PopHorror Let's Get Scared
No-budget cinema is where you can find some of the most gonzo ideas ever committed to video. It’s this creative freedom that can either generate an underground masterpiece or an over-ripe turd. Not quite a masterpiece, but certainly gonzo, Wild Eye Releasing’s new Visual Vengeance Blu-ray of Rob Roy’s (Damaged Disciples) Lycan Colony is the sort of cult classic, “bells & whistles” release that collectors salivate over!
Lycan Colony Synopsis
Some small towns hold many secrets. Two siblings and a newly settled doctor’s family are about to find out this town’s darkest secret…the hard way. The town folk are good and evil werewolves! And all things are not as they appear.
Rob Roy wrote and directed the film. It Sean Burgoyne, Libby Collins, Bill Finley, Kristi Lynn, and Paul Henry.
Canisborough, New Hampshire, is a great place to start over, especially if you’re a disgraced alcoholic surgeon and his family. At least that is what Dr. Dan (Bill Sykes) thinks when he arrives with his family. Soon his son Stewart (Ryan O. Roy) cozies up to the impossibly cute Sarah (Libby Collins; Thunderstruck) and the good doc and his son are caught in the middle of the ongoing struggle between the good werewolves and the bad werewolves of the sleepy little town. Sounds nuts, right? Well that’s because it is, and that’s what makes Lycan Colony fun—it’s so Goddamn goofy, you can’t help but have a good time.
From the charmingly cheap werewolf effects to the completely unnecessary use of green screens, Lycan Colony positively wallows in its WTF-ness! And the script reads like a teenager with a sackful of good weed decided to write an ambitious movie, with absolutely no regard for how it was going to be made. But, wow, they sure tried! Very cool transformation effects, that don’t exactly work or make sense, but they’re fun to look at, gloriously shitty digital enhancements that are laugh-out-loud absurd, and wooden acting round out a really fucking weird film. Lycan Colony is by no means a good film, but it’s awful enough to make for an oddly entertaining ride!
I’m of the “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” school of thought, especially when it comes to indie films. After all, this is someone’s dream on the screen. As bad as this movie is, it’s at least engaging, and you have to admire the drive and dedication of Roy and his co-conspirators—they really tried to make this work!
The Visual Vengeance Blu-ray is flat-out awesome! You can’t say much for the transfer, because, well this was a really low-budget affair, but it looks good enough. There’s a commentary track with Roy and indie film critics, a liner note essay, the full Rifftrax version of Lycan Colony, a mini-poster, stickers, slipcase, reversible artwork, and even a New Hampshire woods-scented air freshener! All this, and more, crammed into one little Blu-ray box! Your collector cup will truly runneth over!
90 minutes of inspired werewolf madness, all wrapped up in a quality, fun, collectible package. Lycan Colony has a lot more bark than bite, but damn, is it amusing!
Wild Eye Releasing’s Visual Vengeance Blu-ray of Lycan Colony is available now from fine retailers.
