Seeing as this is the first post in this category, I will try to keep the news area of the site free of the huckster-like peddling of Full Moon wares that has inundated their site and Charlie’s webcasts and stick to the facts.
Of course I’ll also interject my opinions here and there as well since, apparently, I can’t keep my mouth shut to save my life.
That said, Mr. Band and company have a couple of cool things coming up and have leaked their 2009 schedule as well. Most important here, is the 50% Off Halloween sale.
From 12am-12am October 31st stuff on Full Moon’s website will be 50% off. They have never really specifically said what is going to be 50% off, but the stuff I’ve seen leads me to believe that everything will be on sale, so that’s definitely an opportunity to pick up some stuff that can’t be found cheaper elsewhere like toys and t-shirts.
Additionally, the Wasted Weekend Halloween-themed box set will be released and from the looks of the cover-art it will feature The Killer Eye, Castle Freak, Shrunken Heads, Dead Hate The Living and Shrieker. Full Moon also promises special goodies and inserts for those who purchase the set. I’ll be honest, I’ve never purchased anything directly from Full Moon (shame on me), mostly because the same DVDs they have and others that they don’t have available can be found significantly cheaper on Amazon, but hopefully this set delivers.
Lastly, and you’ve probably already read this elsewhere, Full Moon has a bunch of sequels slated for 2009 including King Bong, Killjoy 3 (WHY?!), Puppet Master – Axis Of Evil (WHY?!), Demonic Toys 2, Gingerdead Man 3 (WHY?!) and Bride Of The Head Of The Family.
Now’s the part where I rant a little…
I really hope they have more movies aside from these that they will be producing or at least distributing, otherwise this is a pretty weak line up in my opinion. It seems like Full Moon’s focus has almost completely zeroed-in on existing fans. That seems like a good strategy, but in looking at attendance numbers (provided by Charles Band) from the Road Show stops, he’s working with 3-5,000 hardcore, die-hard fans. That seems great, but from observing how well ‘limited edition’ items have sold (ie – not too well) on the website, it seems foolhardy to me to put most of your focus on such a small group.
Who knows, maybe the core-sales combined with units shipped to Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, Netflix and local video stores are keeping Full Moon afloat, but with the introduction of the new “Sales Team”, I doubt that.
It looks like Full Moon is getting itself into trouble again and if all (or most) of my thinking is correct then that trouble has been caused by poor marketing and promotion outside of the Full Moon fanboy realm and the inability to take on the task, themselves, of expanding their business. Couple that with essentially no new (or different) ideas coming out of the studio and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
When I see a sequel for a horror flick I generally will immediately discount it unless I hear otherwise that it’s worth the purchase or rent through Netflix. When you are putting out nothing but sequels to movies which most casual horror fans/buyers/renters aren’t even familiar with the originals of, that’s asking for trouble in my book.
Aside from the Paramount days, it seems most of Full Moon’s success was through putting out actual horror movies. I know this hasn’t been Band’s thing, instead cornering the extremely small ‘toys and dolls that do evil shit’ market but he’s even losing that. A good example of this would be Pinocchio’s Revenge, which was far more entertaining, comical and much better produced than any recent Band puppet/toy effort. You can only fly one flag for so long in business before it’s time to branch out and explore other avenues (and NOT just toys) in order to save your company from going under. That’s the path that Full Moon seems to be headed.
I’d like to see more (some) horror movies, as the ones from earlier this decade were easily my favorite Full Moon flicks and introduced some unique, entertaining ideas (and some not so unique) while still maintaining that ‘Full Moon’ feel. At the least, I’d like to see some different ideas instead of trying to cash in on past successes and franchises that have, unfortunately, long since played themselves out.
That’s all for now.
