Voodoo Moon

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Rating 2½


Written and directed by Kevin VanHook

Starring Eric Mabius, Charisma Carpenter, Rik Young, Jeffrey Combs, Dee Wallace and Geoffrey Lewis


Kevin VanHook, the writer, editor, producer and director of this zero-budget Sci-Fi Channel horror film, is a visual effects supervisor who has worked on films like ‘Miss Congeniality’ and ‘I Robot’. He is also a comic book artist and writer – I believe he wrote for the ‘Flash Gordon’ comic strip between 1992 and 1996.

‘Voodoo Moon’, released in 2005, stars Eric Mabius and Charisma Carpenter. Mabius is now best known for his role as Daniel Meade in ‘Ugly Betty’. Dee Wallace, famous from ‘ET’ and ‘The Howling’, is also amongst the cast and there is an appearance by Geoffrey Lewis – the father of Juliette Lewis and a one-time mainstay of various Clint Eastwood films.

It’s all about good versus evil, told with a hotch-potch stew of witchcraft, voodoo, religion and ancient prophecies. Think of a mix of ‘The Prophecy’ (without the Christopher Walken / Viggo Mortensen Smackdown) and ‘Supernatural’ you’re in the right ballpark.

The production values are on the cheap side, the script isn’t going to win any awards, and the acting leaves something to be desired at times. I’m not sure why the female nudity was necessary, apart from the obvious pandering to teenage male fantasies, but that aside it’s silly harmless fun that doesn’t try for the highbrow approach to these things. In other words, it doesn’t get caught in the trap of taking itself too seriously - something that snared ‘The Reaping’, as one example.

Mabius and Carpenter play brother and sister and get the vibe just right, although there is no real sense at all of the traumatic events of their childhood or of the world-ending threat they now face.

Charisma Carpenter is a likeable actor and this isn’t one of her “tiny bikini” roles (see ‘Charmed’ and ‘Veronica Mars’). Eric Mabius seems to be going for a mixture of Michael Hutchings, ‘The Crow’ and Spike from ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. The evil they face comes in the form of a character played by Rik Young, an English actor who not only looks like Orlando Bloom’s twin brother, but also seems to have adopted an exact copy of his acting style, which is very weird.

It’s cheap and cheerful fun, but instantly forgettable.



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