MY CALL: Solid B-movie fun. By no means an epic bad movie, but a bad movie worthy of your deliberate bad movie night, for sure. Great and recognizable cast, decent pacing and storytelling, awful writing, and all the money went into the monster effects and gore! MORE MOVIES LIKE Shadowzone: From Beyond (1986) and Blue Monkey (1987) will scratch the same itch, but with much more effective, much more frequent, and much more gooey creature effects and gore.
Investigating a death in a research bunker, Captain Hickock (David Beecroft; Creepshow 2) stumbles across an interdimensional experiment gone horribly wrong. Dr. Van Fleet (James Hong; The Vineyard, Big Trouble in Little China) has been researching deep dream states using the subconscious as a radio beacon to contact other dimensions. What crosses over this interdimensional dream bridge is a shapeshifting monster from another world. This sounds a bit like From Beyond (1986), and it plays out like a lower budget version of it… but not without some cheerful B-movie charm courtesy of director J. S. Cardone (Wicked Little Things, The Slayer). People get picked off in this research bunker in a pattern strongly reminiscent of Alien (1979), a model adopted by numerous 80s and 90s Sci-Horror.
We really feel the budget limitations as we watch this low budget flick. But every effort was made to make this a fun movie, which means most of the budget went to gore and creature effects. The autopsy and surgery scenes are really gory, well done, and give you plenty of time to soak in the bloody bones and exposed organs on camera. Then the first monster effects are over the top with chonky latex mutations and I simply love it. Other effects wander into wild shenanigans, like a giant rat head breaking through a wall, a mutant monkey monster, or other mutilated, wet, disfigured creatures.
Except for the lengthy autopsy and surgery scenes, most of the effects are pretty brief. But we always see enough to be very satisfied with the monstrous fleshiness of what’s on screen. These effects could definitely have been more abundant. But I didn’t find myself getting frustrated with the lulls in horror action. And not that this was well written, but that says something about the storytelling.
Oh, and don’t watch this with your grandmother… there’s a lot of nudity. A lot! Boy, does the camera linger on some of these full-frontal shots. This may have been inspired by Lifeforce (1985). The movie doesn’t need this at all. But I understand that the genre thrives on such titillating raciness, and in my youth I would have lodged zero complaints. Maybe not really today either—I’m just more critical of it. A lot of the set pieces are very cheap—just keep your eye on the boobs, right? No one will notice. Still, in many ways, I feel like this movie was swinging for the fences with the effects and story.
The cast is pretty impressive. Fleet’s assistants Dr. Erhardt (Louise Fletcher; Firestarter, Exorcist II, Virtuosity, Invaders from Mars, Grizzly II) and Dr. Kidwell (Shawn Weatherly; Amityville 1992, Love in the Time of Monsters), and Fleet’s technician Wiley (Miguel A. Núñez, Jr.; Return of the Living Dead, Friday the 13th part V, Leprechaun 4: In Space) are all played by actors familiar to the genre. But the writing and acting is… well, it’s pretty terrible. Even Academy Award winner Louise Fletcher (for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) couldn’t act her way through the haphazardly clunky dialogue. Maybe she just stopped caring the moment her check cleared.
In the finale, our slimy humanoid creature is not of top-notch effects caliber. But I assure you it is satisfyingly slimy and grimy and gnarly and gross. More importantly, we see plenty of it! It looks completely ridiculous… in a fun way. And that’s what this movie is: solid B-movie fun. You almost want to high-five the effects team for this deliciously bad monster design. Great cast, decent enough pacing and storytelling despite the awful writing, and all the money went into the monster effects and gore… as they should!