365 Days of the Dead

END NOTES

2008-11-16T18:04:00.005-05:00

First of all, I would like to thank a few people:

Michael Anthony, Dustin Stewart, and especially Donna Williams for providing copies of many of the films reviewed here.

Filmmakers Mike Lombardo of Reel Splatter Productions, John Demars, Marshaa Robinson, Srguijarro Srguijarro, Matthew Hatchard, and Marius Penczner for their feedback, support, and enthusiasm.

Dave Marks at Blog of the Living Dead, Trioxin, and the Zombie Notes Newsgroup for spreading the love. Not to mention a shout-out to Myrrym Davies for her continued support for the cause.

Of course all of you who took the time to read a review, post a comment, or tell a friend about the blog. 365 Days took up a good chunk of the past year--more than I'd anticipated--and it was quite a relief knowing that somebody was making it worth the effort.

But most importantly I'd like to thank my patient, understanding, and supporting wife Kathleen for encouraging me, enabling me, and not holding it against me when I spent more time with shitty DVDs than with her. I love you, sweetie!

QUICK NOTE: STAY TUNED

2008-11-09T15:08:00.003-05:00

Although the films have watched and all the reviews posted--sniff, sniff--stay tuned in the days to come, as I'll be posting some follow-up notes for the completion of 365 Days of the Dead.

Thanks to all who've been reading.

DAY 365--WHITE ZOMBIE

2008-11-09T14:07:00.002-05:00

And so we bring 365 Days of the Dead to a close with, ironically enough, the very first zombie film (or at least the first to use the word "zombie" in its title), the 1932 semi-classic WHITE ZOMBIE. Directed by Victor Halpern, this film offers little significance aside from being first, and stands today as a curio at best. Or maybe a treat for Bela Lugosi fans.

Rewatching the movie I surprised to discover how steadily WHITE ZOMBIE comes close to being great yet never does. I'm sure that can be ascribed to Halpern, who was making a Poverty Row quickie to capitalize on the box-office of FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA; it takes only a casual glance to realize that the film's strongest visuals are aping James Whale and Tod Browning. (One exception, of course, is the establishing scene in the sugar mill as the zombies toil into the night, unmindful as one of their own falls into the machinery; had there been more eerie set-pieces like this, it might've claimed a spot in the same league as those other terror titans.)

Though the films' considerable atmosphere still holds up well, even in the poorly-restored public domain prints available today, the same cannot be said for its story, which falls squarely into rickety melodrama. It's up to Lugosi with his Mephistophelean countenance and cadre of living dead to carry the picture, and the former doesn't exactly pull his fair share (then again, he was making $800 for a starring role, do you blame him?). And Halpern's direction is enough to make one a zombie, with his somnambulant pacing and long gaps between lines; even at 66 minutes, this thing could've been compressed by a third and not lost a thing.

Still, as low-budget films from the '30s go, it's not that bad. Perhaps anathema to today's zombie fans weaned on Romero's gut-chomping ghouls, it's an essential entry to the living dead cannon, and those who haven't seen it yet should check it out.

DAY 364--NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS

2008-11-09T11:48:00.002-05:00

An adventure-horror hybrid from 1973, Amando de Ossorio's NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS boils down to a jungle-bound version of his famous BLIND DEAD series, replacing the monk-robed Knights Templar with bikini-clad panther women. It's an intriguing idea, though the execution leaves a little to be desired.

An African expedition studying the disappearance of local elephants (headed by Eurofave Jack Taylor) discovers a voodoo cult that raises zombies and has a habit of turning white ladies into the aforementioned panther women (not sure how chopping off their heads causes the transformation--and although they're ostensibly shape-shifters, they tend to appear mostly in fur bikinis, not that I'm complaining). Did I mention the panther women were also vampires? And that they never bite anyone on the neck, but like to stab and drown people?

Okay, so logic never was de Ossorio's strong suit, but when it comes to lurid thrills he usually delivers (as he does in the film's prologue, a racially insensitive bit in which the dark-skinned tribe ravages and sacrifices a Caucasian woman). There's some goofy violence to be found, not to mention a plethora of bare female flesh, but SORCERERS never really hits its mark, as though de Ossorio was uncomfortable with the material.

The director employs the same slow pace that he used in the BLIND DEAD films, though without the Gothic trappings and eerie chanting soundtrack the tempo feels dull instead of atmospheric. De Ossorio also uses the slow-motion techniques for the predatory panther women that he worked to great effect with the Templars, but whereas the latter benefited from that trick, it just looks silly in SORCERERS (looking at times like a bad BAYWATCH parody). Even the rising of the dead--always a highlight in the BLIND DEAD series--looks cheap and cobbled together, without the accoutrements that made the earlier sequences so effective.

And without that same element of fun and ambience, NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS fails to justify its existence, especially when the threadbare plot has so little going for it. Fans of Eurotrash will undoubtedly enjoy it--and make no mistake, it's not a total waste--but if you could never get into TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD or GHOST GALLEON, you are not going to like this.

DAY 363--DANCE OF THE DEAD

2008-11-09T11:19:00.003-05:00

Gregg Bishop's 2008 high school zombie movie DANCE OF THE DEAD (part of the Ghost House collective) was supposedly written ten years prior, before the recent undead boom. Maybe that's why it feels so tired and familiar, because I know I've seen this plot before.

In a concept we've seen in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DORKS and BOY EATS GIRL (with the same results), the living dead have risen to feed upon high school students at the prom. And wouldn't you know, the only ones who can save the day are the unpopular geeks that couldn't get a date--had this happened to me when I was in school, I'd have let the zombies eat the motherfuckers, but I'm an anti-social sort. And while I liked the semi-twist of having the phys ed instructor helping the boys, the plot still reeks of desperate wish-fulfillment.

Bishop's directorial style is superficial gloss and flash, but it's never strong or distinctive enough to distract from the well-worn storyline--though there might be enough gore to keep people interested. Instead of trying too hard to be funny, Bishop should've focused on a sense of anarchy, a balls-to-the-wall mentality that would've complemented this picture so much better.

Occupying that gray area between not-bad and not-good, DANCE OF THE DEAD is the type of high-school tripe where you know upfront exactly who'll live and who'll die. Maybe if I'd encountered this earlier in the project I might've been a little more charitable, but by this point I'm simply tired of seeing this plot.

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 was scarier.

DAY 362--ALL SOULS DAY

2008-11-09T10:44:00.003-05:00

Like many of you who read this blog, I'm a sucker for a bad movies (otherwise I'd have sucked the business end of a shotgun sometime around February), but I appreciate it when a movie lets me know up front that it's going to be a stinker; say what you will about MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE, but you know from frame one what you're in for. But when a movie appears at first glance to be decent and then turns sour--like Jeremy Kasten's 2005 thriller ALL SOULS DAY--I feel like the victim of a cinematic game of three-card monty.

It starts out like a better-than-average horror film with a '50s-set flashback as a vacationing family--led by Jeffrey Combs, clearly having a ball playing against type--encounters supernatural goings-on in a mysterious Mexican hotel. But just as it really starts to grow on you, Kasten flash-forwards to the present for the story proper, which isn't nearly as atmospheric, intriguing, or interesting as what came before it. (There's also a matter of a double prologue, as the film sets up its central backstory fifty or so years before Combs and family show up, causing the viewer to reinvest interest each time.)

The meat of the story, in which the dead return during the annual Day of the Dead celebration to exact their revenge (and prey on any handy tourists), might not've been too bad, even with the Romero-esque approach. But the protagonists are so bland and unappealing, including a male lead as hyperactive and annoying as a sugar-addled child, and flat, no-frills direction dampen any fun that may be had. Characters act with a vague humor that may be intentional (I wouldn't be surprised if many of the actors knew they were in a dud and decided to have some fun with it), and there's plenty of dead air throughout the plot as the cast muddles from one familiar situation to another. It's almost as if the Combs prologue was from a different film altogether, as none of the mood or ambience finds its way into the rest of the picture.

If ALL SOULS DAY had stuck with that opening sequence it could've been a so-so but enjoyable film, but instead it shovels out more of the same, giving us a mediocre would-be thriller involving whitebread schmucks in peril. Just what I needed.

DAY 361--DEAD LIFE

2008-11-06T16:10:00.002-05:00

The gods be praised, this is the last micro-budget shot-on-video hack-job I'll have to review for this project. Hopefully, it'll be the last one I'll ever see, but that's probably too much to ask. Regardless, this 2005 feature from director William Victor Schotten--who also delivered the slightly better SABBATH--is the same uninspired, unoriginal schlock we've seen time and again, complete with muffled audio and murky, snuff-flick quality videography.

Like a lot of these movies, DEAD LIFE chronicles the boring small-town life of a group of slackers (a thuddingly appropriate illustration of "Write what you know") whose world gets shaken up when yet another virus-borne zombie rampage hits their community. And while others have taken this same tired premise and juiced it up, DEAD LIFE opts to intercut long, aimless scenes of wandering zombies with one pointless conversation after another.

Sloppily edited with clumsy direction (even a scene involving a bitten-off dick registers no impact) and a meaningless, redundant death metal soundtrack, DEAD LIFE is a home movie masquerading as a feature. There's some decent gore to be found, as well as some black-and-white nightmare footage that's a desperate stylistic ploy, but it's just as poorly handled as the rest, and you have to wade through the snail-paced "story" to get to it.

Lacking energy, skill, or rhythm, DEAD LIFE is not worth the trouble. At least Schotten showed a little improvement with his follow-up; perhaps by movie #5 he can show some real strength.

DAY 360--WASTED WEST

2008-11-06T16:02:00.002-05:00

A much better take on the Western zombie concept is Andre Albrecht's 2006 short film WASTED WEST. A tribute to George Romero and Sergios Leone and Corbucci, this should appeal to both fans of the living dead and spaghetti westerns.

While it's a little on the slow side, without a solid narrative, Albrecht still delivers a fun ride thanks to his strong filmmaking chops. With a more developed screenplay, I'd really like to see this as a feature; hopefully Albrecht can use this to drum up enough capital to make that a reality.

Though hopefully he leaves out the cheesy CGI dog.

DAY 359--WESTERN ZOMBIE

2008-11-06T15:50:00.002-05:00

This 2006 short film's subtitle--"A Zombie Western"--tips you off to the filmmakers' idea of humor, but it's so misleading it might as well be called "A Zombie Cooking Show." If you're looking for cowpokes and their six-shooters squaring off against the living dead, look elsewhere; what you get here is just another amateurish zombie-attack scenario (as pointless and arbitrary as any other reviewed here, although this one's supposedly not made by bored high school students) with Ennio Morricone's THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY score slapped over it.

If you'd like to see a much better zombie Western (and I'd have reviewed it myself, had time permitted), check out IT CAME FROM THE WEST, a short Western-zombie film from Denmark. Starring puppets.

DAY 358--DEAD AND DEADER

2008-11-05T17:13:00.002-05:00

With a title like that you were maybe expecting A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE?

This 2006 standard-issue B-picture has a doozy of a concept: while on a mission in Cambodia, a US soldier (played by Dean Cain, wholly inappropriate for this kind of tough-guy role) is bitten by a radioactive scorpion; but instead of becoming a scorpion-like superhero--and believe me, that would've been an improvement--he dies, only to come back to life as a "half zombie." (Excuse me, but isn't that sort of like being half pregnant?) While the other officers in his platoon have reawakened as full-blown zombies--the vicious, flesh-eating kind, rather than Cain's type with the aw-shucks grin and puppy-dog eyes), Cain finds himself at war with his former brothers-in-arms.

Aided by the obligatory black sidekick and sexy love interest, Cain embarks on a new mission, one that feels like a fourth-rate cable cop show, complete with the requisite snappy repartee and watered-down romance (and I've always found Cain's persona as a heart-throb questionable--here, all pasty-white and suffering from rigor mortis, it's downright improbable, to say nothing of his Sonny Crockett wardrobe).

Director Patrick Dinhut keeps things as technically competent as a good workhorse should, but his ham-fisted handling of the action sequences rob them of any excitement. He also has a tendency to play to the movie's dumber aspects, favoring lunkheaded humor over horror or gore. It's a generic zombie movie that really wants to be a generic buddy-cop movie, but fails to be good as either.

Devoid of charm, energy, or laughs, DEAD AND DEADER is the kind of schedule-filling garbage the Sci-Fi Channel thrives on. A more accurate title would be DULL AND DULLER. Skip it.

DAY 357--FOREVER DEAD

2008-11-05T16:58:00.002-05:00

Proving that NIGHT OF THE LEPUS is not the worst rabbit-related horror film ever made, Christine Parker's 2007 video-bound stink-bomb FOREVER DEAD also breaks the gender barrier in crappy micro-budget filmmaking, illustrating that women can make 'em just as badly as men.

Saving its only shred of originality for its premise--an escaped rabbit, used as part of unorthodox scientific experiments, is the carrier of the zombie plague--FOREVER DEAD is another example of the talentless, by-the-numbers dross that makes up a solid third of this project's reviews. Boring and dumb, with pitiful performances, lame attempts at humor, and negligible gore effects, I might've overlooked its unoriginality if the direction hadn't been so flat. But Parker shoots her film with such a lack of energy and verve that it lays on the screen, limp as a damp paper towel.

Remember, just because you really love zombie films, that doesn't qualify you to make one. FOREVER DEAD is a shining example of that fact.

DAY 356--DEAD COUNTRY

2008-11-05T16:29:00.002-05:00

The first 45 seconds of DEAD COUNTRY--a 2008 amateur-night production from director Andrew Merkelbach--features enough atrocious acting, lazy camerawork, and ghastly CGI for an entire movie. A craftless, dunderheaded shot-on-video mess, this is the sort of fanboy love letter I can do without.

A spaceship explodes over the town of Romero--gee, what a subtle and innovative reference, the likes of which I've never seen--infecting the populace with an alien virus that turns them into zombies. And into that rivetingly fresh scenario steps director Merkelbach, the extra-terrestrial responsible, who tries to keep the plague from spreading before it's too late.

DEAD COUNTRY is the kind of DIY ineptitude that throws in fully-clothed sex scenes, meaningless title cards (do we really need to be reminded that December 25 is Christmas Day?), and enough slow-mo tit shots to satisfy a junior-varsity basketball team. In addition to being an unconscionably bad actor, Merkelbach flails as a filmmakers as well, bearing an inconsistent visual style that alternates between cheap video-based sloppiness or the intentionally-scratched look that went stale twenty minutes after GRINDHOUSE hit theaters. Stupid, unfunny, with zombie makeup so bad Andreas Schnaas would balk--life's too short for crap like this, even with the abundant female flesh on display (though I don't think any amount of skin could save this tripe). Even a rare cameo by drive-in legend Ted V. Mikels, and a not-so-rare cameo by Lloyd Kaufman, can't keep this afloat.

For self-loathers only.

DAY 355--THE MAD

2008-10-30T16:31:00.003-04:00

If, like me, you find the idea of a zombie hamburger delightfully stupid, then you may be inclined to check out THE MAD, a seriously flawed but fun 2007 release from director Johnny Kalangis that often teeters on the brink of genius.

A white-bread suburban family (led by venerable character actor Billy Zane, totally out of place as a straight-laced dad, even with the David Cross hipster glasses) vacationing in a bucolic farm community soon finds their itinerary disrupted when trouble brews at the local restaurant. It seems the ranch that supplies their beef has been infected with a strain of Mad Cow disease, transferring to the people who consume it and making them marauding, rampaging zombies.

As horror-comedy set-ups go, Kalangis has the makings of a winner, but his comedy is too uneven to really work. The humor works best when it's subtle, but the broad slapstick, which constitutes most of the laughs, doesn't fare quite so well and degenerates to sloppy silliness as the film wears on.

THE MAD also suffers from several narrative missteps, including a too-familiar plotline, some very predictable characters arcs, and an indulgent, self-referential zombie discussion, not to mention a third act that grinds the story to a halt when it should be hitting full-throttle (even at 82 minutes, it's still 20 minutes too long). Kalangis has a penchant for stylistic flourishes involving quick editing and skewed camera angles that add nothing, which leads to one of the worst blowjob-related scenes in recent memory.

Yet despite these significant faults, THE MAD entertains for the most part thanks to a couple of genuine surprises (as in the people who don't survive) and an incredibly game cast. Zane keeps up his dependable-but-bland persona (leaving behind the smarminess that creeps into many of his roles), and supporting females Maggie Castle and Shauna MacDonald breathe life and charisma into potenitally cardboard characters--especially the latter, who channels Annette Benning's manic perfection from AMERICAN BEAUTY.

Though it could've done more in the gore department--the scenario was perfect for an over-the-top bloodbath, though I doubt Kalangis is really the director for one--THE MAD is still worth a look-see. Prepare yourself for a little frustration and you'll be all set.

DAY 354--RETURN OF THE DASTARDLY ZOMBIE VAMPIRE MUMMY FROM PLANET X

2008-10-28T14:43:00.000-04:00

Equally obnoxious is the short film, RETURN OF THE DASTARDLY ZOMBIE VAMPIRE MUMMY FROM PLANET X, which Brian Singleton made in 1998, and serves as a bonus feature on the FOREST OF THE DEAD DVD. In many ways it serves as a dry run for the inanity that constitutes FOREST--lame-brain comedy, ghastly performances (which are essentially "actors" speaking in the most annoying accents possible), and crappy effects, it's a punishing 17-minute "homage" to bad horror flicks of yesteryear.

Too bad it forgot to be as entertaining as those schlocky B pictures.

There's little plot to speak of, so I won't, but I will say it's the first time I've ever seen a monster dispatched by a suit-and-sombrero-wearing pistolero. (It's utterly stupid, to be sure, but original nonetheless). Certainly not worth checking out on its own--and barely worth seeing if you rent the FOREST DVD--it's a slice of chuckleheaded nonsense that's easily forgotten.

DAY 353--FOREST OF THE DEAD

2008-10-28T14:38:00.002-04:00

Thank God it will all be over soon.

In just a few more days I won't have to subject myself to movies like FOREST OF THE DEAD, a 2007 production from Canadian director Brian Singleton. On the surface a laudable example of the micro-budget DIY ethic--not only did he finance the project wholly out of his own pocket, but Singleton acted as a one-man crew, filming and recording sound with solely the assistance of off-screen actors--it soon buries any goodwill beneath a toppling mound of obnoxious characters, numbskull humor, and thin plotting.

Taking its cue from the "dumb teenagers dying the woods" school of '80s filmmaking, DEAD involves a carload of insufferable assholes on a road trip who make a detour into the forest. Loud, asinine, and not the least bit amusing, these so-called protagonists are the perfect target for the flesh-eating zombies that await them, which would've made for a trying, but potentially gory, teen-kill flick. But in a shocking-in-a-bad-way plot twist, Singleton quickly does away with them so he can introduce another group of characters even more noisome than the first. What did I do to deserve these people?

Singleton offers up an adequate smorgasbord of splatter towards the end--juvenile, uninventive splatter, but still--yet in order to get to it you've got to sift through a lot of talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk. Boring and uneventful barely describe it, and the screenplay--penned by Singleton and his brother Mark--helps little with the ever-present bad amateur dialogue. Trying to be edgy and hip, passing off one-dimensional stereotypes, they come off not as envelope-pushing comedians but alarmingly antisocial bastards.

Narratively weak (once Final Girl bites it, the movie's over, as there's no more plot motivation) and self-indulgent (bearing not only an unnecessary director introduction--dammit, if Kubrick and Scorcese never felt the need why do amateur filmmakers always do?--and nearly nine minutes of "wacky" outtakes), FOREST OF THE DEAD is a typical representation of the the headache-inducing dross that litters micro-budget cinema.

DAY 352--OZONE

2008-10-28T14:35:00.000-04:00

Another hunk of Akron-lensed hooey from director J.R. Bookwalter, 1993's OZONE isn't quite as bad as some of his other shot-on-video work (sort of like how a broken finger isn't as bad as a severed hand), but it's still a far cry from THE DEAD NEXT DOOR. A mishmash of the cop and horror genres, OZONE displays a little ambition, though its low budget and shaky craftsmanship prevent it from really taking off.

James Black--who almost has the chops to be above dreck like this--stars as a police detective on the trail of a dealer pushing a new drug called Ozone that turns its users into zombies. When his partner is abducted by Ozone addicts, Black picks up the search, a journey that takes some strange--but not strange enough--turns once he becomes injected with the drug himself.

Though it boasts some fairly solid production values (considering its budget and year of its release), OZONE suffers from so many avoidable pitfalls. Poor performances from the supporting cast don't help, particularly the unconvincing bad guys, but the biggest flaw lies in its plot. Dream sequences exist solely to showcase gratuitous effects (including the then-prevalent use of morphing technology), an overabundance of cop-movie cliches such as the maverick detective getting bawled out by the chief (some of these scenes feel intentional, but regardless they make watching the movie a chore), and some oddball subplots (such as the underground fighting ring where combatants fight each other with oversized pizza cutters). Throw in a drug kingpin that resembles one of Jabba the Hutt's Gammorrhean guards, and you've got a flick that tries too hard and delivers too little.

Filled with continuity errors--a half-naked Black escapes the fight club, only to round a corner fully dressed or zombies with makeup that never goes past their jawline--and other amateurish hallmarks, OZONE is a slow-paced, unintentionally humorous mess. I'm sure there are bad-movie completists who'll want to add this to their must-see lists, but I'd advise them to steer clear.

DAY 351--LIFEFORCE

2008-10-28T13:21:00.002-04:00

A would-be blockbuster, Tobe Hooper's 1985 film LIFEFORCE was an attempt on the part of producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus to replicate the cash-cow success of STAR WARS. To say they failed is putting it mildly, and at first glance you might be surprised--the film is exceptionally crafted, with a rousing Henry Mancini score, opticals by visual fx guru John Dykstra, and great cinematography by Alan Hume--but once you really look at it, it's a wonder it made any money at all.

Working with a screenplay by ALIEN's Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby, based on Colin Wilson's novel THE SPACE VAMPIRES (yes, I know this is technically a vampire movie, but give me a chance to explain in a bit), LIFEFORCE is purportedly a science fiction story, but its plot shifts gears so often that any potential audience is repeatedly, ahem, alienated.

It's not that the central concept is a bad one--vampiric creatures discovered in space are brought to Earth, who quickly spread a plague of the living dead throughout London--but after starting out like an erotic variant of ALIEN (in the form of Mathilda May, easily the film's best visual) with a healthy dose of mystery and tension, it loses its momentum once it returns to terra firma and becomes a slick, sf-tinged vampire tale (witness the dream sequence in which May visits a slumbering Steve Railsback, a classic succubus scenario if there ever was one).

The vampire element is probably the strongest plot thread, yet its most intriguing aspects are left unexplored. While obviously needing to set up May's spreading of the plague (funny--every single scene of the lovely Ms. May waltzing around nude runs much longer than the rhythm of said scene requires, yet I never really complained), Hooper and his screenwriters concentrate instead on the investigative portion of the event; it gives the film a meandering, dry second act that it never fully recovers from.

Once it finally kicks gears into apocalyptic-horror mode, I was ready to call it quits (as I do every time I watch this film). It's also at this point that Golan and Globus's blockbuster-envy shines through, as it strains itself toward a GHOSTBUSTERS-styled climax--without the demonic dogs, of course. By then the faint heart of its emotional core, the quasi-spiritual/sexual relationship between May and Railsback, is lost beneath an orgy of gee-whiz optical effects. (And I can't help but wonder what this movie would look like in today's CGI wonderland, especially the scene in which blood from Patrick Stewart's unbelievably fake-looking head creates a vision of May.)

As for the zombies . . . while I can't entirely hate a movie that shoehorns them into the story, it's very plainly stated that these creatures are vampires; they're referred to as such, fer cryin' out loud. Yet the monsters running around London, feasting on any available victim, appear to be zombies. They certainly behave like them, and the film presents them in a similar fashion (even foreshadowing films like 28 WEEKS LATER). It's confusing, to say the least, but it's probably part of the producers' need to appeal to every single movie-going demographic.

LIFEFORCE is a wildly uneven film that offers the occasional pay-off, but--at the risk of sounding like a sexist pig--its greatest asset is the inclusion of one of the best naked performances in genre history.

DAY 350--RABID GRANNIES

2008-10-27T20:42:00.002-04:00

RABID GRANNIES, a 1988 Belgian production from director Emmanuel Kervyn, is a gore film that takes out all the gore. Picked up for domestic distribution by Troma--who included the truncated splatter in a separate reel, which isn't quite as fun when taken out of context--it's more about demonic possession rather than zombies, but like Lamberto Bava's DEMONS films, which it frequently echoes, it hews very close to the established zombie formula.

A pair of kind elderly women host a birthday party, in which all of their greedy, rude, and self-absorbed relatives are invited. When the ladies are infected by a demonic presence--as part of a present from their Satan-worshipping nephew Christopher--they transform into rampaging monsters equipped with Krueger-esque claws, slaughtering their way through their ungrateful family.

The fun of a movie like RABID GRANNIES is the lowbrow thrill of non-stop grue, broad slapstick humor, and maybe a little skin. By removing all the gore (which also ruins the impact of a rather ballsy scene involving a dismembered child) it also removes its reason for being, leaving behind a film that isn't very enjoyable without it. The little mayhem that remains is often interrupted by long, pointless stretches of conversation, and the humor that could've tied these scenes together isn't nearly as funny as it should be.

The cast is comprised of such ugly, amoral people that there's no one to root for, and their comeuppances are so restrained that we can't even revel when they're mowed down. Bereft of creativity, RABID GRANNIES coasts on its premise without the energy or excitement that's crucial to a good splatter film.

DAY 349--QUARANTINE

2008-10-27T19:31:00.002-04:00

All I'm going to say is, Thank God I work at a movie theater; otherwise I'd have had to pay my own money to see this dreck.

As part of Hollywood's continued obsession with remaking well-made foreign films, the 2008 picture QUARANTINE is, as I'm sure you're aware, a redo of the Spanish release [REC] (which I'll be unable to view by the end of this project--a shame, since it's supposed to be far superior). Since this crap-sandwich is still playing in theaters, at least until the equally execrable SAW V draws its core demographic away, I'll spare the usual synopsis and get right to the lambasting.

I've never been a big fan of the hand-held style of filmmaking. I didn't mind it in, say, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST or THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, mostly because the technique was never a distraction. But its recent use in movies like CLOVERFIELD, 28 WEEKS LATER, and the BOURNE sequels, it ceases to enhance the story and becomes irritating, confusing, and (in this case) nauseating. Note to director John Erick Dowdle: if you're going to place subtle visual clues in your story, steady the goddamn camera long enough for us to fucking see them, okay?

Plot-wise, QUARANTINE does a decent job of setting up its premise, and the the mounting sense of danger is handled well. But once we get to the meat of the story, and its rabid zombie-like creatures are revealed, the film becomes a dull, repetitive cinematic funhouse ride as the characters face monsters in one uninspired scene after another. That in of itself wouldn't be so bad if the movie didn't feel so much like a 28 WEEKS LATER/DAWN OF THE DEAD clone. There isn't anything fresh or unique to be found here, and as soon as the realization settles in, QUARANTINE becomes quite a slog.

Which leads into the film's problematic third act, a blurry, night-vision sequence as star Jennifer Carpenter makes her way through the darkened corridors of the sealed building. What could've been a taut, knuckle-busting segment is reduced to shrill, never-ending boredom, and at the heart of it lies Carpenter's performance. Now, I got the idea she was a fluff-reporter thrust in over her head, so I could forgive her being somewhat weak, but listening to her shriek and cry for twenty-some minutes was interminable. Was her reaction believable and realistic? Certainly, but this is a narrative, not a documentary, and having your protagonist carry on like a five-year-old with a skinned knee is disappointing and annoying.

QUARANTINE is the kind of movie that makes the current genre scene so disheartening. Knowing that a brilliant and frightening film like Michael Dougherty's TRICK R TREAT remains unreleased while the remake-and-SAW sausage factory rolls on just makes me sad, and more than a little angry. And judging from the reaction I saw at work the last couple of weekends, I don't see it changing soon.

DAY 348--NOT ANOTHER ZOMBIE MOVIE

2008-10-20T15:40:00.000-04:00

Funny, I was thinking the same thing.

DAY 347--HYSTERICAL

2008-10-20T14:36:00.003-04:00

HYSTERICAL is a 1983 AIRPLANE-style comedy showcasing the Hudson Brothers, a '70s-era comedy troupe now relegated to obscurity (and if this movie's any indication, obscurity couldn't have come quick enough). Astonishingly low on laughs, it's notable only for the respectable character actors roped into it (including Murray Hamilton, Bud Cort, and Julie Newmar).

Bill Hudson stars as a Harold Robbins-esque bestselling author who takes a soul-searching vacation to a coastal Oregon town. His relaxation is cut short by the appearance of a vengeful spirit who appears in the lighthouse home he's renting 100 years after her suicide; as part of her plan, she raises the corpse of her long-dead lover Captain Howdy (Richard Kiel, cast only to justify a vague JAWS reference), who turns the townsfolk into zombies so . . . actually, I have no idea why.

Even if the plot didn't jump around like a caffeine-addled child, or had made a lick of sense, HYSTERICAL still would appeal strictly to undiscriminating ten-year-olds, thanks to its abysmal joke-to-laugh ratio. I would say most of the gags are tremendously dated, since it mines early-eighties pop culture for much of its comedy, but it sticks to high-profile mainstream material--RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THE EXORCIST, THE SHINING, etc.--so what little jokes there are somewhat hold up. (And should give you an idea of what EPIC MOVIE will look like in twenty years.) Only a brief bit involving John Larroquette as a pot-smoking boat-tour guide--Bob's Big Buoy, ho-ho)--got any real laughs out of me.

With production values giving it the look of a '70s TV movie, HYSTERICAL is little more than a curio. The Hudson Brothers, along with co-writer and director Chris Bearde, made a movie that might've been funny at a Catskills comedy club circa 1952, but remains relatively worthless in the harsh reality of the new millennium.

It's still better than MEET THE SPARTANS, though.

(Special thanks--I think--to Michael Anthony for providing a copy of this film.)

DAY 346--EXHUMED

2008-10-20T14:06:00.002-04:00

I'm a big fan of anthology films, so I was really looking forward to Brian Clement's EXHUMED, a three-part feature released in 2003 that deals with the resurrection of the dead. Thematically ambitious, it nonetheless disappoints not only by being a mediocre picture, but it also never dares to fulfill the challenge it sets for itself.

After a brief, and needless, introduction by a cadaverous Serling surrogate we get into the first story, "The Forest of Death." Set during feudal Japan, it's a novel backdrop for a zombie tale, but the segment is hamstrung by poor acting and a thin plot with a weak resolution. Still, it's well-photographed, and it's nice to see a domestic DIY film shot in another language.

Faring about as well is the next installment, "Shadow of Tomorrow," a 1940's-set science fiction/detective mash-up that creates a great film-noir atmosphere but has an equally flimsy cast to go with it (especially its lead, a would-be hardboiled dame that delivers an awful performance). It too is a lightweight, disposable story, featuring one of the worst nightclub scenes in recent memory; it also has very little to do with the living dead, and capped with an abrupt ending, leading into . . .

"Last Rumble," the final segment, a post-apocalyptic juvenile delinquent tale that chronicles a war between vampires and werewolves, orchestrated for the government's enjoyment. Besides having absolutely nothing to do with zombies, it's easily the weakest portion of the film. Brimming with oodles of cut-rate gore, it plays like every other micro-budget action/splatter flick, with lame fight sequences and desperate, crass scenes of lesbian sex. It's also the least interesting of the three visually, looking cheap and tawdry instead of end-of-the-world bleak and gritty.

Clement ends EXHUMED with a weird epilogue that ties all three stories together, saddled with exposition as if were going out of style, but it adds nothing to the overall movie. If anything, it makes it even more confusing.

EXHUMED would've been more successful if it hadn't used its structure and various settings as window dressing, and actually explored them with some manner of depth. Hell, any one of these could've justified their own feature-length treatment. But by being as superficial as possible, Clement sabotages his chance of creating something unique.

DAY 345--THE REVOLTING DEAD

2008-10-20T13:17:00.002-04:00

The problem with this 2003 shot-on-video production is that it gets the revolting part right, the dead not so much. Directed by Michael Su--who, you might remember, also made the turd-in-disc-form known as DOOMED that I ripped a few weeks back--this wannabe screwball zombie flick too silly and nonsensical to be worth watching. Or reviewing.

The Tehachapi Flats mortuary has long been guilty of unscrupulous business practices, among them graverobbing and casket recycling (though they've got nothing on Ray Dannis is THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS, the king of shady morticians), but when they target the grave of a Druid priest, his sister uses her otherworldly powers to get revenge.

Loaded with terrible acting and sloppily assembled, THE REVOLTING DEAD's as funny as a groin injury. The only thing it does well is its gratuitous nudity; the rest is pitiful DIY filmmaking at its worst, livened only by a last-minute appearance by a laughably bad, barely articulate zombie "puppet" that entertains by virtue of its shoddiness.

There's a smidgeon of gore to be found, but doubtless you'll be asleep by the time it comes. A punishing excuse for a movie.

DAY 344--NECROVILLE

2008-10-17T15:24:00.002-04:00

Horror-comedies are the proverbial dime a dozen, and a particularly ubiquitous stripe is the slacker-doofus comedy, which more often than not aims to be as cult-friendly as SHAUN OF THE DEAD or CLERKS, yet never bothers to bring anything new to the table (or is too thoroughly obnoxious to be watchable). The filmmakers behind this 2007 shot-on-video production, Billy Garberina and Richard Griffin, have the same goal in sight, but their feeble execution leaves much to be desired.

Attempting to be a micro-budget version of GHOSTBUSTERS, NECROVILLE stars Garberina and co-writer Adam Jarmon Brown as two likable knuckleheads who can't seem to hold a job. When Garberina's bitch-on-wheels girlfriend (Brandy Bluejacket, who's almost hot enough to get away with being so deplorable) rides him about his employment prospects, as well as her own financial needs, he and his hetero life-mate sign up at Zom-B-Gone, an extermination company of sorts that specializes in the removal of zombies, vampires, and werewolves.

NECROVILLE is good for a couple of chuckles, but the humor is never as clever, perverse, or sharp as it should be. It tries to be "edgy," but usually ends up being juvenile and crass. The leads are likable enough, though Bluejacket's performance is the wrong kind of over-the-top and hard to sit through. Garberina isn't quite as good here as he was in THE STINK OF FLESH (speaking of which, look for that film's star Kurly Tlapoyawa and director Scott Phillips in small roles), but he's got the lovable goofball bit down pat.

Though its inspiration clearly owes a debt to GHOSTBUSTERS, as would any film involving blue-collar fighters of the supernatural, but NECROVILLE follows Ivan Reitman's picture a little too closely, mirroring not only its plot (a vampire uprising unfolds very similar to the way Gozer comes to power) and incidental scenes (a comparable wet-dream gag that doesn't work). It's one thing when a film fails to achieve what it sets out to do, but when it does so while aping another movie it feels like a double waste.

Ultimately I suggest bypassing this one in favor of the aforementioned THE STINK OF FLESH, one of the best zombie flicks in the last few years and an underappreciated little gem.

DAY 343--28 WEEKS LATER

2008-10-17T14:06:00.003-04:00

This review is going to be easier to write than I expected, as my feelings toward 28 WEEKS LATER--director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 2007 follow-up to 28 DAYS LATER--are exactly like the first: a well-made movie that left me cold.

Credit belongs to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland for remaining as executive producers and ensuring not only a sense of continuity, but integrity as well; so often once a major horror film makes money it's quickly franchised and morphed into a clone factory (or what the suits like to call "a guaranteed revenue stream"), but WEEKS wisely avoids that trap. Watching the story unfold, I was often reminded of superhero series, and how they can fully develop once the origin story's out of the way. It's not entirely an apt comparison, but Fresnadillo and his screenwriters explore an area we don't really get to see: the emotional toil and societal rebuilding after the virus has been contained.

Much like DAYS, WEEKS has an incredible opening (though I can't express enough how much I hate, hate, hate the use of shaky, hand-held camerawork and rapid-fire editing that makes the action incomprehensible--yet it's interesting to note how it can "graphically" show something without making it clear what's happening) and a greater dramatic resonance, even if it's exhausted early. It's technically amazing, too, with great photography, etc.

However, WEEKS has a somewhat longer build-up than is really necessary, and its lackluster midsection doesn't quite make up for it. Once the virus is reawakened--in a bravura moment, by the way--is quickly falls into the same formulaic storyline, hewing closely to the established when it ought to be cutting its own swath. Fresnadillo creates several potentially intriguing set-pieces, but often undermines them with poor CGI (such as the mass-decapitation by helicopter, featuring fx that have no business in a mainstream motion pciture) or timing (the night-vision stadium sequence, which grows tedious rather than suspenseful). And while it has a more character-driven plot at its heart, its story arc doesn't quite support the overall film, throwing off the emotional momentum of key moments.

Although 28 WEEKS LATER ends on a more downbeat note than its predecessor, I doubt I'll make time for any additional sequels. Although I'm sure it'd be an extremely well-made movie.