Vengeance of the Dead Lunar Edition 2002 Horror Movie Review

VENGENCE OF THE DEAD


  You know I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Charles Band and his FULL MOON production company. And when I first had seen this movie at blockbuster [were I bought this movie] I could not help myself when I noticed the Full Moon logo on the back, I had to have it. Once I got home and had the chance to see it, I didn’t. for some reason I put it on the shelve and that is were it stayed for about a year. I have no idea why that happened but I did not view this film for a while. Then one day there it was right in my face and I realized “wow why don’t I remember seeing that”. So I grabbed my girl popped the popcorn and was ready for my Full Moon experience. What followed was no were near what I expected.


I was expecting the great low budget over the top b movie madness that Mr. Band and crew were known for. What I got was a film that was much better then expected and to my surprise had nothing to do with zombies. The film is all about a young man who comes to visit his Grandfather and ends up having dreams about a dead family that had once lived in that house. From here he goes on to a sleep killing [sleep walking is how he gets around] spree to avenge the deaths of these visions, one of which is in love with him. Now I know you are saying to your self “how is not over the top b movie madness”, the answer is that this film takes it self seriously compared to a lot of the other Full Moon releases [to be fair there are good serious films from Full Moon].


Michael Galvin portrays the grandson Eric well and is some what believable as a sleep walking arsonist. But I would say that it is Mark Vollmers who is the over all best actor in this film. The rest of the cast are good in their roles, whether it is victims, the ghosts, or just towns people, every body does a good job. Writer/director/producers Don Adams [who co wrote “SPECK” which is another Full Moon distributed film I have reviewed] and Harry James Picardi came up with a very original film that while not a classic film is still a decent enough film that fans of this genre will enjoy. There is to my surprise a good audio commentary provided by Don that gives good insight into this film. And also by the way this film was released by Full Moon Releasing and was executive produced by Charles Band.


Over all this is a pretty good movie if you give it a chance, I thought it was ok even though it all started because of a spoon. I like the story Don tells on the commentary about how him and Harry got hired to work for Full Moon. Also even if you didn’t like the film watch it again with the commentary, Don is great on it and gives a lot of info on how to make a low budget independent film. The commentary alone gets 5 stars.