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Moonchild (Visual Vengeance) Blu-ray Review

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    Ian Jane
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  • Moonchild (Visual Vengeance) Blu-ray Review

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    Released by: Visual Vengeance
    Released on: October 25th, 2022.
    Director: Todd Sheets
    Cast: Auggi Alvarez, Kathleen McSweeney, Julie King, Dave Miller, Kyrie King, Stefan Hilt
    Year: 1994
    Purchase From Amazon

    Moonchild – Movie Review:

    Written and directed by the great Todd Sheets and shot entirely in and around Kansas City, 1994’s Moonchild takes place in a dystopian future where, before the opening credits even hit the screen, we’re introduced to Jacob Stryker (Auggi Alvarez), a tough guy in a duster with a ponytail who is on the run. He hops a fence and then gets chased by some bad guys answering to Lothos (Harry Rose). See, Stryker is a bit of a super soldier type, as the government experimented on him and spliced his DNA with that of a werewolf. This makes him one tough sonuvabitch, tough enough to climb a pole and jump into a moving pickup truck, fight some more bad guys, and then escape into the sewers.

    As the story unfolds, we learn that Stryker is out searching for his son, Caleb (Stefan Hilt), who is also a human/werewolf hybrid. Along the way, he teams up with a warrior named Talon (Dave Miller), a resistance leader who works with a core group of dedicated warriors and scientist types like Dr. Andronymous (Cathy Metz) and the lovely Athena (Kathleen McSweeney). There’s a catch, however, and that is that there’s a bomb in Jacob’s stomach that will explode in seventy-two hours, meaning he doesn’t have a whole lot of time to do anything except hope to find Caleb, let alone get into a fight with a buzz saw wielding cyborg, deal with the leader of a horde of cannibals named Hades (Rod Will) or take on a weird evil cyborg lady named Medusa (Carol Carta) or, dare say it, even find love.

    One of the most ambitious, no-budget shot on video movies you’re ever going to see, Moonchild is fast paced and action packed. That said, this isn’t the werewolf movie that the cover art makes it out to be, Jacob spends about ninety-five percent of the movie’s running time in his human form, but when he does transform, it’s pretty sweet and makes good use of some creative, if slightly primitive by modern standards, special effects work. Really, though, the werewolf angle doesn’t need to be the draw here. Sure, it’s a neat gimmick and all but this is much more of a post-nuke action movie than a horror picture and it shows Sheets taking things in a new direction and really evolving as a filmmaker. The cinematography here is very polished and interesting and the stunt work on display is a lot of fun to watch, particularly when you realize that nobody involved with any of this had any professional training in that arena.

    The acting is a little clunky in spots, that’s just part and parcel with the whole low budget, shot on video aesthetic, but the location work is fantastic. Sheets and company found what looks like a very real industrial wasteland and used that as the perfect backdrop to tell their story. There’s also a lot of effort put into the costumes, and while some of them look a little goofy (one of the main bad guys looks like he’s wearing a strange sort of samurai outfit), they just add to the fun of the movie. To top it all off, most of the film is set to a pretty great metal score that, as a good score should, really goes a long way to enhancing the action and tension inherent in this genre-defying SOV gem.

    Moonchild – Blu-ray Review:

    Visual Vengeance brings Moonchild to region free Blu-ray on a 50GB framed at 1.33.1 and offered up in AVC encoded 1080i high definition using a “new, director supervised SD master from original tapes.” This looks about as good as it probably can, given the source material available. The image is fairly soft and looks very much like the shot on tape production that it is. Detail can’t rise above the source material, nor should it. That said, it’s all very watchable. The film’s intentionally muted color scheme is replicated well and black levels are decent enough.

    Moonchild gets an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 mix, with optional subtitles provided in English only. Audio quality is on par with the video quality in that it’s limited by the source materials but perfectly acceptable given the film’s low-fi roots. Most of the time the dialogue is perfectly audible and the movie’s heavy metal soundtrack sounds pretty solid.

    Extras start off with a new audio commentary with Director Todd Sheets and star Auggi Alvarez that does a nice job of exploring the making of the movie. It’s a fairly scene specific breakdown of what went into the film, going over how some of the stunts were done in the opening scene, how Sheets and Alvarez, clearly friends, worked on other projects together and the different locations that were used for the different scenes. Sheets also goes over the influence of Japanese samurai films on this particularly project, goes over wardrobe and cinematography choices, the insane money that VHS release of some of his early movies go for on eBay, gives plenty of credit to the different cast and crew members that worked with him on the movie and spends a fair bit of time talking about how they really did try to do something different here than just simply make another horror/gore picture as he and his crew had done in the past.

    A second new audio commentary features Sheets and Rob Hauschild of Visual Vengeance. This covers some of the same ground as the first track but also goes into more detail about the different actors that he worked with, restoring the movie, details on what went into putting the finished movie together, how he feels about the movie almost three decades since making it, what sets this apart from his other productions and quite a bit more.

    Visual Vengeance has also included the alternate VHS cut of Moonchild as originally released. It actually runs a bit longer at 1:29:25 versus the feature restored version at 1:26:51. The production company credits are different on this version and there was obviously quite a bit of color correction done on the newer version as things look much better in that department when you compare the two versions.

    Wolf Moon Rising: The Making Of Moonchild is a thirty-two minute documentary comprised of archival interviews with Sheets, Rod Will, Paul Van Dan Elzen, Dave Miller, Julie King, Kathleen McSweeney, Rebecca Rose, Carol and Emmet, J.T. Taube, Jeff Sisson, Cathy Metz, Jerry Angell, Tonia Monahan, John Anthony and Jennifer Geiger. In addition to the interviews, there’s also a lot of very cool behind the scenes footage here. All involved look back on the shoot with some fondness, and there are some interesting stories here about the collaboration and effort that it took to get the movie finished. There are also some great clips from local news shows that covered the movie when it was being made. Also found on the disc are ten minutes worth of additional archival interviews with Metz, Alvarez, McSweeney, Rose, Will, Mark Newlan and Miller. These are also interesting to see as they were shot around the time that the movie was made.

    Up next is a thirteen minute short film in the form of Sanguinary Desires, directed by Sheets in the late eighties. In the movie, a group of teenagers are offered a cool ten grand to make it through the night in a creepy old building, unaware that the people who have set this up are not as they seem. It gets very gory, very quickly and in true Todd Sheets fashion, a lot of people get their guts ripped out. There's also a pretty cool face peeling scene in here as well. It’s fun stuff and a nice addition to the disc.

    Finishing up the extras on the disc are an original VHS trailer for the movie, a two minute deleted alternate ending, a music video by Descension, a trailer for Sheets’ recent Bonehill Road, a selection of trailers for a few upcoming Visual Vengeance releases (Heartland Of Darkness, Violent New Breed, Zombie Rampage), menus and chapter selection options.

    Visual Vengeance has also, once again, included some fun physical bonuses here as well, starting with a four page insert book containing liner notes by Matt Desiderio of Horror Boobs titled An American Werewolf In Kansas City this is well worth reading. The disc also comes packaged with a folded mini-poster tucked away inside the keepcase, as well as a sticker sheet of vintage VHS-style rental stickers. The disc also comes with some nice reversible cover sleeve art featuring original VHS art on the reverse as well as, for the first pressing only, a limited edition slipcase with new artwork by The Dude.

    If that weren’t enough this release also comes with an audio CD of the movie’s soundtrack, which is definitely worth checking out as the music used in the movie is pretty great.

    Moonchild – The Final Word:

    Moonchild remains one of Todd Sheets’ most ambitious and unique movies, it’s a really entertaining mix of genres made with a whole lot of passion and energy. Visual Vengeance has done a great job bringing this underappreciated SOV gen to Blu-ray in a true special edition loaded with extras. Highly recommended!


    Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Moonchild Blu-ray screen caps!

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