28 Weeks Later (the 2nd time around)

Last night I stopped by the dollar theater with Pablo to watch 28 Weeks Later for the second time. It'll be out on DVD soon, but I wanted to see it a second time in the theater. This will be more general musings than a proper review, and will contain spoilers, but I assume most of us have seen it, once.
What leaped out at me this time was the opening segment with Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, Ravenous) and Catherine McCormack (Shadow of the Vampire, Braveheart). This is the only scene that you can see the love between the two of them, but the first time I watched it I was so anxious for the action to start this scene blew past me. The passionate kiss they share here gets nicely juxtaposed with the later kiss that infects Carlyle. Of course the scene right after this is probably the most memorable from the movie, where the people in hiding get massacred and Carlyle abandons his wife to be eaten. It's one of those scenes that makes you wonder what you would do, save the woman you love or preserve your own ass so the kids will have at least one parent. The choice his character makes is a cowardly one, but you don't hate his character because of it.

Actually I think Weeks is a stronger film than it's predecessor in many ways. For one, there is a ton of social commentary in Weeks that you don't have in Days. It doesn't take a genius to see the American repatriation of London is a scathing look at our occupation of Iraq. The people on the ground have the best of intentions, but in a situation where they don't have all the facts they are forced to make hard choices that result in the deaths of innocent people. Also, Weeks has better shots of an empty London. In Days those opening sequences of an empty city set such a great tone for the film, and in the sequel we get a lot more of those shots, and on a bigger scale, really hammering home how large London is, and how desolate. I especially liked the overgrown football stadium. The infected action in Weeks is also a lot more vivid and frequent.

Enrique Chediak does a great job matching the cinematographic tone set by Anthony Dod Mantle in the first film. If you'd like to see more of Mr. Chediak's camera work I recommend you go see The Flock on Oct. 1st.

But Weeks suffers from a massive pitfall that will keep it from being on the same level as Days, and that is the film's premature ejaculation. I am of of course speaking of how what should have been the climax of the film happens a good hour before the credits roll. The U.S. Air Force fire bombing London is the strongest action sequence and most beautiful footage out of the film, and nothing that happens after that scene comes close to topping that level. Yes there are great scenes after that, like the scene where Jeremy Renner (Dahmer, North Country) gets turned into a S'more, but the fire bombing is really the climatic moment. After that, the tension is lessened, and by the time Rose Byrne (Sunshine, Marie Antoinette) is getting bludgeoned in the underground, you almost don't care anymore.

Apart from that, 28 Weeks Later is a strong sequel that keeps the tone of the first film while not becoming its clone.

5 our of 5.

© D. L. Noah, 2007

Xombie Ch. 10, Argento, Zx3, New DVD, Evilution, RE:3

The final chapter of the Xombie saga is up now and it's... kinda disappointing. It certainly wasn't the big ending I was expecting. It's more of a plug for his new comic book. But it looks great. I've been watching this series for two and a half years and his animation has improved drastically in that time. Now James Farr needs to make the series available for download so I can watch it on my TV. Farr also implies that there will be an animated series two at some point.

The Weinsteins continue to pick up properties at TIFF. Now they've bought the DVD rights to Mother of Tears, Dario Argento's new film. Check out Horror-movies.ca's article.

In Weinstein related news, Romero said in an interview with Bloody-Disgusting.com that if Diary makes some money, the Weinstein's will produce a 6th Romero zombie film.

Zombies Zombies Zombies posted that they will have their world premiere in Orlando on Oct. 11th. Check it out if you're in the area. Don't confuse this movie with Zombie Strippers.

Out on DVD this week is a reissue of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (which I have never been a big fan of) and a new film called Dorm of the Dead.

There's a trailer up for a 28 Days Later looking film called Evilution. It features my favorite patchuko, Noel Gugliemi, and looks pretty sweet.

Finally, as we all know, Resident Evil 3 comes out this weekend, and after I see it I'll post a mini-review. Although seeing it Fri is very tempting, I'm working with young Madeline Carroll who stars as "The White Queen" in RE3, and our crew is going to go see it with her sunday, so who knows, but it looks like it will be a new direction for the series.

Diary gets distro!! and collector's ROTLD

Way to go George! The Weinsteins picked up Romero's new film, which premiered over the weekend at the TIFF, for between 2 to 2.5 mil. This means two things. One, we will probably see a nationwide release for Diary, and two, George will probably launch right into another film. I couldn't be more excited for this news! It's all over the net so I'm not linking to a specific story.

Also, the collector's edition of Return of the Living Dead was released on DVD yesterday. Frankly, I like the cover art of my old copy with the movie poster on it, and the new features aren't cool enough to make me want it. If it came out on HD on the other hand...

28 Days Later: Aftermath

Fox Atomic has some great ideas: 1-Make a sequel to 28 Days Later, 2-Make a comic book to cross promote said sequel, 3-get Steve Niles to write it.

And thus we get 28 Days Later: Aftermath, a graphic novel in four parts that begins before the first film and takes us all the way into the second. For those who aren't familiar with Mr. Niles' work, he wrote the comic book and part of the screenplay for the up coming vampire film 30 Days of Night, as well as The Lurkers and the Rob Zombie co-created Bigfoot. He's also written the comic adaptation of the original Dawn of the Dead (the one you get in the box set) and a variation on Frankenstein called Wake the Dead. His most zombie-centric work (that I've read) is a great and very original book called Remains. He's the hot-shit writer in horror comics right now, and he deserves it.

Niles starts Aftermath with the doctors beginning to research human anger who end up developing the rage virus. We also meet a London family who tries to flee at the beginning of the outbreak, and survivalist ruling over an empty London. Instead of only looking at the characters for one section though, he manages to weave all of their stories together giving the book a much stronger cohesiveness that you get in a book like Zombieworld: The Dregs of Winter.


In Aftermath Niles pinpoints moments from the original film and explores them more. Moments we all really wanted to see like the havoc the monkeys create when they leave the lab, the people who are stepping over each other as they try to evacuate, then the chaos as the virus travels through the crowd. We also get the beginning stages of the U.S. take over. Niles not only successfully makes you feel like you are back in the movie's world, he also does a good job of making you feel like you're in an authentic London.

The style of both films is very shaky and fast paced and you never get a long detailed look at the infected as they whip across the screen, so it's nice to see them frozen on the page for you to gander at as long as you please. Plus I always wondered what the infected did to people. Did they eat them or just tear them up? Niles suggests that there is some cannibalism going on.

The art is by alternating artists which helps each story feel individual, and all the art is fantastic.

So, if you're a comic fan or a 28 Days Later fanatic, you need this book. However, if you're neither, than let it slide on by.

5 out of 5 on the decomposition scale.

© D. L. Noah, 2007

Night of the Comet

Since this is not part of our current flight of zombie films (we're doing Asian films right now) it's only going to get a short write up. When we get to the 80's we may do a full review on it.

I was a little nervous when I picked this up because it would be the first film in my zombie collection to come with a PG-13 rating. Could you still have a good horror movie with out sex, drugs, and cannibalism? But it was from the '80s, my favorite decade for horror films, and it was dirt cheap, so in the shopping cart it went.

Night of the Comet came out to tie into the Halley's Comet madness that was overcoming the nation. In the film all of LA is outside at night time comet viewing parties except for two sisters who are too self involved to care about a comet. Their narcissism pays off though when everyone watching the comet is either irradiated into dust or turned into zombies. Most of them get turned into dust though because there are maybe three or four full make up zombies in this film. Seriously, there are more zombies on the cover than in the movie. The violence was naturally turned way down, and there wasn't much gore to speak of. Also, they plot got a little convoluted towards the end. It wasn't hard to follow, but it also didn't make much sense.

So this film didn't have much in common with the titans of '80s horror like The Thing or An American Werewolf in London. However, the movies it did evoked were some of my other favorites from the decade, classics like Goonies, Monster Squad, and Adventures in Babysitting. It in no way is as good as these films, but it makes you incredibly nostalgic for those films. It was a lot of fun to watch a film like those beloved films from my childhood, especially one that I had never scene before. It also didn't hurt that I watched it Sunday morning, and not at night. Night of the Comet is written and directed by Thom Eberhardt who also wrote and directed Captain Ron (that's right, Captain motherfucking Ron!) and stars Catherine Mary Stewart (Weekend at Bernie's, The Last Starfighter) and Kelli Maroney (Fast Times at Ridgemont High). Totally 80s. I say rent it and remember a simpler time.

© D. L. Noah, 2007

Diary, Awakening, Undead or Alive, Romero doc, Marvel Zombies, American Zombie, ROTLD, Examinus, Left4Dead, Bruce LaBruce

Wow, more news than you can use over this weekend, but I've tried to round it all up.

The most exciting news is that Undead or Alive has gotten distribution!! According to Horror-movies.ca Image Entertainment picked up the rights and plan to put it on DVD during December.
The first review of Romero's new film Diary of the Dead is up at Horror-movies.ca, but I won't read it, I already know I want to see this movie. But the reviewer gave it a bunch of skulls.

A trailer for Awakening: Zombie Night 2 has been posted at Moviesonline.ca. It's a cool trailer, I haven't seen the first one, but spotted it in a used video store, so it will probably find its way into my hands at some point.

A trailer for a documentary centering around Romero titled Dead On was posted on the Toronto International Film Festival Blog.

The ZRC posted that October will be Zombie Month at Marvel Comics.

The ZRC also posted about a new mocumertary called American Zombie.

Issue #71 of Rue Morgue has a cover story on the anniversary of Return of the Living Dead.

The forthcoming MMO Exanimus posted part of the world map for their game.

Left4Dead had a good showing at EA's 2007 Studio Showcase and several sites are reporting on this.

Finally, Horror-movies.ca is reporting director Bruce LaBruce is directing an upcoming film entitled Otto; or, Up with Dead People.

Contagium (you know, Day of the Dead 2)

DISCLAIMER!! A lot of people hated this film. I wasn’t too thrilled the first time I watched it either. There is really only one way to properly enjoy it, and that is to ignore the fact that it is called Day of the Dead 2. It has nothing to do with the original film and they named it this because the production company had the rights to the name and knew it would help them sell DVDs, and we all fell for it. However, if you can get past this (and I know some of us can’t), there really is a film that bears a watching. In all seriousness, the original Day of the Dead is my favorite film of Romero’s and if I can get over it, so can you. Think of this film as simply Contagium. I watched this film with Rachel (comments in red) because she has never seen the original.

QUICK STATS

SUB-SUB-GENRE: Anti-Sequel

BEST ZOMBIE: Dr. Heller Zombie
QUOTES: “Niet, niet, niet, niet, niet, niet, niet, niet.” - Boris

INFLUENCES/REFERENCES: uh…. Day of the Dead? And One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Prince of Darkness

IS IT SCARY? Almost

FOR FANS OF: Undead & Fulci (not just the movie Zombi, real Fulci)

PAIRED COCKTAIL: Since they’re in a mental hospital, how about a Ward Eight? 2oz bourbon, dash grenadine over ice in a Collins glass, fill with sour mix, shake, garnish with orange slice and cherry.

REVIEW

Have we packed away all of our fanboy issues now? Contagium opens back in 1968 (the year Night of the Living Dead was released) with an action packed bang as the U.S. Army raids a hospital where a zombie outbreak is taking place. The filmmakers give you a big dose of violence here because it will be at least an hour before we get back to this level of gore. But that’s not a bad thing because after this scene we are brought into the present and introduced to our main characters, four mental patients and their doctor tending to the grounds of that same hospital. These actors work really well together as a group, no one actor tries to take the lead or steal the show. They were all well cast, none of them look like a ‘star,’ and they’re all believable as committed crazy folk. It’s easier to connect with ‘real’ looking actors than stars. I thought the acting was a little goofy, but these characters are goofy themselves. Their performances combined with the good character writing help you forget the artifice and enjoy these scenes. Which is really fortunate because we never stray very far from these characters, but their group antics keep me very entertained until we get back to the horrific scenes.

I also thought Laurie Baranyay as the female lead Emma was very convincing. Her performance might not work for everyone, but I’ve known a few cutters and she specifically reminded me of them and that added a lot of creditability to her role. Mike Dalager also was excellent and the sexually threatening orderly Derber, reminding me of Buck, the coma patient raping sleaze-ball from Kill Bill vol. 1. Lovecraft fans will recognize him from the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society's version of The Call of Cthulhu.

You tend to see a lot of handheld camera work in independent genre films, and most of it is shitty. And while there is quite a bit of handheld work in Contagium, Director of Photography James LeGoy uses it really sparingly and to great effect. You never feel jarred by the camera, but at the same time he uses quick moving shots that maintain the illusion created by the special effects. Even when the camera is mounted it doesn’t remain still. There was a specific pan I like where Derber is going from cell window to cell window turning off the lights and we get to pause on each of the female patients before the lights are killed, and after the lights go out in their cell you can still see their pale faces in the windows, although you can completely see the camera and crew in the reflections.

What I loved most about this film is the high level of gore. The opening sequence especially is filled with extra bloody headshots and very meaty flesh eating. I enjoyed how the humans had dark crimson blood while the zombies had a brown, coagulated blood, not every film pays that much attention to the details. I’m awarding this film my Super-cheap-yet-effective merit badge for the skin peeling effect that looked like thinly spread Elmer’s Glue yet was revolting to watch them peel off. I also loved the thick black tar that the zombies cough up during dinner. I mean this film really grossed me out! One of my biggest qualms with detailed zombie make-up and masks is that it makes the actors head look bigger. It’s only natural since appliances are being put on top of the skin. However a rotting corpse shouldn’t look like it’s getting bigger as it rots away. That’s what sold me the most on the make up effects in Contagium, the fact that as the zombies rotted; they got slightly gaunter (except where the zombie was intentionally made bigger).

One of the big strengths of this film is how it plays with your preconceived zombie notions. From all the other movies you’ve seen, you know what happens when someone gets infected. They get sick, they die, and they come back as mindless biters. You keep expecting this movie to follow that formula and a lot of suspense is created by how they stay true to the rules, or break them.

Contagium also features very sharp production design. If you’re unfamiliar with this term, it’s the look of a film. Not the camera work or the editing, but they way the sets, signs, props, et cetera look and the effect that creates. Every single set had in-depth colors and layering that lets each set be believable and makes every shot more appealing to look at. The hospital is obviously going to be a very sterile set, but they would add in these odd touches on some sets like a window ledge you’d see in your grandma’s kitchen. It created an odd mix of hospital and homey, and anyone who’s spent any time housed in any type of clinic (rehab!) will attest that these places try that type of stuff and it just makes you more uncomfortable.

There is some silly stuff in this movie though. The object that everyone gets infected from looks like a tampon from space or a douche nozzle. Also, when we’re in present time, they use an ‘X days ago’ title card that they really don’t need. One time when they use the card it does mark a break between days, but towards the end they’re using it to bridge a five-minute story gap. It ended up feeling a lot like the troubadour narrator from Dead & Breakfast, something they started with and felt like they had to commit to for the duration of the film. There’s also a monster pregnancy that leads nowhere. Anton Chekhov said that if you introduce a gun in the first act, it had better go off by the third, and that’s just as true for chicks knocked up with zombie babies. There are also a couple of half-assed attempts to tie their movie into the original that don’t work at all.

Contagium is a great film that only hurts itself by trying to attach itself to another film’s legacy. If you’re looking for gory action and original characters, you could do a lot worse. That being said, the fact that the makers of this film have attached themselves to the upcoming DOTD remake (probably due to their ownership of the rights) scares me a little inside. If they were willing to fuck up a good movie like Contagium for the sake of shilling DVDs, how will they bastardize the original property?

4 out of 5 on the decomposition scale.

© D. L. Noah, 2007

My Name is Bruce, Day Remake, & Diary News

Bruce Campbell's site is reporting that his new film My Name is Bruce will be out on DVD this fall, but no specific date was given.
In other zombie news, Horror-Movies.ca discovered some Day of the Dead remake photos at Nick Wagner Photography. They're old photos because the site lists DOTD as coming to theaters in April '07. They're sweet photos though, and inspire some confidence in a film that looks like it could be 10 lbs of shit in a 5 lb bag. Be sure to check out our review of DOTD2:Contagium.

Also, Horror-Movies.ca has posted some new Diary of the Dead photos here.

New Left4Dead clips

Gametrailers.com's XBox 360 podcast loaded up a lot of new game play clips for Left4Dead today. This game looks freaking amazing, and I will be there day one when it launches. For the uninitiated, Left4Dead is an upcoming PC & Xbox 360 game where you are one of 4 survivors battling there way out of LA. These zombies are of the fast variety and come at you by the dozens and it bears a lot of resemblance to the 28 Days/Weeks Later movies. You can also play as one of 4 super zombies and fight the humans. Expext this game in the beginning of '08.

I couldn't find the individual videos on their site, but to watch them in iTunes click here, then scroll down to the Xbox 360 podcast and subscribe, then look for the individual videos.

Infected (28 Weeks Later)

Infected is a flash game you can play in your browser to promote the film 28 Weeks Later, and it's a real piece of shit. You play as one of the infected and you run left and right trying to infect other people. The control scheme is very simple, relying on the left and right buttons, and the space bar. Unlike the movies though, the people you infect just fall down and die instead of becoming infected. Opposing you are troops and helicopters who fire slow moving pellets at you which there are really no way to dodge, and a clock ticking down how long you have to infect a certain number of people. The game ran incredibly laggy on my laptop and I have a decent internet connection. Many times the controls where unresponsive. The kick ass score from the film was absent, as were any characters. Avoid this game like it was infected.

0 out of 5 on the decomposition scale.

Dead City

Over the long weekend I burned through Dead City by Joe McKinney and I liked it pretty well. If you enjoyed World War Z then pick this book up, because it pretty much reads like an extended chapter from that book. It focuses on a the first 24 hours of a zombie outbreak in San Antonio, TX and specifically follows one cop who’s fighting through the hordes to find his wife and newborn.

It starts off a little slow, but does an excellent job of building momentum and tension. The main character was very bland and it wasn’t until halfway through the book that the reader gets introduced to some interesting characters, but it’s worth the wait. Mckinney does seem very savvy to police procedures and equipment, plus he also seems very familiar with San Antonio, down to the street names.

My big complaint is that you feel like you miss the apocalypse part. The character sees his first zombies, gets knocked out, and when he comes to you feel like everyone is already dead and he’s traveling through a destroyed city instead of being in the thick of the fall. Everywhere he goes has already seen the worst of it, and I felt like I was missing out.

My other complaint about this book is McKinney immediately starts relating the characters experience to zombie movies and this really took me out of the moment. I felt the author should come up with his own unique way of relating this characters experience instead of copping out by saying, “zombies, just like from all those movies you’ve seen.”

But he stops beating you over the head with movie comparisons pretty quick and does a great job with descriptive gore and action. He does what a good zombie read should do very well, give you zombies on a scale that you can’t get from a film.

3 out of 5 on the decomposition scale.

© 2007 D. L. Noah

Deadscapes 2 closer to release!

Precious Nightmare & Home Page of the Dead are reporting that the 2nd installment of Deadscapes has only one more shoot scheduled and they've already started editing. I haven't scene pt 1 yet but it's on my list and I wish the crew the best of luck. Also, look for the first book review for my site this week of Dead City, and the last installment of our Modern American Independent series, Contagium.

New Zombie Diaries Poster

and it's way sweeter than the old one. Movies Online posted this with a link to a trailer, which I have not watched (I don't wanna get anymore hyped on a film I might not see for half a year or more).

Gangs of the Dead (aka Last Rites)

I had read a little about Gangs of the Dead last year and was pretty excited for it. I thought it sounded very action oriented and I was happy to see a zombie genre film that wasn’t white washed or set in the country. So when it showed up in the discount bin at the used movie store I picked it right on up for $9. Does it deliver? Rachel (her comments in red) and I find out.

STAT SHEET

SUB-SUB-GENRE: Urban
BEST ZOMBIE: Homeless hoody zombie from the film poster (green space puke, good stuff)

IS IT SCARY?: No

PAIRED COCKTAIL: a 45 of King Cobra in a brown bag will do you just fine

Right off the bat I was impressed by the make up on the hobos. As the camera looks upon them while an apocalyptic street preacher rants from a soapbox we see them looking very diseased and infected. These homeless are already zombie-like, inferring that the transition to living dead might actually be a step up for these poor souls. However we never get to explore this idea as the hobos are promptly smashed by a green comet and resurrected.

Then we rush to the main gangster characters on their way to an arms deal. I was really impressed by all the performances from the thugs; they gave the film a real edge. They weren’t acting like gang bangers; they are gang bangers. These characters could have easily be picked up from this film and dropped into Training Day (in fact you’ll recognize lead Noel Gugliemi from Training Day), Higher Learning, or even Boyz N the Hood. The cast is rounded out by Reggie Banister who fans will know from the Wishmaster series; and James C. Burns from a mobile Prison Break spin off doing his Richard Dean Anderson impression.

First we meet newcomer Ethan Ednee as Mac T and Ryan King as Snake Dog (really? Did these guys grow up in the hood in Grand Theft Auto?). Mac T is waxing philosophical on the status of his soul. He’s found the original zombie, Jesus, and wants to give up clockin’ for the straight life, after this last score of course. This scene evokes Samuel L. Jackson’s character Jules from Pulp Fiction. Enjoy this moment between these two characters, because it’s the last thing even close to character development we’ll get out of Gangs. The exchange between these two characters had an amateurish tone to me I blame the writing, possibly an inadvertent example of just how difficult it is to write dialogue that appears effortless. For all those people who accuse Tarantino of being a hack its moments like these, with earnest attempts from both actors that you have to appreciate the artistry of rapid-fire-humorous dialogue.

As strong as the male actors were, the female leads were let downs. This wasn’t the fault of the actresses; they just got lame characters. Characters so lame that they are capable of activating dormant feminist indignation. With only three women in this film each character falls prey to a different misogynist humilation. One appears to either be mentally retarded or have the mind of a child, she actually cries for her mommy, another gets two lines into a sentence before she’s called a dumb bitch and told to shut up or simply “bitch slapped” and the third is hardly used as a character at all. For the first two acts there is no place for women in this movie they’re either dumb, abused or ignored completely. Ultimately, a sadly missed opportunity in a genre that is no stranger to a woman kicking some ass and being a surprisingly powerful character—even the 11th hour twist involving one of the women characters falls painfully short of empowering. Latasha, played by Dayana Jamine, goes crazy after the opening slaughter, pulling a Barbara from Night of the Living Dead, and regresses into childhood. It didn’t work for me in Night, and it didn’t work for me here (however, in Night’s case I think I didn’t enjoy it because I saw the Savini remake first and loved the ballsy Barbara from that film).

In Gangs, two rival gangs, one African American, the other Hispanic, meet in a warehouse with the arms dealer Mitchell (Reggie Banister) who is playing both ends against the middle. The cops are spying on them and right as Dean Ander… James Burns gives the order to arrest; the zombies attack the cops. A few surviving cops end up in the warehouse with the gangs and all three try to work together to weather the storm. And then not much happens. There’s so much time given to the groups trying to backstab each other the zombies get put in the back ground. The action that is there is very poor; especially compared to the high standard their opening action sequence set. The Latinos find some foam 2x4s that they use for some cheesy zombie bashing. Even in the scenes where the actors were just holding the boards, you could tell they were using the foam ones instead of the real thing. There wasn’t much of a sound effect to go with the 2x4s either, just a wussy little thump instead of sickening crunch. Plus there was no gore in this part. I expected these gangsters would be capable of really fucking these zombies up, but I ended up being reminded of the pre-Bonnie & Clyde era of film violence where the characters clutch their chest and fall to the ground after getting shot. The action gets pumped up a little at the end, but the film had already lost my attention.

Sub par computer generated graphics are something I’m slowly getting used to in low budget horror films. When used right it can really add a lot to the films. I remember when I saw my first head shot done with CG, or gun shot done in After Effects I was really impressed. But then it seemed everyone was trying to fit these things into films that didn’t need them. I was expecting a lot from the CG in this film since director Duane Stinnett resume includes graphic work on computer games like True Crime, Starcraft, and Diablo. The comet that opened the film was passable, but all the explosions and flame added with CG looked flat and took me out of the moment. The real thing is always the way to go with special effects, and CG should be used to augment the real footage. Don’t “Do it in post.”

All this being said, I still liked this film. Gangs of the Dead strikes out to escape the cookie cutter formula, and they succeed in respects to setting and acting. Plus this film is great looking, very high quality video. However, the good gore at the beginning and end just point out the lull in the middle, and like the novel Xombies, there is not enough zombie action in the 2nd act.

2 out of 5 on the decomposition scale

© D.L. Noah 2007

Zombie Honeymoon

I had picked up this week’s flick, Zombie Honeymoon, on the cheap at the used video store with a few others. When I was perusing the letter column at the end of Walking Dead #39, I was excited to see Robert Kirkman say “Zombie Honeymoon. GREAT film. If you haven't seen it, you really should. It's heart wrenching tho.” about this film. Well, this was actually a misprint, it looked like Kirkman was saying this, but it was actually one of his readers, so I was a little duped. Any who, Pablo (comments in blue) and I decided travel to the Jersey Shore and put up a do-not-disturb sign.

QUICK STATS

SUB-SUB-GENRE: Chick Flick

BEST ZOMBIE: Surfer zombie. The only other zombie in this film actually, but I like how he was dressed like the main character, foreshadowing what is to come. He reminded me of the Italian school of zombies

QUOTES: “All I’m trying to do is kill as few people as possible before we get on that plane tomorrow!” – Danny
“Is there any tofu in there?” – Danny

INFLUENCES/REFERENCES: ROTLD3, Zombie (video store clerk was wearing a T-shirt for this), Dead Alive

IS IT SCARY? No

PAIRED COCKTAIL: Champagne to toast the newlyweds.

REVIEW

This is a film that seeks to personalize the experience of being a zombie, much like the British film I, Zombie. As you can guess, this is a film about newlyweds on their honeymoon and the husband becomes a zombie. It reminded me of the relationship between the main characters of Return of the Living Dead III. This film hinges on the couple; their believability makes or breaks this film. In the opening scenes you really get a sense of them being in new love, both actors are very sincere. But when their storybook romance starts popping stitches, you feel like your watching a soap opera, which is not too surprising since Graham Sibley, who plays the husband, Danny, has appeared on Days of Our Lives and The O.C. The big moments between them tend to consist of shouting matches followed by trite professions of love. You like these characters at the start of the film, but as you get further and further in, your interest runs cold and you don’t feel anything for them as the horrific stuff starts. I think these actors couldn’t play happiness very well but could do the tragic and inner turmoil stuff.

The other characters were even less impressive. Tonya Cornelisse playing the Maid of Honor struck me in the first scene. She was loudmouthed and screamed without any type of intonation in the first scene, but was so in a really quirky way. But when she shows up later in the film she has none of that quirk. There was also the creepy police officer Carp (played by Neal Jones), but he didn’t push the character very far. There have definitely been much creepier cop characters.

This film was a “Showtime Original” (which technically wouldn’t make it an ‘independent,’ but I bet you Showtime picked it up after the fact) and the camera did a good job of giving that soft core Red Shoe Diaries feel. It all looked very ‘made for TV.’ Most of the shots were handheld, which is a tricky style of cinematography, and I can’t really explain why I like it in some projects and not in others, but it got old for me in this. Although I did like it when they referenced Dead Alive with a shot of a piece of the husbands face dropping into his soup at dinner.

The editing got a little excessive with the montages. To be considered a feature film a movie has to be at least eighty-eight minutes long (this is important for festival entries) and I think a lot of these montages where put in to help the film reach that mark. For crying out loud there was a driving-to-the-store montage, not a going-into-the-store-and-shopping montage, just driving emotionally and listening to what I gather was a greatest hits of Lilith Fair CD. These extraneous montages did absolutely nothing to advance the plot or develop the characters.

The dialogue quality was horrible with volume levels all over the place. We were turning it up at parts just to turn it back down in the next scene. It sounded like they were using the audio recorded on set instead of recording additional dialogue in post. The music was all done on a synthesizer like many of the other films we’ve watched, but it didn’t bother me. It didn’t impress me either.

Zombie Honeymoon has an incredibly slow pace for a zombie film and it feels like forever before you get to the stuff that all us gore hounds love. When we do get to the bloody stuff, it’s all done very well, but there’s not a whole lot of violence, and it certainly doesn’t redeem the effeminate nature of the movie. Too little, too late.

So what did work in Zombie Honeymoon? Well, there was some tasteful side-boob. I did like the husband’s gradual progression in zombie-dom. The unadorned nature of the Jersey shore seemed to reflect the purgatory-like nature of their degenerating marriage.

I think this film could have redeemed itself at the end, but the climax was as disappointing as the rest of the film. There’s a big fight scene which was well done, but then we have to wait another ten or so minutes before the actual climax of the story, and the climax itself was nothing special and had lost all the momentum from the fight. And then after the climax, another montage!

So I won’t rely on (not) Robert Kirkman’s taste in zombie films anymore (he would like a zombie film that was all talking). This film was too internalized and tragic, and couldn’t deliver in the areas that this kind of story relies upon, sympathy for the characters and pacing.

1 out of 5 on the decomposition scale.

© D.L. Noah 2007

Feeding the Masses

Part 2 of our Modern American Independents series finds us heading from the plains of Texas up to Pawtucket, Rhode Island for Feeding the Masses, a zombie film focusing on the state of modern media. Imagine if the characters from Dawn of the Dead had never left the TV studio. Rachel (her comments in red) joins me again to tell you if you should tune in or change the channel.

STAT SHEET

SUB-SUB-GENRE: Media Satire

BEST ZOMBIE: The one on the DVD box cover, who, sadly, is not in the film.

MEMORABLE QUOTES: “Bitchy McBitch-Bitch”
“Praise Jesus!” “Praise Jesus? We’re Fucked!”

IS IT SCARY: There’s one ‘boo’ scare, and a little tension, but generally, no.

PAIRED COCKTAIL: “Coffee with enough Irish crème to choke a donkey” Are you kidding me?

We should probably begin this with a disclaimer. This is a truly independent film, and although I have no facts on this, it is more of a NO-budget movie than a low budget flick. If you are someone who can’t handle movies shot on DV, scenes using available lighting, cheap computer effects, then stay away. But if you can dig on filmmakers who tell their story with minimal resources, films that come from a true love of the genre, then keep reading.

Feeding the Masses starts in the early days of a zombie infection and follows three employees of a Rhode Island TV news station and their military escort as they report on the infection. The screenplay, penned by Troma alum and B-movie mogul Trent Haaga, focuses on the complacency of corporate media and its relationship with the government. The film itself seems unsure if it wants to be a media satire, a serious zombie drama, or an indulgent B-movie.

All of the acting in this film, like in Dead & Breakfast, is way over the top, however, unlike D&B, the overacting doesn’t feel self-reflective. It’s more like stage actors who don’t know to tone it down for the camera. When you’re on stage you have to entertain the people in the back of the house and this requires a different type of acting than for a camera lens only a few feet away. This being said Billy Garberina (who die-hard fans will recognize from The Stink of Flesh) is still a lot of fun to watch as Torch, the neurotic cameraman and star of the film. His character at best is like a megalomaniac with nothing to focus his angst on (think Ahab sans whale) and at worst is like an impression of Randal from Clerks. His costume also referenced Pvt. Joker from Full Metal Jacket. The rest of the performances were cable access quality, but still fun to watch, if a little flat.

The characters that really surprised me were two of the smaller roles. I loved Victor Martins as Fred Berman, a Leave it to Beaver-type character who will hunt down your zombie relatives and give them a humane re-killing. I also like Jeremy Owen (who was also the Assistant Director) as Tate, a seedy strip club bouncer. The scene where the two meet and come into conflict was one of the best scenes in the film.

Andrew Vellenoweth’s cinematography in Feeding the Masses doesn’t do much to support the performances. During Torch’s ranting monologue scene, the camera stays on one straight shot of him for the duration of his speech, lasting well over a minute. This is tough for an audience to take even with a well-known actor (one of these scenes that does work is Virginia Madsen’s speech about Pinot grapes in Sideways). All four of the main characters have these monologue scenes and the other three work better. Rachel Morris’ final report works really well because they inter-cut her broadcast with television viewers and the other characters’ reactions (up until she gets to the “Live every day as your last” crap). The army escort, Roger’s (played by Patrick Cohen) ‘monologue’ scene is a masturbation scene. Now I can’t imagine masturbation scenes are easy to do creditably as an actor, kind of like playing drunk, but Patrick Cohen does it well and it’s easily one of the best scenes in the movie which I’m not going to give away here. Well, I’ll give a little away. I was very struck by the type of sexual repression or even anger that Roger expressed in this scene, and the fact that he’s a soldier made me start to ask some serious questions as to what the military establishment does to a man’s sexuality in light of the recent Iraq rape scandal.

The film alternates between the regular shots and ‘in camera’ shots where the audience is looking though the perspective of a camera inside the story world. My biggest problem with the camera work was the lack of distinction between these two types of shots. If there had been a difference, it would have given the film some much needed stylization and gotten rid of the feeling that Feeding ambled along instead of proceeding with purpose. I think director Richard Griffin, who did a good job as the director of photography for Stink of Flesh, should have worn another hat and operated the camera on this film.

The unadorned cinematography didn’t help the plain locations either; all of the exteriors where fine, but the interiors could have been shot at their community college. For example take the diner scene; it looked like a prefab school cafeteria and not a real restaurant. Are you going to tell me that there are no authentic looking diners in Pawtucket? Independent filmmakers are always on the look out for ways to up their production value for cheap, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to shoot in as many real locations as possible.

But I don’t want to drop a steamer all over their cinematography. There was an amazing night shot with rotting zombie girl ambling up to a neon lit storefront. She slowly gazes in the window at a picture of a sales model. The juxtaposition of new and old, dead and alive worked really well.

The editing was mostly invisible in this movie, which is of course what a good editor strives for. Bad editing is impossible to miss, but good editing is invisible, and, outside of a continuity error, that’s what this film had. It also covered up instances where it looked like the scenes had been begun at one location and finished at another.

The score by Daniel Hildreth was as equally transparent as the editing. Although it was all original synthesizer music, it never came off as corny or overwhelming. They made a smart choice by keeping it in the background and never giving in to the temptation of a big music swell.

This was another film with some really bland zombies and boring gore. The zombies were all done using a cookie cutter formula, with gray face paint, some dried blood, and a little loose skin. Feeding the Masses is all blood and no guts. Whenever the violence comes, there’s plenty of fake blood, but no entrails being pulled, no limbs ripping from sockets, not even a decent shot of a rotting maw pulling a huge hunk of flesh off an arm or neck. These effects can be done cheaply but there were none here and the gore hound in me was very disappointed.

The area our opinions differed the most on was the special effects in the film. There was lots of CG gunshots, bullet casings flying, and explosions. I think the white muzzle flashes that accompanied the gunshots looked like the ‘bams’ and ‘ka-pows’ from the old Batman TV show, too cheesy for my tastes. I think going the extra mile with blanks would have made a huge difference, even if that meant they had to trade in their AK-47s for handguns. I disagree. I can appreciate these gunshots added in post when I think back to how these scenes were done in other films before this technology was available to everyone. It used to be when you fired a gun the camera framed the shooter where you couldn’t see the barrel, which is much cheesier to me than the computer solution. Plus a muzzle flash is about 1/60th of a second long, which if you are shooting on traditional film stock gives you about a 50% chance of actually capturing the desired effect. We both agreed though that the CG fires looked horribly flat.

Given all of this, I still wouldn’t discount Feeding quite yet. There was tons of stuff in this film that worked. All of the satire on the media and how we interact with it worked incredibly well. The commercial asides were varied and included commercials for zombie related services reminiscent of Stacy, militant manifestos from backwoods survivalists, a cooking show, newscasts, and a 50’s style filmstrip. Individually they were all funny, but added up together paint a picture of a full on propaganda war being fought by the government as brutal as the battles fought in the street. Other zombie films have certainly included newscasts before, but they were always giving out earnest information to help people. This film’s usage of media felt much more real to me. Would our current administration try to warn us, or keep us calm? Help us get out of harms way, or keep us out of their path? Feeding asks the question if the government spoon-feeds us lies through the media as policy, would anything change at the end of the world? This is an idea that even Max Brooks didn’t explore in World War Z.

I also liked how the film looked at the importance of TV in our lives. Torch’s roommate is glued to the TV as news reports come in. How many people did that exact thing after 9/11? However having up to the minute coverage still didn’t help him. When the Governor gives his address, he speaks though a small TV on a podium while Torch and other cameramen film the TV. Of course anyone who’s pointed their camcorder at their TV knows it won’t film right, and this adds to the disjointed mood.

There was also kitsch in this film, but it was handled so weirdly I couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not. When Torch drops in the middle of the street and screams “NO!” at the top of his lungs, they’re going for camp. But other times aren’t so obvious, like in the big pot-smoking scene where the lights dim and the porno music comes on. It sounds campy when you read it, but they gave it such serious passion you would have thought the filmmakers where Jamaican. It was this lack of conviction with the tone of their film that hurt them the worst I think. Was it serious? Was it Kitsch? Was it satire? It tried to be all three and ended up mediocre.

2 out of 5 on the decomposition scale

copyright © D.L. Noah 2007

Dead & Breakfast

I wanted to start out our reviews with a series of 5 movies or so from the American independent films from the last 10 years. Out of a choice of four, my reviewing partner, Rachel (her comments are in red), thought Dead & Breakfast looked like the most fun, and I’m inclined to agree, this is a very fun flick in the tradition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Dead Alive (Brain Dead).

STAT SHEET

SUB-SUB-GENRE: Musical Comedy

QUOTES: “Frenchie wasn’t liked much round here. Covering up the true nature of food with his fancy sauces and what not” – Redneck
“I thought you were a Vegan” – Johnny

BEST ZOMBIE: Foaming at the mouth zombie girl (no zombie variety in this one, they’re all generic hillbilly zombies)

IS IT SCARY?: No, but it wasn’t trying to be.

SO IS IT FUNNY?: Absolutely

PAIRED COCKTAIL: Mexican Bladder Infection – Tequila & Cranberry (R.J.'s Special!)


Dead & Breakfast attempts to blend together musical screwball comedy and good ol’ blood ‘n guts horror. It succeeds by starting with a foundation horror archetypes we’re all familiar with and building off those archetypes in weird directions that makes the clichés work for them instead of against them. You’ll recognize all the stock characters: mismatched teens on a road trip (naturally played by actors not in their teens), hard-ass small town sheriff, the lone drifter, back woods rednecks, even a snooty French chef. What makes these characters work so strongly is a combination of good casting and the film’s sense of self-awareness. The cast doesn’t treat their roles as serious characters, but rather caricatures of the archetype, intentionally over acting, emulating a B-movie. This film knows exactly what it is, and wants you to know that the laughs are purposeful, not accidental, like in the films to which it is paying homage. However, making an intentional B film is double edged, while it allows the audience to relax and enjoy the ride, it also lets the viewer turn off their brain and stop looking for subtext. Of course, there is no subtext, and on one hand it’s fine for a film to be made for its own sake, but what made me enjoy the reigning zombie comedy, Shaun of the Dead (a comparison made on the DVD cover for Dead & Breakfast) was the comparison between the living dead and Shaun’s stalled life.

It’s unusual for me to enjoy the performances of everyone in a film, but this cast was solidly over the top. I particularly enjoyed Erik Palladino (E.R., U-571) as the greaser character David. He’s got the jaw line of an action hero coupled with the ‘Rebel-without-a-cause’ demeanor. He easily stole some funny moments away from other actors, including one of my favorite underused comedic actors, Diedrich Bader, whom you’ll remember as the neighbor from Office Space and Oswald on The Drew Carey Show among other things. Ironically, one of the big weaknesses of Dead & Breakfast was how under used both Diedrich and David Carradine were in the film. They only have two microscopic scenes each in the opening act. This is probably one of the situations where the filmmakers where looking for better-known faces and names that they can get in their film for a scene or two, then milk their name for what publicity it can get. In fact, I would bet David Carradine is only in this because his niece, Ever Carradine, is the star.

Oz Perkins also gives an interesting performance as Johnny, the compassionate, pacifist who becomes the leader of the zombies. He plays a typically shy nerd, but when he transforms into the films antagonist he metamorphosis’s into a (again) larger than life talking (or yelling) alpha corpse. He reminded me a lot of Jim Carey in The Mask. Very exaggerated, very animated, and it played well against the other zombies, who were the usual un-emotive shufflers.

Dead & Breakfast opens with hand drawn pictures to accompany the credits. The stills evoked the drawings of Edward Gorey, and add to the macabre comic book feeling of the film. They also use the stills to do transitions in the film. The most interesting use of this device was when the soul box first possesses Johnny. I liked that they chose to show this with the illustrations instead of coming up with hokey lighting effects. The stills, black with white drawings and red filler, also provided color contrast to the soft blue lighting favored during the B&B interior shots. It foreshadows the slaughter to follow by smacking you with the vibrant, but not blood colored, red.

The shot composition of Dead & Breakfast also adds to the graphic novel feel, specifically the shots involving the murder of the deaf/mute gardener. As the murder plunges down on the victim, the camera looks up at a silhouetted murderer with the house framed in the background. The music rises to familiar violin shrieks, an obvious homage to Psycho.

Many of the sound effects are as exaggerated as the acting. Pulling out a piece of paper is accompanied by a loud whoosh, knives are pulled out with a metallic shink. My personal favorite, hair is ripped out with a sickening splotch sound.

You really can’t discuss Dead & Breakfast without talking about the music. All the songs are in the diegetic world, being sung by a Rock-a-Billy Troubadour who doubles as a narrator and bar entertainment. I enjoyed this in the beginning, but once the zombie assault starts on the B&B, we really didn’t need him to remind us of what was going on. I felt like they put these in because they had already established this gimmick and had to follow through on it, but you don’t need a narrator to tell you what you just saw a minute ago in the film.

Then there’s the musical number. Actually, it’s more of a music video. A number implies a certain amount of flamboyance, which this was lacking. It was more of a spoof of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, complete with zombie choreography. The initial shock when it started made me laugh, but the routine is unimaginative, and the song itself is an awkward mixture of country and hip-hop, and was the only song from the film I didn’t like.

The zombie creation idea was very original. You become a walking corpse when the head zombie gets a little piece of you, hair, nail, blood, and puts it in the soul box. Then you’re under his control. I thought this idea of capturing a small piece of someone’s DNA worked really well. There was a scene towards the end when the heroes are holed up in the B&B, and one character has to watch as the creatures fight there way up the steps to get at a small puddle of his blood. The character gets turned from the safety of indoors; a nice twist on the standard idea of becoming ‘infected’ from a bite.
The zombies are rather plain looking, but that works for this film. These aren’t week old corpses, but people who where killed an hour ago. The make up is applied pancake style, giving everyone a thick pale white face; they make you very conscious of the make up choice, almost like kabuki theatre. And even though the level of rot is down, there is still plenty done to the zombies: decapitation, eye gouging, chainsaws, and all the good stuff.

Even though they have trouble balancing the movie between comedy and horror at the end, this is a very enjoyable film. The filmmakers drop you into very familiar territory for horror fans, and then build off of those familiar stereotypes to create a movie that is both homage to the films that influenced it and an original creation.

4 out of 5 on the decomposition scale
copyright © D.L. Noah 2007

Day Zero

I've been thinking about doing this page for a while & now I'm biting the bullet. I have 100+films in the genre in my personal collection and will be going through them 1 a week. I won't be talking about the major films from the genre because if you've made it this far I'm assuming you've seen the Romero films, the Raimi films, the Return of the Living Dead Series, ect.

I will be discussing the American independent films, the Italian films, other European films, the Asian films, the pre-Romero films, genre works in other media, and new films as they are released.

I will be doing all the film reviews with someone else who is not such a zombie dork as myself to provide you with two points of view: the fanatic and the average Joe. This is because I find something to love in almost every genre movie I see and I tend to overlook things that bother the average movie goer (low production values, using non-actors, and such).

As for myself, I've been a fan since watching the Night of the Living Dead remake (the Savini one) late at night in my parents living room. I have a BA in Moving Image Arts (a fancy term that means a film degree and then some) and have worked professionally in the film industry since 2005 in the production and art departments. You can look me up on imdb. Although none of that means I know anymore about film than anyone else. I hope you enjoy the blog.