I had this movie buried in my Netflix queue for who knows how long. After I put up No Tomorrow, one of my readers, elementarybeatboxoperator (listed in the Followers section of the blog), mentioned this and White Tiger as two great Daniels films. I went to Amazon for them, and saw them on VHS, and figured that was how I'd get them. Then for whatever reason I was looking up other Daniels movies on Netflix, and saw that they not only had both films, but that I'd also already added them to my queue. To give you an idea, my queue is 267 movies long. Maybe I should do something about that.
Bloodmoon has a serial killer in NYC killing people who are good at fighting. A dude pretending to be Eddie Murphy is on the case, but his boss, Frank Gorshin, thinks he should call in serial killer expert Gary Daniels. Luckily for everyone involved, Daniels is more of a martial arts expert than serial killer expert, because A: it takes him forever to track the killer, leaving more time to kick people's asses; and B: we'd have a horrible ending if Daniels couldn't fight the baddie.
This is pretty sweet. The fighting is actually pretty good. That's the serious critique. Beyond that, this thing plays out like a Troma film, from the close-ups, to the gross fat guy of a computer nerd, to the Willmington, DE that looks more like the Hoboken Troma usually uses for their NYC. There were scenes where Daniels and his wannabe Eddie Murphy would flip over things to get to their destination, and I'd be like "why would you do that?" Then there's the bad guy's costume. I probably should've gotten an image of it, but I forgot. This is a great mix of silliness and solid martial arts work. Not a bad deal.
I've always loved Gary Daniels, and I don't know why it's taken me so long to get more of his films up here. Maybe I was too busy focusing on Seagal and Lundgren films. Whatever the reason, Daniels is a force from off the chain, and he needs more recognition. Call this the Summer of Daniels, as I try to remedy the dearth of posts of movies with him in them. One film I need to get my hands on is Heatseeker, which was directed by Albert Pyun. I see it on Amazon for like $3 (which is $6 after shipping), which is probably my best bet. I wish there was a Netflix that specialized in VHS movies so I wouldn't have to by crappy used copies of all the films I want that aren't on DVD yet.
I kind of liked the Eddie Murphy wannabe in this. He did a pretty solid impression. He was almost a dead on Axel Foley. According to imdb, there's talk of a fourth Beverly Hills Cop. I kind of like that, if they don't decide to make it absurd like the fourth Die Hard. I was surprised to find out that Eddie Murphy is not only an Aries, being born on April 3, 1961, but that he's ten years younger than Steven Seagal. It's just hard to imagine that Seagal will be sixty soon. Is imdb right? Was Seagal really born in 1951?
The baddie was played by a dude named Darren Shahlavi. He was a pretty solid fighter, and he's been in a fair amount of stuff, including I Spy. I wonder if early in his career, when he made this movie, he said "Someday I'll be big enough to act in a movie with the real Eddie Murphy", and then 5 years later, when he was on the I Spy set, he was on screen with Eddie Murphy, and he took a moment to take it all in and thought "I really made it." I say good for you, Darren Shahlavi.
Almost two months ago I did a Miles O'Keefe film called Moving Target and forgot it had Burt Ward in it, partially because I didn't recognize him. I made sure I wouldn't make that mistake again, so when this movie had Frank Gorshin, I was all over it. I think the old Batman TV series is my all time favorite show. I know everyone liked that new Dark Knight thing, and Jack was good as the Joker in Batman, but nothing can really get down to the essence of what Batman was all about like the TV show from the 60s. Where was Cesar Romero's Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1966 for that Batman movie, huh? (Oh yeah, I'm sure this is getting old, but Frank Gorshin is another Aries, born April 5, 1933-- only five years before Bolo Yeung!)
Bloodmoon is a definite. Great martial arts action, coupled with so much silliness you and your friends will have no trouble making fun of it. Throw this on your Netflix queue and have your buddies over for a bad movie night.
For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118745/
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