Zombies have been enjoying a lot of popularity in recent years. They have essentially taken the place of Nazis as the new go-to movie villains. Of course, we all have George Romero to thank for the common depiction of zombies in pop culture today. (often called Romero-zombies) Out of his Living Dead series of films, Day of the Dead is my personal favorite. When the movie begins, the world is already overrun with undead; it’s more of a zombie post-apocalypse film. In fact, our small group of survivors are relatively safe and secure in an underground military compound outside of the Florida Everglades, at least from zombies. The humans in this film are divided among scientists, how are trying to find a way to make the zombie population docile so order can be restored, the military, who are tentatively supporting the scientists’ efforts but are getting impatient with the lack of results, and a few civilians that provide indispensable skills like John (Terry Alexander) who is a helicopter pilot and Bill (Jarlath Conroy) who looks like Mr. Bean. We see most of the story through the eyes of Sarah (Lori Cardille) who assists head scientist Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty) as he studies and experiments on undead that the soldiers have captured and corralled within the tunnel. As this research has led to not concrete method of pacifying or otherwise defeating the legions of zombies on the surface, the ranking officer Captain Rhodes (Joe Pilato) is losing patience with the science team and becoming increasingly more confrontational. At one memorable point early on, he even threatens to shot Sarah in the head if she disobeys his order to sit down.

Dr. Logan’s experiments end up showing some results, as he runs test with a zombie he has dubbed ‘Bud’ (Sherman Howard) that seems to be more tame than most other undead. Bud actually shows that he retains some memory of his former life when he reacts to objects like a telephone, a facial razor, and a gun and apparently knows how to use each one. Sarah soon finds out that Dr. Logan has been using a positive reinforcement technique with Bud, feeding him fresh flesh when he reacts in a manner that the doctor likes. This meat, however, is coming from Captain Rhodes’ soldiers that had dies previously that were kept in cold storage, and when Rhodes finds out about it, he goes through the roof and threatens to shut everything down and abandon the science team. Things soon fall apart as the zombies being held inside the base break their bonds and run amuck and only a select few people manage to escape with their lives. What I love about this story is that both the scientific head and the militaristic head were completely corrupt and neither were able to find a solution. Usually in science fiction or horror type movies like this, it is the scientists that eventually discover a very simple solution or a complex plan that eventually defeats a world ending threat. The military is often impotent when it comes to stopping such a threat, but here, both sides are equally incapable, and the zombies end up the winner. All any of the humans can do is try to survive.

In Movie Scum Episode #19, our good friend Kenny from United Front Gaming mentions George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead. The topic of that episode? Worst movies ever.  After viewing this, I would say that it is better than Diary of the Dead. Just barely.

There is a place called Plum Island, that is inhabited by two families: The O’Flynns and the Muldoons. The Muldoons are especially happy with this arrangement, as they do not care for strangers. Plum Island is in the midst of the zombie apocalypse, as the events of Survival take place after the events in Diary. The Muldoons, led by Seamus, do not kill zombies. Rather, they chain them up and let them live, in in the hopes that there will be a cure so that their loved ones may live again. The O’Flynns, led by Patrick, prefer to dispatch anything that is undead. Much like a pro choice debate, this causes a rift and ultimately leads to Patrick O’Flynn being sent off the island. Patrick’s daughter convinces Seamus to send him packing rather than killing him, as he would have preferred. Weeks later, a group of 4 military deserters, Kevin, Cisco, Tomboy and Sergeant Crockett (from Diary) have a shootout with some hicks in the woods (who have several zombie heads on sticks just moaning in the night) and gain a 5th member to their group, who is called kid throughout the film (but apparently is named Boy). He shows them a video via his iPhone and whatever mobile internet connection is still available. The video is of Patrick, but he calls himself Captain Fabulous, and advises anyone watching to come to Plum Island. The group head the to dock and find that Patrick (a some others) just want to rob them and they end up commandeering the ferry there. Patrick is the only one in his group to survive the zombies and ends up on the ferry as well. They all head over to Plum Island. Once they arrive they see former residents, now the undead, chained up, doing whatever they were doing while they were alive. The mailman is still putting mail in a mailbox, for example. However, they find countless bodies of people that came over to the island by ferry (sent by Patrick, partly to rob them and party to piss off Seamus) that were simply shot for being strangers. Eventually we learn that Seamus is trying to tech zombies to eat animals, rather than people, so that they don’t have to kill them and they can coexist with their former living family members. So there we have the coinflict of the film: should zombies be killed, or should humans try to teach them to respect the living and live peacefully among them?

My main problem with this story line is, what if they did learn? What’s the point? They are never going to be their former selves. What happens when they eat all the animals? Zombies never stop eating, animals would never survive. Then the humans die also, because they cannot feed themselves (or the zombies go right back to eating them having no more animals to eat).

This was really not much of a zombie film in the traditional sense. This seemed more like a philosophical discussion on the treatment of zombies. There were a few attacks shoved in to the film, but most of the violence was quick shots to the head and not much horrifying slaughter. As the characters were pretty one dimensional, there is no rooting for anyone per se. I guess you are just supposed to pick one side of the argument and hope your side wins. It certainly is not scary by any means, and lacks any overt social commentary that the other Dead pictures have. The reason why this one is better than Diary is simply because, although one dimensional, I did not despise the characters. They were not, to quote Puck, “a bunch of unlikeable douche bags.” I was actually able to sit through Survival comfortably because of that.

In Episode #19 Kenny mentions a zombie riding a horse. Having not seen this film yet, I could not imagine any scenario that would justify a zombie riding a horse, and that this would be possibly one of the dumbest things I would witness. I assure, it was. Basically, in an effort to create some more conflict between Seamus and Patrick, the horse riding zombie is Patrick’s daughter. Seamus captures her because she is smart enough to learn how to ride a horse, and perhaps will be smart enough to eat one. You’re fucking with me, right George?

The worst of all this is, they is a plenty big hole open for a sequel, or continuation or whatever the hell these pictures are in relation to each other. Not necessarily the worst zombie film, but almost bottom of the list for the Dead series.

Also contained within is a quasi-review of Quarantine.

For all intents and purposes, I have seen [REC] before by way of its almost shot-for-shot and beat-by-beat remake Quarantine which was in production before [REC] was even released. Apparently, the producers used a shooting script for the basis of Quarantine so many of the scenes, reveals, and mayhem all run in conjunction if you were to play the two films at the same time. Having not seen the remake of Psycho, I cannot say how this approach worked before but I would imagine that experience was as bizarre and fraught with deja vu as watching the original film to one I had seen before. Even with it being almost two years since seeing the Americanized-remake, many scenes, shots, and even scares were predictable but still some were not. Largely though, this did not hinder my enjoyment of the film one bit.

The film carries with a frenetic, cinéma vérité-style in the same vain as The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, and its ilk to sell the documentation of an real-life extraordinary event. Here, reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman Pablo shadow a group of firefighters as they attempt to rescue a frantic, screaming woman trapped in her apartment. It doesn’t take long for the Angela, the emergency personnel, and the residents to realize that things are amiss as not only are they sequestered inside the building by threat of deadly violence but the inhabitants start showing the undeniable zombie-esqe symptoms of rage and destruction. Yes, Virginia, those are quasi-zombies not unlike those in Zombieland or 28 Days Later.

As a straight out horror movie, [REC]‘s greatest strength lies in its unpredictability as the events that unfold are so rapid-fire that you barely have time to digest the previous onscreen events before some other crazy shit happens. Even having seen the story before (with very minor tweeks from my previous recollection), some of the shocks and jumps are literally out of nowhere as the situation spirals further and further out of control. The entire hand-held method of filming removes you from the safety of watching “just another horror movie” and pulls you into the fear that this is for real. Being that this is a Spanish film, you are not going to recognize the actors which further solidifies the weight of the events unfolding, even if you have just the slightest voice in the back of your mind to reiterate that this is just a movie. The entire cast from Manuela Velasco’s Angela to Ferran Terraza’s tough-as-nails Manu ground their performances in the story, jettising any semblence of a “just-an-actor” notion you might otherwise have. All of the residents, police officers, and firefighters act in the same manner that you or I would in a similar situation: cut and run and to hell with everyone else.

Now, as opposed to the other recent “found footage” zombie film, Diarreah of the Dead, which was so painstakingly framed and perfectly shot that totally removes you from the narrative (not to mention those damn, annoying ass kids), the camera work is literally all over the place here. With climbing many flights of stairs and running through dark and treacherous corridors, the camera, and thus your eyes, are never really fixated on a single thing. There is bouncing, jostling, and static in the video which would very likely occur in such an ordeal. Rather than the dickish and superficial motive for the main dude in Diary to keep filming in the midst of crisis, Angela and Pablo have a legitimate reason not only to document the happenings inside the multi-unit apartment building but also to highlight the complete disregard for their safety by the militant force keeping them in the building. Now, at a certain point, a logical person would drop the damn camera and run for their lives but their decision to stay focused on the documentation of the events pays off in the nail-biting final few scenes.

It is unlikely that the world will experience events as portrayed in a zombie movie so certain irrational and downright self-destructive behaviors by the characters can be forgiven. But, as this is a movie after all, writer/directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza unfortunately throw in some incredibly baffling plot points, narrative choices, and generic horror clichés that try to sabotage the overall strength of the film. You would expect in a lazy zombie film for someone to approach an obviously infected person gently and turn their back to allow carnage or for a random character to carelessly stand in front of a glass door, behind which is a person who has been bitten but these things seemed out of place here. And even more infuriating, the story comes to a screeching halt twice (TWICE!) for the purposes of exposition, one of those times being in the aforementioned nail-biting final few moments. Quarantine modified the story enough so that these particular grievances were minimized but their inclusion was disappointing to say the least, especially considering that a sequel has been made (and was likely was conceived fairly early) to appropriately address the origin of the infection or to survey the aftermath.

Regardless of these quibbles I had with the film (and they were very minor especially due to the break-neck pace of the rest of it), I can almost guarantee that even the most jaded horror fanatic will find something to like in [REC]. If you’ve seen Quarantine, there really is not too much different here for a casual viewer to warrant a viewing. For the rest of us, here we have a genuine experience of unknown actors facing unknown threats (seriously, the cameraman in Quarantine was on The Practice) that is sure to lead into a fantastic sequel taking place just moments after the conclusion of the first.

Dave Parker, the writer/director of The Dead Hate the Living! said that he wanted to make the most un-Full Moon movie that he could. Full Moon Entertainment has brought us such delights as Puppet Master, Killjoy and was a distributor of Gingerbread Man 2: Passion of the Crust. What Parker meant was, he wanted to make a film without small creatures and make a film that felt as much like a real movie as he could make it. I assume he meant “real” literally, as he also said he purposely made the film referential of the low budget genre. Believe me, the film is full of references.

We have a group of young filmmakers shooting a zombie picture. Through some forced exposition we learn that this is the director, David Poe’s first movie. His best friend Paul is the effects guy, and his two sisters are actresses (although Nina Poe’s part was secretly given to Shelly Poe, because everyone hates Nina). The film location is an abandoned hospital, which, again through an awkward bit of dialogue, we learn they do not have permission to be there and it is illegal to film there. For reasons that normally would not necessitate a group of people to split up, they do. One group finds a room with a tv and and a video camera with a tape in it. The video shows a man talking directly to the camera before getting mauled by zombies. As plot formula would dictate they just assume it is part of the movie that they are making. Eventually they all come across a giant coffin. A dead guy (the one from the video) falls out. What happens next, I have dubbed, “The Weekend at Bernie’s Moment.” Someone suggests calling the cops, but David manages to convince everyone (except Shelly) not to. He claims that if they use the body, everyone will rush to see the movie with a real dead person (and I guess, also not call cops). I will assume the scene in which a re-write was done to include the coffin that they just found was cut from the real movie, as they immediately have lines and a plot that revolve around it. While shooting the scene the accidentally reanimate the dead guy and open some kind of portal to the world of the dead, thus trapping everyone in sort of in between land where time stands still. The dead guy was Dr. Eibon. His wife died from cancer and while trying to bring her back he created a bunch of zombies. They killed him (the scene from the video). Now that he is undead, he sends his undead henchmen to kill everyone so that he may continue his project. Everyone splits up and tries to survive, David and Paul using the director and special effects mastery to employ a few tricks. And the zombie film within a zombie film wanders off into the night.

The acting was terrible. The computer generated fire was almost insulting. The dialogue was outrageously bad. All of this paled in comparison to the almost checklist like insertion of horror movie references in nearly every scene. Allow me to share some of the more obvious ones:

Nothing telegraphs an explosion better than the line, “Are those fuel tanks?”

Meat Market 2 takes place some time after the events of the first film. We see Argenta kill Shahrokh after he turns into a zombie. She, one of the vampires, and a random one eyed Asian wander around foraging for food and supplies. They find another survivor and at her suggestion follow her. She tells them that she heard a radio broadcast about a place to go for food and shower, etc. and was on the way there herself. Naturally, they ignore all sense of skepticism and follow her only to be tricked. The survivor is really a Lieutenant for a military concentration camp or cult or some such nonsense, and surprise; the three of them are the newest addition to the camp. The camp is run by the Reconstruction Commerce Association of North America. Their goal is to rebuild society. They execute undesirables, perform experiments on some prisoners if acceptable for that sort of thing, and the healthy, attractive, and ethnically appropriate ones are put through orientation and processing to become part of “society.” How coincidental; 3 leads, 3 parts of the camp. As you might imagine, each one goes some place different. The camp is run by a white guy named Bill (first names for  everyone, it’s a people friendly cult) who wears a white button down shirt, a black tie and is a powerful public speaker. The Association, as it’s called, has its own symbol and tapestries that display this symbol all over the walls, to illustrate how much like another “cult” that had “camps” it is.

Much of the same from the first film happening here. Not a bad (albeit familiar) story, and considering the films budget, executed fairly well. The director seems to have access to a lot of buildings.  More atrocious acting. More sex with clothes on. Again, the zombies actually look pretty decent. I assume most of the budget went to the zombies.

There was a lot more focus on the story in this installment. The zombie action kind of serves as the bread of the film, mainly confined to the beginning and end. I had no issue with this choice, but it would have worked a lot better if the actors could act. In fact, this probably would be completely watchable with a bigger budget (mainly because the vampire’s laser gun died before she had a chance to use it). I could have dealt without yet another zombie movie reference. An Officer Romero is called over a loudspeaker. Yeah, I get it. You watch zombie films. You don’t have to spell it out, the deja vu is enough. I also probably would have been fine without the inclusion of a doctor fucking the eye socket of a skull. Didn’t really push the plot along, and I just assume every one that works at the camp is insane, so the skull fucking is not needed for character development either. At first, there seemed to be a lot of punk and or emo zombies about, what with the green and purple hair that a lot of them had. However, the main doctor, the chef and some others were pierced, so I made the assumption that the actors just did not want to change their appearances for the film, including the ones playing zombies. There also was a zombie that was wearing a shirt that said “straight edged Vegan” while eating someone. Damn scenesters. The ending leaves this film as clearly a middle of a larger story, as it concludes the “chapter,” but leaves plenty of room for the continuing adventures of Argenta and the vampire. I did like how at the very end, there was a black and white scene between the doctor from the first movie and the doctor from this one, prior to the zombie apocalypse giving a bit of story.

I have to categorize this as crap, mainly because when you combine horrible acting with a video camera, it rarely ends well. Brian Clement, the writer/director, clearly has a vision and is talented, and perhaps with better resources, he could produce some fine work.

As bad as this movie was, I kept telling myself, “At least it’s better than Flesh Freaks.” That was until the lesbian, laser toting vampires showed up.

Before raping my eyes, Meat Market sounded like a decent Zombie picture. There are bizarre attacks on humans that are thought to be animal attacks. Two former employees of a security agency figure out that they are not animal attacks, but zombies, and as it turns out, the company they used to work for is responsible. Not half bad, right? Well, I am angry at all who were involved with this.

Now, in this movie’s defense, there were some positives. The zombie make up was actually pretty decent for a film this low budget. If you can watch it long enough, you can find some fairly nice shots and scene transitions. In what I thought was a very clever touch (and I must have misunderstood this), I thought that this was going to be a sort of “A Modest Proposal” scenario, which would have explained the title of the film. At one point a zombie attacks a homeless person, and there is an interview with someone who states that he thinks that the attackers (I don’t recall if at this point the public still thinks it is animals or knows it zombies; the execution of the story line was rather convoluted) are doing the city a service by killing the homeless. In a pamphlet written by Johnathan Swift called (paraphrasingly) “A  Modest Proposal,” Swift suggested satirically that the children of Ireland’s poor families living in squalor should be sold into a meat market at the age of one. They would be fattened up and fed to rich land owners and this would help eliminate overpopulation, unemployment, etc. The prospect of Meat Market perhaps doing something similar excited me very much. That actually makes good (albeit evil) justification for the security company making these creatures. In addition to that: biting social satire! I was then ready to overlook the $2000 budget and sub-par acting to absorb this message! Then the lesbian vampires walked in.

By the way, that whole “A Modest Proposal” theory? Wrong. Never mentioned again. Well, it might have been, but the audio is such crap at some points I could not hear what people were saying. Like Flesh Freaks, Meat Market’s main competition in the worst film in the universe contest, this was shot with a video camera. I liked it in Market, though, because it worked a little better. The zombies were more like Romero zombies and thus more realistic (ha), so it sort of had that documentary look most of the time. Other times, however, it still had the, shitty low budget look. The acting most definitely was horrible. We have the whole man-woman thing going on, but the two leads suck so bad there is no chemistry. And naming the woman Argenta? Are you serious? In a shitty zombie movie, you are actually going to name a character Argenta? Nice job changing the last letter, no one will notice that at all. The male lead is named Shahrokh, which is a bird in Iranian mythology. I can’t find any really significance in naming your character that, with the possible exception that Rokh saved Sinbad in some gay story I never read (which therefore disqualifies me from calling it gay).

While the zombies looked good, the rest of the visual effects were a mixed bag. Most of the bite wounds looked good and as long at the blood was not splattering, that looked fine as well. But when brains were blown against the wall, that looked horrible. I outright laughed out loud when I saw a zombie eating a turkey leg, but then realized he was gnawing at a victim’s limb. The audio effects were kind of crap as well. When a zombie would bite someone, the foley artist clearly bit an apple.

There are 3 sex scenes in this movie. In the first one, the characters are clothed.

Now for the two most atrocious things that occurred  in this picture. The first one was that this was filmed in the city where there were a lot of regular people who were not a part of the production. However, the zombies only attacked the actors, so the zombie apocalypse looked a little bit like an unsuccessful high school party; not a lot of  participants.  It actually was funny because there was looting, but no chaos, so the looting looked unnecessary. I mean, they could have just walked in and paid for it. One could use the “A Modest Proposal” theory to say that the public was fine with the zombies eating the homeless and they just didn’t care, but they didn’t just eat the homeless.  The second major problem with this film is the 3 vampires. I don’t understand this one bit. For one, they have LASER GUNS. I don’t even have a clever remark, just why do they have lasers? They were also sex maniacs and apparently lesbian and/or bi sexual. One vampire has sex with a man, then one of the other vampires, so I assume the inclusion of these characters were an excuse for nudity. The man the vampire has sex with has a wound that he claims came from barbed wire, which is clearly a lie. So the vampire has sex with him and he turns in to a zombie. However, she doesn’t. So I guess since the vampires are already undead, they are immune to zombie attack. And if you do dare to watch this thing pay attention to the explanation of how people became zombies. Dumbest shit ever.

Also, there is a Mexican wrestler in this. His lines were dubbed for some reason.

Trash, yes. I think, however, compared to Flesh Freaks, this filmmaker made better use of his resources and limitations. There are two more of these films, and although this one is painful, I am curious to see if the series gets better.

***THIS REVIEW MOST ASSUREDLY CONTAINS SPOILERS***

This is the second film where I have seen a zombie involved in a sex act. The first time I saw it was in Dead Alive. I will tell you this: it was far less comical this time.

Deadgirl starts during a fire drill at a  high school. J.T.  and Rickie are entertaining themselves with bad jokes and daydreams about girls. When it’s time to go back to class, J.T. and Rickie decide to ditch school and drink some beer. They go to “the asylum” which is an abandoned insane asylum. After being chased by a dog, they end up in a room with a door that is rusted shut. They force the door open and discover a nude woman wrapped in plastic, and strapped to a gurney. Naturally they assume she is dead, but they notice that she is breathing. Rickie freaks out a bit and wants to leave. J.T. however, has other plans. He wants to to have sex with her. He sends Rickie home and stays behind to have relations with a woman that has been locked in this room for who knows how long. Delightful.

Now, I should tell you that I am assuming that this woman is a zombie. I make this assumption based on several things. The day after they find her, J.T. brings Rickie back to the asylum. He tells Rickie that while he was having sex with her, she struggled, so he killed her. Yet she is still alive. To prove this, J.T.  shoots the girl in front of Ricki and she lives. In addition to this, when she bites someone, they seem to turn to the undead as well. One can argue that she is not a zombie, however, as zombies tend to have superhuman strength and while the girl could rip a metal door off the frame, she could not break free of her restraints. She also spared Rickie’s life when given an opportunity to bite him. Rickie never really approved of the continued rape of the girl, so one could suspect that she spared him as he did not violate her. That is kind of un-zombie like. Zombies generally are mindless. However there are no really established “rules” about the zombie world in the film. She is the only one and we are not told how she became the way she was, so for all we know, zombies might actually have a sense of reciprocity in this film’s universe.

There are a few things that I really like about this film. The biggest one is the fact that we have no idea how this girl became a zombie. Therefore, as I previously mentioned, we don’t know what the “rules” are. Obviously biting turns you, but apparently sex does not. I found that incredibly intriguing. Was she the last of a zombie apocalypse that happened? If so, why was she left alive, and what happened to the people that left her alive? Was she the first of a potential apocalypse, but contained before starting one? I very much liked the choice to leave that not addressed. I also liked Noah Segan, who played J.T. I like it when a psychopath is not played as over the top. He did not do this at all. He also had excellent comedic timing and delivery, as much of his later dialogue is evil funny.

The gripes are many. Until they find the girl, this film is VERY boring. I actually thought an hour passed but when I checked, it had only been twenty minutes. Absolutely no character development. This is especially annoying because Segan was so good. He is immediately a demented psychopath and sociopath.  There should have been a progression to that point. Also, there is no back story for anyone. The closest we get is seeing the drunk boyfriend of Rickie’s mother. This limits your emotional involvement. While the performances are enjoyable, you don’t really care who lives or dies. Also, demented as someone is, really? Sex is your first thought when finding a girl wrapped in plastic? I’m not even going to get in to why that doesn’t make sense. Here’s perhaps the most perplexing part of the film: the girl escapes and we see her running outside. However, the movie continues and life appears to be normal. Would there not be a FUCKING ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE GOING ON? Besides the fact that she escaped, she bit a guy in the dick, and he didn’t die. He went back to school, shit out an intestine and is referenced as being in the hospital or something, but surely he would have bitten some folks as well. There really should have been some more zombies by movie’s end.

This film deals with issues of peer pressure, alienation, love, popularity and control with one of the most bizarre story lines I have ever run across. I found myself liking some of it, but ultimately, its flaws outweigh it’s successes. I recommend a viewing of it, however. It is not a waste of time by any means, and you are sure to find some enjoyment out of it.

In his review, Roger Ebert pondered on the classifications of the monsters in The Crazies saying:

“Are the zombies in “The Crazies” real zombies? Maybe, maybe not. Is there an agreed definition of what is a zombie and how they get that way? Not that I know of.”

Normally, one would classify a zombie as a mindless creature hell-bent on destroying life around it or some similar definition. That certainly fits the bill for all of the standard zombie movies that I have seen in my life. While zombies may have different characteristics (fast or slow being the most polarizing), usually they just want to kill you, eat you, and don’t really put too much thought into it.

The titular crazies however seem to transcend normal zombies through their calculating behavior. Without spoiling the specifics for those who haven’t yet seen it (cough, PBF), many scenes in the film (mostly in the nursery and the carwash) showcase former persons who methodically act toward their intended “goals.” Yes, in the end they still want to maim and kill you and your loved ones but the crazies are not always rushing in clusters like lions trying to find the slowest gazelle. In fact, they are more like a gaggle of twisted serial killers who will wait patiently for vengeance, entertainment, or maybe a little of both.

Some horror fans may cry foul at the classification of movies like 28 Days Later for calling what are essentially infected humans zombies but at least those European creatures share more similar characteristics to the traditional Romero zombies than the Crazies do. While I can’t say I would prefer having to deal with either group, perhaps you might do better in a town besieged by the crazies if you just hunker down in an inconspicuous location to avoid their murderous tendencies.

So class, what do you think? Are the Crazies really zombies?

Taking place in the small Canadian town of Pontypool, we meet Grant Massey, former big-time radio host who has been unceremoniously dumped into this small market to his chagrin. What starts as a typically uneventful morning, school closings and obituaries are soon replaced with sporadic reports of violent mobs popping up over the town. The movie follows Grant, his producer Sydney Briar, and associate Laurel-Ann as they attempt to corroborate the strange events.

Director Bruce McDonald stages the events remarkably well for a story that takes place within the same building, mostly the same room even, for its duration. Normally, one would expect there to be cutaway scenes showing some of the action or carnage unfolding outside but here there is none. We have three people, effectively trapped in a church basement, with only scattered reports from callers and their weather man to relay what is happening. This approach works quite well as not only do we get to experience the dynamic interaction between the main characters but we, as well as the characters, are mostly in the dark about what is transpiring outside. Other than the brief clues provided about the mob, mostly concerning mindless chanting and feasting, there is little to go on as to what happened, how it happened, or even the extent of whatever is happening.

This is likely the movie that Romero was attempting to make with Diary of the Dead as the two cover similar topics in similar mediums. However, rather than deal in insipid teenage nonsense, the film works in the importance and the perversion of media in the context of a fitting setting. At one point, Massey is speaking with a BBC reporter who seems to have more insight on what is going on but with little confirmation from the outside, it is just as likely that Massey knows as much as the rest of the world despite what is being reported of roadblocks and quarantines. When more information comes to light, Massey feels a duty to report it regardless of its implications so that the truth can be told.

Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle have a genuine chemistry together with their rocky relationship at the start of the film to reluctant partners toward the end (the fact that they are married probably did not hurt). For the most part, McHattie plays Massie as calm and collected and just trying to do his job and report the news no matter how gruesome or disturbing it is. Houle as Sydney is the tenured one in the area and more conservative, not only with the events unfolding and their apparent cause but also what makes it on the air. Georgina Reilly rounds out the superb cast as Laurel-Ann, the unlikely former war hero who is able to soldier on (pardon the pun) during the crisis to get information instead of turning into a gelatinous character as most movies of this genre have featured.

Sadly, the film was rather uneven in the execution of the story (which may or may not have been the fault of the novel it was based on). Ironically, things started to break down as the characters became clued into what was causing the catastrophe as the abstract thought of random people responsible for death and destruction for no known reason worked more effectively that knowing what was causing it. Once we figure out the cause, we lose the creepy visual images of unruly mobs engaged in violent behavior and instead shift focus onto the solution to the problem, which the story admits may or may not be effective. This is not to mention that the only reason we know the basis of the events is from a random character who shows up and disappears within a few minutes leaving only exposition in his wake.

Some of the things in the latter half of the movie just do not make much sense as well. As the expository character shows up and sees one of the crew infected, rather than run away in a self-preservation panic, he calmly walks throughout the building, nonchalantly mentioning that she is infected by the disease. And when this character finally expires, no emotion or even mention is given save for the guilty scribbles on a wall a few scenes later. Yet when the weatherman succumbs while on the phone with Massey, he is given a rather ill-fitting, yet still emotional sendoff. Still, the actual cause of the infection is quite inventive (if you have not read it yet, it is best to avoid it) but as it comes rather abrupt, the characters are scrambling to avoid it themselves and try to remedy it for others. I only wish this portion of the film could have been done with the same tension as the preceding acts.

From some remarkably tense scenes to some of the best acting for this genre in a while, Pontypool is a good movie at some aspects but sadly baffling in others. As I seem to be on the more negative side of the fence though, it is certainly worth a look for yourself.

The movie Dead Alive is called Braindead in every country but the United States.  So, you know, if you find yourself in another land, and want to rent this, call it that.

There is a creature called a rat monkey that is native to Skull Island. This creature is captured, and brought to a zoo in New Zealand. A young man Lionel lives with his mother in New Zealand. She is rather overbearing and doesn’t care for the fact that Lionel is interested in this girl Paquita. One day Lionel and Paquita go to the zoo and Lionel’s mother follows. The kids happen to stroll by the monkey cage and actually see the rat monkey kill and eat part of another monkey. Eventually, Lionel’s mother makes her way to the cage also, and gets bitten by the monkey. She then becomes infected, and eventually becomes a zombie. Thus begins one of the most bloody and hilarious movies I have ever witnessed.

There is no point to examine the “craft” of this film. It’s not that kind of movie. It’s not bad by any means, don’t get me wrong. It’s actually quite well done. You might say that this is a much gorier, better acted Evil Dead. In fact this movie is similar in look and pace  to Evil Dead. It’s really fast, and much like Ash, Lionel is always on the move, going about 100 miles an hour. Also, both films are an excellent combination of horror and comedy. Dead Alive is just as much bloody as it is absurd. You’ll see a face being pulled of a skull, a preacher zombie and a nurse zombie having sex and have a baby (and the baby is just awesome). You will even see a zombie’s intestines chase Lionel and repeatedly grab him. Peter Jackson has crafted a superb film. His humor is intelligent and it forces you to not take the violence and blood too seriously. And, it is fantastic that the acting is somewhat decent. This movie is far better than Shaun of the Dead in my opinion. The two are completely different films, but I just found this to be much more enjoyable. I liked Shaun of the Dead, but I just preferred the outlandish violence and gore of Dead Alive to the more dry humor of Shaun of the Dead. Another thing that I liked, is that the zombie apocalypse is entirely contained in and around Lionel’s house. Even when the zombies are outside, he sedates them and brings them home. I just cannot say enough good things about this film.

See this. Go in to it knowing that you will see some really gross, fucked up shit. Rest assured, though,  you will laugh almost the entire time.