Ooooh wee. The next “film” in our ever growing list of Full Moon schlock is the universially panned Prison Of The Dead. Having already seen a shortened version of this on the Horrific compilation DVD (which I really enjoyed), I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen but we’ll give this the great honor of getting its own review any way.
David DeCoteau directed this and while I’m not a fan of the blatant homo eroticism that is clearly evident in basically every movie he has ever had any thing to do with, I am a fan, in general, of his movies. I had high hopes for this going in and hoped it would be as decent as the shortened version.
So.
Our movie opens with 4 friends headed to an ominous looking castle (in Romania, no less) with the sad duty of attending the funeral of their compatriot. Add to that, these friends have not seen each other in several years and are also all involved, in some way, in paranormal research. Hm. This sounds, largely, really familiar.
The group of pals is lead by Kristof f and is rounded out by another guy and two realtively attractive females. In short – basically the same cast outline of every Full Moon movie that came out in the late 90′s-early 00′s. Also in the mix are Kristoff’s bitter rival, Bill and his two friends who lurk around, mostly outside the castle, bent on making Kristoff out to be the total chode he is and getting some sort of revenge for making a fool out of Bill in the past. In short – these guys are going to get waxed pretty quickly.
As it turns out, the castle the funeral viewing is taking place in is also the exact location of an old prison who’s inhabitants were treated less than nicely and are rumored to still haunt the building, wiping anyone who stands in their way off the face of the earth. Then, in the “gotcha” moment of the movie, it turns out the friend who’s funeral they are attending isn’t really dead so hoo-ha, giggles and chuckles. Kristoff really pulled a fast one over on them.
This is where we are introduced to the actual plot of the movie. It seems Kristoff’s dad, a trash-rag publisher, is holding a contest. The baddies (referred to as ‘The Executioners’) who supposedly haunt the castle posess something called the ‘Talon Key’ which opens a cursed cell in the jail. Kristoff’s goal is to prove to dear old dad that the paranormal crap is, in fact, true by finding the Talon Key. The one who finds it wins…*drum roll* (in Dr. Evil voice) one..million..dollars. Clearly about 10 times as much as it cost to make this movie. Maybe CB will just rent the money like they do in all of those rap videos that are floating around these days. Then again, maybe they won’t ever really mention it again.
Most of the rest of the movie is comprised by the mostly boring and uncaptivating characters wandering around the castle/funeral home/prison/whatever searching for the key. Also along the way, The Executioners show up and start wiping out characters unceremoniously starting with the aforementioned Bill and crew (the ones who are out to get Kristoff). Speaking of The Executioners, they are kinna neat but their costumes are terrible. They look like they were purchased at the Cappel’s after-Halloween clearance sale and bear a strong resemblance to Dr. Doom of Spider Man fame. To me any way. Regardless, I still like them and I like the way they take out the characters. They remind me a lot of the zombie types in Dead and Rotting and apparently influenced the same killing method used in total crapfest Petrified.
You can choose to watch from this point if you want to find out what happens (and be let down).
As I feared, the full length (if you want to call it that, clocking in at around 70 minutes) of this movie was actually inferior to the shortened version found on Horrific. The amount of padding, in the form of aimless wandering throughout the castle with very little substansive dialouge in-between, really kills the movie. At least in the short version a lot of this is thankfully taken out and the movie cuts to the chase.
The acting in Prison Of The Dead is, like most Full Moon Pictures “efforts” from this time frame, terrible and this movie actually jacks it up a couple of notches and can be filed under “inexcusably awful”. None of the characters are interesting in the slightest and I found myself not caring about them, or what they were doing, at all. I was looking forward to each of them getting 86′ed and *spoiler kinna* was disappointed with the end result in this category.
The biggest problem I have with this movie is that it is basically the exact same as all of the other Full Moon movies from this era. Just change out the character names and stick them in the same over-used Romanian castle and you’ve got Prison Of The Dead. This was utterly boring and pretty much pointless. If it had been any longer than 70 minutes I may have fallen completely asleep as I did find myself dozing off while watching this at 4 or 5pm with the blinds open on a sunny day.
I wouldn’t recommend this unless you have enjoyed the other Full Moon flicks from earlier on this decade and even then, you’d still have to be a total glutton for punishment for watching this. If you really want to see it, I’d suggest getting the Horrific DVD from Amazon or at your local Blockbuster/Hollywood Video. At least then you will get a couple of other Full Moon flicks (namely edited versions of The Killer Eye and Totem) to kill some time with as well.
*1/2 out of 5.
