Full Moon Horror Road Show

At last week's FULL MOON HORROR ROAD SHOW at the Showbox Sodo, legendary producer/writer/director of movies about little puppets and ghoulies and crap Charles Band lamented that no video store carries his old movies anymore. They have the new ones, he said (like Gingerdead Man and Evil Bong) but no one carries the old Subspecies, Dollman, Trancers, Head of the Family, Demonic Toys, etc. Of course, he was wrong - we have all of those, and we even have a section called "Li'l Bastards" which is mostly made up of his creations (along with the occasional Child's Play or Leprechaun). Of course, Band should've known better, having been in our store the day before for a signing, and being impressed by our oversized box for his first collaboration with Road Show guest David DeCoteau: But I suppose it just emphasizes what a unique resource a store like ours is. If you live in Seattle and you are the type of person who wants to watch these movies, you're in luck. Although the Road Show seemed to be primarily a way for Band to try to get women to take their shirts off in exchange for Puppet Master box sets, it did make me nostalgic for the days of actually-watchable made-for-video horror. Those early Puppet Master films for example were fairly effective, with impressive puppetry and stop motion effects. The old school Full Moon Videos also had some enjoyable performances by Tim Thomerson (mostly in Trancers, but I also enjoyed him in the ludicrous Dollman movies), Jeffrey Combs and Lance Henriksen. One movie that wasn't mentioned at the show, and that I have always felt was Full Moon's most undervalued title, was Shrunken Heads. Directed by Danny Elfman's brother Richard (who also did Forbidden Zone), this one starts out like a semi-straight forward kids movie, but then the main kids are killed and turned into shrunken heads who can fly around and shoot lasers out of their eyes. They try to get revenge and the movie pretends to think it's a dark super hero story like Darkman or something. Completely absurd and hilarious. Today's Full Moon titles don't seem to have the same effort put into them, but it's hard not to get a kick out of a premise as ridiculous as Gingerdead Man, sort of a Child's Play ripoff with Gary Busey instead of Brad Dourif and a cookie instead of a doll. I have to admit I am jealous of the person who got an original puppet from Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust during the auction portion of the Road Show. If you enjoy killer dolls, puppets, cookies, bongs, heads, ghoulies, gremlins, leprechauns, elves, trolls, etc. please check out our L'il Bastards section upstairs in the Psychotronic room.