Ghost Poker

People all around the world are full of many wise old sayings or I guess some would call it sage advice.

Prior to watching Full Moon Features latest horrific offering, I wanted to check out their making off featurette and once again the man at the head of affairs, Mr Charles Band as ever was offering up his thoughts and words of wisdom.

As is his want, the full moon rule book appears to state, shoot fast and loose and keep the questions to the barest minimum.

For Mr Band, time is money! The vast majority of his movies these days seem to take less than a week to shoot, and as for any post production time, lord only how long that takes.

However watching 'Dead Man's Hand - Casino Of The Damned' I kept thinking about that phrase, time is money! The movie starts with a very slow and very un-involving prologue with two extras spouting forth about the Myteria casino and it's bloody history, now looking at the timer on my DVD player this took about ten minutes, of course anyone who knows their horror movies will know that these two characters are just two lambs ready for the slaughter, but when the inevitable happens it's a pretty lacklustre affair.

I have pretty much resigned myself to the basic fact that Charles Band is washed up, sure he can serve up a pretty decent concept, but the glory days of Empire Pictures are well and truly long gone and once again his writer in residence, August White has let him down badly! However once again, time is money! and I guess that no matter what shape the script is in, Mr Band, wearing his producer/director cap is not going to waste anytime about trying to address any issues that might arise within the scripting department.

The main star of the movie, or so the main credits after the lengthy prologue would have us believe is the legendary Sid Haig, however he does not appear in the movie until forty plus minutes have dissolved.

Up to that point, rather than deliver some heartpounding moments, I say heartpounding, because the set up within a long abandoned and very much haunted casino is just rife for some good old fashioned William Castle type scares.

Alas no, no such things happen, instead the script calls for character development and lame situations. Now of course without character development we as the audience wouldn't be able to identify with who is who on the screen, but within the first scene proper after the prologue, the characters and their traits are pretty much set up for us.

It must be said that at this point I started to get a little restless, and felt a strange desire to reach for the fast forward button, but owing to my allegiance to Mr Band's movies, no matter how bad they have become, I firmly resisted that temptation.

Too bad! as the rest of the movie crawled to it's conclusion, which I won't spoil for anyone, just in case like myself, you are a longstanding and oh so suffering fan of Full Moon or indeed the entire works of Charles Band himself.

Of course it has been noted that this movie contains no nudity, but it does have plenty of pretty young women and there is just enough old style gore to keep the mind just about focused but in a nutshell, as soon as this movie had finished, I had pretty much forgotten about it.

Yes Indeed, time is money and in this case both were not well spent! My rating is 1

In my opinion Dead Man's Hand is mostly made for the younger audience that are just getting started in the Horror genre. I have been following Director Charles Band since his Empire and ealier Full Moon days and growing up watching movies like Trancers and Dolls which are filled with charm in my opinion, then you know of the quality he can produce. But like I started out, this movie and the once he have directed and produced since 2000 are more or less made for a younger and newer audience. I'm sure I can follow his trail of thoughts, because as a director and producer, I could imagine you really needs to keep up with what is hot and what people what to see. It is a business after all. These Movies really need to be seen in the light that Full Moon is not as big as they were back in the day – due to the 2nd collapse of he's company in the late 90's these productions are made for under half of what the budget where on the pictures he made doing he's collaboration with Paramount Pictures. After reading a couple of reviews on Dead Man's Hand and a few of the movies Charlie has done lately. I think it is a shame that people keep comparing Full Moon today to what Full Moon use to be, Instead of looking at Charlies company in the light of today. A consistent felling all over is, that the films he makes today are to short. Dead Man's Hand has a 75 min running time. If you take a look, at his most loved films, like Dolls and Trancers, they not much longer than this. Dolls is a 77 min feature. Though I do agree that they are short, I still think that they work marvoulsly. I do think the idea of a haunted Casino is a really good idea and Dead Man's Hand does have some of the better special efx. compared to the movies, Full Moon has done lately. The story line is a little thin, but hey this is a horror movie right? Still it is an interesting little movie and I think Charlie managed to make it look well. About the DVD, it is nice to see that Charlie is back shooting on 35mm and the transfer is done nice and clean. The stereo sound is done well and set a good mood for jet another late night of horror. The DVD also includes a nice behind the scenes program and a trailer for the upcoming Decadent Evil II.

Someone earlier mentioned that this movie was like an introduction to horror flicks. That pretty much says it I think. To those of us who really enjoy a solid, memorable horror flick this one is a vast disappointment. I fell asleep twice while watching it and had to rewind back to see what I missed. It didn't matter to the continuity though. Some suggestive sex but nothing really bad. Sid Haig is excellent as usual. I think he is the most underused horror actor around who can really be pretty menacing when he's on his game. The special effects involving the apparitions are so bad it really bothers me to think about them. I think I've seen some better homemade ones on Youtube truthfully. If you like crappy movies you should see this one. You won't be disappointed.

The Haunted Casino (2007) is a Full Moon Features gem that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a man who inherits a casino from an uncle. He and his friends go to see the casino and will need to fight for their lives if they ever hope to leave.

This movie is directed by Charles Band (Puppet Master) and stars Wes Armstrong (Jane the Virgin), Sid Haig (The Big Bird Cage), Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Kristyn Green (Pretty Cool) and Robin Sydney (The Gingerbread Man).

The cast is really well selected but unfortunately under utilized. Haig's best scenes are at the very end. There's a couples storyline that drags about them not having sex. It gets played out fast. The first good kill scene again are at the very end. There is some worthwhile gore. The end was a bit cheesy.

Overall this is a very average addition to the horror genre that the cast makes worth a viewing. I would score this a 5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Saw this on Charter on demand. This is a 75 minute movie and nothing and I mean nothing happens until minute 57 leaving you with 18 minutes of pathetic action. Sid Haig and Michael Berryman are in this for 6 or 7 minutes. How did they spend $200,000 on this...as a grad student at UCLA in Theater I can tell you that this easily could have been shot in 2-3 days. They use 2 locations, a hotel room and a casino the size of a 4 bedroom house. Michael Berryman is no longer scary, he looks 110 years old and can barely speak. Sid Haig looks like he just came off a 3 day bender...you can tell that he was looking at cue cards(watch carefully and you'll see. This is a low point even by Full Moon Standards.