Crew
Director – Rene Eram, Screenplay – Brian Di Muccio & Dino Vindeni, Producer – Donald P. Borchers, Photography – Dan Gillham, Music – Keith Bilderbeck, Special Effects Supervisor – John Hartigan, Production Design – Jodi Ginnever. Production Company – Planet Productions
Cast
Corey Feldman (Andy Chadway), Joel J. Edwards (Cassian March), Diane Nadeau (Rebecca), Jack Nance (Lewis), Ron Melendez (Erik), Maury Ginsberg (Deitz), Gregory Vignolle (Derin), Sarah Douglas (Professor Connor), Ryan Michael McGuire (Ken), Amy Raasch (Wendy)
Plot
Andy Chadway tries to enrol at the same university as his girlfriend Rebecca. Needing a place to stay, he joins the oddball Omega Zeta Mu fraternity. However, when Andy wakes up following the fraternity initiation, he finds that he has been given a tattoo with which the fraternity leader intends to enslave his soul and obtain immortality.
Voodoo is a routine horror entry. One supposes it should at least be congratulated for being a rare modern horror film that takes itself seriously. It has a basic concept but not much more than that – one can see everything unfolding from miles off.
The pace drags and director Rene Eram fumbles most of the opportunities at hand. The scene where Corey Feldman breaks into the morgue should have been eerie and suspenseful. Equally, the scene where Joel J. Edwards uses voodoo to possess Gregory Vignolle and make him blow away an entire fraternity house with a shotgun could have been a show capper for any director with half an ounce of talent but in Rene Eram’s hands these scenes are frustratingly lacking in impact.
With his Neanderthal looks, Corey Feldman is typically stolid. Sarah Douglas is wasted in what amounts to little more than a cameo. David Lynch standby Jack Nance is left to be the voice of reason in one of his last performances – one never thought they would see the day when Eraserhead (1977)’s Henry would be the sanest thing in the film.
Rene Eram has only directed one other film to date, the psycho-thriller Final Vendetta (1996).