A dark secret turns members of an outlaw biker gang on one another in Sean Craston’s horror thriller, The Full Moon Fathers. Our tale opens in 1979 with an APB on the biker gang, The Full Moon Fathers. Led by their president, Radus Wiley (Michael F. Hayes), the gang comprises a group of frustrated World War II veterans who have fallen off the grid and wreaked havoc wherever they go.
Word of the exploits has reached local authorities. After an undercover cop in their midst is revealed, The Full Moon Fathers becomes the target of the authorities after she is brutally murdered. Now, on the run, The Full Moon Fathers are forced to take refuge in the woods to evade the law.
While the gang members are lying low, paranoia sets in, and the gang starts turning on one another in bloody and gruesome ways. Some of the tension comes from a distrust of their leader, Wiley. Still, they don’t know that they are being watched and manipulated by sinister forces that may have something to do with the demise of Wiley’s family over thirty years ago.
“…they don’t know that they are being watched and manipulated by sinister forces…”
As an independent film, good on The Full Moon Fathers for taking the bull by the horns and making a genre film. For decades, indie horror effects were all done practically. Modern directors like Sean Cranston now blend the practical with some off-the-shelf digital effects just to elevate the overall visuals a notch or two. In the case of The Full Moon Fathers, Cranston uses CG to enhance blood splatter, create several ominous transitions, and end the film with a haunting image right out of the great Troma and Full Moon Features.
I do need to call out the obvious. The Full Moon Fathers was done on the cheap. Though I don’t have the exact details, my guess is that writer/director Cranston loves to make movies. A passion that drives him to make movies no matter what. The film’s obvious budget restrictions meant that he got to hire his friends on the cheap. They’re not bad actors, but they’re not very good. They didn’t exactly have a natural delivery of the exposition-heavy dialogue. What does come across is that the cast was having a good time and that Cranston needed to get his shots in. Can I also say that I love the fact the cast is older than your typical pretty-boy slashers?
The entire film is shot on location in the woods, which, along with the desert, is a popular, inexpensive location for indie films. The production overall looks low-budget but rarely cheap, with a couple of farmhouses and barns to give the ghostly lore some legitimacy and a large forest that allows each kill to happen in a different setting. These kills are a bit cheesy at times, but that’s the fun of the film.
The Full Moon Fathers is a fun, super-low-budget horror film with acting and special effects on par with fun, super-low-budget horror films. I think acting classes would be a fun torture to subject the cast to. I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall for that.
"…a fun, super-low-budget horror film with acting and special effects on par with fun, super-low-budget horror films."
