31 days of horror Year 3 day 04

Meridian: Kiss of the Beast
1990
Midnight Horror Collection 8 Movie Pack

Back in 1990 the area I grew up in finally got cable. And it was really crappy cable. You got 25 channels for $50 a month. And the only premium channels that were offered was Showtime,The Movie Channel,and Disney Channel. And each of then was an extra $10. Well we got the normal package plus Showtime. Well I was already a huge Twin Peaks fan. So when looking through the monthly Showtime guide and saw a upcoming horror film starring Sherilyn Fenn I had to see it. Plus being a teenage male seeing that the movie had nudity,well I hoped it was Ms. Fenn naked.This movie was titled Kiss of the Beast. I watched and recorded it and held onto that tape for over a decade. Mainly cause I could never find Kiss of the Beast on pre-record VHS,Laserdisc or DVD. Well then we flash forward to 2000. And I look Ms. Fenn up on IMDB. And I discover that Kiss of the Beast is also known as Meridian. But the DVD was already out of print. So I tracked down a divx rip of the DVD. Well a few years later Charles Band is re-releasing a bunch of the Full Moon films on DVD. And one of them is Meridian. But it is only available in a boxed set. Which cost like $70 and the other films in the boxed set are films I have no interest in. So I didn't bother getting it. Then a few months back on one of the horror message boards I post at,a poster who goes by the name Critter-fan mentions that he has picked up for $5 a pack of 8 movies and one of them is Meridian. So for the next 6 weeks I keep checking the $5 dump bin at Walmart and never see it. So I finally give up and beginning of September ordered it off of DVD Empire for $10. I get through ordering it and the power at the house goes out cause of the bad weather. So to pass the time I go to Walmart. And what do I see sitting on the top of the $5 bin. The 8 movie pack with Meridian. So I bought it and once I got home and the power came back on I canceled my DVD Empire order.

Meridian is pretty much a more adult version of the classic Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. Sherilyn Fenn and Charlie Spradling play college students who are over in eastern Europe helping restore paintings. Ms. Fenn's family owns a castle in the area so they are staying there. Well one day a traveling carnival/circus shows up and is performing in from of the castle. The two girls go watch the show then invite the performers to come have dinner with them. Well during the meal the midget,who is part of the carnival,spikes the wine. And both girls quickly start showing the effects. And we discover that the magician of the group is actually a set of identical twins. One of them takes Charlie to the couch and proceeds to have sex with her. The other twin carries Sherilyn to her bed room. And undresses her. He steps out into the hallway and trades places with his twin. The twin starts screwing Ms. Fenn. And outta nowhere this twin turns into what I believe to be a werewolf. Of course this freaks Sherilyn Fenn out.

We cut to the next day and it seems both girls have forgotten what had happened the night before. Charlie is working restoring a painting and realizes that there is another painting up the one she is working on. So she starts to slowly remove the upper layer of paint. Well we get many scenes of Ms. Fenn walking around the castle wearing long flowing dresses and lots of jewelry. And once Charlie uncovers the second painting we see that it has someone who looks like Sherilyn and the werewolf guy in it.

Now I will admit that the first few times I watched this movie,it was for the nude scenes with both Sherilyn Fenn and Charlies Spradling. But over the years I have come to enjoy the story of the movie. The werewolf looks very good , and you know this was a low budget film. Turns out the castle that most of it was shot in is a castle in Romania that Charles Band owned at the time. Meridian gets a A-.