This is an incredibly slow-moving film with only two actual humans killed in its duration. However, at least this sequel does advance the Subspecies story as we get to meet Radu's evil sorceress mother mentioned in the first film, who is a terrible and shrill, crypt-keeper-looking woman. Aside from the fact he addresses her as "Mommy" (which pretty much destroys much of the evil ambiance it took two films for his character to achieve), she is a much-needed magic character in a film that has killed off exactly half of the immortal undead characters it has introduced to us thus far. If you liked SUBSPECIES, all of the artistic nuances from the first film are back – the Romanian castle, the lustful and yet dreadful character of Radu, and the awesome makeup and creature effects. Despite some severe lack of continuity between Michelle's appearance just before her slumber at the conclusion of the last film and her awakening in this one (released only two years later), I have to give this one props for not giving us a happy ending where everything is solved. This makes it authentically Gothic and will appeal most to fans of such hard-boiled cinema who hate perfect and tidy resolution of any kind in their monster flicks. As the second film in a series, it does what it is supposed to and that is all but ensure you will want to see the next installment in the series once you view it. Luckily it is enclosed, reviewed below! *Insert sarcastic Radu laugh here*
BLOODLUST: SUBSPECIES III (1994)
Filmed concurrently with SUBSPECIES 2, I was expecting more of the same. This is exactly what I got, for when the movie begins we are treated to the exact same plot paved by its predecessors. As you may or may not recall, Michelle was snatched by Radu's mother in the final ten seconds of SUBSPECIES 2 and was unable to flee the castle along with her sister. As such, this film begins where all sequels about dead bad guys do and that's with a resurrection sequence. But Radu is nowhere near as pissed off at the woman who has nearly ended his thousand year life twice in as many movies as you might expect him to be and he sets out to train her, using only words of fondness to address her, never directly mistreating her and often referring to her as his "fledgeling". Needless to say this doesn't sit well with his grotesque-looking mother who sees Michelle as nothing but trouble...
Meanwhile, Michelle's sister Becky has gone off to town and recruited some help, among them the curmudgeonly-bumbling police detective named Lt. Marin who doesn't believe in supernatural events and a governmental official named Mel (both bit players from the previous film), as well as a CIA operative named "Bob" who is so military-trained, tough and resourceful that no one questions him when he shows up with several guns loaded with silver bullets, even though everyone should know by now (three films in) that Radu isn't a werewolf. From there the stage is set for a classic confrontation and some retread of familiar territory as Radu betrays his mother, tries to get his new vampire consort to be some kind of decent wife to him and generally kills anyone who gets in his way. Thankfully the crude stop-motion subspecies puppets (which I hate by now) were absent from most of the film except for the very end, and even then they were never integrated with live action shots, which made them look somehow almost convincing.
This film didn't surprise me in the least except for the character of Radu himself. For the first time in a SUBSPECIES film I saw some surprising (actual) character development. In past films Radu was nothing but the snarling, evil, prime-mover of mayhem, yet, in this one, Radu actually plays a tragic romantic figure who just wants to be loved by Michelle, a woman who would rather die (literally) than be undead. While Michelle does nothing but trick, deceive and betray him at every turn, Radu quietly but firmly encourages her to forget her humanity for her own sanity and even tries to train her so that she may better survive an admittedly sad situation that neither of them could change anymore if they wanted to. By the time Radu sacrifices everyone and everything that is dear to him in the futile hope that Michelle could love him, it is easy to see that we are looking at a better film than the others in the series and a rare cinematic moment indeed where a sequel finds its best moment three films in. For the first time Radu is portrayed not as a blood-dribbling boogeyman with delusions of power and grandeur but a living, thinking, feeling, tragic monster akin to the Phantom of the Opera. When all is said and done the one thing you will remember about this series is the decent acting of man who plays "Radu". He's a guy by the name of Anders Hove who has made quite a living for himself as playing the bad guy in foreign monster movies with titles I can't even buy in this country, much less pronounce correctly. Good for him. May his career endure as long as the tormented life of Radu himself.
And while there is a five disc boxed set dedicated to SUBSPECIES, for the purposes of the Full Moon Archive, dawn has broken and you can stop trying to hammer that stake into your DVD player.
Now that I have conquered the box – the biggest multi-disc anthology from Full Moon ever released – the question is, would I recommend it? The answer is complex indeed. If you like Full Moon Features, odds are you already have some of the films in this set and you can't trade the duplicates from this set away to your buddies because the one-of-a-kind graphics in this archive itself are unique to this set. Each individual disc encased in a midnight blue plastic slipcase with a common font, set into a heavy-duty bookshelf box signed by Charles Band himself. Moreover, if you are aren't into retro horror and you personally insist that all of your fright flicks have the medically accurate disfigurement of a SAW film or the modern computer-rendered high velocity crashes of a FINAL DESTINATION movie this archive may not be for you either, because the action consists of lots of stop-motion work and simple puppeteer manipulation as the prime method of motivation for the more creative beasties and bad-guys in these films. Furthermore, while all major studios were experimenting with digital effects by the early nineties, it is generally accepted that B-movies lag behind their major studio counterparts by about a decade when it comes to special effects so keep in mind that most of these films look like they were created in the eighties despite the fact that only one of them actually was.
This being said, if you actually have an interest in Full Moon but have yet to purchase a single film, this is an awesome starting place because several titles in this set are no longer available as a single DVD and yet the cost per disc is better than any previous boxed set, collection or bundle. So even if the quality varies from title to title in this monster archive, there can be no doubt that the quantity for price is better than usual. And while the violence in this set is ultimately every bit as unconvincing as the sex in the ULTIMATE PLEASURE BOX, at least this one has body fluids (fake blood) and various forms of penetration (stabbings, impailings).
What can I say? I'm a purist!
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 ]
| Yucko/Neato Factor: For the curious or completest this horror set kills. All others, read the reviews and pick and choose. |
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| Production Values: Actual, selectable program chapters, master box autographed/numbered by Charles Band and stately, tasteful box art that is more Franklin Mint than Fangoria. A time capsule from the final days of stop motion and physical special effects over digital trickery. |
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| Realism: But B-movie horror was never meant to be a documentary. |
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| Value for Price: For $120.00 the18 discs averages to $6.66 and the first genuine shudder this thing brought my jaded countenance. Yikes. |
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| Plot: The presentation was always imaginative even if some of the premises could barely fill a DVD box. |
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