‘Bad Channels’ is the oft forgotten about title in ‘Full Moons’ early slate of releases. It has yet to make the jump to a HD scan, it hasnt had the sequel fortune of it’s peers and other than a tie in reference to it in ‘Doll Man Vs Demonic toys’ it appears that it was something of a blip on ‘Full Moons’ resume…and having sat through it now…I do think it’s been a bit mistreated over the years…But I CAN kind of see why.

The plot itself is ironically a bit one note. As we join a news team covering the launch of a new DJ slot on a radio station hosted by one DJ Dangerous Dan. A Shock Jock known for controversial and over the top radio stunts. After its revealed Dans rigged a station competition to secure the news interview. all hell breaks loose, that is until aliens land at the station, take it over, and begin using the broadcast signals to capture women for some kind of…unknown experiment.

And while the film has a rather unusual pitch, it’s plot execution is kind of the thing that lets it down. We have a slow open as we establish everything going on in this films world, that gives way to the aforementioned abductions…Which are kind of cool, but VERY repetative to the point that after the first one…You’ve pretty much seen them all. it repeatedly hits the same beats over and over again up to the final act when Dan realises that hes still broadcasting, and decides to try and warn people of the abduction…they obviously dont believe him though because he’s a shock jock.

The pacing on this things uneven, the tone and humour are kind of a mishmash that doesnt feel quite sure if it wants to be an out and out comedy, or something a bit more serious with comedy elements. The characters are horribly written in terms of depth or complexity. What you see in their first 30 seconds on screen is about as good as it gets really.

The dialogues hammy, awkward and stiff, they tell WAY more than show and while I love the idea of a ‘boy who cried wolf’ scenario being married up to these strange alien abductions. It feels like the wrong elements were focussed on within the script and theres this constant nagging feeling like the films holding back from really going out there and delivering something a little bit different from the norm. I liked the idea, I just wasnt much for the execution.

I cant really fault the direction and cine, its very heavily styalized, it fits in with a lot of what Full Moon was doing around this time. and technically its pretty sound, but I do rather feel that there isnt anything that particularly makes this stand out as its own unique work, it doesnt feel any different from say ‘Sorority babes in the slimeball bowl a rama’ or ‘Demonic Toys’ the aliens of the piece dont feel like they were made for this movie, they feel like they were just pulled out of cold storage from an earlier piece. Its passable, but it left a lot to be desired.

Same with the cine which is pretty compitent for the most part, it looks the part, has decent composition and B-roll for sequence building, the editings maybe a *little* bit loose, but its not the worst i’ve seen by a long shot, it just…lacks any kind of punch. Any kind of ‘WOW’ factor that would take it from being just okay to something a bit more memorable.

As for the performances…they’re bordering on Troma levels of over the top campiness…and that isnt strictly a good thing. While it works in places, it does somewhat feell a bit relentless at times, and that did annoy me a fair bit. Sometimes its good for a film to slow down a little bit to help give the plot a bit of a chance to breath and the audience time to process. No such luck here as a constant manic energy is just kind of…pelted at the audience from start to credits…

Oh and at least 10 minutes of this films titles and credits.

Add in a rocky soundtrack thats alright, but again nothing *too* out there and you have a film that, to me at least? DESPERATELY seems to want to be quirky, but ABSOLUTELY has NO idea how to really even begin to do that. It does what it THINKS will win people over, but it just kind of left me impatiently clockwatching.

I think it’d be a fine time killer flick. Something to pop on if you wanna pass 80 minutes easy enough, but there are SO many better ‘Full Moon’ movies out there to catch over this one. and even MORE NON ‘Full Moon’ movies too!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bad-channels/