Voodoo Academy

In reviews and user comments I've read online about these films,

the writers will say things like `It's almost as if it's gay.' and `It

seems sort of gay.' The equivocal reactions are understandable.

Allow me to be more bluntly clear: This is a horror film which,

unlike Hollywood films, is more intent on pleasing a gay male

audience than a straight one (though technically none of the

characters are gay.)

In `Voodoo Academy,' along with his film `The Brotherhood,'

director DeCoteau has created what might be called `the non-gay

gay film.' These are films which are clearly designed to appeal to

a gay audience, yet nevertheless stop short of being overtly gay.

On the surface, they seem intended for a straight audience. The

characters are not gay and they don't engage in any romantic

activities together. (And certainly the marketing makes no

indication of a gay angle.)

Yet at the same time, it's clear that something is going on here.

There are lots of gratuitous shots of young men in designer

underwear. There's no straight romantic subplots and hardly any

women. Unlike Hollywood films, which bend over backwards to

please a straight audience (and avoid any possible hint of gay

subtext), these films are clearly more interested in pleasing a gay

male audience than straight ones.

As for the film itself, it's not very good. A bland young man enrolls

in a small (6 students) college, where something strange is going

on. Long stretches of the film are given to providing expository

information which ultimately proves irrelevant. Scenes lack

tension. And the overall story is fairly dumb and ends abruptly.

The technical stuff is good, but the acting is wooden and the

scenes just drag.

It's just basically about six kids that attend Carmichael Bible School and the two owners are trying to make them into voodoo dolls. About three fourths of the movie is the guys rubbing their own bodies. The cast of the six kids was okay, but he two adults were terrible in my opinion. Especially the Rev. Carmichael. He wasn't a good actor at all. When I rented this I was expecting a good horror film, but it defiantly wasn't anything like what I expected at all. I really suggest that you do not get this movie. It is probably the worst movie you'll ever see, because it's defiantly one of the worst movies that I've ever seen. The only reason I rented it was because I think Riley Smith (Christopher Sawyer) is hot.

High school teacher and her assistant at a private boarding school use half naked boys as their prey in helping to raise an army of the dead. No plot what so ever, just an extended series of boys wearing designer underwear touching and rubbing themselves in bed, walking around the school in there underwear only, and taking baths together. No camp value or laughs at all. This feels like gay porn, instead of an actual film. Disappointing effort from Full Moon Entertainment.

Unrated (90 mins.) or R-Rated (74 mins.); Strong Sexual Content.

You can't hold too much against this knowing that it was made in four days, and I had expected it to be campy anyway. (It's not all that campy in reality. With the exception of Kevin Kalisher and Huntley Ritter, who don't take themselves seriously, the rest of the cast plays it halfway straight; Riley Smith is exceptionally bad.) The ridiculous story is actually paid attention to, which kind of shocked me; I assumed the whole purpose with these ultra-low-budget horror movies was to cater to the basest sexual fantasies and not give a damn about the story, but they use lots of words like "technological" and "physicality" in the script to get their point across. (Although it's possible that the story is important only to explain why there's so few cast members.) Nobody cares about this stupid storyline, and the only things that are interesting in the film are the mocking of cults and the soft-core homoeroticisms (which aren't all that edgy). I would have enjoyed it more if there were just some random killings for no reason. The film is grainy, with a TV-quality look and acting level. There are a few "sexy" scenes that are alright -- the boys writhing in bed in their boxers, feeling themselves up; or being tied down and making orgasmic faces while wine is poured on them -- and some of them are kinda funny. And I liked the digs at L. Ron Hubbard and the intended irony of a story about religious cultists told with intense gay overtones, but it still isn't any good. 3/10

Well what do you want, if you see the Full Moon on the back of the box, you know its late night cheese! All the films produced by Band under the EMPIRE label were great, Re-Animator, From Beyond, Troll, even Zone Troopers was fun. However when Empire Films folded, so did the quality of their films. So Full Moon is born, and they had themselves a pretty good little gravy train with Paramount distributing their flicks, but even they got tired of the same old vampire and Puppet Master junk, and subsequently pulled out. The pictures where pretty bad with big studio money, and without it they got worse.

Case in point with Voodoo Academy. Like most other DeCoteau films, there are allot of pretty young men running around in their boxer briefs, and a whole lotta fake lightening. Throw in an uninspired story, about 6 million candles, and actors who look like their bored and you have what I consider one of the worst Full Moon pictures to date.

I'm not going to beat this dead horse anymore by talking about everything that's wrong with this story, so I will talk about the only thing I consider good about this film, and that's the DVD Directors cut version. Now your probably wondering, if its so bad why would I want to see the director's cut? Two reasons; one, I wanted to see the footage that was so offensive that even Charles Band wanted it cut from the original release. It turned out to be 20 minutes of harmless male erotica (85 % of horror film rentals are by girls anyway) ho hum big freakin deal. The other reason I wanted this DVD is for the audio commentary.

DeCoteau talks at length about the process of "by the numbers low budget cookie cutter filmmaking". This is invaluable for film students like myself. Sometimes you learn how to do things right when you see how they are done wrong. All criticisms aside, Band has a very well tuned filmmaking machine (features shot in 4 days, that 24 pages a day!), and the special features of this DVD gives rare insight into Full Moon, the makers of films so bad they're, well bad.