Horrorvision

Tempe and Full Moon team up for a rather slow science fiction/horror adventure regarding a website that causes trouble when one logs on to it. Cast is good, especially Maggie Rose Fleck (from Full Moon flick 'Stiches') though several Tempe regulars appear including Ariauna Albright and Tammi Sutton. Fantastic photogrophy in the film is by Ward Boult. Scream queens Linnea Quigley (in a still picture) and Brinke Stevens feature briefly and James Black is good in a small role. Watchable but dull film and another relatively poor feature from Full Moon and further evidence of their poor relationship with Tempe. There are some good graphics in this one and some new ideas so its certainly worth a look but its disappointing none-the-less.

Decent enough with some stylish imagery however the tiny budget hampers things.

I also get the impression they were trying to shock you with some of the graphic weirdo perv website stuff.

if you like anime in particular stuff like cyber city and the AD police then this might up your street.

but basically its low budget matrix cash in however not totally devoid of its own style.

Great soundtrack by some unheard of grunge/punk/post grunge bands. Worth checking out if only for the soundtrack.

Actually, it's the Matrix without the budget, the actors, the script, the music, the special effects, the choreography...well, you get the idea. It's also a little bit of Videodrome-style evolutionary musings and S&M thrown in for good measure.

That's not to say it's a total waste of money. On the contrary, this really is one of the better Full Moon Films out there. The creatures are fairly well-done, especially the cyborg-moderator Wetwire, although the puppet-animations are hilarious...sometimes creatures seem to be thrown at the actors and the final monster looks like a costume I used to wear during Halloween promotions at the local costume shop.

Still, there are worse movies to rip off than the Matrix--and this movie is pretty blatant about it. Bradbury is an intimidating-looking black guy in shades wearing a leather trench-coat (his is sleeveless so we won't forget we're watching HorrorVision) who teaches awkward young white hacker Dez that he is the promised one--um, make that seven--who the machines fear will end their reign on Earth. I kept waiting for everybody to start popping red and blue pills...

Still, the ideas are clever, if vague, and the apocalyptic feel of a world slowly going mad somehow manages to work, despite being shown almost no images of the chaos we're told is erupting around the country. The Wetwire sequence alone is almost creepy enough to warrent a rental, and there are some other nice touches in the film.

But, as has been pointed out before, the movie ends just when the plot really starts to pick up. Furthermore, the pacing in this movie is bizarre--twenty minutes are spent on dramatic character development, then Bradbury appears and the heroes suddenly find themselves in a scene that should have been the film's climax, and then they spend the rest of the movie driving through a desert to a battle that seems to have little consequence to the plot, and isn't nearly as impressive as some of the things seen earlier.

It's still worth seeing, mainly for the Wetwire sequence--you'll see what I mean when you watch it, and some self-aware humor that lets us know that the movie-makers aren't taking all this too seriously either. It really is one of the best Full Moon movies out there: it's just that, as of yet, that's not saying much...

Okay, Danny Draven is a very good director...only 23 years old...anyway--

Like most reviews I have read about this movie...I also felt it ended too quickly. This movie was actually building up to be something...The story line about technology destroying mankind, was getting good...then a 2 minute show down at the end killed the whole thing.

Too many Matrix overtones, I feel, also killed the movie. It was good, but it was "borrowing" too much from The Matrix...However, I really did like the creatures in this movie. Wetwire and Manifesto were excellent costumes, that didn't look as dull as most of Full Moon's recent stuff does. I would really like to see the director, Danny Draven redo this movie with about 5 million dollars (instead of the maybe $200,000 or less he did for this). I think he is good director, and young...that is a good thing in hollywood. I just hope that Full Moon doesn't keep their hooks in him too long..I hope he is really discovered. JR Bookwalter did an excellent job recommending Draven to direct....

At maybe 70 mins long, this movie really relied on alot of Padding to get it thru those 70 mins...listening to the commentary on the DVD, we learn that there were several other scenes intended for the movie, but were not made because of budgetary retraints....

Charlie Band: Please, I beg you instead of the insane notion to make 40 movie a year...Please double and triple the budgets on movies with a good idea...This would have been alot better with more money....

7 out of 10

A science fiction film is often one of the most expensive types of films to make, especially as the science in our own era gets more and more advanced. No longer are viewers impressed by cardboard and plastic cutouts with shining buttons. Now, audiences desire heart-stopping slow motion effects, intricate designs, and costly CGI (computer graphics). Perhaps even more difficult than a science fiction film is a science fiction/horror film, because not only must the technology be conceived and impressive, it also must be believable as frightening, deadly, and evil or aiding an evil force. Can Full Moon's 2000 release "Horrorvision", a science fiction/horror film made for "the Matrix's coffee budget", be believable without a big budget and a lot of special effects? Although it has a strong story, and (as usual) wrings an amazing amount of effects from its low budget, "Horrovision" is unfortunately just too ambitious for Full Moon.

"Horrorvision" definitely has a strong story and plot. Instead of featuring a true physical entity as its technological nemesis, the film features a techno-spiritual being, a god-like manifestation of all the hate that is allowed to be spread over the internet (known, fittingly, as Manifesto). Though Manifesto has physical outlets, it is essentially indestructible because it can live and act within any piece of computer technology. The story also benefits greatly from being set in an urban, underground "geek is chic" type circle, with uber-cool, leather-clad programmers/hackers as its lead roles. Despite sharing general appearance and character types with contemporaries in films such as "Hackers" and "The Matrix", the leads in "Horrorvision" act and relate to each other like real people (e.g. Dazzy constantly tries to encourage Dez to follow his aspirations of writing a screenplay, but he'd rather make porn sites because it pays the rent). Though sometimes the plot moves a bit fast, it's well paced until the last 10 minutes where, because of the short length, it becomes extremely rushed. As soon as Dez and his mysterious ally Bradbury get their first leads, the film kicks into high gear, with a series of short, anti-climactic confrontations with the "main villains" Wetwall and Manifesto (the Manifesto one, being the film's climax, immensely disappointing) as the film just ends. Interestingly enough, there were several unnecessary music video sequences in the movie that could've been easily cut to save time and fix the pace problems near the end (combined the sequences must have eaten up around 10 minutes of screen time in an 80 minute movie), and it's a wonder why they were left in.

Although "Horrorvision" doesn't have a ton of awe-inspiring effects like its bigger-budget contemporaries, coming from a label as accustomed to low budgets as Full Moon, there is a lot wrung out of the budget. Particularly impressive are the cyber-bug creatures and the Wetwall machine/man (that whole set is amazing). The full-body suit of Manifesto is well-detailed, but the design looks just as goofy as it does sleek. Unlike the practical effects and costumes, the computer effects still aren't up to par. CGI has just not advanced to the point where it can be used effectively by low-budget film-makers yet (although for a neat little flashback of how far it has advanced, check out the footage from the 1994 Full Moon release "Arcade" that Dez watches on a hotel TV).

On the whole, "Horrorvision" is just too much for a Full Moon picture. The story is involving, and definitely requires much more than the hour and a half length that a Full Moon picture is limited by budget to be, not to mention the super-expensive CGI and other special effects it requires and can never get; Danny Draven definitely shows his talents as an up-and-coming director on this one, unfortunately he has too great of a vision for the low budget. The plot and concept are just too involved, and by the end too rushed (of course, this can be blamed on the time lost on the useless music video sequences previously mentioned), such that it seems like a work-in-progress that will never be finished.