Archive for category Horror
Summer of Zombie 2010 Lurches Away
Looking over my summer’s worth of data and articles, I discovered I had learned a few interesting things, alleviated some stereotypes, and not to mentioned got to tour the world locations through the eyes of zombie films. However, first and foremost, I realized that the rating systems I devised to rank the movies (as seen below FIGURE 1) was created based on how well a movie could emulate Dawn 78 which was both unfair and often inapplicable.
Since Dawn of the Dead 78 was my inspiration to start this search, I was looking for a lost classic that had many awesome kills, a grainy quality to the film, a creepy touch, a crumbling society atmosphere that almost feels freeing, some campy fun, and, of course, buckets of blood and guts. Dawn of the Dead 78 would have scored a perfect 30 on my scale, but I think I’ve come to realize that what made Dawn great isn’t what makes every zombie film great.
Take for example the Re-animator franchise, which I think are excellent zombie films. They would rank very low on the Summer of zombie meter because even though their gore and campiness would rock through the roof, they don’t film in a grainy style, they aren’t particularly scary, they don’t kill many zombies, and their atmosphere isn’t comedic and not really what I was 
looking for. However, Re-animators 1,2,3 are all excellent films in their own way.
Even though Dawn of the Dead 78 is still my favorite zombie movie, I think the Summer of Zombie has taught me to try to enjoy zombie cinema without trying to fit every zombie film into a formula. That being said let’s examine the countdown and try to re-rank and reanalyze. (SEE FIGURE 2 Below)
The 1# Summer of Zombie Lost Classic, after careful thought, has to go to Cronenburg’s Rabid. It had the ability to create an apocalyptic atmosphere with more little snippets of carnage than most films can do with hordes of zombies. A perfect example is a scene where a car full of government officials are arguing over policy and two emergency workers approach and crack open their cars with the jaws of life, peel out the driver, and eat him. It’s hard to say what made this piece so enjoyable, even with its non-traditional Typhoid Mary spreading the plague, the film was still able to both standout and deliver a comfortable formula. Cronenburg really nailed the less-is-more concept.
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie succeeds in similar fashion. It had all the typical fan pleasing material: slow lurching corpses, handfuls of guts feeding scenes, and a little dash of commentary about man’s inability to cooperate. However, the conventions aren’t expanded into the pleasureful repetitions and grander scales we often see in Romero and Fulci films. Regardless, with under ten zombies, Grau still succeeded in a big way that has me accepting his red eyed pseudo-clever superhuman zombies despite his complete lack of internal logic. And if your film makes little sense and still entertains, you’ve done something right.
The rest of the films fell a little (or a lot) below the lost classic rank and keep in mind this list is in no way a top eleven list of my favorites as the movies came through a very random selection process, but with that in mind Grapes of Death has to take #3. Even though it’s more of a Crazies type film than a zombie film, and even though Brigitte Lahaie‘s queen of the crazies scene was completely out of left field, the film created perfect atmosphere. Watching it, the viewer is drawn in by the feeling of overpowering isolation as Elisabeth tries to cross the desolate landscape of rural France’s wine country, finding only a blind girl for a companion who can neither appreciate the horror or the danger of the violence that is wiping out the villages. Not to say it’s a great film, but it’s paced well and enjoyable to watch.
Hell of the Living Dead still ranks fairly high in my mind, but probably only because it follows a typical and comfortable format, and that’s putting it nicely. Saying it straight out: it completely rips off Dawn of the Dead‘s pre-mall formula of being on the road in a land rife with zombies while government officials fight over how to handle the situation. Not to mention, they raided Romero’s closet for the SWAT uniforms and the soundtrack, but that’s a separate issue. At the end of the day, Hell still boasts lots of Romerian “slow-movers” and a good post-apocalyptic atmosphere. Besides, isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery?
Nightmare City also pretty much stayed around the same rung. Really another entry into the Crazies/Infect genre, but as I went through these films I realized that zombie films aren’t as much about how zombies act, but how society acts in response to the revolution of humans being turned into something else. Romero cited I am Legend (The 1954 novel by Richard Matheson), as his inspiration for NOTLD 68 and all he did was change the vampires to flesh eating corpses. Nightmare City changes the flesh rating corpses to overly radiated super-humans that look like the toxic avenger, but the concept of society being turned upside-down remains, in a civilization stripped of its order. Even though Nightmare replaces order with hokey-ness, this is still a good watch for fans of zombie horror.
Night of the Comet was given the most redemption by my little re-evaluation, since the SOZ meter placed it second worst, but as Let Sleeping Corpses taught us: less zombies doesn’t always make for lesser film. I’ll admit that Comet’s apocalypse is pretty bland and it’s typical 80′s girls in need of rescue, from the stock boy cult then from the evil government agency, may get old quick but if you understand the conventions of the 80′s comedy then enjoying an 80′s comedy-with zombies isn’t so hard, is it? Long story short, it belongs in the top six and not with the garbage in the bottom five.
Flesheater stands atop the slop mountain, winning best-of-the-worst, with Bill Hinzman digging up his old corpse to fondle young women. I admit his writing “emulates” NOTLD to the point that it’s by far the most shameless rip-off I’ve ever watched. It does have gratuitous nudity for no good reason and the worse acting I’ve ever seen, but it’s unpretentious and fun with bathtubs full of gore. Watch this one with good friends and lots of beer and you have yourself a great party film.
The Dead Pit came right at the time that the American zombie film was on it way out (until Resident Evil) and Jason, Freddy, and Michael were still rolling strong, so why not use a slasher format to spruce it up? Bad idea. The Dead Pit winds up being a failure as both a slasher and zombie film as it’s conventions of both are lessened by the other. While you may argue that Rabid mixed these genres, the difference remains that Rabid builds the atmosphere of a zombie film initially while The Dead Pit is like a sub-par slasher that comes down with a base case of zombie film to feed its climax. Most offensive was that it was marketed as a zombie film or a tied up and topless Cheryl Lawson film, but I’m not getting started on that rant again.
Oasis of the Dead is another mixed genre piece, which apparently is a part of a sub-genre of Nazi zombie films that I had no idea existed but there’s at least a half dozen of these, however I’ll save that for a “Winter of Third Reich Zombies” series. However, that’s not why it’s at the bottom; Dead Snow (also of this genre) was awesome. Oasis fails because its another movie that relies on T&A to sell a logically devoid movie with terrible effects and cinematography. Still, I found it the least pretentious of the trio of terribleness here at the bottom.
Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things takes the “At Least its not the Worst Award”. Sigh. As hard as it is for me to trash the work of the late Bob Clark, this is a terrible zombie movie. People who consider this film a classic try to liken it to a Twilight Zone format where the build up of the villain’s awfulness really pumps the viewer up for the curtain to raise on the final act so he get his come-uppings, but honestly the dialogue is awful and when the zombies finally show up after an hour of waiting there’s nothing worth seeing. Bob Clark should put a sock in this one like he had that guy stuff one in Kim Cattrall’s mouth in Porky’s
The worst of the worst is Zombie Holocaust or Zombie 3, as it was named to try and cash in on Fulci’s masterpiece. This piece almost single handily set zombie films back fifty years as it relies on a formula of zombies controlled by a master like in White Zombie (1932.) That is not to say that that type of story can’t be pulled off in a modern flick, but when the rest of your film is feedings scenes by living human cannibal tribes and exploitation of Alexandra Delli Colli’s naked body, which is on screen more than any zombie, then you have a vapid piece of trash. Fabrizio De Angelis and Co. put together about the worst ideas Italians have had since Mussolini sided with Hitler. Yeah, it’s a bad film.
With that my Summer of Zombie comes to a close, and I feel like I’ve grown a bit. I’ve learned that zombies don’t have to be fast or slow, weak or strong, smart or dumb, mute or talkative, or even infected or undead to make a good film but they should make you afraid of having to become one of them. The fear of losing your identity and ultimately the society you know to these creatures is what makes them terrifying. However, even though the horror of becoming one of them is prominent, the spirit of revolution still provides an emotion of freedom in most well done zombie films, which is why the idea of surviving in such an environment has been associated with fun as of late. Zombieland, Max Brooks’ novels, and the Dead Rising games all thrive on this concept. At the end of the day, I don’t know if it’s even about the zombie anymore or the fact that escaping the mundane even at the cost of the horrific seems pleasing.
With a new philosophy of what the zombie film should be, I feel ready to take on a horde of bad zombies films with a new found respect and tolerance for them and I’ve gained appreciation for how broad the term “zombie” can be used. Except for those idiots that still put the Evil Dead movies on their best zombie flick lists. For the last time, they’re people possessed by Candarian Demons, not zombies, morons! Ah, it feels good to be opened minded.
FIGURE 1: Rating as per original Dawn of the Dead Cookie cutter system
1- Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1977) 24 points
2- Rabid (1977) and Hell of Living Dead(1980) 22 points
3- Grapes of Death (1978) Nightmare City (1980) Flesheater (1988) 21 points
4- The Dead Pit (1989) Zombie Holocaust (1980) Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1973) 14 points
5- Night of the Comet (1984) 12 points
6- Oasis of the Living Dead (1981) 10 points.
FIGURE 2: Re-ranked
1- Rabid
2-Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
3-Grapes of Death
4-Hell of the Living Dead
5-Nightmare City
6-Night of the Comet
7-Flesheater
8-The Dead Pit
9- Oasis of the Dead
10- Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things
11- Zombie Holocaust.
A Fistful Bones: Reviewing the crap I’ve been watching lately
Babysitter Wanted is the story of a religious girl that goes off to college and takes a job as a babysitter in a house where pure evil is about to descend. While this one starts off with the typical: here’s a bound and gagged girl on a table about to be carved into pieces, I wonder if the protagonist will have to face this same danger, it also hits you with an interesting twist early and then pretty much deflates into the “Final Girl” formula of a slasher film. While the twist has a little charm, once it’s out there, it’s so obvious that you’re mad at yourself for not seeing it coming. The real high point of this film is the protagonist’s slutty stoner roommate and a cameo by Bill Mosley as the sheriff. I guess that’s his penance for doing House of a 1000 Corpses. “Well Bill, since you portrayed a guy who slaughtered girls in pretty much the worst horror movie ever made now you have to save a girl from one such house in a somewhat less horrible movie. ” Whatever.
Rating….rainy day or nothing else on movie
DayBreakers… Man I’ve been waiting to see this one for awhile and now that I have…eh. DayBreakers was one of those movies that introduces a great environment, creepy ideas, and then follows through with none of them. Basically, you have Ethan Hawke as the “hooker with the heart of gold” vampire that is sympathetic for the few remaining humans, but who works for the most cliched villain possible – the evil head of a big corrupt corporation portrayed by Sam Neill, trying to find a solution to fact that blood is running out. Conceptually, the idea of vampires becoming the most prominent race and starving to death was interesting, especially since they rot away into mindless monsters as the process goes down, but the plot takes a turn for the worse as we are brought to the human camp and meet their hokey over the top leader, Lionel ‘Elvis’ Cormac, played by Willem Dafoe. After that it’s just another dull action flick with really stupid solutions and everything that was interesting about this flicks blows away like vampire ash on a sunny and windy day.
Rating…. watch the first half then find something else to do. Send me an email and I’ll tell you what the cure for vampirism was if you want.
Session 9… That detective guy from CSI Miami (David Caruso) and that guy who looks like Matthew Mcconaughey, but isn’t (Josh Lucas) team up with some other guys to clean up an old abandoned insane asylum, and creepy shit ensues. Not really sure how creepy this one really was. This is one of those films that follow that DAY 1, DAY 2 format, but more days go by than should before anything substantial happens, and while the film has an a constant eerie emotion to it don’t become swayed by reviews that that is the creepiest film EVER, though. Regardless, Session 9 was an interesting think piece that ends without spoon feeding every answer to the audience, but watch it as a drama or mystery fan because it in no way delivers a horror film.
Rating…worth a watch but I’m not doing cartwheels over it.
Hatchet. Well I know this one is old news, but I just got around to watching it. Hatchet, for me, goes in the same file as The Hangover, fun, but grossly over-rated. Basically, a homage to the 80′s slasher film, Hatchet takes an ill-fated swamp tour boat of Mardi Gras goers into the deep dark part of New Orleans where a Jason Voorhees like legend awaits. When Hatchet’s slasher, Victor Crowley, shows up the film offers fast paced splatter and funny commentary on overused genre conventions, but brings very little to the originality table. At the end of the day, enjoy this one for it’s lighthearted approach to the old school slasher or, at least, watch it for the brilliant Tony Todd cameo, but don’t let the hype convince you it’s anything more.
Rating…Awesome fun… but not the second coming of Hitchcock.
Grace (2009/III)- oh boy, this one was a trip. A pregnant woman’s husband dies in a car crash that also kills the infant inside her, but somehow, at birth, the baby is still alive or is it? As time goes on, the woman, Madeline, realizes that her child, Grace, doesn’t what milk. Instead her little girl wants blood. At first, Madeline resorts to draining it from supermarket chop meat, but the child eventually wants the real thing.
‘Uncomfortable’ is the best word to describe this piece. Just plain uncomfortable. Either it’s the amount of bloody nipples this film has to offer or the insane fifty-something mother-in-law that never stopped producing breast milk and whose breast are constantly on screen, this film makes you cringe in new and unimaginable ways. While there’s no real punch line to this piece, I applaud it for its ability to turn my stomach.
Rating…Worth a watch, but no cartwheels here either.
My Little Eye (2002). Biting off the popular of reality TV and Webcast, My Little Eye brings reality TV into the horror genre by placing six people a house filled with cameras for six months with the stipulation that everyone has to stay the entire time for each member to win one million dollars. Of course, bad shit starts to go down, and DA DA DA the cast member realize that “the show” may not be what it seems. Unfortunately, the end result is that this is another flick that has lots of mysterious build up for a predictable over done punchline.
Rating…Rubbish
Pandorum: In Space No One Can Hear You Be Unoriginal
I know everyone else probably finished bitching about this last year, but anyone else like me that waits for questionable movies to hit Netflix Streaming might just now be thinking about catching Pandorum. Well if this is the case perhaps you should think twice. This lost in space sci-fi/horror/action/martial flick is still looking for it tonal continuity.
Perhaps Pandorum isn’t supposed to be horror. I’m still not sure. It starts off with the typical trappings of a space opera: folks just woke up from cryo-sleep, the ship is F.U.B.A.R, and then we work our way up to a false alarm scare where what appears to be a zombie turns out to be a former crew member’s corpse strung up by his neck. From here on out, the groggy space-van-winkle main character, Bowers, (Ben Foster), runs around the ship trying to shake off his cryo-amnesia while he radios back and forth with the only remaining commander officer, played by Dennis Quaid who wonders how his brother’s Sci-Fi flick was ID4 and here he is doing this.
While Lieutenant Dennis Quaid is trying to get the controls on the bridge working so he can use the communicator to fire his agent, Bowers has his ass kicked by another survivor named Nadia (Antje Traue), that is every bit a bad caricature of every role Milla Jovovich has ever played. About two minutes later, the horror element of this movie flies out of the window as the monsters are given entirely too much screen time, which is a carnal sin for maintaining a creepy setting even if your ghouls are scary. Not only are these things pretty silly looking, but the effects that display their movements are sped up in a cheap obnoxious fashion to the point that I thought I hit the fast-forward button on my remote by mistake.
Milla?
With all the creepiness gone, the movie plays out like some weird combo of Aliens and The Descent, until Bowers meets Manh (Cung Le) and now we can also throw in some martial arts sequences to keep fans from making Aliens rip-off jokes. I know a small party of survivors are racing against a fatal mechanical problem in a ship filled with killer creatures, but look at the pretty Kung Fu; Sigourney never threw no Judo-chop! All that aside, we eventually discover that Pandorum refers to a kind of space madness (didn’t Ren and Stimpy cover this like twenty years ago?) which seems to mirror schizophrenia, and the audience is left to wonder about Quaid’s character who has rescued another survivor that seems a bit quirky, and thus gives us our next little ring of drama. Who has the Pandorum? Is it Quaid or this new comer, Gallo, that’s really crazy?
Flashing back to our trio of survivors… after some more Kung-Fu, Milla-Jo. and Co. run into a little girl named “Newt,” excuse me… I mean some other Pandorum ridden survivor who is clearly insane but they accept help from him anyway, because what the hell else can you do in these movies? So, his insane ramblings and some weird cave painting type carvings, which I guess we’re supposed to assume he did, paired with Quaid and Gallo arguing over who’s insane and who remembers the past clearly attempt to fill in the missing plots points.
From here on out, we’ve reached the home stretch, which means every five minutes must lay down another highly clichéd twist borrowed from various sources: Fight Club, Twilight Zone, Secret Window, wherever. Don’t worry though. Our trio still has the formulaic Aliens- beat the mechanical disaster shot clock and evac sequence, and we even get one more Kung Fu- showdown for good measure.
While this movie isn’t actually as bad as I’m making it sound, its flaws were glaring in your face. Biggest problem was the fact that they never make the viewer care enough about the universe they’ve created to even understand any of the dozen twists that pop out jack-in-box style. While we get some back story about Bowers’ father, their mission to colonize a new planet, and Bowers’ wife, half of these subplots hold no sway over anything. In fact, the characters are constantly making revelations that have little to do with anything. For example, the audience is hyped up by a moment when we see a baby creature and Milla, err Nadia, says “They’re breeding!” Don’t get too excited by that concept since it is never explored again, or maybe, the constant surreal flashback to Bowers beautiful wife have you curious where that line of authorial thought is going. Nowhere! Bowers finds where her cryo-pod would have been and remembers that she dumped his ass while he was still on earth, and hence isn’t even on the ship. So?
Is it fun? At times. Is it scary? Only if you think the shot of the alien’s cheaply made up faces roaring at the screen, which director was clearly obsessed with, is terrifying. Is it worth watching? Yeah, it’s a good rainy day flick, and by “rainy day” I mean category five hurricane that has trapped you in a fallout shelter. Otherwise, I’d be cautious about opening this Pandorum’s Box.
‘Survival’ Theaterical Release- Not Quite A Zombie Plague Sweeping the Nation
Tonight, May 28 2010, marks the national theatrical release of George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead, but don’t expect zombies to be tearing up the screens from coast to coast. The limited release will be placing Romero’s latest flesh feast in only about twenty cities, (Listed below) which seem to be only working out for Cali that has seven theaters hosting the much maligned movie. However, if you are a die-hard Romero freak somewhere in the middle of the country you’re pretty much left out in the cold.
However, I stand by what I said in my review of the film: I enjoyed it, but I recognize that it may disappoint. So don’t travel for this one; hit it up on of the digital rental mediums first and then gauge how many miles you want to trek for it. And there’s no need to feel guilty about it. To paraphrase Romero himself, speaking to Fangoria on the reverse release to VOD before theater, “this method is perhaps the best preview for a film ever” and “I’m glad it’s out there and available for people.” In short, George says its okay to watch on your PS3 or Xbox before you drive halfway across the country to see it.
1) Atlanta, GA: Midtown Art Cinemas 8
2) Cambridge, MA: Kendall Square Cinema
3) Durham, NC: Carolina Theatre – Durham
4)Chicago, IL: Music Box
5)Austin, TX: Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
6)Denver, CO: Mayan Theatre
7)Santa Ana, CA: South Coast Village 3
8)San Diego, CA: Ken Cinema
9)West Los Angeles, CA: Nuart Theatre
10)Minneapolis, MN: Lagoon Cinema
11)New Haven, CT: Criterion Cinemas 7
12)Hartford, CT: Real Art Ways Cinema
13)New York, NY: Village East Cinemas
14)Philadelphia, PA: Ritz at the Bourse
15)Seattle, WA: Varsity Theatre
16)Santa Cruz, CA: Del Mar Theatre 4
17)San Francisco, CA: Lumiere Theatre 3
18)Berkeley, CA: Shattuck Cinemas 10
19)San Jose, CA: Camera 12
20)University City, MO: Tivoli Theatre
21)Washington, DC: E Street Cinema
Martyrs To Get The Twilight Treatment – May I Borrow Your Gun?
Whyyyyy?????
The other day in News That Makes Me Want To Vomit, it was revealed that a remake of Martyrs is being produced by the same team behind the Twilight series. I’ll avoid making an obvious “torture” pun here but seriously? They’re taking one of the most brutal, unique, and interesting films the horror genre has seen in years and maybe turning into something that a teenage audience might see?
Of course, the fact that Martyrs is being remade isn’t surprising given the fact that anything sacred is bound to be snatched up and repackaged for financial gain. But this has the potential for epic-level bastardization. Anyone want to take bets that rather than leaving a thought-provoking ending, this one will tie up everything nicely? Then moviegoers will say things like, “Wow, that was unique” or “Wait, there’s an original? Oh it’s in French? Nevermind.” And yes, this is one of those cynical “I hate remakes” posts because I’m in a bad mood today. At least now I have something that irritates me as much as the Let The Right One In remake.
I don’t know what else to say. More details at Cinematical.
Splice – Frankenstein Rears His Ugly Head, Again
Posted by Chris in Horror, New Releases, Trailers on May 10th, 2010
For those of you who haven’t caught the trailer, Splice is a sci-fi/horror flick that intends to tackle the recent stem-cell research debate with a part human, part scorpion, part ostrich thing? Sounds confusing, but Splice runs a significant risk of being a bad cliche before the trailer’s even over.
The plot follows two scientists, Elsa and Clive, (Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody) that find a loop hole in genetic engineering laws by creating a non-human species mix with the mentality that a new species won’t have legislation against testing on it. After a quick glance at the trailer, or people with enough common sense to fill a thimble will realize that this creature is going to escape and run-amuck in downtown Tokyo. Well, everything but those last three are true and logically obvious.
Sound interesting? Well, maybe it will be, but Splice functions by attempting to put modern twists and problems on an iconic tale. This becomes problematic because Mary Shelley casts a big shadow as her novel explored the dilemma of out of control science and what type of soul comes to Earth with the creatures we create. While her inspiration came from Galvani and Volta hooking up batteries to dead frogs, the moral debate of what we’re messing with have changed very little.
The trailer gives a peek of Brody’s character referring to their creation as a “specimen,” which draws an angry “don’t her call her that” from Polley. While the subtext is intended to be powerful, I have doubts that a sci-fi/horror thriller can carry weighty questions and please genre fans. Call me a cynic, but the last person to pull this off was Shelley herself. It’s bad enough that since 1910 we wouldn’t let the original monster stay dead. Until 2000, every decade has had at least some form of Frankenstein movie but every attempt to modernize this concept has been mediocre at best. Fans of the Species franchise (if there are any left after the last two straight to DVD releases) can testify to that.
Regardless, Splice is, at very least, not another unnecessary sequel or slasher remake which is refreshing in its own way, but my pessimism is going to win out on this one until June 4th when it hits the screen. That Friday we can all go see if Hollywood has created another abomination.
Survival of the Dead Review: Romero Devours His Own Logic
George Romero’s living dead films are known for creating a perfect atmosphere of zombie horror with an undertone of social commentary, but recently it seems old King George has been making social commentary with an undertone of zombie horror. Survival of the Dead, which hit the digital rental market last evening suffered from a political commentary that got in your face like a zombie with bad breath, but didn’t come equipped with as many of Romero’s usual charming conventions to stave it off. Survival has this way of recycling concepts from the previous five films, but executed them with much less grace and a large lack of simple logic.
The movie begins on one such note with a narration from Sarge (Alan Van Sprang) whose acting and explanation of why he went AWOL aren’t in the least bit convincing. Fans of Dawn of the Dead (78) remember the horrors that Peter and Roger faced when they raided the poor tenement houses: family members eating each other, rotting undead bodies stored like cattle, teammates committing suicide before their eyes. When Peter and Rogers abandoned their posts, you were able to sympathize and believe their actions. Survival attempts to condense this concept into a two minute long scene about having to kill your comrades, which just plays out with cartoonish head pops and lines that hurt your ears as Van Sprang tries to act.
After an unnecessary rehashed scene from Diary of the Dead, just to remind the viewer they met Sarge for twenty seconds before, we finally get a glimpse of the film’s main setting, Plum Island, where two warring factions of Irish families are feuding over how to treat the undead. Much like Dawn’s poor slum tenets, Shamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick) believes the dead should be kept “undead” while Patrick O’Flynn (Kenneth Welsh) gathers his death squad of Elmer Fudd mercenaries and attempts to exterminate all the zombies despite the protests of his daughter Janet (Kathleen Munroe). Her sole voice of reason is mostly ignored by the citizens of Plum until Shamus captures her father and is convinced by Janet to exile O’Flynn instead of killing him.
Back on the main land, Sarge’s own band of AWOL misfits are introduced. The loyal side-kick, Kenny, (Eric Woolfe) is watching a blatant spoof of Letterman on his PC’s wireless internet – which apparently must work better during an apocalyptic situation because mine is constantly re-buffering – and the token female, Tomboy, (Athena Karkanis) that is for no good reason (and I’m not even kidding) masturbating and moaning in front of her teammates. After that WTF moment, we meet the fourth team member, Cisco, (Stefano DiMatteo) who complains that Tomboy should let him help, but unfortunately for him she’s a lesbian. Go figure.
With that bit of awkwardness out of the way, Romero dusts off his old “Us and Them” motif and has the foursome stumble on a group of rednecks that have slain a family of African American Zombies, but left their heads impaled on spikes to suffer and moan. Sarge and Co. take out the red-necks and euthanize the heads in a scene painfully similar to the tenement basement scene from Dawn and then come upon a random kid that shows them that the rednecks had stolen an armored car with over a million dollars in it. Random kid, after arguing over why his iPhone is superior to Kenny’s PC – I guess MAC and PC still have “Us and Them issues” even after the apocalypse – shows Sarge a video made by the exiled O’Flynn that states he will offer anyone that finds him safe passage to Plum island.
O’Flynn and his loyal band of Elmers have fortified themselves in a shack at a Marnia, where they apparently rob the people that respond to the YouTube video and ship them off to Plum. Sarge’s squad falls into the trap but fights them off in a scene that can only be described in terms of a Road Runner cartoon including: a random guy fishing for zombies, a grenade blowing up next to O’Flynn’s shed that only knocks down the wall and leaves them standing there with ash-black dumbfounded faces, and a zombie death executed by putting a fire extinguisher down his throat and inflating his head until it pops. In short, the fight goes badly for O’Flynn but he Bugs Bunny’s his way out of his shed by lighting a bundle of dynamite on his cigar and handing it off to a zombie that actually makes the confused “huh” noise a second before it blows. I’m still not exaggerating.
Diary had its share of silly moments: the fast or slow zombie argument, the sarcastic dorm looter, and the deaf ass-kick Amish, but a bit of subtlety, and more importantly, balance was employed. Survival attempts to unload some chuckle inducing gimmicky death every time zombies are on screen.
After the goofiness, Cisco discovers another hole in logic by commandeering a giant car ferry that O’Flynn apparently never checked to see if it had gas in it. O’Flynn, I guess embarrassed from stupidity, surrenders to Tomboy and convinces Sarge to take him home to Plum, which finally encourages plot progression. Once they arrive on Plum, the team is greeted by citizen zombies chained up perpetually doing, and redoing daily chores including Muldoon’s daughter that is now undead, but still rides and jumps her horse with perfect form.
The plot stumbles along through some sub-plots and back stories, most notably is a Romeo and Juliet type affair between Muldoon’s right hand man, Chuck, and O’Flynn’s daughter, which pretty much means nothing because the girl’s already a zombie. The kicker is that Muldoon has this crazy idea that he can convince the zombies to eat animal meat if he can coax an intelligent zombie to do it. Of course, he sends Chuck to go fetch his old flame, since she’s still smart enough to ride her horse then logic would only follow that she’d be smart enough to eat it? Whatever.
Fans of the Day of the Dead (85) should find this concept most offensive. Dr Logan spent that entire flick explaining how zombies responded to classic conditioning in the same manner as humans and how important the process was. If just putting a “smart zombie” in a cage with an animal was enough, wouldn’t zombies have learned to eat different meats they encountered in the wilderness by now? Using that logic, if Big Daddy, from Land of the Dead, taught his zombie army to use use machine guns and Jack Hammers wouldn’t he have also taught them to use the drive-thru at the Chik-Fil-a?
I’m aware that Diary and Survival represent Romero’s reclamation of his own franchise and he’s shouldn’t be held to the conventions of the old series, which ended with Land, but my point remains that these films took time to develop their concepts, characters, and plot points; sometimes they even followed their own internal logic. Survival felt rushed in everything it attempted to do. Why have millions of dollars in an armored car as a subplot when there’s no society left where it will have value? Why would Muldoon think “these people just have some disease” when people in the same room are missing chunks of their skull? The film is held together by spit and bubblegum too often.
Is there a light side? Yes, true fans will enjoy this movie. Many good lines, amusing kills, chuckle worthy gimmicks, and just that magical Romerian zombie atmosphere are all still present. O’Flynn, while looking like Sean Connery’s drunken cousin, is actually a lot of fun whenever he is on screen, which this film needed desperately since Sarge is a human wasteland of character. However, the film also develops the usual philosophical observations that Romero fans are used to and that should please the heady zombie fan looking for that signature King George moral, but if Survival only gets a limited theatrical release in the big cities then I wouldn’t drive more than an hour to go see it, or otherwise you might be risking a big gas bill for a film that has the potential to disappoint.
Triangle – Sailing On The High Seas Of Repetition
This post contains spoilers
Since we’re on the topic of tired cliches, I just watched Triangle, a film I’ve read many positive things about from other horror bloggers and online reviews. One overzealous Netflix reviewer went as far to proclaim, “A++++ Wow, this movie kept me completely mesmerized, transfixed and eyes as big as saucers for every single frame!!”
Damn. Mesmerized and transfixed, huh? Clearly, we weren’t watching the same film. The one I watched was predictable, repetitive, and average at best. There’s no way for me to convey my thoughts about Triangle without spoiling some if its mysteries, so stop reading here if you’re set on wasting 98 minutes of your life on it.
Still with me? So, how many of you have seen The Abandoned? How about Horrorfest 4′s The Reeds? Shit, how about Groundhog’s Day? You guessed it – Triangle‘s plot hinges on a re-occuring loop of events. Sure, that alone isn’t enough to condemn the thing, but when a movie is touted as “mind-bending” or “thought-provoking”, I’m expecting that if it relies on a familiar narrative device, it at least takes it in a brand new direction.
Unfortunately, Triangle confuses quantity for quality. Rather than putting a refreshing twist on a staid concept, it simply repeats that concept over and over until you wish you too were trapped in a time loop in the Bermuda Triangle instead of watching this movie.
The film follows Jess (Melissa George) as she embarks on a sailing trip with some friends off the coast of Florida. Prior her departure, she’s seen at home with her autistic son, cleaning up a spilled cup of watercolor paint and then stuffing her duffel bag into the car trunk. Upon her arrival at the boat dock, Jess is clearly in bad shape – disoriented, only semi-sure that her son is at school, and looking likely to spend her afternoon vomiting off the side of the boat. But that doesn’t sway boat captain and friend, Greg, who is happy to take her aboard anyway.
Before long, some nasty weather appears out of nowhere and capsizes their boat, leaving them stranded in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle (not that they ever mention that location – I guess we’re just supposed to assume based on the title). After a while of drifting on the open ocean, a huge ship appears and seemingly rescues the group. Only – you guessed it – this isn’t your ordinary ship. No, I’m not talking Ghost Ship proportions, but the entire vessel appears to be empty as the friends walk around looking for a captain or crew. Still, there’s evidence that someone has been here before – a banquet hall stocked with food, a photo of the ship framed in a hallway. Finally, Jess and Greg find cabin 237 (subtle nod to The Shining – Kubrick, not King) where the sink is running and “Go To Theater” is written on the mirror in blood.
Once the group arrives at the ship’s theater, things get all kinds of crazy and Jess gets accused of shooting and killing her friend Downey. She vehemently denies it, saying she was just outside with another of their friends. Before they can get to the bottom of it, a madman in a burlap sack (not so subtle nod to Friday the 13th Part 2) begins to shoot them with a shotgun. As the sole survivor of the shooting, Jess manages to beat her assailant up so badly that he climbs up on the ship’s rails and apparently commits suicide. But before falling, he shouts something about “having to kill them to escape.” Promptly after the assailant’s death, Jess looks overboard and to her horror sees their capsized ship, complete with the entire group of friends (including herself) screaming for help. Begin the doppelganger cycle. Or are we already in it? I think we are.
The cards are out on the table – Jess is trapped in some strange cycle that she’s evidently been trying to get out of for years. The rest of the film proceeds to show the loop from a variety of angles – from the perspective of the burlap sacked killer, who we learn is actually Jess trying to escape from the cycle and also from multiple other versions of herself.
I suppose it could be fun to try to figure out where exactly the loop begins, how it happened, or if it’s really a manifestation of her own mental instability but the problem with Triangle (for me, at least) is that I don’t care to. From the very beginning of the film, it’s painfully obvious that we’re headed for a loop plot. How many times does Jess have to say she’s experiencing deja vu or feels like she’s “been here before”? After the loop has been revealed, we’re forced to watch the same footage multiple times with subtle differences that, I guess, are supposed to be shocking. And just when you think the layers of the loop have all been revealed, another 7 are thrown on top. It’s just overkill.
Oh, yeah - this part again.
Please, please, please don’t get me wrong. I love movies that make me think. A good film should make you think long after you’ve watched it and Triangle did indeed make others think deeply. It just failed to inspire that reaction from me. I didn’t find it at all scary either, which is another matter. So what you’ve got here is a post full of verbal diarrhea about this film. Am I wrong to be so unenthusiastic about Triangle? What do you think?
Sins Of The Father Cliche
You know what really grinds my gears, horror movies that still rely on the revenge plot as their groundwork. Conceptually, it seems like a classic idea. Who didn’t love reading about Poe’s hero walling-up his dick-head friend in The Cask of Amontillado? Well, it’s been about hundred years and the idea is getting tired especially when the wronged party takes it out on the next generation. Shouldn’t Kruger have the last and only remaining pass for this MO?
Unfortunately, no laws against horror movie cliches exist, which brings me to Drive-Thru, a complex in-depth story about a fast-food chain’s mascot clown (named “Horny The Clown” for extra awful effect) killing the local high school kids. Sound excellently bad? Well, the opening scene of really exaggerated wiger-thugs getting owned by what appears to be a mix of Twisted Metal’s “Hell Clown” and Ronald McDonald with a meth problem wearing Ace Freely’s get-up from the Psycho Circus tour had me expecting the usual teeny crap for sure.
While the highschool-ness was instantly out of control: rival clique making snarky comments, the token drug reference kid, and the heroine being poked fun at for her virginity by her destined-to-be-chop meat BFFs that all wear skirts that can pass as thick belts, Drive Thru also attempts to sneak in an air of mystery about its back story. As the teens start to become chop meat, the parents in the town share knowing glances and make references to the past that leads the heroine, Mackenzie, (Leighton Meester) to become suspicious of her mother. If that’s not bad enough, Mackenzie starts to get clues who the next victim is going to be through supernatural text messages, the Ouija Board, the Magic 8-ball and Etch-a-Sketch for some reason. Well, at least, her Slinky doesn’t start tapping out Morse Code
At the risk of spoiling the ending of this instant-classic, the horrible truth is that Mackenzie’s mother and all of her friends’ parents used to torment the boy that once portrayed Horny the Clown until, of course, one prank goes too far and leads to his accidental death. Yup, it’s that original folks. Even though this flick doesn’t take itself seriously and it’s probably trying to exploit cliches to be funny somehow it’s overall annoying.
Horror movies that try to be funny-bad are searching for a seldom reached middle ground between good horror and campy horror that’s amusing for its cheese value. Not to mention, when your ace card cliche is owned by Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, Friday the 13th, and even Masters of Horror: We all Scream for Ice Cream, which actually dealt with accidentally killing a clown, it’s a little hard to see the chuckle value in it.
The only amusement factor in Drive-Thru comes from their attempts to populate the film with amusing characters, and bad caricatures; the film’s good cop/bad cop routine is almost unforgivably bad as the thin female by-the-book detective deals with her overweight bumbling Dirty-Harry wannabe partner’s attitude. On the lighter side, Morgan Spurlock-the Super-Size Me guy- makes a rather amusing cameo as the manager of the fast food joint and one of my favorite character actors, Sean Whalen–kinda the poor man’s Steve Buscemi–plays the typical creepy janitor.
Still, at the end of the day, this movie’s a mess, not particularly funny or scary. It’s just there; but, at least, if you’re reading this review it doesn’t have to be.
Shiver – Holy Crap, Horror Movies Can Still Scare Me?
Posted by Matt in Hidden Gems, Horror, Reviews on April 13th, 2010
I swear, sometimes I think Netflix’s watch instantly horror suggestions are purposely and vindictively chosen to annoy me. Why else would they recommend House of 1,000 Corpses or lead me astray with Keeper of Souls? The process of finding a quality horror film on Netflix is disheartening at best and an infuriating waste of time at worst. But, masochistically, I still do it because I just might get lucky with a random choice. So, when my girlfriend recently read the synopsis for a 2006 Spanish film called Shiver to me, I agreed to give it a shot. She rarely chooses horror but when she does, she usually picks good ones (unlike myself).
The plot focuses on Santi (Junio Valverde), a teen with photophobia who gets burned instantly by sunlight and is forced to attend night school. In essence, he’s a modern day vampire (the kind without sparkles, thank you). Coupled with issues surrounding his estranged parents, Santi’s medical condition causes him to be a pariah and an easy target for ridicule. He’s socially awkward, has few friends and frequently has nightmares where he’s bursting into flames. At the encouragement of his doctor, Santi and his mother, Julia (Mar Sodupe), trade in big city living for a house in a remote country village where the sun rarely shines.
Things seem normal in this little town for, oh, about 12 hours following Santi’s arrival until a farmer’s sheep is viciously slaughtered by some sort of monster in the woods. The farmer fires his shotgun at the creature, but it quickly escapes. The farmer drags the dead sheep into a shop run by Dimas (the man Santi and Julia are renting their house from) and exclaims that this is the third of his animals to be slaughtered in such a way. When Julia inquires if the woods are dangerous, Dimas simply advises staying away from them. The next day, Tito, one of Santi’s classmates, is kicking a rock down the road when he accidentally sends it into the woods. While retrieving it, he sees a creepy set of eyes (Suspiria homage, much?), hears a growling sound, and decides to book it. Smart choice, kid. That same night, Santi hears growling emanating from the attic above his bedroom.
The next day, the two boys and another friend (Jonas) decide to hunt down the beast in the woods. Sounds very logical to me. I know I’d be quick to confront an unknown, growling, sheep-slaughtering beast. But I digress. Frightened after the beast runs past them, Tito flees and Santi takes off after him leaving Jonas alone. Jonas is killed and mutilated in no time and Santi becomes the town’s prime suspect.
That much will suffice for plot purposes here. What I’ve failed to mention thus far is how brilliantly this film is executed. Director Isidro Ortiz and Art Director Pilar Revuelta (Oscar-winner for Pan’s Labryinth) create an incredibly tense atmosphere by shooting the film in eerie blue and gray hues, keeping the pace fast with clever editing, and not relying on jump scares. The first half of the film is probably the scariest and most unnerving thing I’ve seen in years. At one point following a terrifyingly creepy stalking scene, I looked at my girlfriend and with a bit of surprise, said, “this is…really fucking scary.” That says a lot about Shiver. That never happens to me.
What allows Shiver to maintain its creepiness throughout the first half is its sense of mystery. What is this thing stalking the local residents? Ortiz gives us some decent glimpses at a long-haired shadowy figure without giving it away. However, it’s this excellent first act that sets the latter half up for a somewhat lackluster finish. I don’t want to give anything away here, but suffice it to say that when the big “reveal” happens, it takes the wind out of the sails. Once that mystery was gone, I wasn’t as scared. It’s really too bad, because Shiver had the potential to be one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen but it couldn’t maintain the momentum it built. That said, it’s still one of the better and certainly one of the scariest films I’ve seen in a long time. The first half alone has enough suspense, terror and atmosphere to make this one still highly recommended. Netflix, you’ve done me a kindness, finally.
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