Master of horror - Charles Band.: Full Moon
• Win tickets to the Full Moon Horror Roadshow

Charles Band grew up on movie sets the way most kids grew up going to church. Band comes from a pedigreed family of filmmakers and artists: his father, Albert Band, was a prolific director and producer of dozens of films and his brother, Richard, is a film and television composer. Charles has produced and/or directed such films as the Puppet Master franchise, Ghoulies, Trancers, Castle Freak, a deluge of evil doll films and his former company, Empire Films, brought us the gloriously gruesome masterpiece that is Re-Animator. Band now fronts Full Moon Pictures, and he hosts the upcoming Full Moon Horror Road Show rolling through Houston on October 8th.

I spoke with horror authority and all-around nice guy Charlie Band and got the scoop on what we can expect at the extravaganza described as “a demented circus” and “old school variety show, but with boobs and gore!”

Can you tell me a little bit about the road show?
It’s our fourth year, and it’s a pretty unique tour, just this bizarre variety act that we do. It’s unique in that no one else has made this many films in one specific genre, cult horror films, and I’ve made over 300 of them in the last three decades, although I hate to admit that. So we have a lot of fans, and it’s all under the Full Moon label.

I started [the road show] because it’s very hard to spend any appreciable media dollars to let fans know about independent films, to know what’s coming up and what they should see. It’s very expensive to market that way. So I thought, “Why not go on a tour?”

The show is kind of hard to describe. It’s what I usually call this sort of twisted, demented Ozzfest. [laughs].

How do you feel about working independently to make films, as you have done, rather than working with major studios?
There are very good stretches and very bad stretches, and it’s all very market driven rather than personal mistakes, although of course you make those. We’re coming off a very bad stretch, after the vibrant VHS rental world to a less vibrant DVD world and now coming off of DVDs, with big video rental outlets shutting down, Blockbuster just closed down hundreds of stores, and now we’re in this downloading, PPV [pay-per-view], iTunes kind of world, and it’s just starting to function. So we’re in a gray zone, where there’s not much revenue in the old world and the new world isn’t making much revenue yet…So if you’re in the business where you’re not releasing films theatrically, it can be great, being very independent when the market is okay, but when it’s not, it’s really rough.

Do you have a favorite horror film made in the last five years?
Nothing comes to mind over the last five years. I loved The Others, I think mostly because it was such a surprise to me, no one told me. I’ve seen thousands of horror films, I’ve made over 300 of them, so I’m really jaded. And I think most people are really jaded, because we’ve seen all the torture horror and all those great movies of the 70s and 80s that are all being remade now, we’ve seen all that. I just saw District 9, which is not a horror movie, it’s a sci-fi movie with horror elements, and it’s so refreshing to see something different. We go to these movies and they’re made for $150 million, and we think, “That sounds so good, that looks so good,” and then it’s like, “Well, the effects were good. The story wasn’t great.” It’s tough to do something fresh and new.

What upcoming projects are you most excited about?
Well, that’s what’s great about the road show, because we can show people what we have in the works, show clips of our new projects. There are three movies that I’m most excited about that are coming up. First we have this creepy ghost story set at a castle in Italy called Skull Heads. Then I’m really excited about the first Puppet Master film to come out in six years, called Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, and we shot that in China so we had amazing production values and we were able to do these elaborate sets. That’s just wrapping up and it’ll come out in February. And we have Demonic Toys, which is also a sequel, and it’s coming out soon so it’s these nasty toys out in time for Christmas.

Anything you want to add?
We’ve been to Houston before with the Road Show, two years ago we were at the same venue, the Meridian, and it’s really great. It’s one of the two or three best venues of hundreds we’ve visited, because it’s just big enough, it fits 350-400 people. There are not one but two bars, which is good because the more people drink, the better the show is. And the stage is big, it’s big enough for a mid-sized rock act, which of course we’re not, but we do some stuff on stage, not only the obvious that people read about but we do a lot of audience participation, we have a sort of poor man’s American Idol where we cast people from the audience in a little horror movie, and there are beheadings and blood, so that’s really fun.

Houston’s a great city, it really is. When I was here last time, it was a bizarre day because Katrina had just happened 3 or 4 days before, so it was the most people in a single day to migrate, these refugees to Houston. And we invited people who had left New Orleans to come to the show for free, so it was great, we really filled up the house. It was fun, we had a great time.

So check it out! You can win tickets to Charles Band’s Full Moon Horror Road Show by going here. Pre-purchase tickets for (for only $10!) here or buy them at the door at Meridian. Don’t miss it!