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It's always a lot of fun to encounter a horror film with lousy production values and an overall shortage of talent, but simultaneously an incredibly ambitious plot to compensate for all that! "Shadowzone", for example, is a very cheesy and often ineptly accomplished B-horror movie, but you certainly wouldn't think so after reading the plot synopsis! J.S. Cardone, the weird guy who also made the early 80's video-nasty "The Slayer", thought up a complex premise with dream weaves, secret NASA-sponsored medical experiments and alternate dimensions … only to arrive eventually at a movie about a shape-shifting creature stalking and gruesomely killing people in an abandoned subterranean science lab. Dig this: our brain actually protects us when we sleep, because we naturally dream about horrific stuff during our nightly subconscious journey to a parallel dimension. The acclaimed Dr. Van Fleet is working hard to control and regulate this process by isolating the brain instructions. NASA is interested in the experiments, for their astronauts on future missions, but when of Dr. Van Fleet's guinea pigs dies under mysterious circumstances, Captain Hickock is sent in to investigate. When he requests to repeat the modus operandi on another living specimen, a murderous type of shape-shifting creature is unleashed and everyone is trapped down in the hermetically sealed of base. Once the monster is loose, all the pseudo-intelligent mumbo jumbo about alternate dimensions etcetera is thrown overboard and "Shadowzone" becomes an ordinary but nevertheless entertaining little horror flick. This is actually one of my first acquaintances with the works of Full Moon Studios. A friend of mine gradually intends to introduce me to this cheesy B-movie studio's greatest "classics", and I must admit he did a fairly good job starting off with "Shadowzone". The kills are inventive and the make-up effects are enjoyably nasty (there even is a delicious head-explosion). There's some welcome gratuitous nudity and wondrously hammy acting performances from washed-up cult veterans. James Hong stars as the fanatic scientist and Louise Fletcher, the unforgettable Nurse Ratched in "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest", is awesome as his assistant. The finale is kind of dumb, but hey who's complaining. Good trashy fun from Full Moon.

The first thing you need to know about 'Shadowzone' is that it's a blatant rip-off of a dozen other films from the same sci-fi/horror genre. The first that comes to mind is 'Alien,' but there are elements of plenty others in there, too.

It doesn't have much of a budget, which is a shame because there is a decent idea buried somewhere in it. What lets it down is that there isn't enough invested in the characters. Every one is a total stereotype and you know who'll be monster-fodder and who's going to make it from the word go.

It's about an investigator who does to a top secret military base to investigate the death of a worker. Once there, he finds the scientists are dabbling in doorways to other dimensions (never a recipe for 'happily ever after'). Then, we have a monster who - remains relatively unseen - as it bumps them off, one by one.

The acting isn't great, the special effects are stretched and what tension is pretty much directly lifted from Alien (check out the 'motion tracker' type scene which is almost totally taken from the scene in Alien where Ripley observes Dallas while he treks through the vents, plus the music which sounds almost identical).

It's not the worst 'monster-munching' movie out there. There are some nice moments here and there, but the overall vibe of 'seen it all before' outweighs what little good is there.

"Shadowzone" was produced by Full Moon Entertainment, and it's one of their better movies. This one also proofs that the company was at its best during the late 80's/early 90's. In the late 90's and especially after 2000 they released nothing but bad, crappy movies, I'm very sorry to say (I grew up watching & enjoying Charles Band's old school stuff, so I know where I'm coming from). Like I said, "Shadowzone" is quite good and it certainly is not a mindless "The Thing" rip-off, as some people claim. Capt. Hickock is sent to a secret underground NASA-facility to investigate the sudden death of a test subject. NASA was doing dream-research and Hickock soon finds out that the experiments opened a portal to another dimension... and something found its way through. This is not an ordinary monster/creature-on-the-loose-in-an-underground-facility flick. Because the creature has the ability to alter its molecular structure and take the shape of your most deepest fears. The acting is pretty decent, especially Louise Fletcher (yes, the head-nurse from "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest") and Dave Beecroft (who kinda looks like a younger version of Fred Ward). James Hong was also fun to see as Dr. Van Fleet, losing control over his experiments. The special effects were rather good (as is the case in any early Full Moon film) with a highlight being a bloody head-explosion (complete with popping veins and all). The climax near the end wasn't anything special, but the ending nevertheless was sorta satisfying. I'd say: If you haven't seen any Full Moon film yet, then you might as well start with this one.

SHADOWZONE was, I believe, Full Moon's first picture. It's well done on a low budget and I was satisfied with most of it. I actually first got interested in this film when I saw the coming attraction for it on the FRIDAY THE 13th PART VIII video. The deaths were cool, the acting was good, and the plot was commendable, especially considering what we're getting from Full Moon nowadays. This film was not an ALIEN rip-off. I read somewhere that this was an ALIEN rip-off and was surprised as I found really no similarities. Also of note, there is no Full Moon Videozone included with this film. No. Instead, we have a "talking" full moon! **1/2out of****I watched this at about 12:00AM, and then watched it again at 7:00PM. I can definitely tell you that this film is more effective if watched late at night. It's more fun too.

Even given a couple instances of jarring imagery, plot development is agonizingly slow. One-third of the way through the runtime, very little has happened at all, and the story has gone almost nowhere. The story does very gradually advance from there on, but the problems persist and are amplified. The screenplay is direly thin: characters have little to no depth or personality, and dialogue is at best perfunctory. Scene writing is sluggish and hollow, and the overall narrative is questionable and unconvincing. 'Shadowzone' is mostly just boring.

I'm unsure how actors of such immense caliber as Louise Fletcher an James Hong became involved in this production, but their skills were absolutely wasted, as Dr. Erhardt and Dr. Van Fleet are as flat and dull in their characterizations as anyone could be. One gets the impression that after signing on, Fletcher and Hong were quickly so bored with the tawdry film-making and storytelling on display that they proceeded to phone in their performances. Protagonist Hickock is limited to only two modes, "exploding with anger" or "angrily brooding," and it's impossible to tell from his part if David Beecroft is an excellent actor leaning into the role, or a poor actor bereft of range or nuance. It's actually the supporting cast that give the best demonstrations of acting here. Whether on account of having little renown (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.), few other credits (Shawn Weatherly, Frederick Flynn), or generally being relegated to bit parts (Lu Leonard), these players make the most of their small roles here, and give a demonstration of their capabilities that their lack of recognition would otherwise deny.

Effects look okay. The music is alright. Lighting and set design is well done, I suppose. But it's hard to particularly care about such aspects when the movie at large is such a chore to sit through. There are a few good ideas here, but they are scattershot amidst writing that is broadly almost beyond saving. Whatever it was that drew your attention to 'Shadowzone' - even if you're a big fan of someone in the cast, there's just entirely too little value here to recommend it.

Yawn.

Let's be honest, Maureen Flaherty had the best role of anyone involved. I hope she was well compensated.

Late night TV as a kid, I would stay up in the hopes of coming across something so outrageously fun, or trashy, and that's how I initially came across this Full Moon production. This and "CRASH AND BURN" seemed to be on a loop every couple of months, becoming a staple of my late-night TV habits. Actually it's been quite awhile since I've last watched "SHADOWZONE", maybe around 15 years. My memory was rather fuzzy, but watching this little b-film again, after all these years. It remained a diverting, down-pat viewing. Mainly it reminded me of those plethora cheap Alien rip-offs, and boy, this film lifts some set-ups from "ALIEN". I must admit, it wasn't as exciting as I remembered; nonetheless it was actually efficiently made by J.S Cardone, for such a limited looking production.

When it's not simply splashing blood against walls as the victims get attacked for most part off-screen, there are a few effective moments of suitably grotesque make-up FX and a touch of splatter. You can't fail with a head explosion. Even the creature design, and we do get a good look at it, provides solid enough practical effects despite the stiff movements. The script's theory behind its origin, structural metabolism and how it adapts to survive is rather creative, yet it's hodgepodge, as the science behind all of this commotion is nonsensical and poorly expanded on, sometimes even stalling and taking away from the simple-minded fun.

The mystery of what's going on in this underground facility slowly builds up to the danger that will unfold. Now that's when stupidity comes into play, to keep the story moving and to cause some deaths. Don't you just love it when our heroine needs something to destroy the computers, so he heads out the corridor to find an emergency axe in a glass case. Um, just wait a minute -- It's been there all this time, untouched, no one thought of using it when you got a hostile creature from a parallel dimension lurking about. Things don't start off that seriously though, with the script providing moments of morbid humor, but once the creature hits the scene, that changes and the cheap, tight surroundings gets claustrophobic trapping the occupants inside.

The turning point is when James Hong (who was appearing in nearly everything that was low-budget horror related in the late 80s to early 90s) decides to get himself knocked off. I was disappointed by that, but Louise Fletcher, Miguel A. Nunez Jr and Cardone regular Frederick Flynn do make something of their characters, even providing quirky shades, as our heroine played by David Beecroft, whose character is sent there by NASA to investigate the death of one the researchers' subjects, had all the personality of a wooden plank.

This movie was bad, not good bad, plain old bad!. Normally I enjoy "bad" films but this was just a crap film. The movie starts out okay and drops the ball very quickly. The pacing was truly horrible, there is some action, people die and you have to wait another twenty minutes for anything to happen. Long stretches where nothing happens but people talking and long pauses where you are left feeling bored and annoyed.

Special effects were cool, they were all practical and did not look bad.

The acting is okay at best.

Watch this film if you are into being bored by bad B-grade films.

J.S. Cardones' spooky and sinister low budget retread of "Alien" and "The Thing" does have some good ideas going for it as a result, and is fairly well produced and directed on a low budget.

A top secret government project (they'll never run out of those in genre movies), located deep underground, is hard at work conducting sleep related experiments. One of their subjects has died violently and a NASA captain, Hickock (David Beecroft, 'Falcon Crest') arrives to investigate. What the project team has discovered is that these experiments have opened a path to some other dimension and now a hideous creature is on the loose, a creature that will make quick work of the characters while they try to figure out how to fight back.

Even if rather routine in the end, "Shadowzone" is a good example of its genre, with Cardone creating a solid atmosphere and some decent suspense. Karen Grossmans' cinematography is quite stylish and moody, and the production design by Don Day is likewise impressive. Richard Band supplies the spooky music score. Mark Shostrom creates some appropriately nasty monster effects and gore.

A solid cast including several familiar faces is fun to watch, especially old pros like James Hong ("Big Trouble in Little China"), as the scientist in charge, and Louise Fletcher ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"), as his assistant. They're old fashioned mad scientists, to be sure, but this does add to the overall comfortable predictability of the material. Co-starring are Shawn Weatherly (Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss South Carolina of 1980) as a fellow scientist, Lu Leonard ("Starman") as the tough talking cook, Miguel A. Nunez Jr. ("The Return of the Living Dead") as reliable technician Wiley, and Frederick Flynn (Cardones' "The Slayer") as agitated, panicky custodian Shivers. Some of you will be interested to note that there is some nudity provided courtesy of bit players Maureen Flaherty and Robbie Rives.

The movie begins on an effectively ominous note and is consistent in tone and pace right up until a rather underwhelming finale. It's definitely recommended if you're a lover of B movies and Full Moon productions in particular.

Seven out of 10.

Ah, the 80s, when Full Moon/Empire/Whatever movies still had a budget and were actually watchable. This one does it's best to remind the viewer that he has seen this story countless times. However, "Shadowzone" is competently made and directed, the cast is o.k. and the special effects are EXCELLENT for what they must have cost. It delivers the gory goods, too (nice exploding head...). Monster movie fans will surely get a kick out of this...

OK the film 📼 was good for the four pounds I paid. But not really close to the alien franchise. Very old film so maybe a collectors item. Have Pit and the pendulum a Charles band film 📼 for tonight jacey.

"Shadowzone" is a typical horror film from Full Moon Entertainment.In the underground laboratory a group of scientists are doing experiments with dreams.They accidentally kill one of the volunteers.David Beecroft is sent to investigate the death.When he arrives there,he finds out that the scientists have released a monster from a dream dimension.All of them are stuck under the ground while the monster kills them."Shadowzone" is a surprisingly well-done horror film loaded with nudity and graphic violence.The acting is decent and the characters are well-developed.The climax is disappointing,though.The film is still worth checking out,if you like bloody monster flicks.My rating:7 out of 10.

This movie is so slow it could put a hyperactive gerbil on speed into a coma. It starts slowly, slow burns through the middle, and ends on a decidedly low key note. You could call it 'atmospheric', but I'd probably go for 'snoozefest..'. It's not terribly made, and it's not an embarrassing clunker that anyone involved should be ashamed of, but it just fails to excite or entertain on any level. If you're looking for some so-bad-it's-good oldskool sci-fi cheese then look elsewhere.

OK I need 10 lines of text. How about that clumsy tag line, then:

"In Alien no one could hear you scream. In the Shadowzone that's all you can hear"

a more accurate tag line would be: "In the Shadowzone nothing much really happens, and then it just randomly ends"

My review was written in March 1990 after watching the movie on Paramount video cassette.

One of the better Charles Band fantasy pics in some time, "Shadowzone" is a suspenseful thriller that has better-than-average home video prospects in its Paramount video release.

The film had a bief theatrical run on 42nd Street in January from JGM Enterprises.

Pic unfolds in the nailbiter tradition of Robert Wise's "The Andromeda Strain". James Hong and Louise Fletcher are scientists in a secret lab underground. David Beecroft visits as a NASA investigator following a mysterious death there.

With assistants Shawn Weatherly and Miguel Nunez, the scientists are conducting deep sleep experiments. Things go haywire when a monster from another dimension is called up accidentally. It only wants to return home, but wreaks havoc anyway.

Helmer J. S. Cardone does a solid job of maintaining tension while paying homages to such film classics as "The Thing". Cast is very good, with Hong getting a non-stereotyped assignment (as Dr. Von Fleet0 with a Germanic accent, no less. As the nude experimental subject in a coma, Maureen Flaherty has minimal diaglo but makes quite an impression on screen.

Sleep inducing movie ironically about dream therapy and experiments. One of the few Full Moon releases to feature a selection of real animals including a cute monkey. Louise Fletcher is an older doctor, ex Baywatch star Shawn Weatherly (she was eaten by a Shark in Baywatch as her breasts weren't big enough or something!) is a young doctor and various men including David Beecroft (as Nasa captain) and James Hong is a male doctor. That is it really, they hang out in a science laboratory where attractive blonde Maureen Flaherty lies completely naked in a sealed dome. Beecroft is sent to investigate the 'Shadowzone' project as someone has been killed. Director J.S. Cardone in one of his two Full Moon outings (the other 'Crash and Burn') has always preferred TV movie style sex and nudity to actual proper storytelling and though this is potentially a strong science fiction tale he manages to make it as bland as perhaps only he could. Watchable thanks largely to the fine cast, but truly average.

Wow, I'm at a loss for how bad this movie is. I love Full Moon and all of their early work, such as Puppet Master, Trancers, and Demonic Toys, and I have a great appreciation for a lot of their talent and independent films, but this?! This doesn't get any stars from me!

There is not one character to care about, the plot is full of holes, the story, or lack there of, is atrocious to begin with...I can go on, but I think I'll stop. Bottom line, if you thought full moon movies they make today like Trancers 6, Stitches, and Shrieker suck, you haven't seen anything until you watch this! At least those movies had maybe one or two redeeming moments. This one has none

Take my word for it and listen to this warning. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME! I love horror, I love B-Films, but this movie fails to meet the expectations I have for both. 1 out of 10

I just watched Shadowzone for the first time tonight and as a big fan of horror/monster movies and B-movies in general I was looking forward to it. What I thought this was going to be was a big low budget monster movie, where a science experiment goes awry and everyone needs to escape to hope to survive. And that's kinda what it is ... but there are A LOT of slow moving scenes of nothing but people talking. It's not like I would be even mad at that except for the fact that it's not what we're promised on the cover of the DVD! On the cover we see a picture of some alien-ish looking monster wearing a tattered lab coat so we can assume that would what happens to James Hong's character Dr. Van Fleet. But it isn't ... no we never see such a character and Hong's character doesn't transform into anything. In fact for a movie that puts the monster front and center on the cover we hardly ever see it and when we do it's just little 5 second glimpses. And I thought maybe it's going the route of the big reveal in the climax and then we'll see it on screen for a decent amount of time? No! Not even then, in the final act of the film we finally see it up close and can it's entire body but it's only on screen for about 2 minutes. It looks cool, you can definitely tell it's low budget but that's ok but it barely gets any screen time. That was a major disappointment for me I was ready to see the monster I was promised on the cover but never saw it. What saved this movie from being a total snoozefest we're the characters. James Hong is always fun to see, we have his female assistant who for some reason is always putting chapstick on, the other hot bombshell blonde scientist, a black guy who's a computer whiz, a fat, smoking female cook who used to run a whorehouse and a hillbilly maintenance man named Shivers. Also our main protagonist the Nasa investigator played by David Beecroft who out of all the characters is unfortunately the most boring. He just has no personality whatsoever, he never seems bothered when anyone dies and mostly all he does is stand around and ask questions. He doesn't really even figure anything out, it's all the people around him that do all the work, clearly he should not have been the main focus. All the other characters have quirks and funny attitudes that when they play off each other is entertaining to watch. Other than that there's really not much to this movie, the ending is a pretty big anti-climax. It doesn't really end it just sorta stops. It's as if the film makers said "well that's all we really had so we're done, the end." Again if this movie put it's focus on the monster instead of endless scenes about the science experiments, if Hong is a bad guy or good guy, what's going on in the facility, a weird dream sequence that didn't really make a whole lot of sense, animals ... because they were testing on animals before, I think. Yeah it just got so boring and you so don't care, I just wanted to see the monster come out and rip people to shreds. People do get ripped to shreds ... offscreen! Yeah we don't really see much, it's mostly just blood splatters and then cut to the aftermath again with a few 2 second glimpses of the monster. One more thing I really didn't get is why is a Nasa investigator there? This had nothing at all to do with space travel. The scientists were conducting experiments having to do with sleep. The experiment was honestly kinda hard to follow, a person in a glass tube slept and somehow through some sceince/techno babble a portal to another dimension the "Shadowzone" was opened up and the monster came out through their body. It was a bit confusing to follow but a monster came from another dimension, how doesn't really matter. Anyway this Nasa scientist doesn't even look like he works for Nasa, he looks like a marine more than anything else. He has dog tags around his neck and never once even mentions Nasa, all they say is he's from there. Which on a sidenote, Nasa has investigators? All in all if you like corny, shlock sci-fi horror or the movies of Full Moon pictures you'll like this. For me I do like both of those but this one was just a bit to slow and not enough monster. I did really enjoy some parts of it though which is why I can't say it was a total let down. The cinematography is nice, it builds a decent atmosphere around the characters, builds up suspense well and has a very nice B-movie horror theme song. Shadowzone is definitely a movie to make fun of while you're watching. Gather up a few friends and some beers and you'll have an enjoyable time with it.

Experiments in sleep have unleashed a monster in an underground government laboratory. A good B-movie cast (Louise Fletcher, Shawn Weatherly, James Hong) and great special effects (for what they must have cost) allow the suspense that is built to sustain til the finish. Sci-fi & horror fans should not be disappointed. Fletcher is first-rate.

I knew what to expect when I started watching this movie. The 90s was chalk full of the best and worst of low-mid budget horror of any and every kind imaginable. It's a shame in my opinion that most low budget is now called "indie" and have learned to use their limited budget more effectively by eliminating special+practical effects and focus more on staging and dialogue. Dont get me wrong, some truly great films have been made since, but I can only dream of the weird and wacky movies that would come from pumping out low budget horror nowadays. Especially since special effects have come a long, long, long ways and are now more cost effective than ever. Shadowzone, you know the movie I'm supposed to be reviewing, is a great example of how an otherwise crappy movie can be made watchable at least with strange and grey creations popping up and again like this film, plenty of impossibly perfect nude women for no reason at all. They don't play any of that for laughs here though, as is usually the case. This movie is dead serious about a dream monster that emerges while doing some sleep study in a long vacant radiation resistant bunker. Give it a try, just don't expect to much from Shadowzone.

As you would expect from any Charles Band production, there's a semi-clever story, respectable low-budget production values, and a catchy poster tagline; "On the darkside of dreams, a new terror takes shape". In this film, a NASA investigator is looking into a failed experiment that resulted in someone getting killed. Those experiments involved scientists Louise "Nurse Ratched" Fletcher and James "Chinatown" Hong where people's deep sleep state becomes a portal to a parallel dimension. That's an interesting set-up, but the film becomes a pretty standard alien invader story with shades of "The Thing" where an alien creature from a parallel universe crosses over into ours and begins killing folks off one-by-one. Journeyman writer/director J.S. Cardone ("The Forsaken" "8MM 2") brings no flair to the proceedings, but underrated composer Richard Band delivers a solid musical score to the film. If you're a fan of Charles Band's Full Moon Features films (i.e. "Puppet Master" "Trancers" "Subspecies") you'll likely enjoy the film, but it's nowhere as good as his best productions.

I had watched this fullmoon picture about 10 years back and thought that it was just a substandard Alien clone. I was trawling the cheapo shops and saw it cheap so I thought what the hell I will give it another shot. First shock was that it was written and directed by JS Cardone of Forsaken and Slayer fame. He can be really good when he gets it right. The plot. In a underground bunker experiments are taking place, unfortunately there has been an accident and one of the test subjects has died. So an investigation has to take place. When it is instigated the sleeping person opens a doorway to another dimension. This plot is pure From Beyond without the style of the aforementioned movie. Something comes through the doorway and comes into this world. We then get treated to Alien meets Galaxy of terror. Where is the alien? People go searching and get blotted. Conclusion Its cheap, its nasty and I quite enjoyed it. It was worth the £2 I paid for it. Top marks for the nudity and the little bits of gore. 5/10 for the rest of the movie.

Once someone violently dies at a research lab Captain Hickock (David Beecroft) is sent in to investigate. At this research lab a project entitled...wait for it...wait for it...Shadowzone is underway. Hickock is given the nickel tour by Dr. Erhardt (Louise Fletcher) and Dr. Van Fleet (David Hong) into their study about deep sleep. Yet, something has broken through the portal from another dimension. This THE THING/ALIEN rip-off has an okay cast going their way through scenes we've seen numerous times before, sometimes with much better results. Nothing really worth writing home about in this horror/sci-fi entry. Also starring Miguel Nunez as computer techie Wiley.