Monday 5 December 2016

BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Equinox (1967)



This movie cost $6,500 and made no impact on release. Why is it worth reviewing?

It started as a student film made by a group of filmmakers who would go on to big careers, namely Dennis Muren, the special effects wizard behind Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park.

The story is simple. A group of teens go into the woods to visit their old professor and find his house destroyed. They soon realise that the old prof had discovered an ancient book which broke the fabric of reality and has thrown them into a bizarre world of monsters and demons. Will our clean-cut heroes get out alive?

This movie is poorly paced, the script is incoherent and the cast are horrible. The premise is vaguely similar to The Evil Dead, except if you replaced the Deadites with stop-motion beasties from a Ray Harryhausen movie.


The special effects are crude but effective. The only problem is the film around these sequences is garbage.

The various creatures are cool -- we get a couple of giants, a flying red demon and a giant Cthulhu-style octopoid. Sadly - due to the budget - these sequences are fairly short, and spaced fairly evenly through the movie.


Aside from these sequences (which you can find online), the movie is a wash. If you can find it, the DVD is worth checking out for the extras about Muren and how they came up with the special effects on a $1.98.

No comments:

Post a Comment