“There’s no such thing as a werewolf. You’re a hybrid.”

Justin’s rating: Why couldn’t they fuse his DNA with a giraffe? Or manatee?

Justin’s review: I think every geek has a mental plan of how to survive the apocalypse if and when that happens. Maybe it’s a go bag, or a cabin off-grid, or a stack of manga and Pocky to keep them occupied before the zombie hordes come a-calling.

But have you ever considered becoming a somewhat lame werewolf in the wasteland as a survival trait? That’s the question nobody was asking when the filmmakers of Moonchild birthed this crude yet energetic Z-movie that was shot on video (SOV).

This film begins with no explanation or context whatsoever as street thugs chase Ponytail Dude at the rate of three, maybe four miles per hour in their vehicles. This culminates in a near-miss by a completely stationary train and then a trip down into the sewers where he meets a kid.

What was that all about? Feel free to wonder as the credits mystify you with their awkwardness, an omen of the next 80 minutes of hand-crafted misery.

Moonchild is filmmaking of the lowest common denominator, where there is no budget,* a chunky camcorder on a gimble, exposition comes in hard and heavy, and acting that brought shame to these people’s families, yea, to the fourth and fifth generations.

Jason Styker is Ponytail Dude, a snarling escapee from an “experimental prison” where he had wolf DNA spliced into his body. As he goes on the lam, evil guys with a vague theme of “Japan” menace him. You know, ninja and samurai hanging out together like it ain’t no thing. There might have been a Hello Kitty trooper in the background, I wasn’t paying that close attention.

Styker goes on a quest through supposedly hundreds of miles of wasteland to find his radiation-proof son who has super-strength and is the messiah of the apocalypse. And by “wasteland,” I mean, “everyone talks as though the world’s ended even though it’s clearly a normal, non-irradiated Kansas City block with a Starbucks probably right around the corner.”

There’s a ticking clock on this mission, too, as Stryker’s got only three days to do all this before a bomb implant explodes in his gut. Along the way, Stryker will grow in his amazing werewolf powers and find time to make out with the most age-appropriate girl he meets.**

If you watch Moonchild — and I am not, for a second, suggesting that you should unless you’re really into microbudget flicks shot on video tape — the kindest thing you might be able to say about it is that it feels like someone’s passion project done as a ragtag group of friends who thought this was the height of cool. Mutants! Werewolves! Bounty hunters! Gladiators! Ninja! Cyborgs! Cannibals! Cities with proper noun Zones!

Good ideas all, to be sure, but at every turn these ideas hit a wall of shortcomings. Moonchild simply doesn’t have the ability to pull off what it wants to do and be. So everyone flounders about as best they can, creating a hilariously bad schlockfest that I couldn’t even imagine MST3K covering. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start warming up to this cast and crew putting their all into a fully genre flick.

So I guess at the end of the day, I appreciate the ambition and enthusiasm present, even though this is The Room levels of bad. You’re tearing me apart, werewolf!

*Reportedly, this film had a $500 budget. I’d believe that.

**Moonchild employs a surprising number of tweens as actors. With speaking lines. Who probably shouldn’t have them.

Intermission!

• This was written and directed by Todd Sheets, who’s kind of legendary in the microbudget Z-movie genre. I think this may be the first movie of his that we’ve covered, but there are dozens more.
• Climbing over barbed wire is super-easy, everyone should try it
• I got to imagine that the actor dressed as a Future Samurai on the city streets was probably terrified that he would be seen and beat up
• This truck couldn’t be going any slower during this fight. Oh, they’re running out of gas, that explains it.
• The train was clearly not moving in the least when the truck was in front of it
• You can’t do an “and introducing” credit when I’m fairly certain that this entire cast and crew was being introduced for the first time
• Oh, he escaped from an experimental prison. That explains… nothing, really.
• The battle pit! The mutant zone! So many colorful locales here.
• It’s time for a lot of character background exposition with these bounty hunters. I think one of them is a 69-year-old lady with a big fake snake wrapped around her head.
• The kids looking up while trying to remember their lines
• He just hugged that kid to death
• Weird shaky-cam werewolf transformation at minute 26. It looks like it’s a failing transformation about halfway through, too.
• Well, he’s got a gut bomb, that sucks
• The kid screaming at the long fingernail seems genuinely freaked out
• “You’re married?” “Who has time.”
• “For the first time in years I trust someone. Feels weird.”
• Crying, kissing, exposition, passionate speeches, a cheesy ballad — this diner scene has it all!
• “I am Ursula, a class seven bounty hunter!”
• “We will kill you fast and eat you slow!”
• Cannibals wear full white radiation/butcher suits
• “You hit a girl!” proceeds to punch him in the family jewels
• Not sure why we keep getting the same aerial shot of Toronto here
• “You’re not supposed to be here!” is what you say when the bad guy shows up
• Lothos is easily the worst “actor” in this film. I love his every line delivery with all my being.
• Yes, let’s give a kid a loaded revolver
• Is he torturing that guy with a metal pole topped with melted marshmallow?
• High-fives are the proper response when you punch someone’s face so many times it splatters
• Who’s the main bad guy? He’s got a “666” painted on his belly
• MORPHING TECHNOLOGY ACTIVATE!
• The hand through the mouth and the eye gouging is some unexpected last-minute gore