In addition to the usual reviews and comments you would find on a horror movie blog, this is also a document of the wonderfully vast horror movie section of the video store I worked at in my youth.

Friday, February 10, 2023

In The Year Two Thousaaaaand...


It occurred to me last week that I inadvertently took the piss out of Full Moon. So this week I decided to pull one of Charlie Band's offerings off the pile, a very cheap looking cassette containing Danny Draven's (I still can't believe that is an actual IRL name) 2001 sci-fi flick Horrorvision.

A screenwriter turned smut dealer named Dez (Len Cordova) discovers a website that incites visitors to commit random acts of violence. After losing his girlfriend, Dez joins up with a mysterious dude named Bradbury (James Black) to track down the source.

First off, I popped in the tape and this was the first time in my entire life that the preview trailer was for the same movie that I was just about to fucking watch! Anyway, much like how Dr. Giggles recalled memories of the nineties, Horrorvision is so fucking 2000's it hurts. Everything from the music and fx to the references to “Quicktime” & “Powerbooks” to cyberpunk tattoos. And I mean, a tattoo that literally says Cyberpunk. To be honest, this movie would be painful, if it wasn't so delightfully cheesy.

Brinke Stevens' brief appearance at the hop has her talking shop with Dez and I was reminded of what internet porn looked like before the 'Hub. Additionally, before the demise of Dez's squeeze, we got a scene inside LA's Dark Delicacies which was a hoot. I'm clutching at things here because a lot of this movie was montages to use the tunes they paid for, and discount bin versions of better stuff. Bradbury is clearly wish Morpheus, sashaying though sprinklings of Brainscan and Hardware. It often left me wondering...

When Dez turns on the TV in a hotel room, we see snips of Arcade and The Dead Next Door, at which point I kind of wished I was watching either of those two. The latter's appearance made sense because Horrorvision was a joint venture between Full Moon & Tempe, of whom Door's director JR Bookwalter was the big cheese. I do have to admit that the fact he and Band collaborated put a smile on my face. But, it could also be that it was this scene that the robots showed up.

Awww... who's this little guy!

I can't really deny that Horrorvision is low rent trash, but I did appreciate it had - apart from said robot effects - one saving grace in the film's final moments when Bradbury explains that it was all the vitriol and hatred being spewed online that caused the Internet to become sentient. How incredibly prophetic! I mean, not the sentient part - that'll come... if we're lucky - but just the idea of social media sowing our downfall. Remember when we were afraid of technology? 

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