Empire’s Last Stand in B-Movie History
It was the end of an era. David (Puppet Master) Schmoeller’s film was the last officially completed Empire Picture before the company was seized and folded into Epic. It’s this same financial snafu that left other Charles Band productions like Arena and Robot Jox in release purgatory. Cacacombs was eventually slapped with the Curse IV: The Ultimate Sacrifice title by Columbia TriStar Home Video and released in 1993. See- The Curse series is a franchise in name only, it consists of random movies bought and re-titled for distribution as sequels to David Keith’s original.
Whatever name it ended up with, that beautifully staged box art just jumps off the shelf. The movie’s still a fun relic of a bygone era of B movies. It’s slower and more deliberate than most of Band’s productions as it wants the company of other psychological pseudo-religio spooks like the Omen or The Sentinel – but it looks better on the shelf with later Full Moon pics like Subspecies or Netherworld (also by Schmoeller).