1990 Meridian

• AKA “Meridian: Kiss of the Beast” and “The Ravaging”
• Directed by Charles Band
• Written by Charles Band, Dennis Paoli
• Stars Sherilyn Fenn, Malcolm Jamieson, Charlie Spreadling
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-SVyFuYIHE

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was too long and drawn out. There is a story, a decent cast, some very cool real world settings in Italy. But it drags. It’s got the horror elements, and a romantic plot. Overall, the effect is pretty sedating and we give it a moderate thumbs up at best.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a bunch of circus performers coming out of a glowing cave. 

We then cut to a church, where a boy brings in a painting that the woman in the castle has donated. The frame is old and valuable, and the worthless painting is hiding something painted beneath it. We pan down to the crypt beneath the church, and it’s full of old skulls. The priest takes the painting to Gina to restore the original layer. 

Gina gets to work on the painting, but she has to meet her best friend, Cat, who is visiting Italy for the first time in ten years. Cat’s family owns an old castle on the mountain; old Aunt Martha has been living there all this time. Cat explains that legend says the man who built the castle in the 1500s was a wizard who turned his enemies to stone, which explains all the weird statuary on the property. 

The two girls notice the creepy circus setting up just outside and attend. The ringleader, Fauvrey, introduces the sideshow. The dwarf points out the strong man, snake charmer, fire eater, and the others. When it comes time to pick a volunteer from the audience, they pick Gina. Fauvrey throws knives at her on stage, and it’s all fine. All through the show, some of the people on stage stare ominously at Cat out in the crowd. 

After the show, Cat and Gina go backstage to talk to Fauvrey, who is charming and seems to like the girls as well. Cat is pressured into inviting the whole troupe up to the castle for dinner that night. Martha and Adriano aren’t thrilled to cook for the bog crowd, but they don’t have much choice.

They all toast their host, but we see that the dwarf has drugged the girls’ drinks. The girls almost immediately get woozy, and Fauvrey rapes both of them, as does the mysterious man in the mask who looks just like him. “I need you to love me,” says the man who drugged and raped her. The two twins(?) then continue to have sex with both girls. Somewhere in the middle of sex, Lawrence Fauvrey turns into a werewolf to finish the act. 

In the morning, Cat and Martha talk about the mess the guests made last night. The circus, and everyone with it, are gone. Neither of the girls remembers the details, but they both suspect they were drugged. “We can’t go to the police,” Cat says. Gina leaves with a shrug to go back to work on the mysterious painting. And that’s the extent that we hear about the sexual assault from the night before.

Alone now, Cat wanders through the huge castle. She goes into a bedroom and finds a dead woman on a bed. She runs to get Martha, who says there’s no one there. When they return, there is no one there. She saw the dead girl when she was very young, which is why her father sent her to America at a young age. 

Later, Cat finds Oliver Fauvrey outside, and he apologizes for last night. “When we made love, what we felt was real,” he explains, so now she’s sure of what happened. He leaves and talks to his evil brother, Lawrence, about Cat being “The One.” 

Back in town, Gina works on uncovering the image in the painted-over artwork. It shows the castle on the hill. 

In the castle, Cat follows the “ghost” to a crack in the wall, where she sees a vision of the werewolf carrying the dead woman and puts her on the bed. Later, Martha explains that the girl in the white dress was Cat’s father’s sister, Audrey. Audrey used to like the creepy owner of the circus, who sometimes acted one way and other times, another (almost as if they were two men). Yeah, that was the Fauvrey group then too. They’ve been around quite a while. 

Cat goes through dead-Audrey’s room and finds a dress and some jewelry that are just her size. Lawrence appears to her, and he doesn’t deny killing Audrey. He ties her to the bed and rips her clothes off– but then the werewolf, Oliver, attacks him from behind; she sees him. 

Gina has worked all day, into the night on the painting, and it shows the castle, Cat, and Lawrence/Oliver. Meanwhile, Oliverwolf and Cat make out in the bedroom. Martha says, “It’s just a dream.” 

Oliver tries to kill himself with an arrow, and Lawrence mocks him, knowing it won’t work. “Only someone who loves you can kill you,” he taunts. “You’re the beast, Lawrence.” 

Oliver comes to Cat and swears he never killed anyone after the first lady of the castle, 400 years ago. Now, he’s here to protect her and have her kill him. He wants to die, and only she can break the curse. He begs her to do it as he starts to change. Change completed, the beast lumbers back into the portal and leaves her alone. 

Cat goes to the local priest for confession, and the priest thanks her for the donation of the painting. She doesn’t know anything about it. Cat says it must have been Martha, but the priest says that Martha died six months ago. “I conducted the funeral service myself.” 

Gina finished the painting. It shows the Beast shooting a crossbow at Cat and Lawrence in the woods. 

Cat and Martha have words. Cat has to face her destiny– and the truth that she loves Oliver. Martha leads Cat to the realization that Oliver isn’t the bad one, it must be someone else. Martha says she’ll always be with Cat as she vanishes. 

Cat, alone now, dresses up in Audrey’s outfit and walks through the crack in the wall to the brothers’ lair. Oliver introduces himself and says the bad guy is his brother, Lawrence. He explains the whole thing to Cat. Lawrence killed the woman who owned the castle, but Oliver was the one who ended up cursed. He can only be freed if the lady of the castle loves him and kills him. Turns out, he’s really Lawrence, faking it, who plans to kill Cat. 

Lawrence drags Cat out to the woods, and we see Oliverwolf out there watching with his crossbow. It’s just like the scene in the painting. Gina shows up and sees what’s going on. When the dwarf shows up to abuse Oliver, Gina helps him shoot Lawrence. 

Oliver turns human again, and he hugs Cat. All the circus people walk back into the mouth of the magic cave. Oliver and Cat go with them, to be happily ever after… 

Brian’s Commentary

So the werewolf/beast is the gentle, good guy and the normal guy is the baddie? OK. I want to say it was a take on ‘Beauty and the Beast” but it had enough differences to make it stand out. 

The sex scenes are incredibly long and drawn-out, and seems to be a focus of the film (the director obviously liked them). Sherilyn Fenn, was right in the middle of filming “Twin Peaks” at the time, and she was a hot commodity, so that was probably behind it. 

The castle itself and the statuary gardens are real places in Italy; you can even book weddings there. 

The werewolf costume is the same one from “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1990), with a few modifications. The visuals are good, the soundtrack is well done, the problem here is that the story itself is very slow and drawn-out. 

It’s quite dull.

Kevin’s Commentary

The castle and the park with the big statues were awesome settings and added a lot to the film. Good thing, because it’s kind of dull. It’s got the right elements there, just needs to be tightened up. As it was, the entertainment was on the low side.