Equinox

It's a fun spooky movie with a different look and without the usual nighttime menace. It's also an independent production that managed some notoriety, mainly for surprisingly impressive special effects. Actually, Equinox was sort of the Blair Witch Project of its day—a bunch of unknowns hitting it lucky with a shoestring effort. If memory serves, the film even had a run at one of the prestige theatres along Hollywood Blvd. The effects are not so impressive by today's digital standards; however, by 1970's norms, they were the unexpected equal of any A-production.

The story itself is pretty well structured in flashback with an effective "hook" to get viewers interested. The plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but then it doesn't have to, since we've got King Kong's albino brother, a castle that comes and goes, a lost book of the occult, and a shape-shifting forest ranger who's definitely not Smoky the Bear. Most of the scenes are well staged, except when the ranger gets in the girl's face, contorts his lips, and slobbers, in what I suppose was a wacky metaphor for supernatural sex. Sharp-eyed viewers may recognize Frank Bonner (Boers) from TV's WKRP in Cincinnati as Jim. He's easily the most accomplished of an uneven cast.

In fact there's an appearance of a time warp between the clothing fashions worn in the movie and the 1970 release date. In short, the hair styles and skinny pants of the movie are a long pre-Vietnam way from the bell-bottoms and long hair of counter-cultural 1970. I don't know what accounts for this apparent disparity unless release was held up for several years. Anyway, except for the rather hollow sound of the dialogue dubbing, this accomplished little indie remains an underground original.

Four friends, David, Vicki, Jim and Susan, head out into the woods to visit David's professor, Dr. Waterman. They find Waterman'home destroyed, the professor missing, and a mysterious book. It soon becomes apparent that in meddling with the book, Waterman accidentally opened a portal to another, hellish dimension, and now the demon Asmodeus (posing as a park ranger) wants to acquire the powerful book. The four friends must fight against a variety of ghoulish monsters sent after them by Asmodeus, and eventually Asmodeus himself, in order to make it back to civilization alive.

Often considered one of the best-worst movies of all time, Equinox was a student film made by a young Dennis Muren which producer Jack Woods picked up for cinematic distribution, casting himself as Asmodeus and shooting some new scenes. On the one hand, this seems like a strange movie for Criterion to release, especially in a two-disc set, however despite its ineptitude it features some charming stop-motion animation for the various monsters (and some impressive forced-perspective shots to turn an ordinary stuntman into a blue-skinned giant) and it's also certainly worthy of being preserved if only because Dennis Muren and his friends had such a piddly budget to work with that it' a miracle they even had a completed (albeit rough) film, even before Jack Woods came along.

When I rented this, I thought, "Oh God, this is going to be a total cheesefest." And it was. From the animated box cover that reminded me of all those cheesy movie posters in the fifties and sixties, to the bad acting, to the claymation, to the confusing ending, it was all cheese. But looking back, I LOVE this movie!

I rented it as "The Beast" and was expecting something as basic as that name. But I was pleasantly surprised to find an interesting story, with something constantly happening, and so much to like about this all. It was really cool how, all on one afternoon, this happened. Sure, there were some aspects that just weren't good. The acting was terrible, and the claymation scene of the octopus-type creature destroying that doctor's cabin was so terrible. Though, I laughed throughout the whole scene. And how they dealt with the doctor's death was a little hokey. But I could look past that. There was a lot to love about this. The weird ranger, Asmodeus, who was really odd. And when he attacked the one girl--Susan?--he was so freaky. And when the beast started menacing them, I knew this was great. I mean, the cheesy claymation really did it for me. Then when the one guy went to find the other guy in the "other world" (the whole scene was just tinted with red)--I was really interested. I mean, that just added to all that was going on. What was also cool was, it wasn't one of those stupid movies that when the guys told the girls "You stay here"--which they said a lot--the girls didn't just leave the movie. Stuff happened to them too. And by the end, so much happened that you just had to sit back and marvel.

Of course, the movie had the scene of the ending at the beginning--sort of to say that the survivor was looking back on the whole case--and that kind of gave too much away of what would happen to everyone. But then the final ending came. It was extremely confusing, and that was the only really bad part, but everything else was great. I simply love this movie, and I recommend anyone with a taste for cheese should see this. One of the best B-movies ever made.

Come on, people! This was a zero-budget student film, for God's sake! You can't assess this movie like you would the latest big-budget studio blockbuster. This was an earnest effort of some FX-crazed kids, who did their damnedest to get some cool stop-motion monster sequences on film as a showcase of their talents. Dennis Muren went on to STAR WARS fame and many Oscars, and the late lamented David Allen enlivened many a crappy Charles Band flick (that's actually a redundancy) with superb effects that always belied the pitiful budget he was given to work with. All I know is, my younger brother and I, both stop-motion fans, saw the trailer for EQUINOX at some long-ago Saturday matinée and KNEW we had to see this film. And when we finally did we thought it was COOL! I'd rather see a continuity-challenged, amateur FX effort like this than any multimillion-dollar CG crapfest like VAN HELSING any day of the week!

I love bad movies. This is a bad movie. I was channel flipping and saw one of the monsters cavorting about until gored by a sharp stick. I had to watch after that. Truly bad acting, unintelligible plot and a swarthy demon with the classic "Bru haa haa haa" laugh that only is done in the worst of movies. Very entertaining. I recommend you watch it with friends. Not a first date movie unless you know them well. Rather good special effects for a low budget film.