When I was a budding horror fan, I likened Full Moon Pictures to Cracked Magazine. I devoured every single issue of MAD and Fangoria as they came out, at first paging around, then ultimately reading them cover to cover. I would supplement those two publications with the occasional comic book, but when nothing else looked good on the newsstand, I would typically break down and grab the latest issue of Cracked to hold me over. Similarly, Full Moon wasn’t ever the sole reason I went to the video store, but when nothing else looked good, I’d roll the dice.
Today I rolled the dice on 1994’s Dark Angel, subtitled The Ascent presumably because the alternative title to I Come in Peace was also Dark Angel. The gamble paid off. Unlike today’s cocaine bears and meta anaconda films, there is no winking at the camera or purposefully jumping the shark. Many of Full Moon’s movies—the best ones, in fact—operated on the same principles set by Roger Corman: exploitation movies are serious business. There’s no reason to absolutely wallop the audience over the head with the fact that genre movies can also be funny.
Dark Angel opens with ambitious if unconvincing vistas of Hell. Veronica (Angela Featherstone) is a demon who’s growing tired of watching her elders torture the souls of those who end up in hell. When she informs her father (Nicholas Worth) that she dreams of visiting Earth, he decides to kill her. See, in this version of Hell, demons live in servitude to God and do whatever they can not to upset Him. They say grace before eating supper and pray to crucifixes even though touching one makes them burn. It’s not that demons take pleasure in causing eternal suffering, it’s just their civic duty.
Veronica and a German Shepard hellhound named Hellraiser escape their father’s wrath and crawl through a cavernous tunnel that inexplicably connects to a manhole in the middle of an unnamed city. Though the film kind of wants us to believe its set in America, the city’s architecture is clearly European and most of the actors are dubbed with American accents. If you’re wondering exactly where the movie was shot, I’m guessing it’s whichever country was willing to give producer Charles Band the best incentives at the time as he was equal parts showman and businessman. (Probably Romania as that’s where Full Moon was making the Subspecies films around the same time.)
Using magic, Veronica retracts her demonic claws, wings, and the nubbiest horns you’ll ever see on a minion of hell. The spell leaves her naked as she wanders the streets for several minutes, wondering why the locals are all staring (I’m too immature not to point out that there are at least two really good reasons for them to stare). Eventually, Hellraiser finds her a discarded long coat, which Veronica wears until she’s struck by a car. She awakens in the hospital, looked after by a hunky doctor who is instantly charmed by her constant bewilderment. Yes, it’s a fish out of water tale, but it feels fresh and fun because this fish brutally mutilates rapists and corrupt policemen.
I don’t know why I liked this movie so much. In fact, I probably laughed more watching this than any other movie this month. Perhaps my expectations were set too low, but I don’t think so. It’s just a well-rounded, fun little picture. I suspect screenwriter Matthew Bright (who wrote Full Moon’s hilarious Shrunken Heads) is the active ingredient in the secret sauce, but director Linda Hassani knew well enough to let the material be funny rather than try to enhance it.
At one point, the attending nurse in the hospital points out Veronica has the biggest feet she’s ever seen on a female. And when Veronica insists the doctor take her out to see her first movie, she chooses a hardcore porno, watching it with all the seriousness of a classic film. Think about how many actors have failed at making intentionally one-note performances work. Featherstone somehow brings the kind of engaging mojo Arnold Schwarzenegger brought to his performances as the terminator. It’s an impressive feat for a movie that probably only had a handful of days for rehearsals.
I don’t know how to justify my love for this movie. Yeah, I said it: I love this movie. It’s like Twilight for middle aged weirdo-dorks. It’s low key, unassuming, but oddly funny.
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