The Dark Side of the Moon – 1990, US, 87m. Director: D.J. Webster. Streaming: Tubi
Night of Bloody Horror – 1969, US, 77m. Director. Joy N. Houck, Jr. Streaming: Tubi
The Pack – 1977, US, 98m. Director: Robert Clouse. Streaming: N/A
THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (1990) In the futuristic world of 2022 (oh, boy!) crews of “refabbers” are specialists in fixing nuclear-armed satellites. This line of work is very dangerous; we know this because the text crawl at the beginning informs us of said danger. Anyway, spaceship Discovery and its refab team are sent to work on a malfunctioning satellite but mechanical problems force the ship to drift towards the dark side of the moon. It’s there they encounter a derelict NASA spacecraft, which reportedly went missing near the Bermuda Triangle during an emergency crash landing in 1992. To further the mystery, the crew discover the dead body of the ship’s captain, who might not be as dead as he appears. The movie’s blueprint looks like Alien, but the script’s dense atmosphere of paranoia mirrors Carpenter’s The Thing. Add a splash of The Exorcist and you should get a sense of how The Dark Side of the Moon turns out—but I’m not knocking it. On the contrary: confident direction (by D.J. Webster) and a cast of likable characters make this fairly taut stuff, despite its limited production values. It wouldn’t surprise me if Paul W.S. Anderson was inspired by this to make Event Horizon. Friday the 13th alumni Camilla More (The Final Chapter) and Alan Blumenfeld (Jason Lives) fill out the good cast, which also includes Joe Turkel (The Shining) and veteran character actor John Diehl. Worth checking out. B
NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR (1969) An arty/psychedelic slasher-drama filmed in New Orleans and really only noteworthy for future Major Dad star Gerald McRaney’s good performance. Affected by the untimely death of his brother and father years earlier, troubled Wesley (McRaney) begins experiencing blackouts, which just happen to coincide with the gruesome murders of two of his girlfriends. Because of his stint in a mental hospital, the cops want Wesley for the crimes, but his doctor believes he can help Wesley and find out the truth. The film builds to a predictable reveal from the Psycho school of psycho-killer plots—the final ten minutes play out like mystery, but it’s very obvious who the murderer is. It’s just a shame the writers didn’t realize this. C
THE PACK (1977) A small island community is besieged by a horde of vicious dogs, which were left to fend for themselves in the nearby woods by their neglectful owners. The hungry dogs devour a whole horse before moving on to people, including a pompous banker (Richard O’Brien) and his nebbish son (Paul Willson) and secretary (Bibi Besch). The dogs make their way through the tiny population until marine biologist Joe Don Baker boards himself and the other survivors up inside his cabin and fight to the death. At first glance this seems like a typical nature-gone-crazy movie in the Birds/Jaws mold, but The Pack has a lot going for it. The cast is excellent, the Northern California location is beautiful, and the script offers several suspenseful moments that could give Cujo a run for its money. Good dog! B