DRAGONWORLD was the third release on producer Charles Band's specialty family-film label Moonbeam, a spinoff of his prolific straight-to-video horror/sci-fi studio Full Moon Entertainment. Moonbeam's earlier releases, REMOTE and PREHYSTERIA, were pallid and derivative, but this one's a
minor treat, whimsical and sweet-natured.
Little orphan Johnny McGowan (Courtland Mead) arrives in a remote part of Scotland to dwell with his closest living relative, grandfather Angus (Andrew Keir). Though Angus indulges the laddie with loving kindness, lonely Johnny wishes for a friend his own age. The spirit world complies with the
sudden appearance of a baby dragon that the boy dubs Yowler, who's accepted into the McGowan household. Cut to 20 years later, when a TV crew shooting in the area meets the friendly but now-gigantic Yowler, causing a worldwide sensation. Grownup John McGowan (Sam McKenzie), faced with foreclosure
on his ancestral castle after Grandfather's death, reluctantly leases Yowler to businessman Lester McIntyre (John Woodvine) as star attraction at a new "Dragonworld" theme park. But a transplanted Yowler languishes in captivity, and when McIntyre refuses to break the contract and release him, John
and TV-crew allies mount a rescue mission that liberates the beastie. To spare Yowler from further exploitation John tearfully banishes his scaly friend back to the spirit world--at least for a while.
DRAGONWORLD may be FREE WILLY with a species change, but Band's crew pulled off the clone job with unexpected creativity and verve. Although the plot isn't above sentimental schmaltz, it gently sidesteps expected cliches found in most tales of a boy and his fantastical pet. John makes no frantic
effort to hide Yowler from humanity (unlike E.T. or HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS), and the creature's existence, once revealed, is treated as a simple matter of fact. The script also manages the rare feat of bringing its child hero to adulthood without losing an overall sense of wide-eyed innocence
(though McKenzie, a HIGHLANDER-esque hunk, bears no resemblance to young Courtland Mead, who looks like Alfred Hitchcock as a five-year-old). Yowler himself, a blend of David Allen's stop-motion-animation and mechanical puppetry, isn't as visually compelling as the monsters in DRAGONSLAYER and
WILLOW, but he's a pleasant compromise between the cuddly and the grotesque. Like many Full Moon productions, DRAGONWORLD was filmed cheaply in Romania, whose rugged countryside impressively impersonates the Scottish moors thanks to insistent bagpipe music. leave a comment
