YOU WANT HOW MUCH FOR WHAT AND YOU ACTUALLY THINK YOU'RE WORTH THAT? REALLY? I MEAN, THINK ABOUT IT FOR A MINUTE... REALLY?

You Get What You Pay For - Or Not


If you are a fan of horror movies like I am, then you probably are familiar with what is considered the number one horror magazine since 1979, called Fangoria. If you haven't seen it before, give it a look. Of course these days, it also has a website as well as a Facebook page. It was from this Facebook page (yes, I still go there from time to time) that I saw an interesting offer.



Fangoria was kind enough to provide notice (you can't really call it an endorsement, since I'm sure they received nothing for it) of a new horror movie streaming service - Full Moon Features (or Productions or Entertainment - depends on what article you read). I later learned that this was not a new service at all, it has been there for some time. I don't know why Fangoria would print something about it - I don't think they checked it out first.

If you're not familiar with that particular company, think Demonic Dolls, Puppet Master, hell think of any horrible, horrible horror movie that was massively, massively cheap and you've probably got yourself a Full Moon movie or one of their offshoots in your hands. I checked it out. This streaming service is self-described as a kind of Netflix for B-movie and cult flick fiends.



It's like Netflix all right – because they charge you money. They want $6.99 per month for the privilege of watching crap without close captioning or steady streaming. They offered a free week (ending June 24, 2014) as long as you register a credit card with them. Usually I run far, far away from those types of services, but because they were in Fangoria, I gave them a shot. They failed in the first five minutes.

First failure: the website refuse to load. My computer system's movie streaming usually is instant, especially when I'm using Google Chrome. However, this time I sat watching a little circle going lazily to the left (this is not a good sign) for the longest time before I got an error message. I waited a couple of minutes, and tried again. 


After an interminably long time, the damn website loaded. I reluctantly entered my information. I picked my first movie. It did not run. This particular website offers you the option of low, medium, high, and high definition (I have no idea what the difference between high and high definition is) and I tried each one of those options trying to get that movie to work. Nope. I wrote to their so-called support and told them that their website did not work.

The next day, I got an email from somebody who explained to me that because of Fangoria, their website experienced technical difficulties which their technicians have since fixed. Number one, it's really not very nice to blame the company that gives you free advertising. Number two, I am not at computer expert, but I do know that a if a website won't load it's because it can't handle the amount of traffic it's experiencing. Second failure.


Already figuring out that they probably had a high volume of users at night, I decided to try a movie in the early morning hours (4:00 a.m. PT). Guess what friends? It didn't help. Even if you can get the website to load, login, and actually get a movie on the screen, your struggles are not over. Failure number three. The first movie I attempted to watch stuttered, stopped, restarted itself several times, and generally was a massive pain in the ass just to try to see a horrible, horrible movie. 


I tried every definition they offered, and that did not make any difference whatsoever. Now I have a good computer system. It plays movies like a charm on Netflix. In fact, when I watch movies on Netflix, I can have other Windows open all I want – I can text, I can Facebook, I can look at other things, and still Netflix will continue to run without a hiccup. That is a quality streaming service that I am willing to pay for. The monthly fee for Netflix (for those who are grandfathered in) is $7.95 per month. 

I hear Netflix is going to raise their rates a whole dollar. $8.95 per month is still a freaking sweet deal for a service that not only works, but will give you close captioning when you need it. Believe you me, people, I need it. Now people have complained it doesn't have the best of selections, however, for the money it has plenty for me.



Coming up are reviews of those horrible movies that were approximately 90 minutes apiece and yet took me three hours to watch because of their horrible streaming. And they want $6.95 for the privilege. People let me give you a warning – Full Moon and its affiliates do not have that many movies. Even under its other names such as Wizard Studios, Moonbeam, Grindhouse (and don't ask me how they managed to get a hold of those), merchandise for their own movies, plus of course selling DVDs of their movies, it still doesn't amount to much. 

On their advertisement it says dozens and dozens of movies. Well, I guess 24 and slightly above is more than two dozen. That would be dozens and dozens, right? And if you're like me and have watched B movies for years, you've probably already seen most of these anyway. It does boast a re-mastering of the classic Puppet Master, but you can find that movie on other sites. You do not have to come here.

The service offers a quick way to cancel your subscription, saying you still will have the rest of whatever time you have paid for, however when I canceled, that was the end of the movies. I would've had to sign up again in order to watch and I was not about to do that.



Do what you like, try what you like, but be warned: This website seems to have an agenda besides selling DVDs and other merchandise. They also want to sell you what is called Roku. I had no idea what that was, so I had to look it up. Depending on how much you want to spend, anywhere from $50-$100, Roku seems to simply be some sort of memory stick that supposedly smoothly streams movies. So besides paying $6.99 a month, they want you to buy these little gadgets to watch their garbage with. 

Now the following is from a forum I looked up about this relationship and I found a complaint plus allegations against Charles Band (supposed owner of all of this mess). Yes, Full Moon wants you to buy Roku. No, that does not guarantee that your movies will work. One who had one and tried to watch the movies said each movie needed a different 'setting' or it wouldn't play right. Hmm.

This is hearsay but hey, never stopped me before. Charles Band has been accused of reprinting old Wizard Label video boxes and selling the VHS tapes for $50. Other sites also link people who have different claims but it all adds up to one general accusation: Charles Band is not a particularly likable guy. I looked several places on the internet and there are pages of different people blasting him and his business practices. 'Nuff said about him.

And folks, these movies are garbage. Yes, I really liked Puppet Master, and there are others silly B movies that are fun to watch, but not here. Save yourself some real frustration and a whole lot of excuses. If one of these movies you really, really like, buy the damn thing. Do not subject yourself to the torture that is Full Moon streaming. Just for some validation, I went back to the Fangoria Facebook page to see what other people said. Some were excited, but obviously had not started yet. 

Those that had, complained as I did that the site would not load. Others who I suspect worked for Full Moon, suggested buying that damned Roku stick or gadget, depending on how much you wanted to spend. Apparently, many have been burned by this company. I do not plan to be one of them, and I would advise that you do not either.

WHAT COULD YOU DO WITH $11,000?

The Invoking aka Sader Ridge (2013)

While working on They Saved Hitler's Brain I realized that I was seriously starting to burn out my own brain so that one is in the works and coming up but not right now. It's not that it's complicated, or even long, just very, very tiring. So I found, by pure chance, this movie and decided to give it a go, hoping for something to distract me from visions of Hitler's head in a glass jar.

Really subtle guys...

I have to confess that my very first thought when I found this that it was probably a knock-off of The Conjuring. Whenever I do a movie review, I find out a little about it first - that doesn't change my opinion one way or another but I get an idea of what I'm in for. It wasn't good. Words like 'boring', 'waste of time and money', and yes, 'tries to get viewers who watched The Conjuring' were knocked about - I was afraid of that. And you movie making guys, here's a little information because apparently you think we viewers are really, really stupid. One, nobody 'invoked' ANYTHING and two, THIS IS NOTHING LIKE THE HOUSE IN THE MOVIE. 'Kay?

Looking at the IMDb to find out where this was shot, I found out that the budget was $11,000, filmed by a company called Ruthless Pictures, produced by The October People. That's a pretty low amount - and yet this indie film made some good impressions and nominations at several festivals. Okay. I looked some more and found it was made as a result of a Kickstarter program. 

For those of you who haven't heard of them, Kickstarter is a great way to forward a project, whether it be something like a movie, or a product, book, whatever. You can look through projects that are local to your area, or search a particular subject you like.

Those circumstances caused me to prepare to excuse a lot of dumb and bad stuff - but I really didn't have to. This is truly a decent film.

Again, wrong house, nothing to do with movie...

The movie was first called Sader Ridge when it was presented at several festivals. Whoever decided to cash in on The Conjuring to push the film did it a disservice. It left the viewer expecting something they weren't going to get, which is probably why the negative comments listed above came about. Using ONE word from Fangoria's review didn't help them much either. Fangoria DID have some good things to say about this film, but using just one word makes it seem like that's all they said that was positive and that's not fair.


So putting everything aside, I decided to see just what $11,000 and some imagination can buy. As it turns out, quite a lot. I've seen low budget films before, some with as little as $5,000 to work with. That means you'll see amateur actors probably wearing their own clothes, driving their own cars, and if a house is involved, no doubt it probably belongs to someone in the film. And special effects will be at a minimum. Which makes horror movies extra hard 'cause unless it's not a slasher flick or paranormal piece of garbage...

But wait. For the price of what the crew of Paranormal Activity (pick any one of 'em) spent on coffee for the crew, this film maker managed to create something genuinely creepy. Not the outright BOO kind of scare, nobody gets gloriously gutted, and no damned cupboard or bedroom doors mysteriously open and shut for an hour and twenty minutes so there can be a five minute climax.




What you get with this movie is very competent photography, wonderfully directed and shot. This movie takes place on a farm on Sader Ridge (actually shot in California) and the location they chose (or could afford) was great. The house was a normal house that any family could have lived in, and the actors, while obviously being a little rough around the edges did a pretty good job with this different take on the paranormal theme (except for one female who overacted so badly I wanted her dead but we won't go into that). 




I was also impressed with the sound quality. I can't even count just how many movies, cheap or those with big money, that have horrible sound quality - echoes, bad dubbing, horrible or inappropriate background music and worse. This was good. It's too bad that big film companies can't be made to sit down and watch films like this and say 'See? This is how it's supposed to look/sound'.



The basic story in a nutshell: A woman named Samantha (Sam) inherits a farm from an aunt who had recently died. She finds out that this was her biological aunt, she was raised by adoptive parents.  She and her college friends check it out. It's a modest house on a good sized farm. Soon after arriving however, her friends start to act strange. Sam thinks she is imagining things but the longer they stay, the stranger things are becoming and Sam is getting flashes that she's been in this house before...



You do have to go through the irritating we're-driving-and-arguing-the-whole-way scenes that start so many of these things. Finally after a lengthy drive where they start to lose their cellular signal... as you know, cell phones are only useful for telling the audience that practically every horror movie takes place 'out of range'. The only other useful function they serve is as a makeshift flashlight. The hubby saw that being done on another show and asked 'Is she using her iPhone for a flashlight? Yup. We have dumb phones but guess what - WE HAVE FLASHLIGHTS THAT WORK GREAT! Smarten up people.




Strangely (they don't quite explain why) one of the guys has an old tape recorder on a shoulder strap - the one with cartridges and the little microphones? You have to hold down the play AND record buttons? Remember those? No? Then go to bed, you're up too late. For whatever reason during the trip he has been recording what he thinks are strange sounds - including some vibrations from a radio substation they pass. Why? Why not?



Anywho, the four arrive and are shown around by Eric, who her aunt had hired as a handyman. He's recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan and constantly messes with his tags like he's trying to remind the audience of this - or it's just a nervous habit. He tells Sam that they played together as children and she is shocked to find out that she lived there until she was five - she has no memory of it at all. She is even more shocked to find that it is actually the family farm and belonged to her parents named Sader before they died.

I think this next idea is a combination of original ideas mixed with low budget restrictions. Sam is hearing one friend recite prayers at night, she catches two of them messing around, at one point two look as if they're about to fight each other - Sam notices that when this happens, their voices are a bit different too but when she mentions all of this her friends just stare at her. 



They have no idea what she's talking about. If there is a character flaw in the Sam character it's that she shows a shocking lack of curiosity about what's going on. Now that may be from fear, or maybe her lack of acting experience, or the script. You'd think by now she'd at least be grilling Eric, who seems to remember a whole LOT of stuff just what happened in that house and why she was sent away.

Because Eric DOES know more than he lets on and there WAS a very good reason to send Sam away when she was five. I'm going to do something I don't usually do in my reviews - let you see the rest play out for yourself. If you want to.

Let's give you a bit of a hint: Eric tells Sam that her family, her father in particular, were not liked by the community for the way her father 'practiced his religion and raised his children'. Children? As in more than one? Sam has also had flashes of being burned with a cigarette and checks where she thinks the scar is. They don't show it, but from the look on her face...

The end is a good twist, with backstory being provided slowly but surely, building up to quite the finish. Not spectacular, not wonderful, but pretty darn good. And I don't say that very often.

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