Seduzida pelo Horror

The first half hour or so is entertaining, but it tends to shift around from there. It oscillates between interesting and boring.

Meridian is a beautiful movie, and it contains some of the most beautiful actresses I have ever seen. Meridian maintains a dreamy elegance throughout its length and rarely fails at that.

The settings, music, and sequences successfully convey an ethereal world. Despite a few slightly unsettling carnal scenes, Meridian is a pretty romantic movie that may move you. This may be true, if you believe in soul mates, or finding a true love. I was hopelessly in love when I saw this 10 years ago, so it kind of was on the same wavelength as me.

The film Meridian is basically a live version of the classic cartoon "Beauty and the Beast" but without the singing teapot, candle, and clock and some other plot changes. The heroine, as played by Eye Candy Hall of Fame inductee Sherilyn Fenn, inherits a creepy castle. One day, she and her friend (fellow inductee Charlie Spradling) venture down to the village and watch a creepy little circus. They proceed to invite the creepy performers back to the castle for dinner. The creeps then drug our two ladies, and while in an altered state, the creepy ringmaster disrobes them to engage in a carnal act. Here at the academy we deplore the concept of date rape or any other act of sexual aggression within a film to justify a nude scene. In this case it is an important plot development, the film is of the horror genre, no physical abuse is incorporated in the scene, and the fact that it proceeds at a snail's pace causes us to forget what triggered the event. Putting our bias aside, upon viewing the de-clothed heroines, we realize that Sherilyn looks Fenn-tastic and Ms. Spradling ain't such a bad thing. In fact hold onto your beer while admiring the natural talents of Ms. Spradling. This scene alone fulfills the requirements of the academy but the film alone does not (no more worthy scenes of nakedness). As for the film itself, the story then proceeds along to answer the following questions: Can the curse of the Man-Beast be lifted?, Why are there strange happenings at the castle?, Will Ms. Fenn's character find true love?, and How come some of the castle walls are made of cardboard?

Young American sculptor Catherine (Sherilyn Fenn) returns to her family castle in Italy where she meets up with her pal, artist Gina (Charlie Spradling). After enjoying the sights of a travelling sideshow, the girls invite the performers to the castle for dinner. During the evening, the friends are drugged and raped by twins Lawrence and Oliver (both played by Malcolm Jamieson), one of whom is evil, and the other cursed to turn into a beast whenever he gets the horn!

Those who watch Meridian in order to see Twin Peaks babe Sherilyn Fenn in the altogether will no doubt be more than happy by the actress's frequent unclothing, but they may be amazed to find that Fenn isn't the fittest bird in the film: outshining Sherilyn is Charlie Spradling, who only has the one nude scene, but what a scene it is! If only the roles had been reversed, giving us more opportunity to fully appreciate her incredible physical attributes.

In addition to the impressive forms of both of its leading ladies, Meridian also benefits from excellent special make-up effects courtesy of Greg Cannom (channeling his inner Rick Baker for a cool transformation scene), a lush score from Pino Donaggio, and sumptuous cinematography from Mac Ahlberg. It's a shame that the story isn't really worthy of such talent - a weak 'beauty and the beast' style fantasy horror yarn spiced up with erotica, that director Charles Band is unable to bring any magic to: his attempts at style and classiness (slow motion, red light and smoke) amount to tedium for the most part, while the script conveniently glosses over certain plot elements with fairytale 'anything goes' dream-logic (thereby avoiding addressing such questions as 'Why does the painting being restored by Gina depict events that are about to happen?',' Why is there is a glowing red portal in the castle walls?', and 'Why do the sideshow ghosts enter and leave through the mouth of a statue?').

4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb. Recommended to fans of Fenn and Spradling for obvious reasons, but the slow pace and trite gothic romanticism makes it a bit of a bore at times.

This film will not challenge anyone intellectually. The castle where a good portion of the movie is filmed does have an eerie feel about it. Charlie Spradling and Sherilyn Fenn play the two women who are drugged at the castle where they live by some weird circus performers. The leader of the group takes Fenn into a back bedroom and strips her down and looks like he is going to have a good time with the nubile, lovely lady but then he passes her over to his twin brother. The leader then goes and strips down Charlie Spradling and and ravages her body while his brother gets it on with the drugged Fenn. Weird!

Yes, this movie features the incredible...ummm, talents of Sherilyn Fenn and Charlie Spradling but honestly I was going to imitate another fairy tale and fall asleep for a hundred years rather than make it to the end. This is BEAUTY AND THE BEAST with a modern-day Italian setting, and a gothic horror spin by making it a psycho-sexual romp! Sounds intriguing, and it well could have been much like the SNOW WHITE movie that did this same thing with more success, or COMPANY OF WOLVES that remade Little Red Riding Hood into a very sexy gothic horror movie. But alas, MERIDIAN just plods along without much direction or clear focus on anything! The effects are not special, the story simple and not engaging, and valiant efforts by La Fenn and company can not save any scene in the entire movie. Only the die-hard Fenn fan could weather this storm, and I barely made it despite a very strong obsession for her.