EMPIRE OF SCREAMS

For this movie review I'm looking at something very special. It's a five disc set from Arrow entitled "Enter The Video Store: Empire Of Screams." It's focused on Charles Band's Empire Pictures. Now, I don't try to hide the fact that I'm a big Full Moon fan. Well, Empire Pictures was the precursor to Full Moon, and they produced movies that have a lot of what would later become trademarks of Full Moon. This set gathers up five films from Empire and collects them into one set. 

The first disc is devoted to the movie "The Dungeonmaster." While that movie is more or less a modern retelling of an epic quest in the great classic mythology tradition, it is essentially a merging of science fiction and fantasy. It's also an anthology, though, with seven distinct stories merged into one over-arching tapestry. Each story is written and directed by a different person. 

The movie features Richard Moll (Bull from “Night Court”--Dr. M) as a character that is essentially the devil. He's the one who challenges our hero (played by Jeff Byron) to survive seven quests. Now, the biggest part of science fiction comes in with that hero being actually connected to a computer and being able to use the power of that computer to do all kinds of nearly magical things. 

The quests include fighting a giant statue monster in a sequence that calls to mind Ray Harryhausen's mythology work, a creepy adventure that pits him against undead and death itself, a rogues gallery of famous killers thawed from being deep frozen and a heavy metal concert featuring none other than the band WASP. There is also a slasher movie section, a creature in a cave tale and a Mad Max like sequence. The movie has some moments where the effects and things that the computer can do seem a little silly, but it's a fun film nonetheless. The disc offers a number of bonus features including other cuts of the film under the name "Ragewar." 

It should be mentioned that the theatrical version should have a content warning. The demonic character played by Moll describes in pretty gory detail the torture and killing of a cat. Again, it's spoken...nothing is shown... but it gets very descriptive. That section is cut much shorter in other edits of the film. 

The second disc includes "Dolls" That movie has the added attraction of being a Stuart Gordon film. I love Gordon's Lovecraft based films, and this was made as his next work after the first two of those, "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond." This movie is much less insane than those, and it's a lot more serious in some ways. 

The set up is classic Gothic horror. Travelers get stuck in a storm and wind up in an old creepy mansion for the night. The concept of dolls coming to life certainly makes me think of both the "Puppet Master" series and "Child's Play." The connection to "Puppet Master" is obvious because that movie series came from Full Moon. As to "Child's Play," I could see how some people might think this movie was inspired by that one, but this came out the year before Chucky made his debut. 

The film does a great job of meshing different tropes into something new and unique. As mentioned, we've got the whole Gothic horror element at play. There is a "dark fantasy" or "fairy tale" concept here, as well. Yet, they put in enough gore and violence to earn it a real horror label. 

I actually love how the movie has a really cheery ending. The fact that there are all kinds of dark secrets and hidden horrors behind it, makes that seem even more interesting. The effects of the dolls moving and killing works really well, especially when you understand how difficult something like that must have been to do with practical effects. The disc includes a number of bonus features. Those who have varying levels of interest for me, but the movie is the real star here, and that's as it should be. 

Disc three is devoted to a film that is definitely of the horror variety. It's called "Cellar Dweller," and it focuses on the idea of horror comic creations coming to life. It starts with a prequel scene featuring none other than Jeffrey Combs as a comic book creator. When he recites a quote from an ancient book of spells, he finds that the works he's drawing are coming to life. He attempts to destroy the monster he's created and kills himself also in the process. 

From there we come to the present (in this case 1985) and find that the building he was in has now been turned into sort of an artists' colony. It's run by the incomparable Yvonne DeCarlo. While she's definitely older, and playing a different character, Lily Munster's voice is instantly recognizable. 

A young artist who is a devotee of Combs' character is just moving in, and we follow her as she interacts with all the other characters. Although the basement where Combs' character had worked is closed up and off limits, she eventually gets to use it as her workspace, and unfortunately the same thing starts happening with her creations. 

It's an enjoyable horror film that feels a little like "Creepshow' in terms of tone. I found myself wishing that it was a little darker and grittier, but it never felt boring. This disc also comes with a number of bonuses, but none really grabbed me that much. The movie is the gem of the disc, but really shouldn't it be? The film is also one of my favorites of the set. 

For the fourth disc we get something called "Arena." It's essentially a rags to riches boxing movie but turned into a science fiction tale. Science fiction fans should find a few members of the cast familiar. We get Claudia Christian of "Babylon Five" fame playing the manager. Marc Alaimo who plays Gul Dukat in the Star Trek universe plays her villainous rival. Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Quark, Armin Shimmerman, plays his underling. 

All the action takes place on a space station in some distant future. It almost looks like they decided to take the sort of gritty weirdness of the cantina scene from "Star Wars" and create a whole space station around that vibe. 

The story is a bit of a mess, really, with far too much going on and not enough characters you really care about. Still, by the time we're drawn into the closing portion of the movie, it does get to be fun. The movie is definitely not up to the level of the rest in this set, though. Again, I wasn't really drawn into the bonus features on this disc. 

The final disc of the set, "Robot Jox" is the other movie without any horror content. Horror fans might find it to have some significance, though, since it's directed by Stuart Gordon. The movie stars Gary Graham and is set in a time after a nuclear war. Wars are outlawed and disputes between nations (there are only two remaining) are fought by sending Robot Jox into one-on-one battle in giant fighting machines. It's obviously plying the same territory as the BattleTech game. 

The movie works pretty well. There is a little bit of a "Rollerball" vibe in the whole "Sport" of Robot Jox as big business and entertainment. It has some bits of romance, some spy intrigue and a lot of science fiction action. It may not be spooky, but it is entertaining and the effects are remarkably good for the time period. 

So, to sum it all up, this set really does give a nice snapshot of the type of movies Charles Band did with Empire before Full Moon. It's not all compelling, but there are at least a couple effective horror films in the bunch along with some science fiction, and it does manage to keep the viewer entertained across all five discs.